2008 Jan Feb

Because People Matter Progressive News and Views

January / February 2008

9/11: Questioning the Official Conspiracy Theory Twin Towers attack was a false flag operation By Hank Joerger

A

serious discussion of the evidence surrounding 9/11 has been shunned by conventional media. Many highly qualified 9/11 researchers have not had their day in court. Evidence suggests the government was involved. In fact, it had a motive, a suspect’s profile, the capacity to commit the crime, and a number of glaring holes in the official story. In 1997 Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, later US Deputy Secretary of Defense, with others, crafted the “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC). It called for an American world empire: preemptive wars to control Middle Eastern oil, permanent military installations in the Middle East, and huge additional military expenditures to attain full spectrum dominance of the world’s ground, air, oceans and space. In public speeches, Richard Perle, a leader of the Defense Policy Board for President George W. Bush, and other neo-conservatives, said to initiate their goals, “a new Pearl Harbor” was needed, “a catastrophic and catalyzing event” to galvanize Americans. 9/11 provided the perfect tragedy to promote all of Bush/Cheney goals: the passage of the Patriot Act, the buildup of the military, the squandering of Social Security funds, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq—and potentially Iran. I believe the Twin Towers attack was a false flag operation—planned by a government and blamed on an enemy in order to start a war—an event much more common than one might think. Criminal investigations must ask if a suspect is capable of committing the crime.

and blaming the attack on Cuba to justify an invasion (President Kennedy rejected the proposal). Recently declassified documents also show that a 1964 incident in which Vietnamese gun ships allegedly fired on US ships did not happen. However, within days Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that brought the US more fully into the Vietnam War.

Investigation stonewalled

It was highly suspicious the Bush administration refused to admit the necessity of an investigation into the “crime of the century.” On the day of the attack, Bush said, “We don’t need The skeleton of the WTC an investigation, we already know who photographer unknown did it.” It took 441 days of demands by family members of 9/11 victims before weeks after 9/11. Airplane fuel won’t explain molten the administration reluctantly set up steel, but thermite or thermate explosives used in demothe 9/11 Commission with $3 million funding—raised litions will. An editorial in Fire Engineering 2002 called to $15 million after great the official explanation a “half-baked farce.” citizen outcry. Compare this with the $40 million invesIf the explanation of the Twin Towers collapse is full tigation of Clinton in 1998 of holes, neither FEMA nor the official 9/11 investigation or $60 million spent on even tried to explain the collapse of WTC 7. Forty-seven the second Bush inaugural. stories high, it wasn’t hit by a plane and had only small Since 9/11, the administrafires of unknown origin on two floors, but hours later tion has done everything it collapsed into a heap of powder and rubble in less possible to underfund, delay than 10 seconds. The building housed several insurance and cover up all aspects of 9/11. This is neither scientific companies, the FBI and CIA, and the Securities and practice nor the act of a wounded and innocent victim. Exchange Commission which lost records from accountAfter the attack on the Twin Towers, Mayor Rudy ing scandal investigations into Enron, WorldCom and Giuliani ordered all rubble shipped out of the country, many other large corporations and, at the Pentagon, the FBI immediately confiscated WTC landlord Larry Silverstein signed a lease in film from nearby private surveillance cameras. Despite July 2001, insured the towers against acts of terrorism, Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the federal govand eventually netted $2 billion in insurance payments. ernment has not shown this evidence to the public. The In the 2002 PBS documentary “America Rebuilds,” he recordings of cell phone conversations from hijacked admits he had WTC 7 “pulled,” an industry term for planes were almost certainly faked, since only in 2006 demolished by explosives. The glitch is that to pull the did American Airlines install cell phone transmitters that building on 9/11, someone had to set explosives ahead enabled calls from cell phones on airplanes. of time. It is also of interest that Marvin Bush, President Bush’s brother, and Wirt D. Walker III, his cousin, were principals in Securacom, a company that provided secuWe are told the Twin Towers were brought down rity for the WTC complex. by fire alone, something that has never happened in the 100-year history of steel-framed buildings. Many skyThe explanation of the Pentagon attack by American scrapers have burned many hours and still not collapsed. Airlines flight 77 is loaded with problems. Alleged pilot A number of occurrences at the World Trade Center Hani Hanjour was so incompetent that he was refused can’t be explained by fire, but were characteristic of rental of a single-engine Cessna. Yet the plane he was buildings brought down by controlled demolition. Buildallegedly flying made a 270 degree spiral dive, dropped ings 1 and 2 were hit by airplanes, but the fire chief called See False Flag, page 2 for more hoses saying the fire was controllable. Minutes later, the tower exploded and fell to the ground in less than 15 seconds. Fires don’t cause an instantaneous collapse, but demolitions do. Fire can’t explain the fact that WTC 1 and 2 crumbled symmetrically into a neat pile in the building’s footprint, but demolition can. Fire doesn’t explain cement turning to powder or debris hurled horizontally up to 600 feet. Fire can’t explain the reports of fire fighters and professional news reporters who heard explosions at the Twin Towers, and television news anchors Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and others described the collapses as similar to controlled demolitions. Scientific experimentation shows airplane fuel will not reach temperatures high enough to melt steel. Search and rescue teams found pockets of molten steel in rubble

“It was highly suspicious the Bush administration refused to admit the necessity of an investigation into the “crime of the century.”

What does the past behavior of US leaders show? Documents declassified in 1997, for example, show that in 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff devised “Operation Northwoods,” that included destroying a US airplane,

Inside this issue:

Editorial.............................................. 2 Why I’m Running for Congress......... 3 Single-Payer Healthcare..................... 3 Book Review: Nemesis........................ 4 AT&T and Public Televison................ 4 Are Critics of Israel Anti-Semitic?..... 5 A New Moment for Nuke Ban............ 6 Physicians for Social Responsibility... 6 Humor Times...................................... 7 Underground Radio: The Voice........... 7 Book Review: Made Love, Got War.... 8 Summer of Love 40th Anniversary.... 8 The Murder of Pat Tillman . .............. 9 Soil Born Farm.................................. 10 Film Review: The Fever.................... 11 Book Review: Good Capitalism......... 11 Sacramento Area Peace Action......... 12 The Trial of the “Matsui 10”............ 13 Iran: 5 Reasons to Talk Not Bomb.... 13 Book Review: American Fascists...... 14 Calendar............................................ 15 Progressive Media............................. 16

“Building 7”

Fire alone could not have done it.

Flight 77 and the Pentagon

A community paper needs community support! Subscribe today! Fill out and return the form on page 2.

Already a subscriber? Why not buy a subscription for a friend or family member?

 Because People Matter January / February 2008 www.bpmnews.org because

People Matter

Volume 17, Number 1 Published Bi-Monthly by the Sacramento Community for Peace & Justice P.O. Box 162998, Sacramento, CA 95816 (Use addresses below for correspondence) Editorial Group: JoAnn Fuller, Charlene Jones, Jeanie Keltner, Rick Nadeau Coordinating Editor for this Issue: Jeanie Keltner Design and Layout: Ellen Schwartz Calendar Editor: Chris Bond Advertising and Business Manager: Edwina White Distribution Manager: Paulette Cuilla Subscription Manager: Kate Kennedy

How to Reach Us: Subscriptions, letters, punditry: 403 21st Street Sacramento, CA 95814 444-3203 Ads or other business: 446-2844 All e-mail correspondence: bpmnews@nicetechnology. com

HAVE A CALENDAR ITEM? Send an e-mail with “calendar item” in the subject line. Make it short, and in this order, please: Day, Date. Name of event. Description (1-2 lines). Time. Location. INFO: phone#; e-mail.

HAVE A storY? We start planning the next issue of BPM the day the current issue hits the streets. Let us know by e-mail as soon as you have an idea for a story so we can consider it early in the process.

HAVE SOME time? (HA HA HA!) Well, you might have, and BPM always needs help with big and small tasks. Call 444-3203.

Copy Deadlines: For the March / April 2008 Issue: Articles: Feb. 1, 2008 Calendar Items: Feb. 10, 2008 Cultural events welcome! For details, see our new website, www.bpmnews.org Because People Matter is an allvolunteer endeavor to present alternative, progressive news and views in Sacramento. We invite and welcome your responses. To discuss a proposed article, or help distribute the paper, inquire about ad rates, or help out in some other way, call or write using the phone number and address listed under ”How to Reach Us” above. Please reproduce from any of the written contents, but do credit the author and BPM. BPM is printed by Herburger Publications, Inc. 585-5533.

Editorial

Jeanie Keltner Coordinating Editor for This Issue

Cover stories and cover-ups By Jeanie Keltner

O

n the cover are just a few of the over 800 people who have publicly rejected the official 9/11 story and who call for a new and independent investigation of one of the most important events in recent US history, the one that has had and will have a horrifically destructive consequences to the struggle for democracy that has been the theme of US history. I want to invite anyone who has had questions about 9/11and then dismissed them to visit www.Patriotsquestion911.com. This is a site worth going to the library to check out. The first questioners of the official story tended to be professors. Now having been a professor, I know that they are often belittled as fringy, absent-minded, out of it, often “liberal” (heaven forbid!) impractical, weird even—by the non-academic world. So even a professor of physics (Stephen Jones) or theology (David Ray Griffin) when they declare the official 9/11 story a cover-up may be suspect to many people. But the people on “www.PatriotsQuestion911.com” are a different matter. The subtitle is Responsible Criticism of the 9/11Commision Report—this is criticism you could take home to meet your mother. And the site is intensely readable. These are personal stories from accomplished, highly qualified individuals, how they came to break ranks, what they have learned. All of them were deeply reluctant to believe what their expertise was telling them. A lot of effort, of course, has been put into marginalizing 9/11truthers, creating an element of kookiness, of ridiculousness, and spending millions constructing simulated situations to silence the critics. So the 110 plus “Senior military, intelligence service, law enforcement, and government officials”—though many are retired and beyond career concerns—are risking their reputations and their public personas. Moreover,

by standing up, they have sacrificed forever their chance to go through that revolving door into the rich corporate world that awaits those in government, the military, and intelligence who toe the line—and don’t see what should not be seen. Many of those who stepped forward are experts in operations similar to the one that went down on 9/11— and saw immediately that the sophisticated coordination and dovetailed planning of the operation, as well as the lack of any defensive response from US military, despite all the early warnings, indicated inside complicity at some level. There are also more than 200 engineers and architects. Here are experts who know how skyscrapers are constructed, how to calculate stress and support, how buildings fail, how controlled demolitions work, how to read and challenge the phonied up computer simulations relied on in the report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on how WTC 1 and 2 collapsed (NIST doesn’t even attempt to explain the more problematic collapse of WTC 7). They usually say, I knew within five minutes of watching that day that there was something terribly wrong with this picture. And there are more than 50 pilots—military and commercial—and other aviation professionals on this site. Since they know what it’s like to fly the big planes, how to compare official flight records to what’s experientially possible, and what crash sites look like, they too usually came quickly to awareness that something was rotten in the official story. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, US Air Force (ret.) with over 100 combat missions, Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Ford and Carter asks the big questions: “Who gained from 9/11? Who covered up crucial information about 9/11? And who put out the patently false stories about 9/11 in the first place? When you take those three things togeth-

“…personal stories from accomplished, highly qualified individuals, how they came to break ranks, what they have learned.“

Wea Culpa! As we hope you have noticed and wondered, we missed an issue-—the first ever! We suffered an equipment malfunction just before layout began on the November/December 2007 issue. The layout artist’s Toshiba laptop, with all the software for putting together the paper, crashed.

All data had been backed up but it was weeks before she gave up on getting it repaired (they kept sending it back broken) and bought a new computer. This one has a five-year warranty, with a provision for next day in-home repair service. That should keep us going! And of course all subscriptions have been extended by one issue.

Help keep BPM on the streets: Subscribe today! Already a subscriber? Buy a subscription to BPM for a friend or family member! If you’re pencil-challenged, email us: [email protected] . Look through this issue for additional volunteer opportunities.

On the cover From patriotsquestion911. com, some of the over 100 military, intelligence, law enforcement and government officials; 270+ engineers and architects; 60+ pilots and aviation professionals; 170+ professors; 200+ survivors and family members; and 110+ entertainment and media professionals who question the government’s own conspiracy theory: that 19 Arabs armed only with box knives hijacked four planes they didn’t have the skill to fly, and hit three of their targets dead on on the first pass.

We appreciate your support! Please fill out the form and mail to:

BPM, 403 21st Street, Sacramento, CA 95814  This is a great paper! I’ll gladly subscribe for a mere $20.  WOW! You sound desperate! I’m enclosing $ extra to help out!  This is my opportunity to break into journalism and help get the truth out! I’ll help: Writing, Editing, Distributing, Proofreading, Anything!

er, I think the case is pretty clear that it’s highly placed individuals in the administration with all roads passing through Dick Cheney.” And here’s where the professors come in. There’s the timeline—this happens and then this happens—and then there’s the plot, and the plot is the meaning, the why. No one has done a more profound, rational, measured and documented study of the meaning of 9/11 than David Ray Griffin, many of whose essays are available online. Unless we want the endless war Vice-President Cheney has promised us, nothing is more important than finding out what really happened on that fateful day. And hard as it may be for some of us, we must face the facts and open up the discussion if we hope to deconstruct the phony war on terror. Let’s give the last word to Lt. Col. Shelton F. Lankford, US Marine Corps (ret.), a fighter pilot with over 300 combat missions: “This isn’t about party, it isn’t about Bush bashing. It’s about our country, our constitution, and our future.”

False Flag from page 1

7,000 feet in two and half minutes, and was piloted into the west wing so low that it clipped lamp posts on the highway about 500 feet from the Pentagon—a maneuver professional pilots find next to impossible. The “plane” disappeared into an 18-foot hole just above ground level, leaving no wheel marks on the lawn or marks on the wall from the 8,000-pound engines, the 125-foot wingspan or the 40-foot tail. The first fire chief on the scene said, “There were no engines, landing gear, bodies or luggage.” A great mystery is how any aircraft could hit the Pentagon, the pre-eminent military headquarters in the world, with its restricted airspace protected by a battery of surface-to-air missiles ready to fire at any aerial vehicle failing to identify itself as friendly. Indeed, the question of the “stand down” of US forces while four hijacked planes flew unimpeded through US airspace is of greatest significance. For this crime of the ages, we must demand a complete criminal investigation. If 9/11 was an inside job and our government is not properly punished, there will be another more terrible tragedy in the future when another war is desired! For more information and sources regarding this article contact, Davis 9/11 Truth at 530-7537556, 530-757-1633 or Beasley_Reece@sbcglobal. net. Articles, books and videos are available at www.911truth.org, including the 9/11 DVDs: “Loose Change,” “9/11 Mysteries,” Professor Steven Jones on “The Physics of WTC Collapses,” and Professor David Ray Griffin’s 9/11 and American Empire. Hank Joerger served in the 99th Infantry Division during World War II. His company was assigned to guard Nazi war criminals at their trial in Nuremburg. Today, he wants an investigation of 9/11.

Name........................................................................................................................ Address.................................................................................................................... City............................... Zip........................ Phone.................................................. Email........................................................................................................................

Keep us alive! Subscribe! Subscribe!

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

Why I’m Running for Congress By Bill Durston, M.D.

L

ike most people who read Because People Matter, I am deeply troubled about the war in Iraq; about the lack of access to affordable health care for a large percentage of our population; about our under-funded public education system that places more emphasis on test scores than on critical thinking skills; about the widening gap between the rich and the poor; about the epidemic of gun violence in our country; about the soaring prison population and the over-representation of people of color behind bars; about the degradation of our environment; about control of our government by the militaryindustrial-media complex; about a presidential administration that is leading our country into moral and financial bankruptcy; and about many other issues addressed in the pages of this newspaper. Unlike almost every other person who reads Because People Matter, though, I am running for US Congress. Why me? It began in January of 2006. I was the president of the Sacramento Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility at the time, and fellow area peace activists invited me to moderate an “Out of Iraq” town hall forum in Sacramento. After the forum, some members of a Democratic candidate search committee approached me to ask if I would consider running for Congress in Congressional District 3 against the Republican incumbent, Dan Lungren. My initial response was, “No thank you.” I had no political experience, and I already had more than enough to do working as an emergency physician and serving in other positions, including as president of PSR/ Sacramento. I told the search committee, though, that I would help them find a candidate. I spent the next month trying to find a Democrat who would take Lungren on in the 2006 election in predominantly Republican CD 3, and I couldn’t find anyone. I knew a little about Lungren from my work with PSR. His father was Richard Nixon’s personal physician, and Lun-

gren had received a medical deferment to avoid military service during the Vietnam War. When Representative John Murtha came out against the Iraq war in November 2005, Lungren participated with other Republican members of Congress in a press conference criticizing Murtha. Lungren likened the Iraq war to Vietnam and said that when he was a Congressman from Long Beach, he could see in the eyes of his Southeast Asian constituents “the disappointment that America had left them behind.” When I was on the ground as a reconnaissance patrol leader with the US Marines in Vietnam, I could see in the eyes of the Vietnamese people that they did not want us to be there, and we know that the same is true of the majority of the people of Iraq. Lungren had made a number of other statements indicating that he had no conception of what war was really like, and I decided that on the issue of the war alone, it would be unacceptable to let him run unopposed. In February of 2006, I told the search committee that I would enter the race. Lungren and I differed on virtually every major issue during the 2006 campaign, but I believe that the most telling one was the issue of torture. I was repeatedly asked during the 2006 campaign what my position was on torture. It struck me that the fact that a candidate for the US House of Representatives in 2006 would be asked what his position was on torture was an indication of just how far our country had fallen from the principles upon which it was founded. I replied, “Of course I’m opposed to torture.” Lungren replied, “Some people confuse torture with aggressive means of interrogation,” and he voted against an amendment to a defense appropriations bill to ban the use of torture by US troops. I came up on the short end of the vote count in 2006, but finished with almost exactly the same percentage of the votes as Jerry McNerney garnered during his first run against Richard Pombo in 2004 in the 11th CD, just south of the

Dr. Durston with his family: from left, daughter Annie, wife Diane, son Jeff, and Bill. Photo: Securing America’s Future, www.securingamerica.com

3rd CD, where the voter demographics are quite similar. Today, Jerry McNerney is Congressman McNerney, having defeated Pombo by over 6 percentage points in his second try in 2006. We learned a lot from the 2006 campaign, and the highlight for both my wife and me was meeting so many wonderful, idealistic people who are committed to working toward a better future for our country and our world. I would like to invite all BPM readers who want to be involved in a very direct way in effecting a positive change in our government to become directly involved in our 2008 campaign. Together, we can take back our government from the special interests—represented by the likes of Dan Lungren—and restore government of, by, and for the people. Contact information for the Durston for Congress Campaign: info@durstonforcongress. org, www.durstonforcongress.org or (916) 622-VOTE.

Single Payer Health Care: Where to now? By Robert Vizzard, MD

H

ealth Care has risen to the first ranks of top domestic issues. Remedies to the health care crisis, really a health care financing crisis, abound. In actuality the options open to the people of California and the nation as a whole are just three or two, if you lump the first two options together. They are employer mandates for health insurance, individual mandates—or some sort of hybrid if you lump the two together—and single payer universal health care. The first two bring us continued waste from the private health insurance industry and never approach universality. Single payer, by design,

is universal and brings us billions in savings through proven efficiencies. State Senator Sheila Kuehl’s bill SB840 does just that. Yeah, we all know, but how do we convince those who are still skeptical and inspire those who are convinced to demand a single payer system in California next year? While SB840 waits in the legislature we must keep single payer in the public eye despite the corporate media’s attempt to stonewall the issue. Several campaigns are designed to do just that. The California State Employees Association is looking at school boards, which pay exorbitant health care costs, to target for endorsement of the bill. Health Care for All, Sacramento Val-

ley is looking at several city councils for similar endorsements These efforts will keep single payer in the public eye until SB840 is considered again next year. Join us and work for the right solution. For information about Health Care for All, Sacramento Valley: 916-424-5316 or www. healthcareforall.org/ Robert Vizzard is an emergency room doctor and member of Health Care for All.

 Because People Matter January / February 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Book Review Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, by Chalmers Johnson. Paperback: 368 pages. Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (January 22, 2008). By Mary Bisharat

C

halmers Johnson, retired professor at UC San Diego, a much-published scholar, has written an important trilogy. Based on years of teaching and research on East Asia, Johnson’s first title is Blowback, the term coined by the Central Intelligence Agency in its “after-action report” about the 1953 overthrow of the elected government of Premier Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran. This early “regime change” brought about the US-supported Shah of Iran until he too was overthrown by Islamic forces in 1979, thereby putting the Ayatollah Khomeini in power, a predecessor of the current anti-American government in Iran. “Blowback” does not only mean retaliation for things our government does to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad which have been kept totally secret from the American people, e.g., 9/11. In Prof. Johnson’s second book, The Sorrows of Empire, he analyzes the nature of the militarism which has grown in America during the 60 years since World War II, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness. At present, America has 737 military bases around the world in more than 130 of the 191 countries which exist today, and the list is incomplete because some are secret. The purpose of these bases is “force projection;” maintaining American military dominance over the rest of the world. The “sorrows” referred to in the book’s title are “perpetual war, a collapse of constitutional government in our country, endemic official lying and disinformation, and finally bankruptcy.” Johnson’s third book, Nemesis, defined in Greek mythology as the goddess of retribution who punishes human transgression of the natural, right ordering of things, and the arrogance that causes it,” sums up his views and conclusions. It reads like a brilliant, knowledgeable detective’s story of 60 years of planning buttressed by 50 pages of notes for reliability and verification. He puts the evidence in a straight line, closely reasoned, with plenty of material about America’s motives. Further, his exploration on the moral issues involved expresses his conscience as a concerned American. Nowhere is that exploration more visible than is his discussion of Hannah Arendt’s plumbing the evil of the Nazi regime. “Some years ago,”

she wrote in the 1950s reporting on the trial of Eichman in Jerusalem, “I spoke of the ‘banality of evil...I meant by this something quite factual, the phenomenon of evil deeds committed on a gigantic scale, which could not be traced to any particularity of wickedness, pathology, or ideology of the doer...whose only personal distinction was an extraordinary shallowness...a curious, quite authentic inability to think.” Arendt was trying to locate Eichman’s conscience. She called him a “desk murderer” an apt term for anyone who orders remote-control killing of the modern sort such as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. Reading Nemesis is an excellent sequel to viewing documentarian Ken Burns’ recent seven episodes on WWII on public television, which showed shocking archival footage of four years of bloody world-wide warfare, Allies fighting against the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan).The war boom had rescued our country from the Great Depression, and when victory was won in 1945, there was supposed to be a “world without war.” Instead, in 1947 there was an extraordinary expansion of arms manufacturing. The Cold War to contain the Soviet Union and the Korean War sustained economic growth. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Americans anticipated a “peace dividend” which never materialized. Instead, thanks to the Bush II administration in 2000, and 9/11, we now

…applying Hannah Arendt’s term for leaders like Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld: “desk murderers.”

Sacramento Progressive Events Calendar on the Web

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

have a “War on Terror” and a continued culture of weapons. Johnson writes that maintaining our worldwide empire will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy. He notes that Britain closed down its empire and kept its democracy. There is an alternative for America, he concludes: “We could, like the British Empire after WW II, keep our democracy by giving up our empire.” Mary Bisharat is a human rights activist and retired social worker in Sacramento.

AT&T Plans to “Minimize” Sacramento County Public, Education, and Government Access Channels Channel 99 Plan violates California state cable franchise law

By Ron Cooper Gone are the days of local governments exercising control of their cable television. In 2006 telecom giant AT&T lobbied successfully to change the rules of cable franchising in California that resulted in shifting power to award cable franchises from communities to the state’s Public Utilities Commission. Some aspects of local control were maintained, however, in the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006 (DIVCA), intending to protect the community public, education, and government (PEG) channels on the new AT&T systems. These guidelines required AT&T carriage of channels with similar functionality and identical channel location as on incumbent cable systems. AT&T’s proposed “compliance” with DIVCA guidelines is not only questionable but serves to demonstrate its corporate disdain for localism and any community participation in oversight of its media. At an October meeting of the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission (SMCTC), Access Sacramento presented a protest letter of AT&T’s plan to place all seven local community channels on a “pull-down menu” located on Channel 99 of AT&T’s cable system ignoring the channel designations found on Comcast and Surewest cable systems, Channels 7, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 96. Access Sacramento agreed with reactions sent in an earlier letter by SMCTC to AT&T that expected all seven PEG channels to be available to cable subscribers, remain on the basic tier, have the same channel numbers as used by Comcast, the incumbent cable provider, and be as easy to access

as any of the AT&T’s commercial channels. Access Sacramento went on to state the AT&T proposed Channel 99 plan for California PEG channels is not of “similar quality and functionality.” PEG channels would receive an inferior signal, picture size, image resolution and channel identification. Additional functionality would be eliminated including “picture-in-picture,” digital video recording, viewer selected closed captioning and second audio channel programming. Access Sacramento asked that SMCTC require AT&T to abide by the law and guarantee PEG channels use of the functionality and features provided to commercial channels on the AT&T system, provide each PEG channel with its own channel ID and number designation found on Comcast and Surewest systems, and provide other support features necessary to protect public access to and use of its community stations. At the time of this issue, it is unknown what the AT&T response will be. For more information, contact Access Sacramento at 916-456-8600 ext. 112. Ron Cooper is Executive Director of Access Sacramento.

Place an ad for your business or nonprofit group: Business card size ads only $40 (or $30 if run in multiple issues). Call 446-2844 for more info.

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

Are All Critics of Israel’s Policies Anti-Semitic? By Richard Nadeau

I

t’s difficult in the US today to write or say anything critical of Israel without being accused of being anti-Semitic or if you are Jewish, a “self-hating Jew.” It is a very effective method of stifling discussion. While there are indeed anti-Semites who hate Israel simply because they hate Jews, it is a great disservice to essential debate when the accusation is used improperly. Recently, former President Jimmy Carter was attacked in the pages of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz for being an anti-Semite for his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have also been labeled anti-Semites for their writings on the Israeli lobby. During the 1960s, three Jewish intellectuals influenced how I viewed the world: journalist I. F. Stone, MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, and the utopian philosopher, Herbert Marcuse. Stone and Chomsky criticized Israel for the oppressive treatment of the Palestinians and for building settlements on Palestinian lands. In the Hebrew edition of One Dimensional Man, Marcuse called for a social transformation, a “human liberation,” that included all groups, even the forlorn Palestinians. This Enlightenment dream of a universal human liberation has since faded into a sorry cloud of nationalistic ethno-decrepitude. I.F. Stone was initially a strong advocate of the establishment of a Jewish state. Yet, he consciously spoke out against the denial of Palestinian rights and the denial of the denial. He viewed Israel’s policies as counterproductive because they fed the cycle of violence. He complained about the repressive atmosphere in the US that suppressed examination and discussion of this critical issue. He was attacked by Israel’s supporters as being “anti-Semitic,” a preposterous claim given Stone’s indisputable strong support for Israel’s existence. Stone was a critical Zionist emotionally committed to Israel’s existence, yet critical of its repressive policies. He complained that he was “ostracized” whenever he tried to speak about Israel. He said it was rare for dissidents on the Middle East to enjoy even “a fleeting voice in the American press.” He observed that Israel was creating a dilemma for world Jewry who in the outside world benefited from secular and pluralistic societies. Stone wrote: “In Israel, Jewry finds itself defending a society in which mixed marriages cannot be legalized, in which the ideal is racist and exclusionist.” Noam Chomsky, a leading critic of Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights, has also been attacked as an anti-Semite and a “self-hating Jew.” He has also been attacked by the likes of Alan Dershowitz, who just recently led an indefensible but successful witch-hunt to deny tenure to another Jewish dissident intellectual, Norman Finkelstein. In books and essays, Chomsky maintains that Israel and the US have been the leading “rejectionists” of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Organizations like the AntiDefamanation League (ADL) and the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), part of what Professors Walt and Meirsheimer call “the Israeli lobby,” have adopted smear tactics against anybody criticizing the Israeli occupation. It is also forbidden to criticize Israel’s “separation wall,” which confiscates additional Palestinian lands and fragments their villages. If you raise the issue of WMDs (nuclear, biological, and chemical), or mention Israel’s failure to abide by the

nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), again you may be accused of anti-Semitism. You will be told that Israel is a “special case” and doesn’t need to abide by international treaties or the Geneva conventions like other nations. If you argue that Israel needs to be held to the same standards of international law as other countries, you may be attacked as an “anti-Semite.” Where does this blind and unconditional emotional devotion to Israel stem from? Certainly, European pogroms against Jews and the subsequent Nazi holocaust explain why Western powers and the UN felt a need to give Palestine to the Jewish people as a kind of war reparation. Nevertheless, Israel was only given about half (53%) of former Palestine. The other side of the UN bargain, promising Palestinians self-determination in the rest of Palestine has not been upheld. Since the founding of Israel in 1948, Israel’s borders have illegally expanded with every war. To this day, no one knows where the borders of Israel end! Zionism defines Israel as a state of the Jews, by the Jews, and for the Jews. Israel claims to be the representative of all Jewish people throughout the world. If one declares an absolute identity between any particular Israeli government and its policies, and the universal interests of all Jewish people, it is easy to understand how criticism of Israel could be seen as anti-Semitic. Yet, the identity between the state and the people is itself a myth. The notion that because of the horrors of the Holocaust, present and future Israeli governments should be given an unconditional blank check for their behavior through the remainder of history is absurd. Frankly, no government deserves that kind of unconditional devotion! Fortunately, there is more diversity of opinion among Jews than the apologists of Israel would like to admit. From regular readings of Haaretz, I get the impression that there is a lot more open discussion in Israel than in the US, which just signed a deal to give Israel 30 billion dollars over the next ten years. For example, the Israeli organization Peace Now argues that the settlements on Palestinian lands are obstacles to peace that must be removed. They emphasize that present US and Israeli policies are unacceptable because they feed the cycle of violence that does damage to both Palestinians and Jews. Obviously there are dissident Jews beyond Peace Now existing in Israel who recognize the danger of the one-dimensional nationalism that reduces all Jewish people to an immediate identity with Israel’s expansionist state policies. One example is the Israeli “refuseniks,” soldiers who

Yet, the identity between the state and the people is itself a myth.

CAAC Goes to the Movies

risk imprisonment rather than take part in what they consider an “unjust occupation.” Throughout history there has been a critical tradition of Jewish dissent and Socratic questioning beyond AIPAC’S suffocating censorial reach. Jewish dissidents, such as Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, and Sigmund Freud have voiced their dissent over what was occurring in Israel. A number of these oppositional voices have been published in an excellent book entitled Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel. Historically, the Israeli colonization of Palestine displayed patterns similar to the European colonization of America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The indigenous peoples were dehumanized, ethnically cleansed, and forcefully relocated into “reservations,” (Bantustans, refugee camps and cantons) to make room for conquering settlers. The expropriation of native lands and the violence done to indigenous peoples was an inevitable consequence of such colonization. A group of new Israeli historians (Benny Morris, Illan Pappe, Avi Schlaim, and Tom Segev) are only now beginning to expose the violent history of the colonization and “ethnic cleansing of Palestine.” Telling the truth is not anti-Semitism.

Almost Every Month The Central America Action Committee shows interesting and informative videos on social justice, labor struggles, and so much more! Call to see what’s playing this month… WE ALSO HAVE A VIDEO LIBRARY YOU CAN CHECK OUT. 1640 9th Ave (east off Land Park Dr) INFO: 446-3304

Richard Nadeau has been a peace and environmental activist since the 1960s. He lives in Sacramento and recently joined the BPM Editorial Group.

Bugged by high gas prices? No problem! BPM has a volunteer job you can do from home. You don’t need a car, a computer or even much time: we need someone to update the local group meetings and radio programs listed in our paper. Call Ellen at 369-5510 for details.

Best   Burger The burgers and fries are  described  as  legendary

Biting 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

Harris Ranch Steak freshly ground and formed into a 1/3 lb. patty. Stop by soon. Nationwide Freezer Meats 1930 H Street, Sacramento (H and 20th Streets) 444-3286. Just remember H20 stands for H and 20th Street ««««

 Because People Matter January / February 2008 www.bpmnews.org

A New Moment By Joseph Cirincione

W

e are now in a period of dramatic political transition. By early 2009, four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia) will have new leaders. Other key states, including Iran and Israel, may as well. The UK and France have already made the switch, as have other major powers such as Japan, Germany and Italy. International organizations, too, will refresh their leadership, with a new Secretary-General now installed at the United Nations and possibly a new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in two years. Rarely have the political stars re-aligned so dramatically. The photo of the G8 summit in 2009 will likely not have a single leader present at the 2006 summit. This is a unique opportunity to advance new policies that can dramatically reduce and even eliminate many of the nuclear dangers that have kept political leaders and security officials worried about a nuclear 9/11.  “With this leadership change,” says former United Nations Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Jayantha Dhanapala, “it is for us in civil society to try to urge new perspectives and new opportunities for them to seize so that we all make the right choices at the right time.” Some are already hard at work. Analysts at over a dozen institutes are perfecting proposals to reaffirm the goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons, ratify the nuclear test ban treaty, establish an international nuclear fuel bank, eliminate tactical nuclear weapons, move to zero deployed nuclear weapons and convene a global nuclear summit in 2009, among others. They are promoting their ideas in conferences, reports, testimony, blogs, interviews and films. These projects, however, should look back before leaping too far forward. What went wrong with prior nuclear security strategies? The failures are most evident in the current administration. The premise behind the Iraq war—that military action offered a quick cure for proliferation—proved fatally flawed. Meanwhile, the disparaging and neglect of international threat reduction arrangements has weakened US security and legitimacy. When the United States—the chief architect of the nonproliferation regime— walks away from its own creation, is it any wonder that other nations do so as well? This critique must also look back at the Clinton administration. The 1990s were filled with missed opportunities. The achievement of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was followed by an anemic effort to secure its ratification. The 1994 Nuclear Posture Review reaffirmed Cold War strategies, rather than seizing the moment to

Because People’s Healthcare Matters We do what we do...

Primary Care by providers who look at the whole person Non-drug treatment for ADD and ADHD MDs and FNP, trained and experienced Natural options (homeopathy, herbs, vitamins) in treating acute and chronic illness Iscador (Mistletoe) for Cancer Therapies: spirit and art for healing

Raphael House

Multidisciplinary Complementary Medicine 7953 California Avenue Fair Oaks CA 95628 (916) 967 8250 [email protected]

These German activist may need to replace all of their “G8”masks for 2008. Photo: The G8 Project, http://www.gib8.de.gg/

reduce and transform both Russian and US arsenals. We cannot afford to repeat these mistakes next time around. Changes are already in motion. Democratic Senator Barack Obama of Illinois proposes to “lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years.” Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska wants to directly engage Tehran as part of a mix of “diplomatic initiatives, United Nations mandates, regional cooperation, security frameworks and economic incentives” that could resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff. Hagel and Obama have jointly introduced a major bill in the Senate calling for sweeping changes to our current nuclear policies. In May, Democratic Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher of California led the House Armed Services Committee into new territory, cutting the bloated budget of the anti-missile program, slowing down the drive for a new nuclear warhead and ordering an independent commission to reevaluate the country’s nuclear posture. Both the House and

Senate are considering bills to establish a nuclear fuel bank. The January op-ed by George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and Sam Nunn promoting “a world free of nuclear weapons” has opened up new political space and generated new momentum. These bipartisan initiatives hold great promise. It is not, of course, just a US effort. But it is the United States, which essentially sets the nuclear agenda for the rest of the world, that must take the lead. And it is US analysts and institutions that must step into this breach. There is not a moment to lose; the game’s afoot. Joseph Cirincione is the author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and a senior fellow and director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC. An earlier version of this article appeared in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He was keynote speaker at the October 28 PSR dinner and kindly agreed to provide this piece for BPM.

Physicians for Social Responsibility/ Sacramento by Harry Wang, MD

P

SR was formed in 1961 and gained public attention through a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine detailing the potential human and ecological effects of nuclear war and the futility of any medical response. PSR demonstrated the presence of strontium-90 in baby teeth of children across the US leading to public support for passage of the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 ending open-air and Former chapter president Bill Durston (center) in underwater nuclear tests. 2006 with Harry Wang and chapter vice-president The US halted all nuclear testing (includ- Linda Copeland. ing underground) in 1992 after conducting over 1,000 tests but has never ratified the 1996 seniors. Michael Franti’s lyrics “We can bomb Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Resumption of the world to pieces, but we can’t bomb it into nuclear testing is likely if the Bush administrapeace” attracted 165 essays for our 2007 contest. tion’s radical proposals for the “Reliable Replace- Prizes of $8,500 were awarded to the ten finalists. ment Warhead” (RRW) and Complex 2030 Please check our website in January 2008 for the proceed. announcement of the 2008 contest. RRW and Complex 2030 would cost $150 billion and would produce 125 new nuclear Harry Wang is the president of PSR/Sacraweapons a year and rebuild the entire nuclear mento. Their website is www.sacpsr.org. bomb production complex. The production and likely testing of a new generation of nuclear weapons would severely undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, escalate the nuclear arms race, and undermine any credibility the US may have when dealing with countries that have nuclear potential or activities. Because of this, it is a top priority of PSR and other anti-nuclear groups to pressure members of Congress to oppose all funding for any new nuclear weapons. To engage our youth to consider these important issues, PSR/Sacramento has an annual scholarship essay contest for high school

BPM won’t survive without you! Subscribe!

Keep us alive! Subscribe! Subscribe!

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

Find the Laughs in Current Politics: Humor Times does it By Jeanie Keltner

F

or several years into Bush/Cheney’s disastrous reign, the only critical commentary in the mainstream—and the most biting—was coming from our blessed political cartoonists. So I always smiled in anticipation when I saw a new issue of the Comic Press News. I knew I’d get to exercise my sense of humor along with my righteous indignation—not an easy duo to combine. But CPN, which has since become the Humor Times, ended its free run with the December issue. You’ll still be able to get it for a mere $17.95 and you can balance out gloom and doom with hard-hitting political humor and hilarious editorial cartoons. It makes a great gift for that recalcitrant rightwinger you know because humor can undermine strongly held beliefs

almost without the holder noticing it. “The subscription edition contains many features not found in the local edition,” Mr. Israel said, “including more and different types of cartoons, more color cartoons, more humor columns and a ‘fake news’ section, rather like The Onion, a popular political satire publication.” Mr. Israel added that he is incorporating the Humor Times, to open the business up to investment to help the national expansion. “There’s very little competition for this type of publication on the national level, and a whole lot of potential.” For additional information or a sample issue, contact the Humor Times by email at [email protected] or visit online at www. humortimes.com or call 916-455-1217,

Truly Underground Radio at The Voice By Shane Carpenter Everywhere you look and listen it seems that the “little guy” is being squeezed out of the media. Large corporations own clusters of radio stations. Newspapers are dwindling and readership is down. Television seems to be dominated by corporate interests. Even noncommercial TV and radio stations are consolidating and becoming near “repeater” stations for centralized programmers. Other noncomms are grabbing up low-power and translator stations to provide more “inspirational” programming to an already over-saturated audience. College stations are being swallowed up by NPR affiliates that simulcast national and some regional fare. Where is the independent voice? Where is the verbal collision of divergent views and ideas? How are we to get the whole story and make up our own minds when there is little choice in our media? What can we do about it anyway? There are still places where the individual can make a difference; where community, tolerance and free thought still reign. One such place is this fine publication. Another is The Voice of Sacramento. The Voice of Sacramento is probably one of the least known media outlets in Sacramento. For over 20 years, members of our community have volunteered to learn the craft of radio production at Access Sacramento. They have brought their own music, ideas and passions to share with the greater Sacramento community. The Voice is a free-form community media outlet where anyone can learn to produce and can host their own radio program. So how does one avail oneself of a radio program at The Voice? Doing community radio is easier than you might think. The first step is to enroll in the free orientation at Access Sacramento. These sessions are offered on the second Wednesday and fourth Tuesday of each month. One will get the big picture at these one and onehalf hour sessions and take a tour of the Access Sacramento facilities. Following the orientation, one is eligible for membership and clear to enroll in a variety of audio and video classes offered by Access Sacramento. The Community Radio Production Course is open to two students per session. Two monthly sessions, starting on the first Tuesday and continuing each week throughout the month, will introduce you to the wonderful and rewarding craft of community radio. One may choose from sessions starting at 4 or 6pm. The radio course covers the basics of studio operation including use of the audio board, compact disc players, microphone and digital audio workstation. Completing a brief assessment at the end of the course will clear you to use the

production studio to create pre-recorded audio Shane Carpenter is the Radio Programming content. One will then have the choice of produc- Coordinator for Access Sacramento. By day he ing live radio shows or continuing to pre-record. teaches ROP Radio Production and Sound EngiIn any event, you will have a neering at Genesis Charter High School.   regular time slot where your program will air. These can be as frequent as every week for a maximum of two hours per week in a single session. The rationale in scheduling is that The Voice will maintain an inventory of open time slots for new community producers and still be able to offer programming opportunities that will be convenient for the producer and the listener. Once you have your show, you will be able to keep the program as long as you want while remaining in good standing as an Access Sacramento member. There are several ways that one can hear The Voice. The most promising and easiest is over the Internet at www.accesssacramento.org. There you will find a link that will allow you to access our MP3 stream from any computer or personal entertainment device in the world. The Voice streams Shane at his console at Access Sacramento. photo: courtesy Shane Carpenter. in real-time. Programs air, but are not archived for on-demand access. One may also hear The Voice through the second audio program service of Cable Channel 17. One may catch sporadic windows of bulletin board information on Cable Channel 18 where The Voice is the audio heard as the text and graphics imagery scrolls across the TV screen. The original and best quality means of hearing The Voice is through cable FM. By hooking your cable to your radio as you would an area antenna and tuning your receiver to 88.7 MH, you will be able to hear the community programming in stereo with no loss in audio quality. If your eyes have glazed over at the thought of all this technology, don’t fear. Staff at The Voice can help and the extra effort will be worth it. We at The Voice just want to give you as many ways to reach an audience as possible. As new technology presents itself, The Voice will be there. The Voice is as “underground” as you can get when it comes to community radio. It is a place where everyday people inform, entertain, and communicate to the greater Sacramento area and the world at large. One person can reach many. It is easy and fun as many over two decades will attest. One might not be able to stem the tide of media sludge, but one can certainly rise above and help provide an alternative that makes our community a better place. Make a difference today by helping The Voice. For more information, email [email protected] or call Shane Carpenter at 916-456-8600 Ext. 144.

…it’s a place everyday people inform, entertain, and speak to the world.

Place an ad for your business or nonprofit group: Business card size ads only $40 (or $30 if run in multiple issues). Call 446-2844 for more info.

 Because People Matter January / February 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Book Review Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State,

by Norman Solomon, Foreword by Daniel Ellsberg. Hardcover: 247 pages, PoliPoint Press, (2007)

By Ellen Broms

N

orman Solomon uses his personal activist history, and our shared cultural and political history, to reflect about the Warfare State from the Vietnam War to the proliferation of nuclear arms and to Iraq. His first demonstration was as a fourteen year old in the early 60’s during the Civil Rights movement. His first anti-war demonstration was in 1967 and his first arrest in 1969 was for spray painting “Revolt for Peace” on a parking garage. It marked his departure from “respectability.” Solomon links Vietnam to Iraq by exploring the ways that pundits approach the “practical and moral failures of violence”. He also reflects that “The Vietnam War continued for years even after opinion polls showed that most Americans were opposed. In November 1971 the liberal magazine Saturday Review featured an article by Peter Schrag that pointed out: ‘The American majority is against the war. To oppose it involves no risk: the only risk lies in trying to stop it.’ ” He describes the media aftermath of the 2006 midterm election as a barrage of headlines such as this one from the NY Times: “Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say….” Media’s warning not to try to stop the war? Solomon quotes an op-ed he wrote in 1982 about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon: ‘…it has also become a strategic beachhead in the Middle East for US government policymakers eager to exert military leverage in the region.’ He follows that quote with the observation that currently “after twenty-five more years of American evasions and taxpayer subsidies for Israel’s government, US policy in the Middle East could be further measured in rubble, carnage and rage.” Considerable time is spent on the issue of nuclear weaponry. Solomon quotes a 1969 speech by Nobel Prize winner George Wald, a biology professor. The speech was called “A Generation

combat zones. In annual reports, the Pentagon’s prime contractors give an overview of the vast financial awards for shrewdly making a killing. To surrender the political battlefield to such forces is to self-marginalize and leave more space for those who thrive on plunder.” Make Love, Got War is an intentional trip down memory lane for Solomon. He speaks to those with memories of events that have been “forgotten and not forgotten.” We are reminded about mimeo-machines and huge demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of participants. The onset of the computer age has changed all of that but the message for younger people is that the struggle for peace in the US is a long haul. Solomon reflects about rage and pessimism. He quotes from James Baldwin’s “deeply pessimistic” No Name in the Street (1972): “‘They were in the streets in the hope of becoming whole. They had taken the first step—they had said, No. Whether or not they would be able to take the second step, the harder step—of saying, Yes, and in Search of a Future” and given at Massachusetts then going for their own most private broke— Institute of Technology, the biggest military con- was a question which exercised my mind…’. The tractor in academia: “We have to get rid of those answers that meant the most would not come at nuclear weapons. There is nothing worth having any moment or in any season but over years and that can be obtained by nuclear war—nothing decades.” material or ideological—no tradition that it can Made Love, Got War looks at anti-war efforts defend. It is utterly self-defeating. Those atomic with, seemingly, no end in sight. There are no bombs represent an unusable weapon. The only prescriptive or strategic messages for activists. use for an atomic bomb is to keep someone Solomon simply ends by saying: “If we want else from using one. It can give us no proteca future that sustains life, we’d better create it tion—only the doubtful satisfaction of retaliation. ourselves.” If someone says, “Get a life,” this is Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance the answer…activism is a life style choice, similar of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.” to being a vegetarian or eating organic food or “Our capacities to take humane action are exercising regularly. It is our choice to aim for a as distinctive of our species as conscience and healthier future for ourselves and others through no more truly reliable. As people, we are conpeace activism. sequences and we also cause them: by what we choose to do and not do. The beneficiaries of Ellen Broms is a member of Jewish Voice for economic and military savagery are far from the Peace and Grandmothers for Peace.

The Significance of the 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love By David R. Kimball

Summer of Love Day proclamation photo: visual-reality.org

A group of us traveled to San Francisco and Golden Gate Park’s Speedway Meadow for a free concert and celebration of the 40th anniversary of the “Summer of Love.” The entire meadow was full of people; crowd-size estimates were as high as 50,000. All age groups were represented. There were events across the nation and around the world, in Monterey, San Diego, Canada, England, France, Germany and the Czech Republic, to honor the anniversary. The corporate media, the San Francisco Chronicle, attempted to define the anniversary gathering in an article that appeared in their Sept. 3 edition. Chronicle staff writer Joel Selvin wrote, “the central thought of the day” was that we all long to be “back in the Summer of Love.” He continued with, “the old hippies look a little worn” and the “peace and love generation measures its march to seniority.”  He went on that, “it was a hell of a long time ago and things have changed since then. It’s amazing all that ever happened at all.” Why would those who own and control the mainstream media want us to think that this anniversary gathering was essentially only an exercise in nostalgia? There is a far more accurate description of the significance of the Summer of Love Anniversary Day in San Francisco in the

official proclamation, signed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.  Excerpts follow: “ ... the Summer of Love in San Francisco is internationally recognized as the birthplace of the 60’s revolution that ignited a spiritual awakening that swept the world; .. the Summer of Love was the beginning of a worldwide Pro-peace Movement, promoting the principles of love and freedom inspiring many movements to follow, such as Women’s Liberation, Sexual Freedom, Environmentalism, and Spirituality; ... the Summer of Love purveyed the concepts of peace, love and anti-war associated with San Francisco and the 60’s generation and the principles from this culture spread nationally furthering the concepts of brotherhood and good will, ultimately helping to end the Vietnam War; and ... the Summer of Love stands for these principles: truth and individual freedom, freedom of expression, honoring those who refused to fight yet honoring those who did, creativity, love and respect for all things, honoring our planet by respecting mother earth, and our right to think independently ...” The concepts and principles of the Summer of Love as described in the proclamation will never go out of style. They are part of our essential humanity and our connection to the earth.  The original Summer of Love signified, in many ways, a beginning. It was—and is—a spiritual awakening, as the proclamation states. And it is stronger now than it has ever been.  Fifty thousand people were there on September 2nd. People of the earth continue in struggle against domination by the world’s ruling elites. This has not changed since 1967. Most of us sense

the need to come together in brotherhood and good will is greater now than it was then. The Summer of Love symbolizes a nexus. It is not about a bygone era, but the joining together today of all of the truth, justice and peace movements that hold hope for humanity’s future. Dave Kimball is a concerned citizen and member of Sacramento 9/11 Truth (see Calendar page for meetings). For information about the Summer of Love Anniversary Day: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/ a/2007/09/03/MNPVRU8JS.DTL www.visual-reality.org/hair-summer-of-love/ images/summer-proclamation.jpg

“Stage directions” at the 40th anniversary. photo: sfgate.com

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

Was Pat Tillman Murdered? Why the coverup? By Dave Dionisi

A

rizona Cardinals football star Pat Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004 serving in Afghanistan. Since his death, testimony before Congress has revealed the White House and Pentagon lied and the President is covering up the truth with claims of executive privilege. Why did so many people in the Bush administration and military lie? The evidence is clear that Tillman’s death was actively managed by his chain of command starting with the denial of the initial medical examin-

…while Pat volunteered to go to Afghanistan after 9/11, he was very opposed to the invasion of Iraq. ers investigation request. The medical examiners were suspicious because the bullet wounds to Tillman’s head did not match how they were told he died. The details that have recently been released shed new light on General McChrystal’s April 2004 cable to General Abjzaid that the country’s leaders would be hurt if the true circumstances of Cpl. Tillman’s death became public. For example, Tillman had contacted Noam Chomsky to plan a joint anti-war statement and support Kerry’s presidential election campaign. To obtain a better sense of the pressures on the Bush administration to suppress dissent in April 2004, you should know that Tillman died the week before the Abu Ghraib scandal became known to the public. Immediately after his death the Bush administration and the Pentagon told the world Pat Tillman died heroically in combat with the enemy. Tillman’s May 3, 2004 memorial in San Jose was nationally televised. Flags waved and conservative commentators such as Ann Coulter called him “…an American original—virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.” The daily pro-war propaganda continued until five weeks later when Tillman’s battalion started coming home. The public then learned Tillman was killed by US initiated gunfire. Conveniently delayed until after the November presidential election, on November 14, 2004, the officer who conducted the first investigation testified that there was criminal intent. Criminal intent is the legal equivalent of murder. Subsequent investigations continued to cover-up the truth. What we now know is that when a Humvee became disabled, Tillman, who was serving in the same unit as his brother Kevin, was ordered to leave his brother who stayed with the disabled vehicle. The platoon leader, Lt. David Uthlaut, protested splitting the team as counterproductive and extremely dangerous but was overruled. In transcripts released in July 2007, key never-before-mentioned facts are revealed including that two snipers were present when Pat Tillman was killed. The snipers, working as a team, might explain the three bullet holes in Tillman’s head.

Sgt. O’Neal survived and he raises many serious questions. According to O’Neal’s testimony, Tillman waved his arms and yelled, “Cease fire!” He also set off a smoke grenade to identify his group as fellow soldiers. The firing stopped after which Tillman and O’Neal thought they were safe and relaxed. Both men were standing and talking in clear view when the shooting resumed instantly killing Tillman. Kevin Tillman revealed in testimony before Congress that the least the country can do for his brother “…is to uncover who is responsible for his death and who lied and covered it up.” On July 13, 2007, Rep. Henry Waxman (DCA) revealed the White House and Pentagon were holding up a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation into Tillman’s death. Waxman said he was notified that the White House had exercised executive privilege to keep both Congress and the American people in the dark. Kevin Tillman confirmed that while Pat

volunteered to go to Afghanistan after 9/11, he was very opposed to the invasion of Iraq. Kevin also confirms that Pat was planning to meet with Professor Noam Chomsky and publicly oppose Bush’s reelection. Is there a possible reason for the lies, acknowledged conspiracy, and executive privilege? Until President Bush ends his claims of executive privilege, we are left to conclude the first investigator’s claim of criminal intent or murder was accurate. Dave Dionisi is the author of American Hiroshima and National Awareness Officer for the Teach Peace Foundation. For an Cpl. Pat Tillman expanded version of this article and endnotes, see www.teachpeace.com/executiveprivilege.htm.

Pat Tillman (left) and his brother Kevin stand in front of a Chinook helicopter in Saudi Arabia before their tour of duty as Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003. Photo: Tillman Family

After Pat’s Birthday By Kevin Tillman Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes. Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground. Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started. Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated. Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated. Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated. Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is tolerated. Somehow suspension of habeas corpus is supposed to keep this country safe. Somehow torture is tolerated. Somehow lying is tolerated. Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

A note from Jeanie Keltner If you’re like me...then you probably have a small pile of envelopes addressed to needy progressive groups, some with a stamp and no check or maybe with a check but no stamp. If so, and if one of those envelopes is your subscription or gift to BPM, then do that final step and send it in today! Loyal supporters have come through like champs, but the bigger the base the more stable the endeavor. Subscribe today or buy a gift for a friend or relative! See our coupon on page 2!

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world. Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance. Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow this is tolerated. Somehow nobody is accountable for this. In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites. Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday. Kevin Tillman: brother and friend of Pat Tillman

10 Because People Matter January / February 2008 www.bpmnews.org

A Farm in the Burbs: Local, Organic, Community-based Some of the Places You Can Find BPM Sacramento Area Coffee Works Crest Theater Dimple Records, Arden Wy Dose Coffee Shop Flowers Restaurant Galleria (29th & K) Grinders Hart Senior Center Lido Cafe Light Rail: 65/Folsom 2nd Ave/Freeport Los Jarritos Luna’s Cafe & Juice Bar Mercy Hospital, 40th/J Pancake Circus, 21st/ Broadway Planned Parenthood: Franklin Blvd, Watt Ave., 29th St. Queen of Tarts Quick Market Sacramento Bagel, 47th/H Sacramento Natural Foods Coop Sacramento Public Library (Main & many branches) Sargent Coffee House (Alhambra & M) Starbucks (B'wy & 35th) The Beat Time Tested Books Tower Theater (inside) Tupelo (Elvas & 57th) Underground Books (35th St. near B'way) Weatherstone Coffee Chico Area Davis Bogey’s Books Espresso Cafe Roma Davis Natural Food Coop Newsbeat University Mall Greenhaven area Buckthorn’s Coffee, 7465 Rush River Dr Nevada City US Post Office For a complete list, visit our web site: www.bpmnews.org. Where would you like to see BPM? Let Paulette Cuilla know, 422-1787.

By Justin Smith

A

rriving in the evening at Sacramento’s only certified organic farm, Soil Born, I wandered in the three acres trying to find farmers. After a sudden rustling, a little kid appeared milling about with ten chickens in a coop. Then voices, and finally I saw them all, about ten volunteers underneath a shaded wooden canopy, talking quietly, clipping dried garlic heads, and organizing them by size into cardboard boxes. The urban farm project located near Watt and Hurley was created in 2000 by Marco Franciosa and Shawn Harrison, and is host to various community activities beyond farming—cooking classes, herbology programs, volunteer nights, tours, youth programs, and a psychiatrist who brings patients to the farm.

Shawn Harrison, co-founder of Soil Born Farm, reflecting on the origin and mission of this multi-faceted project. Photo: Dick Woods

“We want to show these kids…that food comes from somewhere, not just from the grocery store,” said youth program coordinator Sara Smith-Rubio. Project FEED (Food, Education, Equity, Diversity), a food access and market project in Del Paso Heights, provides health and nutrition education classes in an area with few fresh food markets. To be certified organic in California no herbicides or pesticides known to be carcinogenic and persistent in the environment can be used. Soil Born’s objectives are the essence of organic farming. Responsible land use means rotating crops so not to deplete nitrogen and fatigue the soil, which occurs when planting the same crop in the same area. “Food Security” means good fresh-picked fruits and vegetables without chemicals are available locally at reasonable prices, and community self-reliance is strengthened by supporting local/regional, family-scale, sustainable food production. The increasing importance of local organic foods and the ludicrous practice of shipping fruits and vegetables from different countries,

“Food Security” means good fresh-picked fruits and vegetables without chemicals are available locally at reasonable prices, and community selfreliance is strengthened by supporting local/ regional, family-scale, sustainable food production.”

such as Mexico or Guatemala, when they can be grown in Sacramento, is heightened greatly by the increased price of petroleum. Being a self-sustaining producer of food ensures access and less reliance on imported food and it conserves energy. Smaller and certified organic farms also mean safer food. At the potluck dinner held every Tuesday for Soil Born volunteers, E. coli became a topic of discussion. “When you look at the recent E. coli outbreak related to spinach, essentially a very localized problem in a few fields in Monterey County ended up causing a problem in several states across the country,” Randy Stannard, Food Security Coordinator said. “This is more apt to happen with our increasingly centralized food system. We support our local farmers and encourage a local food system when we shop at certified farmers’ markets, ask for local produce at our grocery stores, and demand fresh, locally grown food in schools and hospitals.” One can also join a Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA). CSA buyers, known as shareholders, invest in Soil Born at the beginning of the season. In return they receive a variety box of the farm’s produce once a month that can be picked up at the farm or the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. Soil Born’s produce can be found in a few Sacramento restaurants like The Waterboy, Piatti’s, and Mulvaneys, and purchased at Whole Foods and the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. Sacramento farmers’ markets on Sundays at 8th and W Streets, Wednesdays at 10th and I Streets, and on Saturdays at the Robertson Community Center in Del Paso, 3525 Norwood Ave., also sell Soil Born goods. Justin Smith is a freelance writer based in Sacramento.

Betsy Collins, accomplished pianist, visionary and owner of the two acres which constitute Soil Born Farm. Betsy’s favorable response to a land use request by Shawn and Marco made the farm possible and provides her with a bounty of flowers and produce. Photo: Dick Woods

Soil Born Farm Urban Agricultural Project: This former horse corral that in my scholastic era (1962) provided the most visually redeeming feature of sitting by the window in a math or science class at Jonas Salk Junior High is now a community organic garden. Thanks to the community gardening project, students can walk out the door when class is over and into an innovative educational experience at Soil Born Farm. Photo: Dick Woods

Sean Hagen (former apprentice and currently Hurley Farm Site Manager) and Holly (current apprentice) planting a winter cover crop which includes oats and 3 kinds of vetch, a nitrogen fixer. A wooden cow and calf serve as coat-rack, art, and reminder of previous livestock on the property. Photo: Dick Woods

Local Food: Critical for a sustainable environment

 



#" %
-&*'
"%+()$%)( ,")!
-&*'
+#*( Registered Representative for securities and

Investment "*+)
()*&++"-
."+!
)'++
&-*+')*
'
%)"
%)


&-*+%&+ Advisory Representative, Protected -"*')0
()*&++"-
'
")*+
")%+"-
"&&"$
+.')#

")*+
")%+"-
"*
&
"&(&&+ of America. Investors "*+)
&-*+%&+
-"*')
) "*+)
."+!
+!
,)"+"*
&
/!& 
'%%"**"'&
*
"$    


")*+
")%+"-
"*
&'+

*,*"")0
')
"$"+
'
)'++
&-*+')*
'
%)"


    
        
  
 
 
  


    



 

)
 ")&,%
'$%)&     

    

Environmental Commons has an important new series of educational fact sheets on the importance of local control in supporting healthy regional food systems. Local food is gaining recognition as a key to regional sustainability, strong economies and community health. In light of recent attempts to preempt local genetically modified food bans and federal subsidies that support corporate agribusiness over farmer well being and local food access, resources like these fact sheets are more important than ever. “Shaping our Local Food Systems” outlines the importance of local jurisdiction over many aspects of food and agriculture. “Local Food Systems: Challenges and Threats” describes the social and economic forces that shape food systems in the interests of a few large profit-oriented corporations at the expense of the public interest. “Local Food Systems: Getting Involved” charts the course for building food systems that truly support local communities and environmental sustainability. “The Place of Food in Our Lives” reflects on the consequences of understanding food primarily as a commodity versus as an integral part of family and community life.  www.environmentalcommons.org/LocalFood/

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 11

Film Review The Fever: A Polygraph Test in the Form of a Film By Tom King The Fever, a 2004 motion picture re-released to HBO this spring, wasn’t just a good film. It fell into that extremely rare category I describe as a memorable motion picture, the sort that forces us to think in ways we haven’t thought before. Although profoundly political at its heart, one can’t deftly declare whether it is left or right that it targets. Perhaps most accurate is to say it is Homo sapiens the film indicts, setting its challenge beneath us like buried TNT with a long fuse. Rather than spoil your pleasure by glossing the plot in advance à la Roger Ebert, my aim is not to review the film, but to deliver its challenge to you, dear reader, directly between the eyes. The Fever dramatizes the awakening to truth of a middle class woman, played superbly by Vanessa Redgrave, who has lived a life of complacency and lies. A serendipitous chance encounter, one with Michael Moore playing a journalist, causes her to do what ordinarily she would never have done—visit a third world country whose wretched poverty and vicious political repression stem from the despotism held in place by a rich elite. The narrator, she’s never named so I shall call her simply “V,” falls sick while on her strange pilgrimage. Ill with more than a common virus, hers is the fever of a soul in withdrawal pangs from a life of denial. Exposed to realities that are like the worst nightmare, V is forced into an extremely painful inventory of her life. Basically this movie is merely a woman talking to herself, a dramatization of her compulsive feverish soul-searching. However, if you consider yourself a member of

the middle class—if your wages permit you to live above the line drawn in the sand called the poverty level—you should see the charges she brings against herself as directed at you. Perhaps already you can feel the rough hand of Carlo Nero, who directs this film, grabbing you by the collar and shaking you. 1. Confronted with unprecedented levels of squalor and poverty, V is appalled, but feels she can scarcely be expected to give up everything she has. Nevertheless, she is dismayed. Why does she have so much, and most have so little? She defends herself, “I worked hard for what I have.” Yet, haven’t poor people, the street beggars and chambermaids in hotels ever worked hard? Why does their work bring them so much less than hers? Perhaps they made poor decisions and “the haves” made better ones? She soon sees this is hogwash. Two lines were drawn long ago, the “haves” and “have-nots,” according to who was conquered by whose ancestors. V concludes that you, “privileged high-rider,” are no more deserving than the most impecunious beggar.  2.“Dear God,” V says, “I see what has been exhausting me is the constant effort of lying.” It is the consuming effort to justify how you live your life by invariably rationalizing to see yourself as a decent person, but you are not a decent person. Your life is simply an example of someone getting away with something. 3. Wealth is not fairly distributed, but this does not justify violence. Working through moral actions and the rule of law, we must continue to bring about the rescue of the underprivileged throughout the world. V comes to see this, too,

“It is homo sapiens it targets, setting its challenge beneath us like buried TNT with a long fuse.”

as a baggie full of poodle feces. Gradual change toward a just distribution is not happening. The life of the poor is only worsening. V changes her mind when brought together with a guerrilla insurgent, played by Angelina Jolie, armed to kill in efforts to reverse terrible injustices. Violence is perfectly justified and blood is “rightly” shed. Yours, perhaps? 4. “What am I supposed to do about some famine in Africa? Fly over and take them the salad I bought for my lunch?” says V’s neighbor Jean. V and you, however, compassionate the poor, but seen through the eyes of indigence, you are just like Jean. You are not on the side of the poor. What you have is wrested from them, and when one of them is executed, it is part of a societal system of control that is carried out for you. But wait just a wild-eyed minute. This pushy film goes too far. After all, not just everyone makes out a check every month to Loaves & Fishes as you do. You’re sorry about how things are going in the Congo, but hey, what are you supposed to do about it, salad-wise? Well done, then. You have vanquished the threat to your self-esteem. The Fever is stuffed back into its cylindrical container, and with it the vaunted challenge, delivered from the trembling lips of Vanessa Redgrave, that the life you lead is irredeemably corrupt. Carlo Nero’s film The Fever is available through Netflix. Tom King is the leader of the Peace Pyramid, a Sacramento suburban grassroots group promoting a cabinet-level Department of Peace.

Book Review Good Capitalism/Bad Capitalism by William Baumol, Robert E. Litan and Carl J. Schramm, Hardcover, 321 pages, Yale University Press (2007) By Leon Lefson In this book, three prominent capitalist economists have pooled their intellectual resources to bring us up to date on the “economics of growth and prosperity,” anno 2007. The approach is similar to that followed by other well-known economists of an earlier period such as John Galbraith, Milton Friedman and others. The basic thesis of the book, as one might expect, is that capitalism is here to stay in accordance with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s acronym TINA (There Is No Alternative) which she coined after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. Unmentioned is the fate that will befall any group or country that believes and acts otherwise, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil Argentina, etc. Any country that chooses another path, such as democratic socialism, runs the risk of being ostracized by the rest of the capitalist entities led by the US. Within the context of a seemingly ever expanding capitalist world based on ever expanding growth, innovation and entrepreneurship, the authors weave a tapestry of a positive economic future for all and sundry if we just follow their prescriptions. And what are they? Well, let’s first identify the four categories of “good” and “bad” capitalist development: 1. State guided capitalism in which the government tries to guide the market. 2. Oligarchic capitalism, in which the bulk of the power and wealth is held by a small group of individuals and families. 3. Big firm capitalism, in which the most significant activities are carried out by giant economic enterprises. 4. Entrepreneurial capitalism in which a significant role is played out by small, innovative

firms. It is clear, from the overall text and how the categories are treated, that the authors clearly favor big firms and entrepreneurial capitalism. It is assumed that these two structures of capital formation and utilization are most conducive to growth and development in both developed and developing countries. So this is good capitalism. The Exxon-Mobil, AT&T, Toyota, Microsoft, McDonald, Goldman-Sachs, etc. are the models that are favored; in short, the multinational corporations of whatever nationality. On the other hand, state-guided capitalism and oligarchic capitalism are considered bad capitalism. Well, apparently the authors never heard of Karl Marx, or, if they did, have dismissed him out of hand. It’s considered bad manners these days to remind people of the great economist and social scientist who in the mid-1800’s discovered the basic laws of capital accumulation which operate today no differently in terms of their basic dynamics than they did in those days, with the qualification that, in our age of imperialism, finance capital has become a dominant feature of the economic scene. It is interesting and, in a sense pathetic, that nowhere in this hurrah for capitalism is there barely a mention of the major features closely associated with the free-market, capitalist system: endless war and the role of the military; widespread poverty, disease, and unemployment, as high as 80 percent in some countries (Haiti, for example); racial and ethnic tensions throughout almost all of the capitalist world; the warming of the planet and its impact, particularly in third world countries. Good or bad, capitalism, because of its internal contradictions, cannot be considered the wave of the future, as the authors believe.

If you are rich and getting richer all the time thanks to the Bushes, Thatchers, and Blairs of this world while the poor and middle-classes are sinking ever deeper into poverty, the system’s for you. For the rest of us, as the World Social Forum had it: Another World Is Possible where the welfare of all the people is the guiding principle of governance instead of the welfare of the rich and super-rich. Leon Lefson is a long time activist in the Sacramento area. Prior to retirement, he worked for the State of California as a welfare administrator and previously as welfare officer in the UN refugee program.

Pizza by the slice

PIECES

“The most delicious and socially responsible pizza in town” —Jeanie Keltner 1309 21st St Between M and N

12 Because People Matter January / February 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Sacramento Area Peace Action

The Vigil That Will Not End in Our Lifetime? Sacramento Soapbox Progressive Talk Show Access Sacramento, Channel 17 with Jeanie Keltner. Monday, 8pm, Tuesday noon, Wednesday, 4am. Now in Davis, Channel 15, Tuesday, 7pm.

Coffee from Nicaragua Support 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.

Six years have passed, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, and billions of dollars have been funneled into the coffers of the war profiteers, yet the weekly vigil at 16th/J continues and will continue until the US ends its occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Initially the vigil was a Call for Peace following 9/11/01 when the US was prepared to launch an attack on Afghanistan; now it remains an ongoing presence to counter the so-called “war on terror” that has (so far) resulted in attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. During these years, 16th and J has also been the site of demonstrations against Israel’s military occupation of Palestine and to show opposition to Israel’s brutal assault on Lebanon last year of which both are funded by US tax dollars. Over the years vigilers have faced police inquiries, counter protests, hostile drivers, and extreme weather. Vigil attendees have been photographed, filmed, interviewed, and put on You Tube; they have been thanked and harassed. At this prominent corner, vigilers have mingled with: new people who have never been to a demonstration, visitors from Europe including British MPs, activists from other areas, conference attendees, high school graduates and their families, and concert crowds, to name a few.  Many attendees have been at the corner for years and feel that the ongoing presence, whether a few people or 50 people, is an important and needed part of the community. They are committed to participating as long as they are able or until they are “taken away.” Many are upset and feel they must take a stand and appeal to others to speak out against US foreign policy, especially when elected officials are ignoring the will of the people. And many feel the corner provides an important sense of community where people can gather and share with others and have made it a regular part of their weekly activities. What has changed over the years is the response from those passing by who are now overwhelmingly supportive of the vigil. The public has been told this is the “war that will not end in our lifetime” and many are prepared to continue the presence at 16th/J Streets as long as needed and will continue to publicly express outrage at what is being done with our tax dollars and in our name. Please join us at one of our vigils or consider volunteering with our Vigil Committee. Tuesdays, 4–6pm, 16th & J Sts., Sac 1st Sat., 11:30am–1:30pm, Arden & Heritage, Sac 3rd Sat., 11:30am–1:30pm, Fulton & Marconi, Sac

GAZA: A “STARVATION CAMP” In September, 2007, the Israeli government declared that it is in “a conflict short of war” with Gaza, Palestine. Israel has labeled Gaza, a “hostile territory” and its the people a “hostile entity.” Over half the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza are under 16 years old. Dependent on Israel for its fuel and 60% of its electricity, Gazans are very vulnerable. Starting at the end of October, Israel dramatically limited fuel supplies to Gaza, causing severe impacts on food transportation and Gaza’s access to fresh water (which has to be pumped). With its Apartheid Wall and check points, Israel controls Gaza’s economy and welfare. When Israel closes the “prison” gates nothing goes in or out. Essentials, paid for by Gaza residents, remain outside the Wall and Gaza exports, including furniture, finished garments, sit inside. International welfare agencies and religious charities are only sporadically able to get aid into Gaza, which has turned into a global hunger hotspot,” and a starvation camp. Many children are down to one meal per day. Israeli bombs, rockets, tanks, armored Caterpillar bulldozers have devastated Gaza. Crops have been plowed under; irrigation systems torn apart; fruit and olive trees hacked down; Gaza’s one power plant and all bridges destroyed; and

houses, schools, mosques, greenhouses, and factories, demolished. Israeli “targeted assassinations” and “accidents” also regularly kill, maim and wound innocent Gaza children, women and men. Targeting a civilian population is a blatant violation of international law. Shamefully, the US government, through Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, has expressed its support for this “intensified isolation of Gaza.” It is our responsibility to demand that the US stop funding this illegal and immoral siege of Gaza, the occupation of Palestine, and the apartheid laws of Israel. Sources: Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, “Life behind the wire,” Guardian 09/24/07, “Industry in Gaza Strip near collapse,” Financial Times, 08/03/07, Democracy Now, 09/20/07.

When governments fail to act, civil society must. But can unarmed civilians break the siege of Gaza? We can try. Want to find out how? Go to www.freegaza.org

RESOLVE FOR THE NEW YEAR 10 easy steps toward peace

The New Year gives us the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to working for peace and justice. With White House criminals, Congressional accomplices, and corporate cannibals hell bent on eating our planet alive, we have a lot to do! Here are some resolutions: 1. Wear a peace t-shirt when you go to work, out shopping, walking, or dancing. A great conversation starter is the SacPeace t-shirt: Want Peace? Don’t Invade, Don’t Occupy, Don’t Fund War. Don’t have one? Send $12 with size (S,M,L,XL) to SAPA, 909 12th St, 118, Sacramento, CA 95814.

No US Occupation Anywhere; Honk for Peace—a variety of signs grace but one corner of 16th & J.

2. Put a No War, Stop War, or US out of Iraq bumper sticker on your vehicle. Send $2 to above address. 3. Keep up the pressure on Congress by calling, writing, and visiting your representative. All Senators and Congress members can be reached at 202-224-3121. Spend a week (or more) in Washington DC lobbying with CodePink (CodePinkAlert.org). 4. Participate with the Sacramento Coalition to End the War (sacendwar.org) to end funding for the occupation/wars on Iraq & Afghanistan and stop war profiteering. 5. Join the Palestine Taskforce and the Bethlehem Sister City project (sacpeace.org). 6. Work with Operation Enduring Reality, which organizes presentations to high school and college students about the realities of military life and alternatives to military service (sacpeace. org). 7. Attend and help with on-going peace vigils (see below). 8. Invite your neighbors and friends over for a film night and show one of the many DVDs or videos you can borrow for free from the SacPeace library (www.sacpeace.org). 9. Check sacpeace.org for other local peace and justice groups and events and bring your friends and co-workers with you. 10. Join Sacramento Area Peace Action (see coupon).

Photo: Anie Wilson

Discharges • 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. 800 394 9544

The GI Rights Hotline

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 Action 909 12th St, Suite 118 Sacramento, CA 95814

Buy Olive Oil and Olive Oil Soap Support Palestinian farmers and human rights work. $18 for 750ml; $12 for 375ml; case discounts. Soap $6. Available through Sacramento Area Peace Action: 916-448-7157; [email protected].

www.girights.org

Sacramento Area Peace Action has a new email address: [email protected]

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 13

The “Matsui 10”

Local activists face federal charges after asking for peace pledge by Cres Vellucci

A

s arrests mount across the nation at It is the first time since before the war began protests designed to get a failingDemothe government has pressed charges against anticratic Party to oppose Iraq War funding, war demonstrators in Sacramento. Dozens of activists from the Sacramento Coalition to End arrests before the war started, and one in which the War now face a Federal Court trial early in seven were arrested at Matsui’s office in March, 2008 for reading the names of those killed in Iraq resulted in dropped charges. But not this time. It and asking that Rep. seems Matsui and Doris Matsui, a Sacher staff have tired ramento Democrat, of demonstrators sign a peace pledge. trying to get her The activists to follow through were arrested in with her promises September, 2007, to endthe war—the when they walked same promises made intoMatsui’s office by other Democrats and asked her to who were elected to sign the “Declaraend the war in 2006. tion of Peace,” which The judge has commits members already ruled the of Congress to not “Matsui 10” will not vote for any further get a jury trial, and The Die-In inside Mrs. Matsui’s Sacramento office. funding for the war won’t grant those Photo: anonymously submitted to BPM in Iraq. The action who cannot afford followed a 52-day sit-in at Matsui’s Sacramento lawyers the right to court-appointed counsel. offices earlier in 2007, culminating in seven However, at least seven lawyers, including four arrests in March. The sit-in was the longest sit-in on the ACLU Board of Directors in Sacramento, against the war held in the US. have volunteered their services, and may subNationally, nearly 500 arrests have been poena Matsui and her staff. made in at least 90 occupations of 61 different All demonstrations pleaded not guilty in offices of more than 50 Senators and Congress November, and later, most of them said they members, according to the Occupation Project. would not pay a fine and allow even more of their Most targets of protests are Democrats, like Mat- tax monies to be used for the war. They issued the sui, who say they want to protect the troops and following release: end the war, but won’t commit to vote against “We find it sad and disturbing that Rep. further war funding. Democrats are targeted, Doris Matsui will not meet with veterans rather than Republicans because they did promopposed to the war, then directs her staff to arrest ise to vote against the war. And, largely, have not. nonviolent peace advocates who were only asking Known as the “Matsui 10,” those facing that she sign a peace pledge. trial in Sacramento include four veterans from Meanwhile, last week, she voted not to Veterans for Peace and the mother of a US impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, the one soldier stationed in Iraq when the action took person most responsible, in addition to the Presiplace September 17. They are being charged for dent, to starting the Iraq War. “disturbance,” which carries a fine of up to $5,000 “According to a report in the news today, and/or 30 days in jail. the total cost of this war is more than $2 tril-

Peace Action on the Web Keep up to date on peace activism in Sacramento. Check out

www.sacpeace.org. The “Matsui 10” on the steps of the Federal Courthouse after being arrested and released. From left, rear, John Reiger, Scott Verhoef, Dan Delaney, Kate Kennedy, Cres Vellucci. Front: Margy Yutzy, Marjorie Boehm, Paulette Cuilla, Sheila Laracy, Zohreh Whitaker. Photo: Dan Bacher

lion dollars. In human terms, nearly 4,000 US troops have died with tens of thousands horribly wounded, and at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed. “We have politely tried to meet with Rep. Matsui. She refuses, and claims she is opposed to the war, but she will not agree, in writing, to stop funding the war. It is past time for the voters of her district to not only ask, but demand, that Rep. Matsui sign the Declaration of Peace to end the war now, not, as she says, when it is ‘responsible’ to do so.” For information on actions in support of those arrested , go to www.sacendwar.org. Cres Vellucci is a member of Veterans for Peace in Sacramento.

Five Reasons to Talk, Not Bomb Despite the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran gave up its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Cheney/Bush still long to bomb Iran. Thus we offer five responses to warmongers. -excepted from an article by Nathan Gonzalez To read the full article, go to www.huffingtonpost.

com/nathan-gonzalez/five-reasons-to-engageir_b_62523.html

I

t seems that with every news cycle comes yet another attempt by the Bush administration to pave the way for a war with Iran. As if we weren’t facing enough problems in Iraq, there seems to be a degree of laziness across the political spectrum when it comes to understanding Iran’s political culture and finding ways to engage diplomatically without sacrificing our interests. In my new book, Engaging Iran: The Rise of a Middle East Powerhouse and America’s Strategic Choice, I shed light on how Iran is a more complicated (and potentially friendly) country than our media portrays it. Here are just five reasons to engage Iran diplomatically.: One: Our Mutual Interests. Iran and the White House have two things in common: They both support Prime Minister Maliki’s government in Iraq, and they fear a bastion of al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremists forming in Iraq. Two: Iran’s Pro-Americanism. Having been to Iran, and having followed global opinion polls closely, I can say that Iran has one of the most US-friendly populations in the world; certainly the most pro-American in the Muslim Middle East. This support is not unconditional. American bombs dropping from the sky would change that overnight. In Engaging Iran, I quote a young man in Iran who puts it simply: “I hate the (Iranian) regime and I love America. But if America

attacks us, I will join the regime and fight America.” The ruling clerics are banking on this sentiment to carry them through any air strike campaign.

there are op-eds and studies claiming that the Iranian government has already rejected a “grand bargain” put forth by the Bush administration and suggested by the liberal think tank, the CenThree: If We Don’t Engage, We’re ter for American Progress. The problem with this Stuck in Iraq. No matter what the leading analysis should be obvious: One cannot expect a candidates promise the Democratic base today, country to reach a diplomatic agreement during no president, no matter how anti-war, will be in a private discussions, when at the same time that position to leave a power vacuum in Iraq. A war country is being aggressively called out in public. between Iran and America would result in the Iran has been repeatedly painted into a continued presence of US troops in Iraq for years, corner by the Bush administration, which has if not decades, to come. claimed that under no circumstances can Iran Four: Ahmadinejad’s Diatribes Are “be allowed” to develop nuclear energy (later Irrelevant. One troubling tendency among cable clarified to “weapons”). While it has been quick news commentators is their propensity to take the to rail about Iranian support for the same militias words of a weak Iranian president and inflate them that support the US-backed government in Iraq, to apocalyptic proportions. While Iranian PresiPresident Bush has spoken of a need to “condent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an anti-Semite front Tehran’s murderous activities.” It doesn’t who denies the Holocaust, and has openly hoped take a career State Department official to realize that God will one day erase Israel “from the pages such statements don’t pave the way for effective of history” (mistranslations are bountiful, includdiplomacy, especially when one’s coercive miliing the typical “Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel tary instruments are bogged down in Iraq. off the map”), this should not be taken to mean he Iran made overtures to the United States. A plans on having the capability for a nuclear attack. letter by former President Khatami to President Not only does the Iranian president have Bush at the start of the Iraq War, put on the no power over the country’s military, but more table the end to all support for terrorist groups. importantly, Israel has a formidable nuclear deter- Not only did the administration refuse to talk, rent that prevents the thought from even entering but it “scolded” the Swiss ambassador for passIranian leaders’ minds. ing the message on (source: Christian Science Even imagined rogue elements inside Iran Monitor, 12/15/06). that are so fanatical as to destroy their own 2,500As we look to evade yet another protracted year-old country, they wouldn’t do it by attacking conflict in the Middle East, we have to ensure Israel. The Jewish state houses one of the most no stones are left unturned, so the public is sacred sites in Islam: Jerusalem’s Dome on the not fooled yet again into thinking war is the Rock (besides, the Palestinians would go with only option. We must understand it is in our Israel). interests to engage diplomatically. If we don’t, our Five: Because We Haven’t Really Tried presence in Iraq could outlive the architects of Yet.To make matters of diplomacy more difficult, the current war.

Capitol Outreach for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty. Third Mondays, 11:30am to 1:30pm. L Street at 11th. We bring petitions, literature and banners. You bring yourselves. Cafe nearby for coffee after the vigil. INFO: 447-7754

When someone says my son died fighting for his country, I say, “No, the suicide bomber who killed my son died fighting for his country.” Mark Comley, father of American soldier Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, USMC, KIA in Iraq

14 Because People Matter January / February 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Book Review American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges. Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Free Press; Reprint edition (January 8, 2008)

By Henry Clark

This book should be read, understood, talked about—and acted on—by every American who cares about the health of our democracy. According to Chris Hedges, the religious right in this country is a menace which must not be allowed to succeed in its “war on America.” His methodology inspires confidence, because American Fascists is based on lengthy interviews, participation in actual evangelical gatherings and actual documents produced by their leaders. Hedges’ book explains why and how so many people have been seduced into joining a movement that, from a well-informed, rational point of view is as preposterous as it is dangerous. It also identifies the seducers and tells you how and when they decided to wage an all-out crusade

“…their ruthless attempt to create a theocracy in which every citizen is forced to live under the dominion of their view of the will of God for humankind.” The Marxist School of Sacramento P.O.Box 160564 Sacramento, CA 95816 January / February 2008 Activities

Point of View Speaker Series

Lectures are held in Sierra 2 Ctr, Garden Room, 2791 24th St., 7–9pm

Thursday, January 17 -- cancelled Thursday, February 21: Phil Gasper author of The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History’s Most Important Political Document. Phil Gasper is a professor of philosophy at Notre Dame de Namur University in northern California. He writes extensively on politics and the philosophy of science and is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch.

Discussions/Classes Discussions are held in Sierra 2 Ctr, Rm. 11, 2791 24th St., 7–9pm. Tuesday, Jan. 08, Tuesday, Jan. 22, Tuesday, Feb. 12, Tuesday, Feb. 26 We will have further discussions on writings of Argentine Revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Please see our website or check the message phone for specific readings.

Capital Reading Group Extended discussion of Vol. 1 of Capital, by Karl Marx. will resume January 2, with Chapter 11, “The Rate and Mass of Surplus Value.” That’s a concept that gives us a chance to review what we learned in previous chapters, so this is a good time to join us! We meet 7-9pm, 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month, at SMUD Customer Service Center, 6301 “S” St. Check with the Security Guard for meeting location (they have it under “Marxist School”). Preferred edition is the translation by Ben Fowkes, Vintage Books, Aug. 1977. We read together and discuss at each class.

INFO: www.marxistschool.org; [email protected]; 799-1354. All activities are free and open to the public.

ALLIANCE AUDIO-VISUAL & VIDEO

working for PEACE & JUSTICE and a proud sponsor of

“Because People Matter”

LCD COMPUTER & VIDEO PROJECTORS SLIDE & OVERHEAD PROJECTORS PA SYSTEMS – WIRELESS MICS – MIXERS SCREENS – TV MONITORS – PODIUMS AUDIO & DIGITAL VIDEO RECORDING

(916) 451-2658

offering a 30% to 50% discount <> <> <> for Peace & Justice events

against pluralism, pragmatism, science, reason and an accurate, constructive understanding of humane civilization. It gives a list of key individuals prominent in this vicious campaign; it tells about the frighteningly successful social institutions they have established and made use of; and it exposes the illogicality—in some cases, the outrageous cynicism—that characterizes their evil work. It also warns that “Debate with the radical Christian Right is useless [because] it does not want dialogue . . . [and] cares nothing for rational thought or discussion” (p202). Readers may be surprised (even a bit touched) by Hedges’ description of the lost souls whose desperation makes them vulnerable to the appeal of “dominionism.” This perhaps unfamiliar term reminds us how certain right-wing fundamentalists are about being right in their ruthless attempt to create a theocracy in which every citizen is forced to live under the dominion of their view of the will of God for humankind. Hedges shows how ruthless the dominionists are in manipulating their targets by offering ersatz friendship to those who need it, whose gullibility often knows no limits, even when joining the fellowship of the saved means astonishing demands for their money and unwavering loyalty, coupled with threats of misfortune in this world and eternal damnation in the world to come. Thus fear of death is replaced by a promise of an apocalyptic Rapture made perfect by contrast with the sufferings of the sinners who are “left behind” when Jesus comes again. You’ll come to appreciate how effective the seducers are in sealing converts off from outside influences and even from reality itself. In addition, the “Gospel of Prosperity” allows evangelical demagogues to demand financial support for disgustingly extravagant lifestyles and gives license to those who have been “washed in the blood of the Lamb” to pursue the accumulation of riches for themselves. It’s a zero-sum game in which the success of the “righteous” is often accompanied by hardheartedness toward those who are less abundantly rewarded by the market, whose operation they are schooled to believe in as ordained by God Himself. You may be amazed—and properly sobered—by Hedges’ description of the aims of the dominionists and the weapons they employ. You already know about their disapproval of homosexuality, sex education and birth control, gender equality and evolution, but you’ll be astounded by the tortuous arguments they put forth to “disprove” anything that doesn’t fit their notion of righteousness. Moreover, you’ll be appropriately alarmed by the venom of their hatred and the viciousness of the tactics they call upon born-again believers to carry out against their enemies. Citing Pat Robertson’s inflammatory comments concerning 9/11, Hedges sums up the peril dissidents might face in a full-blown theocracy:

“Should another catastrophic attack occur, what will prevent these preachers from calling for the punishment, detention and quarantining of gays and lesbians—as well as abortionists, Muslims and other nonbelievers—to safeguard the nation? What will stanch the hate crimes and physical attacks against those deemed immoral by fearful and angry Christians, those condemned by these preachers as responsible for the nation’s abandonment by God?. . . And most ominously, the fringe groups of the Christian Right believe they have been mandated by God to carry out Christian terrorism…” (p106). In short, declares Hedges, “The radical Christian Right calls for exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of God. Its members do not commit evil for evil’s sake. They commit evil to make a better world. To attain this better world, they believe, some must suffer and be silenced, and at the end of time all those who oppose them must be destroyed” (p. 205). Perhaps we can find some comfort in the realization that American Fascism is an analysis of an as yet relatively small lunatic fringe. In Christian America: What Evangelicals Really Want (2002), author Christian Smith reports that of the 29% of the US population that can be classified as “Conservative Protestants,” only just over 10% can be called “evangelicals” and about the same number “fundamentalists.” He goes on to say that this cohort is “much too diverse, complex, ambivalent and inconsistent” to constitute “’a disciplined, charging army,’ ready and eager to follow their alleged leaders into battle” (Smith, 194). And we may also take heart from the rapidly growing resistance to extremists: according to a newly released Pew study, 32% of the population “want less religious influence on government,” and Ronald Aronson’s forthcoming book on The New Atheism cites Pew figures in claiming that “a whopping 49% believe Christian conservatives have gone too far ‘in trying to impose their religious values on the country.’” But Hedges is frighteningly convincing in his selective but basically authoritative account of the zealots of the Christian Right whom he labels fascists. They are an extremely well-organized, passionately motivated segment of the electorate, and this book’s portrait of who they are, where they come from and how obsessed they are with winning contains an inconvenient truth we can ignore only at our peril. Henry Clark is a retired Social Ethics professor from the School of Religion at USC. He is presently a scholar-activist in The Alliance for Democracy and the California Council of Churches, and he has just published a novel about an idealistic Methodist do-gooder in a small southern town entitled Trophy Boy.

Time Tested Books Your subscription keeps us going! Have you sent in your subscription form??

now buying

Political posters, handbills & pamphlets Books on history, labor, & politics Records of blues, jazz, rock, punk, world, R&B, & spoken word. And, of course, we are selling books & records, too! We are located at 1114 21st Street, Sacramento. Our new hours are M-Sat: 11am–7pm, Sunday: 11am–3pm (Please call for appt. if selling.) 916-447-5696.

www.timetestedbooks.net

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 15

November / December Calendar COMMUNITY CALENDAR Tuesday, Jan. 8 Gray Panthers Sacramento General Meeting. Setting Our Priorities: Have Our Concerns Changed? Coffee - Cookies and fellowship as well. 1–3pm. Hart Senior Center, 27th and J Sts. INFO: 916-332-5980 Friday, Jan. 11 Sacramento 9/11 Truth Demonstration. Call or check web for exact time. 11th and L Streets, facing State Capitol North entrance. INFO: www.truthaction.org, 916-372-8433.

Sacramento’s Eleventh Annual Darwin Birthday Gala

Sunday, February 10, 2–4:30pm. La Sierra Community Center, John Smith Hall, 5325 Engle Road, Carmichael, CA (at Engle and Garfield, two blocks from Fair Oaks).

Monday, Jan 21 Martin Luther King Jr March, 8:30am, starts Oak Park Community Center, 3425 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Goes to Sac. Convention Center for program & displays 10am-3pm. Join SacPeace contingent 9:15am Sac City College, 3855 Freeport Blvd: 916-448-7157; [email protected].

The event includes an educational program, merchandise, literature tables, refreshments (including birthday cake), and camaraderie. This year’s program features a talk by Dr. Seth Shostak, a Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute www.seti.org/ in Mountain View, California, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to scientific research, education and public outreach. For much of his career, Dr. Shostak conducted radio astronomy research on galaxies, and has published approximately fifty papers in professional journals.

Saturday, February 9 The Peace Pyramid. All invited. 5 pm. 6009 Kifisia Way, Fair Oaks. INFO: Tom and Dar King, tjking07@ comcast.net or 916-241-9194.

Tickets: $8 in advance, $10 at the door, $5 for students with ID. For more info: [email protected] or 916.447.3589. More on Darwin Day at www.darwinday.org/.

Sunday, Jan 13, Prof. Eleazar Fernandez, United Theological Seminary, Twin Cities, MN, Filipino struggle against colonization and globalization and efforts at social transformation, 12pm. Sierra Arden U.C. Church, 890 Morse Ave. Filipino lunch at 11:30 - reservations (by Jan. 11) and INFO: 916-483-5501. Donation welcome.

Monday, Feb. 11 Sacramento 9/11 Truth Demonstration. Call or check web for exact time. 11th and L Streets, facing State Capitol North entrance. INFO: www.truthaction.org, 916-372-8433.

For online calendars of progressive events, go to www. sacleft.org and www.sacpeace.org.

Help us pack the hearing room on Jan. 10th as we say no to the Death Penalty! The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice will hold three public hearings on the death penalty, the first one in Sacramento. The hearings will draw input from experts and members of the public in an unprecedented effort to address serious flaws in California’s death penalty system. The Commission will also hear from the public and listen to the experiences of victims’ families and others affected by the death penalty system. Death Penalty Focus encourages you to help pack the hearing room! Your presence will show the Commissioners and the media that a growing number of Californians reject the death penalty as solution to crime and violence. (Please note: not everyone in the audience will be allowed to make comments, so there will be buttons and stickers you can wear during the hearing to show your support. ) The hearings will be held: • January 10 - Sacramento, State Capitol Building Room 4203. Time 9:30am - 12:30. • February 20 - Los Angeles, • March 28 - Santa Clara To learn more, visit www.ccfaj.org or www.deathpenalty.org

ONGOING EVENTS

Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom presents

The Latin American People’s Movement and the Global Peace & Justice Movement Friday, January 25, 2008, 7pm-9pm Sacramento Friends Meeting, 890 57th Street, Sacramento

Although Bolivia has endured poverty, privatization, and “structural adjustment” at the same time it is a bright spot. Here, the the most disenfranchised have organized to take control their lives and resources. Women have played a major role in resisting neo-liberal controls and establishing a peoples’ democracy. Social movements in Bolivia and throughout Latin America are providing models of resistance and basic community organizing. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) held its 29th International Congress this past July in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, with two members of Sacramento WILPF attending: Darien De Lu and Don Knutson. They will share photos and reflections on the developing global Peace and Justice Movement, and how WILPF is changing to meet the challenges of our changing world. Please join us. Light refreshments will be served. Admission is free but donations are welcome! INFO: Ellen, 916-369-5510, [email protected]

Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice Comes to Sacramento, CA

One show only: Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Admission: $10 suggested donation Produced by: Unitarian Universalist Society Public Forum Committee Event Location: Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento 2425 Sierra Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95825 For information: call 916-463-0144 “Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice,” starring Gary Anderson, our country’s renowned portrayer of Clarence Darrow, brings America’s most hated and celebrated attorney to recount his life and his greatest trials. Including the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, murder, civil rights trials, and his defense of the most hated in our society. This is a “warts and all” presentation of the man behind the legend, not always the hero or at his best, with serious legal problems of his own that scarred and haunted him forever.

Send calendar items for the March / April 2008 issue to [email protected] by February 10, with “calendar item” in the subject line. Make it short, and in this order, please: Day, Date. Name of event. Description (12 lines). Time. Location. Price. INFO: phone#; e-mail.

MONDAYS: Sacramento Poetry Center hosts poetry readings. 7:30pm. 1719 25th Street. www.sacramentopoetrycenter.org 1st MONDAYS: Organic Sacramento: Counter ongoing threats to our food. 6:30pm. INFO: www.organicsacramento. org 1st.MondayS: Sacramento Media Group. 6–8pm. Coloma Community Center, 4623 T Street. INFO: 4431792, 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: [email protected] 3728433. 3rd MONDAYS: Lesbian Cancer Suppor t Group. 6:30 Bring partners or support people with you. Open discussions with everyone. INFO: Roxanne Hardenberg; [email protected]. TUESDAYS: Call for Peace Vigil. 4–6pm. 16th and J St. INFO 448-7157. TUESDAYS: Improv workshop. Solve the world’s problems through improv games! 7–9:30pm. Geery Theatre, 2130 L street, Sac. First time free, $5.00 after that. INFO: Damion, 916821-4533, [email protected] 2nd TUESDAYS: Gray Panthers. 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.

ed. INFO: Christine 4575855, www.sacramentodancesofuniversalpeace. org

4th TUESDAYS: Peace and Justice Films. 7pm. Peace Action, 909 12th Street. INFO:448-7157.

1st SATURDAYS: Health Care for All. 10:30am. Hart Senior Ctr, 27th & J. For universal access to health care. INFO: 916-424-5316; [email protected].

4th TUESDAYS: (Odd numbered months) Amnesty Int’l. 7pm. Sacramento Friends Meeting House, 890-57th St. INFO: 4892419.

1st SATURDAYS: Sacramento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm. Arden and Heritage (entrance to Arden Mall). INFO: 448-7157

1st WEDNESDAYS: Peace & Freedom Party. 7pm. INFO: 456-4595.

2nd & 4th SATURDAYS: Community Contra Dance. 8–11pm; 7:30 lessons. Coloma Center 4623 T Street. INFO: 395-3483.

3rd WEDNESDAYS: CAAC Goes to the Movies. 7:15pm. INFO: 446-3304. THURSDAYS: Daddy’s Here. Men’s support group; info on custody, divorce, raising children. 7–8:30pm. Free! Ctr for Families, 2251 Florin Rd, Ste 102. INFO: terry @ fathersandfamilies.com. 568-3237x 205. Fridays: Movies on a Big Screen. Independent movies and videos, always quirky. 7pm. 600 4th St, West Sac. INFO see website: www.shiny-object.com/ screenings/. 1st FRIDAYS: Community Contra Dance. 8–11pm; 7:30pm beginners lessons. 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.sacramentodancesofuniversalpeace.org, 916832-4630. 4th FRIDAYS: Dances at Christ Unity Church, 9249 Folsom Blvd. All Welcome $5–$10 donation request-

3rd SATURDAYS: Sacramento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm. Marconi & Fulton. INFO: 448-7157 3rd Saturdays: Underground Poetry Series, open mic plus featured poets. 7–9pm Under gr ound Books, 2814 35th Street (at Broadway), Sacramento. $3. INFO: 737-3333 SUNDAYS: Sacto Food Not Bombs. 1:30pm. Come help distribute food at 9th and J Streets. 1st SUNDAYS: Zapatista Solidarity Coalition. 10am– noon. 909 12th St. Info: 443-3424. 1st SUNDAYS: PoemSpirits. 6pm. Refreshments and open mic. Free. UUSS, 2425 Sierra Blvd. INFO: 481-3312; 451-1372. Will resume in Oct. 2007. 2nd SUNDAYS: Atheists & Other Freethinker s. 2:30pm. Sierra 2 Center, Room 10, 2791 24th St. INFO: 447-3589.

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 17. Every Monday at 8pm. Call in comments on 2nd and 4th Mondays. Repeats Tuesday at noon, Wednesday at 4am. In Davis, on channel 15, Tuesdays at 7pm.

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 17 and 18 and Davis Channel 15. Sundays 8-10pm Nevada County channel 11 Mondays 10:30pm–12:30am, West Sacramento channel 21 Mondays 9-11pm. See scheduled segments at www.wethemedia.org.

General Wesley Clark William Rodriguez

MORE INSIDE:

John Lear

Was Pat Tillman Murdered? • Underground Radio • A Farm in the Burbs • The Trial of the Matsui 10

Glen Stanish

Mike Pecoraro

www.patriotsquestion911.com

Blessed are the truthtellers …for they shall be called conspiracy theorists.

Col. Ann Wright

Anthony Saltalamacchia

Crackpots? Tinfoil hat wearers? Moonbats? Wingnuts?

Cmdr. Ralph Kolstad

Col. Robert Bowman, PhD. Lt. Col. Jeff Latas John F. Jehman Jr., PhD. Commander Ted Muga

Progressive News and Views

January / February 2008

Because People Matter

Editors Picks!

Progressive Media Progressive Radio Stations

▼ KVMR 89.5 FM ▼ The Voice, 88.7 Cable FM; and streaming audio on www.Accesssacramento.org; SAP Comcast Channels 17 & 18 ▼ KYDS 91.5 FM ▼ KDVS 90.3 FM ▼ KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley ▼ KSAC 1240 AM (TalkCity Radio Sacramento). Progressive talk radio all day long with Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow and others. KSAC Sat and Sun Schedule SATURDAY 10-11am: Ask-A-Lawyer Noon-3pm: Ring of Fire 4-5pm: Best of “The Thom Hartmann Show” 5:00-7pm: CLOUT w/Richard Greene 10-1am: Best of “The Randi Rhodes Show” SUNDAY 4-5am: Best of “The Young Turks” 11am-1pm:Best of “The Rachel Maddow Show” 1pm-4pm: Seder on Sunday 4pm-5pm: State of Belief 5-8pm: Ring Of Fire ▼ KZFR 90.1 FM Chico People Powered Radio! managed and operated by volunteers, provides mostly locally produced and community oriented programs.

Online News Sources:

Calling all citizen media makers:

Have you taken the TV production training at Access Sacramento? Would you like to put your technical talents to use? Soapbox! urgently needs crewmembers to help set up, run cameras, and take viewers’ phone calls on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month. Or consider taking the training. Mandatory orientations are given at Access Sacramento at 46th and T streets on the 2nd Wednesday and 4th Tuesday of each month from 6-7pm. To register call 456 8600 x O. Leave your name and number if no one’s in at the time. The basic workshops run from 3 to 24 hours and cost from $10 to $50. Some $ help is available. Call 444 3203 if you’re interested in joining us at Soapbox! for fun—and the best pizza in town

www.Truthout.org: written 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 9/11 and the attacks on our civil liberties. www.TheRealNews.com: a nonprofit progressive 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 infotainment and real news reporting.

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

Where to watch: Access Sacramento TV, Cable Channels 17 and 18, Weekdays 6pm, 12midnight, 5am. Dish Network Satellite TV, Channel 9415, Free Speech TV, M-F: 9am, 4pm, 9pm, 5am, Pacific time. Link TV, Channel 9410, Monday–Friday, 8am, 3pm. KVMR 89.5 FM Mon-Thu 7pm KDVS 90.3 FM Mon-Fri noon KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley, M-F 9am

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

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 2668 SACRAMENTO, CA