Submitted by anonymous on October 17, 2006 - 4:33pm Many are now familiar with the infamous story of Sergeant Jon Burge in Chicago. In 2002, it was found that Sgt. Burge and his underlings had tortured over 150 Black men in Chicago jails. Burge had used a hand-cranked army field phone to deliver electric shocks to criminal suspects. We often assume that these incidents of police brutality only occur in big cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Yet the discovery of these abuses in Champaign-Urbana, a sleepy Midwestern college town in downstate Illinois, is a sign that they are going on all over the country. As violence escalates overseas, with the United States tightening its imperial grip in the Middle East, we see a corresponding rise in violence at home. Like Sgt. Burge who learned his torture techniques in Vietnam, the use of hoods to torture individuals was discovered in Champaign County jails not long after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in the media.
Submitted by anonymous on October 16, 2006 - 9:46am On October 25, 2006, the IMC will host a public forum on Network Neutrality. Here's some background:
No Room for Neutrality on Net Neutrality
Victor Pickard & Sascha D. Meinrath
Submitted by anonymous on October 13, 2006 - 4:40pm Thompson Hearing Yields Documents
October 13, 2006
by Chris Evans
URBANA- Patrick Thompson, local activist and founder of V.E.Y.A., returned to court yesterday to settle a brief dispute over some documents lawyers for Thompson had subpoenaed with regard to Thompson's 4-month incarceration in 2004 at the Champaign County Jail.
Submitted by Ricky Baldwin on October 12, 2006 - 10:37pm The Chipotle restaurant chain calls its product “Food With Integrity”. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), an organization of mostly immigrant farmworkers in Florida’s fields says, “Really? Then let’s talk about the SWEATSHOP TOMATOES IN YOUR BURRITOS!”
A busload of farmworkers will be in Champaign and Urbana this Tuesday, October 17, and they are making the most of their time here. They’ll be giving classroom presentations throughout the day Tuesday, meeting with activists at lunch and in the early afternoon, and then picketing a popular Mexican food chain on campus.
Submitted by anonymous on October 8, 2006 - 11:06am Third Annual Unity March: This Is What Unity Looks Like
By Brian Dolinar
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, October 7, 2006, a colorful crowd of nearly 200 participants joined in the Third Annual Unity March. This year, we took the Unity March to the community. We went into the Garden Hills neighborhood, ground zero for the effects of racism and poverty in Champaign.
Submitted by ML1 on October 4, 2006 - 9:59am New Opensource Drupal-based Software Runs UC IMC Website
Welcome to the new UC IMC Drupal-powered website! Working with Drupal permits the website to be more easily maintained and updated than our previous open-source site software allowed.
Among its features are a new, more user-friendly interface. Sign up for an account through the "User login" form near the top of the right column. This allows users to easily edit and update stories, as well as preventing anyone else from falsely posting under your user name.
Submitted by anonymous on October 1, 2006 - 7:43pm COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION SATURDAY
An excellent oppurtunity to " connect the dots " in the community ( ie. gather and unify everyone who is fed-up with the current situation and who want change ! ). We should try to set aside the time to do these series of rallies / marches for the purpose of outreach to fight back against the common enemy. The Debs dinner in Terre Haute is not until 7pm, so there is plenty of time to turn-out until at least 3pm.
UNITY MARCH ; NOON - 2PM
Meet at the used car parking lot on the north-west corner of Bradley and Prospect ( behind Jiffy-Lube ).
Submitted by ucimc on September 26, 2006 - 2:47pm The Local Media Bias
by Martel Miller
21 Sep 2006
Local media, the newspaper and television stations here in our community refuse to publish fairly.
Our local media has numerous articles and television stories about juvenile misbehavior. While legally, these stories involve minors, which the general public is rightfully barred from hearing about, our local media becomes very selective when they do decide to run stories of our local youth.
Submitted by ucimc on September 26, 2006 - 2:41pm Current rating: 0
by David Johnson
Email: unionyes (nospam) ameritech.net (unverified!)
Phone: 356-8247 22 Sep 2006
Last Sunday's News Gazette editorial featured an attack a longtime union and anti-war activist!
The Publishing Editor of the News Gazette ( John Foreman ) wrote a THREE column opinion piece ( last Sunday 9 / 17 / 06 ) attacking all who criticized Bush's war as the " bash America first crowd " and specifically attacked FW. Bob Wahlfeldt was called a " draftee potato peeler in Virginia for the duration of WW -2 ".
Submitted by ucimc on September 26, 2006 - 2:39pm by Darrin Drda
Email: d_drda (nospam) hotmail.com (verified) 13 Sep 2006
To love ones’ enemies is extremely subversive, not just emotionally, but politically – perhaps now more than ever.
As everyone knows, September 11th marked the 5th anniversary of the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As it turns out, it was also the 2nd Monday of the month, which in the context of my local meditation group means that it’s the one session of the month set aside for Loving-kindness meditation, also known as "metta" practice, which I typically lead.
