|
 |
 Pastors for Peace to Launch Non-Violent Challenge to US Blockade of Cuba:
Pastors for Peace and hundreds of volunteers from the US and 7 other countries are slated to cross the US border into Mexico on July 7th challenging US restrictions on travel and aid to Cuba. This 15th Friendshipment Caravan will be stopping in Salt Lake City on Sunday, June 27th. People for Peace and Justice of Utah has organized a free public event to welcome the Caravan at Jordan Park (1060 South 900 West) beginning at noon.
Keynote speaker at the SLC event will be Kathryn Hall, Director of The Center for Community Health & Well-Being, Inc. She has participated in several special IFCO/Pastors for Peace delegations to Cuba and has twenty years of experience as a public health administrator, community health educator and advocate in the public and private sectors.
Pastors for Peace has used hunger strikes and mass mobilizations to successfully challenge the US governments past attempts to confiscate vehicles and humanitarian aid crossing the Mexican border on its way to Cuba. Since 1992, IFCO/Pastors for Peace has delivered more than 2,350 tons of urgently needed assistance to the Cuban people without seeking a US Treasury license.
In this election year the Bush Administration has started cracking down on “people to people” exchanges with Cuba. Despite this, the 15th Friend shipment Caravan will travel along thirteen separate routes across the country, stop in 120 US cities and collect over 60 tons of humanitarian aid. This caravan organized by Pastors for Peace, a project of the faith based Interreligious Foundation for Community organization, will travel to Cuba with school buses, computers, medicines, and school supplies collected from groups across the U.S., refusing US treasury department licenses, as a collective challenge to the Blockade and travel ban.
“As people of faith and conscience, it is our duty to resist and expose this cruel contradiction,” declared Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., Executive Director and founder of the 36-year old IFCO, an ecumenical agency. “IFCO/Pastors for Peace rejects this licensing system as both immoral and illegal. It is immoral because it endangers the lives of Cubans and inflicts suffering on innocent children, as well as adults. It is illegal under international law because it uses a sanction to be imposed only in time of war against a declared enemy in order to force another nation to change its government. Licensing is also unconstitutional because it requires people of faith to submit their acts of conscience and friendship to government licensing, in violation of our right to freedom of religious expression, political thought, association and travel,” continued Walker.
The event at Jordan Park will include distribution of literature on the Caravan to Cuba, music, food, acceptance of donations for the Caravan and fundraising to help the Caravan in its efforts. More information can be obtained by writing to PPJ.
US Attorney General, John Ashcroft came to Salt Lake City on Monday, August 25th as part of a multi-city public relations roadshow. Amid growing criticism, the tour intends to shore up support for the USA Patriot Act, which violates at least three constitutional ammendments. Meanwhile, the expansion of police powers continues under Sen. Orrin Hatch's recently drafted Victory Act. One of the bill's aims is to re-define most drug offenses as narcoterrorism.
Ashcroft's visit and proposed legal changes are bringing opposition from across the political spectrum here in Utah as well. A local call to action states, "These fascists seem to think that we Americans are cowardly and that we will allow them to steal our freedoms because they are afraid of terrorists." Benjamin Franklin once said, '"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither.'"
On Monday August 25th, as Ashcroft was speaking to law enforcement at a hotel in downtown SLC, protesters gathered outside. For several hours, over 150 people occupied both sides of Main Street near the entrance of the hotel, and many marched around the block. The atmosphere was light, and a street theatre performance mocked Ashcroft's vision of homeland security. See photos of the protest: 1 - 2
- 3
- 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9
See homeland security parody posters: 1 - 2
Between June 1st and 3rd, the world’s seven richest countries
plus Russia held their annual summit in the French town of Evian, close to the Swiss border. This group, known as the G-8, was created in 1975 to informally discuss global financial and economic issues. A prime example of corporate-led globalization at work, the G-8 policies generally favor the interests of multinational corporations and offer little forum for the interests of ordinary people. As the G-8 members are the major shareholders in the IMF and World Bank, the
recommendations made during the summits are put into practice by these highly secretive lending institutions.
Many critics believe these neo-liberal policies accelerate the concentration of wealth, attack workers' rights, lower living standards for the vast majority of the population, attack cultural diversity, and harm the environment. Though the G-8 claims to combat world poverty, it has never offered to cancel the debt of poor countries, preferring ‘debt relief’, which has proven insufficient and driven countries such as Argentina into bankruptcy.
The G-8 summits have been actively opposed since 1989 by a loose coalition of NGO's, unions,
relgious groups, political parties and activist groups world-wide, though mainstream media outlets have failed to cover either the level of protest or the core issues. At the 2001 meeting in Italy, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Genoa after police killed 23 year old Carlo Guiliani, and planted weapons on peaceful protesters after violently raiding the Indymedia offices at the Genoa Social Forum.
Thursday May 29th - 1st day of protests in Lausanne - photos 1 2 - Friday May 30th - Protests start in Geneva with Critical Mass - photos 1 2 then a march to WTO offices - photos 1 2 3 and the No Borders Demo - photos 1 2 3 4- Sunday June 1st: After much preparation, activists were out on the streets hours before the summit began in Evian - photos While they blockaded the roads into Evian - story photos 1 2 police raided the Indymedia convergence center 12 miles away in Geneva - photos
story 1 2 Later in the day, two British activists were serious injured by police. One, an Indymedia volunteer, needed a two hour long operation to repair leg injuries caused by a concussion grenade - story, photos, his photos The other fell 60 feet from a road bridge after his rope was cut during an attempted blockade -story 1 2 photos Riots in Geneva photos & story
Full Coverage: in English: nadir.org - Indymedia UK - Indymedia G8 Site in Spanish: lahaine.org - IMC Chile - IMC Argentina - IMC Uruguay
Links: The World Social Forum offers sound alternatives to capitalism. Crimethinc and A-Infos News Service eyewitness accounts at the G8
New Economics Foundation - Simple International Debt and Finance Analysis - Report: Did the G8 Drop the Debt? - The G8, The Global Fund and Disease Prevention - Upcoming Anti-Capitalist Events Abolish the Bank - Indymedia - Protest net
 Green Party Growing Pains4/26/03 - After a contentious fallout between two factions within the governing body of the Green Party of Utah, the remaining members have regrouped and elected 7 new party officers at a convention of the party membership.The convention marks a watershed for attendees, six of whom weathered a questionable expulsion from the party. Most notable among the six was Salt Lake County Council candidate, Diana Lee Hirschi, who single-handedly
carried the party's ballot access for the 2004 elections with 14,405 votes.
On Febuary 11th, the six received a letter in the mailinforming them that their party membership had been terminated. "I had no idea what I did to precipitate my being expelled" said Deanna Taylor. The letter, formulated at a closed February 9th meeting, included a resolution containing blanket accusations against the six, alleging that they had continuously obstructed the party's effectiveness and abused
its bylaws.
Added to the resolution were statements that had been hotly contested in recent months, directing the GPU to emulate the decision-making process and electoral focus of the national Green Party of the United States. Patrick Beecroft, also a Green candidate in 2002 and critic of the February 9th resolution, explained the subtleties of the issue. “We definitely want to get people elected. That is our goal," he said, "The difference is the approach. We come from activist backgrounds, and we approach things from the bottom up. Working with different movements that are directly addressing issues is how we’re going to build credibility” and organize people to seize power, he said. “They wanted to run candidates for high-profile offices, and spend a lot of money, but we think the focus should be on smaller, non-partisan races where we have a chance."
Conflict and gridlock over these, and other issues, were common at GPU meetings, and it "got pretty ugly on both sides," Beecroft admits, but very few Greens were aware that there were problems so severe as to warrant expulsion.
The six decided to challenge their treatment, but were barred from attending GPU meetings. After making other efforts to reconcile,
they resorted to the courts. “What they’d done was illegal,” says Jerry Parsons, “Our only recourse to save the party was to file a lawsuit.” They claimed that the resolution was illegal because the manner in which
it was approved contradicted the same bylaws the expelled were accused of abusing.
Soon after, each of the individuals who had signed the resolution either resigned or rescinded their support, leaving 6 of the 7 party offices vacant. Several of those who resigned returned to the Democratic Party, where they established a “Progressive Caucus,” which will raise its own funds to advocate causes and promote progressive Democrats.
The remaining Greens then began to organize for the April 26th convention, and prove that activism and electoral politics are not mutually exclusive.
 No Child Left Behind, or No Child Left Unrecruited?Civil libertarians, school administrators, educators, and
parents have been alarmed by
Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act which entitles
Pentagon recruiters access to all contact information of American school children.
Efforts by groups such as The American Association of School
Administrators, National Education Association, and the Civil Liberties
Union, along with a number of politicians to keep military recruiters out of schools broke down after years of
attempts by the Pentagon to insert recruitment provisions into
education legislation.
A joint letter to school administrators from Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and Education Secretary Rod Paige urged schools to "work
closely with military recruiters." They reminded educators that the
disclosure requirement applies to juniors as well as graduating seniors.
According to the provision there is an opt-out clause for parents, but
it is
confusing and possibly not viable. School administrators trying to
keep recruiters from accessing contact of students in their schools
have been met with aggressive demands for the information or face a total elimination of federal financial support for their
school.
The idea of military recruiters being a presence in schools is not new.
Between 1992 and 1997, the number of
high school ROTC programs more than doubled, from 1,600 to 3,500
nationwide, with focused efforts in low-income high minority
neighborhoods in big cities.
More information on military recruiting in schools:
Military Out of
Our Schools: Tools for Activists
Making
Choices About the Military
Democrary Now! No Child Left Unrecruited
Romeo and Juliet Verses Military Recruiteres
Military Recruiteres Go To School
Dec. 10 Anti-Capitalist/War Action in Washington, D.C.
utah-imc
(top)
|
|
|
|
|
Ashcroft Victory Tour Hits SLC
Poverty is Their Business: The G-8 meets in Evian
Anti-War Sentiment Rises in Conservative Salt Lake City
