2. Bachelet Unveils New Indigenous Policy
3. Monsanto - 1, Hawaii - 0
4. News: Fear Of Messing Up May Cause WhitesTo Avoid Blacks - comment
5. 40th Anniversary Of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination
6. CAFTA
7. Superferry speeds return to service
8. Veterans For Peace Work for Peace through Alt Energy
9. Existing In Bodies
10. Standing Strong Woman
11. Internship Availability
12. OHA faces bias lawsuit
13. Kennedy Theatre presents The Servant of Many Masters!
14. Montville First In Maine To Pass GMO Moratorium and comment
15. India: Bio-pesticides, ginger garlic extract measures up -- Suicide:
Paying the Price of "Chemical" Agriculture (including GMOs)! and comment
16. Norway Becomes First Country to Ban Amalgam Fillings
17. American songbirds are being wiped out by banned pesticides
18. Disappeared News - 5 new articles
19. Waimanalo Hawaiian Homestead Association Press Release Re Public Lands
Trust Settlement and OHA Audit - comment
20. LAWYER: TONGAN CULTURE CONFLICTS WITH DEMOCRACY and comments
21. April 20th and April 30th
22. Airline Problems! However, if you intend future travel, buy now,
before the prices go up after April 7
23. Connect the dots!..Lehman...HSF...Federal Reserve....Military
Industrial Complex...
24. Pasifika: The Blood Will Be On Rich Nations Hands
25. Thinking of a 'Conversation' for SS teachers on opinions
26. "Building A New World" Conference details
27. TV helping to wipe out last tribes of the Amazon
28. CHARGES OF RACISM AND LABOR VIOLATIONS AGAINST SUPERFERRY SHIPBUILDER
1. Voices Health/Environment News
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:14:02 -0600
From: nimchira <tepaatu@gmail.com>
News from the Health and Environmental Communities.
Published since Nov, 2005
April 3, 2008
In This Issue:
Todays Recalls:
Evenflo Discovery Restraint Systems
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/04/evenflo_discovery.html
Mitsubishi Recalls 120,000 Endeavors
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/04/mitsubishi_endeavor.html
Honda Motorcycles
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/04/honda_cycles.html
Imaginarium Activity Centers
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/recalls04/2008/imaginarium.html
A.O. Smith Gas Water Heaters
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/recalls04/2008/ao_smith.html
Wal-Mart Candle Holders
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/recalls04/2008/walmart_candle_holder.html
Children's 'Main Street Draq' Sunglasses
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/recalls04/2008/main_street.html
==========
The Folly of Turning Water into Fuel http://www.alternet.org/water/79957/
Calling B.S. on the Idea of 'Marijuana Addiction' - It's laughable that
the Feds are pushing the concept of pot addiction when science shows that
withdrawal symptoms from caffeine are far worse.
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/80408/
Agency approves killing of sea lions at Bonneville Dam
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416867
Antidepressant Drugs Linked to School Shootings
http://www.naturalnews.com/022930.html
Toxic fumes, blisters and brain damage : The cost of doing business?
http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/11017/3057/13844/0/?u=aHR0cDovL3d3dy56d2lyZS5jb20vc2l0ZS9uZXdzLmNmbT9uZXdzaWQ9MTk0NDY0MTcmQlJEPTEzOTUmUEFHPTQ2MSZkZXB0X2lkPTIxNjYyMCZyZmk9Ng%3d%3d&x=199cee2c
Thalidomide: a curse and a blessing?
http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/11017/3057/13842/0/?u=aHR0cDovL25ld3MuYmJjLmNvLnVrLzIvaGkvaGVhbHRoLzczMjY1ODguc3Rt&x=898119ab
Vaccine-autism question divides parents, scientists.
http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/11017/3057/13845/0/?u=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jbm4uY29tLzIwMDgvSEVBTFRIL2NvbmRpdGlvbnMvMDMvMjQvYXV0aXNtLnZhY2NpbmVzL2luZGV4Lmh0bWw%3d&x=8ff845a2
EPA: More study needed on mineral in western North Dakota.
http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/11017/3057/13846/0/?u=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5qYW1lc3Rvd25zdW4uY29tL2FwL2luZGV4LmNmbT9wYWdlPXZpZXcmaWQ9RDhWUFZTQTAy&x=1518a9bb
More than a million at risk from polluted tap water.
http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/11017/3057/13847/0/?u=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5pbmRlcGVuZGVudC5pZS9uYXRpb25hbC1uZXdzL21vcmUtdGhhbi1hLW1pbGxpb24tYXQtcmlzay1mcm9tLXBvbGx1dGVkLXRhcC13YXRlci0xMzM1NzMwLmh0bWw%3d&x=87db1e25
When medicine turns toxic.
http://newsletters.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/11017/3057/13859/0/?u=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zb3V0aGFzaWFucG9zdC5jb20vcG9ydGFsMi9jMWVlOGM0NDE5MTBkYWY4MDExOTExOWFmMjUxMDA3ZV9XaGVuX21lZGljaW5lX3R1cm5zX3RveGljLmRvLmh0bWw%3d&x=b5e5c301
Scientists Ignored on Toxic Trailers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040308F.shtml
Research debunks health value of guzzling water
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN0236679720080402
Much of what lines supermarket aisles is not food. It's merely foodlike,
and it's making us sick. http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/80868/
US set to spend $50bn against HIV The US House of Representatives passes a
bill to triple its spending on the global fight against Aids.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/americas/7327694.stm
Birth Control Pill Linked to 20 Percent Higher Plaque Buildup in Arteries
http://www.naturalnews.com/022940.html
The Hepatitis Epidemic and Natural Remedies That Can Help
http://www.naturalnews.com/022939.html
Maine Middle School May Drug 11 Year Old Girls with Birth Control Patches.
A middle school in Portland, Maine is considering a proposal to provide
birth control pills and patches to students as young as 11 years old.
http://www.naturalnews.com/022934.html
British researchers create human-animal hybrid embryo amid political row:
For the first time in Britain, researchers at Newcastle University said
Tuesday they had created human-animal hybrid embryos, amid a political row
over a disputed embryo research bill in parliament.
http://tinyurl.com/2zwn9b
At least 36 states are expected to face water shortages within the next
five years, according to U.S. government estimates. Available freshwater
supplies are dwindling across the country due to rising temperatures and
droughts, while increasing sprawl, population and inefficient resource
usage are leading to rising demand. http://www.naturalnews.com/022915.html
======
The news that is reported is not necessarily the viewpoint of Voices
Health/Environmental News. Nothing within this message should be construed
as endorsing, promoting or abetting any illegal or unethical activity. The
articles in this newsletter are not necessarily the opinion of the editor.
Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monetary gain to
those who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for
research and educational purposes. This is in accordance with Title 17 U.
S. C. section 107. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright
Law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
All copyrights belong to original publisher.Under Bill s.1618 TITLE III
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To send news reports, subscribe or unsubscribe send email to:
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Bachelet Unveils New Indigenous Policy
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:25:50 +0000
From: mike sysiuk <msysiuk@hotmail.com>
FYI,
Mike
>
> CHILE: Bachelet Unveils New Indigenous Policy
> By Daniela Estrada
> April 04, 2008, Inter Press Service News Agency
> http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41835
>
> SANTIAGO, Apr 2 (IPS) - Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has
> announced a new policy for indigenous people, which includes novel
> approaches to political participation and the protection of natural
> resources in the hands of the countryâ^À^Ùs native groups.
>
> "Some say the problem facing indigenous people is just poverty, and that
> good targeting of subsidies would be the most appropriate policy. But
> we, on the other hand, maintain that it is a matter of rights, of a
> collective identity seeking expression in a multicultural society," said
> Bachelet at a ceremony Tuesday in the palace of La Moneda, the seat of
> government.
>
> "We are m aking progress on indigenous affairs, but now is the time to
> go further, and above all at a faster pace. We have the will, the
> grassroots support, the resources, the commitment and the legitimacy to
> do so," she said.
>
> The president announced the new policy for the nine ethnic groups
> recognised by the state, in the presence of ministers, members of
> Congress and representatives of indigenous communities, as well as
> former President Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), who promulgated the 1993
> Law on Indigenous Peoples and chaired the 2001-2003 Commission for
> Historic Truth and a New Deal.
>
> A 2006 census known by the acronym CASEN found that 1,060,786 people
> identified themselves as belonging to native groups, equivalent to 6.6
> percent of the Chilean population. The largest indigenous community is
> the Mapuche, who make up 87.2 percent of the countryâ^À^Ù s indigenous
> people.
>
> The new "Social Pact for Multiculturalism" addresses three main areas:
> political systems, rights and institutions; integrated development of
> indigenous communities; and multiculturalism and diversity. These are to
> be added to the guidelines for action presented by Bachelet in April
> 2007.
>
> In the first area, the president announced that she would promote direct
> participation by indigenous people in Congress, regional legislatures
> and local councils. "I want indigenous representatives in parliament,"
> said Bachelet, to a round of applause.
>
> "The proposal that has been analysed in greatest detail is to go back to
> a draft law presented in 1991 by two lawmakers, proposing the creation
> of an indigenous electoral district which would be entitled to elect a
> given number of members of both houses of Congress," Rodrigo Ega ña,
> commissioner for Indigenous Affairs, said after the ceremony.
>
> Egaña, appointed by Bachelet in February to coordinate and propose new
> policies for original peoples, said they hope to send several draft laws
> to Congress in three to five monthâ^À^Ùs time.
>
> It is likely that the draft law on the indigenous electoral district
> will be combined with reform of the two-candidate or "binominal"
> electoral system, which is part of Bacheletâ^À^Ùs government programme,
> as it has been for her three predecessors, all of them belonging to the
> centre-left Coalition for Democracy, since the return to democracy in
> 1990.
>
> The binominal system, which benefits the two largest party coalitions,
> has not been eliminated because of opposition from the right, and
> because if affects the interests of sitting lawmakers.
>
> The creation was also announced of a Subsecretariat of Indigenous
> Affairs within the sphere of the Planning Ministry (MIDEPLAN), a Council
> of Indigenous Peoples, conceived of as a representative body for
> consultation on policies affecting native communities, and a Ministerial
> Committee for Indigenous Affairs.
>
> The present National Corporation for Indigenous Development (CONADI) is
> to be restructured, in order for it to implement policies. In addition,
> an Indigenous Affairs Unit will be established in each cabinet ministry.
>
> In the second area, the president said that land would be restored in
> the immediate term to 115 indigenous communities, and decisions would be
> made with respect to the applications of another 308 communities. The
> Land and Water Fund, administered by CONADI, will be overhauled.
>
> Programmes will be set in motion to boost the econom ic development of
> native groups, as well as the areas of communications, housing, drinking
> water, electricity and rural innovation, Bachelet said.
>
> The special indigenous health programme will be strengthened, and
> actions will be studied to guarantee the right of indigenous peoples to
> have a say in the education of their children.
>
> The third and final area of the new policy is aimed at "generating
> cultural change" among the Chilean population. The main novelty is that
> a "Code of Responsible Conduct" will be drawn up to regulate private and
> public investment projects in Indigenous Development Areas and on
> indigenous lands.
>
> The Code "will include the right of indigenous people to be consulted
> about the projects, to share in the benefits, to be compensated for
> damages, and not to be relocated from their homes except und er the
> conditions stipulated in the (International Labour Organisation)
> Convention 169 (on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples)," the president said.
>
> "We are thinking of an indigenous communitiesâ^À?impact assessment for
> investment projects," similar to the environmental impact assessment
> studies that are already required, Egaña said.
>
> Lastly, policies fomenting multiculturalism and inclusion will be
> created, and specific programmes will be developed for indigenous people
> living in urban areas.
>
> Although Bachelet launched an indigenous affairs policy in April 2007,
> intended to last until 2010 when her term of office ends, the resurgence
> of the Mapuche land conflict in the southern region of AraucanÃa forced
> her to announce further reforms.
>
> The first five guidelines for action she proposed were strengthening
> indigenous co mmunitiesâ^À?participation in the political and social
> arenas, recognition and strengthening of their rights, improvement of
> the quality of life of indigenous people living in urban areas,
> empowerment of women, and promoting education and culture.
>
> In January, however, Mapuche student MatÃas Catrileo was shot and
> killed by the police when, with a group of fellow activists, he
> trespassed on a private estate that the Mapuche claim as part of their
> ancestral lands.
>
> Another activist for the Mapuche cause, Patricia Troncoso, who is
> serving a 10-year prison sentence for "terrorist arson", went on hunger
> strike for over 100 days.
>
> Troncoso called off her fast when the government granted her prison
> privileges, including transfer to a prison farm and weekend leave,
> measures which were implemented in March.
>
> Mapuche communities involv ed in conflicts over land have accused the
> police of repression and the justice system of persecution. These
> complaints, Egaña said, will be dealt with by the Presidential Advisory
> Commission on Human Rights, and by the courts.
>
> Meanwhile, the countryâ^À^Ùs indigenous groups are opposed to the way
> Congress ratified ILO Convention 169, which it did with a controversial
> "interpretative declaration" on article 35.
>
> The Convention and the appended declaration are now being studied by the
> Constitutional Court, after which the treaty could be approved by
> President Bachelet.
>
> Another government promise that has not yet been fulfilled is a
> constitutional amendment recognising indigenous peoples, which is
> currently making its way through Congress.
>
> Javier Mamani Castro, an Aymara town councillor in Colchane in the north
> of the country, told IPS he was pleased with the presidentâ^À^Ùs speech,
> especially her announcement about introducing indigenous political
> participation in Congress.
>
> But according to Paulina Acevedo, of the non-governmental Observatory
> for Indigenous Peoplesâ^À?Rights, who was invited to Tuesdayâ^À^Ùs
> ceremony, "there were no important announcements in what the president
> said," except for the social policies to do with health and education.
>
> Acevedo said the announcements about political participation were
> "vague." "Nothing was said, for example, about a quota system for
> parliamentary representation. Weâ^À^Ùll have to wait and see what
> mechanism is finally chosen to implement these measures," she told IPS.
> (END/2008)
>
> Copyright © 2008 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Monsanto - 1, Hawaii - 0
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:49:52 -1000
From: mike reitz <mreitz@pacbell.net>
This kinda sez it all:
Paul Koehler, manager for scientific and community affairs for Monsanto
Hawai'i, the agriculture and biotechnology company, praised the
committee's work on the bill... The bill would allow genetic
experimentation on other varieties of taro with a valid federal permit.
The bill would also prohibit any county from banning or otherwise
regulating the genetic modification of any plant or discriminating against
genetically modified plants in zoning ordinances or land use permits.
April 4, 2008
House OKs compromise on taro experimentation
Research would be allowed to continue on non-Hawaiian varieties
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
Advertiser Government Writer
Searching for a balance between cultural tradition and science, the state
House Agriculture Committee yesterday approved a bill that would impose a
five-year moratorium on genetic experimentation with Hawaiian taro but
would allow research into other varieties of the tropical plant.
Many farmers who consider taro a sacred part of Hawaiian culture want at
least a 10-year moratorium, if not an outright ban, because of the
potential threat of cross-pollination with genetically modified varieties.
But scientists argue that genetic experimentation could eventually prevent
diseases and help preserve taro as a crop.
State Rep. Clifton Tsuji, D-3rd (S. Hilo, Puna, Kea'au), the committee's
chairman, described the bill as a compromise that recognizes the cultural
significance of taro and the importance of scientific advancement.
"This bill illustrates that we really recognize the importance of the
cultural relationship between taro and the Native Hawaiian community,
while also assuring that, here in Hawai'i, we recognize the agriculture
industry and that we can still pursue and utilize biotechnology as an
alternative method, and that we continue what we consider valuable
scientific research," he said after the committee vote.
The House is expected to approve the bill. It would be sent back to the
state Senate, which agreed to a 10-year moratorium last session. House and
Senate lawmakers could meet in conference committee on a final version,
but that may depend on the reaction among taro farmers and scientists.
Several taro farmers yesterday said the House version is unacceptable and
that they would urge lawmakers to adopt a 10-year moratorium.
"This bill is no good for the farmers. It doesn't protect us. It doesn't
protect our Hawaiian varieties because you'll be contaminating them with
the other varieties," said Jerry Konanui, a taro farmer and cultural
practitioner in Puna on the Big Island. "They should kill this bill and
face the consequences and the wrath of the people.
"It's ridiculous. They don't want to listen. But this is not the end. This
is just the beginning."
Feelings run strong
Last session, taro farmers and Hawaiian activists cornered Tsuji and state
House Speaker Calvin Say, D-20th (St. Louis Heights, Palolo Valley,
Wilhelmina Rise), at a protest at the state Capitol after Tsuji declined
to hear the Senate bill. Hundreds of Hawaiian activists demonstrated in
favor of a moratorium on opening day of this session in January, and many
testified at a committee hearing on the bill last month.
Say, House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, D-24th (Manoa), and House Vice
Speaker Pono Chong, D-49th (Maunawili, Olomana, Enchanted Lake), sat
behind Tsuji in the committee hearing room yesterday, a sign that Tsuji
had the full backing of House leadership.
Jim Cain, a taro farmer and poi maker from Waipi'o Valley on the Big
Island, said the 10-year moratorium is already a compromise for those
farmers who want a permanent ban. He described the moratorium as a "time
out" so farmers and scientists can assess the issues surrounding genetic
engineering.
"The issues aren't going to go away in 10 years. They're not going to go
away in a hundred years. So to further compromise it just waters it down
and completely takes away any effective means to resolve this issue," he
said.
Cain said the debate has awakened many Hawaiians to issues of cultural
preservation and sustainability, and their activism may extend beyond
whatever happens with the bill.
"The beautiful part about it is that it's awakening people, it's awakening
the Hawaiian community and reconnecting people to their roots, so it's a
very positive thing," he said.
The University of Hawai'i-Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human
Resources has promised not to genetically experiment with Hawaiian taro
and has no immediate plans to field-test Chinese bun long or other
varieties of taro.
"We are not in favor of any kind of a moratorium on science and research,
but we understand the cultural significance of Hawaiian taro, and
therefore, we have voluntarily made a commitment not to do any research on
that," said Andrew Hashimoto, the college's dean. "So in a sense, it's not
needed - a moratorium or legislation.
"I think it's just not good public policy to have these kinds of things
when it's not necessarily needed. But I think legislators were in a
position where you have very strong feelings on both sides."
Paul Koehler, manager for scientific and community affairs for Monsanto
Hawai'i, the agriculture and biotechnology company, praised the
committee's work on the bill.
"The legislators did a yeoman's job of trying to recognize the cultural
significance of a crop like taro here in Hawai'i as well as the need for
ongoing scientific research to be protected and preserved as well," he
said.
The bill the committee approved yesterday would place a five-year
moratorium on genetically modifying taro within the state and from testing
or planting Hawaiian taro that was modified on the Mainland or in a
foreign country. The bill would allow genetic experimentation on other
varieties of taro with a valid federal permit.
The bill would also prohibit any county from banning or otherwise
regulating the genetic modification of any plant or discriminating against
genetically modified plants in zoning ordinances or land use permits.
State Sen. Jill Tokuda, D-24th (Kailua, Kane'ohe), the chairwoman of the
Senate Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, said lawmakers have
tried this session to expand the discussion on taro beyond the moratorium.
Lawmakers may provide money to fight pests such as the apple snail, create
a taro purity and security task force, and follow up on a state strategic
plan from a few years ago.
"I think the House did a good job under some very difficult circumstances
to try and reach a compromise," Tokuda said. "It's a very emotional issue
as well as one that deals with scientific impacts and economic impacts as
well.
"So whenever you have all of these forces coming together it's very
difficult to come to some kind of resolution. I think this issue will
continue to go forward."
Tokuda said she could not predict what might happen in a possible
conference committee without hearing from other senators. "It's a little
more complicated than when it left the Senate," she said.
State Sen. Clayton Hee, D-23rd (Kane'ohe, Kahuku), the chairman of the
Senate Water and Land Committee, said he personally does not agree with a
shorter moratorium but wants to speak to taro farmers about their thoughts
and options if the bill goes to conference committee.
"The risk is they may lose everything, the entire bill, and that's always
a concern," Hee said.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~---------------------------
4. News: Fear Of Messing Up May Cause WhitesTo Avoid Blacks - comment
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:16:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: miltont@efn.org
To the Hawai'i economics list:
White people have unconscious predispositions (habitus) that can lead
them to act in a racist manner. They might well fear messing up in
interactions with people of color.
In the days of slavery, the master gave the orders, and the slaves
followed orders, no matter who was smarter. The master could whip the
slaves at will, but the slaves could not raise a hand against the master.
People of color had to step off the sidewalk to let white people pass, and
not seeing them coming was not an excuse. All these attitudes remain
today in a more subtle form.
But the more important reason white people do not with to discuss
race is that any time people of color complain about racism, we are making
an attack on white privilege. White people need to learn to make
concessions to people of color.
--Milton Takei
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. 40th Anniversary Of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:37:38 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: rpotts8@earthlink.net
In the summer of 1967, seven months before his death, Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. addressed the American Psychological Association (APA) annual
meeting outlining the important role he believed psychologists and other
social scientists should play in helping overcome the legacy of slavery
and continued racism.
Here is the full text of Dr. King's speech to the American
Psychological Association. <?xml:namespace prefix = o />
THE ROLE OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
By Martin Luther King Jr.
It is always a very rich and rewarding experience when I can
take a brief break from the day-to-day demands of our
struggle for freedom and human dignity and discuss the issues
involved in that struggle with concerned friends of good will
all over the nation. It is particularly a great privilege to
discuss these issues with members of the academic community,
who are constantly writing about and dealing with the
problems that we face and who have the tremendous
responsibility of molding the minds of young men and women
all over the country.
The Civil Rights Movement needs the help of social scientists
In the preface to their book, 'Applied Sociology' (1965), S.
M. Miller and Alvin Gouldner state: 'It is the historic
mission of the social sciences to enable mankind to take
possession of society.' It follows that for Negroes who
substantially are excluded from society this science is
needed even more desperately than for any other group in the
population.
For social scientists, the opportunity to serve in a
life-giving purpose is a humanist challenge of rare
distinction. Negroes too are eager for a rendezvous with
truth and discovery. We are aware that social scientists,
unlike some of their colleagues in the physical sciences,
have been spared the grim feelings of guilt that attended the
invention of nuclear weapons of destruction. Social
scientists, in the main, are fortunate to be able to
extirpate evil, not to invent it.
If the Negro needs social sciences for direction and for
self-understanding, the white society is in even more urgent
need. White America needs to understand that it is poisoned
to its soul by racism and the understanding needs to be
carefully documented and consequently more difficult to
reject. The present crisis arises because although it is
historically imperative that our society take the next step
to equality, we find ourselves psychologically and socially
imprisoned. All too many white Americans are horrified not
with conditions of Negro life but with the product of these
conditions-the Negro himself.
White America is seeking to keep the walls of segregation
substantially intact while the evolution of society and the
Negro's desperation is causing them to crumble. The white
majority, unprepared and unwilling to accept radical
structural change, is resisting and producing chaos while
complaining that if there were no chaos orderly change would
come.
Negroes want the social scientist to address the white
community and 'tell it like it is.' White America has an
appalling lack of knowledge concerning the reality of Negro
life. One reason some advances were made in the South during
the past decade was the discovery by northern whites of the
brutal facts of southern segregated life. It was the Negro
who educated the nation by dramatizing the evils through
nonviolent protest. The social scientist played little or no
role in disclosing truth. The Negro action movement with raw
courage did it virtually alone. When the majority of the
country could not live with the extremes of brutality they
witnessed, political remedies were enacted and customs were
altered.
These partial advances were, however, limited principally to
the South and progress did not automatically spread
throughout the nation. There was also little depth to the
changes. White America stopped murder, but that is not the
same thing as ordaining brotherhood; nor is the ending of
lynch rule the same thing as inaugurating justice.
After some years of Negro-white unity and partial success,
white <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />America shifted gears
and went into reverse. Negroes, alive with hope and
enthusiasm, ran into sharply stiffened white resistance at
all levels and bitter tensions broke out in sporadic episodes
of violence. New lines of hostility were drawn and the era of
good feeling disappeared.
The decade of 1955 to 1965, with its constructive elements,
misled us. Everyone, activists and social scientists,
underestimated the amount of violence and rage Negroes were
suppressing and the amount of bigotry the white majority was
disguising.
Science should have been employed more fully to warn us that
the Negro, after 350 years of handicaps, mired in an
intricate network of contemporary barriers, could not be
ushered into equality by tentative and superficial changes.
Mass nonviolent protests, a social invention of Negroes, were
effective in Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma in forcing
national legislation which served to change Negro life
sufficiently to curb explosions. But when changes were
confined to the South alone, the North, in the absence of
change, began to seethe.
The freedom movement did not adapt its tactics to the
different and unique northern urban conditions. It failed to
see that nonviolent marches in the South were forms of
rebellion. When Negroes took over the streets and shops,
southern society shook to its roots. Negroes could contain
their rage when they found the means to force relatively
radical changes in their environment.
In the North, on the other hand, street demonstrations were
not even a mild expression of militancy. The turmoil of
cities absorbs demonstrations as merely transitory drama
which is ordinary in city life. Without a more effective
tactic for upsetting the status quo, the power structure
could maintain its intransigence and hostility. Into the
vacuum of inaction, violence and riots flowed and a new
period opened.
Urban riots.
Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social
phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and
should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of
violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not
seeking to seize territory or to attain control of
institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white
community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The
looting which is their principal feature serves many
functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to
take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does
by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what
he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all,
alienated from society and knowing that this society
cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing
property rights. There are thus elements of emotional
catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most
cities in which riots have occurred have not had a
repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It
is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to
white people other than police is infinitesimal and in
Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.
A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor
Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the
darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he
who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.'
The policymakers of the white society have caused the
darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums;
and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It
is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed
crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the
greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to
abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide
by law in the ghettos. Day-in and day-out he violates welfare
laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he
flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his
police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal
employment and education and the provisions for civic
services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of
the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them
any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly
that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums
over the years were calculated and compared with the
law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal
would be the white man. These are often difficult things to
say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary
to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems
that we face in our society.
Vietnam War.
There is another cause of riots that is too important to
mention casually-the war in Vietnam. Here again, we are
dealing with a controversial issue. But I am convinced that
the war in Vietnam has played havoc with our domestic
destinies. The bombs that fall in Vietnam explode at home. It
does not take much to see what great damage this war has done
to the image of our nation. It has left our country
politically and morally isolated in the world, where our only
friends happen to be puppet nations like Taiwan, Thailand and
South Korea. The major allies in the world that have been
with us in war and peace are not with us in this war. As a
result we find ourselves socially and politically isolated.
The war in Vietnam has torn up the Geneva Accord. It has
seriously impaired the United Nations. It has exacerbated the
hatreds between continents, and worse still, between races.
It has frustrated our development at home by telling our
underprivileged citizens that we place insatiable military
demands above their most critical needs. It has greatly
contributed to the forces of reaction in America, and
strengthened the military-industrial complex, against which
even President Eisenhower solemnly warned us. It has
practically destroyed Vietnam, and left thousands of American
and Vietnamese youth maimed and mutilated. And it has exposed
the whole world to the risk of nuclear warfare.
As I looked at what this war was doing to our nation, and to
the domestic situation and to the Civil Rights movement, I
found it necessary to speak vigorously out against it. My
speaking out against the war has not gone without criticisms.
There are those who tell me that I should stick with civil
rights, and stay in my place. I can only respond that I have
fought too hard and long to end segregated public
accommodations to segregate my own moral concerns. It is my
deep conviction that justice is indivisible, that injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. For those who
tell me I am hurting the Civil Rights movement, and ask,
'Don't you think that in order to be respected, and in order
to regain support, you must stop talking against the war?' I
can only say that I am not a consensus leader. I do not seek
to determine what is right and wrong by taking a Gallop Poll
to determine majority opinion. And it is again my deep
conviction that ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher
of consensus, but a molder of consensus. On some positions
cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?!' Expediency asks
the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is
it popular?' But conscience must ask the question, 'Is it
right?!' And there comes a time when one must take a stand
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular. But one must
take it because it is right. And that is where I find myself
today.
Moreover, I am convinced, even if war continues, that a
genuine massive act of concern will do more to quell riots
than the most massive deployment of troops.
Unemployment.
The unemployment of Negro youth ranges up to 40 percent in
some slums. The riots are almost entirely youth events-the
age range of participants is from 13 to 25. What hypocrisy it
is to talk of saving the new generation-to make it the
generation of hope-while consigning it to unemployment and
provoking it to violent alternatives.
When our nation was bankrupt in the thirties we created an
agency to provide jobs to all at their existing level of
skill. In our overwhelming affluence today what excuse is
there for not setting up a national agency for full
employment immediately?
The other program which would give reality to hope and
opportunity would be the demolition of the slums to be
replaced by decent housing built by residents of the ghettos.
These programs are not only eminently sound and vitally
needed, but they have the support of an overwhelming majority
of the nation-white and Negro. The Harris Poll on August 21,
1967, disclosed that an astounding 69 percent of the country
support a works program to provide employment to all and an
equally astonishing 65 percent approve a program to tear down
the slums.
There is a program and there is heavy majority support for
it. Yet, the administration and Congress tinker with trivial
proposals to limit costs in an extravagant gamble with
disaster.
The President has lamented that he cannot persuade Congress.
He can, if the will is there, go to the people, mobilize the
people's support and thereby substantially increase his power
to persuade Congress. Our most urgent task is to find the
tactics that will move the government no matter how
determined it is to resist.
Civil disobedience.
I believe we will have to find the militant middle between
riots on the one hand and weak and timid supplication for
justice on the other hand. That middle ground, I believe, is
civil disobedience. It can be aggressive but nonviolent; it
can dislocate but not destroy. The specific planning will
take some study and analysis to avoid mistakes of the past
when it was employed on too small a scale and sustained too
briefly.
Civil disobedience can restore Negro-white unity. There have
been some very important sane white voices even during the
most desperate moments of the riots. One reason is that the
urban crisis intersects the Negro crisis in the city. Many
white decision- makers may care little about saving Negroes,
but they must care about saving their cities. The vast
majority of production is created in cities; most white
Americans live in them. The suburbs to which they flee cannot
exist detached from cities. Hence powerful white elements
have goals that merge with ours.
Role for the social scientist
Now there are many roles for social scientists in meeting
these problems. Kenneth Clark has said that Negroes are moved
by a suicide instinct in riots and Negroes know there is a
tragic truth in this observation. Social scientists should
also disclose the suicide instinct that governs the
administration and Congress in their total failure to respond
constructively.
What other areas are there for social scientists to assist
the civil rights movement? There are many, but I would like
to suggest three because they have an urgent quality.
Social science may be able to search out some answers to the
problem of Negro leadership. E. Franklin Frazier, in his
profound work, Black Bourgeoisie, laid painfully bare the
tendency of the upwardly mobile Negro to separate from his
community, divorce himself from responsibility to it, while
failing to gain acceptance in the white community. There has
been significant improvements from the days Frazier
researched, but anyone knowledgeable about Negro life knows
its middle class is not yet bearing its weight. Every riot
has carried strong overtone of hostility of lower class
Negroes toward the affluent Negro and vice versa. No
contemporary study of scientific depth has totally studied
this problem. Social science should be able to suggest
mechanisms to create a wholesome black unity and a sense of
peoplehood while the process of integration proceeds.
As one example of this gap in research, there are no studies,
to my knowledge, to explain adequately the absence of Negro
trade union leadership. Eight-five percent of Negroes are
working people. Some two million are in trade unions but in
50 years we have produced only one national leader-A. Philip
Randolph.
Discrimination explains a great deal, but not everything. The
picture is so dark even a few rays of light may signal a
useful direction.
Political action.
The second area for scientific examination is political
action. In the past two decades, Negroes have expended more
effort in quest of the franchise than they have in all other
campaigns combined. Demonstrations, sit-ins and marches,
though more spectacular, are dwarfed by the enormous number
of man-hours expended to register millions, particularly in
the South. Negro organizations from extreme militant to
conservative persuasion, Negro leaders who would not even
talk to each other, all have been agreed on the key
importance of voting. Stokely Carmichael said black power
means the vote and Roy Wilkins, while saying black power
means black death, also energetically sought the power of the
ballot.
A recent major work by social scientists Matthew and Prothro
concludes that 'The concrete benefits to be derived from the
franchise-under conditions that prevail in the South-have
often been exaggerated.,' that voting is not the key that
will unlock the door to racial equality because 'the concrete
measurable payoffs from Negro voting in the South will not be
revolutionary' (1966).
James A. Wilson supports this view, arguing, 'Because of the
structure of American politics as well as the nature of the
Negro community, Negro politics will accomplish only limited
objectives' (1965).
If their conclusion can be supported, then the major effort
Negroes have invested in the past 20 years has been in the
wrong direction and the major pillar of their hope is a
pillar of sand. My own instinct is that these views are
essentially erroneous, but they must be seriously examined.
The need for a penetrating massive scientific study of this
subject cannot be overstated. Lipset in 1957 asserted that a
limitation in focus in political sociology has resulted in a
failure of much contemporary research to consider a number of
significant theoretical questions. The time is short for
social science to illuminate this critically important area.
If the main thrust of Negro effort has been, and remains,
substantially irrelevant, we may be facing an agonizing
crisis of tactical theory.
The third area for study concerns psychological and
ideological changes in Negroes. It is fashionable now to be
pessimistic. Undeniably, the freedom movement has encountered
setbacks. Yet I still believe there are significant aspects
of progress.
Negroes today are experiencing an inner transformation that
is liberating them from ideological dependence on the white
majority. What has penetrated substantially all strata of
Negro life is the revolutionary idea that the philosophy and
morals of the dominant white society are not holy or sacred
but in all too many respects are degenerate and profane.
Negroes have been oppressed for centuries not merely by bonds
of economic and political servitude. The worst aspect of
their oppression was their inability to question and defy the
fundamental precepts of the larger society. Negroes have been
loath in the past to hurl any fundamental challenges because
they were coerced and conditioned into thinking within the
context of the dominant white ideology. This is changing and
new radical trends are appearing in Negro thought. I use
radical in its broad sense to refer to reaching into roots.
Ten years of struggle have sensitized and opened the Negro's
eyes to reaching. For the first time in their history,
Negroes have become aware of the deeper causes for the
crudity and cruelty that governed white society's responses
to their needs. They discovered that their plight was not a
consequence of superficial prejudice but was systemic.
The slashing blows of backlash and frontlash have hurt the
Negro, but they have also awakened him and revealed the
nature of the oppressor. To lose illusions is to gain truth.
Negroes have grown wiser and more mature and they are hearing
more clearly those who are raising fundamental questions
about our society whether the critics be Negro or white. When
this process of awareness and independence crystallizes,
every rebuke, every evasion, become hammer blows on the wedge
that splits the Negro from the larger society.
Social science is needed to explain where this development is
going to take us. Are we moving away, not from integration,
but from the society which made it a problem in the first
place? How deep and at what rate of speed is this process
occurring? These are some vital questions to be answered if
we are to have a clear sense of our direction.
We know we haven't found the answers to all forms of social
change. We know, however, that we did find some answers. We
have achieved and we are confident. We also know we are
confronted now with far greater complexities and we have not
yet discovered all the theory we need.
And may I say together, we must solve the problems right here
in America. As I have said time and time again, Negroes still
have faith in America. Black people still have faith in a
dream that we will all live together as brothers in this
country of plenty one day.
But I was distressed when I read in the New York Times of
Aug. 31, 1967; that a sociologist from Michigan State
University, the outgoing president of the American
Sociological Society, stated in San Francisco that Negroes
should be given a chance to find an all Negro community in
South America: 'that the valleys of the Andes Mountains would
be an ideal place for American Negroes to build a second
Israel.' He further declared that 'The United States
Government should negotiate for a remote but fertile land in
Equador, Peru or Bolivia for this relocation.'
I feel that it is rather absurd and appalling that a leading
social scientist today would suggest to black people, that
after all these years of suffering an exploitation as well as
investment in the American dream, that we should turn around
and run at this point in history. I say that we will not run!
Professor Loomis even compared the relocation task of the
Negro to the relocation task of the Jews in Israel. The Jews
were made exiles. They did not choose to abandon Europe, they
were driven out. Furthermore, Israel has a deep tradition,
and Biblical roots for Jews. The Wailing Wall is a good
example of these roots. They also had significant financial
aid from the United States for the relocation and rebuilding
effort. What tradition does the Andes, especially the valley
of the Andes Mountains, have for Negroes?
And I assert at this time that once again we must reaffirm
our belief in building a democratic society, in which blacks
and whites can live together as brothers, where we will all
come to see that integration is not a problem, but an
opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.
The problem is deep. It is gigantic in extent, and chaotic in
detail. And I do not believe that it will be solved until
there is a kind of cosmic discontent enlarging in the bosoms
of people of good will all over this nation.
There are certain technical words in every academic
discipline which soon become stereotypes and even clichés.
Every academic discipline has its technical nomenclature. You
who are in the field of psychology have given us a great
word. It is the word maladjusted. This word is probably used
more than any other word in psychology. It is a good word;
certainly it is good that in dealing with what the word
implies you are declaring that destructive maladjustment
should be destroyed. You are saying that all must seek the
well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and
schizophrenic personalities.
But on the other hand, I am sure that we will recognize that
there are some things in our society, some things in our
world, to which we should never be adjusted. There are some
things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we
are to be people of good will. We must never adjust ourselves
to racial discrimination and racial segregation. We must
never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry. We must never
adjust ourselves to economic conditions that take necessities
from the many to give luxuries to the few. We must never
adjust ourselves to the madness of militarism, and the
self-defeating effects of physical violence.
In a day when Sputniks, Explorers and Geminies are dashing
through outer space, when guided ballistic missiles are
carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation
can finally win a war. It is no longer a choice between
violence and nonviolence, it is either nonviolence or
nonexistence. As President Kennedy declared, 'Mankind must
put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.' And so
the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a
suspension in the development and use of nuclear weapons, the
alternative to strengthening the United Nations and
eventually disarming the whole world, may well be a
civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation. Our
earthly habitat will be transformed into an inferno that even
Dante could not envision.
Creative maladjustment.
Thus, it may well be that our world is in dire need of a new
organization, The International Association for the
Advancement of Creative Maladjustment. Men and women should
be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos, who in the midst of
the injustices of his day, could cry out in words that echo
across the centuries, 'Let justice roll down like waters and
righteousness like a mighty stream'; or as maladjusted as
Abraham Lincoln, who in the midst of his vacillations finally
came to see that this nation could not survive half slave and
half free; or as maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson, who in the
midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery, could scratch
across the pages of history, words lifted to cosmic
proportions, 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that
all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their
creator with certain inalienable rights. And that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' And through
such creative maladjustment, we may be able to emerge from
the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man,
into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and
justice.
I have not lost hope. I must confess that these have been
very difficult days for me personally. And these have been
difficult days for every civil rights leader, for every lover
of justice and peace.
Copyright 1967 by Martin Luther King Jr. Copyright renewed
1994 by Coretta Scott King. Reprinted by permission by the
heirs to the estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., care of
Writers' House as agents for the proprietors.
© 1999 American Psychological Association
________________________________________________________________________________
6. CAFTA
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:59:00 -1000
From: "Cory (Martha) Harden" <mh@interpac.net>
viewpoint on CAFTA from someone in Nicaragua...
Celia and Jamileth...are at an important two-day meeting with delegates
from Europe's common market...They are giving Nicaraguan women's points of
view about a free trade agreement that the European Union wants to set up
to exploit Central America's market. The US already has one in place,
called CAFTA. You can imagine who is getting the better part of the deal.
It is free trade with the emphasis on free for the USA. A country
practically has to give up its autonomy in order to be part of the
partnership with the USA. Now the European Union wants to do the same
thing. Fair trade would be better. Fortunately for many coffee producers
in Nicaragua, there is already a network of fair trade shops selling their
organic coffee in Europe and in the States.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Superferry speeds return to service
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:33:12 -1000
From: Viviane Lerner <vivlerner@gmail.com>
>>Company officials have said a second daily trip to Maui is
expected this spring, while service to Kauai has not been scheduled.<<
=====
http://starbulletin.com/2008/04/04/news/story07.html
Superferry speeds return to service
Service scheduled to return Monday
STORY SUMMARY » | READ THE FULL STORY
The Hawaii Superferry will begin offering its Oahu-Maui service on Monday,
nearly two weeks earlier than had been expected. "We are very excited to
start this service again, and I know we've got a lot of customers that are
really anticipating (the Superferry's return)," said Terry O'Halloran, the
Superferry's director of business development.
The Superferry is offering $39 one-way passenger fare and $55 one-way
vehicle fare specials through June 5. Reservations can be made online at
www.hawaiisuperferry.com or by calling (877) 443-3779 from 6 a.m. to 7
p.m., seven days a week.
FULL STORY »
By Robert Shikina
rshikina@starbulletin.com
Hawaii Superferry will restart its Oahu-Maui service Monday, about two
weeks earlier than expected.
The company is taking reservations for Monday and is offering one round
trip a day.
Terry O'Halloran, the Superferry's director of business development, said
the repairs that kept the ship out of service since Feb. 13 have gone
smoothly.
"The ship is in great shape," he said. "Our staff and crew are very
excited to start this service again."
The high-speed Alakai was taken out of commission for repairs to the
rudder and for its annual Coast Guard certification. Additional repairs
were needed when the ship was damaged while going into dry dock. In March
the repair schedule was extended to April 23.
The Coast Guard finished inspections and sea trials on the Alakai on
Wednesday.
O'Halloran said the Alakai's sudden return to service was unrelated to the
closure of Aloha Airlines this week. "We've been working to get the ship
into service as soon as we could. That's always been our goal, and it's
really unfortunate for Hawaii to see a company like Aloha Airlines
(fail)."
Christina Wilson of Keanae, Maui, welcomed back the service yesterday but
said she is hesitant to bring her vehicle aboard after she was stranded on
Oahu in December because bad weather forced the Superferry to stay in
port.
Her son-in-law, however, is planning to use the ferry for his family and
vehicle in June for a Maui vacation. "He's so excited," Wilson said.
Some farmers and produce distributors said they have been reluctant to use
the ferry because of service interruptions due to weather. In December and
January the Superferry did not operate for at least 11 days because of the
weather.
"Right now it's too unpredictable," said Juanita Kawamoto, managing
partner of Fresh from the Farm, an online distributor of local produce.
The company ships produce from the Big Island, Maui and Kauai to Oahu.
The Superferry has been hit with troubles since it started sailing in
August. It sailed briefly before protesters on Kauai and a court order on
Maui blocked its service.
On Dec. 13 the company restarted service when the state gave approval to
the ferry to operate. Company officials have said a second daily trip to
Maui is expected this spring, while service to Kauai has not been
scheduled.
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8. Veterans For Peace Work for Peace through Alt Energy
From: Hsaive
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 11:24 AM
This is a beautiful video.
VIDEO http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/297.html
It starts a little slow - there's a speaker in the beginning who
introduces it - and then it gets VERY interesting.
The video is about US war veterans who are creating alternative energy and
new building methods to rebuild New Orleans.
The government may be evil to the core, but the resourcefulness of good
people goes on..and on...and on.
This one will give you hope.
VIDEO http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/297.html
- Brasscheck
P.S. Please share this positive video with friends and colleagues.
They'll never see a story like this given its due in the US news media.
- Brasscheck
P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and videos with friends and
colleagues.
That's how we grow. Thanks.
Brasscheck TV
2380 California St.
San Francisco, CA 94115
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Existing In Bodies
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:27:24 +1300
From: CHOOK <tepaatu@gmail.com>
------ Forwarded Message
From: "Artemis Goldberg" <panthertracker@myself.com>
Tethered To The Earth Existing In Bodies
The physical self can seem like an encumbrance at times. We have little
control over its demands, we must monitor it consistently, and its
relative fragility can be discomfiting. Many people, therefore,
unconsciously long to escape the confinement of their bodies, and this
longing can manifest itself as physical discomfort, difficulty adjusting
to the rigors of day-to-day existence, or a tendency to shy away from all
that is associated with the human earthly experience. Yet the lifetime of
physical existence we each must endure represents a vital plateau in our
progression as enlightened beings. We inhabit our bodies for a reason.
There is much we can learn while coping with the challenges, sensations,
and sensitivities of the human body that we could not have grasped had we
remained in spirit form. When we leave our physical selves behind to
return to our original state, we will enjoy a supreme sense of freedom-yet
we will always value the time we spent on earth.
Being wholly present in your body can help you better understand how your
time as a physical being is contributing to your development. There may be
times when you feel that your consciousness is not grounded in your
corporeal form. Your thoughts may seem scattered or spacey, or you may
sense that your ethereal self is literally floating away. When this
occurs, ask Mother Earth to ground you, or draw upon the potent grounding
energy of mountains or trees. These powerful natural forces can help you
reconnect with the earth by reminding you that living in a physical state
can be a wholesome and enlightening experience. Wearing gemstones with
grounding properties, bloodstone, for example, is another way to reaffirm
your connection to the earthly plane.
Human beings are tied to the earth, but not wholly of the earth. We are
each of us, for the time being, poised between the soil underneath our
feet and the never-ending ethereal spaces around us. The unease we
occasionally feel in our earthly bodies is merely a by-product of our
innate understanding of our dual natures. But the time we spend in our
physical bodies will not last and should thus be cherished. For one day,
when our evolution is complete, we will return to the source of life to
become beings of light once more.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Standing Strong Woman
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:28:45 +1300
From: CHOOK <tepaatu@gmail.com>
------ Forwarded Message
From: "bart davis" <bartdavis@columnist.com>
Standing Strong Woman
It often comes as a cruel surprise to women when the men they love
physically abuse them. Nowhere is the abuse as widespread as it is in the
Native American population.
Many of those battered women in South Dakota faced even more surprising
bad news recently when Cangleska's Standing Strong Woman shelter, a place
for women on the run from violent partners, got word the eight bedroom
house they were using has been sold and they needed to be out by May 1.
Finding safe places like the Standing Strong Woman shelter has become
harder and harder for domestic abuse victims according to Brenda Hill, an
abuse survivor and education coordinator in Rapid City.
"Its exhausting to be battered," says Hill.
Because housing is limited on reservations and poverty is rampant, Native
American women struggle to get out of dangerous situations.
"So when you're on the run with your kids, where do you go?" adds Hill.
Cangleska, an organization that runs a shelter in Kyle and Rapid City, has
been transporting abuse victims from the reservation to the big city for
nearly a decade.
"Shelters really are like refugee camps. Those women and children are
running from violent crime," says Hill.
And the number of crimes doesn't seem to be going down.
"Its getting greater each year," says Liz Kingi, an advocate at the
shelter.
She says the shelter housed nearly 700 women and children in 2007. There
is a waiting list to get in now and sometimes the shelter overextends
itself during emergencies by fitting up to thirty people in this small
eight bedroom house.
"We'd have emergencies where they've needed a safe place right now. So
they would bring them in and they'd sleep on the sofa or the floor," says
Kingi.
At any time across the state, half of the people in shelters are Native
Americans. Hill says if Standing Strong Woman doesn't find a new home,
important services will be lost.
"It maybe they are helping a woman to get all their birth certificates and
social security cards again. Help getting their kids enrolled in a new
school," says Hill.
Four full time advocates at the shelter also deal with victim's depression
and lobby for better criminal accountability along with more response from
Law Enforcement. The advocates also counsel around 4,000 women a year
which is why they are worried they won't find a new place to operate out
of.
"You know its just been really devastating for us because we didn't know
it was coming and the shelter is greatly needed here to serve the women
who are battered," replies Kingi.
Until Standing Strong Woman finds its new home there's not much anyone can
do but wait and think positively.
"We're hoping and praying that we find something by May 1st. We will have
a shelter its just a matter of time," says Kingi.
Cangleska was planning to a launch a capital campaign to build a new,
larger Standing Strong Woman facility in Rapid City before they received
news that their lease was up. If you would like to help the shelter in any
way you can click here: http://www.cangleska.org/Donation.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Internship Availability
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:04:43 +0000
From: mike sysiuk <msysiuk@hotmail.com>
FYI,
Mike
>
> Internship Availability
>
> The Center for Study of Responsive Law is sponsoring a journalism
> workshop, "Camp Take-a-Stand: The Student Investigative Journalism
> Camp," from June 8-14, in Middletown, CT. The workshop will feature
> numerous prominent journalists, including Seymour Hersh, Bob Herbert
and Amy Goodman. See: www.journalismworkshop.org
>
> A paid internship position, to help coordinate the workshop, is
> available starting immediately. Applicants must commit to full-time
work through June 14, and be able to work on site in Connecticut from June
8-14.
>
> Qualifications:
>
> - Must have good communication skills and strong writing skills, be
> detail-oriented, and able to manage logistics and balance several
things at a time.
> - Background in journalism is helpful, but not required.
> - Applicants should be highly energ etic.
>
> The position offers some flexibility with hours, not to exceed 40
> hours/week prior to June 8.
>
> Pay is $10/hour.
>
> There is a possibility that the internship could develop into more
> permanent work.
>
> Send resume and writing sample to:
>
> Adam Tapley,
> Conference Coordinator
> Center for Study of Responsive Law
> atapley@csrl.org
> mgj-discuss mailing list>
> ________________________________________________________________
12. OHA faces bias lawsuit and comment
From: Pono Kealoha Jr.
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 11:47 AM
By Ken Kobayashi, Star-Bulletin, April 4, 2008
Funds for the agency generated by ceded lands are disputed
Another legal challenge to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was filed
yesterday in federal court by six Hawaii residents who contend state
funding for the agency discriminates against non-Hawaiians.
The six contend that paying OHA a part of the revenues from ceded lands
once held by the Hawaiian monarchy violates the state's trust obligations
to all Hawaii residents.
The six NON-HAWAIIAN residents are represented by H. William Burgess, the
attorney who filed other challenges to OHA in the past.
It asks for a court order to halt state payments from ceded-land revenues
to OHA and a halt to OHA spending that money to support the Akaka Bill
pending in Congress. It also suggests that the pending settlement before
the state Legislature to resolve past disputed claims by OHA to ceded-land
revenues would also violate the rights of non-native Hawaiians.
Burgess said the suit was filed in the wake of an earlier taxpayer lawsuit
filed by Earl Arakaki and others against OHA, but that challenge was
rejected in 2006 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court, however, sent
the case back to lower courts to resolve in view of its earlier decision
that rejected a taxpayers' challenge in an Ohio case.
The case was eventually sent back to the federal courts here to resolve,
but Burgess said U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway declined to dismiss
the case and suggested that he could file a new suit.
The result is yesterday's challenge, he said.
The suit is against state and OHA officials.
Attorney General Mark Bennett said he had not seen the complaint, but said
if it makes 'the same allegations or similar allegations to the previous
litigation, we will vigorously defend it in the same way we vigorously
defended the previous litigation.'
OHA Administrator Clyde Namuo said OHA 'will reserve comment until legal
counsel has had an opportunity to review the complaint.'
Yesterday's six plaintiffs include Arakaki and four others who filed the
earlier suit.
Burgess said the new suit does not challenge state general fund money
going to OHA, but challenges the state paying OHA revenues from the ceded
lands. It maintains the payments violate the U.S. Constitution by
discriminating against the plaintiffs and others who do not have Hawaiian
blood.
The suit cites a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in another case
last year in which the court said ceded lands are for the benefit of all
of Hawaii's people, 'not simply native Hawaiians.'
No date was set for hearings on the suit's request for a restraining order
and an injunction to halt the payments to OHA
alwayz aloha ,
Pono
---------
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:37:55 -0400
From: kahiwal@cs.com
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Pono Kealoha Jr.
>Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 11:47 AM
>
>Funds for the agency generated by ceded lands are disputed
If the beneficiaries of OHA would be re-described to include non-Kanaka
Maoli descendants of subjects of the Hawaiian Kingdom - which they are
entitled to - there would be NO BASIS for this suit and others preceding
it.
ku
________________________________________________________________________________
13. Kennedy Theatre presents The Servant of Many Masters!
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:52:33 -1000
From: Kennedy Theatre at the Univeristy of Hawaii at Manoa
<theatre@hawaii.edu>
Local comedian Jordan Savusa appears as Truffaldino The Servant of Many
Masters
"You^Òll laugh 'til you stop!" - Paul T. Mitri, Director
Opens on the Kennedy Theatre mainstage April 11!
April 11, 12, 17, 18*, 19 at 8pm; April 20 at 2pm
*interpreted in American Sign Language
A very funny classic play gets even funnier in this all-new adaptation.
There's just one servant but he has way too many masters and spends all
his time trying not to get caught! Add to the mix a fiancé returned from
the dead, cross dressers, guest improvisers, commedia dell'arte and a
satirical jab at the many masters that the arts serve in our modern times.
Hilarity will ensue, all in the name of art!
$16 Regular; $14 Seniors, Military, UH Fac/Staff; $11 Students; group
discounts available for 10 or more.
Join us for free pre-show chats:
* Sat. 4/12 7pm
Kyle Klapatauskas (Dramaturg)
Location: Earle Ernst Lab Theatre
*
Sat. 4/19 7pm
Kathryn Hoffmann (Professor of French)
Location: Earle Ernst Lab Theatre
UH Manoa Student specials:
--$5 ticket to any performance with validated Spring 08 UHM Photo ID.
--UH Manoa Student buy-one-get-one free night on April 17 beginning
at 7pm. Call for details!
Tickets on sale NOW at 483-7123, online at etickethawaii.com, or at
outlets, or at the Kennedy Theatre Box Office (M-F, 10am - 1pm). Service
charges apply to all online, phone, or outlet sales.
For more info call 956-7655 or visit www.hawaii.edu/kennedy.
________________________________________________________________________________
14. Montville First In Maine To Pass GMO Moratorium and comment
From: HIAHAWAII@aol.com
Date: Fri, April 4, 2008
Montville First In Maine To Pass GMO Moratorium
By Tanya Mitchell
VillageSoup/Waldo County Citizen Reporter
MONTVILLE (April 2): Two years after Montville residents passed a
resolution to develop an ordinance imposing a moratorium on genetically
modified organisms, voters made their town the first this side of
California to impose a moratorium on growing such crops.
About 120 voters attended the Saturday, March 29, annual town meeting at
the Montville Town House.
Residents followed through with the resolution they passed in 2006, in
which they directed the town to develop a binding ordinance to phase out
the cultivation of crops produced through genetically engineered seeds.
The "Town of Montville Genetically Modified Organisms Ordinance" passed by
an overwhelming majority, and will trigger a 10-year moratorium on the
production of GMO-based crops. It requires any farmers growing genetically
engineered crops to begin phasing out the use of those seeds within the
next two years. That requirement will kick in within 30 days after voters
enacted the ordinance.
Since voters passed the anti-GMO resolution two years ago, the town has
worked with attorneys and local farmers to draft the language of the
ordinance.
Kai George, one of those involved in the effort, said a seed is
genetically modified when human beings alter its DNA, crossing species
that would never be combined naturally.
George said pesticide genes have been included in corn, and that the
majority of GMO crops are insect-resistant. That raises concerns that the
crops are unregulated as a new insecticide, George said.
The ordinance, said George, addresses four key areas: the health of the
public and environment, economic impacts on farmers not growing GMO crops,
and farmers' rights to steer clear of GMOs. Potential risks of
GMO-generated foods have not been studied thoroughly, she said, but there
are indications that consumers can have allergic reactions or resistance
to antibiotics as a result.
The genetically engineered foods may have a lower nutritional value,
George said, and Heinz and Gerber have recently stepped away from using
GMOs in their baby products.
GMOs can spread to other, non-GMO fields, which George said would
irreparably destroy heirloom seeds and take away local farmers' rights to
grow strictly organic produce.
One of the largest GMO corporations is Monsanto. Resident G.W. Martin
discussed the company's power to outweigh a move against GMOs by a small
Maine municipality.
"There's really no way Montville can ever come up with enough money to
take out Monsanto," he said. "... We can't enforce it; we have to have a
common understanding of what we're up against."
The movement against the use of GMOs in Maine, according to the Center for
Food Safety in Washington, began when the town of Brooklin passed a
nonbinding resolution in 2005 seeking the voluntary banning of GMOs.
In Waldo County, Montville passed its nonbinding resolution in 2006, and
last year Liberty followed suit.
In Vermont, 83 towns have passed anti-GMO resolutions and in 2004, the
state required manufacturers of genetically engineered seeds to label and
register their products.
Several California counties and towns have enacted similar ordinances to
the one Montville voters passed Saturday, making growing GMO crops
unlawful in those regions.
"KU I KA PONO"
-------
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:30:30 -1000
From: mike reitz <mreitz@pacbell.net>
...this is exactly the kind of action the new 5-year-compromise moratorium
bill moving thru the legislature is designed to prevent. I wouldn't be
surprised if Monsanto had a hand in drafting it.
m
________________________________________________________________________________
15. India: Bio-pesticides, ginger garlic extract measures up -- Suicide:
Paying the Price of "Chemical" Agriculture (including GMOs)!
> From: Faye <aussie_sheila2002@yahoo.com>
>Sent: Friday, April 4, 2008 6:07:34 PM
>
>I have done the research and 2 farmers a week ( that we hear about) are
>committing suicide in Australia. In India the rate is much higher, 75,000
>farmers have committed suicide, some by drinking Round-up.
>
>Faye
>
>hugsandkisses_ mn <hugsandkisses_ mn@yahoo. com> wrote:
>
>This is a very good idea to use in the farms. I am not aware of the
>farmers committing suicide just becuase they cannot pay their debt.
>
>I still remember my grandfather and grandmother (bless them) they never
>use fertilizer in our backyard trees that bear fruits from the use of
>burning leaves ( pausukan ) every morning and they have lots of flowers
>and fruits.
>
>We are just spending more money we do not have to make those chemicals
>manufacturers make millions of pesos and put it in their pocket!
>
>Thank you for very good article.
>
>Grace
>
>--- In rarefruit-ph@ yahoogroups. com, "agri_center" <verman@...> wrote:
>>
>> India: Bio-pesticides, ginger garlic extract measures up
>>
>> There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that in the past 4-5
>> decades there has been an excessive dumping of chemical toxins on the
>> soil. As a result the soil has become barren and ground water toxic, in
>> many places. Contrast this with organic inputs that are safe, non
>> toxic, and cost much less. For example, if using chemical pesticides
>> and fertilizers for growing a crop in a hectare works out to about
>> Rs.6,000-7,000 the cost of growing the same crop using organic inputs
>> may come to only about Rs.500 - Rs. 1,000, according to Ms. Rajareega
>> of Raasi organic farms at Muthupatti village in Sivaganga district,
>> Tamil Nadu.
>>
>> Lower cost
>>
>> Even if some critics say that organic farming cannot provide the same
>> high yields as chemical farming, the organic farmers argue that at
least their land is safe; that they have not invested in buying
>> the chemicals and increasing their cost of cultivation. "If you
>look at the suicides by farmers, then you will understand that all those
>> farmers who committed suicides have built up huge debts.
>>
>> The debts kept growing because of borrowing at high interest rates for
>> buying these chemicals which promised to increase the yield. In the
>> end, it only increased their debts", she explains. "If only farmers use
>> safer and natural pest repellents and manures then where is the
>> question of debt and suicides,? she enquires. She has been using only
>> organic manures and bio-repellents made from locally available
>> resources.
>>
>> Five leaf extract
>>
>> For example she uses 5 different leaf extracts (eindhu ilai
>karaisal in Tamil) derived from Calotropis (called y erukku in Tamil),
Jatropha curcas (kattu amanaku in Tamil), Neem (vembu in Tamil), Guduchhi/
Amruth (seenthil kodi in Tamil), Chaste tree (nochi in Tamil), Malabar nut
(adathoda in Tamil), Kalmegh (siriyanangai in Tamil), Clerodendron
(peenarisanghu in Tamil) and Usil (arappu in Tamil). These plants are
commonly found in all villages. About 1 kg of leaves from each plant is
taken and powdered and then ground into apaste. It is then mixed with 5
litres of cow's urine.
>>
>> The concoction is then diluted in 5 litres of water and left
>> undisturbed for 5 days. When required for using about 500 ml of this
>> concoction is diluted in 10 litres of water and sprayed over the
>> plants, she explains.
>>
>> Ginger garlic extract
>>
>> Another tried and proven mixture she uses is ginger garlic extract
>> (called inji poondu karaisal in Tamil). About 1 gm of ginger and garlic
>> each, 2gm of green chilli and 5 litres of cow's urine and water are
>> taken. The garlic, ginger and green chilli are ground into a paste and
>> mixed with cow's urine and water. After 10 days the mixture is filtered
>> and used. The prescribed quantity is about 500 ml of this solution
>> diluted in 10 litres of water which can be sprayed over the plants.
>>
>> Ideal spraying time
>>
>> The ideal time for spraying these karasals is during 6 am to 8.30 am
>> and between 4 pm and 6.30 pm. Depending upon the soil, crop and other
>> climatic factors the concentration can be raised or lowered. Farmers
>> can contact their nearby organic farmers who are using these karaisals
>> or can contact Ms. Rajareega for guidelines regarding the
>> concentration.
>>
>> Effective control
>>
>> Both the above karaisals have been found effective in controlling leaf
>> roller, thrips, mealy bugs, fruit, stem and bark borer, hairy
>> caterpillar and aphids. Even if a farmer is not convinced about the
>> benefits of organic inputs he can continue to grow his crops using
>> chemicals, but at the same time he can set aside a small portion in his
>> field to grow the same crop using organic inputs. By doing so he can
>> find out for himself the cost benefit ratio. That itself can convince
>> him of its efficacy.
>>
>> Source: hindu.com
---------------
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:19:50 -1000
From: pennysfh@hawaii.rr.com
type in "suicide seeds" and India and see what you find. the suicide rate
has been as high as 15 per week. the chemicals and fertilizers area a
package - you buy GE seeds (especially "terminator technology"; or as they
say in India "suicide seeds") and you have to buy the whole crop regime of
chemical use. p
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~-----------------------
16. Norway Becomes First Country to Ban Amalgam Fillings
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:50:01 -1000
From: Viviane Lerner <vivlerner@gmail.com>
http://www.naturalnews.com/022943.html
Norway Becomes First Country to Ban Amalgam Fillings
Friday, April 04, 2008 by: Adam Miller
(NaturalNews) Effective January 1st of this year, Norway has become the
first nation to legislate a sweeping ban on the use of amalgam fillings in
dental work. Previous laws forbid the use of mercury- containing fillings
in more vulnerable segments of the population, such as pregnant women and
children, but the new law is the first to forbid the use of the toxic
metal without exemption. Mercury has also been banned from all other
products produced, imported, exported, sold, and used in the country.
In a prepared statement, Norway's Minister of Environment and Development,
Erik Solheim stated that "Mercury is among the most dangerous
environmental toxins. Satisfactory alternatives to mercury in products are
available, and it is therefore fitting to introduce a ban."
Sweden has followed suit with a ban on mercury fillings effective April
1st, 2008, and other countries are now contemplating similar moves.
Amalgam fillings, which unbeknownst to many are composed primarily of
mercury, raise the level of mercury circulating in the blood. Mercury is
listed as one of the most toxic substances on earth and many who are
sensitive to the substance have reported improvements in health upon
removal of the toxic fillings. The Norwegian and Swedish bans come at a
time when alternative composite fillings have become strong enough to
replace amalgams under practically any circumstance.
The issue, however, is as much environmental as it is salutary.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, medical waste
incinerators emit 70,000 pounds of mercury into the biosphere each year,
making medical use of the metal one of the leading contributors to mercury
pollution. So the question has to be asked, why has U.S. policy been so
slow to catch up with common sense?
"These bans clearly indicate that amalgam is no longer needed. There are
viable non-mercury filling substitutes that are used everyday in the
U.S.," said Michael Bender of the U.S. Mercury Policy Project. "By
eliminating amalgam use, which is 50% mercury, we can reduce mercury
pollution much more efficiently than end-of-the-pipeline solutions."
It should come as no surprise that many figures in the U.S. are taking the
new emerging consensus kicking and screaming. "Banning 'dental amalgam' is
a political issue that will not only have no impact on total worldwide
mercury pollution, but also removes a viable treatment option for dentists
and their patients," argues Derek Jones in an editorial published in the
Journal of Dental Research. Bold steps are being taken, but there is still
much work to be done before a similar ban will be seen in the U.S.
About the author
Adam Miller is a student of life who has dedicated literally thousands of
hours of personal research on top of formal institutional training in
Dietetics to learn the secrets of achieving vibrant health and extended
lifespan. His passion and dedication is in bringing the best ideas for
self-empowerment through nutrition and nutraceuticals as well as
alternative therapies, technology, and information to the public through
various means.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
17. American songbirds are being wiped out by banned pesticides
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:03:48 -1000
From: Viviane Lerner <vivlerner@gmail.com>
[www_independent_co_uk]
American songbirds are being wiped out by banned pesticides
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Friday, 4 April 2008
The number of migratory songbirds returning to North America has gone into
sharp decline due to the unregulated use of highly toxic pesticides and
other chemicals across Latin America.
Ornithologists blame the demand for out-of-season fruit and vegetables and
other crops in North America and Europe for the destruction of tens of
millions of passerine birds. By some counts, half of the songbirds that
warbled across America's skies only 40 years ago have gone, wiped out by
pesticides or loss of habitat.
Forty-six years ago, the naturalist Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, a
study of the ravages caused to wildlife, especially birds, by DDT. The
chemical's use on American farms almost eradicated entire species,
including the peregrine falcon and bald eagle.
The pesticide was banned and bird numbers recovered, but new and highly
toxic pesticides banned by the US and European Union are being widely used
in Latin America.
Because of changed consumer habits in Europe and the US, export-led
agriculture has transformed the wintering grounds of birds into intensive
farming operations producing grapes, melons and bananas as well as rice
for export.
Ornithologists say another silent spring is dawning across the US as birds
are being poisoned by toxic chemicals or killed as pests in their winter
refuges across South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. They
say that many species of songbird will never recover, and others may even
become endangered or extinct if controls are not put in place or consumer
habits changed.
More problems await those birds which make it home. Millions of acres of
wilderness the birds use as nesting grounds have been ploughed under in
the drive to grow corn for ethanol, for bio-fuel.
Some 150 species of songbirds undertake extraordinary migrations up to
12,000 miles every year as they move from the south to nesting grounds in
the US and Canada every spring. Ornithologists say that almost all these
species are at risk of poisoning.
The migratory songbirds in most trouble include the wood thrush, the
Kentucky warbler, the eastern kingbird and the bobolink, celebrated by the
19th century American poet Emily Dickinson as "the rowdy of the meadows".
Bridget Stutchbury, an ornithologist and professor at York University in
Toronto, said: "With spring we take it for granted that the sound of the
songbirds will fill the air with their cheerful sounds. But each year, as
we continue to demand out-of-season fruits and vegetables, fewer and fewer
songbirds will return."
The bobolink songbird has experienced such a steep decline, it has almost
fallen off the charts. The birds migrate in flocks from Argentina, Bolivia
and Paraguay to the east coast of the US, feeding on grain and rice,
prompting farmers to regard them as a pest. Bobolink numbers have
plummeted almost 50 per cent in the past four decades, according to the
North American Breeding Bird Survey.
Rosalind Renfrew, a biologist who studied bobolinks as they were feeding
in rice paddies in Bolivia, found about half of the birds had been exposed
to toxic chemicals banned in Europe and the US. Some 40 to 50 species,
which include the barn swallow, the wood thrush the dickcissel as well as
migratory birds of prey, are starting to disappear.
It is only recently that the decline has been definitively linked to the
use of toxic pesticides in the Caribbean and across Latin America.
"Everyone who has looked for pesticide poisoning in birds has found it,"
Professor Stutchbury said. "When we count birds during our summers we are
finding significant population declines in about three dozen species of
songbirds."
She wrote in the comment pages of The New York Times: "They are the
modern-day canaries in the coal mine." She said: "The imported fruits and
vegetables found in our shopping carts in winter and early spring are
grown with types and amounts of pesticides that would often be illegal in
the United States."
Growers are using high doses of pesticides, which the World Health
Organisation calls class I toxins. These are also toxic to humans and are
either restricted or banned in the US and EU. But controls in Latin
American countries are easily flouted.
"I believe that if we don't make drastic changes quite literally many
birds which are common now are going to become rare," said Professor
Stutchbury.
Testing by individual EU countries and the US Food and Drug Administration
reveals that fruits and vegetables imported from Latin America are three
and sometimes four times as likely to violate basic standards for
pesticide residues.
=====--------------------------------------------------------------------
18. Disappeared News - 5 new articles
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:57:03 -0400
From: FeedBlitz <feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com>
"DISAPPEARED NEWS" - 5 NEW ARTICLES - www.disappearednews.com
1. Who knew what when on Aloha demise?
2.New record set for blindsiding public?
3.Kauai's fires a shot across the Superferry's bow
4.Airlines dropping like flies, is the Hawaii economy next?
5.Retired General William Odom counsels rapid withdrawal
6.More Recent Articles
7.Search Disappeared News
Who knew what when on Aloha demise?
by Larry Geller I also pondered Richard Borecca's story, Shutdown has
allies and rivals winging it, the one that Ian Lind wrote about this
morning. The sub-head is: Officials considered issues such as hotel
space, airport security and adding flights. A couple of things went
through my mind. First, did anyone consider that Hawaii residents and
visitors alike were still buying tickets even as the....
New record set for blindsiding public?
by Larry Geller As you may know, there's supposed to be 48 hours notice
given for a hearing at the Legislature. As you may know, lawmakers often
don't follow the rules. Today a new record may have been set for
rulebreaking. Check it out: Yup, the public had all of 19 minutes notice,
assuming the Sergeant-at-Arms did his work real fast. I hope you didn't
intend to give testimony on any of the....
Kauai's fires a shot across the Superferry's bow
by Larry Geller Attached (with thanks to attorney Daniel Hempey) is a
copy of the brief just filed on behalf of 1000 Friends of Kauai. It's
very nicely organized and argued. I'm sure that it will serve as a
reference for Superferry students, journalists and scholars of the
future. I find it interesting to observe first-hand the development of
what I think will come to be referred to as a "....
Airlines dropping like flies, is the Hawaii economy next?
by Larry Geller It can cost $600 to $1,000 to get out of Hawaii right
now. That's probably temporary, but who knows where airlines (and the
Superferry) will ultimately peg their rates? Aloha and ATA have suddenly
quit. Gone. No longer flying. Then United Airlines Tuesday canceled some
flights out of Hawaii due to FAA orders grounding Boeing 777s. The papers
have stories of stranded visitors who....
Retired General William Odom counsels rapid withdrawal
by Larry Geller See complete article and link to audio files here.From
his testimony before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: ...we face a
deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the
administrationâ^À^Ùs witnesses appear before you, you should make them
clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.
The only sensible strategy is to....
More Recent Articles
* 1,000 Friends of Kauaâ^À^Øi appeal Superferry decision
* Wal-Mart drops suit against Shank family
* Do-it-yourself disaster planning
* Flash! Hawaii Superferry Corp. buys Aloha Airlines
* On the national scene, results of 2008 election announced
________________________________________________________________________________
19. Waimanalo Hawaiian Homestead Association Press Release Re Public Lands
Trust Settlement and OHA Audit - comment
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:50:05 -1000
From: pilipo souza <pilipohale@hawaii.rr.com>
Auwe! Hilahila,
Kala mai ia'u,
Apparently, Mr. Richards and Waimanalo Homesteaders do not understand that
the creation of OHA is bonded to the State of Hawaii Admissions Act of
1959 that is bonded to the Hawaiian Homes Act of 1921 which qualifies
Native Hawaiian as being descendents of inhabitants prior to 1778 and of
50 % Hawaiian blood.
If OHA included all Hawaiians they would be in conflict with these
preceded enactments. If OHA benefited all Hawaiians they would have to
amended the original enactments by repealing the enactments of 1921 and
1959 by which only the Congress of the United States of America can do.
Why do Federal Hawaiian Homesteaders continue to deceive themselves and
expect non-Federal Kanaka Maoli to remain quite and consent to their own
demise while these 50 % protect their Federal status?
E ala e ! Wake up !
Aloha ke Akua,
pilipo
Why are federalized fifty-percenters blinded. Their need has turned into
greed just as those who created the enactments that created them.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marilyn Leimomi Khan" <khanm@hi808.net>
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:31 PM
> For your information. [sorry the attachment was too big to include.
write to one of the senders. g]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
20. LAWYER: TONGAN CULTURE CONFLICTS WITH DEMOCRACY
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:56:46 -1000
From: Tane . <Tane_1@msn.com>
Fiji is a different entity and people. Tonga's structure is different
from Hawaii. Maybe the question should be if Canada and USA have such
problems should they balkanize and create little cantons like Kosovo?
Which they seem to already have.
Tane
--------
From: pay_the_piper@shaw.ca
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 12:16:57 -0700
Fiji had low level civil war between Indian immigrants and
native Fijians.
If Tonga or Hawaii have such problems should they balkanize and create
little cantons like Kosovo?
PtP
----- Original Message -----
From: mike reitz
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 3:55 PM
LAWYER: TONGAN CULTURE CONFLICTS WITH DEMOCRACY
Country remains under absolute authority of king
NUKU´ALOFA, Tonga (Radio Tonga News, April 1, 2008) - Lawyer and President
of the Tonga Law Society, Laki Niu, has said that the state of democracy
in the Kingdom was vulnerable due to our customs and traditions. Niu
revealed this in a presentation at a seminar that was held at the Lolomasi
Hall at ´Atenisi last night. Niu believes in order for a country to become
democratic, one thing should be clear is that majority rules. However, in
looking at Tonga's status quo, minority rules, where the King holds
absolute authority with some power vested in the Nobles as well. Niu used
the example of the ownership of land in Tonga which is under the absolute
authority of the King but held in custody by the Nobles of the realm. Niu
says the nobles have the authority to divide this land within their
jurisdiction, as they see fit.Niu added that if people wanted democracy
than the practice is that decisions were to be made by the majority -
balloted and voted upon. Niu ventured that this is where our culture binds
us with limited situations, whereas in a democratic government culture can
be preserved but the government will be ruled by a majority of the people.
Niu observed that the different forms of government - absolute monarchy
and democracy both had its advantages and disadvantages but the important
point was that there was a government that gave people their rights and
freedoms on various issues including land laws. Niu also touched briefly
on the impending political reforms process which he perceived government
did not want to give in on some issues. Niu was asked on whether the
impending political reforms would benefit the country economically and
socially, to which he agreed it would. Various people attended the seminar
including volunteer workers, the Australian High Commissioner and New
Zealanders as well as people from the United States among students and
lecturers of ´Atenisi University. Tonga Broadcasting Commission Copyright
© Tonga-broadcasting.com
________________________________________________________________________________
21. April 20th and April 30th
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:50:51 -0400
From: KahiwaL@cs.com
Kaleo Patterson <kaleop@hawaii.edu> wrote:
>APRIL 30TH Hawaiian Restoration Day of Prayer
> Cleveland Liliuokalani
Kaleo,
Your Hawaiian Restoration Day of Prayer really conflicts with "my" annual
Restoration Day celebrations that some of us have been carrying out at 12
noon of every July 31 (the "real" Restoration Day) on the summit of Mauna
Kea.
This also conflicts with Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell's (and others) annual
celebration of the "real" Restoration Day held at Thomas Square.
While I realize that there is a degree of "legislative" bias involved -
having two "Restoration Days" may be or will be confusing to Hawaiians and
others.
Can there be some kind of eventual resolution to this conflict?
Thanks.
ku ching
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~-----------------------
22. Airline Problems! However, if you intend future travel, buy now,
before the prices go up after April 7
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:29:33 -0400
From: KahiwaL@cs.com
>Thursday, April 03, 2008
>Airlines dropping like flies, is the Hawaii economy next?
> by Larry Geller
>
>It can cost $600 to $1,000
<http://honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080403/BREAKING01/80403008>
to get out of Hawaii right now. That's probably temporary, but who knows
>where airlines (and the Superferry) will ultimately peg their rates?
>
>Aloha and ATA have suddenly quit. Gone. No longer flying. Then United
>Airlines Tuesday canceled some flights out of Hawaii due to FAA orders
>grounding Boeing 777s.
>
>The papers have stories of stranded
>visitors<http://starbulletin.com/breaking/breaking.php?id=6917>who have
>to pay again to return home, if they can find flights at all. This was
>unexpected and devastating for both visitors and of course for airline
>employees and their families.
>
>This leads to fear, uncertainty and doubt for tourists planning their
>vacations here. It also raises questions about the viability of Hawaii's
>travel-dependent economy.
>
>The failure of the airlines was disorderly, and it's not clear whether
>government action could have avoided the sudden shutdowns. One thing that
>state governments should be doing in the aftermath might be to take a
>deep breath and look at the current risks to the economy and how that
>might affect key infrastructure and business health.
>
>Band-Aids may not help as the recession deepens. Nor will amateur efforts
>to fix it likely succeed. It might be time to round up the economists and
>other usual suspects, lock them in a room with sufficient beer and
>snacks, and then pay attention to what will no doubt be bad news but
>possibly also some good advice.
>
>The alternative is a little waterboarding, which the feds insist is not
>only legal but effective. (Can you tell what I think of mainstream
>economists?) Technorati Tags: Hawaii <http://technorati.com/tags/Hawaii>,
>Aloha Airlines<http://technorati.com/tags/Aloha%20Airlines>, ATA
><http://technorati.com/tags/ATA>, Hawaii
>Superferry<http://technorati.com/tags/Hawaii%20Superferry>
>
>
> *Permalink*
><http://disappearednews.com/2008/04/airlines-dropping-like-flies-is-hawaii.html>posted
>by
>Larry <lgeller@gmail.com> @ 4/03/2008 06:44:00 PM
><http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=19645904&postID=2120432850592997670><http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=19645904&postID=2120432850592997670>
>
> Comments: What's insane is that our bankruptcy laws allow them to
> strand these people rather than forcing them to make good on the
"contract" they promised in selling the ticket by paying another carrier
to fulfill the obligation. And even more insane is that no one seems
concerned at this glaring example of U.S. Government backed corporate
theft.
>#<http://disappearednews.com/2008/04/airlines-dropping-like-flies-is-hawaii.html?showComment=1207345680000#c1468455989333771828>
posted by Andy Parx <http://www.blogger.com/profile/15398587036690312685> :
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~----------------------------
23. Connect the dots!..Lehman...HSF...Federal Reserve....Military
Industrial Complex...
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:37:52 -1000
From: Tane . <Tane_1@msn.com>
8) Lehmen Brothers - New York .... Guess who owns the Superferry? Lehman
is also a military industrial complex. Do you really think they are
experiencing a financial Strain? Connect the dots!
Tane
Federal Reserve that is owned by bankers in London, Berlin and
Paris, as author Peter Kershaw shows in his book, "Economic Solutions."
1) The Rothschild Family - London
2) The Rothschild Family - Berlin
3) The Lazard Brothers - Paris
4) Israel Seiff - Italy
5) Kuhn-Loeb Company - Germany
6) The Warburgs - Amsterdam
7) The Warburgs - Hamburg
8)Lehman Brothers - New York
9) Goldman & Sachs - New York
10) The Rockefeller Family - New York
Seven of the top ten stockholders located in foreign countries^Å Since the
formulation of the Federal Reserve, these legally sanctioned crooks,
thieves and liars have been draining America dry of both wealth and blood,
thru a never ending succession of wars, police actions, interventions and
"Shock and Awe" campaigns that always manage to find a convenient
"boogieman" somewhere on the planet to fight, using our tax dollars and
our kids.
The Federal Reserve Act went thru in 1913. In less than a year, the U.S.
had imposed on it an income tax and by 1914, WW I had started. By 1917,
the U.S. was in that war, shipping men, money and weapons overseas to prop
up the British Empire. The private bankers of the federal reserve made a
killing off WW I, by loaning out OUR money to both sides in the conflict.
----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Free Hawai.. i
Date: Apr 4, 2008 11:16 PM
MORE TROUBLE FOR THE SUPERFERRY
Kaua'i Group Appeals Rulings
Claiming that Hawai'i Superferry profits do not trump federally mandated
environmental requirements, attorneys filed an opening brief in the
Intermediate Court of Appeals this week.
Attorneys argued in the brief that Kaua'i should enjoy the same
constitutional protections afforded to everyone else.
Dan Hempey and Greg Meyers, attorneys for 1,000 Friends of Kaua'i, filed
the appeal of two September 2007 rulings greenlighting the Hawai'i
Superferry despite its lacking an Environmental Assessment.
Hawai'i Superferry had claimed it would face financial strain if forced to
stop operations while completing the EA.
In 2005 the Department of Transportation individually exempted the
improvements to each of the four harbors that would receive the
Superferry, stating that the individual harbor improvements would have no
significant impact on the environment.
The 1,000 Friends of Kaua'i brief states that "the court should protect
the public and enforce (the Hawaiian Environmental Protection Act), even
against violators who can show that they cleverly approved a statewide
project in several subparts, or who may lose a lot of money if the
environmental laws are applied to them.
Claiming that ruling in favor of the environment on Maui but not on Kaua'i
presents an inequity, Hempey and Meyers wrote,"Citizens of Maui were
protected from the Superferry, while citizens of Kaua'i could not enjoin
the Superferry, despite the statewide HEPA violation.
________________________________________________________________________________
24. Pasifika: The Blood Will Be On Rich Nations Hands
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:17:01 -1000
From: mike reitz <mreitz@pacbell.net>
WHEN ECOLOGICAL GENOCIDE HAPPENS, THE BLOOD WILL BE ON RICH NATIONS' HANDS
Are human rights violations to be taken cognizance of solely through the
political prism or from the rigid angle of governmental and administrative
machinery of individual nations?
Dev Nadkarni
Last month the United States published its 2007 annual report on the human
rights situation in some 194 countries across the world. The US itself is
excluded from the report, which is a catalogue of human rights violations
and related issues as reported from individual countries including the
Pacific Islands.
It assays and comments on several factors that have a bearing on the
rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
ranging from the freedom of speech and expression, good governance,
women's and children's rights --right through to adherence to the rule of
law by governments and administrations. It does cover a lot of ground and
is indeed quite comprehensive though more qualitative than statistical in
its presentation.
But from the point of view of the Pacific Islands -or for that matter any
other island nation anywhere in the world-- it has one glaring omission.
There is no mention of the longstanding violation of several of the human
rights of poor islanders by the long list of industrialised nations at the
head of which is the United States itself.
Pollution of the environment by industrialised nations over the better
part of the last century has caused irreversible changes in the fragile
ecosystems on which islanders have synergistically depended for thousands
of years.
Why is this not seen as a violation of their rights to shelter,
livelihood, good health, a safe environment and, in fact, the very right
to live that has been affected -in many cases, irreversibly? For instance,
tracts of agricultural land are already being lost to rising seas in the
Marshall Islands.
Are human rights violations to be taken cognizance of solely through the
political prism or from the rigid angle of governmental and administrative
machinery of individual nations?
Violation of human rights by abuse of the environment transcends political
borders on both sides -the polluters and those affected by it. But that
does not stop it from being a violation of human rights.
It is just that it requires a different set of parameters to measure the
extent of violation of the human rights of poor affected people by each
industrialised nation. The volume of emissions spewed by each one of them
is an excellent yardstick. The United States has long topped that list and
for a long time has avoided ratifying protocols like Kyoto.
It therefore comes as no surprise that such violations by the polluting
action of industrialised nations that has affected the very lives of
islanders at a very basic level --which will see them progressively robbed
of their lands, crops, abodes, livelihoods and ultimately entire islands
themselves-- finds no mention in the United States' human rights report.
When the industrialised nations pursue the ideals of globalisation in
their quest to reach more markets and maximise their profits, there ought
to be realisation that the same principles apply to the environment, which
indeed is seamless, transcending man made political boundaries. Quite in
the manner that industrialised nations are seeking the dismantling of
trade boundaries.
There can be no two ways of looking at this: there is simply no argument
against human rights violations by pollution of the environment not being
seen in the same light as human rights violations from the political/
governmental/ administrative angle. There is simply no justification for
glossing over violations that could have such far reaching consequences on
entire populations.
Speaking at a public function last month, Queen Elizabeth said that those
who pollute the least suffer the most. In our context here in the Pacific,
There is no better illustration of this than the humble, utterly powerless
Pacific Islander -particularly from the atoll nations and low lying
islands.
Again last month, Dr Marshall Weisler, a University of Queensland
archaeologist and renowned expert on the prehistoric use of coral atolls,
said rising sea levels from global warming would threaten the livelihoods
and homes of more than 200,000 people who live on coral atolls in coming
generations.
In particular, he cited Kiribati, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands in our neck
of the woods and Maldives in the Indian Ocean as being at most risk. "In
Kiribati, where is the next generation going to live?" he asked.
An environmental refugee deluge is likely to happen sooner than anyone
would expect. No nation is so far ready to deal with the situation -least
of all the metropolitan nations of the South Pacific. The Howard
administration went on record saying that it had no plans for sea level
rise refugees from the Pacific. Like Australia, most western countries are
in denial mode and simply wish away the problem.
But one comment Dr Weisler made perhaps best explains why human rights
violations by the world's big industrialised polluting nations never
really get compiled into any report or become part of the United States'
report. He said: "The people on these islands have a small voice because
they are not western industrialised countries with high populations.
People aren't paying attention to them."
This brings me to the urgent need for regional journalists to be
sensitised to the fact that violation of the environment by polluting
industrialised nations needs to be seen from the perspective of human
rights violations -and indeed must be deemed as such.
The voice of Pacific Islanders is too small and feeble to be heard in the
cacophony of the developed nations' libertarian perspectives in this
regard. The regional media needs to amplify this still small voice and
make it heard in the larger world. It needs to generate more stories about
affected people in every medium in a bid to give momentum and direction to
world public opinion, which, encouragingly has been growing steadily.
Finally, it must be said that the debate on the actual causes of sea level
rise are getting increasingly irrelevant as more and more islanders' lives
are being threatened by the encroaching waters. As each week passes, the
issue is growing to become a humanitarian problem of gigantic proportions.
It's a question of the future of entire populations and cultures.
What can be a greater human rights violation -even culpability for
abetment to ecological genocide, no matter which way you look at it-- on
the part of the world's rich nations than not facing up to it and dealing
with it with the urgency it deserves?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
25. Thinking of a 'Conversation' for SS teachers on opinions
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:21:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: MORENONS@aol.com
Hi all,
I 've been thinking about a letter to the editor of the New York Times
about three months ago. A man wrote in to say he'd taught SS for 30+ years
in NYC and no one could ever have known whether he supported one party or
another. It made me think about our role in encouraging thought and
engaging in real dialogue. I believe it is possible to have an opinion as
a teacher, be able to espress it and not hold it against a student if they
disagree. I'm also considering a state-wide meeting to discuss this (well,
Rhode Island is tiny. Maybe it shouldn't exist?!) and to light a spark of
debate that will bring home the basic concept of democracy. Comments? Has
anyone tried such a thing? With marches and demonstrations and an election
year, it's particularly relevant. Sarah PS. A fabulous book is about to be
published by Cory Doctorow called 'Little Brother". It's a young adult
novel with the themes of Homeland Security gone amuck, "Gitmo in the Bat",
Little Brother watching out against "Big Brother", San Francisco, 17
year-old protagonist, Cyber action against the government. Primarily Civil
Liberties! I got an advance copy and it's perfect. Beautifully written,
compelling plot, well-developed characters, due to be published in ~two
weeks.
________________________________________________________________________________
26. "Building A New World" Conference details
From: Cathy Garger <savorsuccesslady3@yahoo.com>
Date: April 5, 2008 12:38:10 PM HST
Dear Friends,
With regard to the conference next month, there are more topics and
speakers than are listed below. If your group receives this message, this
is because the issue of focus of your group is scheduled to be covered at
this event, either in a workshop, speech, or panel.
This looks like it's going to be an exciting event - and, in all
likelihood, a quite "lively" one - whereby the traditional "left" is going
to be meeting up with some more creative minds who, shall we say, are no
longer thinking inside the box!
For list of speakers, look at February 2 entry at:
http://www.wpaconference.org/
Cathy Garger
--------
Historic Conference - Cindy Sheehan, Adam Kokesh ("Winter Soldier"
Organizer), Medea Benjamin (Code Pink), - May 22 - 25th
"Building a New World" Conference Update
March 2008 Update
Professors, be sure to inform your departments and students of this
historic event!
Organizers, be sure to alert your members, and sister organizations of
this historic event!
Journalists and writers, be sure to attend this event, for it will provide
you with countless lines of profound insight into the state of our world
today!
As most of you are aware by now, from earlier announcements, the upcoming
"Building a New World" Conference, is right around the corner!
May 22nd through the 25th, leaders from many of the major efforts for
peace, justice, and green economy solutions to our future will be
presenting intensive workshops to further our goals for a liveable world.
Join us on May 22-25, 2008
In 2008 many of us understand that our nation - and even the entire planet
- are in a state of crisis. The deep longing for positive, lasting change
is the bedrock upon which this conference is based. How do we fix our
country and our world? And how can we form one mass movement to address
the crisis?
At Radford University, in Radford, Virginia, on May 22-25, thousands of
activists, academics, journalists, poets, musicians and policymakers will
converge at the 2008 "Building a New World" Conference. If you want to
participate in building a new world, sign up now. Hotel and dorm rooms are
limited.
Speakers include: Cindy Sheehan, (Code Pink Founder) Medea Benjamin, Gary
Corseri, William Blum, Kathy Kelly, Mike Whitney, Michael Parenti, Alice
Lovelace, David Swanson, Gareth Porter, Farid Bitar, Rev. Lennox Yearwood,
Robert Jensen, Kevin Zeese, Antonia Juhasz, Adam Kokesh and (Iraq Veterans
Against the War), Father Roy Bourgeois and many more leaders and
luminaries will join thousands of people from across the country and from
other lands as well, for a conference to lay the foundations for building
a new world now.
LEARN MORE AT: http://www.wpaconference.org/
PLEASE SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH YOUR RESPECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS.
We are living in urgent times.
Major Session Topics Include:
- End of Empire,
- Iraq Vets Against War
- Torture, Genocide,
- Climate Change
- Taking Back the Media,
- The Right to Health Care,
- Civil Liberties / Constitutional Rights,
- Womens Liberation
- Secession, Parallel Government,
- Economic Exploitation
- The Fight for Economic Democracy, Alternative Models to Capitalism,
- Facing Fundamentalism,
- Immigrant Rights,
- Indigenous People Speak Out,
- Palestine,
- Cooperatives and Localization,
- Venezuela: Bolivarian Revolution,
- Animal Rights,
- Global Warming and Water Crisis,
- Sustainability,
- Academic Freedom,
- Homelessness and Survival during Economic Depression,
- Politics and the Arts,
- Monetary Theory,
- Civilian Democratic Earth Federation,
- Witnesses and Victims of Oppression Speak Out.
. . . and many more workshops on critically important issues of the day.
MORE AT: http://www.wpaconference.org/
Again, we also request that you notify your universities, respective
organizations and sister group contacts about THIS HISTORIC CONFERENCE !!
Nationally Renowned Speaker Line Up Includes
Cindy Sheehan (Gold Star Mother, who founded Camp Casey outside of Bush's
Texas ranch, and began a national movement demanding an end to the Iraq
War)
Code Pink Founder, Medea Benjamin
Adam Kokesh and (Iraq Veterans Against the War; Co-Organizer of "Winter
Soldier" )
David Rubinson (Co-founder, Stop-LossCongress.org, Music and film
producer: Produced music for "Apocalypse Now")
William Blum (Author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions
Since World War II; Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower,
and many more profound works.)
Gary Corseri (poet, teacher, dramatist, novelist, editor, journalist,
activist)
Daniel Sunjata (Tony Nominated star of "Rescue Me" television series -
Actor / Activist)
Kathy Kelly (Author of Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin
Prison, and more)
Mike Whitney (Author)
Michael Parenti (Author of To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia; The
Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome; Super
Patriotism; Democracy for the Few)
Alice Lovelace (Author of A Voice in the Wilderness: Poems; The Kitchen
Survival Almanac; Remembering My Birth; What Price Freedom - What Price
Life; On the Streets of Durham: Poetry)
David Swanson (Author of Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy: An
International Study of Innovations; New Directions in Political
Communication: A Resource Book)
Gareth Porter (Author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the
Road to War in Vietnam; Global Environmental Politics)
Farid Bitar (Author of Treasury of Arabic Love Poems, Quotations, &
Proverbs)
Rev. Lennox Yearwood (Minister, activist, and President of the Hip Hop
Caucus, served as a White House intern under President Bill Clinton)
Robert Jensen (Professor in the School of Journalism at the University of
Texas; author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity)
Kevin Zeese (2006 US Senate Candidate for Maryland; President of Common
Sense for Drug Policy; Director of Democracy Rising; Founder of
TrueVoteMD.org and VoteTrustUSA.org - fighting for voter verified paper
trails for electronic voting)
Antonia Juhasz (Fellow at Oil Change International and Visiting Scholar at
the Institute for Policy Studies; author of The Bu$h Agenda: Invading the
World, One Economy at a Time (HarperCollins, April, 2006)) Father Roy
Bourgeois (Founder of the human rights group SOA Watch (School of the
America's Watch); Presented with the Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher
of Peace Award - 1997; and the Thomas Merton Award - 2005)
David Ray Griffin (Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology; Religion and
Scientific Naturalism; Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call
to Reflection and Action; 9/11 Contradictions)
Steve Alten (New York Times best selling author, author of the
historical-fiction, The Shell Game)
. . . and many more leaders and luminaries will join thousands of people
from across the country and from other lands as well, for a conference to
lay the foundations for building a new world now.
here's what's at the wpaconference.org site . . .
--
Garda Ghista
http://www.worldproutassembly.org
http://www.radford.edu/conf-serv/
Email: wpaeditor@gmail.com
Tel: 859 781-4979
Skype: garda.ghista
Help the US become Radiation Free by 2033! www.radiation.org
Cathy Garger www.mytown.ca/garger
=====-------------------------------------------------------------
27. TV helping to wipe out last tribes of the Amazon
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:22:39 -0500
From: Jenny James <atlantiscol@hotmail.com>
News from Schnews:
A British film crew has been hitting the mainstream headline for breaking
a ban on visiting remote barely contacted tribes in the Peruvian Amazon.
Looking for a location for their drearality TV series where personable
Brits 'Mark and Olly' live alongside yer bona fide savages for the
entertainment of Discovery Channel viewers, they got a permit to visit the
Matisigenka Indian community.
But soon quickly decided the locals just didn't look the stereotyped part
they wanted: "The shorts, the guys playing soccer and the school...just
won't cut it" and set off deeper inland, ignoring the fact their permit
expressly stated they weren't allowed to visit uncontacted or recently
contacted tribes, causing a flu outbreak which took several lives and made
scores more ill.
The regional Indian organisation FENAMAD confirmed that the crew did go
deep upriver despite their flat schoolchild-like denial, "The accusations
made do not tally with the facts, as we never entered the headwaters, we
were not in the locality quoted at any time and certainly not at the time
of any outbreak and, in any case, there has been no officially reported
outbreak.' (No sir, it wasn't me, I wasn't there, and even if I was I
didn't do it, even if anything was done. Which it wasn't..honest!). The
head of the local Protected Areas department didn't buy it and they have
now been banned from entering the area.
But another, less media-friendly news-nugget of a story, gets less copy:
the ongoing expeditions into deepest Peru by oil companies that threaten
the indigenous people and the whole eco-system for more seriously than one
errant film crew.
Drilling - accompanied by environmental destruction and disease spreading
- has been going on for decades, fuelled by dodgy governments up for
raking in the cash from selling off exploratory rights to vast swathes of
land, some home to indigenous tribes who've lived there for thousands of
years. The global oil price surges of late have led to a renewed interest
in the area, with increasing fossil fuellishness and damage threatened
(See SchNEWS 613) - just when mankind should be doing everything possible
to preserve and promote these precious places...
Perhaps some of the indigenous tribes affected can learn from the story of
the Achuar tribe, Amazon residents in the North East of Peru. They
suffered at the hands of Occidental Petroleum, the company who came into
their area 30 years ago and began oil extraction and processing. Over the
years they caused illness outbreaks, with fatalities, and contaminated the
land by dumping billions of barrels of toxic waste.
All indigenous indignation was ignored. Occidental then pulled out eight
years ago and handed over operations to a firm called Pluspetrol, but
business just continued. Their livelihoods finally ruined, the tribe
finally took direct action and, armed with shotguns and spears, occupied
oil wells in October 2006. And it brought swift results: the government
and the company, losing millions of dollars a day, were finally forced to
come to the negotiating table. The Achuar obtained a commitment from
Pluspetrol to reduce contamination and to pay millions of dollars to clean
up and establish a 10-year health plan. They also effectively blocked any
new oil exploration on their territory. Duly empowered, they then, last
year, took the fight home to roost and filed a class action lawsuit
against Occidental, in Los Angeles - a case still pending.
It just shows what determined people can do when they get together to
fight for their rights...
* For more on indigenous struggles see www.survival-international.org
======================================================================
28. CHARGES OF RACISM AND LABOR VIOLATIONS AGAINST SUPERFERRY SHIPBUILDER
Date: Sat, April 5, 2008
From: Kyle Kajihiro <kkajihiro@afsc.org>
Contacts are Katy Rose klrose@earthlink.net 346-7011 and Jonathan Jay
jonathan@dakauai.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CHARGES OF RACISM AND LABOR VIOLATIONS AGAINST SUPERFERRY SHIPBUILDER
A group of 22 current and former African-American employees have sued
Austal USA, investor in, and shipbuilder of, the Hawaii Superferry,
charging that company managers participate in and condone widespread
racial discrimination, according to the Mobile, Alabama Press-Register.
The suit includes broad allegations of a racially hostile work
environment, including anti-black graffiti in bathrooms that reappears
despite frequent painting, supervisors calling black workers "monkeys" or
"boy" or "blue gums" or "n--r".
Jermaine Roberson, who left the company earlier this month, said that in
December, he found a stick figure hanging by a wire noose with the word
"n--r" written on it.
The workers asked the court to forbid further discrimination; order fairer
promotion, pay and training practices; order black workers promoted in
order to make up for discrimination; order the company to offer jobs to
plaintiffs who left Austal; and order damages and back wages for current
and former black workers.
Candis McGowan, the Birmingham-based lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that
until complaints were filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission in 2006, Austal had no black supervisors.
This is not the only labor problem Austal USA has faced recently. In March
of last year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) upheld a ruling
that the shipyard broke federal labor laws when it fired 10 pro-union
workers and threatened to close the plant and to cut jobs should workers
elect to unionize.
Critics of Hawaii Superferry believe that Austal USA^Òs current race and
labor issues are inconsistent with its endeavors to provide service to the
racially diverse communities of the Hawaiian Islands. Furthermore, Austal
USA's actions with regard to race and labor practices may be inconsistent
with what the U.S. government should expect of prospective military
contractors as with the JHSV military fast ferries and the LCS Littoral
Combat Ships.
Sources: http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/1206522920295650.xml&coll=3
http://www.al.com/business/press-register/index.ssf?/base/business/120626379995580.xml&coll=3
http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Board%20Decisions/349/v34951.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Brad Parsons [mailto:mauibrad@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sat 4/5/2008 2:22 PM
Spread it around to your press contacts, Saturday and Sunday. Contacts are
Katy Rose klrose@earthlink.net 346-7011 and Jonathan Jay
jonathan@dakauai.com both on beautiful Kauai. Aloha, Brad
_________________________________________________________________
Gabrielle Welford, Ph.D.
freelance writer, editor, teacher
welford@hawaii.edu
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