2008 Mar Apr

Because People Mater
Progressive News and Views March / April 2008
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
by Chelsea Del Rio
Look out progressive Californians, it is happening again.
In 2005 we faced Proposition 73 and in 2006 we faced
Proposition 85. Both aimed at man-
dating parental notifcation in order
for minors to access abortion ser-
vices. Both times the people of Cali-
fornia decided that such laws would
only serve to harm the young women
of our state, ofen the ones already
in the most difcult and dangerous
situations. Now, in 2008, we face a
third parental notifcation initiative.
Sponsors of the initiative are still in
the process of signature gathering to
qualify for the November ballot but
if history is any indication, they will
qualify by the deadline. Pro-choicers
will face yet another year of divert-
ing time, resources and energy from providing already
limited services for women in order to defeat right wing
attacks on choice.
Currently 35 states require some type of parental
involvement, whether notifcation or consent of one or
both parents, for a minor to have an abortion. But this
by Katharyn McLearan
W
e have a preventable public health prob-
lem in this country
— an estimated
750,000 American teens will
become pregnant this year
and nearly four million will
contract a sexually transmitted
infection.
Nonetheless, studies have
consistently shown that fam-
ily communication and com-
prehensive sex education are
important factors in safeguard-
ing teenagers’ sexual health. It
can be difcult to talk to your
teen about sensitive issues, but
we also know how important it
is to your child’s future. We also
need education programs in
our schools that include infor-
mation about abstinence as
well as contraception, healthy
communication, responsible decision-making, and
prevention of sexually transmitted infections.
Family Communication
Consider these facts: Parents
and teens agree that they are not
comfortable discussing sex with one
another yet 87% of teens say it would
be easier for them to postpone sexu-
al activity and avoid teen pregnancy
if they were able to have open, hon-
est conversations with their parents.
And 97% of girls said “having par-
ents they could talk to” could help
prevent pregnancies among unmar-
ried teens. Teens cite their parents as
the people who most infuence their
decisions about sex. When parents
talk to their teens about sex, the
teens are more likely to delay sex,
more likely to use condoms when
they fnally do have sex, more likely
to talk about sexual health risks with
their partner, and less likely to have
multiple partners.
Our fght to defeat
parental notifcation
initiatives and other
attacks on abortion
rights not only protects
reproductive health
services but also
strengthens women’s
autonomy and freedom.
“Inaccurate abstinence-only education
is being taught in many schools across
California.”
photo courtesy Planned Parenthood
Mar Monte
Let’s Talk (About Sex)!
Family communication & comprehensive sex education make the diference
See Sex Education, page 9
Helpful hints for parents and other responsible
adults: Talk with your kids at all stages of develop-
ment, not just puberty. Talk early and talk ofen. 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.
is not the only limitation women face. In 24 states there
exist mandatory waiting periods between receiving
counseling and having the abortion performed. Tere
are 43 states that allow health care
institutions to refuse to provide
abortions. A total of 28 states
mandate counseling prior to
abortion, including misinforma-
tion about links between breast
cancer and abortion, fetal pain
during the abortion procedure
and long term mental health con-
sequences for women. Combine
these numbers with an array of
additional limitations and the fact
that 87% of counties in the US
have no abortion providers and
it is easy to see just how compli-
cated the picture becomes.
Tese restrictions indicate the continued eforts to
legislate and control women’s bodies. Former Arkansas
Governor Mike Huckabee hopes for a “Human Life
Amendment” to the constitution that would in efect
overturn Roe. Let’s consider the fact that women are not
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! Tus, our fght to
defeat parental notifcation
initiatives and other attacks
on abortion rights not only
protects reproductive health
services but also strength-
ens 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 Cali-
fornia. If the parental notifca-
tion initiative does qualify for
the ballot we will need your
help to defeat it. Stay informed
via California National Orga-
California Faces Repeat Attacks on Abortion Rights
Another parental notifcation initiative is in the works
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.
Sacramento NOW taking the NO on 85 campaign to the street
photo courtesy Sacramento NOW
Because People Matter March / April 008 www.bpmnews.org
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Volume 17, Number 2
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“Hey,” says my friend, holding up the last BPM
with the cover of faces from the patriotsques-
tion9/11 site. “What is this? All 9/11—All the
time?” And he gives me that look.
I fnd the dismissive glances and even eye
rolling that sometimes come from activists and
other progressive about 9/11 hard to understand.
Tese are people who know that every word
Cheney and Bush ever uttered is a fat-out con-
scious 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 ofcial story
stupid and crazy? C’mon…..!
Yes, I try to get something that undercuts
the ofcial 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 noth-
ing to do with 9/11 and Afghanistan was only
tangentially involved. You still hear people say,
“Well, they attacked us,” or “We have to fght
them over there or they’ll come here.” Even the
inconceivable (and underreported) sufering that
the US war is causing is depreciated because it’s
the sufering of the Arab “enemy.” Te same is
true for the torture. To stop this cruel, illegal war,
9/11 truth is key to breaking the spell that has
aficted heart and reason and paralyzed action.
I think Manuel Valenzuela is on to some-
thing in his description of the psychological
efects of 9/11:
9/11 was the catalyst to the war on terror,
the spring that gave sustenance to the imperial-
istic 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 war-
fare 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 buf-
foons penetrating our pores, with stenographers
for power injecting us with their venom, we
mutated into an army of robots, unwilling to lis-
ten 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 direct-
ed, 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, 0-08-
06 www.informationclearinghouse.info).
We need to “deconstruct” the ofcial myth
of 9/11 to break through this helpless, hate-flled,
fear-flled state and regain the will to end an ugly
war that is bankrupting this nation morally and
fnancially.
Likewise, recognizing the falsity of the of-
cial story will fre 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 lef and right, focus with
urgency on the chilling and wholesale elimina-
tion 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. Tose explod-
ing towers and the huge billowing clouds of dust
that roiled through the streets chasing bystand-
ers, 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, sacrifce any freedom, just to save our-
selves from all-powerful demonic Arab terrorists
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 Con-
gress 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. Tese things are HAPPEN-
ING 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 ter-
rorists—but very likely the
true fgures behind the events
of 9/11—which they are using
as the rationale for destroying
our Constitution.
Every day, more promi-
nent people publicly express
their doubts about the of-
cial story. New York Times
reporter Philip Shenon in Te
Commission: Te Uncensored
History of the 9/11 Investiga-
tion, asserts that the man who
controlled what evidence commission members
saw and the direction of the investigation, execu-
tive director Philip Zelikow, under advisement by
Karl Rove, minimized White House responsibil-
ity and tried to insert a false connection between
9/11 and Iraq in the commission’s report.
Te 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 Grifn’s Te
9/11 commission Report: Omissions and Distot-
rions, calls the ofcial account “glaringly errone-
ous” and a “fraud” (patriotsquestion9/11.com).
And the Japanese Parliament debates the truth of
the ofcial 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 of-
cial 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.
Scared Out of Our Wits
Te 9/11 lie has paralyzed us
www.bpmnews.org March / April 008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER
by Richard Nadeau
I
just can’t believe the cheerful propaganda
coming from the nuclear power industry and
its boosters. Tey are telling
us now that nuclear power is a
“clean and safe solution” to the
crisis of global warming. Noth-
ing could be farther from the
truth. In my view, we are being
ofered a glowing picture of a cool
plutonium paradise, a false bill of
goods if there ever was one.
Just recently, Te Sacramento Bee published
two essays promoting nuclear power as a solution
to global warming (12/12/2007 & 12/29/2007).
One from a former Greenpeacer now working for
the nuclear industry claimed that current anti-
nuclear activists such as Greenpeace are “living in
the 1970s.”
Another essay from a jazz-critic-turned-
nuclear-revivalist sang non-improvised hosannas
to “nuclear power for the people.”
Neither essay addressed the unresolved prob-
lems connected with nuclear power: reactor acci-
dents, waste disposal, and the problem of nuclear
weapons proliferation. Neither mentioned the
astronomical costs or the fossil fuels consumed
in the mining, building, maintaining, transport-
ing waste, and the decommissioning of nuclear
facilities.
Environmentalists fear that the promised
air-conditioned plutonium paradise will produce
a toxic, cancer-flled, irradiated earth. Sci-f mov-
ies have provided us with depictions of mutant
humans and animals evolving into monsters as
a result of exposure to nuclear radiation from
nuclear weapons testing. I call such horrifying
depictions “nukemares.” (Remember “Te Planet
of the Apes”? Remember “Godzilla”?)
On Christmas Eve, I drove to see the two
ominous towers at Rancho Seco, 25 miles south-
east of Sacramento. I enjoyed a
picnic lunch at “Rancho Seco
Park,” the recreation area SMUD
created afer the plant closed
down.
Rancho Seco was the frst
nuclear power plant to be closed
down anywhere in the world as
result of a popular anti-nuke organizing efort
and a public vote. In December 1986, the anti-
nuclear organization SAFE gathered enough
signatures to place a referendum on the ballot. In
a voter referendum in June of 1989, the majority
of Sacramento voters said
“Close it down.”
Te day afer Christ-
mas 1985, a nuclear
“event” (traced to a trip
wire in a tiny electric
box) caused the reactor
to dramatically overheat.
Afer the Tree Mile
Island incident in 1979,
and the meltdown of
Chernobyl on April 26,
1986, the people of Sac-
ramento had reasonable
cause to be concerned
when they voted for
closure.
SMUD accepted the
results of the non-binding
referendum and began
the expensive process of
decommissioning, which
ends in 2008. Ranch Seco
exemplifes 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 Tree
Mile Island in Pennsylvania on March
28, 1979? Tere was an explosion inside
a containment building, a partial melt-
down of the reactor core, and a deliber-
ate venting of radioactive gases into the
atmosphere. 140,000 people fed the area,
where elevated levels of cesium and iodine
were found in the milk samples collected
from dairy farms. Ironically, the movie,
Te China Syndrome, with Jane Fonda
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
powerful explosion instantly killed two people.
Dozens of fre fghters died from radiation
poisoning within a few years. Nuclear radiation
fallout spread throughout Western Europe to
the point where the people of England could not
eat lambs that grazed on their felds. Numerous
cancer clusters and other efects of radiation
such as contaminated mushrooms and berries in
southern Germany, and contaminated reindeer
in Scandinavia, emerged throughout Northern
Europe and western Russia.
Remember the problems at Oak Ridge,
Kyshtym, or Windscale? Remember the waste
disposal accidents at Hanford, where hundreds
of thousands of gallons of radioactive waste
containing plutonium leaked out of tanks
between 1945 and 1973? Are Californians com-
fortable with the fact that coastal nuclear power
plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon are
susceptible to tsunamis and located adjacent to
earthquake faults? So far, no one has been able to
convince me that today’s generation of nuclear
power plants has eliminated the risk of nuclear
accidents.
Yet, people have short memories. Tere is
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 gather-
ing of industry leaders in Atlanta that he expects
applications for 27 new reactors over the next
two years. One corporate applicant said, “Tere is
no serious opposition.”
Congress provided help for the “revival” at
taxpayer expense. Te Energy Policy Act of 2005
had generous subsidies for nuclear power and
other alternatives to fossil fuels. Billions of dol-
lars in tax credits, loan guarantees, and insurance
were ofered to cover licensing delays for new
Nuclear links
Centers for Disease Control report
www.cdi.org/issues/proliferation/
nuclearproliferation
Fortune Magazine article
www.money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/
fortune_archive/2007/08/06/100141305
CBS nuclear story
www.fair.org/index.php?page=3086
Anti-nuke power site
www.nukefree.org/
Anti-nuke watchdog
www.prop1.org/anukelv.htm
Nuclear Reactor Maps
www.nukepills.com/
Nuclear resource site
www.nirs.org/
Books
Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer and The New
Nuclear Danger by Dr. Helen Caldicott
The New Nuclear Danger, and The Seventh
Decade by Jonathan Schell
Perils of the Peaceful Atom by Richard Curtis
and Elizabeth Hogan
See Nuclear Power, p. 11
We all breathe
easier because of
so-called ‘anti-
nuke fanatics.’
Plutonium Paradise or Nukemare?
Te hidden costs of nuclear power
EXTRA!
Te Department of Energy has released its fscal 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-fnancing costs associated
with the projects.
Diablo Canyon nuclear plant
photo: www.britannica.com
graphic: : www.inkcinct.com.au/Web/CARTOONS
Because People Matter March / April 008 www.bpmnews.org
Sacramento
Progressive
Events
Calendar on
the Web
Labor, Peace,
Environment, Human
Rights, Solidarity…
Send calendar items
to Gail Ryall,gryall
@cwnet.com.
www.sacleft.org
It pays to care for the air
Te City of Sacramento’s AMCO program allows
bus riders, bicyclers and carpoolers to purchase
discounted parking in city lots for intermittent use.
Te cost works out to be $6.50 per day for up to 12
days of parking per quarter (3 months). Tis is a
great idea to reward people for taking the bus/light
rail/bike most of the time by discounting their park-
ing for days that they really need to take their car.
For more details go to www.cityofsacramento.org/
transportation/parking/offstreetdiscountalternate.
html.
The Matsui 10
Charges against peace activists
dropped
by Paulette Cuilla
Charges have been dropped against ten Sacra-
mento peace activists arrested for “disturbance”
in Rep. Doris Matsui’s ofce in September 2007
for asking her to stand up for peace and stop
funding the war by signing a Declaration of
Peace.
Te “Matsui 10” entered their not guilty plea
in federal court 11/13/2007 and were given a
court date for January 2008. Te judge stated that
the maximum sentence would be a $5,000 fne
and/or 30 days in jail; however the option of jail
time would not be considered and there would be
no jury trial.
We could have pled guilty, paid a fne of
$275.00 and walked away free. However, we all
vowed that we would not pay a fne, accept pro-
bation, or participate in community service.
Since we would not get a jury trial, we would
not be granted public defenders. However, civil
rights lawyers, including several on the ACLU of
Sacramento Board of Directors volunteered their
services to represent us. Preparation for court
began with plans to subpoena Doris Matsui,
her entire staf, Homeland Security, and to fle
appeals for a jury trial. Ten, last week we were
notifed that the US Attorney’s Ofce was drop-
ping all charges—maybe because we were now
lawyered up and it would be too costly to actu-
ally bring us to court, or maybe Rep. Doris Mat-
sui thought it might not look good to criminally
charge citizens who were asking her to stand up
for peace.
Activists in Sacramento have
held a 52 day sit-in at Matsui’s ofce,
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. Afer almost 4,000 US
solders have died, untold number of
wounded, hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis killed, trillions of dollars spent,
the nightmare of war continues. Fascism rules
our country, our constitution is being destroyed,
and George Bush says, “it’s just a goddamned
piece of paper.” We are involved in an illegal war
to support the military industrial complex and
our kids are being recruited from high school
(and younger) to feed the meat grinder. Corrup-
tion rules our courts, media, corporations, and
elections. Te list goes on.
Te “Matsui 10” is a group of people who
believe that democracy is something you do,
not something you have. As citizens of a real
democracy, it is our job to speak out when we
see our government headed for disaster. While
“practicing democracy” we were arrested. I guess
sometimes the road may get rocky, but the efort
to get our country back is worth it!
Paulette Cuilla is a Matsui 10 Activist.
by Tom King
Te peace movement is not merely a protest
against the heinousness of war, but the persistent
efort to replace the militaristic mindset embed-
ded in the culture with one encompassing the
benefts, 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 har-
mony to prevail.
I am cofounder of the Peace Pyramid, a
group that has fourished in the environs of Sac-
ramento for over fve 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?
Tese 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. Tese convocations are always
on a Saturday, and convened in the warmth
of a comfortable home. Te frst hour is
devoted to potluck and socializing. At times
we're aforded 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 exemplifed
by Congressman Dennis Kucinich's initia-
tive for a cabinet-level
Department of Peace.
• We book eminently
qualifed speakers, like
Cindy Sheehan; David
Dionisi, author of
American Hiroshima and
creator of the interna-
tional organization Teach
Peace; Dwayne Hunn,
founder of American
World Service Corps;
Nadia McCafrey, creator
of Veterans Villages,
a shelter for soldiers returning from Iraq;
Leuren Moret, whistleblower on depleted
uranium.
• We promote gatherings via free news calen-
dar, 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 specifc 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 environ-
ment of sympathy and support. Tus we host an
open forum providing the opportunity for all in
attendance to speak. Tis 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
with the evening's
presentation. Te result is that each convocation
is aforded a fascination of the unpredictable.
Attendee’s testimonies range from sharing
what it means to them afer 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 ofer unexpected stores of well-
founded information on foreign afairs, 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 fve will typically run until
ten, with few drifing away earlier. Tose 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 promot-
ing a cabinet-level Department of Peace.
What Makes a Community Peace Group Work?
Letting everyone have their say!
A photo from an anonymous source shows
the “die-in” in progress at Congresswom-
an Matsui’s office.
Feb. 9, 2007 Peace Pyramid
speaker Dario Vanni.
photos: Larry White
A Bonus for Bike and Bus Riders
www.bpmnews.org March / April 008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER
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
BESt BuRgER
the burgers and fries are described as legendary
Biting into this feast, the
frst thing you notice is that
you can taste the beef. Te
French Ground Steak Burger
w/cheese is the thing to order.
Tat is a mouthful to say,
and it’s defnitely more than
a mouthful to eat. Featuring
Harris Ranch Steak freshly
ground and formed into a
1/3 lb. patty. Stop by soon.
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(H and 20th Streets) 444-3286.
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2
0 stands for
H and 20th Street
««««
by Bruce Fein
[By the time BPM goes to press, Congress may have
already enacted] the “Violent Radicalization and
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,”
probably the greatest assault on free speech and
association and association in the US since the
1938 creation of the House Un-American Activi-
ties Committee (HUAC).
Sponsored by Jane Harman
(Dem CA), the bill passed the
House on Oct 23 by a 404-6 vote
under a rule suspension that cur-
tailed debate. Only 3 Democrats
voted against the bill: Dennis
Kucinich (Ohio), Neil Abercrom-
bie (Hawaii), and Jerry Costello
(Ill).
Te Senate companion bill
(SB 1959), sponsored by Susan
Collins (Rep Maine), has encoun-
tered little opposition. Especially
in an election year, Congress-
members crave every opportunity
to appear tough on terrorism. Few
if any care about or understand
either freedom of expression or the Tought
Police dangers of SB 1959. Denuded of euphe-
misms and code words, the Act aims to identify
and stigmatize persons and groups who hold
thoughts the government decrees correlate with
homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition
to the Patriot Act or the suspension of the Great
Writ of habeas corpus.
Te Act will inexorably culminate in a
government listing of homegrown terrorists or
terrorist organizations without due process; a
complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas
that ostensibly further “violent radicalization;”
and a blacklisting of persons who have inter-
sected with either list.
Political discourse will be chilled and needed
challenges to conventional wisdom will fag.
Tere are no better examples of sinister congres-
sional folly.
Te Act infates the danger of homegrown
terrorism manifold to justify creating a National
Commission on the Prevention of Violent
Radicalization and Ideologically Based Violence
Commission
Since 9/11 no American has died from
homegrown terrorism, while about 120,000 have
been murdered.
In the post-9/11 so-called “war” against
international terrorism, Mr. Bush has detained
only two citizens as enemy combatants. One was
voluntarily deported to Saudi Arabia; the other
was indicted, tried and convicted in a civilian
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. Te Act,
nevertheless, against all facts, fnds
“homegrown terrorism ... poses
a threat to domestic security”
that “cannot be easily prevented
through traditional federal intel-
ligence or law enforcement eforts.”
Twelve members of the com-
mission will be appointed by the
president and leaders in the House
and Senate. Tey will predictably
serve the political needs of their
political masters.
Te commission’s Big Brother
task is to discover ideas and
political associations, including
connections to non-US persons
and networks that promote “vio-
lent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and
ideologically based violence in the United States.”
And “violent radicalization” is defned as “the
process of adopting or promoting an extremist
belief system for the purpose of ideologically
based violence to advance political, religious, or
social change.”
Under the Act, William
Lloyd Garrison would have been
guilty of promoting “violent
radicalization” for publishing the
anti-slavery Liberator in 1831,
which “facilitated” John Brown.
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton would have been
condemned for assailing laws
disenfranchising women and cre-
ating an intellectual atmosphere
receptive to violence. And Martin
Luther King, Jr. would have fallen
under the Act’s suspicion for
denouncing Jim Crow and prac-
ticing civil disobedience, which
“facilitated” H. Rap Brown.
Te commission will certain-
ly hold choreographed public hearings. Witnesses
will testify that non-Christian ideas or vocal
challenges to the status quo promote “an extrem-
ist belief system” that facilitates ideologically
based violence. Internet communications, the
media, schools, religious institutions and home
life will be scrutinized for promoting pernicious
thoughts.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed
in Gitlow v. New York (1925): “Every idea is an
incitement. It ofers itself for belief and if believed
it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs
it or some failure of energy stifes the movement
at its birth. Te only diference between expres-
sion of an opinion and an incitement in the nar-
rower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the
result.”
Lengthy lists of persons, organizations and
thoughts to be shunned will be compiled. Por-
tions of the Holy Koran are likely to be taboo.
Te lives of countless innocent citizens will be
shattered. Tat is the lesson of the House Un-
American Activities Committee and every prior
government enterprise to identify “dangerous”
people or ideas; for example, the 120,000 inno-
cent Japanese-Americans herded into concentra-
tion camps during World War II.
Te ideological persecutions invited by the
Act will do more to create than to deter home-
grown terrorism. Mark Anthony’s words in
“Julius Caesar” are a ftting commentary on what
Congress is prepared to enact: “O judgment! thou
art fed 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 associ-
ate deputy attorney general under Reagan and
was a member of the ABA Task Force on presi-
dential signing statements. See full article from
Washington Times online 12/27/2007, at www.
prorev.com/007/1/democrats-close-to-pass-
ing-police-state.html
…the Act aims
to identify and
stigmatize
persons and
groups who
hold thoughts
the government
decrees
correlate with
homegrown
terrorism.
Police State Flashpoint
Criminalizing “extremist” thought
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, organiz-
ing volunteers.
Call 916-444-3203.
Or email [email protected]
with “volunteer” in the subject line.
New Reads
in Town
You may see the Rock Creek Free Press
in the back of some BPM stands and in
other places you fnd BPM. It’s a great new
paper from Washington DC with emphasis
on the undernews. Check it out.
Likewise, we are greatly impressed with
the lively goodlooking Midtown Monthly.
It’s not political, but it has the kind of useful
and delightful info about life, art, food and
music in Sacramento and beyond that cre-
ates the sense of community needed for an
uncertain future.
6 Because People Matter March / April 008 www.bpmnews.org
Because People’s Healthcare Matters
We do what we do...
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person
Non-drug treatment for ADD and ADHD
MDs and FNP, trained and experienced
Natural options (homeopathy, herbs, vitamins) in
treating acute and chronic illness
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Therapies: spirit and art for healing
Raphael House
Multidisciplinary Complementary Medicine
7953 California Avenue
Fair Oaks CA 95628
(916) 967 8250 [email protected]
by Glenda Marsh
Most Americans would say that current US poli-
cies refect 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 ofce who agree with our
grassroots driven policies, such as those found in
Peace in the Precinct’s Peace and Security Prin-
ciples, or Physicians for Social Responsibility’s
SMART security plan. Dr. Bill Durston is run-
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 plan-
ning to organize those who support ending the
Iraq war.
Two organizations are planning such cam-
paigns: Peace in the Precincts, a local non-par-
tisan community group, is working in Rancho
Cordova, and Capital Area Progressives, a local
Democratic Party-afliated 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 fnally to turn those folks
out to vote.
Let’s have progressive candidates running up
and down the ‘ticket.’ Let’s fll 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, afordable 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.
by Charlene Jones
Voters expressed signifcant concern about the
healthcare deal put together by Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian
Nuñez, according to fndings 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 advo-
cates believed was a dangerously defective reform
measure packaged as Assembly Bill X1 No.1
(ABX1 1) by Nuñez and Schwarzenegger.
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 Ofce report that
amplifed doubt about California’s capacity to
fund and enforce a complicated income eligibil-
ity system that would mandate all Californians
carry healthcare insurance. Te LAO stated
that reasonable projections for the ABX1 1 plan
expenditures would surpass revenues within fve
years. Such estimates did not include any “worst
case” scenario.
Many of those opposed, including California
Nurses Association, California Teachers Associa-
tion, League of Women Voters and Consumer
Federation of California, support Senate Bill 840,
Kuehl’s single payer universal healthcare plan.
Tey insisted ABX1 1 would provide neither
afordable nor accessible care, and continue to
leave hundreds of thousands without cover-
age. 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 medica-
tion expenses. California Council of Churches,
Church IMPACT described the efort to regu-
late 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 atten-
tion to the country’s healthcare crisis. “Afer fac-
ing down the Tird 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 fnanc-
ing structure that removes insurance industry
proft making from health care delivery. SB840,
the California Health Insurance Reliability Act,
was confrmed by the Lewin Group, a nationally
recognized human services cost analysis frm,
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 expens-
es—not by what insurance companies decide to
charge. Te great majority of those who pay for
benefts 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. Tis could save about $20 billion in
administrative costs. California would buy pre-
scription drugs and durable medical equipment
in bulk and save about $5 billion in the frst year
alone. State and local governments would also
save millions in health benefts provided to gov-
ernment 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 solu-
tion from elected ofcials, public interest, labor,
professional and government groups. As Ehren-
reich summoned, “Fellow citizens, where is the
old macho spirit that has sustained us through
countless conficts against enemies both real and
imagined? In the case of health care, we have
identifed the enemy, and the time has come to
crush it.” Contact Health Care For All for infor-
mation about the campaign.
www.healthcareforall.org, 916-424-5316
www.onecarenow.org/index.html
http://dist.casen.govoffice.com
http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_
blog/007/09/we-have-seen-th.html
Charlene Jones is a member of Sacramento
Media Group.
Single Payer Universal Care: SB 840 Alive and Kicking
Schwarzenegger and Nuñez healthcare reform, isn’t
Rx: Dr Bill Durston
global peace through local elections
Dr. Durston speaking at a January 2007 Big Band
Dance Party
photo: Battershell Photography
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
Some of the
Places You Can
Find BPM
Sacramento Area
Coffee Works
Crest Theater
Dimple Records,
Arden Wy
Dose Coffee Shop
Flowers Restaurant
Galleria (29th & K)
Grinders
Hart Senior Center
Lido Cafe
Light Rail:
65/Folsom
2nd Ave/Freeport
Los Jarritos
Luna’s Cafe & Juice Bar
Mercy Hospital, 40th/J
Pancake Circus, 21st/
Broadway
Planned Parenthood:
Franklin Blvd, Watt
Ave., 29th St.
Queen of Tarts
Quick Market
Sacramento Bagel,
47th/H
Sacramento Natural
Foods Coop
Sacramento Public
Library (Main & many
branches)
Sargent Coffee House
(Alhambra & M)
Starbucks (B'wy & 35th)
The Beat
Time Tested Books
Tower Theater (inside)
Tupelo (Elvas & 57th)
Underground Books
(35th St. near B'way)
Weatherstone Coffee
Chico Area
Davis
Bogey’s Books
Espresso Cafe Roma
Davis Natural Food Coop
Newsbeat
University Mall
Greenhaven area
Buckthorn’s Coffee,
7465 Rush River Dr
Nevada City
US Post Offce
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.
www.bpmnews.org March / April 008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 7
by JoAnn Fuller
Legislators get out of the way! Real redistricting
reform is coming to California in 2008. Califor-
nia Common Cause, the League
of Women Voters of California,
AARP and many other organiza-
tions are organizing to end the
serious confict of interest by state
politicians when they draw their
own voting districts by creating an
independent, diverse and political-
ly balanced Citizens’ Commission
to draw voting district lines.
California Voters FIRST
Act will replace a broken system
where legislators draw their own
districts in order to ensure a safe
re-election, even if it means split-
ting up the communities they
are supposed to represent. Voters
FIRST (Fair Independent Redistricting Standards
Today) would create a 14-person commission to
take public testimony and hold hearings subject
to open meeting rules. Instead of incumbents
drawing safe seats to protect against challengers,
the districts would be drawn according to clear
mapping rules based on the Census, the Voting
Rights Act, and a respect for neighborhoods, cit-
ies and counties.
Te 14-person redistricting commis-
sion would be politically balanced with fve
Democrats, fve Republicans, and four others
from third parties or independent voters. It is
mandated that three members from each group
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 unofcial 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. Te
basement houses a mirrored wall ballroom with
a spring supported dance foor. Te 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 own-
ing homes. Afuent 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 reli-
gion were common. Tey were frst 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 hom-
eowners association. In 2003 Dr. Bill Durston,
a Vietnam veteran, emergency room physician,
and then the president of Sac-
ramento Physicians for Social
Responsibility wanted to fy
a UN fag 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 fy
the UN fag. 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 fags, posters
or banners.
Although the race based
CC&Rs are no longer legal, housing discrimina-
tion continues. Discrimination can still be based
on national origin, gender, sexual orientation,
age, familial status and disability. Te ACLU
and many other civil rights/equity organizations
such as Californians for Disability Rights are
attempting to correct these abuses. For example,
the Greenlining Institute was formed to address
the problems of “redlining,” the discriminatory
practice of avoiding investment in inner-city and
minority neighborhoods and overcharging for
services and products to these communities.
Starting with the federal Fair Housing Act,
Title VIII of the 1968 Civil Rights Act, many
federal and state laws have been passed and
executive orders issued in an attempt to eliminate
this insidious problem. Tere are now numer-
ous federal, state, and local entities, including
the federal Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the California Fair Employment
and Housing Commission, and the Sacra-
mento County Human Rights and Fair Housing
Commission.
Currently we face a form of de-facto dis-
crimination and exclusion based on economics.
Attempts to pass and implement meaningful
“inclusionary” local housing ordinances have met
strong opposition. Builders and developers claim
that it is not economically viable to mix housing
low-income residents with “market rate” develop-
ments. Tis results in income-based “ghettoiza-
tion” and the many associated social problems,
such as unequal education and employment
opportunities, leading to a downward spiral of
alienation, despair and confict.
In 2002 a study in Time magazine rated
Sacramento the most “diverse” city in the nation.
Tis diversity has contributed to the cultural
vitality of the city. However, confict still exists
and it cannot be said that we have become a true
community exemplifed by trust and cooperation
among all groups.
When driving by the impressive Fong Man-
sion, we should keep in mind that it represents
one of our most serious human faults, the ten-
dency to exclude from our lives those diferent
from ourselves. As Dr. Martin Luther King so
eloquently stated, we must strive to judge our
fellow humans by the “content of their charac-
ter” and not be swayed by much less signifcant
dissimilarities.
Rick Bettis is a member of Common Cause,
Sacramento Media Group and League of Women
Voters, and volunteers as a docent with the Sac-
ramento Old City Association.
must agree to any plan and there are multiple
safeguards to keep one party from gaming the
system. Te checks and balances in the selection
process are designed to
identify a group that is
knowledgeable, diverse
and impartial to carry out
the redistricting.
By closing the back
door politics, Voters
FIRST ensures that
everyone comes through
the front door. Instead
of back room deals, the
bright lights of public
discussion are guaranteed
by meetings being open
and the minutes posted
on the Internet. Te
California Voters FIRST
Commission will hold hearings and take public
testimony; in fact, all discussions are required to
be held in public. Tis promotes public participa-
tion and ensures that testimony from all groups
as to where voting district lines should be drawn
will be considered.
Te mapping criteria that the commission
would have to follow are listed in priority order
and include a mandate to keep cities, coun-
ties, neighborhoods or communities of interest
together so people can organize to efectively
push their political objectives. To learn more
about the initiative, go to www.commoncause.
org/cavotersfirst or contact JoAnn Fuller at
Stop Gerrymandering!
Fair, independent, redistricting standards today put California voters FIRST
Instead of back
room deals, the
bright lights of a
public discussion
are guaranteed
in Voters FIRST by
meetings being
open and the
minutes posted on
the Internet.
[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 sig-
natures by April 15th. Legislators and the special
interests won’t give up power easily, but Voters
FIRST can win. Petitions are available at the Sac-
ramento ofce 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 fxed with the California Vot-
ers FIRST Act. Join us and make this important
structural reform a reality.
The Inn at Parkside, formerly the Yue Fong Mansion
8 Because People Matter March / April 008 www.bpmnews.org
by Felicia Martinez
M
ainstream media and US politicians
have made great strides in framing
issues of imperialism, globalization,
and international migration as domestic prob-
lems. Contrary to what such framing would have
us believe, immigration is not the issue. Te 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 frst 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 chained-
of road and a “No Trespassing” sign, lie the
remains of over 600 Mexican and Central Ameri-
can migrants, many unidentifed, who perished
while trying to reach the US. Tousands more
remains are scattered around North America.
Some bodies have been recovered, identifed, and
shipped home to rest. Te least fortunate lie yet
undiscovered, somewhere in a desert or possibly
a canal, waiting for the Border Patrol or another
migrant to fnd them. What the dead will never
know is exactly how much the US federal govern-
ment has invested in assuring that their journey
would fail.
Te US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP),
housed in the Department of Homeland Security
is in the midst of implementing the Secure Bor-
der Initiative, a project estimated to end up cost-
ing $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-Mex-
ico border in unprecedented ways. I recently vis-
ited the Pacifc 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.
Te US Mexico border is the most mili-
tarized 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 frst
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 con-
trol room of movement.
Meanwhile, cameras
and night vision gog-
gles assist in identifying
what has triggered the
sensors. And besides a
feet of trucks and all
terrain vehicles, the
Border Patrol counts on
the largest law enforce-
ment 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.
Te fundamental
faw of the CPB’s initia-
tives is that they are
working in vain against
another set of US projects, namely NAFTA
and its free-trade ofspring, which have further
impoverished Latin American countries and
induced a 400% increase in Mexican migra-
tion alone since NAFTA’s implementation in
1994. Operation Gatekeeper (1994) militarized
California’s southern
border with the intent of
forcing migrants to jour-
ney further east through
treacherous desert ter-
rain. Made on foot, ofen
through regions so rough
even Border Patrol ATV’s
will not follow, the feds
know such journeys can be
deadly and in fact planned
for that very danger to
deter people from trying to
cross. But it hasn’t.
Since 1994, more than
4,500 people have been documented
as losing their lives trying to arrive
at their destinations in the US. Tis
is a rate of about one death every day
for the past fourteen years. Neverthe-
less, plans for further militarization
proceed full speed. In 2007, a leading
manufacturer of war aircraf, Boeing,
was awarded a $67 million contract to
enhance surveillance infrastructure at the bor-
der. As part of the deal, nine 98-foot spy towers
have been erected in rural areas south of Tucson
which have large visible cameras atop them and
were intended to implement the use of radar,
infrared, lasers, microwave, iris biometrics and
facial biometrics.
Te problem with these towers? For one
thing, they don’t work. Nevertheless, the CBP
contracted a private security company to park
a guard at each tower day and night. Te com-
pany is none other than Pinkerton Government
Services, a division of the same Pinkertons made
famous by their anti-labor activities of the late
1800’s.
Ten there are the Border Patrol agents
themselves, armed with guns, tear gas, pepper
spray, and charged with stopping a movement of
people propelled by international policy beyond
any one agent’s control. Te results of this set-up
are increased incidents in which Border Patrol
agents fre, sometimes
across the border into
Mexico, in what they say
is self defense against
people who attack them,
ofen by throwing stones.
Such an aggressive retali-
ation 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 efort to
reach Fresno where he
had an uncle waiting for
him.
All of this, the exchange of gunfre for
stone-throwing, the walls, the cameras, aircraf,
and motion sensors is part of a long-term plan
to be able to track who is moving where at any
given time within the region. With 2,000 miles of
US–Mexico border and
the Border Patrol’s area
of operation extending
25 miles north of any
point of entry, potentially
50,000 square miles of
federal, state, tribal, and
privately owned land are
on their way to constant
government surveillance.
Tat in and of itself
should be a concern for
US residents. Te day
that I visited the Tijuana
beach, peering through
holes in the fence into the US, a helicopter with
a green Border Patrol stripe appeared overhead,
circled briefy, then retreated. I wondered how
closely it could see me, if the agents inside know
that my jacket was blue, that I was wearing glass-
es, or that I was speaking English with my friend.
How much of my own taxes, I wondered, paid for
that helicopter to check on me checking out San
Diego, the city of my birth.
Guillermo Martinez Ramirez was lucky. His
death was witnessed by his brother and his funer-
al in Tijuana attended by his mother, a priest, and
others who came to give him a proper goodbye.
For those that lie of the back roads of Holtville,
however, things are diferent. It seems incongru-
ent that the US government, which willingly
spends billions of dollars on a border policy that
intentionally forces migrants to undertake life-
threatening journeys, would bury its successes
like this, inaccessible to those citizens who want
to know if our country’s investments are paying
of. Afer all, each body buried at Holtville repre-
sents one more person that the Border Patrol has
worked hard to keep from living in the US, and
keep them from living it has.
Felicia Martinez is a poet currently attending
Mills College. She has worked directly with immi-
grants and for immigrant rights organizations.
Immigration Is Not the Issue
Part One: At the Border
…potentially
50,000 square
miles of federal,
state, tribal, and
privately owned
land are on their
way to constant
government
surveillance.
Phoenix hunger strickers protest the deaths at the border
photo: Feb 6, 007, Francisco J. Dominguez, copyright 007
Cement rods show the 2nd layer of fence-in-progress in San Diego.
photo: Felicia Martinez
Fence extends into the ocean at the San Diego/
Tijuana border.
photo: Felicia Martinez
www.bpmnews.org March / April 008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 9
by Peter Phillips
T
he corporate media in the US likes to
think of themselves as the ofcial most
accurate news reporting
of the day. Te New York Times
motto of “all the news that’s ft
to print” is a clear example of
this perspective. However with
corporate media coverage that
increasingly focuses on celebrity
updates, news from “ofcial”
government sources, and sensa-
tionalized crimes and disasters
the self-justifcation of being the
“most ft” is no longer valid.
We need to broaden our
understanding of censorship in
the US. Te dictionary defni-
tion of direct government control of news as
censorship is no longer adequate. Te private
corporate media in the US signifcantly under
covers and/or deliberately censors numerous
important news stories every year.
Te common theme of the most censored
stories over the past year is the systemic erosion
of human rights and civil liberties in both the
US and the world at large. Te corporate media
ignored the fact that habeas corpus can now be
suspended for anyone by order of the President.
With the approval of Congress, the Military
Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, signed by
Bush in October 2006, allows for the suspension
of habeas corpus for US citizens and non-citizens
alike. While media, including a lead editorial in
the New York Times October 19, 2006, have given
false comfort that American citizens will not be
the victims of the measures legalized by this Act,
the law is quite clear that ‘any person’ can be tar-
geted. Te text in the MCA allows for the institu-
tion of a military alternative to the constitutional
justice system for “any person” regardless of
American citizenship. Te MCA efectively does
away with habeas corpus rights for all people
living in the US deemed by the President to be
enemy combatants.
A law enacted last year allowing the gov-
ernment to more easily institute martial law
is another civil liberties story ignored by the
corporate media. Te John Warner Defense
Authorization Act of 2007 allows the president to
station military troops anywhere in the US and
take control of state National Guard units with-
out the consent of the governor or local authori-
ties, in order to “suppress public disorder.” Te
law in efect repealed the Posse Comitatus Act,
which had placed strict prohibitions on military
involvement in domestic law enforcement in the
US since just afer the Civil War.
Additionally, under the code-name
Operation FALCON
(Federal and Local Cops
Organized Nationally)
three federally coor-
dinated mass arrests
occurred between April
2005 and October 2006.
In an unprecedented
move, more than 30,000
“fugitives” were arrested
in the largest dragnets in
the nation’s history. Te
operations, coordinated
by the Justice Depart-
ment and Homeland
Security, directly involved over 960 agen-
cies (state, local and federal) and are the
frst time in US history that all of the
domestic police agencies have been put
under the direct control of the federal
government.
Finally, the term “terrorism” has been
dangerously expanded to include any acts
that interfere, or promotes interference,
with the operations of animal enterprises.
Te Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act
(AETA), signed into law in November 2006
expands the defnition of an “animal enterprise”
to any business that “uses or sells animals or ani-
mal products.” Te law essentially defnes protest-
ers, boycotters or picketers of businesses in the
US as terrorists.
Most people in the US believe in our Bill of
Rights and value personal freedoms. Yet, our cor-
porate media in the past year failed to adequately
inform us about important changes in our civil
rights and liberties. Despite our busy lives we
want to be informed about serious decisions
made by the powerful, and rely on the corporate
media to keep us abreast of signifcant changes.
When a media fails to cover these issues, what
else can we call it but censorship?
A broader defnition of censorship in
America today needs to include any interference,
deliberate or not, with the free fow of vital news
information to the American people. With the
size of the major media giants in the US, there is
no excuse for consistently missing major news
stories that afect all our lives.
Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at
Sonoma State University and Director of Project
Censored. Censored 2008 (Seven Stories Press)
is available in bookstores or at www.projectcen-
sored.org.
Corporate Media Censors the News
What have you been missing?
Our corporate
media in the
past year failed
to adequately
inform us about
important
changes in our
civil rights and
liberties.
Women in Media and News Resource
Guide
Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
www.bitchmagazine.org
Magazine devoted to commentary on media-driven world.
Bust
www.bust.com
Magazine calling itself “ferce, funny and proud to be female.”
Feminista!
www.feminista.com
Online journal of feminist essays, editorials, fction, poetry,
interviews and reviews.
Minnesota Women’s Press
www.womenspress.com
Newspaper on issues and events afecting 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.
Of Our Backs
www.ofourbacks.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 ofers 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.
World Pulse Magazine
www.worldpulsemagazine.com
Magazine/online publication dedicated to leadership of
women and youth.
You might feel confdent that your local
school would never teach factually inaccurate,
biased information in their sex education pro-
gram. Since California law (set by SB 71 of 2003)
rejects abstinence-only instruction for scientif-
cally supported comprehensive sex education,
you might assume that all public schools comply
with the law; however, this is not the case. Inac-
curate 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 over-
sight 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
Afairs for Mar Monte Planned Parenthood.
Sex Education
from page 1
Schools will not change their programs without
active oversight from parents and the community.
photo courtesy Planned Parenthood Mar Monte
10 Because People Matter March / April 008 www.bpmnews.org
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Registered Representative for securities and
Investment Advisory Representative, Protected
Investors of America.
A community paper
needs community
support: Subscribe!
See coupon on page 2.
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 fnds
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 flled
with blood from human young.
Butchered by errant shells and bombs,
they leave their songs unsung.
Young men, of course, are sacrifced
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
by Matt Howard
I
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 fercest fghting 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 afer our opening
“shock and awe” Bush’s lies are known through-
out 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 lef a swath
of death and destruction in our wake all the way
to Baghdad.
Let me say again so that there is no misun-
derstanding. I stand here today as a former US
Marine saying we are killing women and children
in Iraq. Tis 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. Tat has never been
our mission. Tat 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 fnd our com-
mander in chief has actually tried to cut funding
to the Department of Veterans Afairs. To fnd
our doctors being told to diagnose us with pre-
existing personality disorders instead of post
traumatic stress syndrome.
We are done killing for lies.
So Iraq Veterans Against the War is tak-
ing 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 Viet-
nam ended.
Te Vietnam War ended when soldiers put
down their weapons and refused to fght; 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 ulti-
mately in every war waged throughout human
history, those forced to fght quickly realize they
have much more in common with those they are
being told to kill than with those telling them to
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.
Tey have always lived in the same neighbor-
hoods and even intermarried. Te US has caused
this civil war using the classic colonial techniques
of divide and conquer.
George Bush is a war criminal who has vio-
lated 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 sav-
agely invaded and occupied by another country?
Te Iraqis will continue to resist and fght until
the last American has lef their homeland. Period.
End the violence in Iraq? End the occupation.
We veterans are speaking out to stop the vio-
lence 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 administra-
tion. 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 Vet-
erans Against the War.
We Are Done Killing for Lies
A Marine corporal speaks out
An Inept Ruler
A Woman Defant
An Unpopular War
April 19–May 18, 2008
Make reservations NOW by calling the box offce at
916-691-7364 or go to www.seeaplay.com
Antigone
By Sophocles
In a version by Bertolt Brecht
Directed by Frank Condon
Antigone
www.bpmnews.org March / April 008 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).
Te uS-Israel “special
relationship” makes the uS less
safe.
by Brigitte Jaensch
Most reviews of Te Israel Lobby and US Foreign
Policy have discussed the Israel Lobby compo-
nent of this book and are silent about the much
more important part, i.e., that the “special rela-
tionship” between the United States and Israel
is a “strategic liability” for the US. It not only
jeopardizes US national security, makes us more
vulnerable, straight-jackets US foreign policy,
but is a relationship most
Americans (including
most Jewish Americans)
do not support.
Two professors with
impeccable credentials
(John Mearsheimer is co-
director of the University
of Chicago’s Program on
International Security and
Stephen Walt is political
science professor and
former academic dean of
the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard)
wrote a courteous, meticulously sourced (105
pages of notes) book about the Israel Lobby and
how it infuences US foreign policy. Te authors
repeatedly defend the right of the Israel Lobby to
try to infuence US policy, but conclude that what
that lobby activity yields, is a US foreign policy
which hurts the US.
Te authors use the term Israel Lobby to refer
to the “pro-Israel community,” which consists
of hundreds of organizations and thousands of
individuals who are single-mindedly determined,
totally committed, exceedingly well-funded, and
a model of coordination. Tis community knows
how to use the US political system to advance
its goals: to perpetuate and intensify the US gov-
ernment’s “special relationship” with Israel, and
to silence any voices critical of this relationship.
Silencing is directed at all aspects of US society,
not just politics. Some media are an active com-
ponent of the lobbying community whereas oth-
ers self-censor because they are no fonder of the
Israel Lobby’s protests and smears when they go
of message, than politicians.
Tat the tiny pro-Israel community in the
US is disproportionately infuential is long
acknowledged. In the 1940s and 50s, it was
referred to as “the Jewish vote,” or the “the ethnic
vote.” By the 1960s, it was simply called “domes-
tic political considerations.” Today, one of the
major players, the American Israel Public Afairs
Committee (AIPAC) both boasts of its lobby-
ing success and denies it plays any role at all.
Nonetheless, the two authors have been pilloried
by the US press and think tank talking heads for
writing about the Israel
Lobby and how it does
business.
Over the last 60 years,
only once did a US presi-
dent successfully defy the
Israel Lobby: President
Eisenhower, afer Suez, in
1956. Every other time,
either the US president
caved or the Lobby did
an end run around him
by getting Congress to
do what it wanted. Te current President Bush’s
White House is full of pro-Israel neo-cons.
AIPAC booed Nancy Pelosi when she suggested
a troop pullback from Iraq and it forced Con-
gressman David Obey of Wisconsin to withdraw
a provision that President Bush needed Congres-
sional approval before any attack on Iran. (Te
Israel Lobby is intent on the US attacking Iran.)
US aid in the form of grants and (forgiven)
loans—which Israel insists be paid Euros not
weak dollars—pump up Israel’s economy. Te
US gives Israel the latest US weapons systems.
Every time Israel attacks its neighbors or com-
mits war crimes against the Palestinians, the
US government vetoes any censure attempt in
the UN Security Council. (Most US vetoes have
been to protect Israel.) Ten US tax dollars help
rebuild what Israel has bombed. Te Congress
terms Israel’s actions “defensive” because it’s
illegal to send US weapons to aggressors. Te US
is OK with Israel hav-
ing nuclear, chemical
and biological weap-
ons, but claimed it
attacked Iraq because
it might have had
them, and is threaten-
ing Iran. We pay big
money, use obviously
double standards, and
shred our values for
a relationship which
makes us more vul-
nerable and tarnishes
our image throughout
the world.
Bottom line: US
taxpayers have paid
Israel hundreds of
billions of dollars*
and that relation-
ship makes us less
safe and underscores
the inconsistency
between our values and our support for illegali-
ties 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. Te Israel Lobby and US
Foreign Policy is an engrossing read, particularly
in an election year.
* Exact fgures are difcult to pin down because
of the many categories through which “aid” fows.
Te 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 afer 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.
Te US shares intelligence that the US pays for.
Brigitte Jaensch is a Sacramento-based
human rights advocate.
nuclear plants. Te latest 2007 energy bill has
more of the same.
New nuclear power plants are going to go
up around the world. Te 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. Govern-
ments will seek more repressive laws and tighter
security arrangements to make sure the plants do
not become targets for terrorists.
Te US gets 20% of its energy from nukes
and operates 103 nuclear power reactors, or a
quarter of the 440 plants worldwide. Te Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada has been
under development for more than 30 years.
Construction has been frozen since 1997. A fve-
mile 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
Nuclear Power: No Solution
from p. 3
[The Lobby] forced
Congressman Obey of
Wisconsin to withdraw
a provision that Bush
needed Congressional
approval before any
attack on Iran.
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 consid-
ered dumping it in the oceans, but has encoun-
tered opposition from the Polynesians.
England’s Sellafeld nuclear complex dis-
charged 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. Sellafeld and the sur-
rounding areas have higher than normal child-
hood cancer rates.
Finally, a Greenpeace study following
9/11indicated that an air-born terrorist attack on
the Sellafeld 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 Cali-
fornia, 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 Green-
peace Action in San Diego, now lives in Sacra-
mento and is on the editorial board of Because
People Matter.
Cartoon: http://www.inkcinct.com.au/Web/CARTOONS,
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1 Because People Matter March / April 008 www.bpmnews.org
Cofee from
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Support Sacramento’s
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by purchasing organic
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Thanks to the efforts of
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Your purchase helps the
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and helps support
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All profts go directly
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$9.00 a pound.
Available in Sacramento
at: The Book Collector,
1008 24th St.
Sacramento Area Peace Action
Discharges • DEP • Discrimination •
Gay • AWOL/UA • Harassment •
Hazing• Conscientious Objection
Call for information from a network of
nonproft, nongovernmental organizations.
The service is free. The call is confdential.
The GI Rights Hotline
www.girights.org
800 394 9544
Join Sacramento Area Peace Action!
Send your: Name, Address, Email and Phone,
With your check to SAPA for: $30/individual;
$52/family; $15 low-income to:
Sacramento Area Peace Action
909 12th St, Suite 118
Sacramento, CA 95814
Buy Olive Oil and Olive Oil Soap
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and human rights work. $18
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Sacramento Area Peace Action:
916-448-7157; [email protected].
Sacramento Area Peace Action has a new email address: [email protected]
Banking on
Destruction
Tax dollars going down the
weapons drain
by Anie Wilson
Most of us are appalled at the billions of dol-
lars 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 develop-
ment of modern nuclear weapons to replace our
“outdated” arsenal, or the typical tanks, aircraf,
unmanned drones, missiles, and munitions,
but we are funding outrageous “fringe science”
experiments.
Research projects include microwave tech-
nology used to penetrate skin and make people
feel like they are on fre; invisible, shoot-through,
self-healing shields for soldiers in urban battle-
felds; 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 neu-
roscience, 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 com-
mand 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, elec-
tromagnetic 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:
Leafet 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.
Neither Democratic candidate
will end the war
by Richard Becker
With the Republican candidates ofering 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
war on Iraq. But the Democrats are also beholden
to US corporate interests.
With respect to foreign policy, a glance at the
teams assembled by Clinton and Obama indi-
cates anything but “change.”
Hillary Clinton’s top advisors include Mad-
eleine Albright, President Clinton’s second-term
secretary of state, and Samuel Berger, his national
security advisor. Albright and Berger were
involved centrally in maintaining the genocidal
sanctions that killed more than one million Iraqis
from 1990 to 2003. Tey also played key roles in
the 1999 US-NATO war against Yugoslavia, as
did Gen. Wesley Clark, another Hillary Clinton
advisor.
Barack Obama’s advisors
include such infamous char-
acters as Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Carter’s national
security advisor and architect
of the counterrevolutionary
war against Afghanistan.
Brzezinski described the US
machinations: “Tat secret
operation—arming the
fghters who later became Al-
Qaida—was an excellent idea.
It had the efect of drawing
the Russians into the Afghan
trap. … Te day the Soviets
ofcially crossed the border,
I wrote to President Carter:
‘We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR
its Vietnam War.’” (La Nouvelle Observateur,
01-15-98).
Also on the Obama team is Richard Clarke,
“counter-terrorism czar” for both Bill Clinton
and George W. Bush., and Dennis Ross, Clinton’s
ardently pro-Israel Middle East “negotiator.”
Not going to stop the war
One of the biggest issues in the campaign is
the war in Iraq, now opposed by more than 70%
of the US population according to public opinion
polls. Te Democratic candidates pay lip service
to ending the war. In a fall 2007 campaign debate,
however, their real positions were revealed.
Clinton and Obama both refused to guaran-
tee that they would remove all US combat troops
from Iraq by the end of the next presidential
term—2013. Why? Te imperialist ruling circles,
as the leading Democrats and Republicans are
well aware, have no intention of leaving Iraq. Te
largest embassy ever built in any country is now
under construction in Baghdad. Fourteen perma-
nent US military bases are being built in Iraq.
Iraq is viewed by US leaders as an incredibly
valuable prize that they have conquered, and a
key element in their strategy of global domina-
tion. Tey will not leave until they are forced out.
On the one hand, Clinton and Obama must
appeal to majority sentiment by rhetorically
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 manag-
ers for the capitalists can become presidents.
Not a ‘party of the people’
Te same concept is applied to all major
issues in every election campaign. Te Repub-
licans openly represent the big money interests,
while the Democrats pose as the “party of the
people.” At the leadership level both represent
the interest of empire. Corporate America fully
appreciates that fact.
A 2007 study by the Center for Responsive
Politics revealed that the top 10 corporate cam-
paign contributors are giving more money to
Democrats than Republicans. Goldman Sachs, a
major Wall Street frm, donated 71% of its money
this year to the Democrats.
Among Hillary Clinton’s top 20 contributors
are Citigroup, Viacom, Morgan Stanley, Merrill
Lynch, Ken Starr’s former law frm Kirkland &
Ellis, and major subprime lender Bear Stearns.
Obama’s list includes Goldman Sachs and Lehm-
an brothers. Democratic Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi gets 62.5 % of her money from
business Political Action Committees.
Troughout history, it has not been the gov-
ernment that has created the political climate for
major social changes. From the labor movement
to the women’s movement, to the civil rights
and Black liberation movements of the 1960s
and 70s, substantial gains have been won by
struggles from below. Te mass movements cre-
ated a situation in which many politicians were
forced to grant concessions to alleviate social
pressure. Tat was especially true of the Vietnam
War—which was largely prosecuted by Demo-
cratic presidents.
Real hope lies in building a powerful people’s
movement—independent of the capitalist par-
ties—that demands social change at home and
stands in solidarity with those who are resisting
imperialism abroad.
Richard Becker, activist, author, lecturer is
co-founder of the ANSWER Coalition (www.
actionsf.org) which is co-sponsoring the March
19 No Business as Usual march & rally at the
Civic Center in San Francisco on the 5th anniver-
sary of the US invasion of Iraq.
Sacramento
Soapbox
Progressive Talk Show
Access Sacramento,
Channel 17 with
Jeanie Keltner.
Monday, 8pm, Tuesday
noon, Wednesday, 4am.
Now in Davis, Channel
15, Tuesday, 7pm.
The War, the Elections, the Top Dem Donors
Image from photobucket.com
www.bpmnews.org March / April 008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 1
Peace Action
on the Web
Keep up to date
on peace activism
in Sacramento.
Check out
www.sacpeace.org.
Noon Hour
Witness against the
Death Penalty.
Tird Mondays
12noon to 1pm.
11th and L Streets
State Capitol
INFO: 455-1796
by Paolo Bassi
C
apitalism in its pure form as envisioned
by Adam Smith, the author of Te Wealth
of Nations, adopted godfather of capital-
ism, 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 capital-
ism should have no guarantees. Te 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 govern-
ment intervenes for the beneft of ordinary peo-
ple. A powerful, large government is exactly what
the corporations want to ensure their continued
profts and social power. Te paradox of the US
is that while capitalism is imposed on the people,
a form of corporate welfarism operates to beneft
the wealthy.
Tis corporate welfarism means that what
the corporations want, Washington delivers:
lower taxes, export subsidies, weak unions and
access to publicly funded research and develop-
ment and the untrammeled right to move jobs
abroad to exploit cheap foreign labor. With the
help of the corporate media, all this has been
achieved with no national outcry or violence.
However, this is not enough
for the corporations for there
is nothing as intoxicating as
brand new markets. Te real
prize seems to have become state
services—the state afer all is
still the richest and most reliable
entity to do business with. Te
most blatant example of the state
outsourcing itself is the current
privatization of war and disaster—a task made
easier by the manipulation of fear following 9/11.
In Iraq, Blackwater, a secretive corpora-
tion with well-connected right-wing manage-
ment provides mercenaries to the US army at a
cost several times the ordinary soldier’s salary.
Infamous Blackwater is only the tip of the ice-
berg. Tere are hundreds of contractors taking
advantage of Iraq—all at the expense of the US
taxpayer. With so much public money foating
about, corruption is rife. Te government itself
admits tens of billions are unaccounted for and
untraceable.
Likewise, afer 9/11 US homeland security
spawned a massive industry, complete with
its own army of lobbyists and ex-government
ofcials ensuring access to lucrative government
contracts. According to the Guardian, a British
newspaper, since 2000 about $130 billion in
homeland security contracts have been awarded.
Tis does not include private contracts awarded
afer Hurricane Katrina.
Other state-run services
such as prisons are being rap-
idly privatized. Just like the
military industrial complex, a
massive prison industry com-
plex has formed, in which a few
corporations proft from crime
and incarceration.
Te troubling question is
that if the military, security and
prisons can be contracted out, what is safe from
privatization?
In the near future, what will stop the
government from privatizing the entire public
school system, freeways, bridges or fre services?
Is it possible fre engines will only come to your
fre if you have private insurance? Worse still,
could police functions be placed in the hands of
private corporations?
Afer Katrina, Blackwater patrolled the
streets of New Orleans with drawn guns. It is
entirely possible they could be tomorrow’s pri-
vate police all over America.
Whether the future will be as drastic as this
remains to be seen, but one thing is clear, we
are entering a new and dangerous phase in the
development of a corporatist state.
by Jennifer L. Pozner
A
sk a feminist to identify the most impor-
tant 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 fast-
moving 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 signifcantly 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…inca-
pable 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
fuf” (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. Tis antifeminist hostility
can be felt in coverage of topics editors nar-
rowly defne 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 afer dozens of women were sexu-
ally assaulted in Central Park in June 2000.
Ten there are the endless, frightening head-
lines about attempted rapists on the loose. Since
sexual predators don’t just get bored mid-attack,
behind every story about an attempted rape is
the reality that some woman did something to
get away. So, why no triumphant headlines about
women fghting back, fending
of their assailants?
A similar framing prob-
lem persists in coverage of
abortion, media’s favorite
hot-button “women’s issue.”
Consider how reluctant media
have been to label shootings,
fre bombings, death threats
and other politically-motivat-
ed violence against abortion
providers as “terrorism.”
Only afer Sept. 11, when
newscasters received letters
claiming to be laced with
anthrax, did mainstream media fnally “discover”
the story—reported over the past decade in the
women’s and alternative press—that anti-abor-
tion terrorists have subjected women’s health
advocates and clinics to a regular campaign of
anthrax threats and violent—even fatal—crime
for many frightening years (with more than 500
such letters arriving pre-9/11).
When issues fall outside journalists’ pink
ghetto yet implicitly afect women’s survival
(global trade, afairs of state, war), gender is
rarely used as a lens for analysis.
For example, poll data following Sept. 11
showed women to be more moderate than men
in their views about war. Yet corporate media
presented a misleading picture of a fag-wav-
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 unchal-
lenged—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 sufer
labor and human rights abuses daily in overseas
and domestic sweatshops. Tis pro-business bias
protects the fnancial interests of media adver-
tisers, investors and parent companies, while
denying the public information that might make
us question our personal consumer decisions or
collectively challenge corporate exploitation.
If it is clear that women have a serious stake
in media coverage, it is equal-
ly important to recognize
that biased content is the end
result of a much larger insti-
tutional problem—a media
system structured in favor of
advertisers and owners rather
than citizens seeking informa-
tion and entertainment; a
system motivated by proft,
not the public interest.
We are at a crucial
moment for the media indus-
try. Te deregulatory struc-
ture favored by big media
and its favorite lap-dog, former Federal Com-
munications Commission Chair Michael Powell,
paved the way for the tightest convergence of
media power we have ever seen in this country,
threatening to subvert women’s and public inter-
est voices more thoroughly than ever. Powell was
recently replaced by Kevin J. Martin.
We have two choices: we can sit back and
wait until all our news is fltered through the lens
of MSNBC-NNBCBSABCFOXAOLWB, Inc—or
we can work for progressive feminist media
reform.
Jennifer L. Pozner is founder of Women In
Media & News, a women’s media monitoring,
training and outreach organization. www.wim-
nonline.org/.
…global trade
stories are told from
the perspective
of transnational
corporations, not
the female workers
who sufer labor
and human rights
abuses daily.
… if the military,
security and
prisons can be
contracted out,
what is safe from
privatization?
‘Old Boys Network’
Women confned to pink media ghetto
The New Capitalism
Exploiting war and disaster for tax dollars
1 Because People Matter March / April 008 www.bpmnews.org
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Torture and Social
Control
Israel’s treatment of Palestinian
prisoners
by Mary Bisharat
I
mprisonment has been one of the key strate-
gies of Israeli control of Palestinian civilians,
and since 1967 more than a half million have
been prosecuted through military courts. We
read vague references to Palestin-
ians imprisoned by Israel, but the
situation is a mystery to the average
American. Tough torture has been
constantly in the news, from Abu
Graib to Guantanamo, most of us are
ignorant of what constitutes torture.
John Conway’s book, Unspeak-
able Acts, Ordinary People: Te
Dynamics of Torture, describes the
fve techniques which constitute a
“scientifc combination of tortures”:
1) Hooding to contribute to a sense
of isolation and disorientation, and
to mask the torturers’ identities. 2) Increasingly
intense noise, such as compressed air escaping,
for up to a week. 3) Food and water deprivation.
4) Sleep deprivation. 5) Spread-eagle position at
a wall. Denied toilet access, prisoners urinate and
defecate on themselves. In combination, these
fve actions induce psychosis, a temporary mad-
ness with long-lasting afer-efects.
Israel bases its systemized torture and rights
violations of Palestinians on the 1945 British
Defense Regulations, but those regulations were
revoked by British authorities before withdraw-
ing from Palestine in 1948. Afer Israel’s 1967
preemptive war against its Arab neighbors, it
occupied what remained of mandatory Palestine
and set up military court system which narrows
the scope of action for Palestinian lawyers.
Tese Israeli military courts operate
throughout the territories under “Military
Order #378”. Interrogation techniques like those
described above began to be used, as well as
“confnement in tiny cells/closets,
forcing the body to adopt painful and
unnatural postures, for long periods
of time (arms tied behind legs, legs
tied up to buttocks), pulling out body
hair, deprivation of sleep, food, and
medical care, beating and kicking the
body with particular emphasis on the
genitals, scalding the body with hot
water, asphyxiation, use of
electric shocks, prolonged exposure
to extreme temperatures, and threats
against the well-being, or life of
family members and the detainee”
(information from Al Haq, West
Bank afliate of Geneva-based Inter-
national Commission of Jurists).
B’tselem, Israeli Information
Center for Human Rights in the
occupied territories, confrmed these
torture practices. Also America’s
Human Rights Watch published
“Israel’s Interrogation of Palestin-
ians from the Occupied Territories” by Jim Ron,
who charges that “torture is the linch-pin of the
occupation.”
According to the Washington Report of
Middle East Afairs (Jan/Feb 2008), since 1967,
Israel has arrested and incarcerated over 755,000
Palestinians, including 98,000 children under 18
and 10,000 women. From January to November
2007, 3,750 Palestinians were arrested. Cur-
rently 10,400 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails,
experiencing obstacles that systematically erode
detainees’ right to legal representation, a serious
violation of international law.
Israeli professor Jef Halper has written
a brilliant essay on Israel’s domination of the
Palestinians called “Dismantling Te Matrix of
Control.” In it, he describes the East Asian game
“Go” where you “win” not by defeating but by
immobilzing your opponent by controlling key
points of the matrix. It should be required read-
ing for all of us who work for peace with justice
in the Holy Land. And it strikes me
that AIPAC (See book review, p 11)
could be called a matrix of control
in terms of its infuence on Congress
and the press. Our task is to apprise
others of AIPAC’s unacceptable sup-
port for an apartheid Israel, and the
practice of torture on civilians. Tese
are hardly Judaism’s core values.
Israeli Knesset member Avraham
Burg writes: “what is needed is a new vision of
a just society…. Nor is this merely an internal
Israeli afair. Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a
central pillar must pay heed and speak out…. Te
Jewish people did not survive for 2 millennia in
order to pioneer weaponry, computer security
programs or anti-missile missiles.”
However, the US has recently upped military
aid to Israel, ofering an unprecedented $30
billion over the next 10 years. “We are going
to stand up for our friends,” said the US State
Department spokesman. US’s unconditional aid
enables Israel to continue abusing Palestinian
rights with impunity, deepening regional hostili-
ties, and distancing peace. Tere is no end in
sight to Palestinian prisoners’ torture by their
Israeli jailers.
Mary Bisharat is a human rights activist and
retired social worker in Sacramento.
Iraq “Winter
Soldiers” Testify
Reveal true nature of war
by Rick Nadeau
In 1971, over one hundred members of
Vietnam Veterans Against
the War gathered in Detroit
to share their stories with
America. Atrocities like the
My Lai massacre had ignited
popular opposition to the war,
but political and military lead-
ers insisted that such crimes
were isolated exceptions. Te
members of VVAW knew dif-
ferently. Over three days in
January, soldiers testifed on
the systematic brutality they
witnessed in Vietnam.
Now we are faced with a new war. Te lies
are the same. Once again, American troops are
sinking into an increasingly bloody occupation.
Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha,
Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public
against the war. Once again, politicians and
generals are blaming “a few bad apples” instead
of examining the military policies that have
destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan. Once again, our
country needs Winter Soldiers.
Tis spring (March 13-16, 2008), Iraq Vet-
erans Against the War (IVAW) will assemble in
Washington DC a large gathering of US veterans
of Iraq and Afghanistan to reveal the reality of
the US occupation. US veterans as well as Iraqi
and Afghan survivors will provide eyewitness
accounts in a public testimo-
nial called “Winter Soldier:
Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Winter Soldier is asking
that from March 13-16, the
larger anti-war movement call
no national mobilizations and
that there be no local protests.
Hearings may be televised on
Access Sacramento (Comcast
ch17,18) or on KVIE. (Call
them and ask when hearings
are on.
KVIE: 916-929-5843, or toll-free:
800-347-5843
Access Sacramento: (916) 456-8600 or
[email protected].
For more info: Winter Soldier: Iraq and
Afghanistan. www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier.
Add your name to the 4041 people who have
signed the Statement of Support: www.ivaw.
org/wintersoldierstatementofsupport.
Keeping on keeping on
MLK inspires us again
by Murray Cohen
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, compul-
sively imperialistic series of military interven-
tions around the world.
In our darkness today, some of us may look
back on those days as almost innocent compared
to the monstrous banalities of our present clique
of desk murderers, and our own seeming impo-
tence to anything about them.
King, however, had the vision and courage
to resist despair, and the courage and faith to
embrace the world as it is: a world struggling
to transcend Western “civilization” and bring
to birth a truly civilized world. He graciously
accepted the peace award from the masters of
war, washed the cheek he had turned, and went
on to develop his comprehensive view of what
had to be done. For this he was murdered.
Americans have yet to organize around his
vision, but we can take heart from what he said in
his acceptance speech: “When our days become
dreary with the low-hovering clouds, and our
nights become darker than a thousand mid-
nights, we will know that we are living in the cre-
ative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling
to be born. In face of adversity, we must muster
our reserves of courage, remain faithful to our
calling and strengthen one another, and continue
the brick by brick building of a society based on
peace. If we do so, we to will win.”
Murray Cohen is a retired teacher interested
in issues of peace and social justice.
Jim Ron…
charges that
“torture is
the linch-
pin of the
occupation.”
Winter Soldiers,
according to
founding father
Thomas Paine, are
those who stand up
for the soul of their
country, even in its
darkest hours.
“Kindergarten Chair”
(n Arabic, the shabeh
position)
Illustration by Human Rights Watch
Pizza by the slice
PIECES
“Te most delicious and so-
cially responsible
pizza in town”
—Jeanie Keltner
1309 21st St Between M and N
www.bpmnews.org March / April 008 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 1
March / April Calendar
ONGOING EVENTS
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.sac-
peace.org. or www.sacleft.org
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
MONDAYS: Sacramento
Poetry Center hosts poetry
readings. 7:30pm. 1719
25th Street. www.sacra-
mentopoetrycenter.org
1st MONDAYS: Organ-
ic Sacramento: Coun-
ter ongoing threats to
our food. 6:30pm. INFO:
www.organicsacramento.
org
1 s t . M O N D A Y S :
Sac r ament o Medi a
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 sup-
port people with you. Open
discussions with everyone.
INFO: Roxanne Harden-
berg; ROXANNE1040@
aol.com.
TUESDAYS: Call for Peace
Vigil. 4–6pm. 16th and J
St. INFO 448-7157.
TUESDAYS: Improv work-
shop. Solve the world’s
problems through improv
games! 7–9:30pm. Geery
Theatre, 2130 L street,
Sac. $5.00, frst time free.
INFO: Damion, 916-821-
4533, dsharpeproduc-
[email protected]
2nd TUESDAYS: Gray Pan-
thers. 1–3pm. Hart Senior
Ctr., 27th & J St. INFO:
Joan, 332-5980.
2nd TUESDAYS: Peace
Network (speakers and
di scussi on), 6:30pm.
Luna’s Cafe, 1414 16th
Street. INFO: Sac Area
Peace Action 448-7157.
4th TUESDAYS: Peace and
Justice Films. 7pm. Peace
Action, 909 12th Street.
INFO:448-7157.
4th TUESDAYS: (Odd num-
bered months) Amnesty
Int’l. 7pm. Sacramento
Friends Meeting, 890-
57th St. INFO: 489-2419.
1st WEDNESDAYS: Peace
& Freedom Party. 7pm.
INFO: 456-4595.
3r d WEDNESDAY S:
CAAC Goes to the Mov-
ies. 7:15pm. INFO: 446-
3304.
THURSDAYS: Daddy’s Here.
Men’s support group; info
on custody, divorce, raising
children. 7–8:30pm. Free!
Ctr for Families, 2251 Flo-
rin 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 les-
sons. 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.sacramento-
dancesofuniversalpeace.
org, 916-832-4630.
4th FRIDAYS: Dances at
Christ Unity Church, 9249
Folsom Blvd. All Welcome
$5–$10 donation request-
ed. INFO: Christine 457-
5855, www.sacramento-
dancesofuniversalpeace.
org
1st SATURDAYS: Health
Care for All. 10:30am.
Hart Senior Ctr, 27th &
J. For universal access to
health care. INFO: 916-
424-5316; cnegrete@
comcast.net.
1st SATURDAYS: Sacra-
mento Area Peace Action
Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm.
Arden and Heritage (en-
trance to Arden Mall).
INFO: 448-7157
2nd & 4th SATURDAYS:
Community Contra Dance.
8–11pm; 7:30 lessons.
Coloma Center 4623 T
Street. INFO: 395-3483.
3rd SATURDAYS: Sacra-
mento Area Peace Action
Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm.
Marconi & Fulton. INFO:
448-7157
3rd SATURDAYS: Under-
ground Poetr y Series,
open mic plus featured po-
ets. 7–9pm Underground
Books, 2814 35th Street
(at Broadway), Sacramen-
to. $3. INFO: 737-3333
SUNDAYS: Sacto Food Not
Bombs. 1:30pm. Come
help distribute food at 9th
and J Streets.
1st SUNDAYS: Zapatis-
ta Solidarity Coalition.
10am–noon. 909 12th St.
INFO: 443-3424.
1st SUNDAYS: PoemSpir-
its. 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.
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-Sufciency. 1-pm. Hart Senior Center, 7
th

and J Streets. INFO: -980.
Tuesday, March 11
Sacramento 9/11 Truth Demonstration, in con-
junction with Sacramento Area Peace Action.
-6pm. 16th & J Sts. INFO: www.truthaction.
org, 916-7-8.
Monday, March 17
Meeting. Sacramento 9/11 Truth: Questioning
the War on Terror. 6-8pm. Denny’s meeting room
- rd/J Sts. INFO: 7-8.
Wednesday, March 19
Five Years is Too Many: Demonstration to de-
mand an End to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Bring signs. :0-6pm. Howe & Fair Oaks Blvd.
INFO: 81-61.
Wednesday, March 19
Candlelight Peace Vigil on the th anniversary
of the start of the dreadful US war on Iraq to
protest all wars. Unitarian Universalist Society
Auditorium, Sierra Blvd., Sac. 6–9pm. INFO:
[email protected]; 916-81-61.
Thursday, March 20
Movies on a Big Screen, special presentation.
Zeitgeist (Film about 9/11). 7pm. 600 th St,
West Sacramento.
Saturday, March 22
Class. Beginning Beekeeping, taught by long-
time local commercial beekeeper Randy Oliver.
8am-pm, break for lunch. $ per person.
Sacramento County Coop Ag Extension Audito-
rium, 1 Branch Center Road (1 block west of
Bradshaw at Keifer Blvd.) INFO: 1-7.
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 disci-
plines & small arts businesses will be presented
by Dennis Yep, an Enrolled Agent since 1968.
6:0pm. $0 general, $0 members of C.L.A.
or co-sponsors, $0 students/seniors, $ of for
registering in advance. 117 Eleventh St., Suite
01. INFO: -610 or email [email protected]
to register.
Saturday, March 29
Lecture. The Policing of Dissent. Prof. Luis Fer-
nandez, Northern Arizona Univ., will discuss how
the police monitor and control peace and justice
organizing. 7pm. 909 1th St. Sacramento INFO:
916-8-717; [email protected].
Monday, March 31
Poetry reading. Hosted by Frank Dixon Graham,
anti-war poet and peace activist . 7:0pm. Sac-
ramento Poetry Center: HQ for the Arts 1719
th St. INFO: 606-0.
Saturday, April 5
Speakers Bureau Training, to become a better
advocate and speaker for SB 80! Sponsored
by Health Care For All Sacramento Valley.
9:0am–pm. Hart Senior Center, 91 7th St.
Registration fee $1 requested. INFO: Carolyn
Negrete, (916) -16.
Friday, April 11
Sacramento 9/11 Truth Demonstration. 11th
and L Streets, facing State Capitol North en-
trance. :0-6pm INFO: www.truthaction.org,
916-7-8.
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, 6 T St., Sac. $1, proceeds
beneft California Common Cause and Access
Sacramento. INFO: JoAnn, 916--179 x11 or
www.commoncause.org/CA. See Box below.
Sunday, April 13
Richard Gage of Architects and Engingeers
for 9/11 truth. 7:0pm. Varsity Theater, 616
Second Street, Davis. $10/students $. INFO:
0-77-16
Sunday, April 20
Sacramento Earth Day 008 celebration. Cel-
ebrate the things we love about Sacramento
…Cultivate a sustainable future! 11am-pm.
Location: To Be Announced. (See Box announce-
ment below).
Monday, April 21
Meeting. Sacramento 9/11 Truth: Questioning
the War on Terror. 6-8pm. Denny’s meeting room
- rd/J Sts. INFO: 7-8.
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 op-
posed the war on Iraq. 7:0-9pm. $0. Varsity
Theater, 616 d St, Davis. INFO: 0--7061.
Tuesday, April 22
Planned Parenthood presents Capitol Education
Day. Join Planned Parenthood volunteers, activ-
ists and staf 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 916-6-07 x11,
[email protected].
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!
Te location of the event will
be changed due to construc-
tion at Sacramento State.
For information on the loca-
tion of the event, on events
before and afer April 20, or
on sponsoring or volunteer-
ing, contact ECOS:
916-444-0022 or [email protected]
How gREEN can
you get?
Sacramento
Earth Day 2008
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
Te Flow on Friday,
April 11 from 7-9pm
at the Coloma Com-
munity Center Auditorium, 4623 T St.
Sacramento 95819.
Tickets are just $15, and proceeds beneft
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
NON-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION
US POSTAGE PAID
PERMIT NO. 2668
SACRAMENTO, CA
Sacramento and Central Valley INDYMEDIA: www.sacindymedia.org.
Progressive Media
Online News Sources:
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 nonproft progres-
sive website ofering 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 flls that gap
between the media’s dumbed down info-
tainment and real news reporting.
Editors Picks!
Soapbox!—Jeanie Keltner talks with activ-
ists 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 nd and th Mondays. Repeats Tues-
day at noon, Wednesday at am.
In Davis, on channel 1, Tuesdays at 7pm.
Media Edge—Sacramento’s own magazine
format show, covering local progressive
events and speakers, as well as internation-
ally 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 1. Sundays 8-10pm
Nevada County channel 11 Mondays
10:0pm–1:0am,
West Sacramento channel 1 Mondays
9-11pm.
See scheduled segments at
www.wethemedia.org.
Democracy Now—Amy Goodman’s
award-winning magazine format show.
Where to watch:
Access Sacramento TV, Cable Channels 17
and 18, Weekdays 6pm, 1midnight, am.
Dish Network Satellite TV, Channel 91,
Free Speech TV, M-F: 9am, pm, 9pm, am,
Pacifc time.
Link TV, Channel 910, Monday–Friday,
8am, pm.
KVMR 89. FM Mon-Thu 7pm
KDVS 90. FM Mon-Fri noon
KPFA 9.1 FM Berkeley, M-F 9am
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 crew-
members 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.
Te 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.
Progressive Radio Stations
▼ KVMR 89. FM
▼ The Voice, 88.7 Cable FM; and streaming
audio on www.Accesssacramento.org; SAP
Comcast Channels 17 & 18
▼ KYDS 91. FM
▼ KDVS 90. FM
▼ KPFA 9.1 FM Berkeley
▼ KSAC 10 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-pm: Ring of Fire
-pm: Best of “The Thom Hartmann
Show”
:00-7pm: CLOUT w/Richard Greene
10-1am: Best of “The Randi Rhodes Show”
SUNDAY
-am: Best of “The Young Turks”
11am-1pm:Best of “The Rachel Maddow
Show”
1pm-pm: Seder on Sunday
pm-pm: State of Belief
-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.
(Other) Progressive Newspapers
▼ The Flatlander: a free community newspa-
per of fun, opinion and politics in the Davis
Area. [email protected]. Publication
every months, next issue is April/May
The Flatlander
P.O. Box 779
Davis, CA 9617
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