Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 06.15.06

[David Shove (shove001]

            P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     06.15.06

1. Justice/janitors   6.15 11:30am
2. Down the Fort      6.15 3pm
3. Peace walk         6.15 4pm Duluth MN
4. Eagan peace vigil  6.15 4:30pm
5. Small is beautiful 6.15 5pm
6. Northtown vigil    6.15 5pm
7. CGS dinner         6.15 6pm
8. Queertopia         6.15 6pm
9. Food activism      6.15 8pm
10. Sex               6.15 8pm
11. Battered women    6.15-16
12. MwestSocial forum 6.15-18 Milwaukee WI

13. Grassroots/color  6.16-18 8am
14. SinglePayer/AM950 6.16 5:15pm
15. Irish/film        6.16 6pm
16. Vets for peace    6.16 6pm
17. Spain/film        6.16 7pm
18. Celebrating women 6.16 8pm

19. Cindy Sheehan on Democracy Now
20. Medea Benjamin - Hillary & "Take Back America" suppress dissent
21. Mickey Z       - America: the land of denial
22. Thom Hartmann  - Stand up for democracy with Robert F Kennedy Jr
23. ed             - Profiles in Cowardice

--------1 of 23--------

From: Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council <betsy [at] mplscluc.com>
Subject: Justice/janitors 6.15 11:30am

Working for the American Dream
SEIU Local 26's Justice for Janitors Day
Join SEIU Local 26 Janitors and Community Members in Marching for Justice
for Janitors and All Workers

Thursday, June 15
11:30am - Rally at Government Center Plaza in downtown Minneapolis
(corner of 5th Street and 4th Avenue)
12noon - March from Government Center Plaza to Peavey Plaza down
Nicollet Mall

On June 15th, SEIU commemorates the Anniversary of the famous "Justice for
Janitors" campaign in the city of Los Angeles. On that day, janitors
rallied to demand better working conditions. The violent reaction of the
police to their protest caused worldwide repulsion, and as a result, L.A.
janitors won the union representation they wanted.


--------2 of 23--------

From: Sue Ann <mart1408 [at] umn.edu>
From: Waziyatawin Angela Wilson
Subject: Down the Fort 6.15 3pm

I am writing to request assistance from all you radicals....I am traveling
to Minnesota this coming week and plan to begin protesting the Minnesota
Historical Society's initiative to re-fortify Fort Snelling, Minnesota's
monumental icon of American imperialism. I have two large banners (3 x 12
ft.) that each require two people to hold, and I have 1,000 more of the
Take Down the Fort bumper stickers.

We begin the protesting on Thursday, June 15, at 3pm, in time to catch the
rush hour traffic by the fort. Meet in the parking lot at the DNR's Fort
Snelling interpretive center at 3 PM and then hike up the stairs to the
Mendota Bridge, at least for the first day. We can work out additional
protesting times.

Feel free to spread the word.
(signed) Waz
Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, Ph.D.


--------3 of 23--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Peace walk 6.15 4pm Duluth MN

Thursday, 6/15, 4 pm, walk for peace, from Lake Place Park (Superior St &
Lake Ave) to the McGhie Memorial, Duluth.  Doug Stevens, 218-724-0820.


--------4 of 23--------

From: Greg and Sue Skog <skograce [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Eagan peace vigil 6.15 4:30pm

CANDLELIGHT PEACE VIGIL EVERY THURSDAY from 4:30-5:30pm on the Northwest
corner of Pilot Knob Road and Yankee Doodle Road in Eagan. We have signs
and candles. Say "NO to war!" The weekly vigil is sponsored by: Friends
south of the river speaking out against war.


--------5 of 23--------

From: Jesse Mortenson <jmortenson [at] Macalester.edu>
Subject: Small is beautiful 6.15 5pm

First and third Tuesdays of the month
6.15 5pm
Cahoots coffeehouse
Selby 1/2 block east of Snelling in StPaul

Limit bigboxes, chain stores, TIF, corporate welfare, billboards; promote
small business and co-ops, local production & self-sufficiency.

http://www.gpsp.org/goodbusiness


--------6 of 23--------

From: EKalamboki [at] aol.com
Subject: Northtown vigil 6.15 5pm

NORTHTOWN Peace Vigil every Thursday to 5 to 6 pm, at the intersection of
Co. Hwy 10 and University Ave NE (SE corner across from Denny's), in
Blaine.

Communities situated near the Northtown Mall include: Blaine, Mounds View,
New Brighton, Roseville, Shoreview, Arden Hills, Spring Lake Park, Fridley,
and Coon Rapids.  We'll have extra signs.

For more information people can contact Evangelos Kalambokidis by phone or
email: (763)574-9615, ekalamboki [at] aol.com.


--------7 of 23--------

From: Joe Schwartzberg <schwa004 [at] umn.edu>
Subject: CGS dinner 6.15 6pm

CGS MN ANNUAL MEETING

Thursday evening, June 15, 6-9pm.
Dining room annex, basement of Carlson School, West Bank, UofM
321 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis

PARKING in 19th Avenue Parking Ramp just to west of Carlson School, at
hourly rate, or, less expensively, in open-air parking lot 94 on 4th
Street, just to the south of the Carlson School.

6:00 Social Hour; 6:30 Dinner (vegetarian options available);
7:15 Program; 9:00 Adjournment.

$25 per person; $12 for students and those with limited income. Send
checks to Louise Pardee, 5492 Bald Eagle Boulevard E., White Bear Lake, MN
55110. Reservations should be made by June 12.  QUESTIONS? Call Louise at
651-429-9562.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: CHARLES J. ("CHARLIE") BROWN
National President and CEO, Citizens for Global Solutions
IF I WERE PRESIDENT: A NEW FOREIGN POLICY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY


--------8 of 23--------

From: Louisa Hext <louisahext [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Queertopia 6.15 6pm

Outward Spiral Theatre Company's Queertopia Preview Party!

Banish your political woes for a short while and celebrate PRIDE with
peace, love, and understanding--and song and dance! Make art not war and
together we'll hatch some righteous schemes for survival!

Join us this Thursday, June 15 - 6-8pm at Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale
Ave. S.

- Preview "Queertopia" (performance dates June 23-25)
- Meet a few of the artists
- Sponser an artist
- Further support the success of Outward Spiral Theatre Company by making
  a financial contribution
   And of course
- Enjoy beverages and horsdoeuvres.

Admission is Free!

Louisa Hext President Outward Spiral Theatre Company
http://www.outwardspiral.org Cell:  612.290.8291

"Outward Spiral Theatre Company is dedicated to producing theatre from a
Queer point-of-view. We strive to entertain, educate and act as a catalyst
for social change through inclusive, multicultural, provocative artistic
expression".


--------9 of 23--------

From: Amanda Luker <amanda [at] pinkslipmedia.org>
Subject: Food activism 6.15 8pm

What are important local campaigns right now, and how is the climate for
food-related activism changing? Come find out at Arise! Bookstore on June 15
at 8 pm.

Arise! is a collectively-run progressive bookstore and resource center
located in south Minneapolis. For further information, contact Amanda Luker
at 612-590-3276.


--------10 of 23--------

From: Aaron Klemz <aaronklemz [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Sex 6.15 8pm

SEX ACROSS THE CURRICULUM PERMISSION FORM

I give permission for ___________ to attend the one-woman show Sex Across
the Curriculum in which a disgruntled public school instructor finally
throws the abstinence only sex education curriculum out the window and
tells the kids what she always wanted them to know.

Sex Across the Curriculum
Thursday, June 15, 8pm
Patrick's Cabaret 3010 Minnehaha Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55406
$5 Admission


--------11 of 23--------

From: erin [at] mnwomen.org
Subject: Battered women 6.15-16

Thursday, June 15 and Friday, 16: MN Coalition for Battered Women Domestic
Violence 101 Trainings. Neighborhood House, Ross & Marie Ferber Community
Dining Room, 179 Robie Street, East, St. Paul. 651/646-6177 Naly Yang.


--------12 of 23--------

From: audrey thayer <athayer [at] paulbunyan.net>
Subject: Midwest social forum 6.15-18 Milwaukee WI

The MIDWEST SOCIAL FORUM (formerly also known as RADFEST) will be held in
MILWAUKEE, JUNE 15-18, 2006, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Student Union.

The move to Milwaukee reflects the accelerated growth and expansion of the
Forum in recent years, and lays the groundwork for yet another significant
leap forward - the first of many to come.

And look for more information in the coming weeks, including the launching
of the forum website and a call for proposals for workshops, panels, art,
film, music, and other forum events. In the meantime, inquiries may be
sent to info [at] havenscenter.org.

For information on past years of RadFest/Midwest Social Forum, please visit
www.radfest.org.

We hope you will join us at Midwest Social Forum 2006 and contribute to
"making another world possible."

[Best check this out before making plans - ed]


-------13 of 23--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Grassroots/color 6.16-18 8am

Ceremonia Chalchiutlicue and Environmental Conference and Ceremony in
Honor of Water (June16-18)

Friday, June 16, 8am-5pm. Minneapolis American Indian Center, 1530
Franklin Avenue East, Minneapolis.

This grassroots-connecting conference and ceremony is focused on creating
a space for communities of color and supporters to teach each other about
grassroots environmental justice issues. FFI (including additional event
information): Visit <www.chalchiutlicue.org>.


--------14 of 23--------

From: David Schultz <dschultz [at] gw.hamline.edu>
Subject: Single payer/AM950 6.16 5:15pm

Fridays 5-6pm, David Schultz hosts "Minnesota Matters," on Air America
Minnesota radio, 950 AM. Progressive discussion, interviews, and call in.

From: Kip Sullivan <kiprs [at] usinternet.com>
I'll be on Air America with David Schultz for half an hour 6.16 Friday
(5:15-5:45 pm), on single payer health care.


--------15 of 23--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Irish/film 6.16 6pm

Friday, 6/16, 6 pm, film "In America," about Irish immigrants in NYC and
their struggles, Resource Center of the Americas, 3019 Minnehaha, Mpls.
www.americas.org


--------16 of 23--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Vets for peace 6.16 6pm

Friday, 6/16, 6 pm, Veterans for Peace dinner and canoe raffle drawing, Day
by Day Cafe, 477 W 7th St, St Paul.  612-821-9141.


--------17 of 23--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Spain/film 6.16 7pm

Spanish Musical Film Set to Play at Oak Street
Film Fest Favorite to Run Again
Iberia
At the Oak Street Cinema
June 16 ­ June 20

The splendidly photographed Iberia is scheduled to screen at the Oak
Street Cinema June 16-20. One of the most popular films from the
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, Iberia will play nightly
at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. with a 5 p.m. matinee on Saturdays and Sundays.

With Iberia, Carlos Saura once again signals his position as the master of
cinema as performance. In Iberia, he revisits one of his prime
fascinations, the Gypsy life of southern Spain, through the lens of
renowned composer Isaac Albéniz. The music is adapted from Albéniz's
Iberia suite, broken down by geographical region, like a tour through the
peninsula and its varied attitudes. The styles of music and performance
run the gamut of traditional and contemporary Spanish forms, ranging from
flamenco to ballet to tango to modern dance. Included in this star-studded
ensemble of who's who in contemporary Spanish music and dance is Sara
Baras, Antonio Canales, Marta Carrasco, Enrique Morente, Estrella Morente,
Gerardo Nóñez, José Antonio Ruiz, Manolo Sanlúcar, and Rosa Torres Pardo.
Also featured is Aída Gómez, the elegant and powerful ballet dancer
featured in Saura's Salomé (2002).

The Oak Street Cinema is located at 309 Oak Street S.E. on the East Bank
campus of the University of Minnesota.

Admission is $8 general, $6.00 seniors/students, and $5 for Minnesota Film
Arts members.


--------18 of 23--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Celebrating women 6.16 8pm

NOTE: This event benefits the WOMEN'S PRISON BOOK PROJECT/WPBP
If you can't go, you can always donate money by mail or drop PAPERBACK
BOOKS ONLY off (in the wooden bin in front of ARISE Books):
Women's Prison Book Project
c/o Arise Bookstore, 2441 Lyndale Ave.S. Mpls 55408
you can get their once a month emails: wpbp [at] prisonactivist.org

FRI/SAT JUNE 16 & 17
A Celebration of Women curated by Shannon Freitag

Who: A night of song, dance, performance art and poetry, celebrating women
in performance, curated by Shannon Freitag,

FRI/SAT June 16th and 17th at 8pm at Patrick's Cabaret.
on Minnehaha Ave.S. 2 doors off East Lake St. south Minneapolis

Celebration of Women, curated by me Shannon Freitag is an evening
recognizing women in performance by introducing new as well as veteran
female performers who reside in the Twin Cities. It is an event that will
bring together performance art, song, dance, poetry, and spoken word, in
order to recognize gender within a western context as well as just a fun
evening of watching women performers do what they do.

Tickets are $6 in advance or $8 at the door..For advanced tickets please
call 612-501-7864 and for more info. All the money that I recieve inticket
sales will be donated to the women's prison book project.

Featured artists:

Jessica Briggs and Erin Reegan
Susan Rode
Amanda K. Smith
Claribel Gross
Gigi Nauer
Janice Kalien
and Shannon Freitag

In the ongoing series of guest curators for the shows at Patrick's
Cabaret, Shannon Freitag graduates from the University of Minnesota
Theater Program, and not unlike Wonder Woman, immediately presents
Celebrating Women in Performance!

Paying Homage Paying Homage is comprised of contemporary and modern
movement, with African influences. The piece displays traditions and
rituals that women have played throughout history.**

Poetry by Susan Rode "Recovering the Words"

Susan Rode reads three poems celebrating the human capacity for love.
Susan has taught high school English, speech, and journalism in the
Midwest for nearly 20 years. In her spare time, she wanders the woods with
her dogs and writes poetry at her cabin.

Music by Amanda K. Smith Inspired by her singer/songwriter father, Amanda
has picked up a guitar and started writing songs. She'll be doing a few of
hew own tonight.

Claribel: The Reality of Beauty: for Curiosity This solo performance
piece, written by Claribel, questions the meaning of beauty and examines
the idea of beauty as its own entity. Claribel describes herself as "a
theater kid who performs poetry and believes that poetry is meant to be
read out loud."

"Thank You for Listening" Music by Gigi Nauer Gigi is a singer-songwriter,
and music teacher. Her smooth voice and gentle guitar style become a duet
and lend themselves well to a range of styles.

Shannon Freitag: Untitled A performance by Shannon Freitag that challenges
the existing representations of women in a Western social context through
movement, sound, and photos.

Janice Kalien: "Selected Poems by Janice" Dealing with issues that concern
women, Janice will perform her own work solo. Her work has been published
multiple times, but this will be her first time onstage with her poetry.
Janice explains her poems as "hypersenstive to hypothetical situations."
Her poems include "Madeup", "cliff", "Hidden", "Frat Party Girl"
Maculated", and Microbes"


--------19 of 23--------

Cindy Sheehan on Democracy Now

Amy Goodman interviewed Cindy Sheehan and others regarding the escalating
conflict within the Democratic Party over the Iraq War.

From the Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 broadcast of Democracy Now:

Joining us here in our Firehouse studio is Cindy Sheehan. Since the death
of her son Casey in Iraq in April 2004, she has emerged as one of the
leading figures of the anti-war movement in the United States. She is the
co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace and a supporter of Voters For
Peace.  http://www.votersforpeace.us/, the national campaign that asks
voters to sign a simple pledge:

"I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President
who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any
future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign."

Cindy has called on Democrats to vote against their pro-war incumbents.
Welcome to Democracy Now!

CINDY SHEEHAN: Hi, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about this nationwide movement, where you have
Democrats not only taking on President Bush, but taking on their own
party.

CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, I think it's imperative. We have basically right now
in Congress a one-party system. We have very few Democrats who are
speaking to our core values as progressive liberal Democrats. And they are
rubber-stamping and bobble-heading everything that this administration
wants to do. And it's so urgent right now that we have an opposition
party. And I believe if Democrats courageously spoke out to their core
values saying, "This war is wrong; if we voted for it, we shouldn't have,"
and to call for an end to the occupation of Iraq, I believe that we could
have a government that is run with integrity, and the Democrats could have
a landslide victory in November, if they would act different from the
Republicans. And I'm supporting these candidates who are saying that this
war is wrong, we need to bring our troops home, and we are not going to
support the Republicans who are corrupt and who are leading our country
down this path of destruction.

AMY GOODMAN: You're here in New York. You have personally spoken to
Hillary Rodham Clinton. What did that conversation consist of?

CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, I was talking about the personal cost of war, about
how her policies and her support of George Bush and this war, even though
she says it's a mistake, you know, the war is being fought incompetently.
There's no such thing as a competent war. And I told her about the pain of
being a mother who lost a son. We talked about other mothers who have
their children in harm's way, who are worried beyond anything they can
imagine. And at the end, she said, "Well, we have to complete the mission
to honor the sacrifice of your son." And I think and have been calling for
an end to the killing, that the killing has to stop sometime. How much
killing is enough killing for these people? And there is no mission.  She
can't define the mission. George Bush can't define the mission.  And to
just keep them there because they're there is not a good mission.

Join Cindy by signing the Voters Pledge: http://www.votersforpeace.us/,


--------20 of 23--------

Progressive Dems Suppress Anti-War Dissent
Peace Activists at Hillary Clinton's Speech Try to Take Back "Take Back
America"
By MEDEA BENJAMIN

The Take Back America conference, an annual event held in Washington DC
this year from June 12-14, is supposed to be a venue for prominent
progressives to gather and debate the major issues of our day. Their aim
is to "provide the nation with new vision, new ideas and new energy." But
choosing New York Senator and probable presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton as a keynote speaker and then stifling dissent against her pro-war
position hardly seems the stuff of a new vision for America.

The peace group CODEPINK is widely known for bringing its anti-war message
to the halls of power, including inside the Republican National Convention
and at President Bush's Inauguration. But it has also targeted Democrats
such as Hillary Clinton who support the war. "We have a campaign called
Birddog Hillary," says CODEPINK's New York coordinator Nancy Kricorian.
"We follow her around the entire state asking her to listen to the voices
of her constituents and stop her support of Bush's 'stay the course'
policy in Iraq. So far, she hasn't been listening."

Fearing that CODEPINK would openly confront Clinton on her pro-war policy,
the organizers of Take Back America entered into negotiations with
CODEPINK a few days before the conference. "We had lengthy discussions
where they pleaded with us not to protest during her keynote breakfast
address," explained Gael Murphy, one of the cofounders of CODEPINK.
"Instead, we were told that we could distribute flyers explaining
Hillary's pro-war position to the crowd inside and outside the hotel, and
we would be called on to ask her the first question after the speech. We
agreed."

However, when CODEPINK showed up on Tuesday morning in advance of
Clinton's speech, the security guards refused to allow them to pass out
flyers, even outside the hotel. "Take Back America violated the agreement
from the moment we arrived," said Ms. Murphy. "Even though we had a table
inside the conference, burly security guards blocked us and informed us
that it was a private event, that we were not welcome, and they escorted
us out of the building. We telephoned the conference staff who then told
us that we couldn't enter the hotel, couldn't leaflet the event, the
hallways-anywhere. They went back on their word and tried to quash even
peaceful, respectful dissent."

A few CODEPINK women did manage to get inside the breakfast, however, as
they were legitimate ticket holders. Once inside, the CODEPINK women soon
realized that they had been deceived about the second part of the
agreement: They would not be allowed to ask the first question, or any
question, because Hillary Clinton would not be fielding questions from the
audience. "We were really upset that we had been lied to by Take Back
America, and that there would be no space at this 'progressive conference'
to have a dialogue with Hillary Clinton about the most critical issue of
our time-the war in Iraq," said Katie Heald, DC coordinator for CODEPINK.
"We got up on our chairs holding up our hands with the peace sign, and
were pulled down from the chairs. We tried to take out our banner that
said "Listen Hillary: Stop Supporting the War" and it was grabbed from us.
And when Hillary started talking about her Iraq strategy, criticizing Bush
but not posing a solution, we shouted 'What are YOU going to do to get us
out of Iraq,' but she ignored us."

Ann Wright, the army colonel and diplomat who resigned over the war, was
appalled by the actions of the conference organizers. "They took away
leaflets supporting Jonathan Tasini, the anti-war Democrat who is running
against Clinton in New York. They searched people's bags for banners; they
even took away an 'Impeach Bush' banner from Veterans for Peace. Free
speech needs to be upheld by progressives and trying to curtail dissent
undercuts the whole purpose of this conference," said Wright.

Many of the attendees agreed with the position of the protesters, and as
Hillary Clinton left the podium, they joined in chanting "Bring the troops
home;  Stop the war now." The next speakers, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
and Senator John Kerry, got thunderous applause when they called for the
troops to come home.

"We were amazed to discover that the organizers of Take Back America treat
dissent the same way that the organizers at a Bush rally do," said Ms.
Murphy.  "Most progressives do not support Hillary Clinton, and stifling
our legitimate, heartfelt opposition to her pro-war position is an
outrage. I guess we have to take back 'Take Back America.'"


[I have several choice gutter epithets to apply to Hillary, TBA, and the
national DP. I will spare you. (You probably know nastier ones than I do,
so have at it). And +she+ is to be our +alternative+ in 2008? Talk about a
totally stacked deck. Hillary is not lesser evil; she is the real thing,
undiluted, full strength. What does it say about the DP if this demon's
apprentice is the DP 2008 candidate? When both of our big/monster/bloated
parties are corrupted at the highest level, we're in serious trouble,
calling for more courageous actions than we've been willing to do so far.
-ed]


--------21 of 23--------

America: The Land of Denial
By Mickey Z
ZNet Commentary
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-06/08z.cfm
June 11, 2006

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity."-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Being a lifetime New Yorker means I took notice when the Red Sox came to
town this week. Tens of thousands jammed Yankee Stadium...each pretending
the House That Ruth Built does not stand on land stolen from a nearly
exterminated indigenous population. Millions more tuned in to watch on
TV...powered by electricity, which is generated by the burning of fossil
fuels. We pushed environmental degradation from our minds and cheered for
our team.

Yankee announcer Ken Singleton is an African-American...but we all opted
to ignore the slave trade that brought Africans to North America. In order
to better enjoy the sports spectacle, it's not recommended that viewers
contemplate a nation built upon a foundation of slavery.

Toyota is one of many "official sponsors" of the New York Yankees so it
should come as no surprise that the broadcast featured more than a few car
pitches...but, of course, no mention of the car culture. After all, how
can one enjoy our national pastime if forced to consider that the
surreptitious cost of the automobile lifestyle is nearly $500 billion a
year in the U.S. alone...much of that going support the waging of
perpetual war to keep the world safe for petroleum?

The presence of David Ortiz from the Dominican Republic could've spurred a
discussion of U.S. complicity in the overthrow of Juan Bosch...but it
didn't.

Of course, "God Bless America" was the seventh inning sing-a-long.
Everyone stood and sang and blocked out the more than one million of our
taxpayer dollars spent per minute on war.

When Bernie Williams came to the plate, our minds were not cluttered with
thoughts of his native Puerto Rico as the world's oldest colony.

Mike Mussina struck out the side and a kid in the stands pulled out his
cell phone to tell a friend all about it. His conversation contained no
mention of columbite-tantalite (a.k.a. "coltan"). Global demand for this
common cell phone component is fueling war and environmental destruction
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Who knew?

Panamanian Mariano Rivera warmed up in the Yankee bullpen. Not a whisper
was heard about the illegal 1989 American invasion of his homeland or the
malevolent machinations behind the building the Panama Canal more than a
century ago.

It takes an awful lot of denial just to exist in a society like ours. Look
around: Those folks over there, yeah, the ones chowing down on stadium
franks...they're not thinking about factory farming, Their minds don't
seem distracted by the fact that the EPA considers 30 percent of all
insecticides, 60 percent of all herbicides, and 90 percent of all
fungicides to be carcinogenic, yet Americans spend about $7 billion on
21,000 different pesticide products each year.

That guy parked next to you in his SUV isn't pondering the reality that
the top one percent of Americans own wealth equal to the bottom 95
percent. That woman buying a Derek Jeter jersey doesn't appear bothered by
the 1200 citizens incarcerated each week or the 4000 new cases of cancer
diagnosed each day or the 19 insect species becoming extinct each hour.

The Yankees pull off a double play...but 52 of the top 100 economies are
the planet aren't countries, they're corporations.

The Red Sox make a pitching change but it doesn't change the fact that
every day, 80 percent of Americans take a potentially addictive
prescription drug and 52 percent of those drugs will be either pulled from
the shelves or relabeled because they'll prove to be more hazardous than
studies had indicated.

Watch out...Jorge Posada is hit by a pitch. This provokes a far more
dramatic response than polar bears having to swim up to 60 miles for food
and subsequently drowning...due to climate change melting the Arctic ice
shelf.

A-Rod steals a base...and not a soul seems worried about 100,000 Americans
losing their health insurance each month. Every two seconds, somewhere on
this planet, a child starves to death. (How many have did we lose while
Jason Giambi rounded the bases after his three-run homer?)

As Arundhati Roy explains: "People from poorer places and poorer countries
have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in
America."

Ward Churchill takes it further...warning us that the same people Roy
refers to "have no obligation-moral, ethical, legal or otherwise-to sit on
their thumbs while the opposition here dithers about doing anything to
change the system."

Noam Chomsky sez: "You are responsible for the predictable consequences of
your actions." By "actions," I believe he is also implying "inaction."

Mickey Z. is the author of several books, most recently 50 American
Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know (Disinformation Books). He can be
found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.


--------22 of 23--------

Stand Up for Democracy With Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
By Thom Hartmann
Common Dreams
reprint http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060606E.shtml
Sunday 04 June 2006

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written a brilliant new article about the
biggest political story in the history of the United States: An American
politician illegitimately took the office of president by outright theft
and fraud. Although such high crimes and misdemeanors have been rumored in
previous elections, none in the history of the republic have been so
thoroughly documented. George W. Bush is not the legitimate president of
the United States.

Schoolchildren read (in the few remaining civics classes in America) about
the multiple pollings and tense standoff that led to Thomas Jefferson's
election as president in "the Revolution of 1800," because newspapers of
the day looked into and reported on such things. But - unless we speak out
- odds are that few will read about what happened in Ohio in 2004 in
future history books, because modern newspaper editors are increasingly
corporate appendages, and many of today's "reporters" worry more about
currying favor with institutional power than investigating stories that
may inconvenience or upset their "sources."

Kennedy's story - "Was The 2004 Election Stolen?" - broke on Thursday,
June 1, 2006, when Rolling Stone magazine put it on their website and it
appeared on other websites including www.commondreams.org. It hit the
newsstands soon thereafter. In the article, Kennedy lays out the details
of exactly how the Republican Party, in several states but particularly in
Ohio, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to both steal the 2004 election and
to cover up the evidence of that theft.

The subtitle of the article lays out Kennedy's foundational premise:
"Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting
ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in
the White House." And that's just the beginning of the story, which
includes ballot-box stuffing, electronic voting machine manipulation,
"caging"  in defiance of a court order banning Republicans from this
notorious practice, threats and intimidation of Democratic voters by
imported Republican goon squads, and multiple illegal uses of the
secretary of State's office to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

The Republican rebuttals/attacks have already begun, starting with a
particularly tragic hit-piece in one of the higher-profile "online
magazines" that claims to authoritatively quote so-called but unnamed
"experts" who doubt Kennedy's sources, and takes a clip of Ohio law so out
of context as to essentially reverse its meaning in support of the
Republican talking points.

The day Kennedy's article came out, Republican callers began dialing into
talk radio shows complaining about "massive Democrat (sic) voter fraud by
registering illegal immigrants" (to quote a caller to my Air America Radio
program on 6/2/06). Clearly the meme Republicans will put out if Kennedy's
story gets traction in the mainstream media is that "election fraud is
something both parties do," and they'll use that meme to push even harder
for more Republican-helpful restrictions on voters who are old, urban, or
poor enough not to have or easily acquire two forms of government-issued
ID. We can't let them - this is about real crimes, and the destruction of
democracy in our republic.

Kennedy's article is an in-depth, on-the-ground report from Ohio about the
2004 election. In it, he acknowledges that he is building on the work of
many who preceded him - this was a story not particularly difficult to
uncover, even though the mainstream media has chosen to ignore it.

EVIDENCE

Seminal investigations were done by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman of
the Columbus, Ohio Free Press, and by Michigan Congressman John Conyers,
who held hearings in Ohio that resulted in a summary report now available
in book form titled What Went Wrong In Ohio (all referenced by Kennedy).

Just after the 2002 elections, I wrote an article for Common Dreams ("If
You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines") outing
Senator Chuck Hagel's odd journey from voting machine peddler to the US
Senate (being elected on his own machines). Six months later, in the
summer of 2003, MoveOn.org commissioned me to write a round-up article
about voting machine problems which they emailed to over 2 million
members, and was published on AlterNet. In both articles (and others
since), I was building on the work of Bev Harris of
www.blackboxvoting.org, Lynn Landes, and many others, just as Kennedy has
done.

It's not like the theft of the 2004 election is a secret to anybody who is
looking. Mark Crispin Miller devoted an entire (brilliant) book to the
topic, "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll
Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)", and BBC investigative
reporter Greg Palast lays it out in a chapter of his new book "Armed
Madhouse" and articles on his website www.gregpalast.com.

Kennedy, however, has a name and reputation that demands instant
recognition in the mainstream American media. And he didn't just recycle
the work of those who preceded him - he went to Ohio, talked with
elections officials, looked over records, investigated the investigators,
and only included in his story those facts he felt were sufficiently solid
that they could, as he told me, "convince a jury." In fact, he is calling
for criminal investigations into his evidence, for indictments of culpable
Republican officials, and jury trials.

Even with such a credible and high-profile figure involved, however, the
response so far of America's corporate-owned mainstream media to Kennedy's
article evokes echoes of the media's handling of similar Republican Party
crimes in Florida in the 2000 election.

Although it was reported - in The New York Times, no less - that Al Gore
got more votes than George W. Bush in a statewide recount of Florida "no
matter what standard was chosen to judge voter intent," most Americans
don't know to this day that Gore actually won the 2000 election. The
reason is a small percentage of Republican spin and a large percentage of
journalistic cowardice in the mainstream media following 9/11. (This
cowardice is limited to the USA, by the way - the story was extensively
covered in most of the rest of the world.)

In the 2000 case, The New York Times, on November 12, 2001, published a
story summarizing the work of the newspaper consortium that spent nearly a
year counting all the ballots in the 2000 Florida election. They found
that a statewide recount - the process the Florida Supreme Court had
mandated and which had begun when George W. Bush sued before the US
Supreme Court to stop the recount - "could have produced enough votes to
tilt the election his [Gore's] way, no matter what standard was chosen to
judge voter intent."

The Times analysis further showed that had "spoiled" ballots - ballots
normally punched but "spoiled" because the voter also wrote onto the
ballot the name of the candidate - been counted, the results were even
more spectacular. While 35,176 voters wrote in Bush's name after punching
the hole for him, 80,775 wrote in Gore's name while punching the hole for
Gore. Katherine Harris decided that these (Gore ballots) were the spoiled
ballots, and ordered none be counted. Many were from African-American
districts, where older and often broken machines were distributed, causing
voters to write onto their ballots so their intent would be unambiguous.

As the Times added in a sidebar article with a self-explanatory title by
Ford Fessenden, in the 2000 election in Florida: "Ballots Cast by Blacks
and Older Voters Were Tossed in Far Greater Numbers."

The November, 2001, New York Times article went on to document how, in a
statewide recount, there was no possible doubt that Al Gore won Florida in
2000:

"If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards
[all the ones that were used by either party], and combined with the
results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won, by a very
narrow margin. For example, using the most permissive ''dimpled chad''
standard, nearly 25,000 additional votes would have been reaped, yielding
644 net new votes for Mr. Gore and giving him a 107-vote victory margin.
...

"Using the most restrictive standard -- the fully punched ballot card --
5,252 new votes would have been added to the Florida total, producing a
net gain of 652 votes for Mr. Gore, and a 115-vote victory margin.

"All the other combinations likewise produced additional votes for Mr.
Gore, giving him a slight margin over Mr. Bush, when at least two of the
three coders agreed." And yet all this information was buried well after
the 17th paragraph of the story, which carried the baffling headline
"Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the
Deciding Vote."

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pointed out to me in an interview on my radio
program on June 2, the reason the Times chose to bury the lead of their
story and instead imply in the headline and first few paragraphs that Bush
had legitimately won the 2000 election was because just a month earlier
the US had been struck on 9/11 and The Times' publisher didn't want to
undermine the president's legitimacy in a time of national crisis.

PRESS SILENCE/DISTORTION OF 2000 ELECTION

In a case eerily prescient of the Times' 2004 decision to delay reporting
on Bush's illegal wiretapping of Americans until after the election, the
Times' publisher and editors decided in November of 2001 that that wasn't
a good time to reveal that Bush was an illegitimate president and that Al
Gore had actually won the election, both by the majority vote and the
electoral vote.

(Although, to their credit, at least they reported that Gore got the most
votes in Florida, as did The Washington Post, which also ran the story but
buried it deep within an article that similarly seemed to imply Bush won
legitimately. USA Today passed over it altogether, simply saying that Bush
won.)

PRESS & 2004 ELECTION?

The big question for today is whether media history will repeat itself.
Will the mainstream media do any first-source on-the-ground investigative
reporting into the theft of the 2004 election, or simply treat it as a
political "difference of opinion"? And if they do engage in the hard work
of first-source reporting as the Times and their consortium did in 2001,
and the results again come back that Bush is an illegitimate president,
will they again bury that fact seventeen paragraphs into a story with a
misleading headline and opening as they did when, in 2001, they counted
the ballots and found that Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush did
in Florida?

So far, it seems that the mainstream media is going to pass on doing any
of their own first-source reporting, while Kenneth Blackwell begins the
process of destroying evidence which he'll legally be authorized to do in
the next few months.

For example, on Friday, June 3, 2006, CNN briefly interviewed Kennedy, but
treated the story as a political one rather than an example of
investigative reporting. Instead of interviewing Kennedy about the details
and substance of the story, Wolf Blitzer had on with Kennedy the infamous
Terry Holt, spokesman for the Bush/Cheney campaign and a likely
co-conspirator in the crime, instead of an investigative reporter who had
examined Kennedy's evidence. Just as when Holt was confronted by Anderson
Cooper in August of 2004 about the administration's manipulation of terror
alerts during the campaign, Holt similarly ridiculed the idea of
Republican election crimes, and Blitzer didn't challenge him - or let
Kennedy finish most of his sentences.

Three days after Kennedy's story broke in Rolling Stone, a Google news
search shows no national "mainstream" media having picked up the story as
a serious news report, or having done any follow-up reporting into the
issues he raises whatsoever. An email reply from an editor at The Seattle
Times, asking why they're not covering the story, is characteristic of the
response from many other national newspapers: "We subscribe to many news
services for our national and foreign coverage. However, Rolling Stone is
not one of them."

The question should not be, "Is this a story we can quote or should
investigate because it was first reported in a major newspaper?" Instead,
it should be, "Is there credible evidence that the election of 2004 was
stolen by Republicans engaged in openly criminal activity?" And, of
course, "Are they preparing to do the same in 2006 and 2008?"

Our national mega-corporate-owned media - now so driven by ad dollars that
sensationalized "missing white girls" trump real news - will only respond
if enough of us raise enough questions with their editors and writers. Or
if more of our members of congress (you can call your congressperson or
senator at 202 225-3121) - particularly the "media darlings" like Joe
Biden and (gulp) Chuck Hagel, who are ubiquitous on the Sunday
talking-head shows - begin to speak out with the rare courage Congressman
John Conyers showed when he pursued his investigation despite a virtual
news blackout from the mainstream media.

Let them know what you think. Democracy begins with you, after all. Tag -
you're it!

Associated Press: http://www.ap.org/pages/contact/contact.html

The New York Times:
http://nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/infoservdirectory.html#b

The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/mediacenter/html/about_contact.html

National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/contact/

CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/08/01/eveningnews/main15218.shtml

NBC News: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339/

ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Reference/story?id=54216

Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/services/site/la-contactus,0,1439615.htmlstory

Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/placead/chi-contactus,1,3223097.htmlstory?coll=chi-navrailhome2-nav&ctrack=1&cset=true

Miami Herald: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/contact_us/

Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author, and
host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show carried on the
Air America Radio network and Sirius. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent
books include "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection,"
"We The People: A Call To Take Back America," "What Would Jefferson Do?"
and "Ultimate Sacrifice." His next book, due out this autumn, is "Screwed:
The Undeclared War on the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It."


--------23 of 23--------

Profiles in Cowardice
ed

I wanted to write a book on politics today, called "Profiles in Courage".
But the publisher's rep and I concluded there weren't enough profiles to
fill even a thin book. "You think poetry books are thin!" he said, and
we laughed.

So we went the other direction. Sometime nest year, look for the first in
a multi-volume series, "Profiles in Cowardice: Aa-Ap". When completed it
will look impressively impressive in your library:

 - more shelf-feet than the Encyclopedia Britannica and the unabridged
   OED combined
 - bound in sunny yellow genuine simulata
 - printed on gossamer-light pages (tissue) perforated for easy use
 - in the attractive pressed masonite bookcase, a stunning addition to
   your (or anyone's) bathroom

We, the rep and I, agreed that we'd have to write and publish quickly in
order to keep up, and that there would be yearly or even monthly
supplements available to the completist cowardice buff.

We soon saw that this project would outrun one writer, even one such as
myself known for glib globs of purple prose. No, this will require vast
teams of writers, each dedicated to a small portion of the alphabet. That
means jobs! jobs! gobs of jobs! O, the possibilities!

We, the rep and I, observed that other countries may be known for
electronics or transportation or high culture, but America is now known,
world-wide, for overweening cowardice - toadies, sycophants, yes-men and
yes-women (yes-persons), flatterers, usable underlings, milquetoasts,
pantywaists, headlight-struck dweebs.  Well, friends, this IS America! It
is OUR industry! OUR culture! Let us profit from and document it!
Subscribe now! Get the whole series!

(But we can always, you know, "adjust" if anyone objects. We wouldn't want
to upset anyone. Especially anyone with big fists, heavy boots, or lots of
money.)


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   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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