Mariann in her own words: “parsley caterpillar with antlers extended – wish I had put him on a different surface!; spiny tree lizard lurks in rose bush (I don’t have a cat or dog; this is my “pet”!). The lizard lives in my utility closet on the patio.”
Congress’s Shameful Retreat From American Values
By Garrison Keillor
The Chicago Tribune
Wednesday 04 October 2006
I would not send my college kid off for a semester abroad if I were you. Last week, we suspended human rights in America, and what goes around comes around. Ixnay habeas corpus.
The U.S. Senate, in all its splendor and majesty, decided that an “enemy combatant” is any non-citizen whom the president says is an enemy combatant, including your Korean greengrocer or your Swedish grandmother or your Czech au pair, and can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any right of appeal to a court of law to examine the matter. If your college kid were to be arrested in Bangkok or Cairo, suspected of “crimes against the state” and held in prison, you’d assume that an American foreign service officer would be able to speak to your kid and arrange for a lawyer, but this may not be true anymore. Be forewarned.
The Senate also decided it’s up to the president to decide whether it’s OK to make these enemies stand naked in cold rooms for a couple of days in blinding light and be beaten by interrogators. This is now purely a bureaucratic matter: The plenipotentiary stamps the file “enemy combatants” and throws the poor schnooks into prison and at his leisure he tries them by any sort of kangaroo court he wishes to assemble and they have no right to see the evidence against them, and there is no appeal. This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by President Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts.
Read the rest here.
And here’s what one of our members had to say about Highland Park Methodist Church:
I was baptized, attended Sunday school, vacation Bible school, youth groups and regular services at Highland Park Methodist Church until 14 when my parents got divorced, after which I staged my first revolt, against further participation. It was reputed to be the world’s wealthiest Protestant church. The head preacher of my youth was named Marshall Steele, a self-evident spokesman for America’s God. In the 60’s, they became notorious for barring black people from attending “services”. Their level of hypocrisy is rarely equaled. I was indelibly marked by that youthful trauma.
David Hamilton
2000: director of a company which wins $200m contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea
2002: declares North Korea a terrorist state, part of the axis of evil and a target for regime change
The Two Faces of Rumsfeld
Randeep Ramesh
Friday May 9, 2003
The Guardian
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea – a country he now regards as part of the “axis of evil” and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons.
Mr. Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m (£125m) contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defence secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year. He left to join the Bush administration.
The reactor deal was part of President Bill Clinton’s policy of persuading the North Korean regime to positively engage with the west.
The sale of the nuclear technology was a high-profile contract. ABB’s then chief executive, Goran Lindahl, visited North Korea in November 1999 to announce ABB’s “wide-ranging, long-term cooperation agreement” with the communist government.
The company also opened an office in the country’s capital, Pyongyang, and the deal was signed a year later in 2000. Despite this, Mr Rumsfeld’s office said that the de fence secretary did not “recall it being brought before the board at any time”.
Read the rest here.
It’s (car)Toon Tuesday, again, and here’re a couple of good ones. Have you been through an airport security line lately? Loads of fun … Many thanks to our cartoonist, Charlie Loving.
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Most soldiers want to withdraw. That is proven. There was a Zogby poll. 72% of recently turned Iraqi vets want to be out of Iraq by 2006.
AMY GOODMAN: 2006?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: By 2006.
That means this year.
And my experience backs that up absolutely.
There is a lot of pressure for soldiers not to speak out. There’s fear of court-martials. There’s fear of their commanders getting mad at them. There’s a lot of reasons why soldiers don’t speak out.
But nobody should be fooled.
Soldiers know what’s going on over there, and they are not happy about it.
[snip]
AMY GOODMAN: So you’re going to walk across Utah. How are you going to do this?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: One step at a time.
It’s going to be 500 miles. I’ll walk about 20 miles a day. Originally I planned to walk one day for every 100 soldiers who have died, so it would be 26 days. However, since we’ve planned this, the number has increased to over 2,700 U.S. casualties in Iraq, and so I’m going to have to add a day at the end, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN: And who will walk with you?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Well, we’ve got a lot of support. Anyone is invited to walk with me. We want this to be an inclusive event. So that maybe you’re a conservative and maybe you like the war, but you just think that we need a plan to get out, I want those people to come walk with me, because at this point it doesn’t matter why we got into the war or what the partisan politics were about. What matters is that two soldiers die every day on average.
And any way that we can end this war one day sooner is two lives saved. And I would walk 500 miles for that. I would walk 1,000 miles for that.
AMY GOODMAN: Other soldiers, will they walk with you?
SGT. MARSHALL THOMPSON: Yes. There will be other soldiers walking with me.
I’ve received an enormous amount of support from fellow soldiers.
I got an email yesterday from a soldier in Iraq who said, “I know what you’re saying. I can’t publicly support you, because I’m afraid of what might happen to me, but thank you for what you’re doing. And I’ll be walking with you in spirit.”
To read the entire interview, click here. You can also visit Marshall Thompson’s Web site, A Soldier’s Peace.
Awaiting the Rebellion
by Fred Reed
When, one wonders, will mutiny begin among the troops in Iraq?
Recently I talked by email about the war with Jim Coyne, an airborne-infantry friend who served two tours as a gunship door-gunner in Viet Nam and then made a career in journalism. I asked, “Do they [I meant the officer corps, the official military] actually believe the optimistic twaddle this time around? Do they really not know what is happening?”
Jim’s response: “In my opinion, they really don’t know; they may not even want to know on some level. You know as well as I, these are mission-oriented folks; can do folks; failure and its introspective handmaidens are not options to them. And in a tactical mission-oriented world our military doesn’t really fail very often; in a strategic military/political world such as the Mideast and Iraq, however, we simply cannot win.
”Again, as in Viet Nam, the career officer corps salutes and marches toward the sound of battle. Eventually however (and it won’t be long now) it’s the grunts who will begin to revolt, first in small ways (as in the 101st in late 1968, “No sir. We are not going up that hill again.”) and then, quickly thereafter (As in 1973, “Fuck you, asshole.”) By that time the media may get wind of things and spin it exponentially out of control. That’s what I think.”
So do I …
And so do we. Read the rest here.
A Perfect Martini
Somehow this recipe goes with today’s movie. I can’t say how exactly; it’s just a feeling I have. The movie’s title is The Money God.
Into a well-chilled shaker, pour a couple of tablespoons of the best white (dry) vermouth you can find. Swirl vermouth to coat all sides of the shaker completely. Sit down and rest for two minutes.
Pour vermouth down the sink, or save it for the next time. In shaker, place 6 large ice cubes, then add 3 jiggers of the best gin you can find. Tanqueray is one of the best. Close shaker, do a Maquarena with your partner for just twenty seconds with the shaker in your hand (be sure not to break any bones), then immediately strain the result into martini glasses that have been chilled in your freezer for two hours. You can finish dancing now if you want.
Garnish with large pitted green olives on toothpicks (with or without the pimiento or other cool or hot stuffings, or pickled onions – I believe any garnish except olive makes a slightly different drink).
On October 4, the College Republicans at Columbia University hosted Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist. The Minutemen are known for inciting racist violence against immigrants. In an exercise of free speech, students unfurled a banner on the stage reading “No One is Illegal”, prompting audience members to join them on the stage with another banner with the message, “No to Racism”. These peaceful protesters were violently assaulted. Below is their initial statement published the night of the protest as well as a link to a video showing parts of the event. They are now under attack from the administration and potentially face disciplinary charges. Please support them by signing the online petition at this URL. The students are also soliciting letters of support and solidarity, which can be sent to them at nominutemen@…
Statement of the Student Protestors:
We celebrate free speech: for that reason we allowed the Minutemen to speak, and for that same reason we peacefully occupied the stage and spoke ourselves. Our peaceful protest was violently attacked by members of the College Republicans and their supporters, who are the very same people who invited the Minutemen to our campus in the first place. The Minutemen are not a legitimate voice in the debate on immigration. They are a racist, armed militia who have declared open hunting season on immigrants, causing countless hate crimes and over 3000 deaths on the border. Why should exploitative corporations have free passes between nations, but individual people not? No human being is illegal.
Links to coverage, including video:
Columbia Spectator
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/76890.html
http://www.bwog.net/index.php?page=post&article_id=2265
Police Go Nuts: Six Arrested after Anti-Minutemen Demo at Mexican Consulate
10/7 | One guy was charged with “spitting”; the others were grabbed after the demo as they stood on the sidewalk. If wednesday night was a people’s mini-riot at Columbia, this was a mini-police riot.
About 6 anarchist and sds folks were arrested today at the anti-minutemen demo at the consulate. One of them is being charged with spitting on the floor, and the other five are charged with 1 misdemeanor count of inciting a riot and 2 misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct. They were at the 13th precinct at 21st st between 2nd and 3rd, but they’re being moved to the tombs at 100 centre st i believe. There are gonna be folks outside the criminal courts there from now till morning, i presume, waiting until they get out. If anyone wants to get out there and show support, go for it. There are NLG people and mds and sds and nymaa and others working on getting bail, figuring out the next step.
To read more, go here.
Chapters, caucuses and organizers may access a broad range of press contact information at these websites.
I have been working on compiling an email address directory for press releases and letters to the editor. It is a work in progress, but anybody requesting a copy of the current draft will be sent one. I am also interested in collaborating on this project with others in SDS. It is something people can do, regardless of proximity (or lack thereof) to an active local chapter.
Yours in solidarity from my (now officially illegal even if on appeal) NSA party line,
Monty Reed Kroopkin
San Diego
PRESS CONTACT INFORMATION SOURCES
Congress.org Media Guide home page:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/
The CP Network (College Publisher)
http://cpsite.collegepublisher.com/thecpnetwork/index.cfm
Current U-Wire Members (University Wire)
http://www.uwire.com/members/currentmembers.html
Independent Press Association’s Campus Journalism Project (List of Alternative/Independent Newspapers)
http://www.indypress.org/cjp/papers.html
Campus Progress member publications (Center for American Progress)
http://www.campusprogress.org/tools/90/campus-progress-publications
Alternative Press Center’s Online Directory
http://www.altpress.org/direct.html
and Alternative Viewpoints on the Internet
http://www.altpress.org/links_a.htm
AAN Directory (Association of Alternative Newsweeklies)
http://aan.org/alternative/Aan/NewsweeklyDirectory
ZNET’s Alternative Media Resources
http://www.zmag.org/altmediaresources.htm
ZNET’s Alternative Media Watch
http://www.zmag.org/altmediawatch.htm
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
