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They came to Dallas, the fat cats with their fat purses and their love of flatulent refineries and chemical processing plants, which along with their noxious clouds of toxicity produce even more lard in the tightly clutched purses. They came in their stretched cars whose voracious appetites provide ever more lucre for the monster off of whom they all feed.
Outside were those who live downwind from their plants. Locked outside with a line of police between them and the doors were those whose children are forced to breathe the foul exhalations of the luxurious conveyances. These 60 to 80 people came equipped with the dedication of the Dallas Peace Center, the stubbornness of North Texas for Justice and Peace, the enthusiasm of UNT's SDS and the clout of nationwide organizations, such as the hard won moral authority of Iraq Veterans Against War, the Wobblies' disdain for the corporate establishment, Consumers for Peace's tenacity in opposing Exxon Mobil, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's firm belief that right will prevail. Feature continued on newswire >>
ExxonMobil shareholders will gather at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas on May 28. The media extensively covers this event, and it is a good time to voice concerns about how the largest energy company in the world is affecting people's lives and the planet. 
A coalition of environmental, faith and peace organizations are planning environmental justice hearings, news conferences and a demonstration to increase shareholder and public awareness about ExxonMobil's irresponsible pollution and how it is causing illness and death, and destroying quality of life for people living in the Texas Gulf Coast.
The news conferences and demonstration also will seek to hold ExxonMobil accountable for it's contribution to global warming and lack of efforts to move toward clean, renewable energy. War profiteering and excess profits while consumers pay outreageous prices for gas also will be addressed.
Key messages: It's time to tell ExxonMobil . . . enough! related link: http://www.labordallas.org/exxn.htm Feature continued on newswire >>
"The new AIM will not be totally native. The new AIM will be young whites. The new AIM will be young blacks. The new AIM will be young Asians." ---- Dennis Banks
Activists in North Texas have had a part in planning the Longest Walk 2, which is going through Oklahoma in May, 2008.(see the full feature article, link below)
In February, 2007, Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), visited Camp Casey at the invitation of Carl Rising-Moore. Banks was trying to plan a route from Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay, to Washington, DC. A group visited from nearby Dallas, to spend an evening sitting around a campfire and speaking with Banks. The next day, some of the group participated in a sweatlodge.
Don Hatch (white hair) with Dennis Banks to his left, flanked by 2 Longest Walkers from Poland
While sitting around the campfire, Dennis told the group why he was planning a cross country route. In 1978, a group of Native American activists had walked from Alcatraz to DC. That trek was called the Longest Walk. Now, there was to be a "Longest Walk 2" to commemorate the first walk. The second walk would leave Alcatraz thirty years after the first one on February 11, 2008 to arrive in DC on July 11. They would divide into two groups, one taking a northern route, while the others take a southern route. Besides commemorating the first Longest Walk, Longest Walk 2 would also pick up trash across the country and work to draw attention to sacred sites and the need to protect them.
More regarding the current group's movement through Oklahoma....
Feature continued on newswire >>
Jim Goodnow and his bus, the Yellow Rose, both have suffered a terrible tragedy.
In recent months, Jim has been providing transportation to Iraq Veterans Against the War for their various tours and other activities. Last night, Jim escaped a fire of suspicious origins that destroyed the bus. Luckily Jim is all right.
This message was passed on by Bill Perry, a vet, anti war activist and member of Delaware Valley Veterans For America.
Bill Perry wrote:
The bus in this photo, is the Yellow Rose. It was totaled by fire, around 9:30 pm, Friday night, 1/11/08
This bus, often mired in controversy since the IVAW "Dirty South"tour that left Philly in June, and had Active Duty BBQ's @ Ft Meade, Ft Jackson, Camp Lejeune, Ft Benning, and other Southern Military Posts (Including an IVAW benefit by Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine, and AudioSlave, in Virginia) as well as backdrop for many a Demonstration, and Ft Drum, NY, organizing parties, has suffered much damage.
This photo shows the huge "Don't Attack Iran" and "Impeach Bush" logos, that let everybody on the highway know just how the occupants felt about the state of the state.
Owner~Operator~Driver and member of Veterans For Peace, Jim Goodnow pulled into a South Jersey Truck Stop, to catch a 3 or 4 hour nap. Jim saw, in retrospect, some suspicious activity outside the bus, and about 20 minutes later, the entire engine compartment, and back of the bus was engulfed in flames.
Mr Goodnow speculates that the cause could have been anything from ARSON, to ATTEMPTED MURDER. He plans to notify the ATF Arson Squad on Saturday morning.
Stay tuned....
Be Well, RAISE HELL !
Bill Perry
Delaware Valley Veterans For America
Disabled American Veteran, VVAW, VFP, VFW, VVA
----------------------------------------
A fund has been set up and is tax deductible:
Checks can be made out to:
Veterans For Peace, Chapter 106 (please spell this out) Put in memo line: BUS FUND
Mail to:
Bernie Jezercak
1804 Tree LIne Drive
Carrollton, TX 75007
Comment on this feature >>
These are pictures from the Fur Free Friday demo outside of the flagship Neiman Marcus store in downtown Dallas, TX on November 23rd, 2007. Local animal rights activists and members of the Animal Connection of Texas (ACT), the Vegetarian Network of Dallas (VegNoD), In Defense of Animals (IDA), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and the North Texas Animal Rights Network (NTARN) were joined by reality TV star Lacey Conner (of VH1's "Rock of Love") to protest the cruel fur industry.
Photos continued in Newswire
related link: http://www.myspace.com/animalconnectiontx Feature continued on newswire >>
The demonstration on Prairie Chapel Road at the Bush Ranch and a panel discussion that followed at the Crawford Texas Peace House.
More photos in full article. Feature continued on newswire >>
(TYLER, Texas, November 15, 2007) – Eight student activists demonstrated against John Bolton outside the R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center at the University of Texas at Tyler Thursday.
Mr. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a neoconservative stalwart and Project for a New American Century signer, was the featured speaker of the University’s Louis and Peaches Owen Lecture Series.
The students defiantly held up banners reading “No War on Iran,” “Down with Empire” and “Bolton Supports Torture” and handed out literature to attendees of the lecture describing Bolton’s hotly controversial record as a diplomat and neoconservative political pundit as the attendees walked into the Cowan Center.
“John Bolton is not a good man,” said Justin Brown, a co-founder of the Live Free or Die Society, the organizers of the protest. “The Bush administration has worked hard for years to follow the Project for a New American Century’s manual for empire and aggression and to pull the U.S. out of every international agreement and treaty they could in their effort to dominate rather than collaborate on global issues – and John Bolton exemplifies that attitude.”
Feature continued on newswire >>
Our Jobs with Justice "Stop Corporate Greed" sign joined about a hundred other signs and banners at a protest against Vice President Dick Cheney outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Dallas on the morning of November 2. Cheney was telling a group of supporters that the United States needs to keep up the occupation of Iraq and add another project: invading Iran! Protesters outside were chanting, "Are you crazy?"
Even though activists from the Dallas Peace Center, a Jobs with Justice member organization, organized the action primarily for anti-war reasons, a goodly number of young environmentalists joined in.
 The Jobs with Justice position was explained over a bullhorn thusly: War is only carried out against countries that refuse to sign so-called "free trade" agreements with American corporations. If Iraq, Afganistan, or Iran had signed one, they wouldn't be threatened today. In other words, gobblelization is the root cause of war.
related link: http://www.labordallas.org/chen.htm Feature continued on newswire >>
DALLAS, TX - A national interfaith coalition of civil rights groups said that today's hung jury in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) charity trial reveals the "unjust" nature of the case.
A jury in Texas could not come to agreement on the validity of the accusations that the number one Islamic charity in America was a front scheme for a terrorist group after 19 days of deliberation, the longest in Texas history. The government laid the heavy burden of weighing mountains of paperwork, wiretap transcripts and videos in a 200-decision verdict-finding process on the 12 jurors.
The Hungry for Justice Coalition said that the piled-on charges and foreign evidence admitted were just more tactics by the government to overwhelm the jury and convolute the facts.
Initially, three defendants, Mufid Abdulqader, Mohammad El-Mezain and Adulrahman Odeh, were acquitted of all counts, all but one, and all but two, respectively. Shukri Abu-Baker and Ghassan Elashi had hung juries for every count against them. The prosecution then polled the jurors to verify their votes. One hesitated, then stood by the vote, and two contradicted the vote. The jurors were sent back to deliberate. Those two people changed their votes, causing a hung jury on all counts for all defendants.
Photo shows Mohammad El-Mezain, Khalil Meek, AbdulRahman Odeh, Shukri Abu-Baker, and Walid Ajaj (CAIR Advocate).
In a statement reacting to the verdict, the Hungry for Justice (H4J) coalition expressed concern about what they say were injustices in the prosecution of this case:
"HLF officials were never accused of any violent act. Their only 'crime' was providing food, clothing, and shelter to Palestinian women and children through agencies that were also funded by our own government and were licensed by the Palestinian Authorities (Fatah). This allegedly relieved HAMAS from spending social money, thereby amounting to a 'conspiracy' to intentionally aid the group.
"The politically-motivated charges came despite HLF's attempts to seek advice from our government as to which Palestinian charities should be avoided. The government refused to provide the charity with a white list of committees to work with.
"The charges brought against these individuals were viewed by many people in this country and worldwide as an attempt to block humanitarian assistance to Palestinians suffering under a brutal Israeli occupation. They were also seen as a means to chill the First Amendment rights and charitable giving of American Muslims and other people of conscience opposed to our nation's one-sided policies in the Middle East.
"In essence, this was an Israeli trial tried on American soil in which guilt by association was used as a substitute for actual evidence.
"To obtain today's verdict, the government resorted to the apparently unconstitutional tactic of not allowing the defendants to confront their accuser, which in this case was an unidentified security agent of a foreign government, who was hostile to Palestinian human rights, an unprecedented occurrence in the American justice system.
"The government also violated its own guidelines by smearing mainstream American Muslim groups when, in an attempt to lower the bar for introduction of evidence, it issued a list of so-called 'unindicted co-conspirators' prior to the trial. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Association of Muslim Lawyers have criticized the publication of the 'overreaching list' and the effect it has had on Arab and Muslim discrimination.
"We believe the prosecution sets a negative precedent for free speech rights and threatens the American tradition of charitable giving to those in war-torn areas of the world.
"The criminalization of legitimate charitable-giving is not just an attack on the American Muslim community; it is an attack on every American who believes in the moral duty to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and heal the sick.
"Our resolve to see justice done remains undiminished. The process won today, and the jury showed that the government will not find victory by scaring up buzz. While we respect the jury's final decision, we believe that the defendants will be fully acquitted in the courtroom when the government retries the case."
This statement is signed on by Muslim American Society (MAS), Dallas Peace Center, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Partnership for Civil Justice, Muslim Legal Fund of America, Crawford Texas Peace House, Islamic Services Foundation, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, MAS Youth Center of DFW, Reverend Graylan Hagler, MAS-Freedom and American Muslim Alliance.
Contact:
Khalil Meek, 972.849.9188 Hungry for Justice Spokesman Comment on this feature >>
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