Because People Matter Progressive News and Views July / August 2008

Inside this issue:Editorial.............................................. 2Utah.Phillips.Remembered................. 2Compassion:.the.First.Casualty.......... 3Poor People’s Traffic Court................. 4The New Peace Movement.................. 5When Americans Are Not American.. 6Native Intelligence.............................. 7Poem: George the Decider................... 7New.Orleans....................................8-9Homeless Victory in Fresno.............. 10The.Fall.(a.True.Story)...................... 10Corporate Encroachment.................. 11.Stop BigMedia.................................. 11Sacramento Area Peace Action......... 12Review: Married to Another Man.... 13NeoCon.Follies.................................. 13PNAC............................................... 14Calendar............................................ 15Progressive Media............................. 16

by: Felicia Martinez

Javier* had been living in Bakersfield for years and worked in the

construction industry there. He had the habit of lunch-ing at local eateries near his job sites, but one day he changed his routine. On that particular day, his job site was close to his home. Javier had leftover cold cuts in his refrigerator, so he decided to go home and make himself a sandwich. He never made it. Local police pulled him over a few blocks away from his destination, and within hours Javier was in Immigration and Customs Enforce-ment (ICE) custody. Javier blamed it on his recently shaved head.

“Ever since I went bald they pull me over all the time,” Javier told me as he lifted his knitted cap and rubbed his scalp. “It’s because I look like a cholo.” The last time they pulled him over they didn’t let him go.

Now Javier, a young man in his mid-twenties, was sitting across from me inside a tent at the migrant aid station located in the shadow of a truck crossing near the border town of Nogales, Sonora. It was January 2008. I was at the aid station as a volunteer. Javier was there try-ing to get his bearings.

The Mariposa migrant aid station was established as the result of a historic accord between No More Deaths, the Tucson-based Coalición de Derechos Humanos, and the Comisión Estatal para la Atención a Migrantes (State Commission for the Care of Migrants) of Sonora, Mexico. Tucked into a dirt lot behind the border crossing designated for commercial trucks, the aid station is a hub of services and resource sharing. During the time I spent there, the station consisted of a tent, a camper, a supply shed, and a port-o-potty. The camper housed volunteers and medical supplies, while the tent served as a reception area, medical station, soup kitchen, and refuge from the elements. Most months, the station also counts on the presence of the Mexican Red Cross, which provides a trailer full of resources along with a small cadre of volun-teers. On its busiest days, the aid station serves well over 1,000 people.

During my time there, the people who passed through were mostly men. Most were Mexicans from southern states like Veracurz. Some were from other countries, like Honduras. Some were married. Others were not. Some were fathers. Others were not. One man had

tuberculosis and was missing an eye. Another arrived with leg injuries. The ill man had been incarcerated for five years in various US prisons for having been present in the US after having previously been served a deportation order. Another young man I met had been given five months for the same infraction. There were women, too, traveling mostly with groups. Some had children traveling with them. One middle-aged man looked as if he had been plucked out of an office. He wore dress shoes, a pressed yellow shirt, and slacks. Most people who came to the station had been picked up in the desert by the Border Patrol. It was their clothing that gave them away—athletic shoes for the long walk North, baseball caps to shield them from the sun, and dark shirts to protect them from being spotted at night.

Then there were those who, like Javier, had been

yanked away from long established daily routines. In spite of having spent the last few nights in a shelter in downtown Nogales, Javier was talkative. Our conver-

sation flowed easily, switching often between Spanish and Spanglish. Since we both lived in California, we had much to talk about.

“Do you ever go to the bailes?” Javier asked me.

“No.” I am not one to frequent the dances where the norteño bands play,

but I do go to a lot of rock en español concerts. So I told Javier this, and we talked. We talked about the nightlife in the cities we both knew. We talked about our favorite performers and the venues we frequented. Then we talked about the crossing.

“Are you going to try again?” I asked him.

by Beau Grosscup

Since 9/11, the Bush Administration has used its War on Terror to focus attention on fighting a per-manent war abroad to justify the globalization of

the instruments of force. Today, 800-plus military bases in at least 130 countries, along with secret prison gulags, paramilitary forces and covert operations, span the globe to punish those who resist corporate North America’s exploitation of the earth’s human and natural resources.

The War on Terror is also being utilized to justify a permanent war on Western liberal democratic tradi-tions at home. The deadly smoke of 9/11 had barely cleared when the Bush Administration, pursuant to the neoconservative political strategy first articulated in the mid-1970s, began constructing a more militarized and repressive society. The erosion of privacy, restrictions on public information, attacks on individual rights, including Habeas Corpus and the militarization of public discourse that have accompanied the rise of a privatized and privileged National Security State (NSS) are well chronicled.

What remains invisible in US media and political discourse has been the Bush Administration’s war on US Labor in general and the immigrant population in par-ticular. Yet, it is these domestic ‘wars,’ prosecuted under the banner of a War on Terror that constitute an attack on the constitutional rights and professional standing of workers. Moreover, in separating the undocumented immigrant from the rest of the working class, the Bush Administration and its NSS agents are conducting a wholesale assault on the very humanity of millions of citizens and would be citizens.

Due to the global ‘boomerang’ effects caused by

neo-liberal economic privatization (poverty, debt, star-vation, violence, environmental erosion and political repression), the influx of illegal immigrants has affected the US for decades. With the 9/11 attacks the Bush Administration put a ‘terrorism face’ on undocumented immigrants in particular, dramatically intensifying the historic ‘criminalization’ of the immigrant population in public discourse and public/private policy. Immigrants now endure greater social repression, legal discrimina-tion and institutional racism. What follows is the tip of the iceberg.

Utilizing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the federal government has stepped up its pre-dawn raids, search and seizures, evictions, arrests and public segregation. In lieu of legislative inaction at the Federal level, state and local governments have enacted anti-immigrant measures such as making English the official language, denial of drivers licenses, and penalties for landlords who rent to and employers who hire immi-grants deprecated as ‘illegal aliens.’

All fifty states “are considering more than twice the number of immigration-related laws as in previous years – with most imposing tougher restrictions on illegal immigrants.” Utilizing ‘Jim Crow black code’ anti-gang legislation of the 1990s, terrorism worries and height-ened anti-immigration sentiment, federal, state and local law enforcement have renewed the intimidation practice of ‘jump-out squads’ where after leaping from their cars, police briefly detain ‘suspects’ for loitering and take their pictures.

Stories from the migrant aid station in Nogales, MexicoServing the ones “sent back”

On its busiest days, the aid station serves well over 1,000 people.”

see Migrant Aid, page 6

See War on Immigrants, page 7

War on ‘Terro-Immigrants’

In Washington on March 18, the day before the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War Code Pink carrried this gigantic constitution down Pennsylvania Ave to the nation’s Capitol—just in case they had forgotten what it actually said.Photo: Paulette Cuilla

* Not his real name.

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On the cover“The Game of Lies,” by Wood-land artist and satirical car-toonist Terry Hollowell, is based on the Game of Life board game. See her website, www.feraltoons.com.

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A Walled Fortress: The Consequences of 9/11 by Richard Nadeau

Scott McLellan’s latest book “What Happened?” has revelations on how the Bush administration and a complicit corporate media manipulated the climate of fear in the US to justify the invasion of Iraq. It is undoubtedly true that the neo-cons in the Bush administration treated 9/11 as “a new Pearl Harbor,” as their blessing in disguise.

While some “9/11 Truth” researchers focus on contradictions in “the official story” and possible administration complicity with the terrorists, others argue that 9/11 was an “inside job” that would facilitate the project of the political right to dismantle long established constitutional pro-tections and build an authoritarian state inside America. Of course, both of these scenarios would involve the worst form of treason.

Yet, even skeptics of this “9/11 truth theory” must admit that it reveals a significant emotional fact—just how little trust many Americans have in their government under the reign of this duplicitous administration that has constantly lied to us. This is supported by an October 2006 New York Times CBS poll which revealed that 53% of the American people were skeptical about the official 9/11 account and 28% rejected it out-right. Only 16% believed the official story!

(NY Times, “Americans Question Bush On 9/11 Intelligence,” October 14, 2006)

In the last BPM, we covered “the three trillion dollar war” and many of the costs of the two counterinsurgency wars and military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The continuation of

these wars has meant more resources for a more thoroughly militarized America. Not surpris-ingly, the 2008 request of a $515 billion dollar “defense” budget was combined with attacks on Medicare, Social Security, and myriad relief programs for the poor. It also meant less money was available for the development of renewable energy resources.

What does the future promise? A vastly expanded and costly homeland security budget is in the cards. The foolish “neocons” in the Bush administration have articulated and implemented a policy of worldwide US military supremacy, what some call “full spectrum dominance.” To accomplish this they need greater authoritarian social control of the American population at home. Apparently, support from the established media alone is not enough. Of course, China and Russia, who have brokered a military and energy alliance, may ultimately have something to say about this. So may the rest of the world.

Since 9/11, the US significantly expanded the homeland security apparatus and built a large invasive state bureaucracy around it. Even Republicans like Ron Paul are upset about this. This meant increased resources going into sur-veillance of American citizens and to domestic national security under the banner of protection and safety from terrorists. Immigrants from Mexico remain the most vulnerable targets in this climate of fear. We are building walls to keep them out.

In fact, America is rapidly becoming a walled fortress, a military Leviathan of historic

proportions. Militarization of the border and the construction of an immigration wall and border outposts fits with the larger trend. This means greater repression of the so called “terro-immigrants.” Raids, roundups, deportations are already a fact. This whole repressive trend dehu-manizes immigrant laborers. We already have a long history of dehumanizing Native Americans and the dispossessed Palestinians.

In spite of all the talk about national security in the “homeland,” the government did a miser-able job in coming to the rescue when Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, threatening the security of hundreds of thousands of Ameri-cans. When it counted, the Bush administra-tion floundered in every conceivable way. New Orleans is still in a desperate condition.

While acknowledging these depressing trends, it is important to recognize that there are impor-tant counter trends since 9/11 that can still give us hope. People are fighting back. In spite of a lack of media coverage, there are signs that more young Americans are getting involved in the new peace movement. Also, many Americans are involved in sending relief to New Orleans. Citi-zen groups are fighting corporate encroachment. American border and immigration activists are providing relief and help to stressed out immi-grants. These are the post 9/11 heroes we never hear about!

Right now it appears that many of the Ameri-can people are asking questions and may be more progressive than their government. We can only hope.

Utah Phillips, 1935-2008 The “Golden Voice of the Great Southwest”: Legendary Folk Musician, Activist

Utah Phillips, the legendary folk musician and peace and labor activist, has died at the age of seventy-three. Over the span of nearly four decades, Utah Phillips worked in what he referred to as “the Trade,” performing tirelessly throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

The son of labor organizers, Phillips was a lifelong member of the Industrial Workers of the World, known as the Wobblies. As a teenager, he ran away from home and started living as a hobo who rode the rails and wrote songs about his experiences. In 1956, he joined the Army and served in the Korean War, an experience he would later refer to as the turning point of his life.

In 1968, he ran for the US Senate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. For the past twenty-one years he lived in Nevada City, where he started a nationally syndicated folk music radio show. He also helped found the Hospitality House homeless shelter and the Peace and Justice Center.

From Democracy Now!, May 27, 2008 Utah Phillips at the WHole Earth Festival, May 12, 2002. Photo: Dick Woods.

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by Rick Nadeau

It is said that “truth is the first casualty of war.” But there is another immediate casualty—compassion. In fact, compassion

may even be the first casualty. Once the war machine has geared up, the propaganda dis-seminated, hatred of an enemy proclaimed, a culture of malice becomes a necessary ingredi-ent. The enemy must be portrayed as a monster of inhumanity, as an Other with no legitimate grievances, as a dark irrational object that must be destroyed. Hatred cannot ask the following questions. Why are they the way they are? What social conditions are they responding to? Have we done anything that would explain their hostile behavior toward us? These questions are forbid-den once malice has taken over and compassion has been thrown out the window. Necessarily, truth goes out with it.

I got a first-hand lesson in the spring of 2003 during a visit to New England. Friends I grew up with were enthused about the war against Iraq. Knowing I was against the war, they taunted and provoked me. I asked them if they cared that innocent civilians were being killed. One of them laughed and mocked me, asking “who cares about a bunch of “ragheads?”

The truth was irrelevant—we had to kill the Arab “ragheads.” Hatred of the them seemed more important than the truth of whether Iraq actually posed a threat to America, or had WMDs, or had anything to do with 9/11. Iraqis were racially characterized and had to pay collec-tively for the crimes of Saddam Hussein. Because malice and greed for oil triumphed, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and millions turned into refugees. Over four thousand Americans have also been killed, and the economic impact on American society has been devastating. And the war goes on and on.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize the war, sounded another war cry on the morning of the Pennsylvania primary when she bragged to the world that she would “obliterate” Iran if it attacked Israel. This statement of an acceptable genocide was treated with reverence by the media, even though it is far worse than anything uttered by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Clinton was clearly pandering to the para-noia of pro-Israel voters in the American 2008 elections. But what she said was objectively horrible—that she was willing to nuke over 70 million Iranians to protect Israel, even if most of them had no impact or say on Iranian policy. Ironically, it came in the context of US and Israeli threats to launch a pre-emptive military attack on Iran should it try to obtain nuclear weapons. This is surely a road to madness.

Israel, which has a significant modern nuclear arsenal and superior conventional weapons sys-tems and air power, obviously wants to maintain its nuclear monopoly and has opposed Iranian proposals for a “nuclear free Middle East.” Iran knows it would be suicidal to attack Israel, and has not attacked another country in the modern period, although it did defend itself when it was attacked by Iraq in the 1980s. These truths are irrelevant to Hillary Clinton. Malice triumphed. Once she demonized the Iranian “Other,” no level of violence could be ruled out.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer argued that compassion was the highest human virtue. “Compassion,” Schopenhauer wrote, “is the sole source of disinterested actions and hence the true basis of morality.” Compassion overrides odious self-assertion and fosters self reflection. What would I do if I were in their shoes? Is the Other’s behavior understandable given the circumstanc-es? Should I intervene to alleviate their suffering? Should I protest those responsible for the suf-fering? So speaks compassion. It is the opposite of malice, which is based upon the desire to do harm to others.

Compassion is a form of wisdom that requires us to look outside the narrow shell of our self, our gender, our group, our tribe, our religion, our ethnicity, our class, our race, our nation state, our civilization. It is a wisdom that tries to

understand and alleviate the sufferings of others who are different. It is an antidote to boundless egotism, anger, and hatred. It involves a different type of enlightenment than the cold western enlightenment based on science, rationality, knowledge, and technology. Compassion is different from pity, since the latter is conde-scending and further diminishes the suffering victim.

One sees little compassion for others expressed in America’s ruling circles or in the mass media. They are blinded by their craving for power, profits, and oil. For many in the third world, America is “the land of no Bud-dha” inasmuch as it deliberately pursues policies that starve and harm others. Under American “neoliberal” economic poli-cies, the gap between the rich and poor is growing as is hunger and poverty at home and abroad. We are creating, as author Mike Davis argues, “A Planet of Slums,” where the oppressed and impoverished live in misery in the shadow lands of the American empire. This is why President Chavez of Venezuela is viewed as such a threat by American elites—he is practicing a politics of compassion by redistributing some of Venezuela’s oil wealth to help the poor.

We see little commentary in our mass media about innocent Iraqis that have lost their houses or their lives as a result of the American Crusade and occupation. Many Americans refuse to examine the violence or suffering brought about by the policies of their government. This was true in the Vietnam era when it was rare to hear any concern expressed for the millions of Viet-namese who were being bombed and pummeled by American B-52’s. I saw more compassion expressed for animals than I did for the burned human victims of napalm. Animals certainly deserve compassion, but so do humans even if our greatest danger comes from other humans.

While it may be true that most human beings in most societies are a mixture of egoism, malice and compassion, many dedicated people in the

peace movement display genuine compassion that goes beyond caring for one’s own little cor-ner of the social world. They are people trying to change society for the better, who are protesting the bombings, the torture, the occupations, the rendition programs, while criticizing the general drift of American society towards authoritarian rule, militarism and war. They do it while making sacrifices in their personal lives. They represent a humanity that is waiting to be born.

Aggressive war is the antithesis of compassion and truth—it requires lies, acts of revenge and hatred to continue. It is a crime against humanity. Certainly, it is important to analyze the structur-al, political, ideological, and sociological tenden-cies that gave rise to it. Yet without compassion for the suffering of others, especially those others who are different from us, it is unlikely that any-one will ever raise a finger or take a risk to stop it.

Rick Nadeau has been a peace and environ-mental activist since the 1960s. He lives in Sac-ramento and is an editor with Because People Matter.

“Animals certainly deserve compassion, but so do humans even if our greatest danger comes from other humans.”

Compassion: The First Casualty of War

WWII advertising

poster for war bonds. University of Minnesota Libraries.

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Sacramento Progressive Events Calendar on the Web

Labor, Peace, Environment, Human Rights, Solidarity…Send calendar items to Gail Ryall,gryall@cwnet.com.

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BeSt BurGerthe burgers and fries are described as legendaryBiting into this feast, the first thing you notice is that you can taste the beef. The French Ground Steak Burger w/cheese is the thing to order. That is a mouthful to say, and it’s definitely more than a mouthful to eat. Featuring

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by Murray CohenAbout a month ago, I got a ticket for going

through a stop sign. As usual, I had decided to escape the craziness

of I80 at the first exit west of the causeway for a quiet drive to Davis. The cop who pulled us over accused me of not coming to a complete stop before proceeding on the lightly used frontage road. The ticket was for $182. My first moving violation in over 50 years of driving. Angry at the injustice of it all, I decided to fight the ticket, though the cop was technically correct.

At the hearing there were about a dozen cases before mine. Only two defendants got off—people with insurance violations who came with proof. Otherwise the law was applied to the letter, but with a certain tired humanity by the judge. Yet, it was evident to me that justice was not served. Long before I got to stand before the podium, I had lost interest in my own case.

I remembered having read recently that justice in capitalistic societies like ours demands that the law be administered with cold objectivity. Rich or poor, we are all equal before the law.

Needless to say, there’s something fishy about this concept. For one thing, it doesn’t take into account who’s writing the law. For example, laws regarding issues of war and peace and taxes and capital versus labor are written to protect wealth and the power that goes with it, with the opposite of justice in mind. Here we have a steeply slanted, but “legal” playing field.

Similarly, in criminal cases, such as murder and other felonies, the cold “objectivity” of the law is warmed (often to putty) proportionally to the wealth of the offender. That’s why our jails are filled with “objectively” sentenced “working poor.” Equality before the law is just another illusion of our “democratic” but very unequal society.

It’s the same in Traffic Court. Few rich people bother to come here because you don’t have to. Apparently, well-paid lawyers painlessly deal with these “little people” issues. Waiting for my turn, I wondered how my $182 fine might translate into an equally painful judgement in an imaginary Rich People’s Traffic Court—against someone, say, like Dick Cheney? I calculated that about $500,000 would do for a lonely road stop sign violation. And while I was at it, I stuck it to the villain for $1.5 million for snarling while speed-ing to a sneaky policy session on energy and torture.

Meanwhile in the reality of Poor People’s Traf-fic Court, the fines the judge imposed on the guilty were obviously too high for the margin-ally employed speed demons ahead of me, but

brutally unfair for the working mother who explained how she had found herself pinned in the right lane by a speeding 16 wheeler and was harassed by the driver on her tail to pass the speeding truck. This poor woman, pushed by the enraged lout and perhaps frightened, or maybe angry and not wanting to appear to be a wimp—passed the truck. The judge, applying the law “objectively,” found her guilty of speeding: hundreds of dollars in fines, loss of her license (and therefore maybe her job), probable increase in insurance costs, but the privilege of attending traffic school for the mere cost of $39.

The $1,300 fines handed out to the young machos seemed more a kind of joke than justice. The kids can’t pay. They lose their license. Then their jobs. Indeed, some were back for speeding without a license. For others, like the working mother, the law was neither justice nor joke; it was a form of state terror.

Traffic court can really bring home to you the fact that the cold, objective application of the law is really only for us working people—mass society—where there is neither the time nor the inclination to deal with people as people, unless in the guise of fools on Court TV.

In the two cases before mine I learned that nothing serves mass justice better than surveil-lance technology. Both cases involved the traffic camera at 1st and E Streets in Davis. There was a projector and a big screen. Cops had fun with

stop motion, reverse, enlargements, angle of view, photos of the license plate, even the driver’s face. Law became a police toy that produced the “real-ity” of “reality tv,” and the judge watched with pleasure. He no longer had to be judge. And once the concerned cop testified that according to the county technician, the camera was operating cor-rectly, the Church (of Technology) and the State merged in the court room.

The officers testified that the light was timed to give drivers exactly 3.2 seconds between when the light turned yellow and the yellow turned to red, long (or short) enough to capture the num-ber of violators necessary to make the system cost-effective. Both defendants believed they had entered the intersection when the light was still yellow, but, rather than stomping on their brakes and risking either a rear-end collision or ending up in the middle of the intersection, they allowed their vehicles to roll through. In other words, both thought they were reacting in the safest possible way given the circumstances. Yet, there it was: the objective truth on the screen: the light red, their vehicles not quite up to the intersection line. Their license plates, their unsuspecting faces. The judge naturally found both defendants guilty and fined each $300 plus court costs, plus $39 for traffic school.

Some European cities the size of Davis have discovered that their traffic ordering devices invited reckless behavior and have removed them

all, with the result that everybody slowed down and paid attention to traffic. Most authorities here don’t really trust people to act responsibly and would consider these types of democratic experiments “quaint.” Here, more and more cities are buy-ing surveillance technology of all kinds. It’s a “win win” deal. Good for investors, they infallibly transform real people into compliant objects for our system of mass “justice.”

Everybody but me got “justice” that day. I only got what I deserved. I should have paid the ticket. It wouldn’t have hurt that much. I didn’t have to attend Poor Peoples’ Traffic Court to learn that justice in the United States is having enough money to either own it or not sweat it.

Murray Cohen is a retired teacher interested in issues of peace and social justice. He is co-editor of this issue of Because People Matter.

“I only got what I deserved.”

Poor People’s Traffic CourtMass Justice in Woodland

Albert Ellery Berg, The Universal Self-Instructor (New York: Thomas Kelly, Publisher, 1883)University of Sourth Florida

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by Frank GormlieThe antiwar protests that swept across America

last March reflected the new face of the peace movement. The new face is younger, more mili-tant, lives outside the major US cities, and is new to the antiwar campaign. It portends a stronger, deeper, more pervasive antiwar presence and sentiment in the political makeup and landscape of the country.

To commemorate the 5th anniversary of the war and occupation of Iraq, and the tragic total of 4,000 American military deaths, antiwar protests, vigils, marches, rallies, sit ins, traffic blockades, and sign waving demos were held across the nation, culminating on March 19th. For the first time in years, there were simultaneous civil dis-obedient actions occurring on both coasts, Wash-ington, DC, and San Francisco. Protests were staged throughout the country employing similar militant tactics. In the smaller towns and cities were folks holding up peace signs and banners at main intersections and freeway overpasses. They were met with supportive horn honking and thumbs ups.

We didn’t see the traditional massing of thou-sands upon thousands in protests against the war, the type of demonstrations usually organized in a few major cities like New York, DC, San Fran-cisco. We saw both during the run up to the war.

This time antiwar protests occurred in small and moderately sized cities, in big towns and small towns. One antiwar network, “5 Years Too Many,” recorded 700 antiwar events; another source cited 640 actions. United for Peace and Justice coalition (UFPJ) documented protests in 124 different towns and cities. Our research found 85 locales with protests.

San Francisco had a nighttime rally of thou-sands; Chicago, an outpouring of 4,000; Los

Angeles, between 2,000 (police estimate) and 10,000 (organizer’s estimate); Portland, up to 12,000 marched in the rain; 10,000 rallied in downtown New York.

The antiwar movement was visible in Syracuse, Vestal, Rochester, Brooklyn, and Niagara Falls in New York; Millersville, King of Prussia in Pennsylvania; Hyannis, Newburyport, Chicopee, Worcester in Massachusetts; Providence (Rhode Island); Ewing, Trenton, Princeton, and New Brunswick, in New Jersey.

2,000—including hundreds of high school students—demonstrated in Minneapolis; protests occurred in Duluth, and in Grand Rapids, East Lansing, Kalamazoo and other Michigan towns you’ve never heard of. Despite the snow and cold, events were held throughout Wisconsin, includ-ing the state capitol in Madison; in Cedar Falls and Des Moines (Iowa), Columbia (Missouri), Lawrence (Kansas); there was a large student walkout in Grand Forks (South Dakota).

Antiwar sentiment was on display in the South: in Augusta and in Atlanta, in Charlotte, Chapel Hill, Asheville, and Greensboro in North Carolina, in St. Augustine, Tampa, Orlando and Gainesville in Florida; in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, the Texas capitol, where 1000 marched. In Norfolk (Virginia), home of the largest Navy base, demonstrators received warm responses; actions were held in Lewisberg (West Virginia) and in Columbia (South Carolina).

On the West coast, hundreds marched on

the Chevron oil refinery in the East Bay city of Richmond, with many blocking the gate. Actions were also held in Alameda, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, San Jose, Sacramento, Fresno, Palo Alto, Irvine, San Diego, Montrose, and even in the small city of Redding. Other western protests occurred in Reno, Denver, Honolulu; in Phoenix hundreds converged on McCain’s office; in Tucson over 500 rallied, and in Grand Junction (Colorado) hun-dreds marched against a local war profiteer.

Spreading to every region and corner of the country, and visible in hundreds of small towns and cities, the antiwar movement has decentral-ized and deepened, a positive development. It is better to have different people organizing each of the 500 events than to have two or three large demonstrations in a few major cities. Because of

local media coverage, the signs, ban-ners, and flags of protesters are now in front of the “average” citizen, no longer just a quick blurb on CNN.

The new militancy has arrived. Trading signs and placards for hand-cuffs, antiwar demonstrators, gray hairs and young college students, were arrested for blocking military recruitment centers and corporate profiteers. This represents a new level of resistance, signifying a shift in attitude within important sectors of the peace movement. By physi-cally placing their bodies in front of military, government and corporate facilities, activists are acting in the civil disobedience tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi.

This new militancy was shown by the 399 arrests during the “March madness” days of protests that we documented, a number the corporate media failed to report. Sixty-six in DC, 147 in San Francisco, 24 across the Bay in Rich-mond. Also 22 arrests were made in Syracuse; nine students were arrested in Vestal (New York), six activists were arrested after disrupting Easter Mass at a local Chicago parish; seven were taken in Memphis for refusing to leave their Senator’s office.

Military recruitment offices and centers were a central protest target, as were Congressional offices, Federal Buildings, and Courthouses. Many protests were directed at corporate war profiteers, as in San Francisco and DC, but also at the Carnegie Mellon University, a Pittsburgh military funded facility; at war profiteer Lock-heed Martin; the Chevron refinery. Corporate media were targeted, as well as the CNN building in LA, the NBC headquarters in San Diego, and the local mainstream daily in Syracuse.

The new face of the antiwar movement is a youthful one. College and high school students, student groups like SDS and the Campus Antiwar Network had a stronger and more visible pres-ence. There were walk outs and spontaneous actions in Chapel Hill (North Carolina) where hundreds of students took over the town’s main intersection. In downtown San Diego, 90 high school and college aged people participated in a “die in.” At one high school in Princeton (New

Jersey), 250 students walked out to attend a demonstration, and all were given detention for punishment, which was also protested.

In Portland, protesters were harassed and pepper-sprayed by police, prompting a massive outpouring and march the next day on City Hall by 400 high school students, and a handful were arrested. A college student with the youthful crowd said, “I’ve never seen a protest where the average age is 14, 15, 16 years old. These kids don’t even have facial hair.”

That young people participated in large num-bers this past March is indeed a significant sign for the peace campaign, as their absence was the topic of movement angst and debates, with a common thought being that without a draft, there would not be massive numbers of young people. Yet, the prominence of youth and student led actions this March gives credence to the observation that the peace movement is becom-ing a youth movement.

The marchers in Los Angeles “were over-whelmingly young” and many were “first timers.” Antiwar demonstrations are now attracting people who have never before attended a protest. This is substantiated by a recent poll of English antiwar demonstrators, where 22% said they were at their very first protest.

There is a new kind of antiwar movement in America now. Decentralized and in every region of the country, the activists are willing to be arrested as the movement moves from protest to resistance. It’s a more youthful and healthy move-ment, and is still, after five long years, bringing in new people. It is a movement that could very well save America, despite the efforts of the corporate media to hide the significance and extent of anti-war actions. But they can no longer hide the face of the new peace movement, for it is a beautiful face, the face of the future of this country.

Frank Gormlie is a lawyer, blogger and com-munity activist in San Diego, California. A longer version of this essay can be found at www.obrag.org/?p=612OBRag.com.

The Peace Movement Shows Its New Face and It’s Beautiful

High School Students descend on Portland City Hall, March 2008.

Protesters Pepper-Sprayed in Portland, March 2008

Die In for Peace in front of the NBC building, San Diego, March 22, 2008

� Because People Matter July / August �008 www.bpmnews.org

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Planned Parenthood:Franklin Blvd, Watt Ave., 29th St.

Queen of TartsQuick MarketSacramento Bagel, 47th/H

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Sacramento Public Library (Main & many branches)

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Starbucks (B'wy & 35th)The BeatTime Tested BooksTower Theater (inside)Tupelo (Elvas & 57th)Underground Books (35th St. near B'way)

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Nevada CityUS Post OfficeFor a complete list, visit our web site:www.bpmnews.org.Where would you like to see BPM? Let Paulette Cuilla know, 916-422-1787.

“I have to,” he replied, removing and readjust-ing his knitted cap for the umpteenth time that afternoon. “My wife and kids are in the US.”

“How many kids do you have?”“Four. I have two that live with me, and two

that live in Tracy, with their mom.”I couldn’t refrain from prying. “Do you keep in

touch with your other kids, the ones in Tracy?”“Oh yeah,” he replied. “My wife doesn’t get mad

if I see them. If I talk to my ex, she gets mad, but not with the kids.” His wife, he told me, was also pregnant again.

“When is the baby coming?” I asked.“I don’t know. Maybe today.”Today was Thursday. Javier had decided to

rest up for a few days before setting off into the desert, which he planned to do over the weekend. He was going it alone, without the guidance of a coyote. He had made the trip before and felt con-fident that he knew the way.

“If I can make it to Phoenix,” he explained, “my family can come pick me up there.” Phoenix was 180 miles away.

Hundreds of thousands of people have stories like Javier’s. At the migrant aid station, volunteers record every person who passes through and docu-ment any abuses that have been committed by US law enforcement before, during, or after apprehen-sion. Here migrants are offered food, water, and first aid. Ankles are bandaged, coffee is brewed, and bread is served. Painted onto the wall of the storage shed are phone numbers such as that of the shelter where Javier was staying as well as various consulate offices. Travelers in need of shoes, socks, jackets, and jeans could ask for them here at the aid station. Some people came simply to have a place to sit down, rest, regroup. Others, separated from their loved ones by the Border Patrol after appre-hension, taped hand-written notes on the walls of the tent in the hopes that someone reading theirs

by Jack D. Forbes

I have been following the newspaper reporting of the America Cup (“Copa America”) in soccer and the Pan American Games in baseball. In the former case, all of the teams were from South America except for a few invited outsiders, such as the United States and Mexico. In the latter case, all of the teams are from North, Central, or South America.

What I found to be very disturbing is that the Associated Press reports consistently have referred to the Yanks as “Americans” while refus-ing to refer to the other American team players as Americans. The US players can, of course, be referred to as US players, as Yanks, as Yankees, or as North Americans. But it is shocking to find them exclusively bearing the name of “Ameri-cans” as if they alone existed in this hemisphere.

Unfortunately, the exclusive and political use of “American” for only United-States-ians, has been gradually escalating, especially since World War II. I grew up knowing that “America” was the entire hemisphere. My old maps, dictionar-ies, and encyclopedias made it crystal clear that America was the entire continent or land mass consisting in North and South America, with Central America and Meso or Middle America also being commonly used for parts of the hemisphere. All of the people of America were, of course, Americans either by ancestry or by adoption.

Many of my old books and encyclopedias also made it clear that the original Americans were the people also known as American Indians. I soon came to realize that the people from south of the US border, from Mexico to southern Chile and Argentina, had a lot of original American ancestry and were Americans in a double sense,

both being descended from Ameri-cans back for tens of thousands of years and being inhabitants of America, north or south.

Unfortunately, the domination of the media by US corporations has been spreading the idea far and wide that “Americans” are only from the USA. The other Ameri-cans resist as best they can, but they find it difficult to offset the Yanks’ dominance of world news.

Often, Latin Americans use the phrase Nuestra America (Our America) to refer to their part of the Americas or to their participa-tion in the American heritage and ongoing cultural life. For example, a series of books published in Mexico by the publisher Siglo Veintiuno (Twentieth-first Century) bears the name of Nuestra America (Our America) and covers “the reality that our countries have lived for centuries.” The expression “Our America” was used in the early days of the twentieth-century in an article by the great Cuban thinker and writer, Jose Marti, when, as I recall, he was living in New York City.

One of the earliest treaties of the USA, with the Delaware Nation, referred to the thirteen states as the “United States of North America.” The Jay Treaty between the USA and Britain refers to the “continent of America” as the entire hemisphere. Perhaps it is too bad that we have not adopted “North America” as our name, but then we are also only part of North America, not the whole.

Personally, I have always liked “Yanks” ever since I heard the stirring song of World War I, “Over there, over there, the Yanks are com-ing, ….” It is, however, very important for us to understand that the immigrants coming to the USA today from the south are already Americans before they cross the Rio Grande and that, for most of them, their ancestors have been living in America for up to 30,000 or more years. Perhaps we need to rethink our use of words!

Jack Forbes is of Powhatan, Delaware, and other ancestry. His latest book is The American Discovery of Europe, published this year.

Migrant Aidfrom page 1

When Americans Are Not American

might be able to provide information about where their family members had ended up.

An hour or so after I met Javier, one of the aid station volunteers revved up a pickup to take Javier and a few other guys back to the shelter downtown.

“It was a pleasure meeting you.” I extended my hand to Javier.

“Same to you,” he replied, smiling.“Maybe I’ll see you around.”“All right,” he said, “maybe at one of the bailes.”

With that, he ducked out of the tent, hopped onto the bed of the truck, and was gone.

For information about No More Deaths or to volunteer at the migrant aid station, visit www.nomoredeaths.org.

Felicia Martinez is a poet and attends Mills College. She has worked with immigrants and immigrant rights organizations.

Registered Representative for securities and Investment Advisory Representative, Protected Investors of America.

www.bpmnews.org July / August �008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER �

As the immigration rights movement raised its banner in major US cities in May 2006, the NSS has stepped up its ‘counter-insurgency’ war on immigrants with the intent to dismantle the largest mass movement in the US since the 1960’s Civil Rights and Black Power campaigns for racial justice. In May 2007, the ugly side of the counter-insurgency campaign was recorded on video when Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) riot police assaulted protesters and jour-nalists and shot rubber bullets and tear gas into an immigration rights rally full of migrant fami-lies and their children. Journalist and eyewitness Roberto Lovato pinpointed the larger dimensions of this incident: “I saw the LAPD…dragging the immigrants and the entire country into danger-ous terrain, a new threshold in the . . . immigra-tion war raging around the country.”

Across the nation, the weapons of the war on immigrants are many and varied, including “…mass raids on meat packing plants, pre-dawn raids by ICE agents on people’s homes, incarcera-tion in prisons thousands of miles away from lawyers, families and friends, and the terroriza-tion of small children whose parents had been locked away, or who were themselves taken into custody and locked up like felons in federal pris-ons with their mothers and fathers.”

Utilizing the privatized prison system, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is quietly jailing thousands of immigrants where, according the DHS Inspector General, parents and children are subject to lack of medicine, adequate food and sexual harassment. A $385 million contract to Halliburton for DHS ‘emer-gency temporary’ detention centers has raised fears among immigration rights advocates that the centers are meant to detain even more immi-grants. The DHS has proposed regulations giving it oversight over the Social Security Admin-istration (SSA) “no match” letters (when the combination of name and social security number submitted for an employee fails to match) allow-ing employers to fire employees and avoid any penalty for breaking the law. Labor leaders argue these ‘criminalizing’ measures are being used to intimidate worker rights activism and prevent union organizing in the immigrant community.

The post 9/11 jingoist and militarized politi-

cal climate has also produced a resurrection of vigilante racism and violence. White supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) have invoked immigration issues, particularly the fear that unless stopped, the swarm of brown people will overwhelm American White Anglo-Saxon culture and society. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there has been a 33 percent increase in the number of hate groups from 2000 to 2005 whose activities range from anti-immigration rallies, leaflets, and Internet racist discourse. Anti-immigrant hate crimes have risen nationwide.

Meanwhile, “authorities arrested groups and individuals caught stockpiling grenades, semi-automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition in preparation for attack on immi-grants.” Led by the Minutemen, vigilante groups have taken up positions on the US-Mexico bor-der to ‘assist’ federal officials. After 9/11, reports of ‘suspicious incidents’ rose in rural entry points where criminal activity is less likely to be detect-ed. Thus, “assailants are rarely captured, crime scenes ... are rarely located, and victims disap-pear. Bodies rot fast in the desert, and bones are quickly scattered.” Accusations abound that bor-der law enforcement officials are ‘turning a blind eye’ to the vigilante border guards. Meanwhile, federal counter-terrorism officials are aware that the most radical elements of the anti-immigra-tion movement are very susceptible to recruit-ment into violent White supremacist groups.

In conclusion, the immigration boomerang and the 9/11 attacks have combined to justify both a state-sponsored and vigilante war on immigrants whose main strategy is to set the citi-zen ‘self ’ against the immigrant ‘other.’ Portraying illegal immigrants and their supporters as terror-ists and terrorist sympathizers has meant millions of intimidated and harassed North Americans are subject to ‘guilt by association.’ In this post 9/11 militarized and politically charged context, as terrorism’s agents they are said to be and treated as deserving of their fate.

Beau Grosscup is the author of Strategic Ter-ror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombard-ment. He is professor of International Relations at CSU Chico.

by Jack D. ForbesThe current celebration of the Jamestown colony in Attan-Akamik (Virginia) is an example of the distortions of north American history found in the popular culture of the USA and Canada, and also in our schools’ educational curricula. The latter, at heart, is designed to firmly plant in every child’s mind the priority and dominance of the English heritage in north American development.

Jamestown was a “corporate” attempt to seize and invade an American territory solely for the purpose of profit-taking and imperial expansion. It was a completely illegal, immoral, and selfish undertaking by British government officials and entrepreneurs who had already been raiding the American coasts, from Newfoundland to the Caribbean (and even along the Pacific Coast of south, central, and north America. In these early raids many Americans (Indians) had been seized and carried back to Europe, including several seized along the Rappahannock River of Attan-Akamik.

Many of the English raids were very much like modern CIA kidnappings, designed to produce valuable intelligence about America for future imperial operations.

The Virginia Company which established the Jamestown base on the Powhatan River in 1607 was a joint-stock company, a corporation. Its

investors expected a profitable return on their investment, I suppose very much like many huge corporations do today.

In any case, Jamestown was not the first Euro-pean base in North America, and it was not even the first European foothold in the future United States. The Spaniards, with the use of persons of Native American and African ancestry as labor-ers, had already established St. Augustine (1565) and Santa Fe, New Mexico (initiated in 1598). The French already had outposts in Acadie (Nova Scotia) and along the St. Lawrence river, while the English had bases in Newfoundland and on Providence Island (off of Nicaragua).

But why is it that the media and state govern-ments promote Jamestown and other English settlements (Plymouth Colony will be coming up in 2020!), but neglect far older activities of the Spaniards with their African and Native Ameri-can workers, and collaborators? I would suggest that it is because the Anglo-Americans who have controlled the USA politically and economically only want to honor and trace their own ethnic heritage. Others can be ignored because they might corrupt the Anglo-Americans’ essentially genealogical approach to US history.

Even English activities will be largely ignored if they took place in areas that became part of Canada or one of the Caribbean republics.

War on Immigrantsfrom page 1

Native IntelligenceJamestown Celebration: Colonialism and Racial Myth-Making

Ellen Broms holding one of the two pillows she made. Along the top it says “As the War in Iraq goes on and on and on” and below the stripe of images of dollars, it reads “HOW CAN YOU SLEEP?” The pillows were stuffed with strips of paper with the names of Iraq war casualties. They were presented to Reps. Matsui and Lungren last March. Matsui’s was delivered to her office, and accepted by her staff; Lungren would not take his at the Rancho Cordova Town Hall Meeting, and let it fall on the ground!Photo, Zohreh Whitaker

George W., A soliloquy by the DeciderI’m George W. Bush, a politician, a “noblesse

oblige” manA patriotic private school, Yale-Harvard Bush

blue bloodA Vietnam avoiding, smart Texas National

Guard flyboyA horsy Texas rancher buckaroo

A big hat, big ranch, no cattlemanSome cut cattle, instead I cut taxes

It happens mainly for my friends, the richBut then as a smart politico, I always favor the

wealthyIt’s reputed to be good for business, you knowEspecially my business of fat campaign fundsCompassionate, glad handing while ensnaring

votersFull of smiles and fancy pledges

Passing out assurancesPromising, promising delivering mostly words

It’s cheaper that wayNo matter what, I always claim victory

In that manner I’m never a loserOther countries must do my bidding

I’m an impatient, go-it-aloner from the Lone Star state

My hear is not in nation buildingExcept if there’s oil there

I’m a touch oil-gas, rope twirling cowboyI want to round up oil wells and pipelines

Fulfilling my promises to the common folks?Funny that should be raised

Sorry, the common folks will have to wait; I just want their kids in the armed forces

Ah yes, it’s true I want to privatize Medicare and Social Security

That’ll earn more billions for my Wall Street friends, you see

I’m George W, an ambitious, amoral really con-servative bushwhacker

I’m George W, the Decider, the rich son of a Bush

by Ted Ruhig, old radical, jounalist and poet, is a former Sacramentan who is retired to the East Coast with his family.

8 Because People Matter July / August �008 www.bpmnews.org

by Paulette Cuilla

Having just returned from my first visit to New Orleans, I must admit I am still in a state of shock about what I saw there. This August will

be three years after Katrina, and New Orleans still looks like a war zone.

Since New Orleans is not in the news anymore, I guess I assumed that the process of rebuilding the city was well underway, and people were starting to put their lives back together. This is somewhat true, but New Orleans is still a disaster area, and many people are left out of the rebuild-ing process.

The magnitude of this disaster is shocking, and there is no way you can get the full picture of the damage without actually seeing it for yourself. Just imagine that all of Sac-ramento, Elk Grove, Roseville, North Highlands, Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights, North Sac, Carmichael, and West Sacramento are flooded, except for Old Sac and ten blocks of Sacramento’s biggest mansions. This will give you some idea of the area impacted.

Over 1,500 people died in the New Orleans area. Many of them died in one of the worst hit areas, the Ninth Ward. This is along an inner navigational canal that connects the Mississippi river with Lake Ponchartrain. There is a maritime law that requires any vessels to get out of the navigational canals whenever there is a storm

warning announced. However, a barge in the area was not removed. It continued to pound against the retain-ing wall until it broke through. It caused such a surge of water; it actually floated the barge into the neighborhood and crashed through several houses. Sometime later, the citizens of that area tried to bring a lawsuit against the shipping company. The courts decided that the case had no merit, even though there were many photos and eye-witness testimony that the barge broke through the wall.

There are some restaurants, banks, and gas stations now open, but for the most part, businesses are boarded up everywhere and services are limited (except in the French Quarter and Garden District, where business is booming). There are only two Emergency Rooms in the New Orleans area, and many hospitals remain closed. Only 30% of public schools have opened, but charter schools are opening everywhere.

The neighborhoods are still mostly boarded up. On most streets, maybe 10% to 30% of homes have been repaired and are occupied. The rest of the homes are boarded up and falling apart. Insurance companies denied most claims by insisting that the damage was caused by the flood, not the hurricane, regardless of the fact that if there had not been a hurricane there would not have been a flood. The Louisiana Insurance Commis-sioner J. Robert Wooley defended the denial of payment.

People who were evacuated and are now living in other states find it very difficult to come back to rebuild. There are few jobs and even fewer housing options. Any home that has been declared safe for people to live in will cost 3 and 4 times more to rent than before Katrina.

Affordable housing is one of the biggest problems in New Orleans. The people in FEMA trailers have been told that they will be moved out by June 1. They could be moved anywhere in the Gulf Coast region, with no consideration for existing jobs, schools, etc.

Mayor Ray Nagin, the city counsel, and HUD have authorized the destruction of 4500 units of public hous-ing. These units are being demolished regardless of building inspection reports that declare them safe to occupy or requiring only minimal repairs. The United Nations experts on housing and minority rights have criticized the demolition, calling it a violation of human rights. Many of the people evicted are now living in tents under the freeway.

The world donated over 4.25 billion dollars for Katrina victims. FEMA is in charge of allocating that money. Over 2 billion went to the Red Cross. While talking with people throughout the city, the general consensus was that it was very difficult to get assistance from FEMA,

New Orleans, the Forgotten Disaster

This is one of many public housing projects being demolished even though building inspectors declared them safe to occupy or requiring only minimal repairs.photo: Paulette Cuilla

A typical street scene in the French Quarter, largely undamaged.photo: Paulette Cuilla

A typical house on any street in New Orleans, boarded up and falling apart.photo: Paulette Cuilla

www.bpmnews.org July / August �008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER �

but almost impossible to get help from the Red Cross. Both agencies have countless roadblocks for provid-ing the help that people need. Many people were ask-ing: What happened to the money that was supposed to be there to help us? Where did it go? Why wasn’t it being released? These are all very good questions for FEMA and the Red Cross to answer.

The groups that are providing the most help to the people of New Orleans are church groups and organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Make it Right, Common Ground, and others. I was there to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. Their program provides homes for families who qualify. They are required to work 350 hours sweat equity, and qualify for the loan to purchase the house. The future owner that I met was very excited to be moving in to his new home in a couple of weeks. His initial application for a home through Habitat for Humanity was filed 2 1/2 years ago.

One of the projects that Habitat for Humanity is working on is called Musicians Village. Harry Con-nick Jr. and Branford Marsalis purchased some land and teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build houses for New Orleans musicians who lost their homes to Katrina.

The spirit of the music in New Orleans is totally infectious and it’s everywhere throughout the city, in the French Quarter, grocery stores, burger stands, gas

stations, banks. That soulful, funky, jazzy, bluesy beat is the heart of the city. Without it, I think New Orleans would cease to exist.

The people that I met were incredible. Most of them have lost friends and family, their homes, and all of their belongings. After all they have been through, they were still very friendly and will-ing to talk about what life is like in New Orleans three years later. They seem to maintain an attitude of hope for the future. They were very grateful for people showing up to help them rebuild their lives.

If you want to volunteer, contact www.habitat-nola.org , www.makeitrightnola.org , or www.commongroundrelief.org . There are others (I am sure) but these are the ones I saw doing the work. Also, grassroots citizen groups are forming to provide support to people who have been treated unfairly. Some of these are Safe Streets www.safestreetsnola.org, Katrina Information Network www.katrinaaction.org, Defend New Orleans Hous-ing www.defendneworleanshousing.org, and the Committee to End Police Repression. You can be sure your donations will go directly to helping the people of New Orleans by supporting these organizations.

If you are in New Orleans and would like to experience a real-ity tour of the area, call Roderick Dean at 504-430-8491.

The bottom line is the only way that the people of New Orleans are going to get help rebuilding their lives, is if we private citizens help them. It appears that Uncle Sam and the media have already forgotten about this disaster and the people affected by it.

Paulette Cuilla is a human rights and environmental activist working with many groups in Sacramento.One of many destroyed homes in New Orleans. A sign at the top of the stairs reads “I AM COMING HOME—I

WILL REBUILD—I AM NEW ORLEANS”photo: Paulette Cuilla

The author at work.photo courtesy Paulette Cuilla

Musicians’ Village—Musicians Harry Connick Jr and Branford Marsalis are working with Habitat for Humanity to provide housing for New Orleans musicians.photo: Paulette Cuilla

Many people who were evicted from public housing are now living in tents under the freeway.photo: Paulette Cuilla

10 Because People Matter July / August �008 www.bpmnews.org

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Peace Action on the WebKeep up to date on peace activism in Sacramento. Check out www.sacpeace.org.

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INFO: 455-1796

by Karen Blomquist Something happened one night that caused

me to cry so very hard. It was the beginning of the Fall, and I had bought some granola bars and individual packs of milk to give to the homeless (through the Fall and Winter). I worry more about the homeless when it is cold.

I saw a man with a missing leg on my way home from work. He was holding a sign that said: “Veteran,” “Anything Will Help.” So I quickly went home, collected ten granola bars and five containers of milk. I also pulled out two long-sleeved men’s shirts I had bought at the thrift store and gathered two dollars to give to the man. I went back straight away in hopes of not missing him.

There he was. I parked my car and started walking towards him. I could feel his anticipation at seeing me, a glimmer, just a sliver of hope, in his eyes. I presented him with the gifts and he said “Bless You” several times. Close up now I noticed that he was not only missing a leg but also missing an arm. He had a wheelchair by his side, but had used the one crutch that he had to manage to stand.

Knowing that many homeless people feel very alone, forgotten and hopeless, I asked him if he was okay and if he had a place to stay. He said he was okay and had a place to stay with a friend—that they managed to gather enough money each night to stay at a motel. I felt that he needed a hug. I reached out to hug him and he hugged me closely. Yes, he needed a hug. Tears started pouring down my face. He told me it was

alright and not to cry.He hugged me closer and on his one leg started

to fall backwards. I tried to keep him from fall-ing, only to be pulled down too. There we were both fallen on the sidewalk in front of many people driving past.

His wheelchair, full of his belongings, was also knocked down in our fall. I managed a grin through the tears and said, “Boy, what a sight we must be.” I kept asking him if he was alright, worried that he might have hurt the stump of his leg or arm. He kept saying he was alright.

I helped him back onto his crutch, gathered his belongings, and restored them to the wheelchair. It was difficult for me to pull away because, yes, he so very much needed acceptance, care, and hope. I asked what motel he was staying at, but failed to ask him his name.

He positioned himself in his wheelchair, sitting down, and motioned for another hug. I gave him one and walked away, looking back with tears in my eyes, regretting later that I had not given him my phone number or thought to get his name. His final words were (again), “Bless you.”

It took me an hour to fully stop crying. This man had once been complete, not just physi-cally but emotionally as well. He is now broken, trying to maintain his balance in a world that is not supportive. I thought of all the other men that were probably in similar circumstances, had similar injuries, for similar reasons. How many more might find themselves in this same fate, out of touch and unsupported due to the present war our country is embroiled in?

It might have been easier for me to have just kept driving past, instead of stopping, hurried in my busy world, denying his need—instead I found the compassion to stop. I realized it took getting closer, talking with him, and reaching out to feel the full impact of my emotions and his need and pain—this human being.

In that hour of tears, I realized that we as a people must fully open our eyes, our hearts and our souls in order to reconnect, care for one another, and end this war. We need to stop the ridiculous fighting, which only invites more hatred toward humanity, disregard for the human psyche and for one another’s needs. We must learn to love and care—not just here at home, but all over the world.

Like Christ, we must strive to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and heal the sick. Anything less would be to deny our humanity.

Karen Blomquist lives in Davis and is involved in environmental, peace and health care issues.

by Mike Rhodes

Homeless people and their allies won a legal victory in Fresno that could have statewide implications. The class action lawsuit against the City of Fresno resulted in a $2.3 million settlement and has stopped the city from taking and immedi-ately destroying homeless people’s property. Fresno mayor Alan Autry argued that the city had a right to keep city streets clean and that city sanitation workers were just doing their job. Government agencies in communities throughout California make the same argument as they conduct sweeps through homeless encampments. The Federal Court in Fresno found that these sweeps are illegal and violate the 4th and 5th amendment of the US Constitution.

“The Court’s ruling and the settlement should send a strong message to other cities throughout California that if they violate the rights of their most vulnerable resi-dents, they will be held accountable,” said ACLU-NC staff attorney Michael Risher. The homeless plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Kincaid v. Fresno, were represented by a team of attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) and the law firm of Heller Ehrman LLP.

The lawsuit began in 2006, after the City of Fresno repeatedly used bulldozers to plow through homeless encampments in the downtown area. The city’s policy, designed by a low ranking police officer in the code enforcement division, was to provide residents of the encampments with written notice that a “clean-up” was about to take place. Many homeless people say they never received a copy of the notice, and it is not clear from the court’s decision that it would have made any difference if they had received the notice. According to the city’s policy and testimony in court, the city would then deploy the sanitation department, backed up by police officers,

Homeless Victory in Fresno has Implications for Sacramento

The Fall (A True Story)

The attack began, as the city of Fresno moved to outlaw poverty and evict the homeless when they form a community. photo: Mike Rhodes

February, 2004: disabled veteran asking the corporate media “Where the f*** am I supposed to go now?” Nighttime temperatures in Fresno were in the mid-30s.photo: Dallas Blanchard

who would then clear the area of anything that the homeless did not remove. The city claimed that everything left was rubbish. The problem with the policy, according to the court, was that it treated poor people’s property differently from that of anyone else. For example, if you lose your bike and the police find it, they do not call in a bulldozer, crush the bike, and put it in a garbage truck. The likely policy would be to take the bike into possession and try to find the owner.

Homeless people in Fresno, during the sweeps conducted between 2004–2006 lost bicycles, tents, clothing, their ID, and everything of value they had in the world. One person lost an urn that contained her grand-daughter’s ashes. Al Williams, who is homeless, suffered the effects of the raids on three occasions. In addition to losing clothes and food, his wife’s wheelchair was destroyed and her medicines confiscated by Fresno police officers. “I felt like every-thing was taken away from me, but this settlement gives me hope for the future for myself and all the other people who suf-fered,” said Williams.

In addition to the lawsuit, homeless people and their allies held a sleep-in at City Hall, the Homelessness Marathon radio show was broadcast from Fresno put-ting a national spotlight on this city’s illegal practices, and intense pressure was brought upon city government to end their attacks on the homeless. The efforts have had an effect, and mayor Autry has declared the city’s previous policy a failure. The stated goal of the new policy is to provide afford-able and decent housing for all of Fresno’s chronically homeless residents.

For a list of articles and documents about the struggle for civil liberties for homeless people in Fresno, see: www.fresnoalliance.com/home/homelessness.htm.

Mike Rhodes is the editor of the Commu-nity Alliance newspaper in Fresno.

www.bpmnews.org July / August �008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 11

by Martha Paterson-CohenThe story of the ‘Alhambra Corridor’, set between Midtown and East Sacramento, is not unlike many urban districts forever altered by freeway construction in the 1960s. Sliced up by Inter-states 80 and 50, its quiet neighborhoods became exposed to predatory suburban-type develop-ment. The urban environment of the Corridor took its second turn for the worse in 1973. A

bond measure, which would have allowed the City to purchase and preserve the beautiful Alhambra Theatre and gardens at Alhambra Boulevard and J Street, failed and the theatre was bought by the Safeway Corporation, which tore it down and replaced it with a huge parking lot and

Safeway store.Since then, one by one, independent businesses

throughout the area were replaced, mostly by medical-related offices or supply businesses ben-efitting from nearby hospitals, and by fast-food restaurants. In 1987, Mercy Healthcare tore down a furniture store and built the huge, unsightly (and soon to be vacated in 2008) MedClinic at Alhambra and Folsom Boulevards. Outraged neighbors and groups like the Old City Associa-tion influenced the City to form the Alhambra Corridor Citizen’s Advisory Committee, rep-resenting resident, business, and development interests, to study land use and zoning in the Corridor. At the same time, the City imposed a moratorium on building until the study con-cluded. Nevertheless, large-scale, inappropriate development proceeded apace.

Neighbors in different sections of the Corridor organized in response. For example, many neigh-bors living next to one of the most congested sections of the Corridor, between J Street and Folsom Boulevard, mobilized to prevent a pros-thetic manufacturer on 32nd Street from demol-ishing a beautiful, double-lot vintage home and rose garden at the corner of 32nd and M, in order to expand. The house and garden were torn down and replaced with a prosthesis boutique which eventually closed. The building and parking lot are now rented to a church. The neighborhood group did succeed however in “down-zoning” the street to limited commercial (even though its

“San Francisco is considering a ban on chain stores in some areas.”

by Charlene JonesAfter thousands of phone calls and more than 250,000 letters, the US Senate voted to over-rule the Federal Communication Commission’s capitulation to Big Media. In a near unanimous decision, according to FreePress, the Senate “Resolution of Disapproval” overruled a late 2007 FCC decision to allow media conglomerates to expand their monopolies by owning both a major TV or radio station and a major newspaper in the same city. Just imagine, News Corp Rupert Mur-doch, Roger Ailes and their brownshirted min-ions owning KFBK or Fox 40 and The Sacramento Bee or Sacramento News & Review. Whine if you must, but local broadcasts and print media in this city can be a vibrant source of local and regional news. If the FCC has its way, it could be worse. Sacramento’s major media could sound like Fox News and read like The Sacramento Union.

The cross-ownership ban the FCC is trying to remove has been in place since 1975, accord-ing to public interest law firm Media Access Project. It was to prevent media outlets from merging bare bones newsrooms—in the name of competition—and protect diversity of view-points. To delay complete corporate disregard for the honored American principle of a fourth estate, a watchdog media that provides multiplic-ity of voice, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced the resolution.

They also co-sponsored another critical media protection proposal, the Internet Freedom Pres-ervation Act, S.215, that has a counterpart in the House of Representatives, H.R. 5353. These preserve Internet neutrality by barring “unrea-sonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degra-

use has always been, and still is, mostly residential).

The Corridor Advisory Committee continued to meet as destruction continued and, in 1991, the City established the Alham-bra Corridor Special Planning District. The City also adopted very specific design guide-lines to preserve the neighborhood char-acter of the Corridor through the encourage-ment of smaller-scale projects, pedestrian considerations, and balanced, mixed usage.

Despite these official guidelines, in 2000, the City supported the imposition of a Trader Joe’s store at the corner of 32nd and L. Both streets are narrow and within a ‘Neighborhood Transition Buffer Zone’, where new projects should be com-patible with the residential neighborhood.Trader Joe’s clearly didn’t comply with intended land use. For example, traffic volumes as a result of the project were estimated to increase by between 1500 and 2559 average daily additional vehicle trips having an impact on the neighborhood immediately to the East. Finding no support from City officials or existing neighborhood groups, neighbors in the immediate area formed the East Sacramento Alhambra Corridor Neighborhood

See Alhambra, page 14

dation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination on the Internet.”

Telecoms and Big Media have millions to gain by limiting Internet freedom and attach-ing cost to what they choose to deliver in a top speed fashion. They want to charge Internet sites premiums to have their content delivered faster than others. Websites confined to slower delivery speeds would not be able to compete. And what about content that may be deemed controver-sial, dissenting or downright radical? Currently connections don’t discriminate, but service provider companies could easily do so if such fee impositions are permitted. In May The New York Times endorsed this effort by writing, “Cable and telecommunications companies are fighting net neutrality with lobbyists and campaign contribu-tions, but these special interests should not be allowed to set Internet policy. It is the job of Con-gress to protect the Internet’s democratic form.”

For those embittered by media corporations that disable American principles with propa-ganda, embedded journalists and empty election coverage, enough is enough. Gluttonous profit pressures strip down newsrooms, replace investi-gation with sensationalism, and avoid significant exploration of the most critical issues facing this nation. Media concentration is central to dumbing down what is broadcast and distracting those who consume it. It is also responsible for the rise of bellicose extremists like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. Without Internet neutrality protection, information gate-keeping will also be handed over to corporate conglomerates driven, not by regard for country, but by masters of the

bottom line.Protect open interconnectivity of the Internet

and every person’s access to information. Insist on a responsible and diverse media from cor-porations who use public airwaves—something the Supreme Court has recognized is critical to democracy. The “Resolution of Disapproval” must be adopted by the House of Representatives, and not vetoed by the President, to become law. Congress and the FCC must continue to hear from constituents opposing further monopoly and demanding the nation’s interests be served. Contact members of Congress. Join a media reform group. Contribute to community media. It’s time to do something, if you haven’t already.

Charlene Jones is a member of the Sacramento Media Group. For information on SMG, call JoAnn Fuller, 916-443-1792.

Corporate Encroachment Moving Along in East SacramentoA Neighborhood’s Fight to Stay Healthy in the Midst of a Growing Medical Ghetto

Alhambra at Folsom Blvd.photo: Martha Paterson-Cohen

Alhambra and K /Sutter Hospital in the distance.Photo: Martha Paterson-Cohen

Stop Big MediaMedia Concentration? No!—Net Neutrality? Yes!

1� Because People Matter July / August �008 www.bpmnews.org

According to a CNN Opinion Research Cor-poration poll, in March, 2008, 71% of Ameri-cans think Iraq spending hurts the economy and in April, 2008, 68% opposed the US war in Iraq (cnn.com; www.pollingreport.com). How-ever, in May, 2008, only 32% of Congress voted against funding the occupation well into 2009. Congress isn’t listening because they don’t have to—there is still not enough public pressure to end this clearly ruinous occupation.

As peace mom, and now Congressional candidate, Cindy Sheehan explained, if all the choir were singing, we wouldn’t be in this mess. (Cindy is running against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)

If you aren’t in the choir, join; if you are part of the choir, help get more people involved. There is no shortage of actions to take: call, meet with, and protest the actions of Congress, attend vigils and events, help leaflet, display lawn/home signs and bumper stickers, organize with others, learn more, be creative. And ...

Want to End the US Occupation of Iraq? Fire up the Choir

Have a conversation .... Talk to the people you live, work, shop,

and sit on public transportation with. A great conversation starter is to wear a peace mes-sage. For only $10, you can get a “Want Peace, Don’t Invade, Don’t Occupy, Don’t Fund War” shirt from SacPeace (sacpeace@dcn.org). At least one day a week, wear your message out in public. Initiate conversations with people. Find out what they think, share your understand-ings, let them know how they can get involved.Connect the dollars

As the City of Davis faces teacher layoffs, California battles budget issues, people go without health care, etc., the dollars still go unconnected. We can’t spend billions every week on funding the Iraq war profiteers AND have money for human needs and the environ-ment. Contact the advocacy groups to which you belong and find out what they are doing to oppose more funding of the catastrophic US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Resources for Enlisted Personnel & VeteransDischarges • DEP • Discrimination • Gay • AWOL/UA • Harassment • Hazing• Conscientious Objection

Call for information from a network of nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations.The service is free. The call is confidential.

The GI Rights Hotline, www.girights.org, 800-394-9544

Free & confidential counseling: 916-447-5706; www.therapistsforsocialresponsibility.org;

Join Sacramento Area Peace Action!Send your: Name, Address, Email and Phone, with your check to SAPA for: $30/individual; $52/family; $15 low-income to:Sacramento Area Peace Action909 12th St, Suite 118Sacramento, CA 95814

Sacramento Area Peace Action

Not Enough Death & Destruction for Congress By the time this paper hits the stands, Congress will likely have handed Bush another $170 bil-

lion to continue the disastrous imperial US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. There was a bit of hope generated on May 15, when a third of the House of Representatives voted down more funding for these wars (this minority was able to temporarily defeat the funding because most Republicans refused to participate in the vote). The bill then went to the Senate, where all funding was immediately put back in, a move resisted by only a quarter of the Senate, so it passed on May 22 and then went back to the House.

While Reps. Matsui and Thompson were among those in the House who voted against giving more war money to Bush on May 15, one week later, they voted FOR the $600 billion Department of Defense authorization which included $70 billion more for the occupation of Iraq. No wonder people have a hard time believing that either Matsui or Thompson is really against the war. Regardless of their claims, both have continually voted for bigger and bigger defense budgets and to authorize more money for the madness that is the US occupation of Iraq.

Abolishing Nuclear Weapons and Informing Public Perceptions

August 6, 2008 is the 63rd anniversary of the first use of atomic weapons: the US bombing of the civilian population of Hiroshima, a war crime. It is nearly 26 years since the passage of Proposition 12, California’s nuclear freeze referendum. And it is eight years past the goal of Abolition 2000, a move-ment of peace groups, including SacPeace, to effect an international ban on nuclear weapons by the year 2000. The admittedly bold target has now been pushed back to 2020.

In May, 2008, Lawrence S. Wittner, author of Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, notes in his History News Network article, “A Treaty to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,” that although there has been progress made towards an international treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, many obstacles remain. He writes:

“Of course, it’s only fair to ask if there really exists the political will to bring such a treaty to frui-tion…. Furthermore, the American public is remarkably ignorant of nuclear realities…. Zia Mian, a Princeton physicist, points to a number of disturbing facts about contemporary US public opinion. For example, more Americans (55%) mistakenly believe that Iran has nuclear weapons than know that Britain (52%), India (51%), Israel (48%), and France (38%) actually have these weapons…. Although the United States possesses over 5,700 operationally deployed nuclear warheads, more than half of US respondents to an opinion survey thought that the number was 200 weapons or fewer.”

25 Years of ActivismWith a vegan birthday cake and open mike, Sac-ramento Area Peace Action celebrated 25th years at its May 30 annual meeting. One of the original founding members of the Sacramento Nuclear Weapons Freeze, Ruth Hultgren, attended. That

original organiza-tion became SANE Freeze in 1987 when the national Nuclear Weapons Freeze and the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy merged. More name changes followed until 1993 when the current name, Peace Action, was selected.

Although still in the same office with the same phone number, SacPeace has branched out from being an anti-nuclear group to serve as Sacramento’s de-facto peace center, working to educate and mobilize the public to promote a non-interventionist and non-nuclear US foreign and military policy and international and domestic economic, social, and political justice. SacPeace works in conjunction with the Sac Coalition to End the War to end the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Current committees are working on military counter-recruitment; Palestine/Israel; nuclear issues; and outreaching to the public through films, vigils, demonstrations, tabling, leafleting, and educa-tional and cultural events. To get involved call 916-448-7157 or email sacpeace@dcn.org.

Sacramento Poets Against War

Francisco Alarcon, Susan Kelly-Dewitt, and V.S. Chochezi were among poets who read their powerful work at a SacPeace Open House and Poetry Reading on May 14. Works from other anti-war poets were also read, including this one from World War I by Sei-gfried Sassoon:

Suicide in the TrenchesI knew a simple solder boyWho grinned at life in empty joy,Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,And whistled early with the lark.In winter trenches, cowed and glumWith cramps and lice and lack of rum,He put a bullet through his brain.No one spoke of him again.You smug-face crowds with kindling eyeWho cheer when soldier lads march by,Sneak home and pray you’ll never knowThe hell where youth and laughter go.

Every day, five US soldiers try to kill themselves. Before the Iraq war began, that figure was less than one suicide attempt a day. (CNN.com, Feb, 2008)

Ruth Hultgren, one of the founders of SAPA.

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Book Review

Ghada Karmi: Living History by Brigitte Jaensch

She was just old enough to remember the events of the day when she and her family fled their West Jerusalem home. In her memoir, In Search of Fatima, Ghada Karmi recounts her 60 years as a Diaspora Palestinian.

In some respects the Karmis were com-paratively fortunate. Because her father was well educated and bi-lingual, he found work with the British Broadcasting Company in London, where he worked hard to re-cre-ate an existence for himself, his wife and children.

Separated from relatives and friends by thousands of miles and surrounded by a different language, a different culture and a different rhythm and style of living, it was nothing like the comfortable West Jerusalem life from which they had been torn loose. But materially at least, it was better than what too many other Palestinian refugees experienced.

Ghada Karmi studied hard and became a physician, but she is known as a political activist, and while reading In Search of Fati-ma, the New York Times columnist Steven Erlanger figured out his office was probably a second story add-on to the Karmi’s West Jerusalem house. He invited Dr. Karmi to come and see. Indeed, thus she was able to briefly visit her family’s home.

But even such a close and personal experi-ence did not cause Mr. Erlanger to write about the Israel/Palestine situation with more human compassion for all the people in whose homes and on whose lands he and the Israelis were living.

by Brigitte JaenschThe charming and eloquent Ghada Karmi

began her presentation at UC Davis by revealing that her book isn’t about “marital infidelity” as some might infer from the Married to Another Man part of the title. Nor about “gay rabbis” because the cover photo shows two rabbis in sil-houette. Instead, Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine is about that dilemma —from the earliest days of Zionism right up to today’s impasse.

There’s an 1897 story about her book’s title and cover photo. Although attendees at the first Zion-ist Congress decided to make a Jewish country in Palestine, it was a place those mostly European Jewish attendees didn’t know. So, they sent two rabbis off to check it out. Their cable back: “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.” De-coded: Palestine is beautiful, but it’s already full of people. With the “literally inexact” slogan (so described by its likely author Israel Zangweil) “a land without a people for a people without a land,” the Zionists remained deter-mined to transform Palestine into a Jewish-only place.

Between World Wars I and II, Britain admin-

istered Palestine, permitting large scale Zionist immigration, and not hampering the immigrants’ creation of a quasi-government complete with “underground” militia. When that militia was powerful enough, it, along with Zionist terrorist groups, ousted their British protectors as well as 750,000 Palestinians, Ghada Karmi, her brother, sister and parents among them.

After ethnically cleansing 78% of Palestine of its Palestinian population, the Zionists had a pre-dominately Jewish state. In this book, Dr. Karmi tells about the new Israeli government’s appro-priation of Palestinian real and personal property, about 80% of the new state. All the while, it prevented Palestinians from returning to reclaim their land, homes, businesses, bank accounts, etc. The small number of Palestinians who neither fled in 1948 nor emigrated since then, together with their children and grandchildren are what Israel today calls its “demographic threat.” Some Israelis term their non-Jewish fellow citizens Israel’s “cancer.”

After the 1967 war, Israel began the take over of Palestinian lands in the occupied Palestinian territories. As Dr. Karmi points out, illegal Israeli settlements, supportive infrastructure and the vast network of bypass roads in the West Bank and East Jerusalem mean creation of a viable Palestinian state is impossible. Israel’s best offer might be some disconnected bits; a non-starter

“hotchpotch … that can only cause further dislocation and hardship and compound the initial injustice [of 1948].”

For 60 years, the international community has been AWOL on Israel/Palestine, at times pretending there was a “peace process.” Today’s rhetoric is the so-called two-state negotia-tion. But Palestinian and Israeli realists admit a single Pales-tinian-Israeli state is the only arrangement which could bring about lasting peace. Israel would need to permit Palestinians to return and live in their historic homeland and Palestinians must accept that Israelis will live there too. Together they would need to conceive a democracy with equal rights for both peoples.

Dr. Karmi presents both the history and ideas about how to move toward a real peace. Her book is a fine primer for anyone who wishes to know more than the “literally inexact” US media narra-tive. It also includes new and interesting informa-tion for those already well familiar with the topic.

Brigite Jaensch is a Sacramento based human rights activist.

by Hank Joerger It seems certain that the neoconservatives of

the G.W. Bush administration got their ideas of government from Leo Strauss, the University of Chicago political philosopher who taught several of these neocons. Two of them, Paul Wolfowitz and William Luti, got their PhD’s under the tute-lage of Strauss.

Here are some of the theories and principles that he advocated:

There is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.Because man is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed. Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united and they can only be united against the people of other countries.The inherently aggressive nature of man can be restrained only by a powerful nationalistic state.Society comprises three classes of which only the wise-elite is capable of governing. The wise are lovers of the harsh, unadulterated truth; they recognize neither god nor moral imperatives.The wise-elite must govern by way of secrecy, deception and the imperative of a broad exter-nal threat to inspire the vulgar many.The end justifies the means: deception, secrecy, violence, and abrogation of international law are necessary.Perpetual war is necessary; so there must always be external threats, even if manufac-tured. Only perpetual war can overturn the “modern project” with its emphasis on self-preservation and creature comforts.

Secular society is the least desir-able situation because it leads to individualism, liberalism, or relativism.America’s unparalled strength allows it to do what it pleases with impunity. It can act unilat-erally with no regard to interna-tional law or world opinion.It is not true that moral conduct must be universalizable so that whatever is right for us to do must also be right for others.People are told what they need

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Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine, by Ghada Karmi Pluto Press, London, 2007. Paperback, 300 pages.

to know and no more.The combination of religion and nationalism is the elixir that turns natural relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight for god and country.The masses cannot be exposed to the truth or they will fall into either nihilism or anarchy.Religion is absolutely necessary for impos-ing moral law on the masses, but it should be reserved for the masses. The ruling elite need not be bound by it, since the truths proclaimed by religion are a pious fraud.America will save the world by replacing tyran-nies with democracies.

Leo Strauss was a guru to many of the neocons who have influenced American foreign policy. A few more examples of their ideology can be found below.

Robert Kagan, a leading neoconservative intel-lectual, wrote that “concerns with justice and international law are relevant only for the weak. It is a strategy by which the weak try to get their way in the world. American power, employed under a double standard, may be the best means for advancing human progress and perhaps the only way. America should support arms control but not for itself.”

Michael Ledeen, neoconservative advisor to Karl Rove, stated “in order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to enter into evil.”

Shadia Drury, Professor of Political Theory at Canada’s University of Regina and author of Leo Strauss and the American Right, says that “the deceptions, manipulations, and secrecies of the Bush Administration flow directly from the Straussian philosophy that these should be the normal processes in government”.

Is it not readily apparent that the Bush-Cheney duo has utilized every one of the fourteen above listed Straussian principles in their reign of terror since 9/11/2001?

Hank Joerger served in the 99th Infantry Divi-sion during World War II. His company was assigned to guard Nazi war criminals at their trial in Nuremburg. Today, he wants an investi-gation of 9/11.

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Neocon Follies and the Anti-democratic Leo Strauss

1� Because People Matter July / August �008 www.bpmnews.org

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by Hank Joerger

The 1992 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 1994–1999, pre-pared by then Undersecretary of Defense

Paul Wolfowitz for the Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reads:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the terri-tory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.

There are three additional aspects to this objective: First, the US must show the leader-ship necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seek-ing to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competi-tor from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”.Analysis of various documents published by

PNAC during the period 1992-2002 reveal that many aspects of the US post 9/11 geostrategy were planned in the late 1990’s. The American media and general population failed to appreciate the implications of these radical policy papers which included decisions about;

How the strategy for US global dominance requires an economic/military/intelligence nexus in order to enforce American supremacy.Access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian gulf oil, as a key objective of US policy requires military intervention, preemptive if necessary, to gain such access.The naming of Russia, Germany, Japan, India and China as regional powers which could pos-sibly rise to challenge the US. PNAC’s number one mission would be to quash such ambitions. These countries were, or course, outraged.The necessity of pursuing US global domi-nance as far as possible into the future.A group of PNAC members, including Donald

Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Richard Perle, John Bolton, William Kristol, Elliot Abrams, Robert Kagan, William Bennett, worked hard on their proposed project during the 1990’s. In 1998, they wrote a letter to President Clinton suggesting that the US invade Iraq, but the administration apparently thought their ideas were “way over the top”.

In a 1998 book, Z. Brzeszinski said the PNAC would never be accepted by the American people unless there was an event like Pearl Harbor to arouse them.

On Sept 2000, a PNAC strategy document enti-tled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” lamented the possibility that the desired transformation of the US would be a long and difficult process. Only a massive external threat, the document said, like a new Pearl Harbor, could provide the necessary catalyst for them to achieve their goals.

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Following the 2000 election of G.W. Bush, the former neocon political ‘outsiders’ became pow-erful ‘insiders’. Most of the PNAC members were placed in positions where they could exert maxi-mum influence on US policy. Wolfowitz served as Deputy Defense Secretary, Libby as Cheney’s Chief of Staff, John Bolton as Undersecretary of State, Richard Perle as Chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Advisory Board, to name a few. In effect, PNAC members, led by Cheney and Rumsfeld, were able to construct the inexperi-enced Bush’s foreign policies.

PNAC provided a blueprint that has been fol-lowed closely, to the dismay of 70% of American people. World opinion is as high as 93% nega-tive about the transformation of the US from a multilateralist nation to one that eagerly espouses global domination and endless preemptive wars.

Since the birth of PNAC in 1992, a subservient US media has failed miserably to inform Ameri-cans about this project from the warped minds of perhaps only twenty neoconservative warmon-gers. Even if the project had made any sense, the US could ill afford such a giant undertaking as the $3 ½ trillion in added debt since 2000 shows.

Instead of an American Empire we have a financial catastrophe that may engulf the world. And where are the friends that will help us? Haven’t we alienated just about all of them?

Hank Joerger served in the 99th Infantry Divi-sion during World War II. His company was assigned to guard Nazi war criminals at their trial in Nuremburg. Today, he wants an investi-gation of 9/11.

Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and Neoconservative Policies 1992-2002

Association (ESACNA). ESACNA’s concerns were ignored by the City, which was strongly in favor of the project, and the group filed a lawsuit challenging environmental compliance. Rather than fight the lawsuit, Trader Joe’s chose to abandon the project at this site and moved to its present location on Folsom Boulevard—wider by far than L Street but still creating havoc with local traffic and the adjacent neighborhood. Even Folsom Boulevard is not Marconi and Fulton Avenues.

Neighbors won that battle, but the Corridor lost the war. Trader Joe’s was followed by the titanic Sutter Hospital expansion. People burned out; others moved; ESACNA went dormant. Now comes Walgreens. This corporate giant wants to replace two popular local restaurants with a 24-hour super drug store right across the street from the odious Rite Aide at Alhambra and L—and become the 23rd drug store within a two mile radius.

ESACNA is now reborn, working together with the East Sacramento Preservation Task Force, a group that has organized to curb and monitor Mercy Hospital’s expansion into sur-rounding residential streets just east of the Alhambra Corridor at 39th and J Streets.

San Francisco is considering a ban on chain stores in some areas as mentioned in the San Francisco Chronicle (5-7-08). Sacramento should

Alhambra from page 11

consider a similar ban for the Alhambra Cor-ridor and other sensitive areas of the city. It must uphold the protections it already has in place for the Alhambra Corridor and apply them in all vulnerable urban mixed-use areas.

Neighbors and neighborhood groups through-out Sacramento must remain vigilant and keep our city of neighborhoods from turning into

Coffee from

NicaraguaSupport Sacramento’s sister city, San Juan de Oriente, Nicaragua, by purchasing organic whole-bean coffee grown in the rich volcanic soil on the island of Omotepe, Nicaragua. Thanks to the efforts of the Bainbridge-Omotepe Sister Island Association in Washington, we are able to bring you this wonderful medium roast coffee.Your purchase helps the farmers on the island and helps support Sacramento’s long relationship with San Juan de Oriente. All profits go directly back to the Nicaraguan communities. $9.00 a pound. Available in Sacramento at: The Book Collector, 1008 24th St.

another Phoenix.

Martha Paterson-Cohen has degrees in education and social work. She worked for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency where she was active in her union and later in administration as a manager. Now retired, she is active in neighborhood development issues.

Another view of Alhambra at Folsom Blvd.photo: Martha Paterson-Cohen

www.bpmnews.org July / August �008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 1�

July / August CalendarONGOING EVENTS

Send calendar items for the Sept. / Oct. �008 issue to bpmnews@nicetechnology.com by August 10, with “calendar item” in the subject line. Make it short, and PLEASE use this format: Day, Date. Name of event. Description (1–2 lines). Time. Location. Price. INFO: phone#; e-mail.

For the most current listing of Sacramento peace & justice events, go to www.sacpeace.org. For weekly updates, email sacpeace@dcn.org and put SacPeaceUpdates in the subject.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

11th OF EVERY MONTH: Sacramento 9/11 Truth Demonstration. 11th and L Streets, facing Capitol nor th entrance. INFO: www.truthaction.org, 916-372-8433.MONDAYS: Sacramento Poetry Center hosts poetry readings. 7:30pm. 1719 25th Street. www.sacra-mentopoetrycenter.org.1st MONDAYS: Organic Sacramento: Counter ongoing threats to our food. 6:30pm. INFO: www. organicsacramento.org.1st MONDAYS: Sac Media Group. 6–8pm. Coloma Community Center, 4623 T Street. INFO: 443-1792, smg@commoncause.org.3rd MONDAYS: Capitol Outreach for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty. 12 noon–1pm, 11th & L Street. INFO: 455-1796.3rd MONDAYS: SAPA Peace and Sustainability Committee. 6–8pm. INFO: Peace Action, 448-7157.3rd MONDAYS: Sacto 9/11 Truth:Questioning the “War on Terror.” 6–8pm. Denny’s 3rd & J St. INFO: sac911truth@gmail.com 372-8433.3rd MONDAYS: Lesbian Cancer Support Group. 6:30 Bring partners or sup-port people with you. Open discussions with everyone. INFO: Roxanne Harden-berg; ROXANNE1040@aol.com.TUESDAYS: Call for Peace Vigil. 4–6pm. 16th and J St. INFO 448-7157.TUESDAYS: Improv work-shop. Solve the world’s problems through improv games! 7–9:30pm. Geery Theatre, 2130 L street, Sac. $5.00, first time free. INFO: Damion, 916-821-4533, dsharpeproduc-tions@hotmail.com.2nd TUESDAYS: Gray Pan-

thers. 1–3pm. Hart Senior Ctr., 27th & J St. INFO: Joan, 332-5980.2nd TUESDAYS: Peace Network (speakers and discussion), 6:30pm. Luna’s Cafe, 1414 16th Street. INFO: Sac Area Peace Action 448-7157. 4th TUESDAYS: Peace and Justice Films. 7pm. Peace Action, 909 12th Street. INFO:448-7157.4th TUESDAYS: (Odd num-bered months) Amnesty Int’l. 7pm. Sacramento Friends Meeting, 890-57th St. INFO: 489-2419.1st WEDNESDAYS: Peace & Freedom Party. 7pm. INFO: 456-4595.3 r d W E D N E S D A Y S : CAAC Goes to the Mov-ies. 7:15pm. INFO: 446-3304.THURSDAYS: Urban Farm Stand, 4–7pm, River Gar-den Estates, 2201 North-view Dr.THURSDAYS: Daddy’s Here. Men’s support group; info on custody, divorce, raising children. 7–8:30pm. Free! Ctr for Families, 2251 Flo-rin Rd, Ste 102. INFO: terry @fathersandfamilies.com. 568-3237x 205.1st and 2nd THURSDAYS: Storytelling at the Hart Senior Center, 27th & J sts. 7pm. Free. INFO: 916-362-9013, or PaulIdaho@comcast.net.FRIDAYS: Movies on a Big Screen. Independent, quirky movies and videos. 7pm. 600 4th St, West Sac. INFO: www.shiny-object.com/screenings/.1st FRIDAYS: Community Contra Dance. 8–11pm; 7:30pm beginners les-sons. Clunie Auditorium, McKinley Pk, Alhambra & F. INFO: 530-274-9551.2nd FRIDAYS: Dances of Universal Peace. 7:30–

9:30pm. Sacramento Friends Meeting House 890 57th St. $5–$10 donation requested. INFO: Joyce, www.sacramento-dancesofuniversalpeace.org, 916-832-4630. 4th FRIDAYS: Dances at Christ Unity Church, 9249 Folsom Blvd. All Welcome $5–$10 donation request-ed. INFO: Christine 457-5855, www.sacramento-dancesofuniversalpeace.org.1st SATURDAYS: Health Care for All. 10am–noon. Hart Senior Ctr, 27th & J. For single-payer universal health care. INFO: 916-424-5316; cnegrete@comcast.net.1st SATURDAYS: Sacra-mento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm. Arden and Heritage (en-trance to Arden Mall). INFO: 448-7157.2nd & 4th SATURDAYS: Community Contra Dance. 8–11pm; 7:30 lessons. Coloma Center 4623 T Street. INFO: 395-3483.3rd SATURDAYS: Sacra-mento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm. Marconi & Fulton. INFO: 448-7157.3rd SATURDAYS: Under-ground Poetr y Series, open mic plus featured po-ets. 7–9pm Underground Books, 2814 35th Street (at Broadway), Sacramen-to. $3. INFO: 737-3333.SUNDAYS: Sacto Food Not Bombs. 1:30pm. Come help distribute food at 9th and J Streets.1st SUNDAYS: Zapatis-ta Solidarity Coalition. 10am–noon. 909 12th St. INFO: 443-3424.2nd SUNDAYS: Atheists & Other Freethinkers. 2:30pm. Sierra 2 Center, Room 10, 2791 24th St. INFO: 447-3589.

Veterans for Peace Meeting Again in Sacramento.

We are working to end the war in Iraq and to help sol-diers and veterans find the resources they need. Those of you who were previously active in this or any other VFP chapter: we can use your experience and knowledge. Any veteran can join as a full member, and non-veterans are eligible as associate members.The next meeting will be on Thursday, July 10, at 6:30 pm. It will be held at the Round Table Pizza on Howe Ave., just south of Arden Way, in Sacramento. Members and potential members, as well as other supporters, are warmly welcome.Free & confidential counseling: 916-447-5706 ; www.therapistsforsocialresponsibility.org . GI Rights Hotline: 800-394-9544; www.girights.org.Veterans for Peace national office: 314-725-6005; www.veteransforpeace.org. Local VFP contact: John Reiger, reigers@earthlink.net, 916-456-4595

The Humor Times (formerly the ComicPress News) is no longer available free.

However, subscriptions are so CHEAP,they almost seem free! And if you use the

special BPM discount, it’s even LESS!

Just go to humortimes.com and use “BPM” (without the quotes) in the Discount

Code box for $2.00 OFF on any U.S.regular (or PDF) subscription! (Expires 7-31-08)

Or send a check or money order for$16.95 for one year (12 issues),

noting “BPM” to: Humor Times,P.O.B. 162429,

Sacramento, CA95816, or call 916-455-1217.

/

it gives ushope - and it’s darn funny too!

Do You Miss the

It’s an election year –You Need Political Humor!

Don’t miss anotherhilarious issue!

9 Parts of DesireThursdays to Saturdays, June 20th–July 20th

A portrait of the extraordinary—and ordinary—lives of a cross-section of Iraqi women, 9 Parts of Desire lifts the veil on women in the war zone. It’s a work so compassionate that it reveals our shared humanity in a way that CNN never can.

8:00 PM Thursday to Saturday, or �:00 PM Sunday matinees on July 1�th and �0th. California Stage, 1��� ��th Street, Sacra-mento. INFO: �1�-���-1�00. beyondro@sbcglobal.net.

Celebrate and Reaffirm Women’s Right to Vote!

Saturday August 23, 20083rd Annual California Women’s Equality Day

Parade & Rally Join us in the parade or come watch!

A special tribute to League of Women Voters “The vote is the emblem of equality, women of

America, the guarantee of your liberty. That vote of yours has cost millions of dollars

and the lives of thousands of women.” Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of

Women Voters Parade starts at 10:00 AM at Southside Park

Sign-up at 7th & T StreetsRally at 11 AM at the North Side of the Capitol

Sacramento, CA

Tuesday, July 8Gray Panthers Sac. general meeting and sum-mer potluck. Honoring Bruce “Utah” Phllips. 1�:�0–�:�0pm. Hart Senior Ctr, ��th & J Sts, Sacto. INFO: �1�-���-��80; joanblee@sbcglobal.net.

Friday, July 11 Sacto �/11 Truth Demonstration. 11th and L Streets, facing Capitol north entrance. INFO: www.truthaction.org, �1�-���-8���.

Monday, July 14 Bastille Day Celebration Fundraiser for Sacra-mento Self Help Housing’s work to provide ac-cess to affordable housing. �:�0pm. 1�00 ��th St, Sac, INFO: �1�-��1-0���.

Wednesday, July 16CAAC Goes to the Movies: Daylight Robbery, BBC Uncovers lost Iraqi Billions, US spending in Iraq perhaps the largest war profiteering in all of his-tory. �:1�pm. 1��0 �th Ave. FMI: ���-��0�

Friday, July 18“Going Public: Stories of Growing up in the Projects.” �:�0 pm. La Raza Galleria Posada (10�� - ��nd Street, between K and J sts). $� ($� for students and seniors). INFO: �1�-���-����, www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com.

Tuesday, July 22�th Tuesday Films, Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans about the Faubourg Tremé community, arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America, the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement in the South, and the home of jazz. �pm. �0� 1�th St, Sac. INFO: �1�-��8-�1��

Monday, Aug. 4Poet Mary Mackey. �:�0pm. Sac Poetry Center, 1�1� ��th St. INFO: www.marymackey.com/; grahampoet@aol.com.

Monday, Aug. 11 Sacto �/11 Truth Demonstration. 11th and L Streets, facing Capitol north entrance. INFO: www.truthaction.org, �1�-���-8���.

Saturday, August 30Peace Pyramid quarterly convocation. David Dionisi addressing the issue of militarization in our schools and what should be done about it. � pm. �00� Kifisia Way, Fair Oaks. INFO: Tom & Dar King, tjking0�@comcast.net; �1�-��1-�1��.

Monday, Sept. 1Comedy in Poetry. �:�0pm. Michael Rowe, Carol Moon and other comedic poets. Also, CD release party for Pop/Folk musician Jenn Rogar. Sac Poetry Center, 1�1� ��th St. INFO: grahampoet@aol.com.

Global capitalism has brought such a massive concentration of wealth and power that we can rightly say the robber barons are back today with corporate media to protect and serve their interests. Many have concluded that resistance to such power is all but futile.Deepa Kumar, asst. professor of media studies at Rutgers University, argues against this pessimistic logic. Drawing on her book Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike, she argues that the working class is still the “gravedigger of capitalism” and further, that even the powerful corporate media can be bent to serve the interests of workers.

Thursday, July 10, 2008, 7-9pm Sierra 2 Center, Garden Rm, 2791 24th St., Sacramento

Free and open to the publicinfo@marxistschool.org, 916-369-5510, www.marxistschool.org

The Marxist School of Sacramento PresentsDeepa Kumar—

“Fighting the New Robber Barons”

Featuring: Grammy award-winner Mary Youngblood; Rev. Bob Oshita; Dr. Bill Durston; Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan; Pam Vergun, author of A Dimly Burning Wick, a Hiroshima memoir.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

CSUS Alumni Center Doors Open at 4

Program from 4:30–6 pm

DIRECTIONS: www.sacstatealumni.com/alumniCenter.stm#DirectionsFree—Donations will be accepted

Presented by the August Peace Event Committee

For More Info: Janice Nakashima (916) 393-7690

Thanks to major sponsor CSUS

22nd AnnualAugust Peace Event

63rd Annual Day of Remembrance

NON-PROFITORGANIZATION

US POSTAGE PAIDPERMIT NO. 2668SACRAMENTO, CA

Sacramento and Central Valley INDyMEDIA: www.sacindymedia.org.

Progressive MediaOnline News Sources:www.Truthout.org: essays on current events,

some videos, like Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC Countdown shows.

www.CommonDreams.org News Center: Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

www.Brasscheck.org: Progressive videos on many subjects, from Steven Colbert’s speech at the White House Correspondent’s dinner and speeches by leftwing MP George Galloway, to extensive information on �/11 and the attacks on our civil liberties.

www.TheRealNews.com: a nonprofit progres-sive website offering daily news videos including interviews and debates. They plan soon to expand to television.

www.GoLeft.tv: Progressive Online Television. In the world of media monopoly, news has been replaced with a new invention called “infotainment.” GoLeft.tv is a progressive political T.V. news source that fills that gap between the media’s dumbed down info-tainment and real news reporting.

www.innworldreport.net: Daily professional viewer/listener supported journalism available in over �0 million homes across America.

Editors’ Picks! ▼ Soapbox!—Jeanie Keltner talks with activists and analysts from Sacramento and beyond about the issues of the day.

Where to watch:Access Sacramento cable channel 1�. Every Monday at 8pm. Call in comments on �nd and �th Mondays. Repeats Tues-day at noon, Wednesday at �am. In Davis, on channel 1�, Tuesdays at �pm.

▼ Media edge—Sacramento’s own magazine format show, covering local progressive events and speakers, as well as internationally known commentators, with clips from some of the best independent political video being made now.

Where to watch:Access Sacramento channels 1� and 18 and Davis Channel 1�. Sundays 8–10pm Nevada County channel 11 Mondays 10:�0pm–1�:�0am, West Sacramento channel �1 Mondays �-11pm. See scheduled segments at www.wethemedia.org.

▼ Democracy Now—Amy Goodman’s award-winning magazine format show.

Where to watch:Access Sacramento TV, Cable Channels 1� and 18, Weekdays �pm, 1�midnight, �am.Dish Network Satellite TV, Channel ��1�, Free Speech TV, M–F: �am, �pm, �pm, �am, Pacific time. Link TV, Channel ��10, Monday–Friday, 8am, �pm. KVMR 89.5 FM Mon–Thu �pm. KDVS 90.3 FM Mon–Fri noon. KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley, M–F �am

Don’t bitch at the media—become the media!

Have you taken the TV production training at Access Sacramento? Would you like to learn or put your technical talents to use? Soapbox! urgently needs crewmembers to help set up, run cam-eras, and take viewers’ phone calls on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month.

Call 444 3203 if you’re interested in taking the training or joining us at Soapbox! for fun—and the best pizza in town.

Progressive Radio Stations▼ KVMR 8�.� FM▼ The Voice, 88.� Cable FM; and streaming

audio on www.Accesssacramento.org; SAP Comcast Channels 1� & 18

▼ KyDS �1.� FM▼ KDVS �0.� FM▼ KPFA ��.1 FM Berkeley▼ KSAC 1��0 AM (TalkCity Radio Sacramento).

—has been silenced. 1��0 AM has switched to a gospel format. No more Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartmann or the others who brought us an alternative viewpoint.

▼ KZFR �0.1 FM Chico People Powered Radio! managed and

operated by volunteers, provides mostly locally produced and community oriented programs.

(Other) Progressive Newspapers▼ The Flatlander: a free community newspa-

per of fun, opinion and politics in the Davis Area. yolocats@yahoo.com. Publication every � months, next issue is April/May

The FlatlanderP.O. Box �����Davis, CA ���1�▼ you may see the Rock Creek Free Press

in the back of some BPM stands and in other places you find BPM. It’s a great new paper from Washington DC with em-phasis on the undernews. Check it out.

▼ Likewise, we are greatly impressed with the lively goodlooking Midtown Monthly. It’s not political, but it has the kind of use-ful and delightful info about life, art, food and music in Sacramento and beyond that creates the sense of community needed for an uncertain future.

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Here’s a hot tip! If you don’t have cable TV, and you do have a PC (doesn’t work on Mac), you can watch Access Sacramento programs as they are being aired by going to www.accesssacramento.org and clicking on the “Watch Channel 1�” button at the top of the first page.

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tGreat Speeches and Interviews-Local

and national speeches and interviews to challenge your thinking. An in-depth radio program on the current issues. Where to listen and/or download: Listen Sundays �-8pm on Comcast Ch. 1�, 18, set your TV menu to SAP or listen on The Voice www.AccessSacramento.org L is ten or download f rom w w w.a r c h i v e . o r g / b o o k m a r k s / s g l Blogged on www.SacramentoForDemoc-racy.org