A is for Anarchy's topics - tribe.net

Dreaming the NEW American Dream

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:14:35 GMT

California poets Ava Bird & Rex Butters, and....

Santa Cruz artist Russell Brutsche - Karen Kwiatkowski of Virginia

Protests to stop immigration raids ... and more.
____________________

http://www.newamericandream.net

The New American Dream

What's New?

* Karen Kwiatkowski column
* Ava Bird poetry
* Rex Butters poetry
* Gary Mennie poetry

Columns:
Sherwood Ross — why not shut down a few prisons in the United States as well?
Mickey Z — Americans are cowards, too comfortable, will never-ever-not-in-one-million-years revolt-or-even-bother-to-stand-up — no matter what the rich folks do to them.
Lydia Sems — It's The American Dream that is the problem.

and more from Jack Saunders ...

Resistance:
* Planned civil disobedience in Minnesota to stop raids against immigrants
* Protests at Creech AFB against U.S. drone terroristic activity
*100 days of protest against Guantanamo to culminate

All this, Northern Exposure, The Big Lebowski, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights ... a certificate for free toast ... and more.

Join us.

The New American Dream
Dude.
... because ... Sister Mary Anne told us, "There are no wrong questions, if you don't know the answers."

... from the Dream Team

http://www.newamericandream.net

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

President B.H.Obama needs to check RED DWARF, Season 7 Episode 5, and SING ALONG:

Bob — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:11:09 GMT

FED DWARF needs to review Season 7, Episode 5, of RED DWARF, and get back to us.

Only a complete RIMMER would front for energy inflation during wars, for an illegal 1882 Zionist invasion of Palestine, which has incited WWI and WWII, and it is headed for WWIII.

So naturally, President Barack H. Obama is going for the golden "H" on his forehead, like young Rimmer earned, when he caused an O-boom-boom on the mining ship, known among BBC folk as the RED DWARF.

Naturally, Israel is neither pure nor natural, and never kosher. Jews are from Ethiopia, see Isaiah 20:5. The star is from Egypt. The language Hebrew is from 'Habiru,' the language of the slaves. Rahm's tainted name is from Ra-moses, or 'son of the sun.'

So what are my and Chelsea's and Chuy's F-15s and F-16s and jet-X and phosphorous doing bombing Gaza, for illegal Israel, of the same 1882 invasion, which incited WWI and WWII, so young Obama gals go to private school, protected expensively, to fail to learn how their fees since 2001 are illegally inflated, with the costs of wars, illegally waged?

Obama invited the $100,000 toolbag to float away, with hundreds of offices and measures, through his deliberate mismanagement of all Democratic media, related to energy reform, BEFORE BAILOUTS OR STIMULI ARE PROPOSED. Yet these are to be enacted, in fraud.

Mr. Blagojevich can bring down the Obama White House, as soon as he sues for even enforcement of the law, including under Title II ADA or 42 U.S.C. 1983.

High crimes may constitute inciting riot in Pakistan, including the Black Friday massacre, inciting riot in Gaza, when the Palestinians shot rockets, concurrent with the Obama-ordered Blago-chase by the US Senate and the Illinois Legislature, and then cops shot a 22 or 23-year-old black man, per day, after Roland Burris called Blagojevich 'reprehensible,' without a hearing. What a price to pay, already!

Misdemeanors include the Mann Act, aggravated in California by CPC 404 infractions, including incitement of riot and failure to disperse, by evading review, with both Burris players, Senator Roland and despicable John at misconduct, leading to death and immininent further injuries, to classes for discovery.

A Rimmer would get his own stupid mining ship blown up by a radiation leak, Mr. President Rim-shot. Don't go there, and then enjoy sunny California. We have an Arnold Hole, already.

Somebody's DADDY is a President Rimshot, who needs to review Red Dwarf basics, and then see Soundgarden tapes, of BLACK HOLE SUN. But this Rimmer side is a heckuva hit:

-------------------------------------------------------
If you're in trouble, he will save the day
He's brave and he's fearless, come what may
Without him, the mission would go astray
He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer

Without him, life would be much grimmer
He's handsome, trim, and no one's slimmer
He will never need a Zimmer
He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer

More reliable than a garden Strimmer
He's never been mistaken for Yul Brynner
He's not bald and his head doesn't glimmer

Master of the wit and the repartee
His command of space directives is uncanny
How come he's such a genius? Don't ask me
Ask Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer

He's also a fantastic swimmer
And if you play your cards right, then he just might come round for dinner

He's Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer
No rhymes left now apart from quimmer
He'd better fade us out before we get to schlimmer
Fade out you stupid plimmer

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Obama doesn't get to get high on Hillary, whose husband Bill signed NAFTA and deregulation of energy, and keep Tim and Rahm:

Bob — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:32:51 GMT

See Darth, without the wig? See Frodo, with the ring? Hillary must have hit her head, coming to STAR WARS. No wonder Darth, Luke, and Palm Lightning Dorothy fight like girls.

Why did candidate Barack open Debate III with a rant, how the deregulated power deals are robbing us of our wealth, yet he let McCain jam Joe as a plumber, when Sam Wurzelbacher actually owed $1200 on an IRS lien, paid only AFTER the election, AFTER Maddie Dunham called Barack to Hawaii, for a death conference? THAT is when she let out the rave about Barack wasn't born in the US. STRANGE. Then the toolbag floated. Then Janet lost her Governorship and Cali faces Prop.8 in CSC, again.

Blago got mad, AFTER the election. He called Rahm-hose-us only AFTER Obama had fubarred the lineup, on November 4, 2008, letting Joe pretend Sam does not exist, letting John McCain cook, after the bizarre media demurrer, of Debate III, BLACK OCTOBER 15, 2008. Grandma Maddie saw Obama the New York crackhead dropping a virtual bindle, on McCain's foot, so she let Barry know, she was in a hurry, like Dick Nolan left with his cancer, when his son Mike stayed on top of Mike Singletary, at the 49ers, now winning in the NFL.

Sorry about our luck, but Obama is more Urkel, than he is Cosby or Powell. He is raving about the 'terror,' as I write this. But he hasn't re-regulated energy OR the use of depleted uranium, to blast away and start wars, while leaving Saddam AND the highest rate of serious birth defects in Iraq, after Gulf War I. No wonder OBL didn't like Bush or the USA, you know? The US drove Saudi fighters into a killing zone, for the British-appointed Saudi royal family, to violate royal favors exclusion clause, in the US Constitution. Bills of Attainder and Standing Army Clause violations stem from this travesty. Illegal establishment of religion is widespread. Obama? He is questionable.

President Obama has been pretending the Senate does not infract the commerce clauses, by failing to represent the territories or D.C. or non-parties to the prevailing seditious conspiracies, to unfund the USA with deregulated power deals, during war, during escalated interest gouging, and yet, President Obama as announced no fraud, at funding OR seditious conspiracy and obstruction, since al Queda directed the 9/11 attacks at WTC 7, to warn of the imminent, unfair, illegal increase in food and energy prices, now despicable and obviously evaded, by all reviews AND by the 9/11 Commission, tainted now, by a new President, which appoints tax cheats and crime family superstars, to the new administration!

EXCUSE ME, Rahm's uncle was in the Irgun, but that started WWII. The British invasion of Palestine in 1882 incited WWI. Tim the tax cheat cheated $34K without disclosing how the energy deals ate his AND Joe Plumber's margins. So they leave, or President Obama is about to get served, for high crimes and misdemeanor suspicious activity, from CALIFORNIA, or you can delete this like the private school campaigners did, to all my posts, in Obama '08. This will make it, to court.

Rahm and the Treasury guy who owed $34,000 need to back up, or when Cali goes bankrupt, Barack will have to explain how he drew fire from Gaza by sending the Senate and Illinois Legislature after Blago, who didn't get a hearing, about how the Senate isn't free from fillibuster, is it. Roland Burris called Blago 'reprehensible,' and the Illinois Secretary of State wouldn't sign the appointment!

Cops in Cali and elsewhere started shooting a young black man, about 22 or 23, per day, until after OSCAR GRANT's mom Wanda Jackson ran off with John Burris in Oakland, and told the incited riot to cool it, since Barack is a CPC 404 perp, aggravated by Mann Act violations. To delete this is electioneering and commerce clause violation, which may complicate the rehabilitation of the Obama Presidency.

By the way, Rahm, your Habiru-ized and diaspora-affected name is from RA-MOSES, son of the sun. The six-pointed star comes from Egypt, like not only Jews from Ethiopia, but any other escapees from Pharoah, at the time of the Santorini eruption. With all the corruption, why are our airplanes and Joe the Reporter doing goon work for the Purple Gang, in Israel? Not because private schools are kosher.

The clue to all the family matters ripening is look how Emanuel Lewis was ''Little Arnold," on TV. Big Arnold has to declare bankruptcy, next month. When you do not re-regulate before bailouts and stimuli, BOTH, you need to wise right up and watch the re-runs and muse. BUT THESE ISSUES GET SOLVED EARLY, OR MR. OBAMA WILL NOT BE STAYING LATE, AS EXECUTIVE.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

ANTAHKARANA CIRCLE/Patanjalis' 2nd yoga sutra, etc.

bobstad — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:02:43 GMT

As veteran of the old Circle A ranch; Star route box 74, Chesaw, WA 98831
I thought I should weigh in here about the use of the Circle A symbol.

Often translated as "the thinking principle" Antahkarana sometimes is said to
mean "Rainbow Bridge" undoubtedly due to the Jimi Hendrix LP of the same
name produced by ANTAHKARANA CIRCLE.

Graffitied during the '60s I'd rather forget about also; as a circle A, I've often wondered
if there were any connection; though as a Marxist/Leninst member of the CPUSA when
I wear my Converse canvas Chuck Taylor hightops with the Circle A logo; I always insist
this is from Antahkarana Circle.(likely my Rromani ancestry has an influence, since now
the Gypsies of eastern Europe are the most vital and organized Marxist/Leninist cadre on the
planet, who'd prior to socialism and the Soviet Union been an entirely illiterate people due
to anti-Gypsy prejudice; now a highly educated and articulate generation or three fighting for
their lives as never before under the red banner of the Communist Party...as the forces of reaction
once again seek to draw the veil of darkness over the land and particularly Gypsies; Europe's
largest most oppressed minority)

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

THIS is the fastest way to build the world we need!

Tim — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:35:32 GMT

We have a huge, idealistic, smart, practical "movement" going, over on Facebook: The Next Step Together. There are more than a thousand folks in the group now, About 100 joining daily. There's proposal on the table to run our own presidential "election", and we are trying to enroll the entire world! Join us and bring in all your friends! It's all about acting PRACTICALLY, QUICKLY, WITH HUGE NUMBERS... So job ONE is getting EVERYONE IN!

Learn about the Next Step Together at http://nextsteptogether.net
Join the Next Step Together Group on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24568801853

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Mahatma Gandhi

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:11:30 GMT

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama and McCain are proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO THE BIPARTISAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN!!!!

NO TO OBAMA and MCCAIN'S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

*~U.S. and Allies Out of Afghanistan!!~*
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Police Break 60 Year Old Homeless Woman's Arm

Sat, 10 May 2008 18:55:05 GMT

[Donna Deiss is a politically active homeless woman in Santa Cruz, who was also an advocate for tenants rights before she was unfairly evicted. The homeless in Santa Cruz, as well as activists who criticize the local government, are often victims of police harrassment, false arrests, and police violence. -Steven Argue]

60 Year Old Homeless Woman Says Police Broke Her Arm
by Robert Norse
Saturday May 10th, 2008
Donna Deiss called in last night to report that yesterday around 5 PM, Officer La Moss (Badge #114) assaulted her, broke her arm, and then put her in handcuffs when he attempted to question her at Three Tree Lot near Lighthouse Field. Deiss was taken to the Watsonville hospital, had to wait hours for x-rays, whichconfirmed her arm was broken.
Deiss reported the following to me in a phone message last night and an e-mail this morning:

She was talking with friends yesterday on Westcliffe Drive near her RV. An undercover police officer, whom she later identified as Officer LaMoss, arrived in a black unmarked car and said he wanted to talk to her and others in the group. She read La Moss a statement from the ACLU about the rights of community members vis a vis the police and walked to her RV.

The cop followed her. She got in and tried to close the door. Le Moss, not saying she was under arrest or detained, reached in and grabbed her right arm, pinching the skin as he twisted it behind her back, breaking it. She screamed her arm was broken, but his response was to call for backup. 4 more police cars arrived. She continued screaming for 911 and finally paramedics showed up.

The police said they were impounding her RV, which she lives in.

She was taken to Watsonville hospital, waited hours for x-rays and painpills. She is charged with battery and an additional charge. X-rays confirm her arm was broken. She needs an attorney and community support.

This is an account from Donna Deiss (with someadditions from her friend Shane). Donna has previously been harassed by rangers as part of the 'clear out the hippies' campaign at Three Tree Lot and the other lots around Lighthouse Fields. Recently the City's Parks and Recreation Department had its 'No RVs' signs painted over by state Rangers, for apparently violating state law and policy regarding parking (i.e. RVS are allowed to park).

See related stories: 'Harassment of Homeless in RVs, a Letter from Donna Deiss' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/08/18452903.php ,

'Superintendant Hammack Stonewalls on RV Ban in Coastal Parking Lots' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/12/18447267.php , and

'Coastal Access Denied to Motorhomes and Trailers in Santa Cruz' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/30/18444952.php for related stories.

HOMELESSNESS AND POLITICAL REPRESSION, THE GREEN PARTY FAILS THE TEST IN SANTA CRUZ by Steven Argue
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2001/12/5085.shtml

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

NAZIS TO ATTEMPT RALLY, WASHINGTON DC ON 19 APRIL, 2008

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:49:32 GMT

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142834/index.php

[ In order to see the video and the comments to this posting from indymedia click on the link above ]

Youtube video:
www.youtube.com/watch

Assemble at 11:30 AM on the Southwest corner of Constitution Ave NW and 14th St NW
Neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement Plans to Rally on National Mall near Washington Monument

On, April 19, 2008, at 12 PM (noon) the neo-Nazi, white-supremacist organization known as the “National Socialist Movement” is planning to march and rally “against illegal immigration” on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on the North Side of the Washington Monument. The monument is located to the South of Constitution Avenue NW, between 15th St NW and 17th St NW.

Coming on the heels of the racist immigration ordinance passed in Prince William County, Virginia (and similar laws passed elsewhere in the US), and coupled with the alarming rise in the number of known hate groups in the United States, we feel that the march of these racist bigots must be confronted vigorously, and with strength.

Despite claims that those opposed to immigration are concerned about “the rule of law”, terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Movement have always attempted to blame immigrants, African-Americans, Jews, non-heterosexual people, and all people of color for what they perceive to be “societal problems”. It is clear that their hatred is based on racial prejudice, and the law is merely an excuse to spread their white supremacist beliefs. We believe that it is not any coincidence that xenophobes and white supremacists share views on immigration, and immigrants.

The National Socialist Movement, according to their website, are “America's Nazi Party”, and are “…inspired by our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.” The group is currently, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States, largely due to the implosion of several other neo-Nazi groups.

They are the same organization that, in order to stir up hatred, marched in Toledo, Ohio (in 2005) in a neighborhood largely made up of people of color. They did indeed, get a reaction, as riots ensued, and the Nazis, and the police protecting them, were run out of the area for a time.

We invite all those opposed to fascism and racism to come and confront this very real, and dangerous neo-Nazi group. Gather at 11:30 AM on the Southwest corner of Constitution Ave NW and 14th St NW (the Mall side), to assemble before confronting the fascists.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 1 reply

Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

History — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:13:47 GMT

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:17:23 GMT

[Liberation News is in agreement with the following article of the Internationalist Group and both have also actively advocated these kinds of industrial actions.]

For Workers Strikes Against the War!

ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. In a February 22 letter to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, ILWU International president Robert McEllrath reported that at a recent coast-wide union meeting, "One of the resolutions adopted by caucus delegates called on longshore workers to stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008 to express their opposition to the war in Iraq."

This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly important that this mobilization of labor's power is to take place on May Day, the international workers day, which is not honored in the U.S. Moreover, the resolution voted by the ILWU delegates opposes not only the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, but also the war and occupation of Afghanistan (which Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want to expand). The motion to shut down the ports also demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the entire region, including the oil sheikdoms of the strategically important Persian/Arab Gulf.

The Internationalist Group has fought from the moment U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in September 2002 for American unions to strike against the war. Despite the fact that millions have marched in the streets of Europe and the United States against the war in Iraq, the war goes on. Neither of the twin war parties of U.S. imperialism - Democrats and Republicans - and none of the capitalist candidates will stop this horrendous slaughter that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The only way to stop the Pentagon killing machine is by mobilizing the power of a greater force - that of the international working class.

The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. The ILWU should be commended for courageously taking the first step, and it is up to working people everywhere to back them up. Wherever support is strong enough, on May 1 there should be mass walkouts, sick-outs, labor marches, plant-gate meetings, lunch-time rallies, teach-ins. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!

Now is the time for bold class action. Opposition to the war is even greater in the U.S. working class than in the population as a whole, more than two-thirds of which wants to stop the war but is stymied by the capitalist political system. In his letter to Sweeney, the ILWU president asked "if other AFL-CIO affiliates are planning to participate in similar events." Labor militants should make sure the answer to that question is a resounding "yes!"

There should be no illusions that this will be easy. No doubt the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) bosses will try to get the courts to rule the stop-work action illegal. The ILWU leadership could get cold feet, since this motion was passed because of overwhelming support from the delegates despite attempts to stop it or, failing that, to water it down or limit the action. And the U.S. government could try to ban it on the grounds of "national security," just as Bush & Co. slapped a Taft-Hartley injunction on the docks during contract negotiations in the fall of 2002, saying that any work stoppage was a threat to the "war effort," and threatened to occupy the ports with troops!

The answer to every attempt to sabotage or undercut this first labor action against this war, and against Washington's broader "war on terror" which is intended to terrorize the world into submission must be to redouble efforts to bring out workers' power independent of the capitalist parties and politicians. If the ILWU work stoppage is successful, it will only be a small, but very important, beginning that must be generalized and deepened. It will take industrial-strength labor action to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war on immigrants, oppressed minorities, poor and working people "at home."

ILWU in the Forefront of Labor Action Against the War

Workers strike action against imperialist war isn't new - it just hasn't happened here for a long, long time. During World War I there were huge mass strikes in Germany against the battlefield carnage, culminating in the downfall of the kaiser in November 1918. A year earlier in Russia, working-class opposition to the war led to the overthrow of the tsar and the October Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky's Bolsheviks. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call today for transport workers to "hot cargo" (refuse to handle) war shipments. In the early 1920s, Communist-led French dock workers did exactly that, boycotting ships carrying war materiel to suppress a colonial rebellion in the Rif region of Morocco, as they
also did during France's war in Indochina in the 1950s.

In the U.S., the ILWU struck in 1948 amid Cold War hysteria and in defiance of the "slave labor" Taft-Hartley Act to defend its union hiring hall against the bosses and government screaming about "reds" in the union leadership. In 1953, at the height of McCarthyite witch-hunting, the ILWU called a four-day general strike in Hawaii of sugar, pineapple and dock workers over the jailing of seven union members for being communists. During the Vietnam War, socialist historian Isaac Deutscher said that he would trade all the peace marches for a single dock strike. The ILWU was the first U.S. union to oppose the Vietnam war, but during war and especially during the 1971 strike union leader Harry Bridges refused to stop the movement of military cargo. (Ship owners made use of this by falsely labeling cargo as "military" to evade picket lines and undermine the strike.) This betrayal went hand in hand with a "mechanization and modernization" contract that slashed union jobs.

As the U.S.-led imperialist invasion of Iraq was looming, in January 2003 train drivers in Scotland refused to move a freight train carrying munitions to a NATO military base. The next month, Italian railroad unionists and antiwar activists blocked NATO war trains by occupying the rails. In the United States, ILWU dock workers were a target of "anti-terrorist" government repression, as police fired supposedly "less than lethal" munitions point blank at an antiwar protest on the Oakland, California docks, injuring six longshore workers and arresting 25 people (who eventually won their legal case against the police). And every year since the war started, the San Francisco/Oakland ILWU Local 10 has voted for motions for labor action against the war. Usually they were voted down at caucuses and conventions of the ILWU, but not this time.

Last May, Local 10 longshoremen and Local 34 ships clerks refused to cross picket lines set up by the Oakland Teachers Association and antiwar activists, defying arbitrators' orders by refusing to work ships of the notorious antiunion outfit, Stevedoring Services of America (see "Oakland Dock Workers Honor Picket, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper," The Internationalist No. 26, July 2007). In the aftermath of that action, the union issued a call for a Labor Conference to Stop the War that would "plan workplace rallies, labor
mobilizations in the streets and strike action against the war." The Call to Action stated:

"ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly warned that the so-called 'war on terror' is really a war on working people and democratic rights. Around the country, hundreds of unions and labor councils have passed motions condemning the war, but that has not stopped the war. We need to use labor's muscle to stop the war by mobilizing union power in the streets, at the plant gates and on the docks to force the immediate and total withdrawal of all U. S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq."

As the conference date approached, the union was the target of several police attacks, including a vicious cop assault on two black dock workers from San Francisco working in the port of Sacramento. Some 250 demonstrators from every ILWU local in Northern California rallied in their defense outside the courthouse. Their trial to be set march 18 at a hearing will encounter even larger demonstrations.

The Internationalist Group and its union supporters helped build and attended the October 20 conference, along with some 150 labor and socialist activists from the Bay Area, elsewhere in California and across the country. At the meeting, a particular focus was resistance to the Transportation Workers Identification Card (TWIC), which threatens minority workers and the union hiring hall, and which the Democratic Party in particular has been pushing in order to carry out a purge of dock workers in the name of the "war on terror."
Not long after that conference, a federal judge ordered Local 10 elections canceled and replaced by a Labor Department-run vote, on the eve of 2008 contract bargaining. Federal agents even invaded the union hall to enforce their order. This action is a threat to the independence of all unions.

This set the stage for the recent longshore-warehouse caucus, which voted a motion for a 24-hour "No Peace, No Work Holiday" against the war. The resolution was introduced in Local 10 by Jack Heyman, who also presented the motion for the 24 April 1999 coast-wide port shutdown demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and renowned radical journalist who has been on Pennsylvania's death row for the last quarter century. Although the union tops maneuvered to prevent Heyman from being elected as a delegate to the Coast Caucus, the motion passed in Local 10. At the Caucus, the delegate from Local 34 referred to the October Labor Conference to Stop the War as the origin of the motion.

At the close of the Caucus on February 8, there was a vigorous debate on the resolution. The union tops tried to stop it, to no avail. They kept asking, "are you sure you want to do this action." The delegates overwhelmingly said "yes." Even conservative trade unionists, including veterans of the Vietnam War, were getting up saying the government is lying to us, we've had it with this war, we've got to put a stop to it now. So instead the bureaucrats tried to gut the motion, which was cut down from 24 hours to 8, and changed into a "stop-work" meeting (covered by a contract clause) instead of a straight-out shutdown, thinking that this would lessen opposition from the employers. In the end there was a voice vote and only three delegates out of 100 voted against.

The efforts to undercut the motion continue, as is to be expected from a leadership which, like the rest of the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy, seeks "labor peace" with the bosses. In his letter to Sweeney, ILWU International president tried to present the action as an effort to "express support for the troops by bringing them home safely," although the motion voted by the delegates says nothing of the sort. Playing the "support our troops" game is an effort to swear loyalty to the broader aims of U.S. imperialism. It aids the warmongers, when what's needed is independent working-class action against the system that produces endless imperialist war. Yet despite the efforts to water it down and distort it, the May 1 action voted for by the ILWU delegates is a call to use labor's muscle to put an end to the war.

Mobilize Labor's Power to Defeat the Bosses' War!

For the West Coast dock workers union to shut down the ports against the war means a big step forward in the class struggle. The Internationalist Group has uniquely fought for workers strikes against the war, when all the popular-front "peace" coalitions dismissed this and even some shamefaced ex-Trotskyists refused to call for it, saying it had "no resonance" among the workers (see our October 20007 Special Supplement to The Internationalist, "Why We Fight For Workers Strikes Against the War [and the opportunists Don't]"). With signs, banners and propaganda we have sought to drive home the central lesson that it is necessary to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war "at home" by mobilizing the power of the workers movement independent of and against the capitalist parties.

That means fighting the war mobilization down the line. First and foremost, this means actively joining the struggle for immigrant rights as the government turns undocumented working people into "the enemy within." Class-conscious workers should demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Last year, San Francisco Local 10 voted to stop work and join marches for immigrant rights on May 1, but this was opposed by the employers PMA and sabotaged at the last minute by the union tops. Shamefully, Local 13 in Los Angeles, a majority Mexican American port, made no protest when police attacked immigrant rights protesters that same day. Today, as the ICE immigration police stage Gestapo-style raids across the country, organized labor should take the lead in organizing rapid response networks to come into the streets to block the raids. Despite the campaign by the capitalist media and politicians to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria, there is widespread disgust among American working people toward the jackbooted storm troopers who are terrorizing immigrant communities.

At the same time, the unions should use the power to put a halt to the attacks on civil liberties which are part of the home front of the imperialist war. Driver's licenses with biometric data, TWIC identification cards with "background checks," warrantless spying and phone tapping, setting up special military tribunals for "trials" in which defendants are denied the right of habeas corpus, to know the "evidence" or even the charges against them - all these are part of a drive that is in high gear pushing the United States toward a full-fledged police state. There have been scores, perhaps hundreds of resolutions by unions and city, county and state labor bodies against the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, showing that labor activists are well aware of the danger. But just as is the case with the countless union antiwar resolutions, there has been no labor action. It is commonplace in the labor movement to bemoan the lack of real action when Reagan broke the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers' strike, paving the way for massive union-busting, takeaways and racist attacks all down the line. Let's not let the labor bureaucrats bury the vital struggles of today.

Now is the time to turn words into deeds, to speak to the capitalist rulers in the only language they understand. The imperialist war parties must be defeated by a class mobilization of the working people at the head of all the oppressed. The ILWU motion to stop work on May Day to put a stop to the war can provide working people everywhere with the opening to turn from impotent protest to a struggle for power. For that the key is to build a class-struggle workers party fighting for a workers government, for socialist revolution here and around the world, that will put an end once and for all to the system of endless war, poverty and racism.

This is an Article of the Internationalist Group:
www.internationalist.org

and distributed by Liberation News, Subscribe Free!
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

"Tribe" Backs Anti-Palestinian Racists

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:52:13 GMT

Message from "Free Palestine End Zionism" moderator:

This is being sent to you because you were a member of my tribe, Free Palestine End Zionism. I would like you to know that I was notified today by a representative of tribe.net that my tribe was "anti-semitic" and that they removed it!

I am sending this so you will know why the tribe does not exist any more and so you will bear witness to the evident censorship and lack of the freedom of speech on tribe.net, plus the fabricated excuse to silence my tribe.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Fraud Alert regarding North Coast Earth First! Aka NCEF! Media. Completely independent from any activist group!

White Rabbit — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:51:13 GMT

16 views since posting on Sunday, December 2, 2007
Location California

enlarge photo
NCEF! Media in Humboldt County Ca.(AKA NORTH COAST EARTH FIRST!), is accused of fraud and donation embezzlement. Caution! Do not support this lone wingnut's scam! Active and legitamate groups exist in the area. Caution! Do not be fooled by NCEF! Media and his fraudulent outreach. Shunka Wakan exists completely seperate from any active affinity group.

Read about how he perpetuated a lawsuit under the guise of EF! against a legitimate environmental nonprofit:

From: northcoastjournal.com/100407/...004.html

October 4, 2007

"Money On Trees"

Big cash nearly fell into Shunka Wakan's lap. Other Earth First!ers are kinda happy it didn't.

by Heidi Walters

As the jury trial for the civil suit Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation puttered to a start last week inside Courtroom 3 at the Humboldt County Courthouse, Shunka Wakan — a key witness for the plaintiff — spent mornings sitting on the hard wooden benches in the long hallway outside the courtroom. During breaks, Miller's attorney Linda Mitlyng, would come out of the courtroom to join him. But otherwise, as other people and their legal affairs swirled around him in a warm, odiferous bath of humanity, Shunka sat alone. Or, sometimes, he stood alone, straight-spined, his small, stocky body swallowed by the huge, stiff blue suit out of which his newly shorn, razor-scraped bald head poked vulnerably — as if, at any moment, the suit could gulp once more and he'd disappear completely. Always, he clutched a paper folder with a wolf's face on its cover.

The North Coast Earth First! Media guru had shaved off his woolly rust-tinged brown hair and beard the night before jury selection started, after discussing it with attorney Mitlyng. Now, it took an uncertain moment to recognize him. Then, of course: Shunka's light blue eyes in the pink-pale face, Shunka's closed-lip smile, Shunka's trademark husky murmur, "Mm-hmm, for sure," in response to a comment.

In Courtroom 3, the amiable but no-nonsense Judge Christopher Wilson's domain, the fate of a $185,000 donation dangled. Would the plaintiff, donor Kathryn Miller, prevail in her claim that the defendant, the Trees Foundation, was not in fact the intended recipient of her generous gift? That Shunka Wakan's NCEF! Media Center and the treesitters were? Or would the Trees Foundation convince the jury that, in fact, the money was intended all along for Trees, with no instructions attached for funneling it elsewhere?

Richard Idell, left, who is defending the Trees Foundation against a lawsuit filed by Kathryn Miller, confers with Doug Wallace, community support coordinator for Trees. Photo by David Lawlor.

In her opening arguments, Miller's attorney, Mitlyng, said the case came down to "fraud and broken promises." "She believed [Trees] would hold [the money] in trust, for the benefit of North Coast Earth First!" said Mitlyng. The defense's attorney, Richard Idell, countered in his opening argument that the donation was an unconditional gift and Miller never wrote letters of instruction — as Miller claims she did. "Ms. Miller ... didn't do anything. She took the check [from her mother's estate] and flipped it over and wrote on the back, 'Payable to the Trees Foundation,'" said Idell.

Miller's claim sought the return of her $185,000, plus interest.

Out in the hallway, Shunka waited to tell his side of the story. Maybe he thought about the magical donation that never materialized, and now probably never would. Maybe he thought about the other times he'd been in this courthouse — dozens of times, along with other activists, often before Judge Wilson, answering to charges of trespassing and other forms of civil disobedience in the woods. Likely, he wondered when they were finally going to call him in to testify — it was taking forever in there. He'd even sent out an e-mail prematurely to the several hundred subscribers to his NCEF! online group erroneously announcing he would be first up to testify.

By the end of Friday's court session, Miller was still on the stand. Perhaps Monday it would be Shunka's turn. Whenever it was, he would be testifying on Miller's behalf; but he wasn't a party to the lawsuit. And in the end, after hearing all of the evidence, the jury would be determining who was telling the truth about intentions and letters of instructions. Shunka was just there to provide context and evidence in a contract dispute.

But to a number of forest activists, including a half dozen or so who appeared in the audience last Friday to watch the trial unfold, that context matters more to them than the legal questions. They say this lawsuit has placed a strain on the environmental community that could do as much damage as an ill-felled redwood that takes down other giants in its descent. They disapprove of the lawsuit, and they blame Shunka for it. And, they say, it's just another example of how Shunka has commandeered the North Coast Earth First! identity and used it for purposes that nobody else in the amorphous but consensus-driven local Earth First! movement has agreed to.

"For a lot of us, when we read about the lawsuit, this is kind of like Shunka on trial," said long-time forest activist Deane Rimerman last Friday, calling from Olympia, Wash. "And, to what extent is he worthy of that money?"

Kathryn Miller wanted her money to go toward saving trees, she said on the witness stand last Thursday. The slender 59-year-old was dressed in a pink print skirt and white sweater, with her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a neat, thin braid tinted slightly green. (Little did the jury know that Miller had spent the night in jail, in blue jail duds, and then had been "dressed out," in court lingo, in her street clothes before being escorted into the court by the bailiff. Miller had been arrested the week before, on Sept. 17, when she arrived in civil court for the pre-trial readiness hearing; according to the misdemeanor criminal charges filed against her, Miller allegedly had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation all hours of the day and night.)

On the stand, Miller described how she became an activist. She remembered how, when she was a child in Orinda, her mother decided to stop spraying the beautiful oak trees on their property after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "And then, when my son was 9, we were watching the news on TV about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. And my son said to me, 'I wish I'd never been born. I don't think I'll get to live a full life.'"

She protested the building of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She started a peace action group in the late 1980s in San Jose. She did nonviolent protests at the Nevada Test Site. And in 1990, she came up with some of her fellow protestors to help set up the camp for Redwood Summer, and to take part in demonstrations. She's been on and off involved in Earth First! actions in Humboldt ever since, she said, including huffing in supplies for treesitters and huffing out their garbage. She'd also, at one point, bought a condo in Arcata.

In 2004, Miller sold her condo and bought an acre of farmland, already planted with coffee, in Guatemala. She put in fruit trees to shade the coffee. That same year, her mother, who lived in Sonoma, died. "The last time I saw her was in 2003," said Miller. "She told me when she died, she was going to leave me some money. I told her I'd use it to further my work for the forest. And she was pleased, because she loved the treesitters and the forest."

Shortly after learning of her mother's death, Kathryn Miller sought out Shunka Wakan in front of the food co-op in Arcata, where he "tabled" to raise funds for the North Coast Earth First! Media office — selling T-shirts, and stickers, offering pamphlets, accepting donations. She'd known Shunka for about five years, she said.

"I said to him, I was going to inherit some money: What was the best way to get that to the North Coast Earth First!?"

In the spring of 2005, Shunka Wakan was floating above the treetops. "I was so excited," the 32-year-old said in an interview a few weeks ago, sitting inside his tiny but colorful North Coast Earth First! Media office in Arcata, walls covered in art and topo maps — including one of Buckeye Mountain, where in 2000-2001, during the "Mattole Free State" action, Shunka and others hiked 14 miles through waist-high snowdrifts to save trees.

Kathryn Miller, he recalled, had come up to him excitedly as he walked along the sidewalk outside the Arcata Co-op and said, "I just donated $185,000 to North Coast Earth First!'"

She'd talked to him the year before about making the donation — she'd said she was anticipating an inheritance from her mother's estate, and she wanted to make a big donation to his group. He'd told her to make it through the Trees Foundation, which handled the NCEF! Media office's finances through an arrangement that had been established years ago. (The Trees Foundation is an umbrella organization formed in 1991 to assist smaller environmental groups. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, it can accept large, tax-deductible donations on behalf of affiliates, and provide professional resources. And it can lead large campaigns, like the one to save the Headwaters Forest back in the '90s.)

Well, now she'd finally done it.

Miller and Shunka agreed to meet at Fiesta Café in Sunny Brae, so she could tell him how she wanted the money spent: She wanted, straight away, for someone to organize a mediated workshop for the local Earth First! activists on ageism and sexism, issues she thought were fracturing the movement. And, she wanted the bulk of the donation to help support the forest activists who blockade logging roads and hunker up in ancient redwoods to fend off loggers' saws.

Not long after, Shunka was on his way to have lunch with some folks from the Trees Foundation, where they'd talk about Miller's wishes.

"Our media outreach was going to get a big boost," Shunka said. "The donation would keep the EF! office going for many years. So I walked into the Wildflower Café feeling elated, thinking we got all this money."

Barbara Ristow and Doug Wallace of the Trees Foundation were there. "I was super excited," Shunka said, "and I said, 'This is great, this big donation. Isn't it wonderful?' We ordered food, and still I'm all excited, talking about the money, but I notice they're looking nervously at each other. [Finally], they said, 'Well, we're just shocked that you think this money was for you.' And I was like, 'I just met with the donor, and that's what she said.' And they're like, 'Well, let's go ahead and plan the workshop and deal with that later.' I remember that, because it put me at ease."

After that, Shunka said he gave Trees a list of people he thought might benefit from the mediator-run workshop. "Some were people I knew had beefs with me, but I was willing to bring 'em into the circle and talk about it."

According to some vague accounts, the workshop was a disaster. One person who was there claims that Shunka, at one point, pounded his fists on the floor, blustered, then got up and stormed out, yelling as he walked away. Shunka says that's overblown.

"The letter from Kathryn Miller to Barbara Bristow said she wanted the mediation to be a safe place, safe to be emotional," he said. "And I think people are saying 'I freaked out.' The freak-out reports are exaggerated. It's just part of this ongoing character assassination. People say I was 'red-faced.' But my face is naturally red."

In late 2005, while Shunka was in Seattle, a friend called him from Arcata to say a woman had come by asking for the office key. She had a list of equipment she wanted to take away. The friend didn't give her the key.

When Shunka got back from Seattle, he discovered his reimbursement funds from Trees had been "frozen." He also learned about a letter someone in the NCEF! movement had circulated for signatures and then sent to Mark Knipper, who handled the Trees Foundation transactions for the NCEF! Media office. It said, in essence, "We don't want Shunka running EF!"

"I called the Trees Foundation," Shunka recalled. "I was sick, it was the middle of the winter, I'm trying to table, it's raining, it's cold. And Barbara Ristow told me, 'You just need to have a meeting [with the other Earth First!ers] and come to a group consensus on what the Trees Foundation funding should be used for."

The meeting never happened — nobody could agree to meet, said Mark Knipper, also in an interview last week. Knipper is a social worker and a long-time activist who had been the contact person between Trees and NCEF! Media. "So it ate itself," Knipper said. "And although I'm former Navy, a mariner, I said I'm not going down with this ship. So I divorced myself from it ... and signed it all back to Trees."

The NCEF! Media office was dropped from the Trees Foundation altogether.

Shunka and the NCEF! Media office never did see any of the big donation. Miller didn't even know that, he said, until she phoned him up in the summer of 2006, more than a year after she made the donation, to ask about a guy named "Jungle," who had been reported as missing on the NCEF! hotline. Miller was spending much of her time in Guatemala now, where she was raising fruit trees; after she'd made her big donation, Hurricane Stan had struck — she spent the ensuing year mopping up the mess.

First, Shunka told her Jungle was still missing. Then he told her about the money.

"I said, 'Yeah, they told me it wasn't for us,'" said Shunka. "And she said, 'I meant for all of it to go to you guys.' She sounded real upset. And I was like, 'I knew it! I knew it!'"

Shunka tried to sue Trees in small claims court, but it went nowhere.

Miller filed a claim against the Trees Foundation on Oct. 5, 2006, in Humboldt County Superior Court, seeking the return of the $185,000 plus interest so she could distribute the money herself.

And if she wins? "She may just spread it out more," said Shunka. "She's got tree planting ideas. Maybe she could buy a grove. She'd maybe not give it all to Earth First! this time. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Trees blew for us."

On an uncomfortably hot afternoon last week, four forest activists who'd agreed to an interview for this story — Jeff, Shaggy, Sparrow and Farmer — sat on the ground at the Arcata Marsh next to a log bench on which a teeming crew of red ants worked a splintered notch. Someone had come along here in 1999 and carved a grouping of faces — bearded, grimacing, possibly mourning faces — onto the log and signed it Daniel. The carving had been drenched in red paint, and burnished by years of sitters.

"It kind of reminds me of the memorial for Gypsy," said one of them. "With the red paint."

Gypsy was the forest name of David Nathan Chain, who in September 1998, during an Earth First! action at Grizzly Creek, was crushed to death by a tree felled by an enraged logger. Farmer, actually, was there — he was just 16, but had a year of activism already under his belt. And Shunka was there — it was Shunka's first forest action.

Farmer, Shag, Sparrow and Jeff first made it clear that they spoke for themselves alone, although they participate in various forest defense affinity groups: Farmer works for the Mattole Wildlands Defense Group now, watchdogging the California Department of Forestry for new timber harvest plans, and keeping an eye on a Pacific Lumber Co. watershed analysis. Shag, who saw his first redwood about five years ago, helps keep the Fern Gully treesit village in Freshwater functioning. Jeff, who grew up in the high desert, and fell in love with the woods, works with the Nanning Creek treesit just outside of Scotia, as well as other groups. Sparrow, who was drawn to forest action because the cultural landscape was "like a folktale" he couldn't resist, is with the Fern Gully affinity group. These groups are all part of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association, a collective with a website but no formal structure.

The HFDA sprang into being six years ago — about the time the entity called North Coast Earth First! had essentially dissolved. It would take a book to describe that drawn-out dissolution — a book of lost causes, won causes, waning media interest, Judi Bari's death, Gypsy's death, ego-spurred squabbles, interpersonal catastrophes, a war overseas, hurricanes. And while the HFDA activists might still cherish the Earth First! name — the movement — in their hearts, it's now been further complicated by what you might call the Shunka effect.

"I still feel in many ways solidarity with the greater Earth First! movement abroad," said Farmer. "But in this county, in this climate, if you say you're with the North Coast Earth First!, many people associate you with North Coast Earth First! Media."

Shunka revived the North Coast Earth First! office around 2002. And he did what previous office managers had done — tabled, put out news releases, wrote articles for other publications. But it wasn't like the old days, in the '90s, when hundreds of people were getting arrested in forest actions and the jail support phone and legal resources were in constant use.

Shunka first worked in an office in Eureka, then later moved to Arcata. He called his outfit the NCEF! Media Center. For a time, he and other "affinity groups" tried to work together. But he alienated some people. He took over the North Coast Earth First! website. He controlled the North Coast Earth First! email list of 300 or more subscribers to the news alerts. He sent out press releases on his own.

"I felt the North Coast Earth First! Media Center was a unilateral effort on Shunka's part," said Farmer. Whereas, in the old days, "spokespeople were decided on by the group. And if you wrote an article it was passed by everyone. I feel Shunka appointed himself spokesperson at some point."

Many also claim they've been subject to a lashing anger from Shunka.

"I won't work with him because I pledge nonviolence in my actions," said Shag. "I don't believe he pledges the same thing. He has exhibited violent behavior towards me and towards other activists in my presence."

"He's a bear," said Jeff, making claw-fists with his hands.

But the sad thing is, all of this infighting probably has done nothing to help the actual trees. And the mediation workshop Kathryn Miller wanted didn't fix matters. Now, there was her lawsuit.

"When I heard about this lawsuit, I thought, the Trees Foundation does not deserve to be attacked in that way," said Farmer. "There's much bigger issues that need to be dealt with — with Maxxam and old-growth logging. ...If you look at Fern Gully and Nanning Creek (the Bonanza timber harvest plan), there's hundreds of old growth acres still standing whose fate is unclear."

Shag put it more bluntly: "If [Miller] knew Shunka and wanted to get the money to North Coast Earth First! Media, she should've given it to Shunka. But if she was trying to get it to treesits and forest defense, then the money went to the right place.

"My problem is this whole representation thing. There's people in the trees — how do you know who to get the money to, to help them?"

Shunka knows that a lot of fellow activists aren't happy with his role in the donation dispute. He also knows how some people talk about him and say he's hard to get along with. "I'm just standing up for the truth," he said. "And people don't like it. To me, it feels like a small clique of people who don't like me. I feel a lot of love and support in this community."

He certainly doesn't come off right away as someone who's angry, or who lashes out, or who locks the office and doesn't let people in. Why, recently, he helped a young woman hook up with the treesitters so she could learn the ropes. (Shaggy said that's proof Shunka doesn't have direct connections with the people doing direct action; but you can't deny it's a connection.)

It's probably a bad idea to ask Darryl Cherney, one of the founders of the local Earth First! movement, what he thinks of Shunka Wakan, whose real name is Jason Wilson. (Shunka tells a story of how he was named by a Lakota medicine man on the banks of the Cheyenne River in South Dakota in 1995. "Shunka Wakan," meaning "great dog," is only part of it. There's a secret part after that — altogether, his name means "the humble man called horse.")

"Shunka's a wingnut," Cherney said over the phone last Friday, sounding cheerfully vitriolic. "I have a 10-verse song about Shunka."

Here are the last few verses:

Who's at the co-op spanging a donation
Shunka, Shunka
Who's got a lawsuit 'gainst the Trees Foundation
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka
Who's gonna keep on fighting the fight
Shunka, Shunka
With four of his friends at swimmers delight
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka (Shunka voice: It's the last of the revolution)

There's no other word for it but "mean." But Cherney and Shunka have history — not all of it sour. Cherney said Shunka laughed when he heard the song, at least the first time.

"I met Shunka in 1998," Cherney said. "And I know he knew Julia ["Butterfly" Hill, whom Shunka had come west to find]. That was a good thing, helping Julia. That was good Shunka."

Cherney had even pushed for Shunka to go to Houston to talk with Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Corp. bought out the old Pacific Lumber company back in 1985 and quickly became the forest activists' number one villain. Shunka went.

But now? "The current status of Shunka and me," Cherney said, "is that Shunka has sent me five or eight or nine e-mails threatening to sue me. Shunka is a joke."

Cherney can talk for hours about the problems he's had with Shunka over the years. His main point, though, is what has Shunka done for the trees lately?

"My question is, where's your topo maps?" he asked. "Where's your wilderness preservation proposal? Where's your lobbyist team in Sacramento?"

It has to be that, on some level, even the people in the movement who don't like Shunka understand somewhat where he's coming from. So he's emotional. Passionate. Perhaps he's caught up so completely in the cause he can't let go. Or, who knows — maybe he's a phony, like he accused Knipper of being back in 2005.

But being a forest activist comes with perils beyond the obvious physical ones.

"I'm really trying to have compassion for Shunka, even though he's kind of attacked us," said Susy Barsotti by phone from Laytonville a couple of weeks ago. Barsotti is president of the Trees Foundation board, and she says the lawsuit has held Trees hostage, unable to function fully. "I've been mystified and dismayed that he's participated like this in the suit. But Shunka witnessed Gypsy's death. And I think he may have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't think he's recovered from it. And that can affect your behavior."

A number of people mentioned this, actually, about Shunka. And he often refers to Gypsy's death himself. In an article titled "What Luna has taught me," posted on the website of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's organization, Circle of Life, Shunka writes: "I decided to commit to doing ground support after witnessing the death of David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain on September 17, 1998 ... I remember looking across the valley as we hiked up that day, seeing the rolling hills of forests and clear-cuts, and thinking out loud, "That's why we're here!" Seeing Gypsy's life taken from him, and then seeing the corruption and lies of the Humboldt County Sheriffs ... really opened my eyes to the situation our old-growth forests face."

Later, he did ground support for Hill in her second year in Luna. And in the same article on her website, something else Shunka writes indicates how ready he was to devote himself to a cause: "Being on the support team was the top priority in my life, and I was happy knowing that everything else revolved around when I'd be needed for the next supply run. I never felt lost because I knew what I was doing. That was a feeling I had not felt in years, between feeling dissatisfaction with life in college, and then more dissatisfaction with life as a minimum-wage worker after college. Before joining Julia's ground support team I was unhappy, even to the point of tears, wondering if my entire life was going to be a minimum-wage nightmare ...."

Pure devotion, without benefit of a little hypocrisy, could drive anyone batty. Deane Rimerman, the activist from Olympia who said it is Shunka who is on trial, said it's not uncommon for intense, stressful movements like Earth First! to produce an army of walking wounded. And he's been around, in forest actions up and down the coast, for long enough to know; he was the one, in fact, who "got the maps and led the first hikers up to the hill" to the Gypsy Mountain campaign and Luna treesit.

"In the forest activist movement, there's very little that's rewarding," Rimerman said. "There's a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. All of us get it. Once you've been through the court process, and the jail process, and seen 1,000-year-old trees get cut down that you really cared about and thought you could save — it's devastating."

That alone, setting aside the troubles with Shunka, could explain the many rifts that have occurred within the local EF! ranks over the years. Josh Brown, who moved to Humboldt in 1995 right before the peak of the Headwaters campaign, said one of the unique qualities of Earth First! is that it "is primarily a youth movement."

"A lot of people that come through are young, are passionate — and it's a wonderful thing," he said. They get thrown into leadership positions quickly — and then they get burned out. Many move quickly on to other things. Brown stayed in longer than most. "When I left [in 2001], I was 30 years old. And I'd been a full-time activist since I was 18."

Paradoxically, said Brown, the youthful draw and the departure of seasoned activists leaves the movement with "no elders to kind of sit around and coach the [new kids]."

The movement also draws strong personalities, he said. Tenacious ones, too, like Shunka's.

"Shunka, I think he really does have a big heart," said Brown. "And I think he does care for the forest."

Last Friday, following the morning session of Miller v. Trees, a group of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association activists stood on the courthouse steps talking. The door opened, and Shunka walked out and down the steps toward the group. They didn't greet him. After a time, he tried to talk to one of them, Jeff. Jeff walked away. Shunka followed him, then stopped and talked to another guy. Then he stood alone again.

From: northcoastjournal.com/101107/...011.html

"Trees Foundation Wins"

October 11th, 2007

The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See "Money on Trees," Oct. 4).

Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed she had intended the money to be passed through Trees to one of its affiliates, North Coast Earth First! Media, run by Shunka Wakan. She claimed she had made her intentions clear, verbally and in writing, and that Trees had agreed to the conditions, then broken its promise and kept the money. Trees denied making such promises, and said it had never seen any letters or heard of instructions to give the money to NCEF! Media. (Also, somewhat relatedly, in criminal court on Tuesday Miller pleaded no contest to charges that she had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation.)

So, that's that. Now, there are only the pieces to pick up.

For Shunka Wakan — featured in last week's Journal as a central figure in a messy nest of infighting that has fractured the current ranks of local Earth First!ians — it could be a long, lonely patching together of lost friends and broken alliances. Not only did he and Miller lose their attempt to retrieve her donation, but now he's been banned from the North Coast Co-op.

Yes, that happened last week. It was Thursday, around 4:15 in the evening, and two activists with the Humboldt Forest Defense Association were tabling — hawking brochures and such — outside the Co-op. It's an activity Shunka himself has spent many a day doing in that very same spot, raising cash to pay for his NCEF!Media outreach work and other causes. And, well, these two fellows, Jeff and Farmer, were on Shunka's shit list, now. They'd spoken gently, but unfavorably, about Shunka's doings in the North Coast Earth First! arena — said he lashed out at people, said he commandeered NCEF! resources, and so forth. Here's a snippet of Jeff's account of what happened, which he sent to the NCJ in an e-mail on Friday:

"Shunka was removed from the Arcata Co-op yesterday after a scuffle with myself and another activist around 5 p.m. Well, he wasn't exactly removed, but APD was called. He was asked to leave after threatening to flip over the HFD donation table while stating he was 'like Jesus in the marketplace ...'"

Sue Coulter, manager of the Arcata Co-op, recounted on Friday how an employee walking by heard the argument and went inside to get her. "So I went out to talk to [Shunka], because it's not the first time we've had problems," she said. "Most of the time, he's fine. Most of the time, I stick up for him." One time, she said, she even called the police to protect Shunka after someone had threatened him. "But he gets into arguments. I tried to talk to him. I told him to leave. ... He was causing a scene, right by the door, and I can't have it. He refused to leave. ... I said, fine. I went into the store. He followed me into the store, and he was still yelling at me, 'Oh, now you're going to call the police on me.'" Coulter called the police, but Shunka left before they arrived.

Shunka, waiting in the courthouse for the jury verdict Tuesday, said Coulter did indeed ask him to leave and he did, indeed, refuse to. As for the HFD tablers, he said he merely asked them why they had Trees Foundation literature on their table. "I said, 'Why do you want to represent these people?'" And then, he said, "Jeff accused me of embezzling — he said this in public. He said, 'You've embezzled thousands of dollars from the Earth First! movement through the years.' And I complained to one of the employees who was walking by. Because that's serious, accusing someone of embezzling."

But Shunka said the whole thing's yet another attack on him. "I don't consider I was yelling. We were talking. I'm an emotional person, I concede to that. I speak from my heart. I don't scream at people. I would love to — but I don't."

In his email, Jeff with HFD predicted Shunka would leave town within weeks, if not sooner. But at the courthouse, even before the verdict, Shunka said he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm just going to continue to run the Earth First! office and continue to call Humboldt County home," he said. He's also going to write a letter to the Co-op, complaining about how he gets scapegoated and booted out of there even when other people, he says, are the culprits. And, as for the Miller v. Trees case, he said, he and Miller may now take their complaint to another venue.

-- Heidi Walters

Posted by Anonymous
respond to this listing title message
Send Response
more listings like this kinderfrau
MANHATTAN BEACH - 10 views since 11/22 by Iris (no connection)
kinderfrau
MANHATTAN BEACH - 5 views since 11/22 by Anonymous (no connection)
Fashion Consultant
- 7 views since 11/20 by Alwyn (no connection)
EN-670 Software Sr. Product Developer – Staff – Anaheim, CA
- 12 views since 11/06 by Tim (no connection)
EN-678 Sr. Software Dev / Lead Staff - San Francisco or...
- 12 views since 11/06 by Tim (no connection)
Posted by Anonymous

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:09:15 GMT

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

By STEVEN ARGUE

For the most part the Iowa caucuses were business as usual for the Democrat and Republican Parties. Among the Democrats, “Anti-war” and “pro-single payer health care” Democrat Dennis Kucinich put his support behind pro-war anti--single payer health care, Barrack Obama. Yet on the far right, anti-war Libertarian and Republican Ron Paul gained a stunning 10% of the vote.

Seeing the failure of the Democrats to deliver a candidate worth supporting; some left leaning individuals have been suggesting support to Ron Paul. One is anti-war Vietnam veteran Stan Goff, who suggested in his January 4, 2008 article ”Monkey Wrenching the System, Ron Paul’s Revolution” that people vote in the primaries for Ron Paul, switching party registration right away if they live in a state where such a move is necessary to vote in the Republican primaries.

At the root of the Ron Paul "revolution" is the dismantling of Social Security and the Department of Education as well as other basic social programs, and the elimination of worker and environmental protections. Advances like single payer health care? No way. Ron Paul's message is that you need to take care of yourself, and that there shouldn't be such government programs, nor such interference with private profit. While he puts forward reasons for not supporting going to war abroad, his domestic policies would ignite civil war at home.

In addition to pretending he's against all government, he's for outlawing abortion and supports the continued ban on same-sex marriage. He was one of the original co-sponsors of the "Marriage Protection Act".

He's also a religious extremist who thinks that creationism should be taught in the schools.

On race, Ron Paul was one of 33 Congress members to vote against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, an act that was first passed to give Blacks in the south the right to vote. On a similar note, he says the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution and impedes on individual liberties. Speaking of Blacks in Washington DC he states in campaign literature, "95 percent of African Americans in are semi-criminal or entirely criminal".

No wonder the American Nazi Party has close relations with him (see letter from Nazi Commander Bill White below). In addition, Ron Paul has the support of other white supremacists such as David Duke, and has knowingly taken donations from former KKK Grand Wizard Don Black.

Hell would freeze over before I'd support Ron Paul. And being an atheist; that will be a long time.

There are plenty of candidates to the left of the Democrats worth considering supporting who oppose the war, would preserve public education and Social Security, who would provide single payer or socialized medicine, and who aren’t raving racist, homophobic, and sexist “Libertarian” fanatics. Why not look at them rather than someone from the loony right?

I discuss some of the campaigns that may be worth supporting in the following article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
And the Struggle to Achieve It
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

Or here is a different version of the same article:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/01/93820.html

*****************
American Nazi Party Chief says Ron Paul is one of us

Bill White, commander of the American National Socialist Worker’s Party, aka The American Nazi Party, wrote the following on the Nazi Vanguard News Network:

Comrades:

I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn’t see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble. However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul’s extensive involvement in white nationalism.

Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

I have attended these dinners, seen Paul and his aides there, and been invited to his offices in Washington to discuss policy.

For his spokesman to call white racialism a “small ideology” and claim white activists are “wasting their money” trying to influence Paul is ridiculous. Paul is a white nationalist of the Stormfront type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position.

I don’t know that it is necessarily good for Paul to “expose” this. However, he really is someone with extensive ties to white nationalism and for him to deny that in the belief he will be more respectable by denying it is outrageous — and I hate seeing people in the press who denounce racialism merely because they think it is not fashionable.

Bill White, Commander
American National Socialist Workers Party

*********
Poor Bill White. He’s having trouble with his brand of racism, anti-Semitism, mass extermination, and genocide not being "in fashion". But hey, you've got to thank the knuckleheaded Nazi for confirming our suspicions on Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan! -Steven Argue

Liberation News
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 2 replies

DNC Disruption 2008, RNC Welcoming Committee

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:33:00 GMT

DNC Disruption 2008
http://dncdisruption08.org/

RNC Welcoming Committee
http://www.rncwelcomingcommittee.org/

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

The Aim of the Financiers: A One-World Government with a One-World Currency

Project_Love — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:27:36 GMT

The Aim of the Financiers: A One-World Government with a One-World Currency
By Alain Pilote

The following article is one of the appendices of Louis Even's new book, "In This Age of Plenty":

The basic flaw of the present financial system is that the banks create money as a debt, charging interest on the money that they create. The obligation for the debtor countries to repay the banks money that the banks did not create, money that does not exist, brings about unpayable debts. The Financiers know quite well that it is impossible for these countries to repay their debts, that the present financial system is defective at its base, and that it can only bring about crises and revolutions. But this is exactly what they want!

As Clifford Hugh Douglas, the founder of the Social Credit school, said: "The Money Power does not, and never did, want to improve the money system - its consequences in war, sabotage and social friction are exactly what is desired.". Why?

It is because the Financiers believe that they are the only ones capable of governing mankind properly, and in order to be able to impose their will upon every individual and control the whole world, they invented the present debt-money system. They want to bring every nation in the world to such a state of crisis that these countries will think they have no alternative but to accept the miracle solution of the Financiers to save them from disaster: complete centralization, a single world currency, and a one-world government, in which all nations will be abolished, or forced to give up their sovereignty.

The Trilateral Commission
There are three major economic areas in the world: Europe, North America, and the Far East (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.). If, under the pretext of having to join forces to be able to face economic competition with the two other economic regions, the member countries of each of these three regions decide to merge into one single country, forming three Super-States, then the one-world government will be almost achieved.

This is exactly what is taking place now, and being promoted by the Trilateral Commission, founded in July, 1973, by David Rockefeller, the chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank of New York. The official aim of the Trilateral Commission is "to harmonize the political, economic, social, and cultural relations between the three major economic regions in the world (hence the name "Trilateral"). This aim is almost achieved in Europe with the Single European Act that was implemented in 1993, requiring all the member countries of the European Community to abolish their trade barriers, and to hand over their monetary and fiscal policies to the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium. By 1999, all these countries are supposed to share only one currency, the "Euro".

As regards the North American area, the merger of its member countries is well under way with the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), first between Canada and the U.S.A., ant which later also included Mexico. (By the next ten years, it is supposed to include all of the Americas) There is a strong pressure to force these countries to harmonize their fiscal policies, and as it happened in Europe, economic union will inevitably lead to political union.

In front of these two gigantic economic powers, the countries of the Far East will have no choice but to join forces together and merge, to be able to compete with North America and Europe in the field of international trade.

One-world currency -- the "Mark of the Beast"??

To consolidate their power, the Financiers also want to eliminate every existing national currency, and to install a one-world currency. In the 1970s, Dr. Hanrick Eldeman, Chief Analyst of the Common Market Confederacy in Brussels, unveiled a plan to "straighten out world chaos": a three-story computer located in the administrative building of the headquarters of the Common Market, in Brussels, Belgium. People who work there call it "the Beast". The plan implies a system of digital enumeration of each human being on earth. Thus the computer would give each inhabitant of the world a number to be used for each purchase or sale. This number would be invisibly tattooed by laser (or implanted with a microchip) either on the forehead or on the back of the hand. This would establish a walking credit card system.

And the number could be seen only through infrared scanners, installed in special verification countries or in business places. Dr. Eldeman pointed out that by using three entries of six digits each, every inhabitant of the world would be given a distinct credit card number.

This reminds us strangely of what Saint John the Apostle wrote in the Book of Revelation (13:16-18): "And he (the Beast) shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and slaves, to receive a mark on their right hands, or on their foreheads, and that none might buy or sell, unless he carried this mark, which was the beast's name, or the number that stands for his name. Here is wisdom; he that has understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred and sixty-six".

That man will be the Pope of Rome who will be incarnate by Satan as he incarnate the Serpent, a man-like creature, in the garden of Eden, and Judas Iscariot in the days of Christ's flesh. The main title and claim of the Pope is "Vicarivs Filii Dei" which means "In place of the Son of God", or "Substitute for the Holy Ghost". The letters of this title with numeric values in the old Roman system add up to 666. Thus:
V = 005
I = 001
C = 100
A = 000
R = 000
I = 001
V = 005
S = 000

F = 000
I = 001
L = 500
I = 001
I = 001

D = 050
E = 000
I = 001
Total = 666

Debit cards
A few decades ago, before the invention of computers and microchips, such a system would have seemed far-fetched, a product of science fiction. But now everyone knows about the existence of debit cards with which you can buy anything in stores, without the need to carry any cash on you, the amount of your purchase being debited automatically from your bank account. The avowed goal of the banks is to eliminate all cash, and to force people to use debit cards as the only means of payment.

There is always the risk of losing one's debit card, or of having somebody else illegally use it. So here comes the ultimate solution: to link people personally to their card, so there is no way they can lose it or have it stolen! And there you have it: a micro-computer chip can be implanted under your skin, or a three six-digital unit can be tattooed on your skin...just as described in Saint John's Book of Revelation.

Actually, the mark in the right hand signifies obeying the will, and the mark in the forehead implies receiving the doctrine of the "Beast". The Beast will be the Pope of Rome who will be incarnate by Satan when he is cast down to earth at the close of the Gentile dispensation.

Everything will be in place for a government that wants to control everybody's move, since they will know everything about you: all that you buy, where and when you buy it, who you phone, how much money you have, will all be inscribed on this card. And if, for whatever reason, you are classified as an "undesirable person" or as an "enemy of the State" by the government, they will only have to erase your number from the central computer, and you will no longer be able to buy or sell (and thus be condemned to disappear before long).

The Illuminati
This quest for a world government has been going on for a long time. For example, on Feb. 17, 1953, Financier Paul Warburg said before the U.S. Senate: "We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent." This quest for world domination can be traced back to the creation of the "Illuminati", a secret society, in 1776. Their leader, Adam Weishaupt, wrote out the master plan to bring about the subjection of the whole human race to an oligarchy of Financiers. The word "Illuminati" is derived from Lucifer and means "holders of the light".

As surprising as it may seems, the insignia of the Order of the Illuminati appears on the reverse side of U.S. one-dollar bills. The first time it appeared was in 1933, by order of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the beginning of the New Deal (the name given to Roosevelt's political reforms of that time).

One can read at the base of the 13-story pyramid, the year 1776 (MDCCLXVI in Roman numerals). Most of the people think that it represents the date of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence, but it actually memorializes the foundation of the Order of the Illuminati, which was on May 1, 1776. (Note the Zionist-Communist May Day connection).

The pyramid represents the conspiracy for the destruction of the Catholic Church (and all existing religions"), and the establishment of a one-world government, or a United Nations dictatorship. The eye radiating in all directions, is the "all-spying" eye that symbolizes the terroristic, Gestapo-like, espionage agency that Weishaupt set up to guard the "secret of the Order and to terrorize the populace into the acceptance of its rule". The Latin words "ANNUIT COEPTIS" translate to "Announcing the creation or beginning". Below them, "NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM" translates to a "New secular order" and the year is written in Roman numerals at the base of the Pyramid.

Manly Palmer Hall explained the symbolism otherwise. He said, Annuit Coeptis means "He (NOT the Christian God) has smiled upon our endeavours". The capstone or triangle signifies science, NOT spirituality, and that the scroll underneath, bearing the inscription "Novus Ordo Seclorum" indicates the nature of the enterprise: a "New order of the ages", an order of science and knowledge as opposed to Christian (morality) superstition and fear.

This insignia was adopted by the U.S. Congress as the reverse of the seal of the United States on September 15, 1789. (The obverse side of the seal bears the eagle, which is used as the official seal and coat of arms of the U.S.A., and which is also shown on the reverse side of the U.S. $1.00 bills).

The appearance of this insignia of the Illuminati on U.S., one-dollar bills in 1933 meant that the followers of Weishaupt regarded their efforts as beginning to "be crowned with success," and that they totally controlled the U.S. Government.

The pyramid is a symbol of the Knights Templar of Freemasonry and a Zionist symbol and the Hexgram is used by Royal Arch Masons which is part of York Rite Masonry also a Zionist symbol. The two seals of the "Great Seal" combines symbolism of all Masonic Orders. The Eagle is a symbol of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

Proof the Great Seal is Masonic
First outline the pyramid with a triangle. Now take the pyramid and draw a line under the base of the capstone and extend it left to right extended to the A in ANNUIT and the S in COEPTIS. Now draw lines from the end of this line down to the last O in ORDO so you will finsih the Hexagram also called the Jewish Star of David.

Draw circles around all five letters to which the Hexagram points. These letters make the word MASON. The 32 feathers on the left wing of the eagle signify the 32 degress of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The right wing has 33 feathers for the extra 33rd honary degree and inner head of the Scottish Rite. George Washington himself on the front of the One Dollar Bill was a 33rd degree Scottish Rite Mason. The 9 tail feathers indicate the 9 additional degrees of the York Rite of Freemasonry. There are13 olives and 13 leaves on the olive branches, 13 arrows in the other eagle's claw, 13 stripes on the shield, 13 stars above the eagle in the form of a Hexagram, 13 letters in "E PLURIBUS UNUM", 13 letters in "ANNUIT COEPTIS", 13 rows of bricks in the pyramid. The 33rd degree Grand Lodge of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is located exactly 13 blocks north of the White House above an upside down pentagram oulined by the road layout which rests on the White House. See this link: http://www.cuttingedge.org/n1040.html

The use of the Hexagram and the Pentagram and even the 7 pointed star stems from Jewish Cabalism or mysticism which was adopted from paganism. The placement of the symbols on the American money etc. is no different then to displaying a cross on the back of a one dollar bill. But you will never see these religious symbols removed because the ACLU only attacks what it sees as Christian. Separation of Church and State is a farce. The law requiring the "Separation of CHURCH and State" might as well say "Separation of Christondom and State" because only religions calling themseves "Christian" use buildings called "Church".

Albert Pike was the founder of the KKK and one time leader of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Southern Jurisdiction. He himself protested the suggestion that Masonry was Christian and said that "if Masonry was Christian why were most of the people who had possession of it during the early days of the USA Hebrew"?

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/4803/IWJindxf.html
http://www.hourofthetime.com/majestyt.htm
http://www.cuttingedge.org/fmcorner.html

A Luciferian conspiracy
To say that the Illuminati is a "Luciferian" conspiracy" is not only a stylistic device, but it is literally true, since the leaders of the Illuminati are actually worshipers of Satan, and their final objective is to have the whole world bow down to him. Through his hellhounds, it is Satan himself who continues his revolt against God by endeavoring to foil God's plan on earth, and to snatch from God as many souls as possible.

Just like Satan, the Financiers think that they are smarter than God, and that they are the only ones who can lead mankind properly. The members of the Illuminati are people of every race and creed, but who all lust for money and power.

Recognizing the powers involved
In the conclusion of his book "Pawns in the Game", which denounces the plot of the Illuminati for world domination, William Guy Carr explains what must be done to stop this plot.

First, we must as individuals recognize the spiritual powers involved, and realize that we are not only facing terrestrial powers, but also spiritual ones; that it is basically a fight between God and Satan. We must choose who we will serve, who we will fight for: God or Satan.

Second, we must take practical steps to counteract the plan of the Financiers which, in Mr. Carr's own words, can be done only through a monetary reform: "The electors must insist that the issue of money, and the control thereof, be placed back in the hands of the Government where it rightfully belongs."

The necessity for Social Credit
The prayers and sacrifices to obtain the assistance of Heaven are certainly necessary to thwart the plan of the Financiers. But a technique, a temporal means, is also necessary to thwart the plan of the Financiers. This means is the Social Credit reform, conceived by the Scottish engineer, Clifford Hugh Douglas, the only reform that the Financiers really fear, and that would put an end to their power to control all the nations. ("Social Credit" means social money - money created without debt by society, issued with new production, and withdrawn from circulation as production is consumed - instead of having a banking credit, as it is the case today - money created as a debt by private banks.)

Douglas first thought that once his discovery and its implications would be brought to the attention of the governments and of those in charge of the economy, they would hasten to implement it. But Douglas soon made another discovery: the Financiers, who ruled the economy, were absolutely not interested in changing the financial system, and its flaws and consequences (wars, waste, poverty, social friction etc.,) were absolutely what they desired, and even fostered deliberately, in order to impose their solution of a one-world government. So the Financiers did everything they could to stop and silence the Social Credit idea: a conspiracy of silence in the news media, or deliberate falsification of Douglas's doctrine, in order to render it vulnerable; calumnies and ridicule against the apostles of "Michael". Douglas wrote in his book "Warning Democracy":

"So rapid was the progress made by the Social Credit ideas between 1919 and 1923 both in this country (Great Britain) and abroad, and so constantly did ideas derived from them appear in the pages of the press, that the interests threatened by them became considerably alarmed, and took what were, on the whole, effective steps to curtail their publicity. In this country the Institute of Bankers allocated five million pounds (then the equivalent of 24 million dollars) to combat the 'subversive' ideas of ourselves and other misguided people who wished to thinker with the financial system. The large Press Associations were expressly instructed that my own name should not be mentioned in the public press, and no metropolitan newspaper in this country or the United States was allowed to give publicity, either to correspondence or to contributions bearing upon the subject. In spite of this Canadian Parliamentary Inquiry at which I was a witness (in 1923) managed to expose on the one hand the ignorance of even leading bankers of the fundamental problems with which they had to deal, and on the other hand the lengths to which the financial power was prepared to go to retain control of the situation."

One must not forget to mention here that the best way that the Financiers found to stop the advancement of the Social Credit idea was the creation of political parties falsely bearing the name "Social Credit", to make people think that voting for a new party is sufficient to change the system, whereas what is needed is the education of the people (by having them subscribe to the "Michael Journal"), to force the elected representatives to serve the population, instead of serving the Financiers. Fortunately, all the so-called "Social Credit parties" are dead and buried now, but they did a lot of damage and spread confusion in the minds of the people while they existed.

"The psychological moment"
Douglas predicted that the present debt-money system of the Bankers would become unworkable and fall by itself, because of all of the unpayable debts that it creates. All the countries in the world are struggling with skyrocketing debts and heading for disaster, even though everybody knows these debts can never be paid off. Other factors announce the inevitable fall of the present system: automation, for example, which makes full employment impossible.

Douglas said that "a psychological moment" will come, a critical moment when the population, given the gravity of the situation, and despite all the power of the Financiers, will have suffered their debt-money system long enough, and will be disposed to study and accept Social Credit. Douglas wrote the following in 1924, in his book "Social Credit":

"The position will be tremendous in its importance. A comparatively short period will probably serve to decide whether we are to master the mighty economic and social machine that we have created, or whether it is to master us; and during that period a small impetus from a body of men who know what to do and how to do it, may make the difference between yet one more retreat into the Dark Ages, or the emergence into the full light of a day of such splendor as we can at present only envisage dimly. It is this necessity for the recognition of the psychological moment, and the fitting to that moment of appropriate action, which should be present in the minds of that small minority which is seized of the gravity of the present times."

Louis Even, at the end of an article written in 1970 and entitled "Social Credit, yes - Party, No", repeated this idea of Douglas:

"The Social Crediters of the Michael Journal maintain, along with Douglas, that as regards Social Credit, the most effective work to do is to enlighten the population on the monopoly of financial credit, attributing to it the bad fruits of which it is the cause in the lives of people, of families, of institutions; and, in front of these bad fruits, to expose the doctrine of genuine Social Credit, which is so brilliant and in keeping with common sense. They also endeavor to develop within themselves, and to also radiate, a Social Credit spirit, which is clearly in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel: a spirit of service and not of domination, not of an insatiable pursuit of money or material goods, which is of the same nature - with a less powerful means - as the spirit of the barons of High Finance.

"Whether the collapse of the present financial system, under the weight of its own enormities, or events that have been foretold many times by privileged souls - events one certainly cannot doubt of when one sees the present decadence of moral standards, apostasy, the paganization of affluent nations that used to be Christian - occur soon, in either case, the living or the survivors of those events won't be without a light to establish a social economic system worthy of its name."

The point to remember in all of this is that the present financial system, which creates money as a debt, is the main means of the Financiers to establish a one-world government. Debt finance is the bridge that leads us from a free society to complete dictatorship. And the only thing the Financiers fear, the only thing that can stop them in their plan of world conquest, is the reform of the present financial system, the establishment of an honest debt-free money system, along the lines of the Social Credit philosophy. Then one realizes all the importance of the Social Credit solution, and the importance of spreading it an making it known. This is why Soviet foreign Minister Molotow had said to Dr. Hawlett Johnson, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 30s: "We know all about Social Credit. It is the one theory in the world we fear."
Alain Pilote.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Dictators in the Empire's Employ by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:32:32 GMT

Dictators in the Empire's Employ
[col. writ. 11/18/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

With the teeth of the Pakistani dictatorship now bared, we are beginning to see a mirror image of most of U.S. history throughout the last century.

Although perhaps best seen in the vicious wars of Latin America, it is a fact that the U.S. government supported brutal, violent dictatorships on every continent, almost always against popular, and especially workers movements.

Although most Americans would be hard pressed to actually recall the names of 4 U.S. backed dictators of the 20th century, it is a safe bet that the people who tried to survive in those countries will remember them for the rest of their lives.

From Haiti's infamous Duvaliers, to Cuba's Batista, there were no dictators too wretched, too violent, too vicious for the U.S. to support.

There's a good reason why when President Lyndon B. Johnson took the Oval Office after John Kennedy's assassination, he told one of his aides, "We've been running a damned branch of Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean."*

That's because Washington was essentially internationalizing its program of repression and McCarthyism, according to at least one Latin American country. Scholar (and former diplomat) Clara Nieto wrote, in her remarkable 2003 work, Masters of War, the story of how the U.S. got almost the entire continent to go its way:

At the Tenth Inter-American Conference requested by {former State Dept. chief John} Dulles and held in Caracas in 1954, he easily persuaded the meeting to adopt a declaration condemning international communism and advocating hemispheric solidarity and mutual defense against "Communist aggression." The chancellor of Guatemala, Guillermo Toriella, warned that on "the pretext of combating Communism, fundamental principles of democracy can be contravened, violations of human rights justified, and the principle of non-intervention infringed upon." The declaration, he argued was "the internationalization of McCarthyism." The majority - all dictatorships - supported it; Argentina (under Peron) voted against it and Mexico abstained. Costa Rica did not attend the meeting, since Jose Figueres refused to participate in this "assembly of dictators in a country governed by the most brutal and corrupt of them all, General Perez Jimenez" {C. Nieto, pp.138-139}.

Thus, generations were subjected to the terrorism of their own governments, their own armies, paid, and trained by the Americans. These U.S. trained terrorists launched wars against their own people; students, teachers, trade unionists, writers, intellectuals, priests, Indians, and beyond.

Yet, that was then. What now?

Despite all the gas and rap about "freedom", "democracy", and the like, the U.S. is, once again, depending on a dictator who has essentially shut down the Supreme Court, whipped lawyers in the streets, waged fraudulent elections, exiled his political opponents, and ruled with an iron fist. The differences between Burma and Pakistan could be measured in inches.

Yet, none of this really matters to the White House. What matters is what has always mattered. That the dictator do the bidding of his imperial masters - the people be damned.

There's a reason why Latin America has elected predominantly anti American governments in the past decade, and it had nothing to do with the easy media fiction that Hugo Chavez made them do it. For millions of people, they remember the so called 'secret wars' waged by armed puppets of the Americans-and they want no more of it.

Dictatorship 2 -- Democracy 0.

--(c) '07 maj

*[Source: Nieto, Clara, Masters of War: Latin America and the U.S. Aggression (From the Cuban Revolution Through the Clinton Years) {New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003} ]

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, framed and in prison, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down soon. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, a new trial, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice.

Free Mumia!

For more on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal read:

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/19/18436405.php

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Whose seen anti-politics.net?

carlos-ity — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 01:31:17 GMT

If you're unfamiliar with this forum, check it out:
www.anti-politics.net/forum/

There's also an excelling listing of anti-authoritarian and anarchist info on the home portion of the website.

Lots of deep discussions and news/analysis stuff!

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Rule of Law?

Vince — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:35:28 GMT

In some politics related tribes there are often discussions about the "rule of law." Here is my 2 cents on this matter.

I wish for us to take a step away from the trees to possibly be able to see the forest.

I have long maintained that the "rule of law" is really the "rule of control", institutionalized in the time of old Greece with the establishment of the City States. This rule of law is a farce designed to maintain the current order of Patriarchal control which utilizes the "power over" dynamic as its primary tool. Over the millenia the "rule of law" has been repeatedly tweaked so that those who unjustly stole our cooperative way of living (controlling Patriarchs) could maintain their unjust system while providing a sense of fairness for those subject to the rules.

We are told the laws are to keep order. Who's order? We are led to believe that this is always the way it was, with a "power over" dynamic and tension and competition as the natural order. This is not how it always was and is not how it always will be..

This "power over" dynamic maintained through the "rule of law" replaced the "power with" cooperative model that predates our one sided handed down HIStory.

This is what we have learned from the remnants of the Minoan people of Crete who predate our modern history and lived in a wealthy, opulent, and sanitary "culture centered" civilization prior to being buried in HIStory, literally. These people had no weapons, fortifications, defenses, or any other power wielding systems or devises. They did not need them as they lived in cooperation with each other and nature. These people had no lower, middle, and upper classes or gender discrimination, as they were equals This civilization was buried in a firestorm and under ash after the volcano Thera blew its top and set the stage for the next era of humankind, the "power over" era of domination, violence, and control.

The "power over" dynamic has a low ceiling for potential compared to the "power with" model, or so game theory illustrates so well. We are possibly in the last throes of the "power over" era and may see its alloted time draw to a close in our lifetimes, as control begets control and eventually collapses under the illusionary constructs that prop it up. It is a house of marked cards awaiting its' full exposure as a thief and its' eventual certain demise.

Fairness under the rule of law is an illusionary concept as the Rule of law itself has as its primary directives the continued domination of the many by the few and the perpetuity of itself. How can there be fairness in an unfair unjust system? To find high value in the rule of law is to cast a silent vote for the current unnatural order of things today.

See these books for additional info
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler
Moving Heaven and Earth by Lucy Goodison
Sexual Peace by Michael Sky

posted in A is for Anarchy - 1 reply

An open discussion about Anarchy

RPMcMurphy — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:10:13 GMT

http://99thpercentile.tribe.net/thread/bc7e3b60-736d-4f9e-a3a4-87af1a13e095

Hi ... I moderate the 99th percentile tribe...
In an effort to icrease the diversity in discussions I am inviting other tribes to collaborate with us...
please join us in an open discussion about the contradictions and future of Anarchy

Thanks,
Mike

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Mumia Abu-Jamal: When Wars Backfire

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:37:00 GMT

When Wars Backfire [col. writ. 7/12/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

For most Americans, the Iraq War is a wrap.

Polls taken today overwhelmingly reveal the deeply held belief that the Iraq War was an error of epic proportions, and barely a third of those polled now claim to support the policies of the incumbent president, George W. Bush.

With the exception of a few true believers, most folks want to push that era blithely into the past, to be forgotten, if not forgiven.

That deeply held belief is now echoed by all segments of society, even among elites who were previously silent, or even supported the war.

The 'stay the course' crowd has been whittled down nearly to the bone. Witness the presidential ambitions of Sen. John McCain. His joined-at-the- hip support of the Bush administration has cost him dearly, as his poll numbers surge--downwards.

Recently, British newspaper and TV journalist, Jonathan Freedland, gave some sense of the breadth of opposition to the administration in a June 2007 essay in the New York Review of Books. Freedman wrote:

"One of the few foreign policy achievements of the Bush Administration has been the creation of a near consensus among those who study International affairs, a shared view that stretches, however improbably, from Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, from the antiwar protestors on the streets of San Francisco to the well-upholstered office of former secretary of state James Baker. This new consensus holds that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of has reduced America's standing in the world and made the less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated. Paid-up members of the nation's foreign policy establishment, those who have held some of the most senior offices in the land, speak in a language once confined to the T-shirts of placard-wielding demonstrators. They rail against deception and dishonesty, imperialism and corruption. The only dispute between them is over the size and depth of the hole into which Bush has led the country he pledged to serve." (From: Freedland, J., "Bush's Amazing Achievement" , NYROB, June 14, 2007, p. 16)

His words had an almost eerie quality to them when the news recently reported that Al-Qaeda is stronger now, especially with the influx of recruits, than at any time since 9/11.

If, after 4 1/2 years of war, your enemy is stronger, then to claim to be "winning in Iraq" (as some Bushites do), is a kind of madness, if not profound self-delusion.

Wars either weaken combatants, or strengthens them.

As journalist Larry Everest has reported in his 2004 book, Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 2004), the highest levels of government sought to use any lie to tie the Hussein regime with Al-Qaeda, including sending then CIA head, James Woolsey, to London with fake 'evidence' to get the Brits on board. As Everest wrote:

Woolsey then began raising various charges against Iraq: that Iraqi agents met with Mohammed Atta, the alleged "ringleader" of the September 11 attacks: that Iraq provided fake passports for all 19 hijackers; that Al Qaeda members traveled to Baghdad in 1998 to celebrate Saddam Hussein's birthday; that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members; and that Iraq was linked to anthrax mailed to U.S. Senators in October 2001. There was no real proof for any of these charges...in fact it later turned out that the most likely source for the anthrax letters was someone associated with the U.S. military. Yet these charges were widely reported in the mainstream U.S. media nonetheless. (p.12)

And now, with the U.S. Army recruiting down, Al Qaeda is flourishing, mostly in the country that the U.S. claims as 'ally', Pakistan.

Amazing.

If this is winning, what does failure look like?

--(c) '07maj

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down this summer. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

For more on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal read:

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/2007/07/41176.shtml

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked (Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:08:20 GMT

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

By Steven Argue

The following is the first in a series of ten articles I have written answering the top ten myths being circulated by those who advocate execution or continued prison for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

In the preliminary hearings, Mumia made requests for a line-up. This is not the kind of move one does if they are guilty. Part of Mumia’s reasoning was that eyewitnesses that were lying would have a harder time with their conscience if they actually saw him in the flesh.

Interestingly enough, the prosecution didn’t want a line-up and argued their point saying that none of the witnesses had actually seen Mumia shoot Faulkner. Judge Sabo denied the line-ups on these grounds. Yet two “eyewitnesses”, Cynthia White and Robert Chobert, did claim they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, so Mumia was unfairly denied a line-up.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number One…
Prosecution Star Witness Cynthia White

Despite the false claims by the prosecution used to deny a line-up, Cynthia White did testify that she saw Mumia with a gun in his hand, that she saw him shoot Faulkner twice in the back, and that she saw Mumia standing over Faulkner as shots were being fired. Overwhelming physical and eyewitness evidence proves that this was perjured testimony.

The prosecution’s version of events, largely dependent on White’s testimony, claims that Mumia stood over Faulkner repeatedly shooting and missing until he hit Faulkner’s head. Yet the physical evidence says this is not true. No divots or marks were left on the sidewalk from these missed shots. Later articles will explore this and other physical evidence further.

As a prosecution witness, Cynthia White gave two extremely different versions of events at two different trials. One version was given at William Cook’s trial, and a differing version at Mumia’s trial. At Cook’s trial she said there was a passenger in Cook’s VW. At Mumia’s trial she claimed there was no passenger.

In the case of Mumia, eyewitnesses have said that the passenger in Cook’s VW was one of the actual killers. Yet Mumia was not riding in the VW and the prosecution claims that Mumia was the lone killer. So in Mumia’s trial, it was useful for the prosecution to disappear the passenger from the testimony, despite White’s other testimony that there was a passenger. These two differing versions, obviously including perjured testimony, were cynically used by prosecutors to fit differing prosecutions.

There is also physical evidence of a passenger in the VW, evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years. That evidence was an ID found on the body of Officer Faulkner. It was in the name of Arnold Howard. As a result of this evidence, Arnold Howard was arrested by the police and tested to see if he had fired a gun the night of the shooting. Arnold Howard told the police that he had loaned his ID to Kenneth Freeman. (Transcript for August 11, 1995, pp. 130-131.)

In addition, Arnold Howard testified at that post conviction hearing that Kenneth Freeman was also arrested that night, and that Howard personally witnessed a woman picking Freeman out of a line-up. Like Arnold Howard’s ID, police reports of this arrest and line-up of Kenneth Freeman have also apparently been suppressed, but in this case have never been released.

The VW driver, William Cook, also placed Kenneth Freeman as the passenger in the VW. In Cook’s signed declaration of what happened he also says Freeman was carrying a .38 that night. Cook went on to say, in that declaration, that after the shooting,

“Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] talked about a plan to kill Faulkner. He told me that he was armed on that night and participated in the shooting. He was connected and knew all kinds of people. I used to ask him about it but he talked but never said much. He wasn't a talker. I didn't see Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] for a while after that. Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] had been in Germany in the army. That night he was wearing his green army jacket.”

Eyewitness William Singletary says that a man in a green army jacket got out of the VW, shot Faulkner, and ran. Mumia Abu-Jamal was not wearing an army jacket that night and not riding in the VW. Nor did Mumia run away, he was shot and ran nowhere. The jacket Mumia was wearing is in evidence and it is a red quilted ski jacket with a couple blue stripes. Nor was William Cook, the driver of the VW, wearing a green army jacket.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Besides Singletary and Cook, five other eyewitnesses also put a man in a green army jacket on the scene. These were stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Robert Magiltan, Michael Scanlan, and Arnold Beverly, who has confessed to being one of two people that killed Faulkner. Beverly states in his confession that he was also wearing a green army jacket that night as well.

In addition, the prosecution’s version of events denies anyone running from the scene.
Six eyewitnesses contradict this by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooter or shooters. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook.

So the prosecution’s star witness testified for the prosecution that there was a passenger at Cook’s trial, and said there was no passenger at Mumia’s trial. Eyewitness testimony and physical evidence suppressed by the prosecution shows there was a passenger wearing a green army jacket that shot Faulkner and ran. That passenger, Kenneth Freeman, murdered Officer Faulkner either by himself or with the help of Arnold Beverly. On May 14, 1985, according to the testimony of Arnold Howard, Kenneth Freeman’s naked corpse was found outside in the cold handcuffed. No investigation was carried out on Freeman’s death and the coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack.

So it is established, with her contradictory stories, that Cynthia White was not telling the truth. This would be bad enough. But, in fact, none of the nine eyewitnesses that testified at the trial and subsequent hearings can remember seeing Cynthia White at the immediate scene at all. None, this includes the other prosecution witnesses.

William Singletary states that he saw her earlier down the street. When he saw her she said, “Hey, how you doing? It's cold out here.” Then noticing his car she said “a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado, 1982 model, wow, that's a great car! You ain't that bad-looking either. But I don't date black guys.” To which Singletary says he responded, “And I don't date prostitutes.” Singletary says that she then walked down the street and didn’t actually see the shooting. ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

In fact, Cynthia White confessed to both Pamela Jenkins and Yvette Williams that she did not see the shooting and that the police put the screws to her to lie. In addition, a mountain of testimony shows a clear pattern by the police to try to get similar perjured testimony from other people.

In a hearing after the trial Pamela Jenkins testified, “I know that Cynthia White worked as a prostitute in the Center City area, specifically at Locust and 13th Street, during 1980 and 1981, and that she was a prostitute, police informant, and turned tricks for the police officers in the district.”

If in fact Cynthia White was a police informant, and this information was withheld from the defense by the prosecution, that alone would be legal grounds for a new trial, but it gets much worse.

Jenkins testified at hearings in 1997 that Police Officer Thomas Ryan tried to make her testify that she saw Mumia shoot Officer Faulkner at the original trial, even though she was not at the scene of the shooting. Jenkins, 15 and a prostitute, was the girlfriend of Officer Ryan at that time. She also testified that she worked both as a prostitute for police and as a police informant for the corrupt Center City Police.

Jenkins also testified that Cynthia White told her in late 1981 that she was also being pressured to testify against Mumia, and that White was afraid for her life.

In a signed affidavit Jenkins states,

“Tom Ryan, Richard Ryan and other police officers pressured me and asked me if I had seen the shooting of the police officer and whether I had been in the area of the shooting that night. When I said 'no' they pressured (me) some more and asked me was I really sure that I hadn't been on the street that night and seen the shooting. It was clear to me that Tom Ryan and Richard Ryan wanted me to perjure myself and say that I had seen Jamal shoot the police officer."

Despite showing a clear intention by the police to frame Mumia, no jury has been allowed to hear Jenkins’ testimony in Mumia’s case. Not only is Pamela Jenkin's testimony essential evidence of a deliberate police conspiracy to frame Mumia by manufacturing perjured evidence, it also helps to destroy the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White.

Jenkins' credibility has, however, been bolstered by the fact that she was a key witness used to unravel the massive police corruption in Center City District. Her testimony was instrumental in reversing the decisions of hundreds of cases and helped lead to the removal of the entire team of cops that led the “investigation” of Mumia’s case due to their corruption and mob connections.

Other eyewitnesses have said the same thing as Jenkins. In a signed affidavit Yvette Williams has stated,

“I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it.”

Later in the Affidavit Yvette Williams states,

“When Lucky [Cynthia White] told me she didn’t even see who shot Officer Faulkner, I asked her why she was “lying on that man” [Mumia Abu-Jamal]. She told me it was because for the police and vice threatened her life. Additionally, the police were giving her money for tricks. “The way she talked, we were talking “G’s” [$1,000.00]. She also said she was terrified of what the police would do to her if she didn’t say that Mumia shot Officer Faulkner. According to Lucky, the police told her they would consolidate all her cases and send her “up” (Muncy), a women’s prison, for a long time if she didn’t testify to what they told her to say. Lucky told me she had a lot of open cases and out-of-state warrants and was scared of going to Muncy. She was scared that her pimp “would get pissed off” at all the money he was losing when she was locked up, and off the street. She was afraid that when she got out he would beat her up or kill her.”

According to legal papers filed by the defense,

“in the days after the shooting, [White] was arrested at least twice for prostitution. Her picture was posted in the 6th District with instructions for arresting officers to 'Contact Homicide'. Each time police picked White up and took her statement, she revised her story [on Faulkner's shooting]. Without explanation, bench warrants against her were not prosecuted.”

Pamela Jenkins has publicly asked Cynthia White to tell the truth stating:

“We know we can bring this down to a nutshell if you just come forward. We've all lost a lot by coming forward, I've lost somebody I love dearly... Just do it this one time, one favor, that's not asking a lot. Then maybe you can clean up your past, like the rest of us are doing.”

The prosecution does seem to be afraid of Cynthia White coming forward to tell the truth, and have presented false testimony of evidence that she is dead. In a hearing in Judge Sabo’s court, a Philadelphia police detective testified that the FBI had "authenticated" that a corpse had the same fingerprints as White. Yet the fingerprints the DA withheld at that time, and later finally produced for the now cremated corpse, don’t match the fingerprints of Cynthia White.

Cynthia White’s own mother stated that the same corpse was not Cynthia White. Other eyewitnesses, that the defense attempted to have testify, testimony denied by Sabo, had seen Cynthia White alive and walking around during the time she was supposed to be dead. Yet instead of hearing defense witnesses that stated that Cynthia White was alive, the only testimony Sabo would allow was the false testimony of the Philadelphia detective claiming “authenticated” fingerprints. Sabo snapped, “As far as I’m concerned she’s dead. I’m making a ruling. We’re finished.” Evidence has never meant much in Judge Sabo’s court, if the prosecution says she’s dead, she’s dead.

So the evidence on Cynthia White shows that she could not have seen the shooting; that Mumia was wrongly denied his right to a line-up; that the police intimidated White and others to testify against Mumia; that the police that “investigated” Mumia have been kicked off the force for corruption; that Cynthia White had a motive to lie; that the police possibly withheld information that Cynthia White was a police informant; that the DA illegally withheld physical evidence for 13 years that showed that White’s testimony was perjured and that showed that Mumia did not commit the crime; that the DA knowingly used testimony from White that was perjured; and that claims of the prosecution and police were accepted without evidence or witness rebuttal in Judge Sabo’s court.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number One, Pamela Jenkins

I include Pamela Jenkins in this list, not because the “fry Mumia” camp includes her among the eyewitnesses that supposedly saw Mumia kill Faulkner, but because they don’t, and why they don’t. As was shown in the section on Cynthia White, the police tried to pressure here into testifying that she saw Mumia kill Faulkner, even though Jenkins was not at the scene of the shooting, but Jenkins refused to do it. The honesty of Jenkins is the only reason why the prosecution did not use her, and this also why she is not mentioned in the “fry Mumia” literature as seeing Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Two, Veronica Jones

Veronica Jones also is not mentioned in the fry Mumia literature, but she is also a very important eyewitness. Jones, while being called by the defense in 1982, testified for the police and prosecution.

Before the trial, Veronica Jones gave a completely different version of events than was contained in an earlier police report. In her original version of events, contained in a report she gave to police, Veronica Jones said she saw two men running from the scene. Yet at the trial the two men running were missing from her testimony. This came as a complete surprise to the defense because Mumia’s supposed attorney, Anthony Jackson, did not even bother to interview witnesses before the trial. Earlier in the trial Mumia was denied his legal rights when his attempt to fire Anthony Jackson was denied by Judge Sabo.

Jones retracted her 1982 court testimony in 1996, saying that her original police report was the truth, and that she was coerced by the police into saying she didn’t see anybody running from the scene. She gave this testimony despite being forcefully reminded by Judge Sabo that her testimony could be seen as an admission of perjury and could land her seven years in prison. She was in fact arrested from the witness stand, but for a bounced check from a different state, being served with an insufficient warrant by out of state New Jersey State Troopers.

Despite the police harassment, and a review of her entire criminal history on the witness stand, including her life as a prostitute, Jones brought her children to court to learn from her mistakes. She explained that she was relieved to be setting things straight because what she did to Mumia with her false testimony had been eating her up inside over all those years.

On the stand, admitting to perjury, Jones explained that she was awaiting trial for an unrelated robbery charge in 1982 when police detectives approached her in her cell offering to give her a deal by changing her story as a witness in Mumia’s case. She had originally stated that she heard two shots, looked around the corner, and saw two men running from the scene. The two men running fit the version of William Singletary where he saw someone else shoot Mumia and run, but it didn’t fit the police/prosecution story being woven against Mumia. Mumia was unable to run because he was shot.

She explained that the deal offered by the police was that she could go to prison for five to ten years and loose custody of her two young children or she could get out of the predicament by lying for the police saying that nobody was running from the scene.

Despite the importance of the testimony of Veronica Jones in Mumia’s case, both in corroborating eyewitnesses that say the actual killer or killers ran from the scene, and as another witness testifying to a clear pattern of police intimidation to acquire falsified testimony, Sabo ruled in 1996 against her testimony being heard by a new jury trial.

Likewise, in the original trial, Sabo ruled in favor of prosecution objections when Veronica Jones was already admitting to being the target of the police in their attempts at gaining false testimony:

"I had got locked up [together with other prostitutes] I think it was in January [1982]. […] I think sometime after that incident. They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it, intentionally. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that."

As Jackson continued this questioning Veronica Jones said, “we had brought up Cynthia [White]’s name and they told us we can work the area [as prostitutes] if we tell them [what the police wanted to hear].” At this point Judge Sabo ruled in favor of prosecutor McGill’s objections and would only allow further questions of Veronica Jones on what she saw the night of the shooting. As from the beginning of the trial, ruling after ruling has declared, police misconduct is not open to scrutiny and a court of law is no place for evidence of Mumia’s innocence.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Two, Michael Scanlon

The use of Michael Scanlon’s name in “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder is nothing but the purest cynicism. Michael Scanlon did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner, and could not say that the person he saw shoot Faulkner was Mumia. At the trial, when asked by prosecutor Mcgill, “Are you able to identify anybody, either the driver, or the man who ran over and shot the police officer?” Scanlon replied, “No, sir.” (trial transcript, 6/25/82).

Michael Scanlon’s testimony actually puts further holes in the prosecution’s story by placing someone in a green army jacket in the immediate scene of the shooting around the VW. According to the prosecution only Mumia, Cook, and Faulkner were present at this location, but the evidence shows that one or two people were present wearing green army jackets that killed Faulkner before Mumia arrived. The jackets Mumia and Cook were wearing are in evidence and they do not resemble green army jackets.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Three, Albert Magiltan

Like Scanlon, Magiltan is used in the “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder, and like Scanlan, Magilton did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner. When Magiltan was asked at the trial, "you don't know who fired the shot at him, do you?" Albert Magiltan responded, "I never said I did, no." (trial transcript, 6/25/82). Magiltan didn’t even see the shooting.

Magilton did, however, report to defense investigators that he saw a person run from the parking lot wearing a green army jacket. This fits the confession of Arnold Beverly, who says he ran out from the parking lot, wearing a green army jacket, to shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitness Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Three, Police Officer Stephen Trombetta

Police Officer Stephen Trombetta reported that the suspect was wearing a green army jacket as opposed to Mumia’s red and blue ski jacket.

In addition, Trombetta rode with Mumia in the van to the hospital. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, the senior officer on the scene in charge of the Mumia “investigation”, reported that on that van ride Mumia had confessed to shooting Faulkner. Giordano was removed from the Philadelphia Police and prosecuted for corruption immediately after Mumia’s trial. P.O. Trembetta was with Mumia during that entire van ride and, in direct contradiction to Giordano’s claim of a confession, reported that Mumia made no comment.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Four, William Singletary

While William Singletary did sign a statement saying that Mumia did it, he later stated that he signed that statement under the duress of police threats. Of that statement he says, “That's what they made me say, I stayed in there [in a police interrogation room] from 4:30 to 9:30 a.m. and when I left, I felt like I had been raped.”

William Singletary has since stated, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

Despite signing the statement, Singletary refused to lie for the police during the trial. Yet the “fry Mumia” camp often cite Singletary as an eyewitness against Mumia stating that his statement (that he says the police typed up and told him to sign) was so similar to those of the other “eyewitnesses” that his first signed statement had to be the truth and that what Singletary has been insisting for the past 25 years is a lie.

Singletary says that he is willing to take a lie detector test, but he is afraid of coming to Philadelphia. He says the Philadelphia police harassed his business to the point that it went under while also threatening him and warning him to get out of town. He did eventually move to North Carolina and says, “I'm not coming to Philadelphia unless y'all got Wells Fargo and Lords of London" for protection.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Four, Robert Chobert

In his initial report taken by Inspector Alfonzo Giordono, five minutes after the shooting, Robert Chobert stated that the man that shot Mumia ran away. Mumia, who was shot at the scene, never did any running.

Later, Robert Chobert changed his story to that of the prosecution. The shooter no longer was running away and the jury was never allowed to hear Chobert’s original report.

Robert Chobert, a convicted arsonist that was driving on a suspended license and was on felony probation at the time of the shooting, has also recanted his testimony according to a sworn statement by Mark Newman.

At the time of Mumia’s trial, Chobert was on felony probation for the firebombing of a school. Revocation of that probation could have meant over 20 years in prison. Chobert was in fact violating that probation by unlawfully driving his taxi on a suspended license that night. Thus, Chobert would have been easily manipulated by the police and/or by the prosecution.

Under penalty of perjury, Mark Newman stated in a signed affidavit that, “Chobert told me that he did not see anyone standing over a prone Officer Faulkner, firing shots at the officer. Chobert said that what actually happened was that he was sitting in his taxi when he heard gunfire.” And that he did not actually see the shooting.

According to that signed affidavit of Mark Newman, Chobert didn't see Mumia shoot Faulkner, wasn't parked behind Faulkner as he said he was at the trial, and that Chobert gave the police that false testimony they wanted to avoid having his parole revoked.

Physical evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, proves that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner's as Chobert claimed in court. This evidence includes 31 recently released photos taken by photojournalist Pedro Polakoff just minutes after the shooting. These photos clearly show that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner’s police car as Chobert had claimed in court.

This corroborates the testimony of Mark Newman when he states, "Chobert told me that on December 9, 1981, he had actually been parked, in his taxi, on 13th Street, north of Locust (contradicting his trial testimony that he was parked behind Officer Faulkner's police car on Locust St., east of 13th Street.)" This is also relevant to Chobert not having the vantage for seeing the shooting.

Newman’s testimony is also corroborated by Chobert’s legal troubles and a clear pattern by the police to offer similar deals to other witnesses including three eyewitnesses, Pamela Jenkins, William Singletary, and Veronica Jones, stating publicly, and Cynthia White also stating privately, that they were coerced, threatened, or otherwise offered deals by the cops to give false testimony.

The police officer that got the “identification” of Mumia from Robert Chobert was Alfonzo Giordano. In the original police report that has the shooter running from the scene, Robert Chobert is said by Giordano to say it was the guy from MOVE that did it. Giordano was removed from the force and prosecuted for corruption related to the mob, a corruption probe that turned over many other police/prosecution convictions. In addition, Giordano had been involved in political operations against Philadelphia MOVE and the Black Panther Party. As such, Giordano would have instantly recognized Mumia, a former Black Panther and an independent journalist that had exposed police wrong doing against MOVE.

In a revealing set of moves Giordano was never called as a witness at Mumia’s trial. This despite Giordano providing testimony at Mumia’s preliminary hearing of a “confession” in the van, despite his being the senior officer at the scene, despite his supposed firsthand identification of a witness, and despite his testimony of finding the “murder weapon”. During the trial Giordano was removed from active duty and assigned to a desk. The first working day after the trial was over Giordano resigned from the Philadelphia police force. In 1986 Giordano copped a plea on federal charges based on receiving tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payoffs during the 1979-80 period but didn’t spend any time in jail.

In addition to Giordono’s corruption, under racist Police Chief Frank Rizzo, Giordono was in charge of the Stake Out Unit of the Philadelphia Police that carried out repression against the Black Panther Party from 1968 –1970. Giordono also played a supervisory role in the 1977-78 police barricade and attack on the MOVE organization under Mayor Frank Rizzo. That police attack had followed earlier murders by the Philadelphia police of MOVE members and followed a long starvation blockade by the Philadelphia Police against the MOVE headquarters. In the police attack two MOVE members were shot, nine MOVE members were framed by the Philadelphia Police, MOVE children were stolen, and, as film footage shows, Delbert Africa was kicked and stomped by the police as he lay on the ground. In addition, Officer Ramp was shot and killed.

While nine MOVE members were railroaded to prison for the death of Officer Ramp, the evidence does not fit. The one bullet that killed Ramp came from behind and had a downward trajectory. Yet Ramp was facing the MOVE headquarters where MOVE members were in the basement and any bullets would have had an upward trajectory and hit him from in front.

Presiding over the kangaroo court that convicted the MOVE 9 was Judge Malmed. Shortly after the trial and conviction of the MOVE 9, Mumia, as an independent journalist, called in to a talk radio show where he asked Judge Malmed, “Who shot James Ramp?” Judge Malmed honestly answered, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

In the attack on MOVE the police and Mayor Rizzo claimed that the first shots came from the MOVE headquarters, but the independent eyewitnesses including a number of journalists present, confirm what MOVE members and the physical evidence says, that the first shot came from across the street and not from the MOVE headquarters.

At Mayor Frank Rizzo’s victory press conference on the 1978 police attack, Frank Rizzo directly threatened Mumia Abu-Jamal when Mumia asked him a question. Mumia was present as a freelance journalist and asked the gloating Rizzo, “What about the brutality?” Instead of answering Mumia’s question Rizzo responded angrily with a threat: “They believe what you write, and what you say, and it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do.”

In addition to commanding this attack against MOVE, Giordono, earlier, then under Police Chief Rizzo, carried out surveillance of leftists including the Black Panther Party.

With Mumia having been a former member of the Black Panther Party and a high profile critic of police actions against MOVE, there is no question that officer Giordono would have instantly recognized Mumia at the crime scene. This would be one of the motives for Giordono to want to falsify testimony and other evidence to pin the murder on Mumia.

A number of other well-known political frame-ups have occurred in the United States. The prosecution of Mumia fits the pattern of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program against the Black Panther Party, where local law enforcement worked with the FBI in murdering some BPP leaders in cold blood, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago, and knowingly framed and prosecuted other innocent BPP members, such as Geronimo ji Jagga in LA who spent 30 years in prison before he was exonerated of the false charges against him and freed.

A possible additional motive for framing Mumia can be found in the confession of Arnold Beverly. Beverly stated, “I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.”

Things that Beverly said are corroborated by, among other things, police corruption, three separate FBI investigations of police corruption in the Center City area at the time, evidence of fear that Faulkner was an FBI informant, evidence that Faulkner was an FBI informant, and the murder of other witnesses involved in cases against the Center City Police at that time. One of those murders was of Bertram Schlein, an eyewitness that testified against Central Division Chief John DeBenedetto. A suspect in that murder was Kenneth Schwartz, a former police officer and reported associate of Inspector Alfonzo Giordono.

A former Philadelphia Police Officer turned mob hit man, Ronald Previte, has testified as government informant on mob killings. Previte stated that during his ten years as a Philadelphia cop he “learned more about being a crook” than any other time in his life.

If the police were in fact involved in the murder of Police Officer Faulkner, this would mean that they would not be interested in finding the actual killer. They would want to pin the murder on someone else, and who better in the eyes of Giordano than his journalistic critic, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Whatever the exact motive or motives, the mountain of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case proves that the criminal “justice” system both had (and has) no interest in finding the real killer or killers while at the same time desiring to execute an innocent man.

It is funny that when presented with this evidence, “fry Mumia” fanatics counter that if it was indeed a frame-up, why was it so sloppy. Why would Giordano have included that the shooter was running away in his original report? The irony is that if the frame-up wasn’t so sloppy we’d be asked why the case is so airtight. Yet I think that answers to the question of why there are so many loose ends lies in the fact that the police were accustomed to being sloppy and getting away with it. Even though the truth of the shooter running away was included in the original report, this was no problem for the police or prosecution, since the judge did not allow the original report into court anyway. All that was allowed was the lie that Chobert saw the shooting and that it was Mumia that did it.

The deeper irony is that when the “fry Mumia” fanatics admit that there are so many loose ends, they are admitting that Mumia is innocent by the essential legal standard of “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Five, Dessie Hightower

College student Dessie Hightower saw someone running from the scene. This is what Hightower told police 80 minutes after the shooting, and Dessie Hightower has never changed his story. Hightower’s report of one or more people running is the same as eyewitnesses William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook. This corroborates William Cook when he said, “Freeman ran from the scene after Officer Faulkner was shot”. It also corroborates William Singletary when he says, “The passenger [Freeman] in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]” and ran. Hightower also said that he saw no gun in Mumia’s hand.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Five, Robert Harkins

Harkins was not seen as a credible witness by the prosecution at the trial. Harkins was never called to testify at the trial against Mumia by the prosecution. Yet in “fry Mumia” literature the name of Robert Harkins has begun to occasionally pop up as an additional supposed eyewitness to Mumia shooting Faulkner. Like other supposed eyewitnesses of the “fry Mumia” crowd that “saw Mumia shoot Faulkner”, Harkins did not identify Mumia as the shooter.

The Harkins testimony is at odds with the physical evidence and that of all of the other eyewitnesses, including prosecution witnesses. Harkins, a known child molester, could have easily been manipulated by the police and prosecution, as was done with other eyewitnesses. If so, the police and prosecution succeeded in destroying a potential defense witness, but did not produce a useful witness for their frame-up.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Six, Terri Maurer-Carter

Terri Maurer-Carter, an official court stenographer in the courts where Mumia was framed, has come forward stating in a signed affidavit,

“Judge Sabo and another person were engaged in conversation. Judge Sabo was discussing the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. During the course of that conversation, I heard Judge Sabo say, ‘Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger.’ There were three people present when Judge Sabo made that remark, including myself.”

These words Maurer-Carter heard from Sabo sum up the blatant nature of the racist and political crime carried out by Sabo, the prosecution, and the police against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Conclusion

There are a large number of other important eyewitnesses that will be looked at in future articles, but let us review a few key points of what has already been established.

“Fry Mumia” fanatics claim that Mumia shot Faulkner. Yet, not a single eyewitness saw Mumia shoot Faulkner. Cynthia White and Robert Chobert claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, but neither saw the shooting. Michael Scanlon, Robert Harkins, and Robert Magiltan, despite “fry Mumia” lies, never claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Four eyewitnesses say in no uncertain terms that Mumia did not shoot Faulkner. These are William Singletary, William Cook, Arnold Beverly, and Mumia Abu Jamal.

Five eyewitnesses contradict the prosecution’s version of events by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooters or shooter. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, and William Cook. The prosecution version of events denies anyone running from the scene.

Five eyewitnesses have stated that they were threatened, coerced, or otherwise offered favors for testimony against Mumia. These are Veronica Jones, William Singletary, Pamela Jenkins, Cynthia White, and Robert Chobert.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Yet all evidence points to one or two men on the scene wearing green army jackets shooting Faulkner. Seven eyewitnesses saw a green army jacket. Those that saw green army-jackets were William Singletary, William Cook, stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Michael Scanlan, Robert Magiltan, and Arnold Beverly.

Kenneth Freeman, the real killer, or one of the real killers, was linked to the crime scene by physical evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years.

Not only did nobody see Mumia shoot Faulkner, the body of evidence shows overwhelming prosecutorial, police, and judicial misconduct pointing to a clear frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and backing Mumia’s claim that he is innocent.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down this summer. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

This is the first in a series of ten articles on the top ten “fry Mumia” myths that will be published at Liberation News.

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Copyright Liberation News, noncommercial verbatim distribution of this article in its entirety, including this notice, is allowed without special permission. Publication in any commercial form may require payment and requires special permission.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Anarchist Gathering in Albuquerque July 20-22

Bozo — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:00:41 GMT

I'm still deciding if I can make this... If I do, I'll probably have rideshare space for 1 (comfy) or 2 (cramped)...

Autonomists for Democracy in Albuquerque
http:://adacollective.org
albuquerqueautonomist@lists.riseup.net
www.myspace.com/albuquerqueautonomist

Dear organization/collective,

you are invited to join the ADA Collective of Albuquerque, New Mexico in a
weekend camping retreat with other
anarchist/anti-authoritarian/horizontalist collectives of the Rocky
Mountain and Southwest region on July 20, 21, and 22. The purpose of this
second annual summit is to familiarize collectives of the region, share
skills, and grow through networking and learning. The campsite will be San
Lorenzo Canyon, which is about 1-2 hours from Albuquerque and close to
Socorro, New Mexico. We will be meeting on Friday
and Saturday in the afternoon at the house of a collective member in the
city and carpooling down to the campsite. Directions will be sent to
interested parties upon reply and here is a link about the campsite for
reference: www.explorenm.com/hikes/SanLorenzo/.

Collectives are encouraged to prepare skill shares and bring contact
information for networking. There will be some provisions available, but
please bring as much of your own as possible (food, tents, sleeping bags,
water, TP).

Albuquerque's climate is usually sunny and dry, with low relative
humidity. Brilliant sunshine defines the region, averaging more than 300
days a year; periods of variably mid and high-level cloudiness temper the
sun at other times. Extended cloudiness is rare. The city has four
distinct seasons, but the heat and cold are mild compared to the extremes
that occur more commonly in other parts of the country.

We would like to see as many collectives represented as possible so please
tell your friends and spread the word. If you know you will be coming or
you think you might, please contact us at the above contacts with your
group?s name, (a) possible skill share(s), and any questions or concerns
you may have.

With love and furious resistance,

Julian
ADA collective
Secretary of Networking for April-May
Anarcho-Cycle ABQ Mechanic
adacollective.org
burningphoenix@riseup.net
505-898-227920

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Pacific Northwest anti-war activists up the ante by blocking military shipments to Iraq

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 23:21:25 GMT

Pacific Northwest anti-war activists up the ante by blocking military shipments to Iraq

by Linda Averill

Freedom Socialist Newspaper, Vol. 28, No. 3, June-July 2007
www.socialism. com

A new breed of struggle is flowering in the Northwest anti-war movement. Its aim: to stop public ports from being used for export of war materials. Activists in Washington state are evolving from demonstrators and lobbyists into direct actors against the war masters, blocking streets and facing arrest as needed.

This development isn’t happening in a vacuum. A product of anger over congressional inaction on the war and repulsion at the militarization of U.S. society, it is also inspired by a rising resistance movement among GIs.

A statement from the Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) puts it this way: "The weapons shipments, and the use of our public property to prolong and supply the war in Iraq, have made us complicit in crimes against humanity. We refuse to be complicit any longer."

The first action took place last year in Olympia, near Fort Lewis. Participants blocked entrance to their port to stop the Army from shipping war materials.

In 2007, activists declared victory when the Army announced it was going elsewhere. The new location turned out to be Tacoma, 30 miles north of Olympia. Students from the nearby University of Puget Sound, military veterans, teachers, a city councilman, and many others quickly sprang into action, aided by organizers of the blockades in Olympia. As Tacoma protester Leah Coakley said, "We will not serve as a pit stop for the war machine."

A cause catches fire.

Campaign stalwart Molly Gibbs offers insight into the shift in thinking of those involved. Gibbs, who works in high schools to counter military recruitment efforts, is no newcomer to politics. On the war, she has e-mailed, lobbied and written letters to congressional representatives like Adam Smith, she tells the FS, "until I’m blue in the face."

But this year, Fort Lewis was the scene of the high-profile case involving Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to openly refuse to serve in Iraq. His defiance, amplified by an effective defense effort, inspired many anti-war activists, including Gibbs.

In January, she helped organize a tribunal to publicize his case. She then left for Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress again. When her group tried to meet with U.S. Senator Patty Murray and got the runaround, it was the last straw. "I was so disgusted, so angry," Gibbs says.

>From that experience, she concluded that a different strategy was needed. "I’m done dealing with my congressional representatives, " she says. "It is in our hands. We have to do something."

Opportunity came in March, when the military moved its port operations to Tacoma. Members of several groups mobilized, including Students for a Democratic Society, United for Peace of Pierce County, and the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace. They held rallies, publicized their actions to the media, and lined the streets to take a stand.

On March 10, police used violence to break their lines, firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd. Protesters refused to back down, and Gibbs was among several people arrested for stepping over police lines to deliver a "Citizens’ Injunction to Halt the Shipment of Military Material to Iraq." When soldiers with the Stryker Brigade rode by one evening, many of them waved and gave the thumbs-up to the anti-war contingent.

On to Aberdeen.

The Army ship sailed, but when the dust had cleared, Tacoma had spent $500,000 on police protection. Who would pay — the port or the Pentagon?

While that question lingered, the military moved its shipping operations to Aberdeen, 50 miles from Olympia near the Pacific Coast. PMR quickly spread word and headed west.

Military officials cordoned off neighborhood streets and called in police reinforcements from across the region. The military racked up another huge bill and angered local residents, who resented seeing their town become an armed camp.

Sparked by these examples, similar efforts and solidarity actions are spreading. In March, 100 students occupied a military recruitment office in New York City to express support and, in April, resisters blocked a port in Oakland, California.

Many campaigners have been charged with crimes. In the Northwest, a mistrial was declared on March 29 in the case of the "Oly 22," who were arrested in 2006. Public support is being mobilized now for those arrested in Tacoma.

Grow the resistance!

How strongly this movement will take root is uncertain. Those who are part of it harbor no illusions about the challenges ahead. The Army is operating in greater secrecy, keeping protesters on their toes. There are court battles ahead, and police violence to face. Gibbs mentions the need for more community training, strategy development, and reinforcements.

However, she is motivated by knowing one thing for certain: as long as the war continues, "the death and destruction is only going to get worse."

Information about how to help the campaign is available on several web-sites, including www.omjp.org and www.ufppc.org.

Distributed by Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

The Fourth is Independence From Imperialism Day

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 23:20:23 GMT

The Fourth is Independence From Imperialism Day

By Steven Argue

Today is a celebration of a revolution against imperialism, that being the American Revolution against British imperialism. Today this holiday is all too often seen as a day of nationalist celebration of the United States, the biggest imperialist power in the world. Yet the true roots of this celebration are in anti-imperialism.

We send out our sympathies and solidarity to the people of Iraq and Haiti suffering under US occupation and US imposed death squad governments. Likewise, we send out our sympathies and solidarity to the Afghani people suffering under decades of bloodshed and religious anti-woman governments imposed by US intervention. We send out our sympathies and solidarity to the people of the Phillipines and Colombia where US troops and money are propping up murderous governments. We send out our sympathies and solidarity to the people of the “third” world, many starving, under US imposed governments, unfair imperialist economic policies, and the constant threat of US military intervention.

We send out congratulations to the people of those few countries that have stood up to US imperialism and set up the governments and economies that they see fit for their countries.

U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Smedley Butler summed up US imperialism well:

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

"For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.... I must face it and speak out.

"I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service."

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Butler's 1935 exposé "War is a Racket" begins with these powerful lines:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Bulter's words were not empty. This was a man who was on the inside of the world's most powerful fighting force. He goes on to reveal:

"There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its 'finger men' to point out enemies, its 'muscle men' to destroy enemies, its 'brain men' to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" - Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to."

You can read the whole Butler article online
"War is a Racket," Common Sense magazine, November 1935.
http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/racket.html
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Lesbians sentenced for self-defense. FREE THEM NOW!

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:56:00 GMT

FREE THEM NOW!
Lesbians sentenced for self-defense
All-white jury convicts Black women

By Imani Henry
New York

Published Jun 21, 2007 2:58 AM
On June 14, four African-American women—Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson (20) and Renata Hill (24)—received sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years in prison. None of them had previous criminal records. Two of them are parents of small children.

Their crime? Defending themselves from a physical attack by a man who held them down and choked them, ripped hair from their scalps, spat on them, and threatened to sexually assault them—all because they are lesbians.

The mere fact that any victim of a bigoted attack would be arrested, jailed and then convicted for self-defense is an outrage. But the length of prison time given further demonstrates the highly political nature of this case and just how racist, misogynistic, anti-gay, anti-youth and anti-worker the so-called U.S. justice system truly is.

The description of the events, reported below, is based on written statements by a community organization (FIERCE) that has made a call to action to defend the four women, verbal accounts from court observers and evidence from a surveillance camera.

The attack

On Aug. 16, 2006, seven young, African-American, lesbian-identified friends were walking in the West Village. The Village is a historic center for lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) communities, and is seen as a safe haven for working-class LGBT youth, especially youth of color.

As they passed the Independent Film Cinema, 29-year-old Dwayne Buckle, an African-American vendor selling DVDs, sexually propositioned one of the women. They rebuffed his advances and kept walking.

“I’ll f— you straight, sweetheart!” Buckle shouted. A video camera from a nearby store shows the women walking away. He followed them, all the while hurling anti-lesbian slurs, grabbing his genitals and making explicitly obscene remarks. The women finally stopped and confronted him. A heated argument ensued. Buckle spat in the face of one of the women and threw his lit cigarette at them, escalating the verbal attack into a physical one.

Buckle is seen on the video grabbing and pulling out large patches of hair from one of the young women. When Buckle ended up on top of one of the women, choking her, Johnson pulled a small steak knife out of her purse. She aimed for his arm to stop him from killing her friend.

The video captures two men finally running over to help the women and beating Buckle. At some point he was stabbed in the abdomen. The women were already walking away across the street by the time the police arrived.

Buckle was hospitalized for five days after surgery for a lacerated liver and stomach. When asked at the hospital, he responded at least twice that men had attacked him.

There was no evidence that Johnson’s kitchen knife was the weapon that penetrated his abdomen, nor was there any blood visible on it. In fact, there was never any forensics testing done on her knife. On the night they were arrested, the police told the women that there would be a search by the New York Police Department for the two men—which to date has not happened.

After almost a year of trial, four of the seven were convicted in April. Johnson was sentenced to 11 years on June 14.

Even with Buckle’s admission and the video footage proving that he instigated this anti-gay attack, the women were relentlessly demonized in the press, had trumped-up felony charges levied against them, and were subsequently given long sentences in order to send a clear resounding message—that self-defense is a crime and no one should dare to fight back.

Political backdrop of the case

Why were these young women used as an example? At stake are the billions of dollars in tourism and real estate development involved in the continued gentrification of the West Village. This particular incident happened near the Washington Square area—home of New York University, one of most expensive private colleges in the country and one of the biggest employers and landlords in New York City. The New York Times reported that Justice Edward J. McLaughlin used his sentencing speech to comment on “how New York welcomes tourists.” (June 17)

The Village is also the home of the Stonewall Rebellion, the three-day street battle against the NYPD that, along with the Compton Cafeteria “Riots” in California, helped launch the modern-day LGBT liberation movement in 1969. The Manhattan LGBT Pride march, one of the biggest demonstrations of LGBT peoples in the world, ends near the Christopher Street Piers in the Village, which have been the historical “hangout” and home for working-class trans and LGBT youth in New York City for decades.

Because of growing gentrification in recent years, young people of color, homeless and transgender communities, LGBT and straight, have faced curfews and brutality by police sanctioned by the West Village community board and politicians. On Oct. 31, 2006, police officers from the NYPD’s 6th Precinct indiscriminately beat and arrested several people of color in sweeps on Christopher Street after the Halloween parade.

Since the 1980s there has been a steady increase in anti-LGBT violence in the area, with bashers going there with that purpose in mind.

For trans people and LGBT youth of color, who statistically experience higher amounts of bigoted violence, the impact of the gentrification has been severe. As their once-safe haven is encroached on by real estate developers, the new white and majority heterosexual residents of the West Village then call in the state to brutalize them.

For the last six years the political LGBT youth group FIERCE has been at the forefront of mobilizing young people “to counter the displacement and criminalization of LGBTSTQ [lesbian, gay, bi, two spirit, trans, and queer] youth of color and homeless youth at the Christopher Street Pier and in Manhattan’s West Village.” (www.fiercenyc.org) FIERCE has also been the lead organization supporting the Jersey Seven and their families.

The trial and the media

Deemed a so-called “hate crime” against a straight man, every possible racist, anti-woman, anti-LGBT and anti-youth tactic was used by the entire state apparatus and media. Everything from the fact that they lived outside of New York, in the working-class majority Black city of Newark, N.J., to their gender expressions and body structures were twisted and dehumanized in the public eye and to the jury.

According to court observers, McLaughlin stated throughout the trial that he had no sympathy for these women. The jury, although they were all women, were all white. All witnesses for the district attorney were white men, except for one Black male who had several felony charges.

Court observers report that the defense attorneys had to put enormous effort into simply convincing the jury that they were “average women” who had planned to just hang out together that night. Some jurists asked why they were in the Village if they were from New Jersey. The DA brought up whether they could afford to hang out there—raising the issue of who has the right to be there in the first place.

The Daily News reporting was relentless in its racist anti-lesbian misogyny, portraying Buckle as a “filmmaker” and “sound engineer” preyed upon by a “lesbian wolf pack” (April 19) and a “gang of angry lesbians.” (April 13)

Everyone has been socialized by cultural archetypes of what it means to be a “man” or “masculine” and “woman” or “feminine.” Gender identity/expression is the way each indivdual chooses or not to express gender in their everyday lives, including how they dress, walk, talk, etc. Transgender people and other gender non-conforming people face oppression based on their gender expression/identity.

The only pictures shown in the Daily News were of the more masculine-appearing women. One of the most despiciable headlines in the Daily News, “‘I’m a man!’ lesbian growled during fight,” (April 13) was targeted against Renata Hill, who was taunted by Buckle because of her masculinity.

Ironically, Johnson, who was singled out by the judge as the “ringleader,” is the more feminine of the four. According to the New York Times, in his sentencing remarks, “Justice McLaughlin scoffed at the assertion made by ... Johnson, that she carried a knife because she was just 4-foot-11 and 95 pounds, worked nights and lived in a dangerous neighborhood.” He quoted the nursery rhyme, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” (June 15)

All of the seven women knew and went to school with Sakia Gunn, a 19-year-old butch lesbian who was stabbed to death in Newark, N.J., in May 2003. Paralleling the present case, Gunn was out with three of her friends when a man made sexual advances to one of the women. When she replied that she was a lesbian and not interested, he attacked them. Gunn fought back and was stabbed to death.

“You can’t help but wonder that if Sakia Gunn had a weapon, would she be in jail right now?” Bran Fenner, a founding member and co-executive director of FIERCE, told Workers World. “If we don’t have the right to self-defense, how are we supposed to survive?”

National call to action

While racist killer cops continue to go without indictment and anti-immigrant paramilitary groups like the Minutemen are on the rise in the U.S., The Jersey Four sit behind bars for simply defending themselves against a bigot who attacked them in the Village.

Capitalism at its very core is a racist, sexist, anti-LGBT system, sanctioning state violence through cops, courts and its so-called laws. The case of the Jersey Four gives more legal precedence for bigoted violence to go unchallenged. The ruling class saw this case as a political one; FIERCE and other groups believe the entire progressive movement should as well.

Fenner said, “We are organizing in the hope that this wakes up all oppressed people and sparks a huge, broad campaign to demand freedom for the Jersey Four.”

FIERCE is asking for assistance for these young women, including pro-bono legal support, media contacts and writers, pen pals, financial support, and diverse organizational support. For details, visit www.fiercenyc.org.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Distributed by Steven Argue of Liberation News (not affiliated with Workers World):
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:50:27 GMT

Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency

By Steven Argue

Every four years the American people are subjected to the farce of bourgeois democracy, a “democracy” where only the candidates chosen by the very wealthy have any chance of being elected. That season of nicely dressed pathological liars and false hopes is now upon us.

Since the corporate media of the United States has long ago abandoned any semblance of reporting on anything of substance about candidates such as voting records and actual political views, it is up to the journalists of the left press and Indy-media to do so.

A front-runner in the race is pro-war Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has voted for every war the United States has carried out since she came into office in 2000. Those pro-war votes include the Iraq war. She also voted to take away our civil liberties by supporting the “Patriot Act” and its renewal. Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, pounds the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. In addition she voted for the anti-immigrant wall.

In her recent successful run for Senate Hillary Clinton amassed more than 22 million dollars, making her the biggest campaign finance recipient running for Senate in the country. Her money came from such corporate interests as drug and hospital conglomerates, Wall Street finance interests, real estate developers, and rightwing corporate media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.

Barack Obama

Another front-runner and “rising star” of the Democrat Party is Barack Obama. Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has voted for the Patriot Act by voting to renew it in 2006. He also voted for the racist anti-immigrant wall as well as the “guest worker” program that denies immigrants rights, but allows them to come to this country to be exploited and under-paid. Obama also voted for the so-called “Class Action Fairness Act” that makes it harder for the people to sue corporations.

One might think that Obama, as a black man in racist America, might have something to offer on issues dealing with the suffering caused by the racist police state, mass incarceration of the poor, lack of healthcare, and dramatic drop in the standard of living of the multi-racial working class and poor. Instead Barack Obama plays into racist stereotypes, blaming the victims of racist America rather than the corporate criminals, stating:

"Such wisdom might help us move beyond ideological bickering and serve as the basis of a renewed effort to tackle the problem of inner-city poverty. We could begin by acknowledging that perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock. . ." Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, pps. 255-256

The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system. Yet the best thing to do according to Barack Obama is for black girls to stop having children out of wedlock.

In his book Uncle Obama not only lets this racist system off the hook, but he praises one of the worst anti-working class reforms of the Clinton administration stating, "we should also acknowledge that conservatives-and Bill Clinton-were right about welfare as it was previously structured." Bill Clinton’s welfare reform has caused homelessness, hunger, and less access to other basic necessities for the poor in America, but Barack Obama says Bill Clinton and the conservatives were right.

Both Obama and Clinton have voted for war appropriations. The fact that they both decided at the last minute to vote against war appropriations in the most recent vote on supplemental war appropriations is a symptom of the fact that the war has not gone as planned. The war has not gained the desired oil loot for U.S. corporations and has caused a number of growing problems for U.S. imperialism including internal dissent in the United States. And while Clinton and Obama have finally voted against war appropriations this time, their pro-war Democrat Party garnered plenty of other votes to keep the imperialist war going.

In his book, Barack Obama makes clear his support for the billions being squandered on lining the pockets of the military contractors stating, “given the depletion of our [military] forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher [Pentagon] budget in the immediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment.” (Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p 307).

Joe Biden

Another Democrat candidate is Joe Biden. Unlike many Democrat presidential candidates that have tried to distance themselves from the war that they voted for to begin with, in the most recent vote on war appropriations Joe Biden voted with the majority of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate putting billions of dollars towards the continued U.S. imperialist slaughter of the Iraqi people.

John Edwards

Another presidential candidate with a pro-war record is John Edwards. Edwards voted for the war against Iraq and campaigned as a vice presidential candidate on the pro-war John Kerry ticket. At that time both candidates defended their votes for the war. John Edwards has since apologized for his vote for unprovoked military aggression and mass murder (without using that wording and without recognizing that his vote for war was a criminal act).

Yet when Edwards was running for the position of vice president in 2004 this what he had to say on his pro-war vote:

“We need to stick to this [defending their Iraq war votes]. We should stand by our votes, say we would vote that way again. If you admit a mistake, it shows weakness in time of war. That's what the Republicans want us to do.” (John Edwards's changing tune on the Iraq vote, Scot Lehigh, The Globe, April 17, 2007)

Bill Richardson

Another candidate trying to paint himself as an antiwar candidate of the people is presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Richardson doesn’t call for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but instead calls for a slow withdrawal. In the early 1990s he did vote against the U.S. war to reinstate the anti-woman pro-U.S. corporate oil monarchy in Kuwait, but later said he regretted that vote. In addition Richardson is a strong supporter the pro-corporate anti-worker NAFTA, GATT, and WTO.

As U.N. Ambassador under Clinton, Richardson enthusiastically endorsed and continued the brutal sanctions against Iraq. When asked in a recent interview on KUNM (a Santa Fe public radio station) as to whether or not the deaths of half a million Iraqi children due to the sanctions was worth it he answered "yes".

On the death penalty Richardson, like many Democrats, says it is a good thing. Hundreds of inmates in the United States have had their convictions overturned as a result of new DNA evidence being brought to light, with some of these being death penalty cases. Still prosecutors have fought against the use of DNA evidence to overturn old convictions, even when the lives of innocent people are on the line. In racist America, death penalty juries are always more likely to convict because all who oppose the death penalty are excluded from these juries, making them juries that are more biased towards supporting the prosecution. Blacks often face all or mostly white death penalty juries. These are juries likely to contain a number of people who think that all Black people are criminals, making these jurors incapable of weighing the evidence and understanding the concept of reasonable doubt even in those rare circumstances when the evidence is fairly presented.

Why would anybody support the death penalty being carried out by a system that has been proven to make so many mistakes? The answer lies in the fact that the death penalty is an instrument of terror used by the American ruling class against the working class, poor, and people of color. On the one hand when such innocent people are executed it has no importance to the likes of Joe Biden because to them the lives of the poor and people of color are cheap. But for the ruling class, the added bonus of the death penalty is when it is used in political cases to silence dissent such as with the executions of Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, the Haymarket martyrs, and the threatened execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. As governor, the fact that Bill Richardson has no problem with the death penalty means that he already has blood on his hands.

Dennis Kucinich

Likewise Dennis Kucinich is portraying himself as the standard bearer of peace, love, and liberalism, but has voted in favor of the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The resolution Kucinich voted for falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the eyewitnesses said. For instance eyewitness William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

In the last presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself up as an anti-war candidate of the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich, “Supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”

So Kucinich advocates more frugal and efficient spending on imperialist terror and murder.

This is the same position taken by two U.S. generals waging the war in Iraq. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq General Stanley McCrystal complained, "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!"

Similarly General Richard Mayers commented on precision-guided munitions, "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!"

The contradiction here was purely limited to the difference between the pure profiteering of the military industrial complex and the desire for actual cost effective results for imperialist victory on the battlefield.

Dennis Kucinich spoke to a gathering of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action claiming, "We [he and the congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy."

Yet that is exactly what Kucinich and the rest of the congress, with the exception of California Democrat Barbara Lee, agreed to with their votes authorizing Bush’s endless war on the world. The entire Democrat Party in both the Senate and Congress, with only one exception, voted for Bush's war.

Since a different vote was later taken authorizing the US war in Iraq, the most practical application of this vote by Kucinich was to authorize the US war in Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for war Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote on March 2002:

“When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an "endless war," some took it as mere political speech, or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. "W" is an agent of his class, the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth, to make the world safe for capital exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East, on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule. Make no mistake: this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region, armed to the gills, not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes and sultanates; to defend U.S. access to vast oil resources in the region.” Mumia Abu-Jamal

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact killed tens of thousands of civilians and brought the Afghan nation back to the chaos of fragmented warlord rule last seen after the various U.S. trained and financed Mujahideen forces defeated the Soviet backed PDPA government.

The day after the September 11 attack this author wrote:

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen (from which the Taliban were later formed). With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing woman for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2002

Kucinich, the “peace candidate”, as much as he may now want to deny it, voted for the war in Afghanistan and played his part in making it happen.

On the war in Iraq Kucinich now states, "There is only one way in which the United States will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of President Bush's term: Congress must vote to cut off funds." (Rep. Kucinich, The Huffington Report) This position not only ignores the role of the people of the United States, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere rising up and resisting the war and imperialist occupations, but it is also is being put forward by a politician that voted for the war in Afghanistan, wants a leaner meaner imperialist military, voted for the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and who has worked hard to bring the anti-war movement back into the pro-war Democrat Party.

Some may argue that Kucinich is not perfect, but he’d make a better president than Bush. Yet it is unlikely that Kucinich has any intention of winning the presidency. His role is one of bringing the anti-war movement and others who are breaking from the establishment and the twin parties of war and racism back into the fold of the pro-war Democrat Party. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).

Yet that tent Kucinich speaks of is one that, despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for the “responsible” politicians of the Democrat Party.

It is such "responsible" politicians, including Kucinich, that voted in their vast majority to back the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. It is outrageous that that the Democrat party would vote in its House majority to condemn a French city for daring to make an issue of this racist legal lynching, while at the same time doing nothing about the liar and killer, Bush. But then again that should be no surprise either since the Democrat Party voted in its majority for the war in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton

In a press conference on August 21, 2006 George Bush Jr. finally admitted what Liberation News has been pointing out since before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Yet Bush had used a supposed connection as a pretext for the U.S.’s unprovoked aggression against Iraq. In addition, Bush Jr. also admitted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Most of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, Hillary Clinton included, supported going to war with Iraq. Today Hillary Clinton has no remorse for that murderous decision stating, "Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since. No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq Vote, CNN.Com

In trying to let themselves off the hook many Democrats claim that Bush “did not fairly represent intelligence”. Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren’t their fault because they were lied to by Bush not only make them look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Clinton, however, is worse in not even distancing herself from this “justified invasion” and “weapons of mass destruction” lies.

While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they might not be in the mess they are now.

Yet for Bush Jr. and Hillary Clinton Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish by force a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats to try to rethink, or at least distance themselves from, the Bush policies they have supported.

Just as Liberation News opposes the U.S. occupation and corporate looting of Iraq, we also denounced the starvation blockade that was carried out through the UN by the Bill Clinton administration. That blockade, partially due to the capitalist nature of the Iraqi economy under Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of about a million people, many of them children. While a socialist economy like that of Cuba could have made sure that everyone in Iraq had food, blame for this mass murder should also be put on the Bill Clinton administration. Likewise, it was this Clinton starvation blockade that also weakened Iraq for the Bush invasion.

Today, while the U.S. occupation of Iraq has murdered well over 655,000 people and the U.S. starvation blockade of Iraq murdered a million or more, the U.S. government and its puppets in Iraq had the nerve to put Saddam Hussein on trial, and execute him, for propaganda purposes. Yet the worst crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were also carried out when he was directly backed by the United States. In the 1980’s the U.S. was giving massive military assistance to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein commit genocide against Kurds and carry out a bloody war with Iran at a time when Saddam Hussein was being used as an asset of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Likewise the CIA helped Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party come to power, supplying them with the names of 5,000 socialists and labor leaders that the Ba’athists subsequently rounded up and executed.

Yet to those who claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be a chance for the U.S. to finally set things straight and set up a democracy in Iraq, Liberation News responded before the U.S. invasion saying:

“In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields. This helped the Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping them in Iraq. This money helped pay for free healthcare and education. As such this was a socialist measure carried out by Saddam Hussein’s capitalist government. It was also a measure that stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations. For both reasons socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while those measures infuriated the imperialists...

“While defending Iraq against imperialist attack and supporting their right to defend themselves socialists also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have their own scores to settle with him. Yet any government set up by a US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to steal...”

“U.S. imperialism will never solve the question of women’s liberation in the Middle East. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women. Iraqi women are allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They are allowed to drive. Iraqi women can even freely criticize men. In addition Iraqi women have the right to work and control their own funds. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights what-so-ever.

“The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to benefit the people with social programs. Likewise they love governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants. Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a lack of health care. The billions of dollars the U.S. will squander on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit the working class and poor of the United States instead.” -From Liberation News: What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq

What was predicted is reality. Those predictions were not from a crystal ball. They were accurate because they were based on the past behavior of U.S. imperialism. Today in Iraq the U.S. has set up a puppet Islamic government with functioning death squads and torture chambers. Socialists have been excluded from participating in elections and unarmed demonstrators have been shot down and murdered in the streets by U.S. troops and troops of the puppet Iraqi government. The puppet Islamic government also opposes women’s rights and women’s rights have deteriorated dramatically since the U.S. invasion. The rebuilding of basic infrastructure, such as electricity, has lagged way behind what was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein after the massive U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 1992.

With the exception of the privatization of Iraqi oil, all of the predictions have shown themselves to be true and the only reason that Iraqi oil isn’t completely under the direct control of U.S. oil monopolies now is because of the union resistance of 23,000 organized oil workers as well as the general resistance by the Iraqi people to the idea of Iraq’s resources being looted by U.S. corporations.

For the working class in the United States there is ever growing frustration with a war that is costing many lives and billions in dollars while needed programs for healthcare, jobs, the environment, and disaster relief do not get the funding they need. Just as the new imperialist masters of Iraq have shown a criminal lack of interest in the rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, so too they left the people of New Orleans.

Yet for the ruling class their failure in Iraq is not in the murderous, undemocratic, and anti-woman puppet regime they have set up and the money that has been squandered in doing it, but in the failure of that regime to deliver the stability needed to acquire the oil loot. They complain that oil production in Iraq is below prewar levels and the occupation by U.S. and British troops serve as targets for the insurgency.

The words of Hillary Clinton, an icon of Democratic Party liberalism, makes abundantly clear that what she opposes is not the oil war itself, but the fact that Bush is not winning it:

“Let us not confuse the leadership’s failures with either the remaining mission in Iraq or the war on terrorism or with our support for our troops. What we have here is a failure of leadership to accomplish that mission. What was hailed as our shortest war has now become one of our longest. What was hailed as a model of democracy teeters on the brink of complete anarchy. What was the leadership that quickly claimed credit for success has been lethargic in the face of misjudgments and setbacks.” Hillary Clinton

As a result of imperialism’s failure in Iraq some Democrats that voted for the war like John Kerry have called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Yet the Kerry-Feingold plan actually calls for keeping troops in Iraq that are "critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces." The Kerry-Feingold plan also calls for "an over-the-horizon" troop presence in the region that could come to the aid of a failing puppet government in Iraq as well as intervene elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. (Lawmakers begin Bitter Debate on U.S. Troop Withdrawal Plan for Iraq, FOXNews, online report, June 2, 2006)

Hillary Clinton even opposed the Kerry-Feingold plan and voted against it arguing against any withdrawal timeline.

Unlike Hillary Clinton and the leading Democrats, Liberation News sees nothing good that can come from the continuation of the U.S. war against Iraq. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is doing nothing for anybody except the capitalists that are profiting from the war and the tax dollars of the American people. We call for no support to the Democrats and we demand: Iraq to the Iraqis! U.S. Out Now!

Liberation News calls for ending the war through building the mass movement in the streets; striking against arms producers; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks; and building towards a general strike against the war. Likewise we support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war. We support students, such as those at UC Santa Cruz that have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. And we call for building the socialist movement to end imperialism through socialist revolution.

The Role of Peace Action (Formerly Sane / Freeze)

Hillary Clinton’s record is clearly pro-imperialist war. Yet the group “Peace Action” gives Hillary Clinton the passing grade of voting for peace 89% of the time. Other Democrats are given similar scores by these political hacks.

“Peace Action” is deceiving the anti-war vote. Why? Because Peace Action is a pillar of the status quo that sees no alternative to delivering votes to what they see as the “lesser evil” Democrat Party, even when the Democrats are equally pro-war. This strategy has made “Peace Action” an obstacle to peace and a pillar of the status quo of war.

Every few years the ruling class of the United States parades its selected representatives in front of the American people to give us the chance to vote for their so-called “lesser” and “greater evil” representatives in the Democrat and Republican Parties. The corporate media and liberal pro-war groups like “Peace Action” ignore the real anti-war candidates and back pro-war Democrats by misrepresenting their records to the people.

Liberation News urges all of the super-exploited workers that go door to door raising money for the Peace Action bureaucracy to quit your meaningless jobs and look for better work while looking for ways to hook up with the real anti-war/anti-imperialist movement that is marching in the streets. Likewise we urge all of the liberal and leftist minded people that give money to Peace Action to stop doing so and instead participate in the mass anti-war movement in the streets with your bodies, minds, and your money if you can afford it.

No to the twin parties of war and oppression! Yes to the independent organization and mobilization of working people!

Obama, Clinton, and Richardson, Supporters of Racist Israel

Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, has pounded the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year and Senator Clinton’s vote backs that money for death. Israel is a racist settler state established in 1949 that has denied the original inhabitants, the Palestinians, many basic rights, often including the basic right to live. Besides denying Palestinians the same rights to travel, jobs, housing, and education as allowed Jews, the racist and religious Zionist State has used massacres and other forms of terror, wars, and torture to drive out the original Palestinian inhabitants.

Likewise Israel is always at war with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s recent attack against Lebanon where their aerial bombardment of the civilian population murdered 1,150 people and destroyed vital infrastructure is only the latest such terrorism by Israel. Yet Hillary Clinton recently told a pro-Israel rally “We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing up for American values as well as Israeli ones.”

She’s got it wrong, the mass murder and racism of Israel are in league with the values of American ruling class, as has been seen in Iraq, but these are not the values of the American people.

Claims of Israel being the victim, bombing and invading Lebanon on the pretext of two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner do not hold water in light of the fact that Israel is holding 2,000 Lebanese prisoners in their torture chamber dungeons from their previous invasion of Lebanon. In addition numerous reports say those two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon, not in Israel. Those reports are from such sources as AP, Hindustan Times, and AFP.

On Israel “anti-war” Richardson shares Hillary Clinton’s views stating, “I am firmly committed to one of the United States' closest and most important allies - the State of Israel. Throughout my career, I've steadfastly supported Israel, obtaining a consistently pro-Israel voting record in Congress and defending Israeli interests as Ambassador to the United Nations.”

Barack Obama also backs racist Israel stating, “The United States and Israel share important interests - promoting a peaceful Middle East, combating terrorism, and encouraging reform in the Arab and Muslim world.” Likewise as a senator he has backed the massive military aid the United States gives Israel every year and says he will continue this policy as president stating he will, “insist on fully funding military assistance to Israel”.

For Socialist Democracy!

Let me be clear on this point, Obama and Clinton, and the rest of the pack will not betray us. They cannot betray us because they were never with us. Under the current politics most Americans would never have heard their names if they were on our side.

A truly democratic society would eliminate corporate control of the elections by nationalizing the corporate media and allowing all candidates equal access to the airwaves, cable, and print. Likewise a truly democratic society would carry out a sweeping “campaign finance reform” through the nationalization of the means of production (using that wealth for human and environmental needs rather than decadence and deception).

Up against the likes of Hillary Clinton, with her millions of dollars in corporate bribes, a sympathetic corporate media, growing police state, and increasing electoral fraud, it will take a socialist revolution to bring democracy to the United States.

How we can all resist:

Tell the truth!

Build the mass movement in the streets!

Strike against arms producers!

Become ungovernable!

Hot cargo war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks!

Build towards a general strike against the war!

Support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war!

Drive military recruiters off campus!

No tolerance or excuses for the pro-war, racist, and capitalist Democrat Party!

Build the socialist movement to end imperialism, racism, environmental destruction, and capitalism!

End U.S. imperialism through socialist revolution!

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

I am Me. I am Free

Shera — Tue, 22 May 2007 17:55:19 GMT

By way of introducing myself, at this moment in time my name is Woman Typing on Keyboard. Later on today it will be Woman Feeding Fish.

As this in the Anarchy board, I choose to throw out that old worn out
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH
sign.

C'mon, anyone who can "give" you liberty can also take it away.

Just take it. Or more precisely, realize that you have always been free. Yes, perhaps you have been sold the notion somehow that you cant be free because of someone else's rules or actions.

Cop out!

In view of the preceding statement. I hold a sign that says:
I AM ME I AM FREE

Any comments?

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Freedom to Fascism: The Enemies in our Midst

torrid_wind — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:23:58 GMT

March 26, 2007
by Stephen Lendman

Aaron Russo has produced an important and powerful documentary film titled Freedom to Fascism that should be must viewing for everyone. It's now available on DVD or see it for free on Google Video. No one seeing this film will doubt it's frighteningly for the worst.

The film first focuses on the US Internal Revenue Service showing that the federal income tax on an individual's wage-paid labor is illegal and unconstitutional because there's no law written requiring that anyone pay it. It also exposes the US Federal Reserve System as a private for-profit banking cartel owned and run by its member banks for their benefit and at the expense of the public forced to pay them interest on money they have no legal right to print, put in circulation and control. That's because it's creation by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 passed by Congress (in the middle of the night and during the Christmas holiday break when many legislators were gone) and signed into law by Woodrow Wilson violated Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution that states (only) the Congress shall have the power to coin (create) money and regulate the value thereof.

In 1935, the US Supreme Court ruled the Congress cannot constitutionally delegate its power to any other body or group. By signing this outrageous act into law, Woodrow Wilson did exactly that and violated the law of the land in doing it. He later admitted he made a terrible mistake when he said: (By doing it), "I unwittingly ruined my country." Wilson had been a distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University where he later became its president before becoming president of the United States. Because he was trained in the law, it's more likely he knew full well what he was doing but acted anyway unconstitutionally in service to the powerful bankers of his day.

The film goes further as well showing how our freedoms are being eroded by fascist laws like the USA Patriot Act that virtually by itself has eliminated most of them and by George Bush's power-grab giving himself, on his say alone, the right to assume dictatorial powers if he wishes. He's done it through his excessive and abusive issuance of presidential executive orders that essentially rewrite US law as he chooses to do it.

Above all, he did it by claiming the unchallengeable right to govern as a "Unitary Executive" with the power to abrogate the separation powers doctrine (implied but not specifically stated in the Constitution), bypass the Congress and courts, and act as he chooses to protect the national security when he claims there's a threat to it. In effect, he's given himself the right, on his say alone and with no evidence to back it up, to annul the Constitution, declare martial law if he wishes, and govern by presidential edict, assuming total power and functioning as a dictator. And he can do it if he alone thinks it's necessary to protect the national security against a threat he may have only concocted and likely will have.

The film also covers other important information including how US elections are now routinely stolen by government controlled manipulation and voter fraud through easily rigged electronic voting machines with no verifiable paper trail to assure an accurate and honest count. It also discusses the Orwellian Real ID Act of 2005 the Congress passed to become effective in May, 2008 requiring the states to meet federal ID standards. This law makes it mandatory for every US citizen and legal resident to have a national identity card (in most cases a person's driver's license) that will contain on it a person's vital and personal information. Once the law takes effect, no one will be able to open a bank account or maybe even have one, board an airplane, be able to vote or conduct many other kinds of essential business without it.

It may also become a requirement in the future that this ID card contain a radio frequency identification (RFID) technology computer chip that will be able to track all the movements, activities and transactions of everyone having one. In Orwellian terms, this is the ultimate dream of any government wanting police state powers. The fact that US law now mandates as of May, 2008 that everyone have this type ID means this country is on a fast track toward becoming a full-blown national security police state subject only to the limits, whims and wishes of those in power.

See this film and show it to your family and friends. Then go back and spread the word to others how important it is that they too see it. Everyone must now understand that unless "we the people" act in our own behalf to save our precious freedoms, we'll awaken one day soon to the reality that they were taken from us while we weren't paying attention. Long ago Edmund Burke explained it when he said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." He only neglected to include women in his important aphorism.

Stephen Lendman [lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net] lives in Chicago, and maintains a blog at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

From: http://www.populistamerica.com/freedom_to_fascism__the_enemies_in_our_midst

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

A Global Appeal against patents on conventional seeds and farm animals

synnovemathe — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 10:41:07 GMT

THE GLOBAL APPEAL

A Global Appeal against patents on conventional seeds and farm animals

A joint Open Letter addressed to

Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office,
Government Representatives,
The Executive Boards of Agrobusiness Companies

Keep out patents on conventional seeds and animals
For several years, patents on genetically modified seeds and animals have been granted worldwide. The damaging impacts on farmers, who are deprived of their rights to save their seeds, and on breeders who can no longer use the patented seeds freely for further breeding, are well known.

In Canada and the US, for example, the multinational seed company Monsanto has sued many farmers for alleged patent infringements.1 The same company has also filed court cases against importers of Argentinean soy to Europe.2 Furthermore, the possibility of patenting seeds has fostered a highly concentrated market structure with only 10 multinational companies controlling about half of the international seed market. Many farmers organisations and NGOs around the world are fighting against these patents. Because genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are still not grown in most countries, or only used in a small number of crops, the negative impacts of these patents are not being felt everywhere.

However, there is an alarming new trend for patents not only to be claimed on GMOs (such as Round-up ready soybeans), but also on conventional plants. For example, patent claims have been made for soy beans with a better oil quality3 covering parts of the plant genome when used in conventional breeding and technologies to improve conventional breeding (such as marker assisted breeding).

Some of the most threatening examples in this context are patent applications from Syngenta which claim huge parts of the rice genome4 and its use in breeding of any food crops that have similar genomic information to rice (such as maize and wheat).

The European Patent Office has also granted a patent on aphid resistant composite plants which are based on marker assisted breeding5. Other recent patent applications by Monsanto on pigs are also related to normal breeding methods6, indicating the increasing danger of agricultural genetic resources becoming monopolised by a few multinationals on a global scale.

Soon the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office will decide on another patent of this kind - for a method of increasing a specific compound in Brassica species7.

This decision will determine the patentability of conventional seeds in Europe.

Whereas patents on conventional plant varieties are normal practice in the US, many other countries, especially developing countries, do not grant patents on plants or animals. But as the recent history shows, the standards defined and used at the European, Japanese and US patent offices influence international regulations (the WTO agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPS , and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, WIPO). Patent offices all over the world are pushed to adapt their regulations and practices either through the international regulations or by bilateral agreements. India, for example, has just passed a third patent amendment in order to adapt its law to the TRIPS regulations.

This frightening new trend in patent policy will affect many more farmers and breeders, than has been the case with GMO patents. Any remaining farmers rights and breeders' access to plant varieties and animal breeds for breeding purposes, will disappear everywhere. These patents will destroy a system of farmers' rights and breeders' privileges that has been shown to be crucial for the survival of farmers and breeders, for food sovereignty, and for the preservation of biodiversity in agriculture. The vast majority of farmers in developing countries are small-scale farmers, completely reliant on saving and exchanging their seeds.

In order to secure the continued existence of independent farming, breeding and livestock keeping and hence the food security of future generations, we, the undersigned farmers, researchers, breeders and civil society organisations from all over the world, restate our rejection of any patents on life, and urge policy makers and patent offices to act swiftly to stop any patents being granted on conventionally bred plants and animals and on gene sequences for use with conventional breeding technique, as well as on methods for the conventional breeding of plants and animals. We also urge companies not to apply for any patents of this kind.

http://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=27&lang=en

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Antiwar Protests Against Obama, Clinton, McCain, Farr, and Others

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 18:08:38 GMT

In this mailing:
1. Santa Cruz California action against Sam Farr
2. Antiwar Protests Against Obama, Clinton, McCain and Others

Protest To Bring The Troops Home Now!

Friday Feb. 16,
Santa Cruz County Building, 701 Ocean Street

Sit in at Representative Sam Farr’s Office to Demand:

Cut Off The War Funds!

Sam Farr has voted a number of times for the billions of dollars that have been used to wage war and murder hundreds of thousands in Iraq. He has promised to vote against the $93 billion emergency war appropriations bill that Bush has forwarded to congress, but Farr still consistently supports and votes for massive general appropriations for the military budget. These are votes for war.

The People of Santa Cruz Demand No Money For War!

This protest is part of the growing national movement demanding that representatives, like Sam Farr, that claim to oppose the war stop funding it.

Money For Jobs, Healthcare, Housing, and Education! Not a cent for war!

People holding all political philosophies in opposition to the war are welcome. This includes those that think that Democrats like Sam Farr can be persuaded or pressured into opposing the war as well as others that want to expose the Democrats as useless and put forward mass action, strike action, direct action, green, anarchist, and socialist alternatives towards ending the war.

This is being organized as a nonviolent event, but we cannot guarantee the conduct of the Santa Cruz Police.

Friday Feb. 16, Santa Cruz
Meet 1:00 PM on the front steps of the county building, 701 Ocean Street.

Sponsored by Liberation News
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

******
Project Occupation has been staging protests/sit-ins/demonstrations nationwide targeting the offices congresspersons that support the Iraq war by funding it.

In addition the Troops Out Now Coalition will be marching on the offices of Hillary Clinton on March 17 starting at Times Square (43rd and Broadway) at 1 PM. For more on Hillary Clinton's pro-war record see: Pro-War Hillary Clinton, What Are The Alternatives?
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/77262.html
Here are some actions that have already happened or are underway:

St. Louis has an feature about an action at Rep Russ Carnahan's office:
http://www.stlimc.org/newswire/display/2840/index.php

Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) DC Offices
http://wmass.indymedia.org/newswire/display/1711/index.php

Barrak Obama’s and Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) offices in Chicago
(which resulted in 8 arrests)
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/82702.shtml

The San Francisco offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA). For more on Senator Diane Feinstein's pro-war record read: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/28/18302034.php

The Portland office of Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR). More actions are planned (or underway)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/353477.shtml

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Seattle, WA
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/257544.shtml

Rep. Mike Honda in the South Bay (by Raging Grannies!)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/08/18359668.php

Rep Matsui in Sacramento, CA
http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2007-01-28-22-10-01-news.php

De Moines, IA
http://www.kcci.com/news/10965748/detail.html (very brief)

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Last Night DIY New Year's Parade Returns in Full Force

ricothunder — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 08:31:33 GMT

Following police spying, decentralized celebration refuses permission to bring spontaneous parade to Santa Cruz streets

Santa Cruz, CA, December 31st, 2006: Undaunted by civil rights violations last year by the Santa Cruz Police Department, this year's Last Night DIY Parade and Celebration returns in full force to take over the streets.

In your near future: a New Year’s eve parade crammed with jugglers, clowns, samba drums, pirates, bikes, and marching bands. The usual Santa Cruz city-sponsored New Year’s eve event? Hardly. This is Last Night Santa Cruz, a people’s parade, a do-it-yourself celebration that goes beyond the now-defunct First Night event, canceled two years ago due to money problems.

Last year, the celebration erupted into the national headlines when it was discovered that Santa Cruz Police had violated the civil liberties of organizers by spying on their meetings for three months and gathering information about the group and other unrelated activities.

This year, the celebration returns with an unabashedly defiant point-of-view. A manifesto published on the Last Night DIY website states, "Last Night is a decentralized, collective, spontaneous, open, public New Year's Eve celebration, a completely organic event, organized and put on at a grassroots-level." DIY stands for do-it-yourself and the parade boasts no city-sponsorship and no corporate donors.

The Last Night website states, "The parade is not merely a celebration, but a celebration of the power that we all have when we gather together to make something happen. Not just a street party, but a party to reclaim our streets."

This year on New Year's Eve, the celebration will meet at sunset near the Saturn Cafe parking lot on Pacific Ave.

A Brief History of Last Night

Last Night started in 2005 as a response to the implosion of the city-sponsored First Night celebration. Elsewhere that year, the government abandoned millions of poor people in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, and so Last Night was also a commemoration of the do-it-yourself spirit of those surviving communities.

That year, thousands of people came out to participate in the people’s parade that marched raucously up Pacific Avenue. The parade included the Santa Cruz Trash Orchestra, martial arts displays, firedancers, the Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Indonesian music, drum circles, floats, and the Opera Lady. The parade was high-energy and peaceful. There were no conflicts with police who’s light presence remained far on the periphery. The parade and it’s organizers represented a broad cross-section of the community.

In a typical overreaction of authority to the threat of people taking responsibility in their own lives, the Santa Cruz Police Department deployed undercover officers to infiltrate parade planning meetings for three months. Records released after the spying scandal came to light, revealed a pattern of abuses, including monitoring unrelated groups and other first amendment activities and compiling police dossiers of organizers. The city's own police auditor determined that police had violated the civil rights of parade organizers. After six months of effort, community, activist, and ACLU involvement, the city put in place a weak policy to curb some of the abuses of police power.

A Decentralized Community Event

Organizers, or "un-organizers" as they prefer to be called, issued a manifesto to make clear the intentions of the Last Night parade, online at the Last Night DIY website at www.lastnightdiy.org. The site also offers history, news, discussion, and press info about the Last Night DIY Celebration.

It is a people's parade and everyone is invited: parents with kids, wayward youth, the homeless, Mexican workers, students, retired people. Get your friends together and bring your creativity to the parade. Build a float or puppets. Bring your friends dressed as clowns. Make music and performance art. Show off your art car. Form a bike gang. Bring your political message because unlike First Night, free speech is encouraged.

The celebration is decentralized -- no one person or group is making it happen. No one is in charge, but those involved in the parade claim they are all leaders. Decisions about tactical matters are made collectively by those willing to step up and make it happen. The paraders are not asking for permits and permission, nor are there any limits on participation. No one is in a position to restrict who can participate or in what way. People simply show up prepared to take part in a city-wide celebration.

Not Seeking Permits

Beyond the impossible barrier of the city's arduous and prohibitively expensive special event permit, the permit process itself is a racket. It is the process through which the city seeks to charge us for the privilege of exercising our rights to free speech and free assembly. Accepting a permit puts someone in the position of having to take responsibility and liability for the actions of others. Parade organizers reject that way of thinking.

The focus is on self-reliance. One of the most important aspects of the Last Night celebration is that people take responsibility for themselves and for their community. As such, parade "un-organizers" take pains to address issues such as security, traffic control, sanitation, clean-up, and police liaison.

The Last Night DIY Parade is not seeking permits from the city. Last Night organizers reason, "When we ask permission to live our lives, to celebrate, to come together, to express dissent, we legitimate the power of institutions over us. We give up our power to make our own choices. We refuse to ask permission to be free."

The Last Night manifesto states, "We want to live in a world full of play and celebration, where self-expression is a matter of course. A world full of surprises, in which relationships are authentic and open-ended. A world in which we share a direct connection to the world around us. Where one does not have to ask permission of authorities to realize one’s dreams of adventure and possibility."

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Congress Votes 368-31 to Back Mumia’s Racist Frame-up

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:09:35 GMT

Congress Votes 368-31 to Back Mumia’s Racist Frame-up

By Steven Argue

On December 6th Congress voted 368 to 31 to back the racist frame-up of Mumia Abu Jamal by condemning the decision of the French city of St. Denis to name a street after the innocent death row inmate. This anti-Mumia resolution, HR 1082 (also called HR 407), asks the French government to intervene against the city.

Voting against the resolution were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Congressperson Robert Scott. He argued that the case was still being decided in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and that it was inappropriate for Congress to take a position.

In reality Mumia’s case is such a blatant and outrageous frame-up that it should be considered the responsibility of Congress to intervene on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal in particular and against the racist death penalty in general. Yet under the current racist government of Democrats and Republicans Robert Scott is correct in opposing Congress’s intervention. As Pam Africa, chair of the International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, has pointed out, “the House action is designed to weigh in on and promote an atmosphere in the U.S. judiciary that is prejudicial to Mumia's receiving any form of justice today.”

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals will be hearing arguments in January. This is Mumia’s final appeal. It will decide if Mumia is set free, given a new trial, held in prison for life, or executed.

The resolution falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the eyewitnesses said. For instance William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

31 Democrats in Congress voted nay while 151 voted for the resolution. All Republicans voted for the resolution as did fake Vermont “socialist” Bernard Sanders (really just a rightwing social democrat).

Those voting against were Abercrombie, Clay, Cleaver, Conyers, Cooper, Davis (IL), Grijalva, Hinchey, Honda, Jackson (IL), Johnson, E. B., Kilpatrick (MI), Lee, McKinney, Meeks (NY), Nadler, Oberstar, Owens, Pastor, Payne, Rangel, Rush, Scott (VA), Serrano, Stark, Towns, Udall (NM), Velázquez, Waters, Weiner, and Woolsey.

Joining in the racist lynch mob voting for the blood of an innocent black man was Democrat House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. She has also announced that she and the other Democrats will continue funding the war in Iraq. In voting against Mumia Abu-Jamal Nancy Pelosi has voted for the death of an actual anti-war and anti-racist leader of the people, while her career has been firmly planted atop the corpses of over 650,000 dead Iraqis by her continuation of the slaughter.

Also voting for the murderous resolution was Dennis Kucinich.

In the last presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself as an anti-war candidate in the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich, “Supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”

So Kucinich advocates more frugal and efficient spending on imperialist murder.

This is the same position taken by two U.S. generals waging the war in Iraq. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq General Stanley McCrystal complained, "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!"

Similarly General Richard Mayers commented on precision-guided munitions, "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!"

The contradiction here was purely limited to the difference between the pure profiteering of the military industrial complex and the desire for actual cost effective results for imperialist victory on the battlefield.

Dennis Kucinich spoke to a gathering of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action claiming, "We [he and the congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy."

Yet that is exactly what Kucinich and the rest of the congress, with the exception of California Democrat Barbara Lee, agreed to with their votes authorizing Bush’s endless war on the world. The entire Democrat Party in both the Senate and Congress, with only one exception, voted for Bush's war.

Since a different vote was later taken authorizing the US war in Iraq, the most practical application of this vote by Kucinich was to authorize the US war on Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for war Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote on March 2002, “When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an "endless war," some took it as mere political speech, or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. "W" is an agent of his class, the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth, to make the world safe for capital exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East, on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule. Make no mistake: this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region, armed to the gills, not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes and sultanates; to defend U.S. access to vast oil resources in the region.”

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact killed tens of thousands of civilians and brought the Afghan nation to back to the chaos of fragmented warlord rule last seen after the various U.S. trained and financed Mujahideen forces defeated the Soviet backed PDPA government.

On September 12, 2001 this author wrote: “Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen (from which the Taliban were later formed). With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing woman for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.”

Kucinich, the “peace candidate”, as much as he may now want to deny it, voted for the war in Afghanistan and played his part in making it happen.

On the war in Iraq Kucinich now states, "There is only one way in which the United States will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of President Bush's term: Congress must vote to cut off funds." (Rep. Kucinich, The Huffington Report) This is a good position, but it is also being put forward by a politician that voted for the war in Afghanistan, wants a leaner meaner imperialist military, voted for the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and who has worked hard to bring the anti-war movement into the pro-war Democrat Party.

Some may argue that Kucinich is not perfect, but he’d make a better president than Bush. Yet it is unlikely that Kucinich had any intention of winning the presidency when he ran. His role was one of bringing the anti-war movement and others who are breaking from the establishment and the twin parties of war and racism back into the fold of the pro-war Democrat Party. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).

Yet that tent Kucinich speaks of is one that despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for “responsible” politicians.

It is such "responsible" politicians, including Kucinich, that voted in their vast majority to back the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

It is outrageous that that the Democrat party would vote in its House majority to condemn a French city for daring to make an issue of a racist legal lynching, while doing nothing about the liar and killer, Bush. But then again that should be no surprise either since the Democrat Party voted in its majority for the war in Iraq.

The Democrat Party was also involved in the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal from the beginning. Democrat Ed Rendell was the Philadelphia district attorney that successfully worked to frame Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1982. Later, with a lynch mob attitude created by the lies of the corporate press, he successfully ran for mayor of Philadelphia on a platform that included promoting the murder of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was Mayor from 1992-1999. Bill Clinton then helped get him the position of chair of the National Democratic Committee. Since 2003 he has been the Governor of Pennsylvania. In addition Ed Rendell is a member of the Fraternal Order of Police that is calling for Mumia’s blood while his wife is an appellate judge on the Third Circuit US Court of Appeals that is going to hear Mumia's appeal. Besides framing Mumia, Rendell also presided over the police bombing of the MOVE home in Philadelphia in 1984, resulting in 11 deaths and 65 homes destroyed.

California representative Sam Farr [D] was among the eight that voted “Present”, choosing not to vote for or against the resolution. This despite Sam Farr sending this author a letter promising to back the Congressional Black Caucus’s position, that having been a position in support of framed political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sam Farr also sent a copy of a letter that he sent to the Congressional Black Caucus with the same promise. These promises, as it turns out, were nothing but lies.

This vote by the racist US Congress was also an affront to the people of St. Denis that have chosen to support and honor Mumia. Would Sam Farr stand aside in a similar way if a resolution came before him that called for action against his constituents in the City of Santa Cruz, where the city has also passed resolutions in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Mumia is innocent, and much of the world knows it.

Here is the response the City of St. Denis had to earlier attempts to coerce them into ending their support for Mumia Abu-Jamal:

“The city hall of Saint Denis denounces the manipulations of certain ultra-conservative pressure groups, and reasserts its commitment in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal

“The city hall of Saint Denis re-affirms yet again its support to the women and men who are demanding Mumia Abu-Jamal be treated with fairness and justice. The picket this 30th day of November 2006 has been organized to protest against the pressure brought to bear on the city of Saint Denis by members of the American extreme right in order to bring about the cancellation of our decision to name one of our streets after an African American militant who has been unfairly incarcerated and sentenced to the death penalty.

“This ultra conservative pressure group, based in Philadelphia, has not hesitated to make use of the grossest manipulations. Thus, the widely disseminated information according to which the city of Philadelphia is suing the cities of Saint Denis and Paris, because of their commitment in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal - is nothing but a lie. The Mayor of Philadelphia, as well as the president of its city council, informed the city of Saint Denis that they never intended to file any kind of suit, and have absolutely nothing to do with this campaign.

“This manipulation was unmasked, and it should be know that the Philadelphia politician who initiated it, though a member of George Bush's party, was defeated during the recent American elections.

“Whatever the case may be, the city hall of Saint Denis is proud to have named a street of this city in honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has become one of the symbols, of the struggle for justice and the abolition of the death penalty in the US and throughout the world.

“It is not the first time that an international mobilization has taken place in favor of American citizens who are unfairly sentenced in their own country. Such was the case for Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, between 1920 and 1927, for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who died on the electric chair in 1953, and subsequently in 1972 for Angela Davis initially sentenced [sic, she was actually never sentenced] for murder, before being acquitted of all charges.

“The city hall of Saint Denis will steadfastly pursue the struggle to save Mumia Abu-Jamal, so that this man incarcerated for a quarter of a century for a crime he has always claimed he did not commit - be reinstated in his human rights.

“Saint Denis 30th of November 2006”

The people of the world should not forget this hypocritical act of the US Congress, a governing body of a nation that falsely claims to uphold the values of human rights on a world scale. Likewise this once again exposes the need for the American people to build a socialist alternative to racist and repressive Democrat and Republican Parties.

As Mumia Abu-Jamal says, “Conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires. But what history really shows is that today's empire is tomorrow's ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit...”

Mumia stands up for unions, against war, against racism, equality for gays and lesbians, for the poor, and against the many injustices of the so-called criminal justice system. Mumia speaks up on many of the issues ignored, lied about, or glossed over by the corporate media and the corporate politicians. We need Mumia, yes we need him alive, but we also need him free. Yet all of the evidence shows that Mumia won't get justice in America unless we turn up the heat.

********************
For a complete listing of individual votes see: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll527.xml

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States on death row. For more information on Mumia's case and how to get involved, check out the following web sites:

Yet Another Witness Comes Forward and Refutes The Frame-Up Of Mumia
Abu-Jamal! By Steven Argue
http://www.freemumia.com/policecoercion.html

Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.laboractionmumia.org/

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.mumia.org/freedom.now/

Free Mumia Coalition, NYC
http://www.freemumia.com/

San Francisco Free Mumia Site
http://www.freemumia.org

Chicago Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.chicagofreemumia.org/

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

SUPPORT NEEDED: Dine' Natives Establish Blockade Near Proposed Power Plant Site

RegicidalManiac — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 01:26:37 GMT

Burnham, Sanostee & Nenanezah Elders and citizens are braving the cold to protect the land from the encroaching Diné Power Authority (DPA) and Sithe Global LLC at the proposed Desert Rock site. Navajo residents confronted the Diné Power Authority/Sithe Global on Tuesday afternoon after learning of water drilling that had been occurring without the knowledge and notification of local residents.

Burnham, Sanostee & Nenanezah Elders and citizens are braving the cold to protect the land from the encroaching Diné Power Authority (DPA) and Sithe Global LLC at the proposed Desert Rock site. Navajo residents confronted the Diné Power Authority/Sithe Global on Tuesday afternoon after learning of water drilling that had been occurring without the knowledge and notification of local residents.

SUPPORT NEEDED: Dine' Establish Blockade Near Proposed Power Plant Site

Please send far and wide!!!!

URGENT Support is requested from Dine Elders and Youth!

Sithe Global & DPA are proposing to build the Desert Rock power plant, a 1,500 MW Coal Fired plant in the Four Corners area on the Navajo Reservation. This is an area already polluted by 2 other major coal power plants. Local Navajo residence and community members oppose this project for many harmful reasons!! This Desert Rock power plant is still in the environmental review process and has NOT yet been permitted.

However, Desert Rock company trucks have began moving onto the backyard of Alice Gilmore, an elderly navajo woman, and her family on wednesday to begin drilling efforts. Desert Rock officials and police have not shown any documents or permits to the local residents stating their purpose or permission to be there. Dine supporters and community members have joined Alice and her family to blockade the road. They are elderly women and youth, and they have been camped out on the road over night since Tuesday! Desert Rock trucks have repeatedly rushed them and have almost run-over people a number of times as they attempt to get by. Desert Rock power company is violating the lease rights of the local Navajo residences and is harassing elderly Navajo women and youth! This is an urgent time and support is needed!!!

Please read on to find out how you can help! and Please pass this onto others! (press release and additional article)

What they need:
- More People Support
- Fire wood
- $$
- Attention!

how You can Help!

- More People! More people are needed to sit in support! All are welcome!

directions to the area are below:
The site is between Gallup, NM and Shiprock, NM (northeastern, NM). Take the road between Gallup and Shiprock, the 491. at the Mustang Service Station (one of the only service stations between the two), turn East on road #5 towards Burnham Chapter. From Burnham Chapter turn North onto gravel road #5082. About 10-12 miles up the road turn West until you see the encampment. There will be markers (balloons) out on the roads. (if you begin to see a dragline, you've gone too far)

- Fire wood! it is cold outside and many of the resisters are elderly women. if you can get firewood to the site it is very very much needed! the directions to the site are above.

- $ Money! Resisters are in need of money for gas and food, and also for bail money if necessary. Please send donations to local resident and supporter:
Elouise Brown
1015 Glade Lane 34
Farmington, NM 87401
Elouise can also be reached at: thebrownmachine@hotmail.com

- ATTENTION! the more media and observers are present the least likely Desert Rock is likely to run people over or harass them. contact the media, tell them what is going on. Contact Navajo Authorities, tell them you are extremely concerned. Be a legal observer. Spread this Alert!

###

Contact the Following Authorities! Tell them you have heard about Desert Rock's harassment of Navajo elders and youth. Tell them you are extremely concerned! If enough people contact these offices they will know that the world is watching.

Shiprock Police Department
phone: (505) 368-1350
fax: (505) 368-1293

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley's Office
P.O. Box 9000 Window Rock, Arizona, 86515
phone #: (928) 871- 6352

also: George Hardeen, Navajo Nation Communications Director Office of the President
Office #: 928-871-7000
Cell #: 928-380-7688
e-mail: georgehardeen@opvp.org

Bureau of Indian Affairs (Gallup Office) they are conducting the Environmental Impact Statement.
Harrilene Yazzi, NEPA Coordinator Bureau of Indian Affairs, Navajo Regional Office
P.0. Box 1060 Gallup, New Mexico 87305
Phone: 505-863-8314
Fax: 505-863-8324

Be a Legal Observer - get to the site and help record/witness what is happening

Send this Action Alert Far and Wide!

Thank you for your support!!!

Enei Begaye
Executive Director
Black Mesa Water Coalition
408 E. Route 66, Suite #1
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Office #: (928) 213-9760
PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Contacts:
Sarah Jane White, Doodá Desert Rock Committee (505) 860-6166
Dailan J. Long , Diné CARE, Doodá Desert Rock Committee (505) 801-0713
Elouise Brown, Doodá Desert Rock Committee (505) 974-6159
Lori Goodman, Diné CARE (970) 759-1908

BURNHAM, SANOSTEE & NENANEZAH RESIDENTS BLOCKADE DESERT ROCK PROJECT

Burnham, NM --Burnham, Sanostee & Nenanezah Elders and citizens are braving the cold to protect the land from the encroaching Diné Power Authority (DPA) and Sithe Global LLC at the proposed Desert Rock site. Navajo residents confronted the Diné Power Authority/Sithe Global on Tuesday afternoon after learning of water drilling that had been occurring without the knowledge and notification of local residents.

“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep coming over!” Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore exclaimed to Sithe/DPA employees at the confrontation. For Gilmore, the issue is despicable and uncalled for since she gave no consent to allow DPA/Sithe into her grazing area. Members of the Doodá Desert Rock committee gathered to support her opposition and asked Sithe/DPA to disclose Drilling permits that allowed drilling activity to occur, to no avail. The residents refused to leave after the Navajo Nation Police attempted to give access to DPA/Sithe Global, claiming that permits for the Desert Rock project are not for public disclosure. The Burnham residents barricaded the roads to disallow traffic into the Desert Rock site and have remained in place since the Tuesday incident occurred.

Members of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Committee met this morning at the Shiprock Courthouse to get answers about drilling permits yet the Lieutenant Dempsey denied access to Gilmore and other concerned residents to view the permits.

Residents are asking for: 1.) A copy of the categorical exclusion that is allowing the drilling activities to commence. 2.) Copies of the Clean Water Act Sections 401, 402 and 404, that would prove compliance with regulatory requirements have been met. There are major disturbance taking place and according to the Clean Air Act, these permits are a pre-requisite for drilling activity.

The proposed area is home to extended families, but arbitrarily drawn political boundaries by the Navajo Nation and company representatives have the families separated into the three chapters: Burnham, Sanostee, and Nenahnezad. The boundary defining Burnham and Nenahnezad has been moved south for benefit of DPA/Sithe as recently as two years ago.

“The local residents are not protesters but are resisters. Who would be happy if a well is being dug in their backyard especially when it is done in secrecy? So, how can those residents be considered protesters when they are simply standing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.” Stated, Elouise Brown of Sanostee.

Burnham, Sanostee and Nenanezah residents are not waiting for remedy; many have set up camp at the proposed site and are refusing to move until they get the needed documents. “We’re fed up with them,” states Sarah J. White, President of the Doodá Desert Rock Committee, “the grandmas and the grandpas are being walked over by these monsters and they’re being denied information. We’re standing our ground now.” This incident follows accusations made against Sithe/DPA about environmental injustices, EPA’s proposed issuance of prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit Air Quality Permit for Desert Rock Energy Facility and the creation of Navajo Nation Energy Policies without public input.

###

Lori Goodman
Dine' CARE
10 A Town Plaza, PMB 138
Durango, CO 81301
PH: (970) 259-0199
FAX: (970) 259-2300
Cell: (970) 759-1908
kiyaani@frontier.net
dinecare.org

###

Navajo traditional elders blockade power plant site

By Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report

BURNHAM, NEW MEXICO, USA – Elderly Navajo women and their children formed a blockade, built a fire and camped at the site of a proposed power plant on tribal land in northwest New Mexico. The blockade of
traditional Navajos halted site work in a region that is already toxic with air and water pollution from power plants, oil and gas wells and scattered radioactive tailings from the Cold War.

Facing the threat of arrest by tribal police at the blockade, Navajo elderly, including one medicine man, said they are willing to go to
jail to protect their land and way of life.

Most of the elderly are already ill from living in an area where power plants have released 100 tons of coal combustion waste that is blowing in the wind. One of the Navajo elderly resisters is in a wheelchair and another has severe asthma.

For the second night on Wednesday night, Dec. 13, Navajo resisters camped in the cold at the site.

“I have said ‘No’ over and over again and you keep coming over!” said Nenanezah elder Alice Gilmore, who holds the grazing permit for the area of the proposed Desert Rock Power Plant. The Navajo Nation and
Sithe Global LLC plan to build the power plant, which would be the third power plant in the Farmington/Bloomfield area.

Confronting Sithe and Navajo DPA employees, Gilmore was adamant that she has not given permission for the power plant on her land. Navajo elders from Burnham, Sanostee and Nenanezah chapter, all taking a bold action to fight the tribal government and corporate aggression, joined Gilmore at the blockade.

“We’re fed up with them,” said Sarah J. White, president of the Doodá Desert Rock Committee. “The grandmas and the grandpas are being walked over by these monsters and they’re being denied information. We’re standing our ground now.”

White said Navajos at the barricade need everything in the way of food, firewood and supplies.

“We need everything from A to Z,” White said.

The blockade was formed just 10 days after Navajo Nation elected leaders gathered with representatives from 14 countries and formulated a global ban on uranium mining on Native lands. The power plant blockade also comes as Navajo Nation leaders are fighting in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to protect San Francisco Peaks
near Flagstaff, Ariz., from the desecration of snowmaking from recycled wastewater for tourism. The mountain is sacred to 13 area Indian tribes.

However, both Navajo President Joe Shirley, Jr., and the Navajo Nation Council support the construction of the Desert Rock Power Plant and accompanying coalmine, which Navajos say would add more pollution to the air, land and water, already saturated with disease-causing toxins.

The Navajo Nation tribal government has attempted to censor the voices of Navajos speaking out against the Desert Rock power plant in New Mexico and the use of aquifer water for coal mining by Peabody Coal on the western side of the Navajo Nation in Arizona.

The proposed site of the new Desert Rock power plant is in the Four Corners Region, targeted since the 1970s as a national sacrifice area for energy production.

It is also the sacred region of Dinetah, the place of origin of Navajos. However, the air is so polluted in the region of Dinetah near
Bloomfield that persons with asthma and respiratory diseases find it difficult to breathe.

Further, Navajos say while they struggle with respiratory diseases, cancer and the death of their loved ones in this region, many Navajos must also haul water and live without electricity, since the power plants on Navajo land primarily provide electricity for non-Indians.

The Navajo blockade comes as O’odham in Sonora, Mexico, challenge a secret plan by the government of Mexico, with the knowledge of the US EPA, to create a hazardous waste dump near the sacred site of Quitovac where O’odham hold ceremonies. The Navajo blockade coincides with an action by Pima on Gila River tribal land in Arizona to halt expansion of a hazardous dumpsite.

At the same time, Yaqui in Sonora, Mexico, gathered to prohibit the use of banned pesticides in agricultural fields, now resulting in cancer and deaths.

At the proposed new Desert Rock power plant site in New Mexico, Navajo residents confronted the Diné Power Authority/Sithe Global on Dec. 12, after discovering that water drilling was carried out without the
knowledge and notification of local Navajo residents.

Members of the Doodá Desert Rock committee gathered to support Gilmore’s opposition and asked Sithe/DPA to disclose drilling permits that allowed drilling activity to occur. However, no permits were
provided.

The residents refused to leave after the Navajo Nation Police attempted to give access to DPA/Sithe Global, claiming that permits for the Desert Rock project are not for public disclosure. The Burnham residents barricaded the roads to disallow traffic into the Desert Rock site and Navajos remained at the blockade.

Members of Diné CARE/Doodá Desert Rock Committee met Dec. 13, at the Shiprock tribal courthouse to get answers about drilling permits. Navajo residents said a tribal police lieutenant denied Gilmore and
other residents access to view the permits.

Navajo residents are asking for a copy of the categorical exclusion, which would allow the drilling activities to commence, and copies of the Clean Water Act Sections 401, 402 and 404, that would prove compliance with regulatory requirements have been met.

“There are major disturbance taking place and according to the Clean Air Act, these permits are a pre-requisite for drilling activity,” Navajo residents said in a public statement.

Further, Navajos say tribal boundary lines were redrawn to accommodate
the power plant corporation.

The proposed area is home to extended families, but arbitrarily drawn political boundaries by the Navajo Nation and company representatives have the families separated into the three chapters: Burnham, Sanostee, and Nenahnezad.

Navajo residents said the boundary defining Burnham and Nenahnezad was moved to the south for the benefit of DPA/Sithe within the past two
years.

Elouise Brown of Sanostee said, “The local residents are not protesters but are resisters. Who would be happy if a well is being dug in their backyard especially when it is done in secrecy? So, how can those residents be considered protesters when they are simply standing up for their rights to have clean air, water, and environment.”

Burnham, Sanostee and Nenanezah residents are not waiting for remedy;
many have set up camp at the proposed site and are refusing to move
until they get the needed documents.

Navajos said this incident follows accusations made against Sithe/DPA
about environmental injustices, EPA’s proposed issuance of prevention
of significant deterioration (PSD) permit Air Quality Permit for Desert
Rock Energy Facility and the creation of Navajo Nation Energy Policies
without public input.

For more information on the Navajo blockade:
Lori Goodman
Dine' CARE
PH: (970) 259-0199
FAX: (970) 259-2300
kiyaani@frontier.net
dinecare.org

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

CALL FOR HELP

synnovemathe — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 08:24:29 GMT

CALL FOR HELP (circulate widely):

This is a call for help to defend a squatted social centre in Copenhagen
which has been running for a long time. There is more about its long
history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungdomshuset

The original call (here in an edited/spelling checked version) can be
found here: http://www.ungdomshuset.info/spip.php?article48

=================================================
Troublemakers of the world - We bid you welcome
=================================================

We invite everybody who supports Ungdomshuset to come to Copenhagen in
December. From the 13th through the 17th there will be actions,
workshops, concerts and at least one demonstration.

For seven years we have struggled for a political solution that could
remove the eviction threat against Ungdomshuset. These efforts have been
in vain.

We are still trying to find a peaceful way to save the house, but there
is not much to hope for. Though the politicians have spoken a lot they
have not done anything. The right-wing Christian sect whom the
politicians gave our house to is refusing to sell, despire generous
offers from an independent fund. Instead they have asked for permission
to tear it down.

>From just about everywhere there has been statements of support. From
local citizens to revolutionary political groups abroad. Danish labour
unions, artists, mucisians and many more have spoken in our favour. We
are very greatfull for this support. But so far it has not had an effect
on the leadership of the Church that is crusading against us. They still
push for war.

We are still hoping and working for a political solution but from
December 14th onwards the question is no longer *if* we are going to be
attacked by the police in an eviction attempt. From that day on it will
be a question of *when* we are attacked.

That is why we are calling upon all the friends of Ungdomshuset in
particular and supporters of squatting and social change in general to
come to Copenhagen from the 13th of December. Activities are planned
until December 17th, but you are welcome to stay longer. We need you.

Hope to see you here!
======================

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

I'm very close but . . .

ryan — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 17:14:29 GMT

I am very close to calling myself an anarchist. The more I read about politics the more I see government as the problem rather than the solution. At the moment, I would call myself a libertarian.
I have two questions . . .
1. How would an anarchical society deal with murder, rape and other non-consensual crime.
2. How would an anarchical society prevent a non-anarchical society (one with a state-backed military) from invading?

You might be able to convice me - push me over the edge if you can deal with these two concerns of mine.

Thanks,

Ryan

posted in A is for Anarchy - 6 replies

Connecting Groups For Action Through Tribe Spokescouncil

Tim — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 07:36:50 GMT

If you are part of a radical to moderate group or organization of 20 or more people, and can potentially serve as their spokesperson, you are invited to join the Tribe Spokescouncil – a peer group of representatives from Tribe converging to build critical mass for unified action. Groups of Friends, and Tribes, on Tribe.net should be an ideal place to organize. (If you do not yet have a group of 20 to represent, you may still participate, but you may not block consensus decisions.)

We hope that our collective effort will help displace frustration, fear, and malaise with a sense of community, responsibility, focus, and effective, practical power. It’s time.

Our intention is to unite a network of Tribe Friends, Tribes and other groups outside Tribe to generate critical mass and take practical, effective action for better communities, nations and world.

Spokespeople will connect their groups to the Spokescouncil. Discussion and consensus building around agreeing to an action or series of actions will happen in consultation with your group. As a spokesperson you represent the viewpoints of your group, not yourself. You are an emissary (or general!) from a non-violent army meeting with other emissaries to negotiate how to most effectively "fight" for peace, justice and sustainability. We won't spend time covering issues we don't agree on – the need for our prompt action is too great and we agree on too much.

The Tribe Spokescouncil leadership will be equally shared by all present through consensus decision-making based on the Formal Consensus process. www.consensus.net/ocaccontents.html

Groups represented in the Council should be in general agreement with The Earth Charter: www.earthcharter.org

The organizers of this process will not attempt to achieve their personal or organizational preferences for action while facilitating; we are assuming service roles, taking responsibility to call the circle, help facilitate and keep the process moving within the mission of the Tribe Spokescouncil.

The mass of people eventually represented by the Council will undertake the most effective series of actions upon which it can agree. As a process based in consensus we expect that people will come together with diverse issues they care about, and will find common ground through sharing and listening. We will not act until we have achieved the critical mass necessary for the greatest possible impact. We expect these actions will be diverse in nature, scale and scope. In order to achieve critical mass for one action we suspect groups will need to agree to "build each others' barns", that is, groups will come to know and trust each other through their representatives and agree to lend their numbers to a series of campaigns, so each campaign has the critical mass required for prompt and full success.

If you feel called, or are just curious, join the Tribe Spokescouncil, tribes.tribe.net/spokescouncil

If you have questions about the details of the process, please see the FAQ for the Valleywide Spokescouncil of western Massachusetts, www.valleywidespokescouncil.net

If you know of others who may meet the qualification of responsibly representing at least 20 others and should be invited, please invite them to join.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

New web community!

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 02:03:14 GMT

Hey all,

just wanted to let interested parties know about the activist web community my friends and I are trying to get off the ground. Its focus is alternative politics, science, and philosophy, as well as, user arts and literature.

We have recently created a new web forum and are really looking to boost the member levels to get some great debates going.

If you are interested, please visit: www.redguerrilla.info

Thanks Everyone!
Gavin

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Know War needs volunteers!

sarah mac — Sun, 07 May 2006 18:05:27 GMT

An Iraq War Memorial

2417 American Casualties, 5-7-2006

Sign up to participate

Imagine a photograph of more than 2,400 Americans strewn across a vast, desiccated expanse of desert. Know War is an ambitious non-profit project that aims to depict the human cost of the Iraq War by transforming the casualty number into a visible reality. This undertaking by renowned photographer, Zach Gold, will create an image that makes death come to life.

Know War intends to raise continued public awareness by enabling people to visually understand the American death toll. There has been overwhelmingly positive response so far, including veterans associations across the country, necessary vendors to execute a project of this size, as well as many individual volunteers. Dialogue has also begun with high-level advertising executives to aid in creating an ongoing public campaign. But Know War needs more help. We seek subjects for the photograph, volunteers to assist in organizing, food vendors, and everyone who stands for an end to this war.

The shoot date for this project is June 3, 2006 from 2pm - 6pm, the location is Mystery Mesa, Santa Clarita, California. Both a 30-second Public Service Announcement and a documentary will be developed in tandem with the photo shoot.

For more information, please contact help@knowwar.com.

To volunteer for this project, please visit the website and register www.knowwar.com

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

HURRY, SAVE FREEDOM ON INTERNET

petunia — Sat, 06 May 2006 04:27:19 GMT

Hi,

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law in upcoming days that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Internet freedom. They would allow AT&T to choose which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. If this law passes, almost every popular site—from Google to eBay to iTunes—must either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why over 400,000 people have signed a petition opposing Congress' effort to gut Internet freedom.

We can all do our part to save the Internet—can you sign this petition to Congress? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/?id=7482-3714763-xoomZYcJ1ClqzSHawt2MRA&t=5

This petiton will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes in several days. When you sign, you'll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

If you want more information, here are two really good places to look.

SavetheInternet.com Coalition Web Site
http://www.savetheinternet.com/

New York Times Editorial—"Keeping A Democratic Web"
http://www.freepress.net/news/15263

Thanks.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Homophobic Police Assault In Santa Cruz

Fri, 05 May 2006 01:15:24 GMT

The following is a letter of protest sent to the Santa Cruz City Council for the police assault of Shane (Tammy) Maxfield.

Santa Cruz City Council,

I am writing to protest the assault and false arrest carried out against Shane (Tammy) Maxfield by Santa Cruz Police Officer Brierly. A description of that arrest from an eyewitness follows this letter.

You as the City Council are the boss of the police and hold direct responsibility for the outrageous violations of civil liberties that are routinely carried out by your police department.

Yours is a police a department that has been successfully sued for its violations of free speech rights, a department that has violently broken up a protest against the war in Yugoslavia, a department that purposely targets activists for harassment, brutality and false arrests, a department that murdered activist John Dine in cold blood, a department that has been caught spying on and infiltrating anti-war organizations, a department that purposely targets the poorest of the poor for harassment, brutality and false arrests under the direct orders of the anti-homeless laws that you as a City Council have passed, a police department that targeted the Blue Lagoon, a gay bar, for special homophobic treatment eventually costing the City in a settlement of well over a million dollars.

The homophobic hate crime that Officer Brierly has now carried out against Shane (Tammy) Maxfield is just one in a long list of crimes carried out by your police department. Your encouragement of past crimes has led directly to this most recent one. The Santa Cruz Police department is sending out a strong message that Santa Cruz is not safe for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender community and that the City no longer wants their tourism dollars.

I demand that Officer Brierly be immediately fired from the police force for his hate crime against Shane (Tammy) Maxfield and that Officer Brierly be jailed on the charge of felony assault for his criminal violence and reckless endangerment of the life of a person suffering with HIV/AIDS.

Sincerely, Steven Argue
Liberation News
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Protest Messages Can Be Sent To:
City Council: citycouncil@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Cynthia Mathews: cmathews@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Ryan Coonerty: rcoonerty@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Emily Reilly: ereilly@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Tim Fitzemauric: tfitzmaurice@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Tony Madrigal: tmadrigal@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Ed Porter: eporter@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Mike Rotkin: mrotkin@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us
Police Auditor: PoliceAuditor@ci.santa-cruz.ca.us

Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 16:16:07 -0700 (PDT)
From:
Subject: case #065-04163
To: dao@co.santa-cruz.ca.us
District Attorney Bob Lee: May 3, 2006

I am a witness in the case of Shane(Tammy) Maxfield, case #065-04163. Shane was handcuffed and forced to sit down against the chainlink fence on Pacific Ave/Church for "directing traffic." He was actually helping a friend and another witness, David Bliss jump David's battery to move his van out of the handicapped space.

The officer refused to give me his name and badge number. I begged him twice not to arrest Shane as he is severely ill with AIDS and has just started a dibilitating HIV cocktail of Trevada and Sustiva. He laughed at me and said "That's not gonna happen." I told him Shane might die of stress in jail and he guffawed and shrugged me off.

It was apparent the officer realized he hadn't charged Shane with anything yet as he pulled Shane up by his coat, slammed him against the fence and forced the top of Shane's head to barely touch him. He said: "Now I've got you for battery." This was in full public view of at least 40 witnesses at 1 PM on April 25,2006. Before the sergeant could take stories from witnesses Shane was put in the police car and taken to jail. His arraignment is May 15, 2006. The jail personnel were sympathetic and thought the whole incident ridiculous.

It is a travesty of justice to allow a police officer with NO communication skills arrest a severely ill man for helping a friend (the van was already jumped and ready to go when the arresting officer on the beat got there) This officer should be removed from the police force as he is nothing more than a thug in a uniform. He is guilty of police brutality, false arrest and battery upon Shane not the other way around.

This case was immediately reported to the media and is sure to garner public attention and support. The police on Pacific Ave. appear to be overzealous and commonly ticket people for such trivial offenses as riding a bike the wrong way down the street. In addition, the arresting officer in this case, listed on the arrest report as Brierly, badge # 174, made numerous derogatory remarks about "hippies" when he tried to prevent more people from stopping to observe the incident.

As summer approaches we need peace officers on Pacific Ave not Neanderthals. Brierly should be arrested and removed from the police force immediately.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Please help

mentalfreedomne1 — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 01:50:32 GMT

please go to this website to send a fax to the related US
congress and senate members to Request a Congressional Hearing on the
Sujiatun case. it's a very easy to Fill out form, With just a click, the fax will be sent.
thank you,
joshua

here is the link:
http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php

there is more information about Sujiatun on the website:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

New Witness Confirms Existence of Chinese Concentration Camp, Says Organs Removed from Live Prisoners

mentalfreedomne1 — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:35:16 GMT

Please help to end this horrible persectuion. knowledge is our greatest weapon, please share this information. together in peace we can make a difference. Falun Dafa is a peaceful meditation practice that teaches putting others before yourself, kindness, always telling the truth and being tolerant of others. We are literally being killed for being good people. The national media refuses to report on this because of trade issues with China. It is up to us to let the world know. Please help us.

By Ji Da
The Epoch Times Mar 17, 2006
www.theepochtimes.com

The witness, a former employee at the Liaoning Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, and says the bodies of Falun Gong practitioners are cremated immediately after the organs are removed. (The Epoch Times)
[High-resolution image ] A former employee of Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine told The Epoch Times during a recent interview that the Sujiatun Concentration Camp in China was actually a part of a hospital. The concentration camp has engaged in taking organs from Falun Gong practitioners when they were still alive and selling the organs. Since 2001, the concentration camp has secretly detained approximately 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners, none of whom have been able to leave the camp alive. The hospital removed many kidneys, livers, and corneas from the practitioners. After the organ removal, the practitioners were thrown into an incinerator, which was converted from a boiler. Their ashes were dumped together with burned charcoal.

Organs from Three Quarters of the 6,000 People Were Removed
Those whose organs were removed were in various states of health. Because many of the victims were illegally detained, there was neither an arrest warrant nor identification as to who these people actually were. Often after their organs were removed, nobody claimed the bodies. Sometimes their bodies were picked up by crooks who pretended to be their family members.

About three-quarters of the 6,000 people died after their hearts, kidneys, corneas, or skin was removed; their bodies were then burned. This witness, whose family member participated in the removal of Falun Gong practitioners' organs, said that approximately 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners remain in the hospital. She was afraid that the authorities would kill all of them to destroy evidence.

The Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine is located at 49 Xuesong Road, Sujiatun, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China. It was the first hospital in China to specialize in the heart, the brain, and surrounding blood vessels. The hospital is composed of several organizations, including the Liaoning Traditional Chinese Medicine College Teaching Hospital and the Shenyang Thrombosis Treatment Center.

Concentration Camp Details
The hospital site is 21,087 square meters, with 17,564 square meters of building area. It employs 460 people in 24 departments and 20 specialized offices. Information from the Chinese government shows that the hospital was established in December 1988, and was formerly named the Shenyang Research Institute of Thrombosis and Liaoning Province Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. In June 1998, it was renamed China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center.

The Chinese Business Morning View said in a story on July 4, 2004, that a farm worker died of abnormal causes in Sujiatun, Shenyang and was later cremated. The death certificate was provided by the Chinese Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center in Sujiatun. The news caused a stir in China.

A copy of the death certificate. (The Epoch Times Archives Photo)Below is the transcript of an Epoch Times reporter's interview with the former staff member of the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine in Sujiantun, Shenyang City. Questions were posed by the reporter and answered by the staff member being interviewed.

Epoch Times: Did the hospital's medical staff inside the concentration camp know about this?

Answer: This hospital has a small number of officials and some doctors involved secretively in the operation of organ harvesting. Some other staff in the hospital knew about this, but this is absolutely a taboo [to talk about]. They all are afraid of being killed or courting trouble, so they all avoid the issue. Only those highly trusted doctors could be chosen to be the surgeons for organ harvesting operations.

ET: Were Falun Gong practitioners alive when their organs were harvested? Did their families know about this?

Answer: Falun Gong practitioners who were imprisoned there came mostly from Dabei Prison, Masanjia Labor Camp, and other prisons in Shenyang, or they were Falun Gong practitioners arrested in parks or residential homes. Because they refused to denounce Falun Gong, they were arrested without formal warrants, and their families did not know their situation. Many did not even have their names [recorded]. In addition, since the Chinese authority exercises a policy of "not being responsible" for killing Falun Gong practitioners, the death of Falun Gong practitioners is not a very big issue for prisons. The Chinese Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong, [but] these medical personnel were told Falun Gong practitioners were facing death because they killed people, or they were sentenced to death because of crimes, or they had become insane from practicing Falun Gong.

Those Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested came from several types.

Organs harvested from live bodies are worth far more than organs taken from dead bodies. Many Falun Gong practitioners were still alive when their organs were taken. After their organs were cut out, some of these people were thrown directly into the crematorium to be burnt, thus leaving no evidence. For some others, after their organs were stolen, the doctor sewed up the wound and asked the family or family representative to give a signature for cremation. Family members did not know at all that the dead had their organs taken out.

Furthermore, there were some healthy Falun Gong practitioners in prisons in other areas who were injected—without their knowledge—with psychoactive drugs that made their minds confused. They then were transferred to Sujiantun concentration camp to suffer further torture, till in the end their organs were harvested and their bodies were cremated in secret.

Among the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested, some were weak and some were healthy. Since most of them were illegally arrested, there were no arrest warrants or identification cards. After their organs were taken out while they were still alive, no one came to claim their bodies; or [sometimes] people using fake identities claimed their bodies.

None of these people have come out [of the concentration camp] alive; three-quarters of these 6,000 people have died, having their hearts, kidneys, retinas, and skins harvested and their bodies disposed of. I think now about 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners are still in this hospital, and I am afraid now that the authority will destroy all evidence and kill them.

Question: How did you know these things? Were you yourself a doctor involved in organ harvesting?

Answer: I worked at the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Shenyang. This is exactly where this concentration camp is located. One of my family members was involved in the operation to harvest Falun Gong practitioners' organs. This has brought great pain to our family.

Question: Please tell us what you knew about.

Answer: From 2001, our hospital started to detain Falun Gong practitioners. At the beginning, these people were detained in the single-storey houses in the back yard of the hospital. Later, the hospital authorities demolished the single-storey houses, and it was unknown where in the hospital the Falun Gong practitioners were transferred. Many staff of the hospital discussed in private that these Falun Gong practitioners had been secretly transferred to the underground chambers of the hospital. According to some people working inside the hospital, the hospital has a huge system of secret underground chambers.

At the time when we went to work there, the person in charge of logistics and purchasing in the hospital said that the quantity of disposable sterile gloves used for operations and daily supplies that the hospital authorities asked to be purchased had increased dramatically. The logistics people estimated based on the scale of purchases at that time that there were at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners detained in this hospital.

These Falun Gong practitioners were not detained in the 4-story building under the in-patient department and administration at the front of the hospital, in order to keep the hospital staff from seeing them at all. We only occasionally saw Falun Gong practitioners being sent on a mobile intensive care bed to the first floor for physical examinations. These people were very weak. For the majority of the Falun Gong practitioners, nobody knew where they were being secretly kept. While they still did not know where these people were kept, some staff inquired to the hospital authorities about why so much food and so many sterile gloves and daily supplies were purchased. The hospital authorities said, "You only need to do your job well. There is no need for you to ask any other questions."

Starting in 2001, a family member of mine participated in organ-harvesting operations. My family member tried to keep me from knowing about this at the beginning. The hospital authorities selected doctors they trust in different aspects to perform the secretive operations. After a period of time, I found that my family member was in a lot pain, often had nightmares, and appeared panic-stricken. After repeated inquiries, this family member told me the truth. The leader of the hospital had asked my family member to participate in the organ harvesting operations on Falun Gong practitioners as early as 2001. It was 2003 when my family member confessed. A few years after, my family member felt so much pain from participating in this incident that it was impossible to continue with the evildoing. My family member decided to go abroad to get away from this matter.

My family member also told me: "you don't understand my suffering; those Falun Gong practitioners were alive. It might be easier for me if they were dead, but they were alive."

Question: Were there any other doctors from the hospital taking part in the operations of cutting out Falun Gong practitioners' organs?

Answer: I know there were some. All these things have been carried out secretly. Many doctors at our hospital involved were practicum doctors transferred from other hospitals. Because the government does not want to be responsible for Falun Gong practitioners' bodies and lives, their lives are treated as garbage by the regime, and their bodies were used in experiments by new doctors doing their practitcums.

Many doctors came and left the hospital because they suffered a lot after having been involved in these kinds of things. They either requested to be transferred to other places, or changed their names. Some might have been killed to eliminate the evidence, their identity files were taken out from the hospital's filing system, or their names were changed. Nobody knows where the doctors have gone.

The hospital staff all know that the rear part of the hospital is forbidden. It is always watched. The staff avoids talking about the place.

Question: It is said the hospital is equipped with an incinerator. The person whose organs were removed will be burned when he or she is still alive. Is that true?

Answer: The employees in our hospital call this place "the incinerator." Actually, it is a boiler room. Some poor farmers from nearby places were hired to work in the boiler room. They were penniless when they first came here. But they could scrape up some watches, finger rings, necklaces, and so on. The amount is not small. It is said by the employees in the hospital these jewelry and watches were collected from the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs had been removed when they were about to be thrown in the boiler to be burned. It is also said by the employees in the hospital, some were still alive when being thrown into the boiler.

Question: Do they get injection of anesthetic when in surgery?

Answer: Yes. There is a cap to the anesthetic quantity used in mainland China's hospitals. Generally, the supply of anesthetic was determined according to the accommodation of the hospital. To the public, the number of patients in our care appears to be very small, and publicly reported number of surgical procedures performed is quite low. But the equipment and articles used in surgery are abundant. Because the amount of anesthetic is limited, these secret surgeries could not use the normal anesthetic doses. In order to save anesthetic, they economized on the anesthetic used in surgeries on these Falun Gong practitioners. The amount of anesthetic used was very small. However, many whose organs were removed were still alive. You can imagine the pain suffered by the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were removed.

Question: Are there any survivors among the 6,000 people detained since 2001?

Answer: Nobody has come out alive. The number of them gets smaller and smaller. The Falun Gong practitioners detained at Sujiatun are fewer now than before. But I believe that the sin of removing the organs of the Falun Gong practitioners is still continuing.

Question: Where are these organs usually sold to? Do the higher authorities in the government know about this?

Answer: They are mainly sold to Thailand, but I believe they are also sold to other regions of the world. Nowadays, there are many patients in China who need human skin, corneas, and kidneys for organ transplant surgeries. Many patients have to wait in line to purchase organs. Currently, a kidney can be sold up to the price of 30,000 to 100,000 U.S. dollars. The profit from selling organs is simply too great. The people who benefit from this are not only the top leaders of hospital and the officials of the Chinese Communist Party's Heath Department. This is a crime present across the entire nation. People ranging from government officials to doctors to organ sellers are all involved in this and are profiting greatly.

Question: Why did they target Falun Gong practitioners as the source of organs?

Answer: Because relatives of many Falun Gong practitioners don't even know that their family members were arrested. So if the Falun Gong practitioners are killed, there will be no one to come and claim their dead bodies.

Question: Why did you want to expose this? This may bring great danger to you.

Answer: I know that there are many Falun Gong practitioners who are currently detained at the hospital. I would like to expose this to the international community, so those who are not yet killed can be saved. Also, I would like to expose this as an atonement for my family.

I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. But as a former staff member of the hospital, I have the responsibility to expose the truth, and let the world to save those Falun Gong practitioners who are still alive. Organs of some Falun Gong practitioners are still living on patients' bodies. I would like to call on all society to pay attention to this issue and stop this shocking crime.

see what else you can do at www.fofg.org

posted in A is for Anarchy - 2 replies

International Anarchist Academics and Activists Conference

Pirate-King — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:19:09 GMT

http://losangeles.tribe.net/event/International-Anarchist-Academics-and-Activists-Conference/claremont-ca/69ec5b9a-190f-474c-a84c-99118a470f39
Date & Time: Thursday, April 13, 2006 - Saturday, April 15, 2006
1:00 PM
Location: Pitzer College
Claremont, CA
More Info: dwardmac.pitzer.edu/dward/AAA.html
Anarchist academics and activists will gather in Claremont for three days of culture jamming, music, film, art, panel presentations, discussions, lectures, and demonstrations. Whether you are an anarchist or just curious about anarchism, all are welcome to participate. The purpose of the conference is to strengthen connections among anarchists on the streets and in the academy, to sharpen the anarchist critique of the present, to deepen our understanding of the origins and history of anarchism, to stimulate further activism, and to present the anarchist vision to a wider audience. The conference will take place on the campus of Pitzer College, which is one of the five undergraduate institutions collectively known as the Claremont Colleges, and the host of Anarchy Archives.

The conference will begin with some culture jamming of our own. Students at Pitzer have begun organizing a "Whirl" down the aisles of a local marketing behemoth where we will form a conga line with empty shopping carts and raise awareness about the high cost of low prices. Then, there will be continuous live music, films, presentations and discussions. The topics will be as wide ranging and diverse as the anarchist movement itself. If you would like to present a formal paper, make an informal presentation about activist projects, join a panel discussion, or simply soak up all the conference has to offer, please contact Dana Ward dward@pitzer.edu as soon as possible. There is no formal deadline or format for proposals, but the earlier you respond, the easier it will be to schedule presentations. If all you want to do is attend the conference, it would greatly facilitate planning if you would also contact Dana Ward soon. Space will also be made available for book sales and for activist groups to distribute literature and information about their activities.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 1 reply

TRUDELL

Pirate-King — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:54:12 GMT

This Friday, March 10th is the opening of TRUDELL in LA.

LAEMMLE MUSIC HALL
9036 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills 90211
310.274.6869

http://laburners.tribe.net/thread/0d9989f6-5aea-46d5-97be-fbdecfb16327#08ce40e0-d928-468e-aa47-6971a954d799

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Anarchy through Love

RichBatsford — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:31:45 GMT

Hello all

newbie here. Ive been an anarchist for a couple of years, but for some time have had trouble explaining to people what that means (to me) or how it might work.

however im taking some practical steps towards finding out.

Anarchy through love is the last line of the motto of a group im a member of here in birmingham uk, called project X. the rest goes like this:

Resistance through existence
passion through peace, peace through noise
wisdom through laughter, anarchy through love
(or something)

Im looking forward to exploring my anarchic tendencies more in this tribe over time, and in the meantime would like to extend an invitation to you all to visit (and preferably join) the tribe on Project X where you can learn all you want to know and more about our plans for the future.

its here: http://tribes.tribe.net/projectx

love and laughs

Rich
X

posted in A is for Anarchy - 5 replies

Hells eve

CharlieTheChocolateFactory — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 20:47:51 GMT

congradulations, and thanks to all who participated in the hells eve, activities last night

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Organizing anarchists is like trying to herd cats.

Pirate-King — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 10:07:47 GMT

"Organizing anarchists is like trying to herd cats."
-Tom Schreiner, a founding member of Free Radio Santa Cruz.

This vision of Anarchism in the US, that of rock throwing, black clad, nihilistic youth breaking windows at the November 1999 WTO Meeting in Seattle, is a vast over-simplification. Bookchin gives us the following insights:
"The Hellenic origins of the terms anarchy or 'no rule' should not deceive us into thinking that it can be readily placed in the academic spectrum of social ideas. Historically, Anarchism has found expression in non-authoritarian clans, tribes and tribal federations, in the democratic institutions of the Athenian polis, in the early medieval communes, in the radical Puritan congregations of the English Revolution, in the democratic town meetings that spread from Boston to Charleston after 1760, in the Paris Commune of 1871, the soviets of 1905 and 1917, the Anarchist pueblos, barrios, and worker-controlled shops of the Spanish Revolution of 1936 -- in short, in the self-directed, early and contemporary, social forms of humanity that have institutionally involved people in face-to-face relations based on direct democracy, self-management, active citizenship, and personal. participation . It is within this electric public sphere that the Anarchist credo of direct action finds its real actualization. Indeed, direct action not only means the occupation of a nuclear power plant site but less dramatic, often prosaic, and tedious forms of self-management that involve patience, commitment to democratic procedures, lengthy discourse, and a decent respect for the opinions of others within the same community [bold face added].
Yes organizing anarchists is like trying to herd cats. But it’s not imposable and it’s tons of fun, especially in a fish costume.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 8 replies

if there was no government, wouldn't there be chaos?

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:39:36 GMT

(anyone remember that Crass song?)
anyhoo... i like the idea of anarchy a lot, but of course there are all these
little details and stuff that aren't explained, i don't think. there are things i don't get.
like, who would protect physically weaker people from physically stronger people? how would we not have constant rapings and stuff?
i guess if any oppression is going on, it's not anarchy, but how to even GET to that situation without some sort of oppression?
or is it up to everyone learn to protect yourself and have a gun or something?

posted in A is for Anarchy - 8 replies

Howard Rheingold

Pirate-King — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 17:00:25 GMT

http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=414_0_1_0_M

I think Howard has solved the problem of how to herd kittens, and it’s been staring me in the face all along.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Save Lil Shadow

Pirate-King — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 20:32:45 GMT

After contributing, please foward to peeps on your friends list

Log on to paypal and send cash to Lilshadow29@aol.com

And forward this to your friends

We raised thousands this way for lisa's trip to ireland to run in the marathon. Lets break that record, any sugestions on how to get the word out more

LilShadow is broke now and their going to shut off her lights on Friday.

LilShadow had been diagnosed with Aggressive Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which is cancer of the lymph nodes. While it is definitely suppose to be one of the more curable cancers I guess you could say, she also has Lupus which she was diagnosed with a few years ago. People with Lupus apparently are more susceptible to this type of cancer. Due to the Lupus and having a deficient immune system it has made it harder for them to treat, so she has been doing immuno-therapy which is suppose to be easier on the immune system then chemo. Unfortunately it has taken longer then chemo would've but at the least amount of risk, but it is just not strong enough and the next option is to switch to chemo as it seems her immune system is getting stronger and at least the Lupus looks like it may be going into remission.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

B is for Bunny Hop

JoeBorfo — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 00:45:35 GMT

this kind of Spam is good for you Anarchist Bunnies..

Anyone interested in helping make this happen? Is April 2nd a good date to go? I suggest hopping on the metro as transport 3$ for a day pass. We can hit allot of bars that way. pass it on...
bunnyhop.tribe.net/

posted in A is for Anarchy - 0 replies

Masafesto of more choice

Pirate-King — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 17:35:40 GMT

A is for Anarchy
B is for Burning Man
C is for Choice

Its as simple as ABC ;
John Perry Barlow, lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and activist, was the organizer of Dance Mobs in New York City at the Republican National Convention.
Mob Dancing was spontaneous dance assaults intended to raise awareness for the left.
I admire their effort but I don't think they could ever have been successful since I agree with Emma Goldman that “If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal”.
More specifically, what Emma said almost 100 years ago, is truer today than ever before. Today politicians rely on high tech pollsters to decide what to say, how to dress, how to act, and therefore, they all tend to say and think the same thing. I don’t see any real difference between Bush and Kerry. As a direct result of this sameness they must move to the polar extremes of selected emotional issues and waste our time, money and patience lobbing media bombs at each other. Three of the big media battles in this election were religion, gay marriage, and abortion. What we need is more choice, more than the patronizing propaganda of the right or left, who offer choices, like whether you want to drink your milk or go to bed.
Consider this, not as an answer but as a question, rather than pro choice or pro life, how about pro more choice. If the right and left used all the money they spend on media bombs they could afford to support all the unwed mothers with care and dignity. If it’s so important that one would kill an abortion doctor, then why not offer ones life in support of orphans. There are more choices between the extremes of a propaganda war. Don’t dance to the drummer of a Hobson’s choice, DANCE FOR MORE CHOICE.
Consider this, not as an answer but as a question, rather than yes or no to gay marriage, how about more choice in types of marriage, due to Napoleonic law Louisiana has two types of marriage one is non-divorceable and one has the option of divorce, the Celtics had 14 different types of marriage. Don’t dance to the drummer of a Hobson’s choice, DANCE FOR MORE CHOICE.
While a last minute spike in awareness from a mob dance might be entertaining for us and the dancers, I don’t believe the influence to be profound, lasting, or have any affect on the politicians.
Iona Miller said, “The infectious influence of radical artists, though seemingly small gets pumped up to societal proportions through an effect analogous to, if not literally, what is known as ‘the butterfly effect' in chaos theory. The flapping of a butterfly's wings can influence global weather through minute perturbations that get pumped up in proportion.”
So I’ve formed this Tribe called A is for Anarchy the purpose of which is to use Mob Dancing to engage the otherwise uninvolved public in a cultural revolution of the arts and the thought of more choice, through dance.
Non- violent, non-traffic blocking, non-confrontational fun, to enlighten, by example and making new friends. I will consider this project a failure if anyone gets arrested, if you have a martyr complex please join another tribe. We don’t need the negative publicity that arrests bring, as that will further entrench those whom we are trying to reach. Bicycles should be art projects as the police will be less inclined to arrest a “fish on a bike” art project. Personnel costumes should be ala burning man or otherwise reflect more choice, assistance will be provided if requested for a custom designed costume or art bike. Music will be originally produced techno “dance for more choice” music.
Using multiple, Techno, Hip Hop line dancing parades, intent on getting the public involved and thinking, we will meet at map points commit a dance assault under the supervision of a dance commander who will teach original “more choice choreography”, disperse, meet at the next map point and ultimately conclude at a loft party to chill and socialize with the new fish. I expect this to take years to grow like Burning Man but unlike burning man we wouldn’t be hiding the art projects in the desert. The goal is to change the thinking of the public from the extremes of propaganda to demand more choice before the pollsters get to them.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 1 reply

Guerilla Dance Assaults

Pirate-King — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 21:21:32 GMT

Vote with your feet, Guerilla Dance Assaults to raise awareness.

Dance mobs ala
barlow.typepad.com/barlowfr...z/2004/10/dancemob_redux.html

Provides organization

DANCE COMMANDERS can convert fustration into an artform
Think of a Tecno-trance hip hop line dancing parade.

posted in A is for Anarchy - 1 reply