2008 Mar Apr

Because People Matter Progressive News and Views

March / April 2008

Let’s Talk (About Sex)!

Family communication & comprehensive sex education make the difference by Katharyn McLearan

W

prevention of sexually transmitted infections. e have a preventable public health problem in this country Family Communication — an estimated Consider these facts: Parents 750,000 American teens will and teens agree that they are not become pregnant this year comfortable discussing sex with one and nearly four million will another yet 87% of teens say it would contract a sexually transmitted be easier for them to postpone sexuinfection. al activity and avoid teen pregnancy Nonetheless, studies have if they were able to have open, honconsistently shown that famest conversations with their parents. ily communication and comAnd 97% of girls said “having parprehensive sex education are ents they could talk to” could help important factors in safeguardprevent pregnancies among unmaring teenagers’ sexual health. It ried teens. Teens cite their parents as can be difficult to talk to your the people who most influence their teen about sensitive issues, but decisions about sex. When parents we also know how important it talk to their teens about sex, the is to your child’s future. We also “Inaccurate abstinence-only education teens are more likely to delay sex, need education programs in more likely to use condoms when is being taught in many schools across California.” our schools that include inforthey finally do have sex, more likely photo courtesy Planned Parenthood mation about abstinence as to talk about sexual health risks with Mar Monte well as contraception, healthy their partner, and less likely to have communication, responsible decision-making, and multiple partners.

Helpful hints for parents and other responsible adults: Talk with your kids at all stages of development, not just puberty. Talk early and talk often. You are a role model for your teen. Set good examples. Show your kids how our lives are enriched by our values. Take advantage of teachable moments. Use topics like a friend’s pregnancy or a TV show to begin a conversation. Give accurate, simple, and honest answers to questions. If your child asks a question you can’t answer, it is OK to say you do not know. Use the opportunity to learn something together. Let your kids know that you are available. Sex Education Comprehensive sex education supports and strengthens parent–teen communication. Abstinence Only programs that do not include family planning, disease prevention, and responsible decision-making skills are dangerous and do not prevent pregnancy or disease. Information that is wrong, too little, or too late can result in long-term and life threatening consequences. See Sex Education, page 9

California Faces Repeat Attacks on Abortion Rights Another parental notification initiative is in the works by Chelsea Del Rio

is not the only limitation women face. In 24 states there Look out progressive Californians, it is happening again. exist mandatory waiting periods between receiving In 2005 we faced Proposition 73 and in 2006 we faced counseling and having the abortion performed. There Proposition 85. Both aimed at manare 43 states that allow health care dating parental notification in order institutions to refuse to provide Our fight to defeat for minors to access abortion serabortions. A total of 28 states vices. Both times the people of Calimandate counseling prior to parental notification fornia decided that such laws would abortion, including misinformainitiatives and other only serve to harm the young women tion about links between breast of our state, often the ones already cancer and abortion, fetal pain attacks on abortion in the most difficult and dangerous during the abortion procedure rights not only protects and long term mental health consituations. Now, in 2008, we face a third parental notification initiative. sequences for women. Combine reproductive health Sponsors of the initiative are still in these numbers with an array of services but also the process of signature gathering to additional limitations and the fact qualify for the November ballot but that 87% of counties in the US strengthens women’s if history is any indication, they will have no abortion providers and autonomy and freedom. it is easy to see just how compliqualify by the deadline. Pro-choicers will face yet another year of divertcated the picture becomes. ing time, resources and energy from providing already These restrictions indicate the continued efforts to limited services for women in order to defeat right wing legislate and control women’s bodies. Former Arkansas attacks on choice. Governor Mike Huckabee hopes for a “Human Life Currently 35 states require some type of parental Amendment” to the constitution that would in effect involvement, whether notification or consent of one or overturn Roe. Let’s consider the fact that women are not both parents, for a minor to have an abortion. But this protected in the constitution and this guy is talking fetal rights. What a clear indication that right wing concern is more about control of reproduction and women’s bodies than it is about life! Thus, our fight to defeat parental notification initiatives and other attacks on abortion rights not only protects reproductive health services but also strengthens women’s autonomy and freedom. It is essential that we work to protect access to abortion not only for teens in California but also for women across the country who, more and more, may be forced to look to California. If the parental notification initiative does qualify for the ballot we will need your help to defeat it. Stay informed Sacramento NOW taking the NO on 85 campaign to the street photo courtesy Sacramento NOW via California National Orga-

nization for Women, www.canow.org. In the meantime, consider other action you can take to ensure access to reproductive health services. Become a clinic defense escort and help women navigate through anti-choice protestors to access abortion services. Sacramento NOW provides training and coordinates weekly escorting. Contact us at [email protected]. Or, consider housing or providing rides for women who must travel to the area to receive abortion services. To do so, sign up with ACCESS: www.whrc-access.org. Chelsea Del Rio is a long time Sacramento NOW grassroots activist and currently serves as Action Vice President with California NOW.

Inside this issue:

Editorial.............................................. 2 Plutonium Paradise............................ 3 A Community Peace Group................ 4 The Matsui 10..................................... 4 Bonus for Bike and Bus Riders........... 4 Police State Flash Point...................... 5 Rx Dr. Bill Durston............................ 6 Single Payer Health Care.................... 6 The Fong Mansion.............................. 7 Stop Gerrymandering......................... 7 Immigration is Not the Issue.............. 8 Corporate Media Censors the News... 9 We Are Done Killing For Lies.......... 10 Poem: The God of War...................... 10 Book Review: The Israel Lobby......... 11 Sacramento Area Peace Action......... 12 The New Capitalism......................... 13 Old Boys Network............................. 13 Torture............................................... 14 Winter Soldier Hearings................... 14 MLK Inspires Us Again................... 14 Calendar............................................ 15 Progressive Media............................. 16

 Because People Matter March / April 2008 www.bpmnews.org because

People Matter

Volume 17, Number 2 Published Bi-Monthly by the Sacramento Community for Peace & Justice P.O. Box 162998, Sacramento, CA 95816 (Use addresses below for correspondence) Editorial Group: Jacqueline Diaz, JoAnn Fuller, Charlene Jones, Jeanie Keltner, Rick Nadeau Coordinating Editors for this Issue: Jeanie Keltner and Jacqueline Diaz Design and Layout: Ellen Schwartz Calendar Editor: Chris Bond Advertising and Business Manager: Edwina White Distribution Manager: Paulette Cuilla Subscription Manager: Kate Kennedy

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On the cover Hydraulic Border Patrol office on the border in Roma, Texas along the Rio Grande River. Francisco J. Dominguez, copyright 2007

Editorial

Jeanie Keltner Co-coordinating Editor for This Issue

Scared Out of Our Wits The 9/11 lie has paralyzed us “Hey,” says my friend, holding up the last BPM with the cover of faces from the patriotsquestion9/11 site. “What is this? All 9/11—All the time?” And he gives me that look. I find the dismissive glances and even eye rolling that sometimes come from activists and other progressive about 9/11 hard to understand. These are people who know that every word Cheney and Bush ever uttered is a flat-out conscious lie (for 935 documented pre-war lies, see www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/). And yet on this literally world-changing event they decide to believe these guys? And then call those of us who challenge the official story stupid and crazy? C’mon…..! Yes, I try to get something that undercuts the official story of 9/11 in every issue of BPM. I believe 9/11 truth info can let some air into the vacuum-sealed US mind created by the 9/11 attacks, a mind so traumatically closed that it seemingly cannot take in the fact—now admitted by everyone but Cheney—that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and Afghanistan was only tangentially involved. You still hear people say, “Well, they attacked us,” or “We have to fight them over there or they’ll come here.” Even the inconceivable (and underreported) suffering that the US war is causing is depreciated because it’s the suffering of the Arab “enemy.” The same is true for the torture. To stop this cruel, illegal war, 9/11 truth is key to breaking the spell that has afflicted heart and reason and paralyzed action. I think Manuel Valenzuela is on to something in his description of the psychological effects of 9/11: 9/11 was the catalyst to the war on terror, the spring that gave sustenance to the imperialistic wet dreams of corporatists and neocons. It was a moment in time…that sent concussions of fear and hatred and immediate calls of anger and vengeance reverberating throughout the land, as if a nuclear bomb of psychological warfare had been unleashed…transforming us into unthinking animals, our primate psychology and emotions set free, usurping our normal human intelligence. At that point, after seeing the televised images of the horror and evil spawned that day…repeated continuously without end, with angle after angle of carnage and death…with the immediate propaganda of journalist buffoons penetrating our pores, with stenographers for power injecting us with their venom, we mutated into an army of robots, unwilling to listen to reason, unwise to the lessons of humanity,

failing to control our raw emotions, becoming, in the end, a united herd of sheep that was easily corralled into following and obeying the dictates of the corporatists. We became, with our jingoism, nationalism, patriotism and Nazi-like militarization of the nation a people on the verge of mass psychosis, ready to bomb and murder entire nations, ready to lose all sense of morality in order to attain the vengeance our mammalian brains sought. …The hatred we felt was manipulated and directed, our attention made to focus on the dark skins and alien religion of the Middle East. Our fear was exploited, our fragile psychology abused, steered toward war against Arabs and Persians and Muslims, for clandestine reasons we did not wish to know or understand. (The Making of the Enemy, 02-0806 www.informationclearinghouse.info). We need to “deconstruct” the official myth of 9/11 to break through this helpless, hate-filled, fear-filled state and regain the will to end an ugly war that is bankrupting this nation morally and financially. Likewise, recognizing the falsity of the official story will fire up our will to resist the assaults on civil liberties that Bush/Cheney claim are responses to 9/11. In this BPM Peter Phillips (p 9) and Bruce Fein (p 8), from both left and right, focus with urgency on the chilling and wholesale elimination of constitutional provisions meant to protect the people of this country from its government. And while Bush/Cheney hack away at the rule of law, we sit here. What else but the traumatized mind set described by Valenzuela can explain our public and private apathy in the face the disappearance of our constitutional legal protections? 9/11 scared us literally out of our wits. Those exploding towers and the huge billowing clouds of dust that roiled through the streets chasing bystanders, the hours we all spent mesmerized in front of TVs waiting for the next planes to hit—and the mysteriously still unsolved and no longer mentioned anthrax attacks that immediately followed—wounded something so deep in our psyche that we’re still paralyzed and ready to pay any price, sacrifice any freedom, just to save ourselves from all-powerful demonic Arab terrorists

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who turned the country into a “helpless giant” that September day. But the 9/11 truth is that we have much more to fear from Bush/ Cheney and the Congress people from both parties who serve their agenda than we do from Arab terrorists. We’re being spied on, arrested without charges, secretly detained, tortured, sometimes killed, tried in kangaroo courts. These things are HAPPENING now—and to US citizens as well as others unlucky enough to be caught in the nets spread so widely and with so little legal care. And the perpetrators of these attacks on us are NOT terrorists—but very likely the true figures behind the events of 9/11—which they are using as the rationale for destroying our Constitution. Every day, more prominent people publicly express their doubts about the official story. New York Times reporter Philip Shenon in The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, asserts that the man who controlled what evidence commission members saw and the direction of the investigation, executive director Philip Zelikow, under advisement by Karl Rove, minimized White House responsibility and tried to insert a false connection between 9/11 and Iraq in the commission’s report. The former President of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, announced that “democratic groups in Europe know that the attack was organized by CIA and Mossad….” Dr Lynn Margulis, recipient of the US’s highest science award, the National Medal of Science, citing David Ray Griffin’s The 9/11 commission Report: Omissions and Distotrions, calls the official account “glaringly erroneous” and a “fraud” (patriotsquestion9/11.com). And the Japanese Parliament debates the truth of the official story in questioning whether to send more troops to support the US wars (Rock Creek Free Press, Feb 08). It’s time for a new investigation. With all the questions presented that have arisen through these last 6 years, with access to evidence unscreened by the White House’s Zelikow, with subpoenas, testimony under oath from Bush and Cheney—separately this time and recorded—and with the bright eyes of Truthers and others focused sharply on public proceedings, the official story would probably collapse in a couple of weeks—that’s how weakly it is cobbled together and how much our factual discovery and analysis of the its various aspects has advanced. As scary as such an endeavor would be, it’s what our country needs to get out of this deadly and deathly slide to disaster.

But the 9/11 truth is that we have much more to fear from Bush/ Cheney…than we do from Arab terrorists.

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www.bpmnews.org March / April 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

Plutonium Paradise or Nukemare? by Richard Nadeau

I

The hidden costs of nuclear power

just can’t believe the cheerful propaganda On Christmas Eve, I drove to see the two coming from the nuclear power industry and ominous towers at Rancho Seco, 25 miles southits boosters. They are telling east of Sacramento. I enjoyed a us now that nuclear power is a picnic lunch at “Rancho Seco We all breathe “clean and safe solution” to the Park,” the recreation area SMUD easier because of created after the plant closed crisis of global warming. Nothing could be farther from the down. so-called ‘antitruth. In my view, we are being Rancho Seco was the first offered a glowing picture of a cool nuke fanatics.’ nuclear power plant to be closed plutonium paradise, a false bill of down anywhere in the world as goods if there ever was one. result of a popular anti-nuke organizing effort Just recently, The Sacramento Bee published and a public vote. In December 1986, the antitwo essays promoting nuclear power as a solution nuclear organization SAFE gathered enough to global warming (12/12/2007 & 12/29/2007). signatures to place a referendum on the ballot. In One from a former Greenpeacer now working for a voter referendum in June of 1989, the majority the nuclear industry claimed that current antiof Sacramento voters said nuclear activists such as Greenpeace are “living in “Close it down.” the 1970s.” The day after ChristAnother essay from a jazz-critic-turnedmas 1985, a nuclear nuclear-revivalist sang non-improvised hosannas “event” (traced to a trip to “nuclear power for the people.” wire in a tiny electric Neither essay addressed the unresolved prob- box) caused the reactor lems connected with nuclear power: reactor acci- to dramatically overheat. dents, waste disposal, and the problem of nuclear After the Three Mile weapons proliferation. Neither mentioned the Island incident in 1979, astronomical costs or the fossil fuels consumed and the meltdown of in the mining, building, maintaining, transportChernobyl on April 26, ing waste, and the decommissioning of nuclear 1986, the people of Sacfacilities. ramento had reasonable Environmentalists fear that the promised cause to be concerned air-conditioned plutonium paradise will produce when they voted for a toxic, cancer-filled, irradiated earth. Sci-fi mov- closure. ies have provided us with depictions of mutant SMUD accepted the humans and animals evolving into monsters as results of the non-binding a result of exposure to nuclear radiation from referendum and began nuclear weapons testing. I call such horrifying the expensive process of depictions “nukemares.” (Remember “The Planet decommissioning, which of the Apes”? Remember “Godzilla”?) ends in 2008. Ranch Seco exemplifies what can happen when an alert community faces the dangers of nuclear power. We all breathe easier because of those so-called “anti-nuke fanatics.” Remember what happened at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979? There was an explosion inside a containment building, a partial meltdown of the reactor core, and a deliberate venting of radioactive gases into the atmosphere. 140,000 people fled the area, where elevated levels of cesium and iodine were found in the milk samples collected from dairy farms. Ironically, the movie, The China Syndrome, with Jane Fonda graphic: : www.inkcinct.com.au/Web/CARTOONS was just opening. Yet, we still worship our advanced technologies as if they are infallible. Does anyone remember Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union? On April 26, 1986, a Nuclear links powerful explosion instantly killed two people. Centers for Disease Control report Dozens of fire fighters died from radiation www.cdi.org/issues/proliferation/ poisoning within a few years. Nuclear radiation nuclearproliferation fallout spread throughout Western Europe to Fortune Magazine article the point where the people of England could not www.money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ eat lambs that grazed on their fields. Numerous fortune_archive/2007/08/06/100141305 cancer clusters and other effects of radiation CBS nuclear story such as contaminated mushrooms and berries in www.fair.org/index.php?page=3086 southern Germany, and contaminated reindeer Anti-nuke power site in Scandinavia, emerged throughout Northern www.nukefree.org/ Europe and western Russia. Anti-nuke watchdog Remember the problems at Oak Ridge, www.prop1.org/anukelv.htm Kyshtym, or Windscale? Remember the waste Nuclear Reactor Maps disposal accidents at Hanford, where hundreds www.nukepills.com/ of thousands of gallons of radioactive waste Nuclear resource site containing plutonium leaked out of tanks www.nirs.org/ between 1945 and 1973? Are Californians comfortable with the fact that coastal nuclear power Books plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon are Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer and The New susceptible to tsunamis and located adjacent to Nuclear Danger by Dr. Helen Caldicott earthquake faults? So far, no one has been able to convince me that today’s generation of nuclear The New Nuclear Danger, and The Seventh power plants has eliminated the risk of nuclear Decade by Jonathan Schell accidents. Perils of the Peaceful Atom by Richard Curtis Yet, people have short memories. There is and Elizabeth Hogan talk in the media about a “nuclear revival,” or a “nuclear renaissance.”

In June 2007, Dale Klein, chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), told a gathering of industry leaders in Atlanta that he expects applications for 27 new reactors over the next two years. One corporate applicant said, “There is no serious opposition.” Congress provided help for the “revival” at taxpayer expense. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 had generous subsidies for nuclear power and other alternatives to fossil fuels. Billions of dollars in tax credits, loan guarantees, and insurance were offered to cover licensing delays for new See Nuclear Power, p. 11

Diablo Canyon nuclear plant

photo: www.britannica.com

EXTRA!

The Department of Energy has released its fiscal year 2009 budget. It seeks a whopping 79 percent increase in funding for the Nuclear Power 2010 program. It also extends the period during which companies that build new nuclear power plants can apply for federal loan guarantees to lower the debt-financing costs associated with the projects.

 Because People Matter March / April 2008 www.bpmnews.org

What Makes a Community Peace Group Work? Letting everyone have their say!

by Tom King

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.

The peace movement is not merely a protest against the heinousness of war, but the persistent effort to replace the militaristic mindset embedded in the culture with one encompassing the benefits, both practical and transcendental, of systemic peace. It is also the active pursuit of such strategies as will cause the overwhelming advantages of peace in all its revolutionary harmony to prevail. I am cofounder of the Peace Pyramid, a group that has flourished in the environs of Sacramento for over five years. Like all who strive for peace—a quest eternal—we cultivate humility through frustration. Yet perhaps our longevity is a claim to success as a working group model. What features might be usefully practiced by other groups? These are some: • No one joins; anyone is welcome to attend without dues or even token commitment. • Rather than frequent meetings that stress busy lives, we have quarterly convocations, inviting spontaneous volunteer activities in the interim. These convocations are always on a Saturday, and convened in the warmth of a comfortable home. The first hour is devoted to potluck and socializing. At times we're afforded the pleasure of musicians and singers whose repertory will include protest lyrics. • We focus each meeting upon a single crucial matter, like war, nuclear threat, depleted uranium, imperialist US foreign policy, or on reforms of these excesses, as exemplified by Congressman Dennis Kucinich's initia-

The Matsui 10 Charges against peace activists dropped

by Paulette Cuilla

Charges have been dropped against ten Sacramento peace activists arrested for “disturbance” in Rep. Doris Matsui’s office in September 2007 for asking her to stand up for peace and stop funding the war by signing a Declaration of Peace. The “Matsui 10” entered their not guilty plea in federal court 11/13/2007 and were given a court date for January 2008. The judge stated that the maximum sentence would be a $5,000 fine and/or 30 days in jail; however the option of jail time would not be considered and there would be no jury trial.

tive for a cabinet-level Department of Peace. • We book eminently qualified speakers, like Cindy Sheehan; David Dionisi, author of American Hiroshima and creator of the international organization Teach Peace; Dwayne Hunn, founder of American World Service Corps; Nadia McCaffrey, creator of Veterans Villages, a shelter for soldiers returning from Iraq; Leuren Moret, whistleblower on depleted uranium. • We promote gatherings via free news calendar, email updates, word of mouth and in materials we pass out tabling at the Farmers’ Market at 8th and W. • Our format gently coaxes rather than insists on militant activism. • We pursue specific goals with vigor, most persistently the creation of a Department of Peace. In contradistinction to most peace groups, however, our activism represents only half our energies, the other half being dedicated to giving peace-minded citizens a voice in an environment of sympathy and support. Thus we host an open forum providing the opportunity for all in attendance to speak. This is the signature feature of our organization. We enjoy the skills of a facilitator able to elicit participation, yet “prevent runaways.” Attendees' contributions, however, may be directed to issues having nothing to do

Feb. 9, 2007 Peace Pyramid speaker Dario Vanni.

photos: Larry White

with the evening's presentation. The result is that each convocation is afforded a fascination of the unpredictable. Attendee’s testimonies range from sharing what it means to them after toiling all day in the workplace to be among like-minded peaceniks to hair-raising tales of a son at risk in Iraq. And many will offer unexpected stores of wellfounded information on foreign affairs, domestic snafus, and media cover-ups, such as the ones too easily dismissed as 9/11 conspiracy theories. Meeting only quarterly in such vibratory atmosphere, attendees seem reluctant to part, and a meeting starting at five will typically run until ten, with few drifting away earlier. Those who come welcome this rare opportunity to vent their hearts and share their insights, and as we listen to one another, we realize how continually we underestimate the unique individual who is our fellow biped. Tom King is the leader of the Peace Pyramid, a Sacramento suburban grassroots group promoting a cabinet-level Department of Peace.

We could have pled guilty, paid a fine of the nightmare of war continues. Fascism rules $275.00 and walked away free. However, we all our country, our constitution is being destroyed, vowed that we would not pay a fine, accept proand George Bush says, “it’s just a goddamned bation, or participate in community service. piece of paper.” We are involved in an illegal war Since we would not get a jury trial, we would to support the military industrial complex and not be granted public defenders. However, civil our kids are being recruited from high school rights lawyers, including several on the ACLU of (and younger) to feed the meat grinder. CorrupSacramento Board of Directors volunteered their tion rules our courts, media, corporations, and services to represent us. Preparation for court elections. The list goes on. began with plans to subpoena Doris Matsui, The “Matsui 10” is a group of people who her entire staff, Homeland Security, and to file believe that democracy is something you do, appeals for a jury trial. Then, last week we were not something you have. As citizens of a real notified that the US Attorney’s Office was dropdemocracy, it is our job to speak out when we ping all charges—maybe because we were now see our government headed for disaster. While lawyered up and it would be too costly to actu“practicing democracy” we were arrested. I guess ally bring us to court, or maybe Rep. Doris Matsometimes the road may get rocky, but the effort sui thought it might not look good to criminally to get our country back is worth it! charge citizens who were asking her to stand up Paulette Cuilla is a Matsui 10 Activist. for peace. Activists in Sacramento have held a 52 day sit-in at Matsui’s office, done extensive letter writing, made thousands of phone calls, and have been arrested for civil disobedience at the Federal Building. Matsui says she wants to end the war and protect the troops, but will not commit to stop funding the war or sign a Declaration of Peace. She refuses to meet with Veteran’s for Peace, Sacramento Peace Action, or other local peace groups. So what makes a group of law abiding citizens risk arrest? Most of this group has never had more than a parking ticket. After almost 4,000 US A photo from an anonymous source shows solders have died, untold number of the “die-in” in progress at Congresswomwounded, hundreds of thousands of an Matsui’s office. Iraqis killed, trillions of dollars spent,

It pays to care for the air

A Bonus for Bike and Bus Riders

The City of Sacramento’s AMCO program allows bus riders, bicyclers and carpoolers to purchase discounted parking in city lots for intermittent use. The cost works out to be $6.50 per day for up to 12 days of parking per quarter (3 months). This is a

great idea to reward people for taking the bus/light rail/bike most of the time by discounting their parking for days that they really need to take their car. For more details go to www.cityofsacramento.org/ transportation/parking/offstreetdiscountalternate. html.

www.bpmnews.org March / April 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

Police State Flashpoint Criminalizing “extremist” thought by Bruce Fein

lent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and [By the time BPM goes to press, Congress may have ideologically based violence in the United States.” already enacted] the “Violent Radicalization and And “violent radicalization” is defined as “the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” process of adopting or promoting an extremist probably the greatest assault on free speech and belief system for the purpose of ideologically association and association in the US since the based violence to advance political, religious, or 1938 creation of the House Un-American Activi- social change.” ties Committee (HUAC). Under the Act, William …the Act aims Sponsored by Jane Harman Lloyd Garrison would have been (Dem CA), the bill passed the to identify and guilty of promoting “violent House on Oct 23 by a 404-6 vote radicalization” for publishing the stigmatize under a rule suspension that curanti-slavery Liberator in 1831, tailed debate. Only 3 Democrats which “facilitated” John Brown. persons and voted against the bill: Dennis Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth groups who Kucinich (Ohio), Neil AbercromCady Stanton would have been bie (Hawaii), and Jerry Costello condemned for assailing laws hold thoughts (Ill). disenfranchising women and crethe government ating an intellectual atmosphere The Senate companion bill (SB 1959), sponsored by Susan receptive to violence. And Martin decrees Collins (Rep Maine), has encounLuther King, Jr. would have fallen correlate with tered little opposition. Especially under the Act’s suspicion for in an election year, Congressdenouncing Jim Crow and prachomegrown members crave every opportunity ticing civil disobedience, which terrorism. to appear tough on terrorism. Few “facilitated” H. Rap Brown. if any care about or understand The commission will certaineither freedom of expression or the Thought ly hold choreographed public hearings. Witnesses Police dangers of SB 1959. Denuded of euphewill testify that non-Christian ideas or vocal misms and code words, the Act aims to identify challenges to the status quo promote “an extremand stigmatize persons and groups who hold ist belief system” that facilitates ideologically thoughts the government decrees correlate with based violence. Internet communications, the homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition media, schools, religious institutions and home to the Patriot Act or the suspension of the Great life will be scrutinized for promoting pernicious Writ of habeas corpus. thoughts. The Act will inexorably culminate in a Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed government listing of homegrown terrorists or in Gitlow v. New York (1925): “Every idea is an terrorist organizations without due process; a incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs that ostensibly further “violent radicalization;” it or some failure of energy stifles the movement and a blacklisting of persons who have intersected with either list. Political discourse will be chilled and needed challenges to conventional wisdom will flag. There are no better examples of sinister congresNew Reads sional folly. in Town The Act inflates the danger of homegrown terrorism manifold to justify creating a National You may see the Rock Creek Free Press Commission on the Prevention of Violent in the back of some BPM stands and in Radicalization and Ideologically Based Violence other places you find BPM. It’s a great new Commission paper from Washington DC with emphasis Since 9/11 no American has died from on the undernews. Check it out. homegrown terrorism, while about 120,000 have Likewise, we are greatly impressed with been murdered. the lively goodlooking Midtown Monthly. In the post-9/11 so-called “war” against It’s not political, but it has the kind of useful international terrorism, Mr. Bush has detained and delightful info about life, art, food and only two citizens as enemy combatants. One was music in Sacramento and beyond that crevoluntarily deported to Saudi Arabia; the other ates the sense of community needed for an was indicted, tried and convicted in a civilian uncertain future. court of providing material assistance to a foreign terrorist organization. And employing customary law enforcement tools, the US has successfully prosecuted several pre-embryonic terrorism conspiracies amidst numerous false starts. Prior to 9/11, homegrown terrorism consisted largely of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, the Unabomber and the D.C. Metropolitan area snipers. The Act, nevertheless, against all facts, finds “homegrown terrorism ... poses a threat to domestic security” that “cannot be easily prevented through traditional federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts.” Twelve members of the commission will be appointed by the president and leaders in the House and Senate. They will predictably serve the political needs of their political masters. The commission’s Big Brother task is to discover ideas and political associations, including connections to non-US persons and networks that promote “vio-

at its birth. The only difference between expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result.” Lengthy lists of persons, organizations and thoughts to be shunned will be compiled. Portions of the Holy Koran are likely to be taboo. The lives of countless innocent citizens will be shattered. That is the lesson of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and every prior government enterprise to identify “dangerous” people or ideas; for example, the 120,000 innocent Japanese-Americans herded into concentration camps during World War II. The ideological persecutions invited by the Act will do more to create than to deter homegrown terrorism. Mark Anthony’s words in “Julius Caesar” are a fitting commentary on what Congress is prepared to enact: “O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.” Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and chairman of the American Freedom Agenda. He served as associate deputy attorney general under Reagan and was a member of the ABA Task Force on presidential signing statements. See full article from Washington Times online 12/27/2007, at www. prorev.com/2007/12/democrats-close-to-passing-police-state.html

CAAC Goes to the Movies

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

Have you volunteered for BPM and NO ONE EVER CALLED YOU BACK? Well, we get overwhelmed sometimes, and don’t follow up on the good help energy that many readers have sent us. So would you consider trying again? We can use help proofreading, distributing, organizing volunteers. Call 916-444-3203. Or email [email protected] with “volunteer” in the subject line.

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 March / April 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Rx: Dr Bill Durston 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

Global peace through local elections by Glenda Marsh Most Americans would say that current US policies reflect nothing of our priorities or our values. One of the most important ways to democratize national security and decisions about war is to elect people to national office who agree with our grassroots driven policies, such as those found in Peace in the Precinct’s Peace and Security Principles, or Physicians for Social Responsibility’s SMART security plan. Dr. Bill Durston is run-

Dr. Durston speaking at a January 2007 Big Band Dance Party

ning for Congress in Congressional District 3 against Republican Rep. Dan Lungren. It’s pretty simple: Bill Durston supports our Peace and Security Principles so we support him. We want to end the Iraq War, so does Bill. Dan Lungren doesn’t. We win if Bill wins. You can help elect Bill by working with local groups planning to organize those who support ending the Iraq war. Two organizations are planning such campaigns: Peace in the Precincts, a local non-partisan community group, is working in Rancho Cordova, and Capital Area Progressives, a local Democratic Party-affiliated group, is working in Elk Grove. Both need volunteers this spring to walk precincts, talk with voters and recruit volunteers, to mobilize volunteers and register unregistered voters in these precincts during the summer and fall, and finally to turn those folks out to vote. Let’s have progressive candidates running up and down the ‘ticket.’ Let’s fill the Peace Pipeline up and down the ‘ticket.’ Never before in our area has there been such a great opportunity to work with local allies in labor, affordable housing, the environment and peace to make wins in our favor. To volunteer, contact: Glenda Marsh, Peace in the Precincts, 916-452-4801, or Cathlyn Daly, Capital Area Progressives, dalywood@comcast. net. Glenda Marsh is chair of Peace in the Precincts.

Bill and Diane Durston at the Big Band Dance Party photo: Durston for Congress campaign

Bill dancing with Joan Quinn, of Sacramento for Democracy, at the Big Band Dance Party photo: Battershell Photography

photo: Battershell Photography

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, 916-422-1787.

Single Payer Universal Care: SB 840 Alive and Kicking Schwarzenegger and Nuñez healthcare reform, isn’t by Charlene Jones

Voters expressed significant concern about the healthcare deal put together by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, according to findings of a poll released last fall by the California Nurses Association. More than two-thirds of California voters said they prefer “making sure we pass healthcare reform that gets it right and improves the system, and not take the risk of passing bad legislation.” It appears some state legislators agreed. Members of the Senate Health Committee refused to pass in early 2008 what many advocates believed was a dangerously defective reform measure packaged as Assembly Bill X1 No.1 (ABX1 1) by Nuñez and Schwarzenegger.

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

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In January the committee, chaired by Senator Sheila Kuehl, heard testimony for 11 hours from analysts, supporters and those in opposition to the proposed law. Most prominent was the bipartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office report that amplified doubt about California’s capacity to fund and enforce a complicated income eligibility system that would mandate all Californians carry healthcare insurance. The LAO stated that reasonable projections for the ABX1 1 plan expenditures would surpass revenues within five years. Such estimates did not include any “worst case” scenario. Many of those opposed, including California Nurses Association, California Teachers Association, League of Women Voters and Consumer Federation of California, support Senate Bill 840, Kuehl’s single payer universal healthcare plan. They insisted ABX1 1 would provide neither affordable nor accessible care, and continue to leave hundreds of thousands without coverage. Health care premium increases would be borne by consumers, they asserted, and families would also continue to carry the weight of high deductibles, co-pays and ever spiraling medication expenses. California Council of Churches, Church IMPACT described the effort to regulate people to buy coverage from an industry hardly regulated as “reprehensible.” ABX1 1 was revealed to represent what social critic Barbara Ehrenreich described as national political attention to the country’s healthcare crisis. “After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the USSR, Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares not confront—the American private health insurance industry” (Barbara’s Blog, 09/20/07). Kuehl has championed a single payer financing structure that removes insurance industry profit making from health care delivery. SB840, the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, was confirmed by the Lewin Group, a nationally

recognized human services cost analysis firm, as a viable universal model of care covering more people for more services for less money. Contracted by the state to compare healthcare proposals, the Lewin report estimated CHIRA would provide savings to families, individuals and businesses by basing funding on premiums assessed by personal income and payroll expenses—not by what insurance companies decide to charge. The great majority of those who pay for benefits would pay less and get more. CHIRA would replace the chaos of multiple public and private insurers with a single insurance plan that provides comprehensive care and choice of providers. This could save about $20 billion in administrative costs. California would buy prescription drugs and durable medical equipment in bulk and save about $5 billion in the first year alone. State and local governments would also save millions in health benefits provided to government workers and retirees. Although vetoed by the governor last year, SB 840 remains alive and kicking in the state legislature. Health care activists across the state and co-sponsoring organizations continue to collect endorsements for the single payer solution from elected officials, public interest, labor, professional and government groups. As Ehrenreich summoned, “Fellow citizens, where is the old macho spirit that has sustained us through countless conflicts against enemies both real and imagined? In the case of health care, we have identified the enemy, and the time has come to crush it.” Contact Health Care For All for information about the campaign. www.healthcareforall.org, 916-424-5316 www.onecarenow.org/index.html http://dist23.casen.govoffice.com http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_ blog/2007/09/we-have-seen-th.html Charlene Jones is a member of Sacramento Media Group.

www.bpmnews.org March / April 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

The Fong Mansion Reminding us discrimination did and does exist

by Rick Bettis Across from Southside Park near 6th and V in Sacramento is a large elegant Mediterranean Revival style home now known as the “Inn at Parkside.” Built in 1938, this was the family home of Yue Fong who immigrated from China in 1908. He owned several prosperous businesses and also served as unofficial cultural ambassador for the Chinese Nationalist government. Using Feng Shui principles, the home was designed and served as an informal meeting place for Chinese youth as well as Chinese dignitaries and community organizations. The basement houses a mirrored wall ballroom with a spring supported dance floor. The home stands out among the more modest residences in the neighborhood. However, it serves as a legacy to a pervasive legal and social problem that haunts us to this day. Fong wanted to build his home in either of the fashionable wealthy communities of East Sacramento—Fabulous Forties or Land Park. However properties there were encumbered by Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs) excluding racial minorities from owning homes. Affluent Land Park, ironically, has since become the home of many successful Asian Americans and has had a Chinese American City Councilman for more than 25 years. CC&Rs are a complicated system of built-in “deed restrictions” in a planned development. In the 1920s and 1930s covenants restricting the sale of property on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion were common. They were first invalidated by the US Supreme Court in 1940 in the case Hansberry v. Lee. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry wrote the acclaimed play “Raisin in the Sun” based her father’s experience as lead defendant in that case. CC&Rs continued to be used, primarily as means to regulate the external appearance of houses in planned developments with a homeowners association. In 2003 Dr. Bill Durston, a Vietnam veteran, emergency room physician,

and then the president of Sacramento Physicians for Social Responsibility wanted to fly a UN flag at his house. Based CC&Rs, the homeowners association board of directors ruled that Durston, now a candidate for US Congress in the 3rd District, could not fly the UN flag. Durston took the issue to the state legislature, where then Assemblyman and now Senator Darrell Steinberg co-authored Assembly Bill 1525 making it illegal for homeowners associations to ban residents from displaying noncommercial flags, posters The Inn at Parkside, formerly the Yue Fong Mansion or banners. Although the race based CC&Rs are no longer legal, housing discriminathat it is not economically viable to mix housing tion continues. Discrimination can still be based low-income residents with “market rate” developon national origin, gender, sexual orientation, ments. This results in income-based “ghettoizaage, familial status and disability. The ACLU tion” and the many associated social problems, and many other civil rights/equity organizations such as unequal education and employment such as Californians for Disability Rights are opportunities, leading to a downward spiral of attempting to correct these abuses. For example, alienation, despair and conflict. the Greenlining Institute was formed to address In 2002 a study in Time magazine rated the problems of “redlining,” the discriminatory Sacramento the most “diverse” city in the nation. practice of avoiding investment in inner-city and This diversity has contributed to the cultural minority neighborhoods and overcharging for vitality of the city. However, conflict still exists services and products to these communities. and it cannot be said that we have become a true Starting with the federal Fair Housing Act, community exemplified by trust and cooperation Title VIII of the 1968 Civil Rights Act, many among all groups. federal and state laws have been passed and When driving by the impressive Fong Manexecutive orders issued in an attempt to eliminate sion, we should keep in mind that it represents this insidious problem. There are now numerone of our most serious human faults, the tenous federal, state, and local entities, including dency to exclude from our lives those different the federal Department of Housing and Urban from ourselves. As Dr. Martin Luther King so Development, the California Fair Employment eloquently stated, we must strive to judge our and Housing Commission, and the Sacrafellow humans by the “content of their characmento County Human Rights and Fair Housing ter” and not be swayed by much less significant Commission. dissimilarities. Currently we face a form of de-facto discrimination and exclusion based on economics. Rick Bettis is a member of Common Cause, Attempts to pass and implement meaningful Sacramento Media Group and League of Women “inclusionary” local housing ordinances have met Voters, and volunteers as a docent with the Sacstrong opposition. Builders and developers claim ramento Old City Association.

Stop Gerrymandering!

Fair, independent, redistricting standards today put California voters FIRST by JoAnn Fuller

must agree to any plan and there are multiple Legislators get out of the way! Real redistricting safeguards to keep one party from gaming the reform is coming to California in 2008. Califorsystem. The checks and balances in the selection nia Common Cause, the League process are designed to of Women Voters of California, identify a group that is Instead of back AARP and many other organizaknowledgeable, diverse room deals, the tions are organizing to end the and impartial to carry out serious conflict of interest by state the redistricting. bright lights of a politicians when they draw their By closing the back public discussion own voting districts by creating an door politics, Voters independent, diverse and politicalFIRST ensures that are guaranteed ly balanced Citizens’ Commission everyone comes through in Voters FIRST by to draw voting district lines. the front door. Instead California Voters FIRST of back room deals, the meetings being Act will replace a broken system bright lights of public open and the where legislators draw their own discussion are guaranteed districts in order to ensure a safe by meetings being open minutes posted on re-election, even if it means splitand the minutes posted the Internet. ting up the communities they on the Internet. The are supposed to represent. Voters California Voters FIRST FIRST (Fair Independent Redistricting Standards Commission will hold hearings and take public Today) would create a 14-person commission to testimony; in fact, all discussions are required to take public testimony and hold hearings subject be held in public. This promotes public participato open meeting rules. Instead of incumbents tion and ensures that testimony from all groups drawing safe seats to protect against challengers, as to where voting district lines should be drawn the districts would be drawn according to clear will be considered. mapping rules based on the Census, the Voting The mapping criteria that the commission Rights Act, and a respect for neighborhoods, citwould have to follow are listed in priority order ies and counties. and include a mandate to keep cities, counThe 14-person redistricting commisties, neighborhoods or communities of interest sion would be politically balanced with five together so people can organize to effectively Democrats, five Republicans, and four others push their political objectives. To learn more from third parties or independent voters. It is about the initiative, go to www.commoncause. mandated that three members from each group org/cavotersfirst or contact JoAnn Fuller at

[email protected] or call (916) 443 1792 extension 11. Volunteers are gathering signatures now to put the initiative on the November ballot. To do this, we need to collect almost one million signatures by April 15th. Legislators and the special interests won’t give up power easily, but Voters FIRST can win. Petitions are available at the Sacramento office with the simple rules for gathering signatures and other materials. Redistricting is but one part of a complex electoral system, but it’s a part that can be fixed with the California Voters FIRST Act. Join us and make this important structural reform a reality.

 Because People Matter March / April 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Immigration Is Not the Issue Part One: At the Border by Felicia Martinez

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ainstream media and US politicians have made great strides in framing issues of imperialism, globalization, and international migration as domestic problems. Contrary to what such framing would have us believe, immigration is not the issue. The issue is a worldwide system that destroys the lives of working people. In the next issues, I will examine just how US immigration policies contribute to this problem and what communities are doing to respond. I’ll begin with the border. At first glance, the Terrace Park Cemetery, outside of Holtville, CA (population 5,400) appears a pleasant place to visit. It boasts shade trees and a lawn full of well kept headstones. Behind the cemetery, however, beyond a chainedoff road and a “No Trespassing” sign, lie the remains of over 600 Mexican and Central American migrants, many unidentified, who perished while trying to reach the US. Thousands more remains are scattered around North America. Some bodies have been recovered, identified, and shipped home to rest. The least fortunate lie yet undiscovered, somewhere in a desert or possibly a canal, waiting for the Border Patrol or another migrant to find them. What the dead will never

Phoenix hunger strickers protest the deaths at the border photo: Feb 6, 2007, Francisco J. Dominguez, copyright 2007

know is exactly how much the US federal government has invested in assuring that their journey would fail. The US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), housed in the Department of Homeland Security is in the midst of implementing the Secure Border Initiative, a project estimated to end up costing $30 billion. Scheduled for completion in the next three years, the initiative is part of a larger project that has changed the face of the US-Mexico border in unprecedented ways. I recently visited the Pacific Coast in Tijuana where a twelve foot fence marking the international border juts from the beach directly into ocean waters. When I was a child, walking with my family along this very same beach, that fence didn’t exist. Now it is just one of many fences that interrupt the natural patterns of the land. The US Mexico border is the most militarized border in the world between any two countries not at war, a fact made evident by the very material the making up these border fences. In the San Diego area, the 1994 Operation Gatekeeper fence consists of steel slats originally used by the US military in Iraq during the first Gulf War. In some areas along 320 miles of the border, a second layer of fence already rises 15 feet into the air, and a third layer is planned. In areas where construction is already underway, the earth parallel to the border has been stripped of vegetation and rough canyons smoothed over into roads that Border Patrol vehicles maneuver as they monitor the areas between fences. But there’s more to this plan than just fences. All along the border, giant stadium lights aimed south light up the night. Motion sensors are imbedded into the earth, sometimes miles into

the US interior to alert the Border Patrol control room of movement. Meanwhile, cameras and night vision goggles assist in identifying what has triggered the sensors. And besides a fleet of trucks and all terrain vehicles, the Border Patrol counts on the largest law enforcement air force in the world and, by the end of this year, will have 18,000 personnel at its disposal. Eight years ago, it had half of that. The fundamental Fence extends into the ocean at the San Diego/ flaw of the CPB’s initia- Tijuana border. photo: Felicia Martinez tives is that they are working in vain against another set of US projects, namely NAFTA him. and its free-trade offspring, which have further All of this, the exchange of gunfire for impoverished Latin American countries and stone-throwing, the walls, the cameras, aircraft, induced a 400% increase in Mexican migraand motion sensors is part of a long-term plan tion alone since NAFTA’s implementation in to be able to track who is moving where at any 1994. Operation Gatekeeper (1994) militarized given time within the region. With 2,000 miles of California’s southern US–Mexico border and …potentially border with the intent of the Border Patrol’s area forcing migrants to jourof operation extending 50,000 square ney further east through 25 miles north of any miles of federal, treacherous desert terpoint of entry, potentially rain. Made on foot, often 50,000 square miles of state, tribal, and through regions so rough federal, state, tribal, and privately owned even Border Patrol ATV’s privately owned land are will not follow, the feds on their way to constant land are on their know such journeys can be government surveillance. way to constant deadly and in fact planned That in and of itself for that very danger to should be a concern for government deter people from trying to US residents. The day surveillance. cross. But it hasn’t. that I visited the Tijuana Since 1994, more than beach, peering through 4,500 people have been documented holes in the fence into the US, a helicopter with as losing their lives trying to arrive a green Border Patrol stripe appeared overhead, at their destinations in the US. This circled briefly, then retreated. I wondered how is a rate of about one death every day closely it could see me, if the agents inside know for the past fourteen years. Neverthethat my jacket was blue, that I was wearing glassless, plans for further militarization es, or that I was speaking English with my friend. proceed full speed. In 2007, a leading How much of my own taxes, I wondered, paid for manufacturer of war aircraft, Boeing, that helicopter to check on me checking out San was awarded a $67 million contract to Diego, the city of my birth. enhance surveillance infrastructure at the borGuillermo Martinez Ramirez was lucky. His der. As part of the deal, nine 98-foot spy towers death was witnessed by his brother and his funerhave been erected in rural areas south of Tucson al in Tijuana attended by his mother, a priest, and which have large visible cameras atop them and others who came to give him a proper goodbye. were intended to implement the use of radar, For those that lie off the back roads of Holtville, infrared, lasers, microwave, iris biometrics and however, things are different. It seems incongrufacial biometrics. ent that the US government, which willingly The problem with these towers? For one spends billions of dollars on a border policy that thing, they don’t work. Nevertheless, the CBP intentionally forces migrants to undertake lifecontracted a private security company to park threatening journeys, would bury its successes a guard at each tower day and night. The comlike this, inaccessible to those citizens who want pany is none other than Pinkerton Government to know if our country’s investments are paying Services, a division of the same Pinkertons made off. After all, each body buried at Holtville reprefamous by their anti-labor activities of the late sents one more person that the Border Patrol has 1800’s. worked hard to keep from living in the US, and Then there are the Border Patrol agents keep them from living it has. themselves, armed with guns, tear gas, pepper spray, and charged with stopping a movement of Felicia Martinez is a poet currently attending people propelled by international policy beyond Mills College. She has worked directly with immiany one agent’s control. The results of this set-up grants and for immigrant rights organizations. are increased incidents in which Border Patrol agents fire, sometimes across the border into Mexico, in what they say is self defense against people who attack them, often by throwing stones. Such an aggressive retaliation technique can be fatal. In January 2006 a Border Patrol agent shot 18-year-old Guillermo Martinez Ramirez as he tried to cross into San Diego in an effort to reach Fresno where he Cement rods show the 2nd layer of fence-in-progress in San Diego. had an uncle waiting for photo: Felicia Martinez

www.bpmnews.org March / April 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 

Corporate Media Censors the News What have you been missing? by Peter Phillips

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he corporate media in the US likes to US since just after the Civil War. think of themselves as the official most Additionally, under the code-name accurate news reporting Operation FALCON Our corporate of the day. The New York Times (Federal and Local Cops motto of “all the news that’s fit Organized Nationally) media in the to print” is a clear example of three federally coorpast year failed this perspective. However with dinated mass arrests corporate media coverage that occurred between April to adequately increasingly focuses on celebrity 2005 and October 2006. inform us about updates, news from “official” In an unprecedented government sources, and sensamove, more than 30,000 important tionalized crimes and disasters “fugitives” were arrested changes in our the self-justification of being the in the largest dragnets in “most fit” is no longer valid. the nation’s history. The civil rights and We need to broaden our operations, coordinated liberties. understanding of censorship in by the Justice Departthe US. The dictionary definiment and Homeland tion of direct government control of news as Security, directly involved over 960 agencensorship is no longer adequate. The private cies (state, local and federal) and are the corporate media in the US significantly under first time in US history that all of the covers and/or deliberately censors numerous domestic police agencies have been put important news stories every year. under the direct control of the federal The common theme of the most censored government. stories over the past year is the systemic erosion Finally, the term “terrorism” has been of human rights and civil liberties in both the dangerously expanded to include any acts US and the world at large. The corporate media that interfere, or promotes interference, ignored the fact that habeas corpus can now be with the operations of animal enterprises. suspended for anyone by order of the President. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act With the approval of Congress, the Military (AETA), signed into law in November 2006 Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, signed by expands the definition of an “animal enterprise” Bush in October 2006, allows for the suspension to any business that “uses or sells animals or aniof habeas corpus for US citizens and non-citizens mal products.” The law essentially defines protestalike. While media, including a lead editorial in ers, boycotters or picketers of businesses in the the New York Times October 19, 2006, have given US as terrorists. false comfort that American citizens will not be Most people in the US believe in our Bill of the victims of the measures legalized by this Act, Rights and value personal freedoms. Yet, our corthe law is quite clear that ‘any person’ can be tarporate media in the past year failed to adequately geted. The text in the MCA allows for the institu- inform us about important changes in our civil tion of a military alternative to the constitutional rights and liberties. Despite our busy lives we justice system for “any person” regardless of want to be informed about serious decisions American citizenship. The MCA effectively does made by the powerful, and rely on the corporate away with habeas corpus rights for all people media to keep us abreast of significant changes. living in the US deemed by the President to be When a media fails to cover these issues, what enemy combatants. else can we call it but censorship? A law enacted last year allowing the govA broader definition of censorship in ernment to more easily institute martial law America today needs to include any interference, is another civil liberties story ignored by the deliberate or not, with the free flow of vital news corporate media. The John Warner Defense information to the American people. With the Authorization Act of 2007 allows the president to size of the major media giants in the US, there is station military troops anywhere in the US and no excuse for consistently missing major news take control of state National Guard units withstories that affect all our lives. out the consent of the governor or local authoriPeter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at ties, in order to “suppress public disorder.” The Sonoma State University and Director of Project law in effect repealed the Posse Comitatus Act, Censored. Censored 2008 (Seven Stories Press) which had placed strict prohibitions on military is available in bookstores or at www.projectceninvolvement in domestic law enforcement in the sored.org.

Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture www.bitchmagazine.org Magazine devoted to commentary on media-driven world. Bust www.bust.com Magazine calling itself “fierce, funny and proud to be female.” Feminista! www.feminista.com Online journal of feminist essays, editorials, fiction, poetry, interviews and reviews. Minnesota Women’s Press www.womenspress.com Newspaper on issues and events affecting women’s lives. Ms. www.msmagazine.com Magazine with women’s perspectives on culture and public policy. New Moon:A Magazine for Girls and their Dreams www.newmoon.org/magazine Magazine for girls who want their voices heard.

Sex Education from page 1

You might feel confident that your local school would never teach factually inaccurate, biased information in their sex education program. Since California law (set by SB 71 of 2003) rejects abstinence-only instruction for scientifically supported comprehensive sex education, you might assume that all public schools comply with the law; however, this is not the case. Inaccurate abstinence-only education is being taught in many schools across California, and one of them may be yours. Many of these schools will not change their programs without active oversight from parents and the community. For more information, including a Sex Education Report Card you can use to evaluate the curriculum being taught in your local high school, contact sacramentopa@ppmarmonte. org. For more information and resources for parents and teens, call the Facts of Life Line at 1-800-711-9848. Katharyn McLearan is Director of Public Affairs for Mar Monte Planned Parenthood.

Women in Media and News Resource Guide

Off Our Backs www.offourbacks.org Monthly news journal by, for and about women. Teen Voices www.teenvoices.com Magazine by, for and about teenagers and young adult women. Women’s eNews www.womensenews.org Online news service covers women’s perspectives on public policy. Women’s Review of Books www.wcwonline.org/womensreview Magazine offers informed discussion of writing by and about women. Women’s Wire www.womenswire.net International online magazine funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund. Schools will not change their programs without active oversight from parents and the community. photo courtesy Planned Parenthood Mar Monte

World Pulse Magazine www.worldpulsemagazine.com Magazine/online publication dedicated to leadership of women and youth.

10 Because People Matter March / April 2008 www.bpmnews.org

We Are Done Killing for Lies A Marine corporal speaks out by Matt Howard

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n 2003 I illegally invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq with 1st Tank battalion 1st Marine Division. My commander in chief unleashed the world’s fiercest fighting force upon the country and people of Iraq, and now those of us used and betrayed by him are demanding justice. Four and a half years after our opening “shock and awe” Bush’s lies are known throughout the world, and yet he continues to act with impunity. Four and a half years later the Bush regime has unleashed a hell upon the country of Iraq that only those who have been there can truly understand. As a two-tour combat veteran of this brutal war, I have a responsibility to speak honestly and openly about what has been done and what continues to be done in our name. We veterans know that this war is not the one being sanitized on the nightly news. It has nothing to do with the liberation of the people of Iraq; instead it has everything to do with the subjugation and domination of these people in the name of US imperial economic and strategic interests. We did not go to war with the country of Iraq, we went to war with the people of Iraq. During the initial invasion we killed women. We killed children. We senselessly killed farm animals. We were the United States Marine Corps, not the Peace Corps, and we left a swath of death and destruction in our wake all the way to Baghdad. Let me say again so that there is no misunderstanding. I stand here today as a former US Marine saying we are killing women and children in Iraq. This is the true nature of war. War lends itself to atrocities. Don’t think you can use an organization designed to kill other human beings for anything humanitarian. That has never been our mission. That was crystal clear from the moment I was forced to bury the crate of human-

itarian food given to me in Kuwait. Four and a half years later we as soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are done. We are done being told under threat of court martial to run over children that get in the way of our speeding convoys. We are done raiding and destroying the homes of innocent Iraqis on a nightly basis. We are done abusing and torturing prisoners. We are done being hired thugs for the 160,000 contractors and US corporate interests in Iraq. We are done being poisoned by depleted uranium, the unspoken Agent Orange of this war. We are done coming home broken, from two, three, four tours of duty—only to find our commander in chief has actually tried to cut funding to the Department of Veterans Affairs. To find our doctors being told to diagnose us with preexisting personality disorders instead of post traumatic stress syndrome. We are done killing for lies. So Iraq Veterans Against the War is taking back our history—the history that has been robbed from us. We are dispelling the myth that the Vietnam War ended when the Democrats started voting against it. Instead we are spreading the truth about how the American War in Vietnam ended. The Vietnam War ended when soldiers put down their weapons and refused to fight; when pilots dropped their bombs in the ocean. We are re-educating the public to let them know that the power ultimately lies with the people. Just take a look at the thousands of pages of internal documents from the Department of Defense explicitly detailing how at the end of the Vietnam War the military had collapsed. It was literally in a state of mutiny. And that movement is slowly starting again. Because ultimately in every war waged throughout human history, those forced to fight quickly realize they have much more in common with those they are being told to kill than with those telling them to

Antigone Antigone

By Sophocles In a version by Bertolt Brecht Directed by Frank Condon

 



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An Inept Ruler An Unpopular War A Woman Defiant

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do the killing. And we are re-educating the public about the true nature of sectarian violence. No, the Middle East is not inherently violent. In fact, in the 1,400-year schism between Sunnis and Shias—there has never been a civil war fought. They have always lived in the same neighborhoods and even intermarried. The US has caused this civil war using the classic colonial techniques of divide and conquer. George Bush is a war criminal who has violated international law, the Geneva convention and the Nuremburg standards and needs to tried accordingly for crimes against humanity. I ask every red-blooded American today: What would you do if your homeland was savagely invaded and occupied by another country? The Iraqis will continue to resist and fight until the last American has left their homeland. Period. End the violence in Iraq? End the occupation. We veterans are speaking out to stop the violence being perpetrated in our name. When we voted in the Democrats on an anti-war mandate, the Bush regime expanded the war. As we are marching against further occupation, the Bush regime is making threats against Iran. And we will not continue to be silenced by the mainstream media. Top generals and bottom privates are all speaking in unison now. We know the truth about the slaughter of upwards of one million Iraqis. Why is no one listening? We will not stand by as this regime tricks the country into thinking that if you oppose the war you do not support the troops. We are the troops and we have never felt support from this administration. Stop mindlessly supporting the troops. Start demanding that we come home—and maybe think about apologizing to us when we get back. Matt Howard gave this statement at a recent protest at the Vermont Statehouse. He attained the rank of corporal in the United States Marine Corps and heads Vermont’s chapter for Iraq Veterans Against the War.

The God of War The God of War is a hungry god. He eats up human hearts. He bites off heads and arms and legs and wolfs down other parts. He gnaws on bones. Their marrow makes some very tasty dishes. and, most of all, the brains, he finds exceedingly delicious. The generals and the presidents, he invites to drink a toast. With goblets made of human skulls, they eulogize their host. Instead of wine, these cups are filled with blood from human young. Butchered by errant shells and bombs, they leave their songs unsung. Young men, of course, are sacrificed upon War’s sacred altar. They follow blindly where he leads. They dare not ever falter. Yet women, too, give up their hearts to satisfy his lust. For even Cupid shoots his darts. “In the God of War we trust.” Once War begins, a Peace will then become shameful defeat. The weapons-makers pay their bribes and kiss the great god’s feet. The God of War will rule on earth until that happy hour when bloody war no longer brings our leaders wealth and power. Jim Michael

www.bpmnews.org March / April 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 11

Book Review The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Hardcover, 496 pages, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Aug 27, 2007). ponent of the lobbying community whereas others self-censor because they are no fonder of the Israel Lobby’s protests and smears when they go off message, than politicians. That the tiny pro-Israel community in the US is disproportionately influential is long acknowledged. In the 1940s and 50s, it was Most reviews of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign referred to as “the Jewish vote,” or the “the ethnic Policy have discussed the Israel Lobby compovote.” By the 1960s, it was simply called “domesnent of this book and are silent about the much tic political considerations.” Today, one of the more important part, i.e., that the “special relamajor players, the American Israel Public Affairs tionship” between the United States and Israel Committee (AIPAC) both boasts of its lobbyis a “strategic liability” for the US. It not only ing success and denies it plays any role at all. jeopardizes US national security, makes us more Nonetheless, the two authors have been pilloried vulnerable, straight-jackets US foreign policy, by the US press and think tank talking heads for but is a relationship most writing about the Israel Americans (including Lobby and how it does [The Lobby] forced most Jewish Americans) business. do not support. Over the last 60 years, Congressman Obey of Two professors with only once did a US presiWisconsin to withdraw dent successfully defy the impeccable credentials (John Mearsheimer is coIsrael Lobby: President a provision that Bush director of the University Eisenhower, after Suez, in needed Congressional 1956. Every other time, of Chicago’s Program on International Security and either the US president approval before any Stephen Walt is political caved or the Lobby did attack on Iran. science professor and an end run around him former academic dean of by getting Congress to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard) do what it wanted. The current President Bush’s wrote a courteous, meticulously sourced (105 White House is full of pro-Israel neo-cons. pages of notes) book about the Israel Lobby and AIPAC booed Nancy Pelosi when she suggested how it influences US foreign policy. The authors a troop pullback from Iraq and it forced Conrepeatedly defend the right of the Israel Lobby to gressman David Obey of Wisconsin to withdraw try to influence US policy, but conclude that what a provision that President Bush needed Congresthat lobby activity yields, is a US foreign policy sional approval before any attack on Iran. (The which hurts the US. Israel Lobby is intent on the US attacking Iran.) The authors use the term Israel Lobby to refer US aid in the form of grants and (forgiven) to the “pro-Israel community,” which consists loans—which Israel insists be paid Euros not of hundreds of organizations and thousands of weak dollars—pump up Israel’s economy. The individuals who are single-mindedly determined, US gives Israel the latest US weapons systems. totally committed, exceedingly well-funded, and Every time Israel attacks its neighbors or coma model of coordination. This community knows mits war crimes against the Palestinians, the how to use the US political system to advance US government vetoes any censure attempt in its goals: to perpetuate and intensify the US govthe UN Security Council. (Most US vetoes have ernment’s “special relationship” with Israel, and been to protect Israel.) Then US tax dollars help to silence any voices critical of this relationship. rebuild what Israel has bombed. The Congress Silencing is directed at all aspects of US society, terms Israel’s actions “defensive” because it’s not just politics. Some media are an active comillegal to send US weapons to aggressors. The US

The US-Israel “special relationship” makes the US less safe.

by Brigitte Jaensch

is OK with Israel having nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, but claimed it attacked Iraq because it might have had them, and is threatening Iran. We pay big money, use obviously double standards, and shred our values for a relationship which makes us more vulnerable and tarnishes our image throughout the world. Bottom line: US taxpayers have paid Israel hundreds of billions of dollars* and that relationship makes us less safe and underscores the inconsistency between our values and our support for illegalities whenever Israel is the actor. To stay in power, US politicians listen when the Israel Lobby speaks, knowing more obedient replacements are always at the ready. The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy is an engrossing read, particularly in an election year. * Exact figures are difficult to pin down because of the many categories through which “aid” flows. The lowest is $3 billion per year. But whenever Israel does anything, they get more “aid.” For example they “store” weapons for the US—which store was replenished and enhanced after the Lebanon war. In other words, our weapons store is used by them whenever they want. When the +/- 8000 Israeli settlers were pulled out of Gaza or when immigrants come from other countries, the US pays relocation money. Joint research projects are usually funded with US dollars, etc. The US shares intelligence that the US pays for. Brigitte Jaensch is a Sacramento-based human rights advocate.

Nuclear Power: No Solution from p. 3

nuclear plants. The latest 2007 energy bill has more of the same. New nuclear power plants are going to go up around the world. The US, China, France, Japan, Iran, India, Pakistan, England, Finland, Russia, Germany, Brazil and other modernizing countries are planning to build a new generation of nukes. Iran has plans for 18 new nuclear power plants. As plants are built in more countries, nuclear weapons proliferation will likely expand into previously non-nuclear countries. Governments will seek more repressive laws and tighter security arrangements to make sure the plants do not become targets for terrorists. The US gets 20% of its energy from nukes and operates 103 nuclear power reactors, or a quarter of the 440 plants worldwide. The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada has been under development for more than 30 years. Construction has been frozen since 1997. A fivemile tunnel was drilled 10 years ago. If it opens, approximately 77,000 tons of nuclear waste would travel through this tunnel to chambers 1,000 feet below the ridgeline. In a January 18, 2008, editorial on the Yucca nuclear waste site, USA Today condemned Democratic presidential candidates for their opposition to the site, stating: “Opposing Yucca won’t strangle nuclear power, which appears poised for a rebirth.” Nevertheless, no “safe and clean” solution to nuclear waste has been found. France gets close to 80% of its energy from

its aging nuclear power plants, and reprocesses 95 % of its waste. It has no idea where to store the remainder, “the worst of the worst.” It has considered dumping it in the oceans, but has encountered opposition from the Polynesians. England’s Sellafield nuclear complex discharged all kinds of radioactive nuke waste and a quarter to a half ton of plutonium into the Irish Sea, stirring up controversy until they were banned from doing so in 1983. Greenpeace discovered the discharge as divers were trying to plug a main discharge pipe. Sellafield and the surrounding areas have higher than normal childhood cancer rates. Finally, a Greenpeace study following 9/11indicated that an air-born terrorist attack on the Sellafield nuclear complex in England could kill over three million people. Countries with nuclear power plants and huge nuclear weapons complexes, such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, are creating a toxic mess that will plague human and non-human life for thousands of years. But will it really be a plutonium paradise? I say no—not so fast with nuclear power! Rick Nadeau, a former director of Greenpeace Action in San Diego, now lives in Sacramento and is on the editorial board of Because People Matter.

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12 Because People Matter March / April 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Sacramento Area Peace Action

Banking on Destruction

Tax dollars going down the weapons drain

Sacramento Soapbox

by Anie Wilson

Progressive Talk Show Access Sacramento, Channel 17 with Jeanie Keltner. Monday, 8pm, Tuesday noon, Wednesday, 4am. Now in Davis, Channel 15, Tuesday, 7pm.

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Most of us are appalled at the billions of dollars funding the military occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Equally appalling is the amount of money funneled into weapons Research and Development. Not only are we funding the ongoing research and development of modern nuclear weapons to replace our “outdated” arsenal, or the typical tanks, aircraft, unmanned drones, missiles, and munitions, but we are funding outrageous “fringe science” experiments. Research projects include microwave technology used to penetrate skin and make people feel like they are on fire; invisible, shoot-through, self-healing shields for soldiers in urban battlefields; speaker systems that beam messages to one person; and new applications for chemical and biological agents. Two primary Research and Development focuses are urban warfare and neuroscience, including use of “magnetic stimulation to keep soldiers in battle awake for days while preserving their cognitive function.” Much of this research is being conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which claims it is the “technological engine” for the Department of Defense. DARPA created many of the unmanned drones and command and control systems being used in Iraq. Other key partners in research include public and private universities. Showcasing some of this technology is the Discovery Channel’s program Futureweapons. Now in its third season, the show has featured stun weaponry, kinetic energy weapons, electromagnetic pulse weapons, sound weapons, advanced deadly munitions, portable lightning and other weapons designed for urban warfare. If that weren’t chilling enough, one episode titled the “Israeli Special” touts cutting-edge weapons under design for the Israeli Defense Forces. It comes as no surprise that Bush’s proposed $3.1 trillion budget pours more money down the military drain while social programs that meet real life security needs continue to be shortchanged.

Get Involved: Leaflet at the California Capitol Airshow March 15/16; demand an end to 5 years of Iraqi occupation on March 19; and participate in local Tax Day actions in April. For more info: Sacramento Area Peace Action: sacpeace@dcn. org, 916-448-7157. Check the peace & justice calendar at sacpeace.org. Call Congress weekly 202-224-3121 or toll free 800 828-0498, 800 614 2803 or 866 340 9281 and demand an end to the US occupation of Iraq and the militarism of our foreign and domestic policies.

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800 394 9544

The War, the Elections, the Top Dem Donors Neither Democratic candidate will end the war

by Richard Becker

calling for an end to the war. On the other hand, they must assure the ruling class that they will be trustworthy protectors of US capitalism’s vital interests in the Middle East. Only dutiful managers for the capitalists can become presidents.

With the Republican candidates offering nothing but more of the same pro-rich, pro-war policies, many are placing their hopes on the Democrats to improve conditions for workers and to end the Not a ‘party of the people’ war on Iraq. But the Democrats are also beholden The same concept is applied to all major to US corporate interests. issues in every election campaign. The RepubWith respect to foreign policy, a glance at the licans openly represent the big money interests, teams assembled by Clinton and Obama indiwhile the Democrats pose as the “party of the cates anything but “change.” people.” At the leadership level both represent Hillary Clinton’s top advisors include Madthe interest of empire. Corporate America fully eleine Albright, President Clinton’s second-term appreciates that fact. secretary of state, and Samuel Berger, his national A 2007 study by the Center for Responsive security advisor. Albright and Berger were Politics revealed that the top 10 corporate caminvolved centrally in maintaining the genocidal paign contributors are giving more money to sanctions that killed more than one million Iraqis Democrats than Republicans. Goldman Sachs, a from 1990 to 2003. They also played key roles in major Wall Street firm, donated 71% of its money the 1999 US-NATO war against Yugoslavia, as this year to the Democrats. did Gen. Wesley Clark, another Hillary Clinton Among Hillary Clinton’s top 20 contributors advisor. Barack Obama’s advisors include such infamous characters as Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security advisor and architect of the counterrevolutionary war against Afghanistan. Brzezinski described the US machinations: “That secret operation—arming the fighters who later became AlQaida—was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap. … The day the Soviets Image from photobucket.com officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR are Citigroup, Viacom, Morgan Stanley, Merrill its Vietnam War.’” (La Nouvelle Observateur, Lynch, Ken Starr’s former law firm Kirkland & 01-15-98). Ellis, and major subprime lender Bear Stearns. Also on the Obama team is Richard Clarke, Obama’s list includes Goldman Sachs and Lehm“counter-terrorism czar” for both Bill Clinton an brothers. Democratic Speaker of the House and George W. Bush., and Dennis Ross, Clinton’s Nancy Pelosi gets 62.5 % of her money from ardently pro-Israel Middle East “negotiator.” business Political Action Committees. Throughout history, it has not been the govNot going to stop the war ernment that has created the political climate for One of the biggest issues in the campaign is major social changes. From the labor movement the war in Iraq, now opposed by more than 70% to the women’s movement, to the civil rights of the US population according to public opinion and Black liberation movements of the 1960s polls. The Democratic candidates pay lip service and 70s, substantial gains have been won by to ending the war. In a fall 2007 campaign debate, struggles from below. The mass movements crehowever, their real positions were revealed. ated a situation in which many politicians were Clinton and Obama both refused to guaranforced to grant concessions to alleviate social tee that they would remove all US combat troops pressure. That was especially true of the Vietnam from Iraq by the end of the next presidential War—which was largely prosecuted by Demoterm—2013. Why? The imperialist ruling circles, cratic presidents. as the leading Democrats and Republicans are Real hope lies in building a powerful people’s well aware, have no intention of leaving Iraq. The movement—independent of the capitalist parlargest embassy ever built in any country is now ties—that demands social change at home and under construction in Baghdad. Fourteen perma- stands in solidarity with those who are resisting nent US military bases are being built in Iraq. imperialism abroad. Iraq is viewed by US leaders as an incredibly Richard Becker, activist, author, lecturer is valuable prize that they have conquered, and a co-founder of the ANSWER Coalition (www. key element in their strategy of global dominaactionsf.org) which is co-sponsoring the March tion. They will not leave until they are forced out. 19 No Business as Usual march & rally at the On the one hand, Clinton and Obama must Civic Center in San Francisco on the 5th anniverappeal to majority sentiment by rhetorically sary of the US invasion of Iraq.

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].

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

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

www.bpmnews.org March / April 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 13

The New Capitalism

Exploiting war and disaster for tax dollars

by Paolo Bassi

C

apitalism in its pure form as envisioned by Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations, adopted godfather of capitalism, means risky, brutal competition. For Smith, there should be no outside interference, such as government subsidies, and certainly no no-bid contracts to distort the pure market. Pure capitalism should have no guarantees. The capitalist must sink or swim within the existing legal and economic structure. However, guarantees and lack of competition are exactly what large capitalists want. Private contracts are well and good but the real killing for large corporations is in doing business with the richest client around—the state itself, sitting atop the national treasury. Free market ideologues vehemently oppose “large government” but only when that government intervenes for the benefit of ordinary people. A powerful, large government is exactly what the corporations want to ensure their continued profits and social power. The paradox of the US is that while capitalism is imposed on the people, a form of corporate welfarism operates to benefit the wealthy. This corporate welfarism means that what the corporations want, Washington delivers: lower taxes, export subsidies, weak unions and access to publicly funded research and develop-

contracts. According to the Guardian, a British ment and the untrammeled right to move jobs newspaper, since 2000 about $130 billion in abroad to exploit cheap foreign labor. With the homeland security contracts have been awarded. help of the corporate media, all this has been This does not include private contracts awarded achieved with no national outcry or violence. after Hurricane Katrina. However, this is not enough state-run services … if the military, suchOther for the corporations for there as prisons are being rapis nothing as intoxicating as idly privatized. Just like the security and brand new markets. The real military industrial complex, a prisons can be prize seems to have become state massive prison industry comservices—the state after all is plex has formed, in which a few contracted out, still the richest and most reliable profit from crime what is safe from corporations entity to do business with. The and incarceration. most blatant example of the state The troubling question is privatization? outsourcing itself is the current that if the military, security and privatization of war and disaster—a task made prisons can be contracted out, what is safe from easier by the manipulation of fear following 9/11. privatization? In Iraq, Blackwater, a secretive corporaIn the near future, what will stop the tion with well-connected right-wing managegovernment from privatizing the entire public ment provides mercenaries to the US army at a school system, freeways, bridges or fire services? cost several times the ordinary soldier’s salary. Is it possible fire engines will only come to your Infamous Blackwater is only the tip of the icefire if you have private insurance? Worse still, berg. There are hundreds of contractors taking could police functions be placed in the hands of advantage of Iraq—all at the expense of the US private corporations? taxpayer. With so much public money floating After Katrina, Blackwater patrolled the about, corruption is rife. The government itself streets of New Orleans with drawn guns. It is admits tens of billions are unaccounted for and entirely possible they could be tomorrow’s priuntraceable. vate police all over America. Likewise, after 9/11 US homeland security Whether the future will be as drastic as this spawned a massive industry, complete with remains to be seen, but one thing is clear, we its own army of lobbyists and ex-government are entering a new and dangerous phase in the officials ensuring access to lucrative government development of a corporatist state.

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

www.sacpeace.org.

‘Old Boys Network’

Women confined to pink media ghetto

by Jennifer L. Pozner

A

sk a feminist to identify the most important issue facing women today, and chances are she wouldn’t immediately point to the media. But she should. Corporate media is key to why our fastmoving culture is so slow to change, stereotypes are so stubborn, and the power structure so entrenched. By determining who can and cannot speak, which issues are discussed and how they are framed, media have the power to maintain the status quo or challenge the dominant order. Without accurate, non-biased news coverage and challenging, creative cultural expression it is virtually impossible to significantly move public opinion of social justice issues and create lasting change. And how have media used this power where women’s rights are concerned? With a vengeance. From the earliest days of the women’s movement media have branded feminism “a hair-raising emotional orgy of hatred” led by “freaks…incapable of coming to terms with their own natures as females” (Esquire, 1971), a “passing fad” (New York Times, 1972), and a “lost cause” (Vogue, 1983), a “failure” (Newsweek, 1990) and a “dead” movement overrun by “a whole lot of stylish fluff ” (Time, 1998). By the late 1990s news outlets from NBC to PBS portrayed feminists as waging unjust “sex wars” and heralding a “gender Armageddon.” And by the turn of the millennium Men’s Health magazine reported that “militant,” “hostile” young feminists are oppressing men on college campuses by insisting on strong sexual assault policies and women’s studies programs. Today, similar sentiments span outlets from the liberal Atlantic Monthly to the conservative Fox News Network. This antifeminist hostility can be felt in coverage of topics editors narrowly define as “women’s issues” (rape, abortion, child care), where stereotypes are invoked and perpetuated. Take the ways in which sexual violence is sensationalized and used to scare women into sexual and social conformity. Victim-blaming is still prevalent: “What responsibility, if any, did the women have for what happened…?” asked Dateline NBC after dozens of women were sexually assaulted in Central Park in June 2000.

Then there are the endless, frightening head- protects the financial interests of media adverlines about attempted rapists on the loose. Since tisers, investors and parent companies, while sexual predators don’t just get bored mid-attack, denying the public information that might make behind every story about an attempted rape is us question our personal consumer decisions or the reality that some woman did something to collectively challenge corporate exploitation. get away. So, why no triumphant headlines about If it is clear that women have a serious stake women fighting back, fending in media coverage, it is equal…global trade off their assailants? ly important to recognize A similar framing probstories are told from that biased content is the end lem persists in coverage of result of a much larger instithe perspective abortion, media’s favorite tutional problem—a media hot-button “women’s issue.” system structured in favor of of transnational Consider how reluctant media advertisers and owners rather corporations, not have been to label shootings, than citizens seeking informafire bombings, death threats the female workers tion and entertainment; a and other politically-motivatsystem motivated by profit, who suffer labor ed violence against abortion not the public interest. providers as “terrorism.” We are at a crucial and human rights Only after Sept. 11, when moment for the media indusabuses daily. newscasters received letters try. The deregulatory strucclaiming to be laced with ture favored by big media anthrax, did mainstream media finally “discover” and its favorite lap-dog, former Federal Comthe story—reported over the past decade in the munications Commission Chair Michael Powell, women’s and alternative press—that anti-aborpaved the way for the tightest convergence of tion terrorists have subjected women’s health media power we have ever seen in this country, advocates and clinics to a regular campaign of threatening to subvert women’s and public interanthrax threats and violent—even fatal—crime est voices more thoroughly than ever. Powell was for many frightening years (with more than 500 recently replaced by Kevin J. Martin. such letters arriving pre-9/11). We have two choices: we can sit back and When issues fall outside journalists’ pink wait until all our news is filtered through the lens ghetto yet implicitly affect women’s survival of MSNBC-NNBCBSABCFOXAOLWB, Inc—or (global trade, affairs of state, war), gender is we can work for progressive feminist media rarely used as a lens for analysis. reform. For example, poll data following Sept. 11 Jennifer L. Pozner is founder of Women In showed women to be more moderate than men Media & News, a women’s media monitoring, in their views about war. Yet corporate media training and outreach organization. www.wimpresented a misleading picture of a flag-wavnonline.org/. ing populace united behind the Bush push for military retaliation. Because women were nearly invisible as sources, experts and pundits in news debates, this notion went virtually unchallenged—helping the administration drum up support for an unending “war on terror.” Similarly, though women and children are 90 percent of the world’s sweatshop workers, editors almost never frame international economics as a “women’s issue.” Instead, global trade stories are told from the perspective of transnational corporations, not the female workers who suffer labor and human rights abuses daily in overseas and domestic sweatshops. This pro-business bias

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14 Because People Matter March / April 2008 www.bpmnews.org

Torture and Social Control

the scope of action for Palestinian lawyers. Control.” In it, he describes the East Asian game These Israeli military courts operate “Go” where you “win” not by defeating but by throughout the territories under “Military immobilzing your opponent by controlling key Order #378”. Interrogation techniques like those points of the matrix. It should be required readdescribed above began to be used, as well as ing for all of us who work for peace with justice Israel’s treatment of Palestinian “confinement in tiny cells/closets, in the Holy Land. And it strikes me Jim Ron… forcing the body to adopt painful and that AIPAC (See book review, p 11) prisoners charges that could be called a matrix of control unnatural postures, for long periods of time (arms tied behind legs, legs terms of its influence on Congress “torture is in tied up to buttocks), pulling out body and the press. Our task is to apprise the linchmprisonment has been one of the key stratehair, deprivation of sleep, food, and others of AIPAC’s unacceptable supgies of Israeli control of Palestinian civilians, medical care, beating and kicking the port for an apartheid Israel, and the pin of the and since 1967 more than a half million have body with particular emphasis on the practice of torture on civilians. These occupation.” are hardly Judaism’s core values. been prosecuted through military courts. We genitals, scalding the body with hot read vague references to Palestinwater, asphyxiation, use of Israeli Knesset member Avraham ians imprisoned by Israel, but the electric shocks, prolonged exposure Burg writes: “what is needed is a new vision of situation is a mystery to the average to extreme temperatures, and threats a just society…. Nor is this merely an internal American. Though torture has been against the well-being, or life of Israeli affair. Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a constantly in the news, from Abu family members and the detainee” central pillar must pay heed and speak out…. The Graib to Guantanamo, most of us are (information from Al Haq, West Jewish people did not survive for 2 millennia in ignorant of what constitutes torture. Bank affiliate of Geneva-based Inter- order to pioneer weaponry, computer security John Conway’s book, Unspeaknational Commission of Jurists). programs or anti-missile missiles.” able Acts, Ordinary People: The B’tselem, Israeli Information However, the US has recently upped military Dynamics of Torture, describes the Center for Human Rights in the aid to Israel, offering an unprecedented $30 “Kindergarten Chair” five techniques which constitute a occupied territories, confirmed these billion over the next 10 years. “We are going (n Arabic, the shabeh “scientific combination of tortures”: position) torture practices. Also America’s to stand up for our friends,” said the US State 1) Hooding to contribute to a sense Illustration by Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch published Department spokesman. US’s unconditional aid of isolation and disorientation, and “Israel’s Interrogation of Palestinenables Israel to continue abusing Palestinian to mask the torturers’ identities. 2) Increasingly ians from the Occupied Territories” by Jim Ron, rights with impunity, deepening regional hostiliintense noise, such as compressed air escaping, who charges that “torture is the linch-pin of the ties, and distancing peace. There is no end in for up to a week. 3) Food and water deprivation. occupation.” sight to Palestinian prisoners’ torture by their 4) Sleep deprivation. 5) Spread-eagle position at According to the Washington Report of Israeli jailers. a wall. Denied toilet access, prisoners urinate and Middle East Affairs (Jan/Feb 2008), since 1967, Mary Bisharat is a human rights activist and defecate on themselves. In combination, these Israel has arrested and incarcerated over 755,000 retired social worker in Sacramento. five actions induce psychosis, a temporary madPalestinians, including 98,000 children under 18 ness with long-lasting after-effects. and 10,000 women. From January to November Israel bases its systemized torture and rights 2007, 3,750 Palestinians were arrested. Curviolations of Palestinians on the 1945 British rently 10,400 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, Defense Regulations, but those regulations were experiencing obstacles that systematically erode revoked by British authorities before withdrawdetainees’ right to legal representation, a serious MLK inspires us again ing from Palestine in 1948. After Israel’s 1967 violation of international law. preemptive war against its Arab neighbors, it Israeli professor Jeff Halper has written occupied what remained of mandatory Palestine a brilliant essay on Israel’s domination of the and set up military court system which narrows Palestinians called “Dismantling The Matrix of When Martin Luther King received the Nobel Prize in 1964, the United States was deep into its genocidal war against the people of Vietnam, so far the worst in a seemingly mindless, compulsively imperialistic series of military intervendestroyed Iraq and Afghanistan. Once again, our tions around the world. country needs Winter Soldiers. In our darkness today, some of us may look This spring (March 13-16, 2008), Iraq Vetback on those days as almost innocent compared erans Against the War (IVAW) will assemble in to the monstrous banalities of our present clique Reveal true nature of war Washington DC a large gathering of US veterans of desk murderers, and our own seeming impoof Iraq and Afghanistan to reveal the reality of tence to anything about them. the US occupation. US veterans as well as Iraqi King, however, had the vision and courage In 1971, over one hundred members of and Afghan survivors will provide eyewitness to resist despair, and the courage and faith to Vietnam Veterans Against accounts in a public testimoembrace the world as it is: a world struggling Winter Soldiers, the War gathered in Detroit nial called “Winter Soldier: to transcend Western “civilization” and bring to share their stories with Iraq and Afghanistan.” to birth a truly civilized world. He graciously according to America. Atrocities like the Winter Soldier is asking accepted the peace award from the masters of founding father My Lai massacre had ignited that from March 13-16, the war, washed the cheek he had turned, and went popular opposition to the war, larger anti-war movement call on to develop his comprehensive view of what Thomas Paine, are no national mobilizations and had to be done. For this he was murdered. but political and military leadthose who stand up that there be no local protests. ers insisted that such crimes Americans have yet to organize around his were isolated exceptions. The Hearings may be televised on vision, but we can take heart from what he said in for the soul of their Access Sacramento (Comcast his acceptance speech: “When our days become members of VVAW knew difcountry, even in its ch17,18) or on KVIE. (Call ferently. Over three days in dreary with the low-hovering clouds, and our January, soldiers testified on them and ask when hearings nights become darker than a thousand middarkest hours. the systematic brutality they are on. nights, we will know that we are living in the crewitnessed in Vietnam. KVIE: 916-929-5843, or toll-free: ative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling Now we are faced with a new war. The lies 800-347-5843 to be born. In face of adversity, we must muster are the same. Once again, American troops are Access Sacramento: (916) 456-8600 or our reserves of courage, remain faithful to our sinking into an increasingly bloody occupation. [email protected]. calling and strengthen one another, and continue Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, For more info: Winter Soldier: Iraq and the brick by brick building of a society based on Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public Afghanistan. www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier. peace. If we do so, we to will win.” against the war. Once again, politicians and Add your name to the 4041 people who have Murray Cohen is a retired teacher interested generals are blaming “a few bad apples” instead signed the Statement of Support: www.ivaw. in issues of peace and social justice. of examining the military policies that have org/wintersoldierstatementofsupport.

by Mary Bisharat

I

Keeping on keeping on by Murray Cohen

Iraq “Winter Soldiers” Testify by Rick Nadeau

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www.bpmnews.org March / April 2008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 15

March / April Calendar ONGOING EVENTS 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. M onday S : Sacramento Media Group. 6–8pm. Coloma Community Center, 4623 T Street. INFO: 443-1792, [email protected]. 3rd MONDAYS: Capitol Outreach for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty. 12 noon–1pm, 11th & L Street. INFO: 455-1796. 3r d MONDAYS: SAPA Peace and Sustainability Committee. 6–8pm. INFO: Peace Action, 448-7157. 3rd MONDAYS: Sacto 9/11 Truth:Questioning the “War on Terror.” 6– 8pm. Denny’s 3rd & J St. Info: sac911truth@gmail. com 372-8433. 3rd MONDAYS: Lesbian Cancer Support Group. 6:30 Bring partners or support people with you. Open discussions with everyone. INFO: Roxanne Hardenberg; ROXANNE1040@ aol.com. 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. $5.00, first time free. INFO: Damion, 916-8214533, [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. 4th TUESDAYS: Peace and Justice Films. 7pm. Peace Action, 909 12th Street. INFO:448-7157. 4th TUESDAYS: (Odd numbered months) Amnesty Int’l. 7pm. Sacramento Friends Meeting, 89057th St. INFO: 489-2419. 1st WEDNESDAYS: Peace & Freedom Party. 7pm. INFO: 456-4595. 3r d WEDNESDAYS: CAAC Goes to the Movies. 7:15pm. INFO: 4463304. THURSDAYS:Daddy’sHere. 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, quirky movies and videos. 7pm. 600 4th St, West Sac. INFO: www.shiny-object. com/screenings/. 1st FRIDAYS: Community Contra Dance. 8–11pm; 7:30pm beginners lessons. Clunie Auditorium, McKinley Pk, Alhambra & F. INFO: 530-274-9551 2nd FRIDAYS: Dances of Universal Peace. 7:30– 9:30pm. Sacr amento Friends Meeting House 890 57th St. $5–$10 donation requested. INFO: Joyce, www.sacramentodancesofuniversalpeace. org, 916-832-4630. 4th FRIDAYS: Dances at Christ Unity Church, 9249

Folsom Blvd. All Welcome $5–$10 donation requested. INFO: Christine 4575855, www.sacramentodancesofuniversalpeace. org 1st SATURDAYS: Health Care for All. 10:30am. Hart Senior Ctr, 27th & J. For universal access to health care. INFO: 916424-5316; cnegrete@ comcast.net. 1st SATURDAYS: Sacramento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm. Arden and Heritage (entrance to Arden Mall). INFO: 448-7157 2nd & 4th SATURDAYS: Community Contra Dance. 8–11pm; 7:30 lessons. Coloma Center 4623 T Street. INFO: 395-3483. 3rd SATURDAYS: Sacramento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm. Marconi & Fulton. INFO: 448-7157 3rd Saturdays: Underground Poetr y Series, open mic plus featured poets. 7–9pm Underground 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 Freethinkers. 2:30pm. Sierra 2 Center, Room 10, 2791 24th St. INFO: 447-3589.

Send calendar items for the May / June 2008 issue to bpmnews@ nicetechnology.com by April 10, 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. Price. INFO: phone#; e-mail. For up-to-date online calendars of progressive events, go to www.sacpeace.org. or www.sacleft.org

COMMUNITY CALENDAR Tuesday, March 11

Meeting. Gray Panthers Sacramento. “SAVING CALIFORNIA’S GOLDEN YEARS: New Standard for Measuring Seniors’ Needs.” Speaker: Susie Smith, Director, Californians for Family Economic Self-Sufficiency. 1-3pm. Hart Senior Center, 27th and J Streets. INFO: 332-5980.

Monday, March 31

Poetry reading. Hosted by Frank Dixon Graham, anti-war poet and peace activist . 7:30pm. Sacramento Poetry Center: HQ for the Arts 1719 25th St. INFO: 606-4303.

Saturday, April 5

Sacramento 9/11 Truth Demonstration, in conjunction with Sacramento Area Peace Action. 4-6pm. 16th & J Sts. INFO: www.truthaction. org, 916-372-8433.

Speakers Bureau Training, to become a better advocate and speaker for SB 840! Sponsored by Health Care For All Sacramento Valley. 9:30am–3pm. Hart Senior Center, 915 27th St. Registration fee $15 requested. INFO: Carolyn Negrete, (916) 424-5316.

Monday, March 17

Friday, April 11

Tuesday, March 11

Meeting. Sacramento 9/11 Truth: Questioning the War on Terror. 6-8pm. Denny’s meeting room - 3rd/J Sts. INFO: 372-8433.

Wednesday, March 19

Five Years is Too Many: Demonstration to demand an End to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Bring signs. 4:30-6pm. Howe & Fair Oaks Blvd. INFO: 481-6122.

Wednesday, March 19

Candlelight Peace Vigil on the 5th anniversary of the start of the dreadful US war on Iraq to protest all wars. Unitarian Universalist Society Auditorium, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac. 6–9pm. INFO: [email protected]; 916-481-6122.

Thursday, March 20

Movies on a Big Screen, special presentation. Zeitgeist (Film about 9/11). 7pm. 600 4th St, West Sacramento.

Saturday, March 22

Class. Beginning Beekeeping, taught by longtime local commercial beekeeper Randy Oliver. 8am-5pm, break for lunch. $35 per person. Sacramento County Coop Ag Extension Auditorium, 4145 Branch Center Road (1 block west of Bradshaw at Keifer Blvd.) INFO: 451-2337.

Thursday, March 27

Seminar. Relax with Tax, presented by California Lawyers for the Arts, A seminar on the essentials of income tax or individual artists of all disciplines & small arts businesses will be presented by Dennis Yep, an Enrolled Agent since 1968. 6:30pm. $40 general, $30 members of C.L.A. or co-sponsors, $20 students/seniors, $5 off for registering in advance. 1127 Eleventh St., Suite 201. INFO: 442-6210 or email [email protected] to register.

Saturday, March 29

Lecture. The Policing of Dissent. Prof. Luis Fernandez, Northern Arizona Univ., will discuss how the police monitor and control peace and justice organizing. 7pm. 909 12th St. Sacramento INFO: 916-448-7157; [email protected].

Meet Jim Hightower! Join us for a talk and book-signing with progressive political activist, author and commentator Jim Hightower. Jim will discuss his new book on inspired activism, Swim Against the Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow on Friday, April 11 from 7-9pm at the Coloma Community Center Auditorium, 4623 T St. Sacramento 95819. Tickets are just $15, and proceeds benefit California Common Cause and Access Sacramento. For more information, contact JoAnn Fuller at 916 443 1792 extension 11. Space is limited; reserve your ticket at www.commoncause.org/CA

Sacramento 9/11 Truth Demonstration. 11th and L Streets, facing State Capitol North entrance. 4:30-6pm INFO: www.truthaction.org, 916-372-8433.

Friday, April 11

Talk and book-signing with Jim Hightower, author of a new book on inspired activism, Swim Against the Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. 7-9pm. Coloma Community Center Auditorium, 4623 T St., Sac. $15, proceeds benefit California Common Cause and Access Sacramento. INFO: JoAnn, 916-443-1792 x11 or www.commoncause.org/CA. See Box below.

Sunday, April 13

Richard Gage of Architects and Engingeers for 9/11 truth. 7:30pm. Varsity Theater, 616 Second Street, Davis. $10/students $5. INFO: 530-757-1633

Sunday, April 20

Sacramento Earth Day 2008 celebration. Celebrate the things we love about Sacramento …Cultivate a sustainable future! 11am-5pm. Location: To Be Announced. (See Box announcement below).

Monday, April 21

Meeting. Sacramento 9/11 Truth: Questioning the War on Terror. 6-8pm. Denny’s meeting room - 3rd/J Sts. INFO: 372-8433.

Monday, April 21

Lecture. What Mainstream Media Won’t Tell Us About Iran, Iraq, and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector who opposed the war on Iraq. 7:30-9pm. $20. Varsity Theater, 616 2d St, Davis. INFO: 530-554-7061.

Tuesday, April 22

Planned Parenthood presents Capitol Education Day. Join Planned Parenthood volunteers, activists and staff for a Day of Action at the Capitol in Sacramento. Talk with legislators about what’s important to you, and join hundreds of others to support reproductive healthcare for women in California. INFO: Katharyn 916-446-5037 x131, [email protected].

Sacramento Earth Day 2008 How GREEN can you get? Hosted by ECOS (Environmental Council of Sacramento), Friends of ECOS, and Environmental Studies Dept at CSUS

Celebrate the things we love about Sacramento… Cultivate a sustainable future! Join us for Sacramento Earth Day 2008

Sunday, April 20: 11am–5pm Together we can make the Sacramento region a greener, healthier, and truly sustainable place to live, work and play! The location of the event will be changed due to construction at Sacramento State. For information on the location of the event, on events before and after April 20, or on sponsoring or volunteering, contact ECOS: 916-444-0022 or [email protected]

WHAT IS THIS? It’s a Hydraulic Border Patrol office in Roma, Texas along the Rio Grande River. See story, “Immigration is not the problem” page 5. Photo: Francisco J.Dominguez copyright 2007.

Progressive News and Views

MORE INSIDE: Let’s Talk About Sex • Plutonium Paradise or Nukemare? • Police State Flash Point • We Are Done Killing For Lies • Corporate Media Censors the News

March / April 2008

Because People Matter

Progressive Media Editors Picks!

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

Where to watch: Access Sacramento cable channel 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.

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

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.

Where to watch: (Other) Progressive Newspapers Access Sacramento TV, Cable Channels 17 ▼ The Flatlander: a free community newspaand 18, Weekdays 6pm, 12midnight, 5am. per of fun, opinion and politics in the Davis Dish Network Satellite TV, Channel 9415, Area. [email protected]. Publication Free Speech TV, M-F: 9am, 4pm, 9pm, 5am, every 2 months, next issue is April/May Pacific time. The Flatlander Link TV, Channel 9410, Monday–Friday, P.O. Box 72793 8am, 3pm. Davis, CA 95617 KVMR 89.5 FM Mon-Thu 7pm KDVS 90.3 FM Mon-Fri noon KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley, M-F 9am

Online News Sources:

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

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.

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

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