Because People Matter Progressive News and Views January / February 2007

Inside this issue:Editorials............................................. 2Getting Over the American Dream.... 3Art Exhibit: “Dark Metropolis”......... 4After the (Republicans) Fall................ 5Poetry Out Loud................................. 6Poem: “Tears”..................................... 6Big Media Goes After More................ 7Radioactive WMDs............................. 8Out Now!............................................ 9Book Reviews.................................... 10Media Clipped................................... 11Salute to Arline Prigoff..................... 11Peace Action...................................... 12Pentagon Spies.................................. 13Ugly Realities in Palestine............... 14Calendar............................................ 15Progressive Media............................. 16

By Jeanie Keltner Impeachment is not optional. One doesn’t choose whether or not to enforce the law—unless you are Bush/Cheney. And that is just the problem.

Impeachment was invented in the 17th century to assert that the king was not above the law. Edmund Randolph, the first US Attorney General under the new nation’s new Constitution argued for the impeachment power, observing “The Executive will have great opportunity of abusing his power; particularly in time of war when military force, and in some respects the public money will be in his hands.” Indeed, under the cover of the War on Terrorism Bush/Cheney have grossly abused their power.

The system of checks and balances that protects us against a tyrannical executive has broken down. To reas-sert that balance, to restore the Constitution, to ensure accountability, to prevent the catastrophe of a wider war, impeachment proceedings against Bush/Cheney must begin.

The charges? Illegal wiretapping, manipulating intel-ligence and lying to Congress and the American people to start an aggressive war, illegal detention and torture of thousands of innocent people, and gross negligence in the prosecution of the war and in response to Hurricane Katrina—to start with.

A call for impeachment is first a call for investiga-tion—which is desperately needed. From the moment

that Cheney refused to release crucially important national energy policy deliberations or identify the deliberators, this most secretive administration in his-tory has ignored, thwarted, stonewalled, and rebuffed all congressional demands for information. Sen. Patrick

Leahy identified 65 such requests the White House has rejected or refused to reply to (Bee, 11-24-06). Without information there can be no oversight.

When soon-to-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table she was misreading the will of the voters who gave the Dems their majority.

Remember the old joke about the man who bought a donkey the seller swore was controllable simply with voice commands? When the mule refused to obey the new owner’s order, he brought it back to the seller, who hit the mule with a big stick—and the mule then obeyed. “I thought you said this mule would follow verbal com-mands,” the new owner said. “He will,” said the seller, “but first you have to get his attention.”

We must agitate for impeachment because impeach-ment is the fiery issue that will get their attention. Whose?

It will get the media’s attention. Corporate media is understandably reluctant to cover the many cans of worms that will be opened in an impeachment investiga-tion because of their complicity in keeping these worms hidden in their cans. Ordinary hearings and investiga-tions can be relegated to back pages or late night slots on cable news, but impeachment is headline material.

As such, it will get the larger public’s attention. The

November election showed that—miraculously—the voting public had broken through administration and media lies—the greatest propaganda system in history—to reject Bush/Cheney’s war. But as Nat Hentoff noted in an article on the 2006 Military Commissions Act—which takes away habeas corpus for those the president defines as “enemy combatants”—the general US public seems unaware or indifferent to this administration’s unprec-edented attack on our constitutional protections and liberties.

By Seth SandronskyThese are tough times for black youth in Sacramento and nationwide. They are more likely than other racial groups to live in poverty, be a murder victim, drop out of high school, be jobless and enter prison (www.jointcenter.org/publications1/publication-PDFs/Dellums%20PDFs/FinalReport.pdf).

Locally, there are people working on solutions to this social crisis. For example, the Sacramento chapter (Zeta Beta Lambda) of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has launched the Alpha Academy, a partnership with Con-sumnes River College and the March of Dimes.

In a recent Alpha Academy meeting, local African American men mentored black youngsters, ages 12 to 18, to lead more positive and productive lives. The adults emphasized to them the Alpha motto: “We have power; we will excel and we are in control.”

This approach “helps us to make better decisions,” said Ber-nard Watts, age 12. Ashanti Jack-son, age 13, agreed, appreciating newfound knowledge on “how to overcome everyday obstacles.”

In all, 32 local youth partici-pated with eight mentors, one of whom is Christopher Hicks, Alpha Academy co-director. He and the other mentors worked with the youngsters in small groups, discussing present and past conditions of African Americans.

“We learned about African builders in the 1600s,” said Myles Taylor, age 12. Mike William, age 13, enjoyed “learning history about our ancestors.”

Toward the end of the day, the youth tackled a hypothetical dilemma involving ethics and morals titled “found money.” Later, these middle and high school stu-dents presented their findings and the reasons for them.

Travis Parker, CRC professor and track coach, dia-logued with the youngsters during their presentations. He queried them on their opinions, and urged soft-spo-ken students to speak up.

“We try to focus the youth on the consequences of their choices,” added John Taylor, Alpha Academy

chapter president. To conclude the day’s activities, he led a lesson

which involved the students listening to musician Kool Moe Dee. As his music played, Taylor questioned the youngsters on the content of the lyrics. Then he assigned

the youth to produce answers due back to him, in writing, in a month.

The intergenerational union of Sacramento’s Alpha Academy has its roots a century ago at Cornell University in upstate

New York. In December 1906, seven students organized Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the first intercollegiate fra-ternity among African American men.

Alumni of Alpha Phi Alpha include the Rev. Mar-tin Luther King Jr., Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and author and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois. The Sacramento chapter of the national fraternity began in 1954 under the leadership of Dr. George Stewart, a local dentist.

Currently, the Alpha Academy meetings are held one Saturday a month during a four-hour workshop in the Learning Resources Center at CRC. Scholarships are available to high school students based on community service, academic excellence and financial need, accord-ing to Taylor.

For more information, call (916) 691-7636. Seth Sandronsky is a co-editor with Because People

Matter.

See Impeach, page 4

Impeachment Is Not OptionalAnd it will get their attention!

…the general US public seems unaware or indifferent to this administration’s unprecedented attack on our constitutional protections and liberties.

Sacramento’s Alpha AcademyMentoring community youth

“We try to focus the youth on the consequences of their choices.” John Taylor, Alpha Academy chapter president.

The Alpha Academy is a partnership with Cosumnes River College and the March of Dimes. Photo: Seth Sandronsky

Poster from www.impeachbush.org

� BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER January / February 2007 www.bpmnews.org

People MatterVolume 16, Number 1Published Bi-Monthly by the Sacramento Community for Peace & Justice P.O. Box 162998, Sacramento, CA 95816 (Use addresses below for correspondence)

Editorial Group: Jacqueline Diaz, JoAnn Fuller, Seth Sandronsky

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On the coverLocal youth in the Alpha Academy at Cosumnes River College. Photo: Seth Sandronsky

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It is a new year. We have a new Congress, a new Defense Secretary, new agendas, some fresh faces in the political landscape and the chance for a fresh start at defeating old problems—and there are many of them. In this issue of BPM, many writers share ideas for approach-ing some of these old problems—the war in Iraq, classism, civil rights, human rights, civil liberties, social jus-tice—by offering new information, highlight-ing opportunities for activism or calling for some personal reflection.

Also in this issue are quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in honor of Black His-tory Month. These quotes should serve as a reminder of King’s mission, vision and aware-ness of the flawed US economic and politi-cal system. King’s goals were not bound to race relations alone, but were instead keenly informed by the relationships and intersec-

tions between race and class, culture and policy in the US and abroad.

Overall, King’s vision required uncon-ventional thinking, a willingness to embrace

change and ensured that the guiding force at the head of progressive action remain the goal of peace and well-being for others. It is not an easy vision to

achieve, but ideal to consider. So let’s consider where the US is headed.

Right now, it doesn’t seem too peaceful. In his article, “Out Now” (centerfold), Jeff Kravitz considers the US role in Iraq, while Dorothy and Richard Wake (page 5) take a look at the changing political climate post-November elections. Sacramento Media Group’s Char-lene Jones gives the 411 on the threat to “Net Neutrality” in the new congressional year (page 7) as Dan Bacher shows just how out of hand US government spying has gotten here

in Sacramento (page 13).But it is not just about legislative politics

or scandal. Our focus really remains on the people affected. Paolo Bassi discusses access to affordable home ownership (page 3); Seth Sandronsky shows how one area program is reaching out to black youth (page 1) and Maggie Coulter and Brigitte Jaensch describe some tough realities about what is happen-ing to people in the current Iraq war (pages 8-9) and Israeli/Palestinian conflict (page 14). Read these articles, and consider how we can move in a better direction. Answer the question: How can we support and foster positive action in our community, in the US or abroad?

In this new year, let something inform you. Let something inspire you. Let some-thing enrage or propel you towards positive action. Be encouraged by truth and the prom-ise of our young people. The theme for this issue is “A Different World is Possible”, but this is only true if we can imagine it to be so and work for the changes required.

I still remember the afternoon over 15 years ago (!) when the first subscription to the new version of Because People Matter appeared in my mail-box. We, the new editors—a small group of folks from different peace and justice groups—were so gratified. None of us had done a newspaper before and we had been up most of the night putting out our first issue. But with that check in hand, we had that if you build it they will come feel-ing. We had hoped the new BPM would fill a need in Sacramento, and we took that first quick response as a sign.

Now, a decade and a half later, with many thousands of hours of work by hundreds of long and short term unpaid volunteers, you’d have to say BPM has become a (minor) institution in Sacramento and the surrounding areas.

I like to say BPM is the non-Fox news, and BPM has always challenged the official lies and distortions that dominate corporate media. Thus BPM readers through the years have had much needed info about NAFTA and school privatiza-tion and Afghanistan and Iraq, or peak oil, the living wage, Palestine, the Zapatistas, Venezuela, 9/11, Social Security, abortion rights, genetically engineered food, local union campaigns, and depleted uranium—to name just a few from a long list.

I’d also like to say that no matter how awful some of the news we have printed is, it has, unfortunately, always turned out to be true. Our news, in general, is the bad news and the good news is that the bad news is getting out and peo-ple are acting to change things. A different world is possible! To this end, BPM has worked hard to advance the efforts and issues of local progressive activist groups.

That’s why I feel confident in asking for your support. BPM gets around town through a net-work of dedicated volunteers who take awkward bundles to your neighborhood café, library, or store. We want this wonderful crew to keep work-ing, but we also want to try to reach out more

widely in our growing area through a new com-mercial distributor.

We need some new subscriptions (coupon on page 2) to help us expand our circle of influence. If you’re a subscriber already, then send BPM to

a friend or relative—either to support or bedevil them. But you don’t have to sub-scribe; you can continue to pick up BPM at your usual place—and, to say thanks for all those free papers, just send a contribution to 403 21st St, Sacramento, 95814.

Every bit helps!The election showed that many people have

awakened from their propaganda-induced igno-rance. In the face of the most powerful mind con-trol system in history, we progressives have done an amazing thing: we’ve brought a traumatized and fear-mongered country to reject not only this war, but to question military responses in general. Progressive media (see BPM’s back page) has been a big part of this turn-around. So please help us grow.

The Chinese book of wisdom, the I Ching, says: “Many people fail on the verge of succeed-ing. So attend to the ending as you do to the beginning.” Many of us may be feeling worn down by six years of determined opposition to this unresponsive, despotic, dangerous Bush regime. Even so, now it’s time for everybody to take a deep breath and move at least one more step forward from wherever they are right now. Toward justice. Toward peace.

In Memoriam

Ruth Holbrook

As we prepared to go to press, the staff of Because People Matter was saddened to learn of the death of Ruth Holbrook, a tireless activist for our community, labor, peace and justice. Ruth died on Decem-ber 1, after a 3 1/2 year battle with breast cancer. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, Jan 20, 1pm. Central Labor Council, 2840 El Centro Rd, Sacramento.

For more information, please call George McAdow, 456-9282.

A New Year for Change

“In this new year, let something inform you. Let something inspire you. Let something enrage or propel you towards positive action.”

HELP BPM expand its circle of influenceBy Jeanie Keltner, editor-at-large

“BPM has always challenged the official lies and distortions that dominate corporate media.”

A web site at last! www.bpmnews.org is finally up, with the September-October, 2006, November-December, 2006, and as soon as we go to press, January-February 2007 issues of Because People Matter. Back issues will be added as your intrepid production staff of one has the time. Check the website for deadlines and submission guidelines, links to local event calendars, and more.

Other things you can do:Call Congress: 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887

or 800-614-2803.Wear a peace button (get them at the Sunday

Farmers Market at W and 8th in Sacramento).Put a peace sign in your window.Pick up two or three BPMs next time and

give them to friends or volunteer to help distrib-ute (call 422 1787 for more info).

Get on Peace Action’s email list to be notified of speakers and marches—and then come out!

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www.bpmnews.org January / February 2007 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER �

Sacramento Progressive Events Calendar on the Web

Labor, Peace, Environment, Human Rights, Solidarity…

Send calendar items to Gail Ryall,<gryall @cwnet.com>.

<www.sacleft.org>

By Jeanie Keltner

What a great idea! Kudos to Joe Moore, the founder and director, and Allen Warren, the New Faze developer, who propose a truly imaginative way to

revitalize the Del Paso Blvd. area: the California Central Valley Museum of Working Class Art and Culture. That’s a mouthful to say, and there will be another mouthful when the museum opens in 2008 because the museum will feature the Edible Gal-lery. This gallery will showcase the produce and cheeses from small-scale local farmers and farmers’ markets as they appear in the food traditions of the 50 or so different races and ethnicities that Moore has identified in the Central Valley. The museum will also feature special events and programs as well as function as a research center, complete with a research library onsite.

The arts and traditions of the Central Valley’s wildly diversi-fied population, including the first inhabitants, rarely make it into the museums—and yet they are the living culture that has shaped the unique quality of our area. This museum aims to highlight the culture, contributions and diversity of the work-ing class to Central Valley life. Paintings, baskets, photographs, costumes, books, “traditions from home countries,” and the rich musical landscape of the valley—blues, country, zydeco, folk dance, border ballads—all will find a home in this treasure trove of peoples’ creativity—a resource for students, scholars, and the general public. We’ll be waiting for the opening!

By Paolo Bassi

The much lauded “American Dream” has become part of and reinforces the dominant capitalist ideology imposed by

corporate and political US elites. This powerful dream has cleverly seduced Americans for nearly a century. It encourages working and middle class Americans to work hard and better themselves socially by joining the propertied classes. In the US, having the security of a house, something very basic to a decent life, has been turned into a life-con-suming aspiration.

The American Dream has also been used to reduce class-awareness and class-based politics amongst US workers. The idea that owning a house and tending the lawn on weekends vaults working class families into the middle class is fantasy. The definition of working class is based on a lack of independent sources of income and having little or no independence at work. So the notion that home-owning workers will suddenly start living meaningful, more secure lives is an illusion plastered over real class division. In fact, the debt of home-ownership often shackles work-ers even more.

There is little doubt that long-term, home ownership is financially advantageous due to tax benefits, rising values, and no rent in old age. However, this argument is in danger if property values keep rising and people are unable to pay their mortgage over one working life. And as home buyers are financing bigger price tags, inter-generational mortgages of 50 or more years may become the norm, as in Japan.

Beyond being flawed and unquestioned, the American Dream is slipping out of reach for mil-

lions of workers due to falling real wages, the loss of well-paid jobs, and the recent property boom. In the last 10 years property prices have more than doubled, only slowing down marginally in 2006. In the Sacramento region only about 20% of the working population can even qualify for a median priced home. Working class Americans have been priced out of the market. The ability to live in secu-rity and raise a family, relatively easy 30 years ago, is becoming a privilege of the wealthy.

But the property boom has benefited some. Existing property owners feel wealthier and have access to cash through refinancing. Home builders, mortgage companies, realty agents and loan brokers all ben-efited from encouraging people to enter the market at its peak.

The federal government also recklessly encouraged the

property boom. Since almost two-thirds of the US economy is domestic spending, Washington has partially masked manufacturing job losses by fuel-ing a consumer boom made possible by re-financ-ing and equity loans. This policy created record personal debt levels, which, coupled with inter-est-only mortgages, have become major economic liabilities

Beside the obvious unaffordability of decent housing, there are other troubling long-term politi-cal and economic effects of the recent boom. First, many who purchased using “exotic” mortgages are losing their homes now that loan terms have changed, leading many middle and working class families into bankruptcy.

More broadly, if we regard housing as a right in a meaningful democracy, then pricing out most people will lead to social insecurity and instabil-ity. However, unaffordable housing is only part

of a larger pattern of increasing insecurity for Americans.

Economic globalization in the last two decades has slashed worker living standards in every free market economy. Even as better off workers and the middle classes hang on with bleeding fingers, Americans should recognize that Third Worldization is well underway in the US. Those who doubt this only need look at cor-porations like WalMart, which, while registering record profits, burden workers with low wages, and greater health and pension costs.

According to the cold logic of global capital-ism, without a valid business or political reason, there is simply no reason to safeguard workers’ living standards anywhere or anytime.

Unaffordable housing means that wealthy individuals and property corporations can accumulate more rental properties, extend their power and increase the wealth gap. This wealth gap is now the same as it was in the late 1920s. The property-based wealth gap is also exacer-bated by the tax write-off of mortgage interest. The more expensive the home, the greater the subsidy, while new homeowners are burdened with high property taxes.

Another effect of prohibitive home prices is increasing racial and class segregation as the wealthy gentrify and close the doors on the poor, immigrants and minorities. The idea of equal citizenship becomes meaningless with half the population tucked out of sight.

There’s only one conclusion. The American Dream is defunct and damages the interests of working people. Let’s discard the myth that home ownership is a passport to the middle class. A new political approach to housing based on reality, not dreams, is needed—one that regards housing as a right central to a decent life.

Paolo Bassi is an attorney and free-lance writer based in Sacramento.

Working Class Art & CultureNew museum in the works

Getting Over the “American Dream”Class and housing in America

The idea that owning a house and tending the lawn on weekends vaults working class families into the middle class is fantasy.

PhotosTop: Ronnie Stewart, left, executive director, Bay Area Blues Society, and Sacramento bluesman Guitar Mac, perform at the reception announcing plans for the California Central Valley Museum of Working Class Art and Culture. Bottom: the architect’s concept of the museum/residential/restaurant complex planned for Del Paso Blvd. at El Camino.photos: Ellen Schwartz

� BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER January / February 2007 www.bpmnews.org

A CNN poll reported that “most Americans do not believe the Bush administration has gone too far…in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terror.” Constitutional law professor Jona-than Turley writes: “The strange thing is, we’ve become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. I mean, Congress just gave the president…despotic powers…and you could hear the yawn across the country…” (Bee 11-24-06). Impeachment and the media furor it will generate will awaken

Impeach from page 1

By Ellen Broms

Who would have imagined that the Crocker Art Museum would take a chance on showcasing a little known

anti-war artist? Artist Irving Norman was born in 1906 and died in 1989. He was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. He fought in the Spanish Civil War with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and saw action at the battle of Ebro in 1938. One third of the American volunteers died during the war from 1936-1939. For much of his life Norman was tailed by the FBI because he was a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and considered subver-sive by J. Edgar Hoover because of the Brigade’s link to the Communist Party.

Norman was a visionary. His paintings are enormous depictions of human suffering. The “graphic” nature of Norman’s work has made it a controversial exhibit. Museum-goers are

invited to leave notes and what they write reveals the intensity of feeling aroused by Norman’s work. Visi-tors note their visceral reactions to the work and agree with critic Michael Duncan that Norman’s paintings are “jaw-drop-pingly effective social indictments” (Art in America, July 2003).

Norman’s art is wonderful in form and color viewed from a distance, while mesmerizing up close. An ultimate technician, Norman includes thousands of individual figures (mostly nude)

in his drawings and paintings. In his major work, “War and Peace,” even the blades of grass are screaming. Crocker now owns two of Irving Norman’s works. One is in the permanent collection on the second floor; the other is in the cur-rent exhibition and will be traveling for the duration of the show before its return to Sacramento.

The book Dark Metropolis edited by Ray Day and Scott Shields (Heyday

Let’s Impeach Bushwww.afterdowningstreet.org/petitionwww.usalone.com/impeachment_investigation.phpwww.impeachbush.tv/impeach/www.impeachbush.org/ www.petitiontoimpeach.com/ www.petitiononline.com/lp001/petition.html www.petitiononline.com/DropBush/petition.html http://democrats.com/impeach-petition. www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/petitionwww.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/88

California petition:www.gopetition.com/online/8849.html

these sleepers to the gravity of our situation, to how close we are to losing the liberties that have defined this country.

Impeachment will also get the attention of our allies as well as our current enemies around the world. It will act as an apology, a repudiation on the part of the rest of the country of a corrupt lying administration, proof that we reject these lawless men and their despotic actions.

And it will get the White House’s attention. Impeachment will be the stake driven through the heart of an administration whose crimes range from massive corruption to crimes against humanity—especially since it nullifies the presi-dent’s pardon power. If we had been more thor-ough in prosecuting Iran–Contra—similarly a criminal executive branch defying congressional power—these same perpetrators, pardoned by the first Bush, would not be once again striding the halls of power. We can be sure that the abuses we know about aren’t the only ones—there are still many “unknowns.”

Impeachment will also help the Democrats be better democrats. Even after the strong repudiation of Bush/Cheney at the polls, Bush/Cheney still have all the power and are dangerous to confront. And legislators are rarely courageous. I’m not afraid of impeach-ment disrupting Congress because I don’t have much faith that Dems will give us what we want. Whether because Bush/Cheney’s illegal wiretapping turned up such good dirt on our legislators or whether they simply agree with (too) many Bush/Cheney posi-tions, the Dems have been unimpressive in their plans for the new Congress, especially in their waffling about the war.

When an impeachment investigation exposes the dark deeds connected with Bush/Cheney’s hideous war, it will be impossible to

support the war. And possibly any war.Former US attorney General Ramsey Clark,

our moral conscience since Viet Nam, wrote: “Congressional proceedings for impeachment can bring about open, fearless consideration of the most dangerous acts and threats ever com-mitted by an American President. If courageously pursued, they can save our Constitution, the United Nations, the rule of law, the lives of count-less people, and leave open the possibility of peace on earth. Each of us must take a stand on impeachment now, or bear the burden of having failed to speak in this hour of maximum peril.” <votetoimpeach.org>

Go online, educate yourself further, and sign the impeachment petitions. Use these toll free numbers (800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803) to call your Congress members frequently. Get friends to call. And keep your eye out for impeachment demonstrations. As in the Viet Nam period, Congress didn’t want to end the war or impeach Nixon. The people forced both issues. We must do the same.

Dark MetropolisIrving Norman’s social surrealism at Crocker

Exhibit visitors agree with critic Michael Duncan that Norman’s paintings are “jaw-droppingly effective social indictments.”

From Work, 1977. Lithograph. Editions Press, 20x25 inches.Courtesy Hela Norman

Books, 2006) released with the opening of the exhibit is available for purchase at the Crocker store. Pictures of Norman’s work and essays by art essayist/critic Michael Duncan, professor of American art and culture Charles Eldredge, long-time curator Patricia Junker, and Crocker’s own chief curator Scott Shields are included. An excel-lent resource to study an artist whose aim, he said was “to tell the truth of our time.”

Crocker director, Lial Jones, and chief cura-tor, Scott Shields, must receive credit for mount-ing this outstanding retrospective and the book accompanying the show. The Crocker exhibit of “Dark Metropolis” ends January 7, 2007. The exhibit will still be in California, making its next stop in Pasadena. For more information, visit <www.irvingnorman.com>

War Wounded, 1942. Graphite, color pencil. 22x30 inches.Courtesy Hela Norman.

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2007 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER �

CAAC Goes to the MoviesALMoSt EVEry MoNththe Central America Action Committee shows interesting and informative videos on social justice, labor struggles, and so much more! Call to see what’s playing this month…WE ALSO HAVE A VIDEO LIBRARY YOU CAN CHECK OUT.1640 9th Ave (east off Land Park Dr) INFo: 446-3304

OK—we have a very imperfect political system that, under the Bush regime, has degenerated into something even many

Republicans no longer recognize. Yet we must work with what we have now while simultane-ously working for a truly democratic system that stands for economic/social/political justice. So, that said, is there anything about the November 2006 elections we can celebrate?

Time will tell. But the news has been so bad for so long, even a glimmer of something better—some-thing with potential for restoring the balance of power and reigning in an out-of-control puppet president and his regime standard-bearers offers some hope. And causes for hope and celebration exist right here in “River City.”

Local:“There’s a new sheriff in town”—his name

is Assemblyman Dave Jones. (So he’s not really the sheriff, but he’s certainly earned the title as the Democrat for other local Dems to look up to.) Jones deserves a major portion of credit for defeating Measures Q & R (Arena taxes) and kudos for championing working people/families.

At best, local Democratic Party unity is lukewarm. But on Measures Q & R, there was no Party unity. The Sacramento County Democratic Central Committee formally opposed these mea-sures, while local Democratic officials (including those holding non-partisan offices—e.g., City Council and County Supervisor) openly and vigorously supported the measures. And these local Democrats have lost considerable credibility within the community. But their loss of credibil-ity doesn’t stop with the disunity they displayed with Measures Q & R. For the most part, these are the same Democrats who have been known to endorse conservative Republicans.

If Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is expected to enforce party unity on issues that are important to reversing the present course at the federal level, then unity must be expected among local Democrats to tackle real issues that affect working people/families.

And despite the Sacramento Bee’s unwar-ranted and lone opposition, Sacramento voters can congratulate themselves on passing Measures J & K. Every area of the Sacramento City Unified School District will now have equal representa-tion. One trustee will now be elected from within

each of the seven newly established trustee areas—the same model of representation used for every other elected office.

State:Yes—four more years for “The Termina-

tor” due to Phil Angelides’ very inept and weak campaign and lack of Demo-cratic Party unity in providing key support for their gubernatorial candidate. But the voters of California saw

through pro-Diebold voting machine Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. Debra Bowen was clearly the best choice to ensure voting system accuracy and security, improving campaign contribution disclosures to candidates and ballot initiatives, and expanding voter registration and participation.

Debra Bowen—the only woman elected to a state constitutional office—and John Chiang, newly elected Controller, represent fresh faces of leadership and much-needed diversity in California’s Democratic Party.

On two more positive notes, extremist Tom McClintock (Lt. Governor Candidate) and Prop-osition 85 (presented as parental notification, but was an initial step in chipping away reproductive rights) were defeated.

Nationally:California will make history by producing

the first female Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi isn’t perfect—there can be no “10s” in our current system of campaign financing and elec-toral politics. But she voted against using mili-tary force against Iraq (House Joint Resolution 114, Oct. 10, 2002). And she, along with Rep. John Murtha and others, is calling for redeploy-ing troops from Iraq.

Speaker Pelosi’s goal is to pass six priority bills during the short period prior to Bush’s State of the Union address. These measures would toughen House ethics rules (end current prac-

tice of big business writing laws that Congress passes), raise the hourly federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, cut student loan interest rates in half, broaden federally-supported stem cell research, and permit government to negotiate lower Medicare drug prices.

In order for Pelosi to become House Speaker, key House Republicans supporting the Bush agenda were defeated—like anti-environment Richard Pombo (Tracy, CA).

Some challengers didn’t win, but they gave us cause to celebrate: Charlie Brown gave Con-gressman John Doolittle a run for his money, and even though Doolittle “squeaked by,” this close election demonstrates Doolittle’s vulnerability the next go-around. And Dr. Bill Durston’s challenge of Congressman Dan Lungren was commend-able. Charlie and Bill: Hope to see you again! We need you!

And on the Senate side, we can celebrate what Bush himself described as “a thumpin’” of the likes of Senators Mike DeWine (OH), Rick Santorum (PA), Jim Talent (MO), and George Allen (VA)—while celebrating the win of pro-gressives such as Bernie Sanders, newly elected US Senator from Vermont. Sanders, described by The Nation as “the most prominent democratic socialist in America,” previously served eight terms in the House of Representatives and is a champion for the working class, the environment, universal healthcare, civil liberties, and peace.

This past election was about change—espe-cially about changing direction in Iraq. But it is also widely viewed as being more against Bush than being for the Democratic Party. Indeed, the newly elected Democratic leaders will have a short honeymoon if they continue to give us more of the same by acting like Republicans and failing to show leadership and unity in drastically changing course. Because after all is said and done, corporations remain firmly in control.

And, although Pelosi has stated that impeachment is “off the table,” the people need to demand that it be placed squarely on the table and that Congress fulfill its constitutional responsibilities.

Dorothy L. Wake is a Sacramento area writer and poet, and author of Mother Jones, Revolu-tionary Leader of Labor and Social Reform www.xlibris.com or www.amazon.com. Richard R. Wake is an elected member of the Sacramento County Democratic Central Committee.

Write Your Reps!To voice our priorities to Congress, faxed signed letters are fastest and carry equal weight as “snail mail” letters:

Senator Barbara Boxer: FAX: Sacramento office: 916-448-2563 (no Washington, D.C. FAX) - Phone: D.C. office: 202-224-3553, Sacramento office: 916-448-2787. Website: http://boxer.senate.gov

Senator Dianne Feinstein: FAX: Washington, D.C. office: 202-228-3954 - Phone: 202-224-3841. Website: http://feinstein.senate.gov

House of Representatives contact info: http://www.house.gov

Here are the sites to representatives in the Sacramento RegionDoris Matsui, Democrat, Fifth Congressional District http://matsui.house.gov/Dan Lungren, Republican, Third Congressional District http://lungren.house.gov/Jerry McNerney, Democrat, Eleventh Congressional District http://www.jerrymcnerney.orgJohn Doolittle, Republican, Fourth Congressional District http://doolittle.house.gov/Mike Thompson, Democrat, First Congressional District http://mikethompson.house.gov

Related websites:http://www.worldcantwait.org – The World Can’t Wait—Drive

Out the Bush Regimehttp://www.pdamerica.org – Progressive Democrats of

Americahttp://www.democrats.com – “Aggressive Progressives”http://democraticleader.house.gov – Newly elected Speaker

Pelosihttp://www.votersforpeace.ushttp://www.votetrustusa.org – National network of state-

based organizations working for secure, accurate and trans-parent elections.

After the (Republican’s) FallWhat now? A post-election analysisBy Dorothy L. Wake & Richard R. Wake

This past election was about change—especially about changing direction in Iraq. But it is also widely viewed as being more against Bush than being for the Democratic Party.

� BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER January / February 2007 www.bpmnews.org

Peace Action on the WebKeep up to date on peace activism in Sacramento. Check out www.sacpeace.org.

Capitol Outreach for a

Moratorium on the

Death Penalty.

Third Mondays, 11:30am to 1:30pm.

L Street at 11th.

We bring petitions, literature and banners. You bring yourselves.

Cafe nearby for coffee after the vigil.

INFO: 447-7754

By Jacqueline Diaz

Poetry is alive again in US classrooms. From California to Wyoming and Florida, high school students are studying, memorizing and per-forming poems in class, on stage and in county and state-wide competitions. And all the while, students are actually starting to have fun with poetry—finding its humor, heartache and reflec-tive narratives relate to their lives.

In 2005 the National Endowment for the Arts and Poetry Foundation began a pilot proj-ect, called Poetry Out Loud, where Wash-ington DC area high school students com-peted in a poetry reci-tation contest. Recited poems reflected a wide range of styles, genres and time periods, and each poem was brought to life through student performances.

Arts Chairman Dana Gioia and Poetry Foun-dation President John Barr recognized the need to revitalize poetry instruction in classrooms and wanted to support a program incorporat-ing the performance aspects of popular poetry trends like spoken word and slam. Gioia and Barr also made a point to ensure contemporary and canonical works were eligible for the com-petition so that students could choose from working poets to “the dead guys.”

Last year Poetry Out Loud expanded, and the national competition had student representatives from each US state compete in DC. Each state created a plan for selecting a state winner. For the program’s first year, the California Arts Council focused on involving schools in the Sacra-mento region. Ken Huffman, senior at Elk Grove High School, became state champi-on, solidly representing California at nationals last spring.

Poetry Out Loud continues to expand as states find ways for students from various regions and counties to compete. In California this year, over a dozen counties from south-ern to northern Cali-fornia will participate, including Sacramento County. Through the Sacramento County Office of Education, area schools are engaging in the program, ready to take on a widened com-petitive field.

Students competing in the recitation con-test are judged on six elements, ranging from evidence of understanding to appropriateness of dramatization. Preparation for competition involves formal practice, workshops, explication, and sometimes tips from school drama teachers or teacher-poets from California Poets in the Schools. Key to the program is getting students to

navigate and find the intersection between clas-sical recitation and contemporary performance practices. Through their recitations, they answer where for them the lines between poetry and drama end or if they do at all.

This year and last, I was honored to help guide students through the competition process as a poet-teacher. Each school I’ve visited has had students with promise, hope and aspira-tions shining through memorized verse. I’ve

been stunned by the dramatic talents of students like Ashleigh Yaya at San Juan High, moved when Natomas Charter’s Yuliya Pri-lepina took on John Ashbery, and delighted

by the rich performance abilities of students at Luther Burbank High. I also remember students who didn’t make it to state finals but gave a part of their heart to their poem, and instead

of frowning, bolstered their winning classmate. These are only a few strong memories from the 2006 competition, who knows what students will have in store this year!

For more information on Poetry Out Loud, visit www.poetryoutloud.org and the Sacramento County Office of Education, www.scoe.net.

Jacqueline Diaz is a California Poets in the Schools (CPITS) poet working with Sacramento area students for the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest.

TearsBy Terry Moore

I have seen the tears in a single mother’s eyes

She was crying at the politics that prevented her from the good life Or at least simply a life that was

half-way good Her tears flooded the hood

Drenched the future Washed away the positive hope that was attempting to be born

She was eager but torn Between trying to be politically

correct And trying to protect

Her own dignity Her own pride

Her own integrity Her feelings inside

Finally She illegally attempted to purse a

can of Similac Looking over her shoulder as she

jammed it into her backpack Because it would not fit into her

tiny ripped purse What could be worse?

Only her getting caught Stealing a can of Similac for her

baby that could have been bought Only she gave into the politics and

lost her religion Gave into a bad decision

And now her babies will suffer and see

That their momma wanted to, but couldn’t be

That mother who provided everything

And we just continue to sing Dance Juggle

Run races Open barbeque joints

Overlook tear covered faces We just keep

Passing from hand to hand funding opportunities

Focusing on spinning rims instead of spending in our communities

I’ve seen the tears of a single mother

Left to turn left instead of right by a frustrated lover

Reaching into empty air Crying rivers that fail to find folks

who care And we dare to mention the

budget to sore ears And we squeeze funds for our

highly regarded peers But what about that single mother She won’t be vacationing in Europe

or on the beaches of Jamaica or Spain

It’s more than plain Can’t we change?

Can’t we feed our single mothers? So they can cope Can’t we re-vote?

Or revoke? Yes, I’ve seen the tears

And now my tears combined Are rinsing away our chances

Cut the political dances Let’s stand still for a moment

Because the last dance Could be the last dance That turns off the music on our children’s lives!

Terry Moore is a spoken word artist living in Sacramento. A slam champion, Moore also works for the Center for Fathers and Families. www.terrymoore.info

Poetry Out Loud National Recitation ContestSacramento Youth Competing

Each school I’ve visited has had students with promise, hope and aspirations shining through memorized verse.

Feeling Tense, Achy, Stressed, or Tired?

Try Hands-on Healing to relax & re-energize.

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Above and left: photos of Sacramento spoken word artist Terry Moore, whose poem appears in the next column. Photos: www.terrymoore.info

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2007 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER �

By Charlene Jones

Network neutrality, media consolidation? Sounds like trivial concerns of web surf-ers or TV junkies distressed about their

menu choices as the new Congress wrestles with issues beyond measure in their consequence for the future. The stink hole of war, nuclear mad-ness, an exiled habeas corpus, millions in poverty and a heating planet, is only their short list.

Nevertheless, try imagining this. What if information about these controversial dilemmas is selected, produced and distributed by only three or four media conglomerates? How about Internet providers excluding web sites of their choosing or speedier travel to selected destina-tions available only to those who can pay more? Suppose Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp’s oversaw not only Sacramento’s Fox 40 television station, but owned the Sacramento Bee and held licenses for the region’s radio stations?

While watchers of the shift in Congress hope for progress on many fronts, potential changes to the nation’s telecommunication law and media regulations should worry many because these imaginings are all possible.

This past year Congress tried to pass an overhaul of telecom-munication law that would allow telephone and cable companies to compete in offering phone, high-speed Internet access and video services. In the name of competition, telecom giants sought the legal pre-rogative to give premium service to content pro-viders willing to pay for faster delivery—Yahoo, for example, if it paid up, would have a speedier search engine than Google. According to news accounts (The Atlanta Constitution, 9/22/06, San

Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/06), the industry will try again during this congressional session.

Public interest advocates like Consum-ers Union and Common Cause want laws that require network neutrality where companies handle all content in the same way, protecting an open network and its vast informational fare. Consumers would retain the liberty to choose sites and services they prefer, not only the ones doing business with their service provider.

Proposed federal law would also open the door for phone company competition with cable and satellite vendors by using their wire networks to offer television. Mammoth corporations like

AT&T would not be required to negotiate with local governments on how to best serve a city or county. They would be given a national franchise, with little local accountability and few, if any, public interest requirements to American communities.

Cleared away by years of “regulatory relief,” public inter-est obligations of broadcasters and media concentration pro-tections have been eradicated, according to the public policy group New American Founda-tion. In the 1980s the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) eliminated rules concerning commercial time limitations, ascertainment of community problems and non-entertainment requirements while creating a simplified license renewal appli-cation containing only five questions. It found market forces sufficient to regulate both com-

mercial and non-com-mercial broadcasters, and repealed the Fair-ness Doctrine which had been established to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be balanced and fair.

After that the 1996 Telecommunications Act, promoting a “competi-tive marketplace,” paved the way for the FCC to relax media concentration rules in 2003 allowing one company to own eight radio stations, three TV stations, the only daily paper, the dominant cable TV provider and the largest Internet service provider in a community. It took a federal court

decision and Congress, moved by public outcry, to push back this last regulatory purge.

However, worries have not ceased. Media ownership is again under review and according to FCC Com-missioner Michael Copps; the battle against corporate domination will be difficult. Commissioners who support increased diversity and oppose further ownership concentration are out-numbered, and have difficulty getting information from the federal agency they serve. According to The Associat-ed Press (9/14/06), a report suggesting ownership concentration would harm local TV was ordered destroyed by the FCC. The study, initiated in 2003, had analyzed data from thousands of broadcast news stories gathered by the Pew Foundation’s Project for Excel-lence in Journalism.

Subsequent investigations by public interest organizations, the Benton Foundation and Social Science Research Council, as well as the media reform group FreePress, also con-cluded reducing restrictions on media ownership would not generate better or more local and diverse broadcast content. They strongly suggested own-ership rules should be tightened, not

loosened.The FCC and Congress will address media

rights of way and ownership matters fundamental to American discourse. If net neutrality is com-promised, corporate control of the Internet could reduce choices and stifle independence now expected from the digital world. If current own-ership rules are eliminated, communities could become “company towns,” where one media conglomerate dominates the dialogue. Americans rely on locally owned newspapers and TV for news. Protection of their rights to their airwaves and to information from wide-ranging sources is up for grabs. It is at risk in proposed telecommu-

nication bills and deregulation efforts escorted by very large, very moneyed media corporations,

standing to make billions more. The consequence of los-ing access to diverse sources of Internet, television and radio fare is dire to a democracy nourished by free informa-tion. Tell the media industry, the FCC and Congress, corpo-rate concentration and limits to information threaten this nation and its people.

Charlene Jones is a mem-ber of Sacramento Media Group and the writing team for

Project Censored. For more info: JoAnn Fuller at California Common Cause 443-1792

Sacramento Media Group smg@commoncause.org; 443-1792.www.commoncause.orgwww.freepress.netwww.fcc.gov

The Glossary:

“Network Neutrality” is the Inter-net’s First Amendment, a principle that prevents companies like AT&T or Comcast from deciding which websites work best for you based on which sites are paying them the most.

“Media Consolidation” is a media landscape controlled by a handful of massive corporations leading to little diversity in viewpoint, diminished local programming, and increasingly homogenized information.

Big Media Goes After MoreCongress to battle over “net neutrality,” media deregulation

“The consequence of losing access to diverse sources of Internet, television and radio fare is dire to a democracy nourished by free information.”

This fine documentary by Robert Kane Pappas presents a good picture of the effects of media consolidation.

� BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER January / February 2007 www.bpmnews.org

“The use of radioactive materials in weaponry is a disaster for the planet”, said Leuren Moret speaking at the Newman Center in Sacramento on November 13. Moret is an international expert on the effects of radiation on public health and on the environment. She explained the development of “depleted” uranium (DU), its use and atmospheric contamination

to raise public awareness of the problem. The adjective “depleted,” clarified Moret, is a technical term used for Uranium 238, a by-product from the production of enriched uranium (U-235). U-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, making it longer-lasting than U-235 which has a half-life of 704 million years.

In her November appearance on Sacramento Soapbox, Moret explained that DU and Agent Orange were developed in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. DU is not a thermonuclear weapon, but a radiological one used to produce dirty bombs, dirty missiles, and dirty bullets that spread radiation as a poison gas. Because DU

is dense, it penetrates heavy armor to destroy tanks, planes, and per-sonnel carriers. Upon impact DU aerosolizes into tiny radioactive par-ticles; very small doses of these particles can cause genetic changes, neurological damage, cancer, and other diseas-es, noted Moret. There is no effective clothing or gas mask to prevent humans from absorbing DU.

DU was first tested in 1973’s Yom Kippur war, when the US government gave it to the Israelis, then supervised its use to destroy Syr-ian and Egyptian tanks. Its effectiveness led the US into full production. Soon all branches of the US military and some foreign countries had DU weapons. US use of DU began with the 1991 invasion of Iraq, fol-lowed by the 1995 and 1998-99 grid and carpet bombings of Yugoslavia. It was used again in the 2001 attack on Afghani-stan and 2003 attack on Iraq. Most recently, Israel used US-supplied DU in its August assault on Lebanon.

The British gov-ernment has secretly monitored DU levels in the atmosphere at its Atomic Weapons Establishment site at Aldermaston in south-ern England. Some of the data collected there from 1998-2003 was reported in March 2006 by Dr. Chris Busby, a radiation expert for the British government and European Parliament.

Busby’s finding, Moret shared, revealed that 7-9 days after the use of DU in Iraq in 2003, DU-contaminated dust and sand from the battlefields was detected in high volume air mon-itors near Aldermaston. Dr. Busby calculated that an average person living within 100 miles of the Aldermaston air monitors would inhale 23 mil-lion DU particles in two weeks. This is alarming, explained Moret, because under the right condi-tions, cancer can develop from smaller amounts.

“The British Medical Journal, Lancet, has reported alarming increases in many diseases and infant mortality since 1991,” explained Moret. “The rates of cancer, diabetes, birth defects, and neurological and neuromuscular diseases like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s, and Hodgkin’s have increased among soldiers and the civilian populations in the affected regions,” said Moret. Medical disability rates for soldiers have also increased, and depart-ment chair at the US National War College, Dr. Terrell Arnold, was quoted admitting that US Government–coalition deaths may be twice as high when long-term causalities are counted (http://hnn.us/articles/15001.html).

Getting information about DU to the public is difficult. “There has been a cover-up at the Federal level since 1991, by Congress and three presidents. …As a result, no effective Federal bills were passed to address the health effects in US

Radioactive WMDsWidespread disaster in the making

soldiers,” said Moret.Nevertheless, 18 states have introduced or

passed legislation to provide for DU testing of veterans and soldiers serving since 1991. When Moret learned of a DU testing bill being held in committee in Connecticut, she took the text of the bill to an anti-war rally in New Orleans in 2005. Two local Vietnam vets took the text,

crossed out Connecticut, wrote in Louisiana, and were able to get it signed by the Louisiana legisla-ture in three months.

Moret also noted that while only 7,039 Gulf-era soldiers had been injured on the battlefield, by mid-2004, there were over a half-million Gulf-era soldiers on medical disability. This is a major health crisis affecting state and local govern-ments. The federal government should recognize and address the health impacts of DU. Soldiers, their families, and the public are becoming more aware of this problem.

The Pentagon has admitted to testing only 270 soldiers for DU. “We know that the US government does not care about its soldiers,” said Moret. Instead, it’s up to the public to bring action. Moret donated several DVDs on radioac-tive weapons to the Sacramento Peace Action Library now available for check out. For info, visit www.sacpeace.org or call (916) 448-7157.

For more information about DU effects, research and activism, see: The World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conferencewww.uraniumweaponsconference.de/Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium by Akira Tashirowww.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html

Leuren Moretphoto: courtesy Leuren Moret

From S.F. peace march, 2003

GI’s child, born without armsphoto: worldproutassembly.org

By Maggie Coulter

DU has created a major health crisis affecting our state and local governments.

30mm munitions—jackets and penetrators, made with depleted uranium. photo: United Nations Environmental Program

“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.”

—Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2007 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER �

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

—Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Costing Us DearlySee the real costs of the war in Iraq

The National Priorities Project keeps a running total of the US taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. Find out how much the war in Iraq is costing your community at www.costofwar.com/index.html.

See Casualties in Iraq: The Human Cost of Occupation edited by Michael Ewens at www.antiwar.com/casualties/.

The Institute for Policy Studies pro-duced a review of the mounting human, economic, social, global and political costs of the war in Iraq. Read it at www.ips-dc.org/iraq/quagmire/.

CNN maintains profiles of US and Coalition casualties at www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties.

Hear from veteran voices and military families who say Bring Them Home Now. Site includes links to Veterans for Peace, Iraqi Vet-erans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out: www.bringthemhomenow.org.

Meet Gerard Darren Matthew. Sent home from Iraq with DU exposure, his daughter Vic-toria was born missing most of her right hand. Article and picture at The Daily News www.nydailynews.com/front/story/ 236934p-203326c.html.

By Jeff Kravitz

Now that the Democratic Party has regained control of both houses of Con-gress, the debate over the war in Iraq is

finally taking center stage.Unfortunately, the way Democrats are fram-

ing the debate would ensure our troops lose. Instead of looking at history and sound military policy, Democrats and the media are discussing setting a timetable for a phased withdrawal of troops. This type of wishy-washy talk will do nothing but leave scores of our brave soldiers dead or wounded and assure that the civil war in Iraq will last for years to come.

Our troops deserve decisive leadership that uses military logic at its center. Now is not the time for the weak of heart, but those who understand bravery must come to the forefront to make hard, gut-wrenching decisions. We must call with one unified voice for the rapid and complete withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. This is the only way the US can pre-vent total disaster.

Every day since American troops have entered Iraq, the various religious and ethnic factions have grown more violent in their con-frontation with our troops and with each other. US soldiers are training the very insurgents who quickly strip off their uniforms and fight them. The Iraqi army and police forces have simply become conduits for weapons to the various militias. Death squads associated with the Iraqi government terrorize entire neighborhoods. Our soldiers learn who it is they are supposed to be fighting on a day-to-day basis.

As long as US soldiers remain in Iraq, Iraqi factions will be able to accuse each other of being

puppets for the US occupiers. This denies any formed Iraqi gov-ernment the ability to gain the support of the people.

After three years of fighting, the Iraqi government has been unable to control the country’s capital. The US presence in Iraq defies historical precedent. Histori-cally, governments that cannot control their own capital for even six months fall from power. Nor has there been a success-ful government that came to power after the fall of a dictator that was unable to form an army and police force within three years.

Any person who advocates phased with-drawal, “stay the course,” or Senator McCain’s call to increase US troops should be asked why they believe US troops in Iraq will reduce the violence. Each day US troops are in Iraq, the level of vio-lence increases. Civilian deaths are sharply rising, and US troops died at an average of over three per day in October, now dubbed the bloodiest month of the war for the number of civilian, coalition and insurgent forces killed.

The Democrats’ idea of phased withdrawal would mean that as some troops withdraw, those remaining would be weaker and more vulner-able to attack. Enemy forces would still consider them legitimate targets. Moreover, the path to governmental power in Iraq is now based on demonstrating that a faction’s forces have bested the Americans. Small groups of remaining US troops would be sitting ducks.

As for Senator McCain’s call to increase troops, any troops entering Iraq now would add fuel to the fire. The people of Iraq do not want us there. The more US forces fight on in Iraq, the more Iraqis arm themselves to fight against us and each other. This is an inescapable truth about the war in Iraq.

The ideas now being floated by Democrats, McCain and withdrawal solutions offered by the US Institute of Peace’s “Iraq Study Group” are naïve at best, and fail to address the consequences of waiting for a “real course of action.” This bipartisan study group is aimed more at finding a middle ground in Congress than discussing what would really work for Iraqis. In fact, the Iraq Study Group’s report offers little new information while advocating only for a transition of respon-sibilities from the US to the Iraqi government (including the privatizaton of Iraq’s oil industry into the hands of Big Oil corporations) and the possibility of phased withdrawal. It is clear that as we wait for “solutions,” we continue to create enemies who seek to harm the US.

The real course of action is clear if we can imagine ourselves as Iraqis and recognize that people naturally oppose foreign soldiers fighting in their country, interfering in their politics and killing their people.

It is time to think responsibly, and the only responsible thing to do is to withdraw quickly. Withdrawal could be relatively simple. The US would announce its plan to withdraw all troops as soon as possible. We would cease all offensive military operations. Troops would be recalled to secure bases and would begin deploying from Iraq by plane and transport convoys to Kuwait and then to transport ships.

Military history has shown that when foreign troops announce their plan for total withdrawal, they are able to do so without suffering many

casualties. Fighters see no need to waste bullets when no one is fighting back. This was true in the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Israeli withdrawal from both Lebanon and Gaza, the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia. How-ever, there are no examples of effective phased withdrawals.

What will happen to Iraq if the US with-draws? No one can say. Civil war will likely flare up, but could wind down in a relatively quick manner. Without the US presence, various fac-tions will be forced to compromise or one will attain an upper hand.

The future cannot be predicted, but recent history proves one fact. Each day our troops are in Iraq, more young Americans and countless Iraqis die in a pointless war.

Let’s be brave and decisive, and withdraw our troops now.

Jeff Kravitz is a law professor and former Green Party candidate for congress in Sacramento. He can be reached at Kravitzlaw@aol.com

Out Now!Democrats’ and Iraq Study Group’s plans for Iraq are dreadful

We must call with one unified voice for the rapid and complete withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. This is the only way the US can prevent total disaster.

The screen shot is funny, but Bush isn’t the only disaster...image: various websites

A rare photo of coffins returning from Iraq.

10 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER January / February 2007 www.bpmnews.org

Book Reviews

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency by Lou Dubose and Jake BernsteinHardcover: Random House Publishing Group, October 17, 2006, 272 pages.

Reviewed by Jacqueline Carrigan, Ph.D.

The Power of Israel in the United Statesby James PetrasPaperback: Clarity Press, Inc. September 26, 2006. 191 pages

Some of the Places You Can Find BPM

Sacramento AreaCoffee WorksCrest TheaterDimple Records, Arden Wy

Flowers RestaurantGalleria (29th & K)GrindersHart Senior CenterLight Rail: 65/Folsom 2nd Ave/Freeport

Los JarritosLuna’s Cafe & Juice BarMercy Hospital, 40th/J Mother India RestaurantNational UniversityPancake Circus, 21st/Broadway

Planned Parenthood: Franklin Blvd, Watt Ave., 29th St.

Queen of TartsQuick MarketSacramento Bagel, 47th/H

Sacramento Natural Foods Coop

Sacramento Public Library (Main & many branches)

Starbucks (B'wy & 35th)Taco LocoThe BeatTime Tested BooksTower Theater (inside)Tupelo (Elvas & 57th)Underground Books (35th St. near B'way)

Weatherstone Coffee

Chico Area

DavisBogey’s BooksEspresso Cafe RomaDavis Natural Food Coop

NewsbeatUniversity Mall

Nevada CityUS Post Office

Where would you like to see BPM? Let Paulette Cuilla know, 422-1787.

Dick Cheney: CEO Vice President

Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein’s Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presi-dency is a startling account of the immense and growing power of our current vice president (and putatively true president) over the last 30 years. Cheney has had his fingers deeply embed-ded in the highest centers of power since Presi-dent Nixon. This early experience has shaped Cheney’s world view and our national policies ever since.

He was there for Watergate, the Iran Contra affair, the first Iraqi war, and so on. Cheney’s career is told in considerable detail, and he is portrayed as an extremely intelligent, unemo-tional, yet unyielding ideologue who knows how to work the political system to achieve his goal.

Cheney, a cold warrior long after the fall of the Soviet Union, continues to push the arms race. He resisted international collaboration and compromise for fear of losing America’s domi-nant position in the world.

It is well known that Cheney did not serve in the military (he had five draft deferments for the Vietnam War). However, Dubose and Bernstein show that he was actively involved behind the scenes in every American military action since the Korean War.

Cheney spent the Clinton years building Hal-liburton (typifying the revolving door between

business and government), yet found his tal-ents did not serve him as a businessman. Hal-liburton suffered from his leadership style, but benefited from his connections. In the five years prior to Cheney, Halliburton received about $100 million in loans from a govern-ment agency promoting American exports. But during Cheney’s five years at the firm it received $1.5 billion from the same agency.

The book also includes a brief history of the now notorious corporations, Hal-liburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root, and Enron, which would make a great basis for a case study on the corruption inherent in the intersection of business and government.

Dubose and Bernstein tell of a plan for US domination, starting with an attack on Iraq, being laid out in a 1992 report by Paul Wolfow-itz (current World Bank president) and Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr. (Cheney’s former chief of staff, indicted on federal charges). The report was denounced by President Bush Sr. and attacked by Clinton, but Cheney adopted it as a “new rationale for our role in the world.” The current Iraq war is described as Dick Cheney’s war, as it reflects the culmination of his experiences within the government and his ideology.

While Dubose and Bernstein paint a fasci-nating picture of the vice president’s career, it portrays national politics as a reflection of the personal psychic troubles of an individual man who was burned by his early government experi-ences and who set out to right the wrongs that the congressional Democrats and weak-willed Republicans perpetrated on Nixon. We do not see the early days of Cheney to know why he identified with this worldview so strongly, which would be necessary information if we are to place history in the context on one man’s psychic struggle.

However, a better approach would examine the class basis of the worldview and decisions that a person in Cheney’s position makes, and the

struggles among the ruling class that are played

out in the US government. As Michael Yates describes in his book Naming the System (Month-ly Review Press, 2003), the ruling class is divided on how best to

preserve capitalism. That is, there are those who feel that the government has a role in taming some of the excesses of the free market (the clas-sic Democratic position). And there are others who say the free market should be unfettered (the Republican position).

Cheney’s approach to government reflects the latter position, and his decisions offer insight into how the CEO vice presidency plays out. How do corporations view the law or ethics? As things to go around to get what you want (profit). How would this view affect how businessmen would run the country?

Dubose and Bernstein tell us that the Demo-crats believe in government and act to bolster and support it, while the Cheney-style Repub-licans want to reduce the role of government, and when that fails, they feel justified in gam-ing the system and bending it to the service of profit. Cheney was asked to defend Halliburton’s operations in countries with questionable human rights records. “We go where the business is,” he replied. This statement puts his support for an unprovoked war and the practice of torture in perspective—his ends justify any means.

Jacqueline Carrigan is an assistant professor of sociology at CSU Sacramento.

Reviewed by Dan ElliottPetras Blames AIPAC for Iraq War

The Power of Israel in the United States by James Petras is a book of enormous significance. His subject matter is the influence of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on US foreign policy. An emeritus professor of sociol-ogy at Binghamton University, New York, and a longtime social activist, Petras writes in the context of the March 2003 US invasion and occu-pation of Iraq.

President George W. Bush said that military action was needed due to Iraq’s dangerous arma-ments and Sept. 11 involvement. Accordingly, US armed forces overthrew the government of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Now the US public has realized that it was lied into this war. Therefore, it becomes vital to know who got us into this mess in Iraq, and why. Petras lays primary blame for US involvement in

Iraq squarely on AIPAC.Petra echoes the arguments

of US professors Walt and Mearsheimer, who attribute the US attack on Iraq as a result of Israeli interests, and not those of US oil companies, as some critics claim. (Walt and Mearsheimer’s abridged study is at: www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html).

Crucially for Walt and Mearsheimer and Petras, AIPAC gives top prior-ity to the interests of the state of Israel, even over US national security. To that end, AIPAC lobbies Congress and the White House to do the bidding of the Israeli state.

Author and scholar Noam Chomsky dis-agrees with this assessment of Israeli and US policy. In his final chapter, Petras, in a very courteous but direct and successful way, attacks Chomsky’s credibility as a radical authority on the causes of the Iraq war.

How accurate is Petras’ view of the US, Israel

and Iraq? The deafen-ing silence with which advocates of other expla-nations have greeted his

book is convincing testi-mony to its accuracy.

The antiwar, labor, civil rights and all “progressive” movements including most “alternative” information sources in the US are satu-rated with Israeli influence. This saturation has caused the

entire “progressive agenda” to be put on hold in favor of mili-tary adventures which benefit only Israel’s drive to expand its

power in the Middle East, particularly Lebanon and Palestine. The US populace needs to become alert to this. Reading Petras’ important book—13 chapters and an index—is a useful place to begin that learning process.

Dan Elliott is a Sacramento activist. Contact him at cuibono@rcip.com to purchase The Power of Israel in the United States.

“In the five years prior to Cheney, Halliburton received about $100 million in loans from a government agency promoting American exports. But during Cheney’s 5 years at the firm it received $1.5 billion from the same agency.”

“Petras lays primary blame for US involvement in Iraq squarely on AIPAC.”

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2007 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 11

Media ClippedSeth Sandronsky

Does bigger mean better? Yes, for the con-ventional wisdom on the US economy, the world’s largest in terms of output,

or gross domestic product. Thomas Friedman, a columnist with the New York Times whose work also appears regularly in The Sacramento Bee, is perhaps the leading voice for this view.

For Friedman, citizens of developing nations will prosper if their leaders emulate the US model of growth. One of these developing nations is India.

Lost in Friedman’s rhetoric is the fact that the American economy also creates a big labor market surplus. Typically, the likes of Fried-man sidestep this ongoing human tragedy of the grow-or-die US economic model. Talk about the waste of a nation’s people.

Capital accumulation itself, as well as mar-ket conditions of supply and demand, constantly generates a surplus of labor. Under capitalism, there are always too many workers for too few jobs. Unemployment is built into the system.

Where do some of these job seekers end up when they are not hired? One answer is behind bars, especially in the USA, a trend that has been underway for years and shows no sign of slow-ing down. According to a recent report by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 2.2 million people held in federal or state prisons in December 2005, a 2.7 percent increase from 2004. The average annual increase

of the US prisoner population has been 3.5 per-cent since 1995.

There is a gender dimension of this incar-cerated population. The average annual rate of growth for incarcerated women has been 4.6 per-cent versus 3 percent for men during the past 10 years. Women, like men, are surplus workers in the US.

In a perverse way, the American economy provides both genders with the opportunity to be free of employment. Such freedom!

Moreover, the US prison population is not counted in Uncle Sam’s employment surveys. There were 7.4 million persons unemployed nationwide in December 2005, according to the US Department of Labor. Now add the 2.2 mil-lion incarcerated people for a total jobless figure of 9.2 million.

African American men in their late 20s were locked up at a rate three times that of Hispanic men and over seven times the rate of white men. The racial disparity of young male prisoners mirrors and magnifies the unemployment pattern of the Labor Department’s household survey of December 2005 by racial groups. The jobless rate for black men over age 20 was 8.8 percent versus 5.1 percent for Hispanic men and 3.9 per-

cent for white men.African American females “were more than

twice as likely as Hispanic females and over 3 times more likely than white females to have been in prison on December 31, 2005,” accord-

ing to the Justice Depart-ment. “These differences among white, black, and Hispanic females were consistent across all age groups.” The unemployment rate for white women age 20 and

up was 3.4 percent versus 8.1 percent for black women and 6.6 percent for Hispanic women.

Without a doubt, harsh laws that sentence non-violent drug offenders to decades behind bars are propelling the rise of the US prison population. At the same time, national minorities of both genders are more likely than their white counterparts to be unemployed. In short, US pris-ons are caging surplus workers whose labor the American economy does not need.

This spiral of unemployment and impris-onment is not an unfortunate byproduct of an otherwise rational economy. To the contrary, it is an irrational economy that requires more and more prison cells for those who have no chance of finding their way onto payrolls. Why should people of any developing nation wish to emulate the job and prison conditions of the US?

Seth Sandronsky is a BPM co-editor.

Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor in America

By Henry Clark

BPM is proud to salute Arline Prigoff, who recently retired as professor of social work at Sacramento State.

A passionate believer in networking and

cooperation, Arline is loved and respected for her contributions to Sacramento’s progressive peace, labor, and race and gender justice groups.

As a Jewish child growing up in the US dur-ing the Nazi Holocaust years, she saw herself as a survivor, for had her grandparents not been immigrants, she would have suffered a tragic fate. She resolved to make a difference in her world.

Politicized in her high school years, she attended civil rights activist Bayard Rustin’s sum-mer camp. Then, as a precocious teen at Radcliffe majoring in economics, Arline studied with pro-fessors like Joseph Schumpeter, who trumpeted capitalist values, and also studied Marxism. She found the John Reed Society more to her liking, and joined the famous organization, identifying with its working class and union values.

In 1945 she married her high school sweet-heart, Jim Prigoff.

When her four children went off to school, Arline joined the work force, soon realizing the

necessity of get-ting a master’s in social work (New York Univer-sity1967)—and in 1984, earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.

Her passion for social justice took her to Washington on many occasions. She marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights, and anti-war protesters, seeking to expose the hypocrisy and tragedy of the Viet-nam War. She was tear-gassed at the Pentagon and jailed briefly on another occasion for peaceful protest. She has often been in the streets of Sacramento and San Francisco—and Seattle— joining thou-sands of others opposing unjust US government policies.

Dr. Arline Prigoff has influenced genera-tions of students by opening their eyes to the world’s injustices and modeling a courageous, compassionate, and intellectually informed social activism. She’s worked tirelessly to influ-ence the thinking of her colleagues in the field of social work, and her widely used book, Economics for Social Workers, had a powerful impact on perspectives in the field. She traveled

Arline Prigoff:Working towards that “otro mundo”

“ She has influenced generations of students by opening their eyes to the world’s injustices and modeling a courageous, compassionate, and intellectually informed social activism.”

to Brazil for the World Social Forum in 2002 with her husband Jim, known in recent years for his photographic books on popular street art around the world. In truth, the motto of that great con-ference might well serve as a symbol of Arline Prigoff ’s life as a scholar, teacher, and activist. For throughout all the years she has never faltered in proclaiming—and living—its ringing declaration: Another World is Possible—“Un Otro Mundo es Posible.”

Henry Clark is a longtime colleague of Arline Prigoff in the Greater Sacramento Chapter of the Alliance for Democracy.

“US prisons are caging surplus workers whose labor the American economy does not need.”

Arline Prigoff in a typical activityphoto: Jim Prigoff

1� BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER January / February 2007 www.bpmnews.org

Sacramento Area Peace Action is an all-volunteer organization that works to educate and mobilize the public to promote a non-interven-tionist and non-nuclear US foreign policy and to promote peace through international and domestic economic, social, and political justice. Join us!

Send your check to: sacramento area peace action (sapa) 909 12th street, #118, sacramento, ca 95814. or call us! 448-7157, email: sypeaceact@jps.net, web: www.sacpeace.org

JOIN SACRAMENTO AREA PEACE ACTIONAnnual dues are $30/individual; $52/family; $15/low income.

Name:________________________________________________________

Address: ______________________________________________________

City _______________________________________ Zip _______________

Phone: __________________________

Email: ______________________________Here is my additional contribution of $_______.____Please send me the newsletter only, $10/yr.

Honor MLKStop pro-war foreign policy!

Evoking the Spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr to end the war agenda and occupation of Iraq

Martin Luther King Jr. poignantly linked war and poverty in his famous speech, deliv-ered at New York’s Riverside Church in April 1967. Sadly, King’s assessment of US foreign and domestic policy would perhaps be worse today than it was when King shared:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today [is] my own government.There is much hard work ahead for those

who want to change the direction of the US for-eign policy Titanic which has already sent mil-lions of the planet’s non-upper class passengers to early graves. Here are a few opportunities:

Get your body to the anti-war contingent of the MLK annual march

Sunday, January 15, 2007 (Info: 916-448-7157). The march starts at 8:30am at Oak Park Community Center (3425 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd.), passes by Sacramento City College at 9am, and goes to the Sacramento Convention Center (1301 L St.) where there is a job/health/education fair from 10am-3pm. See www.mlk365.org.

Let Congress hear your voice and feel your presence

We cannot be deluded into thinking Demo-crats will end the occupation or war agenda, including Sacramento’s Representative Doris Matsui. Matsui has continued to vote to fund the occupation and has not signed on to HR 4232 (McGovern) which would end funding. Unfortunately, Matsui did sign on to HR 282 accusing Iran of wrongdoing and allowing sanctions, thus creating the false pretext that the Bush administration needs to eventually overthrow Iran’s current government.

Many of Matsui’s constituents have received her recent letter which defends Isra-el’s brutal assault on Lebanon in which Israel reportedly used US -supplied cluster bombs, depleted uranium, and chemical weapons.

Call Matsui regularly and tell her to sign HR 4232 and agree NOT to vote for any more funding of the Iraq occupation or support US interference with Iran: 916-498-5600. You can also visit her office, 501 I St., Suite 12-600, downtown Sacramento.

A Call for Occupation of Congressional Offices

Voices for Creative Non-Violence, formerly Voices in the Wilderness, an organization that’s been fighting to save the lives of Iraqis since 1991, is calling for a campaign of sustained nonviolent civil disobedience to end the Iraq War. Noting that resolutions supporting “phased withdrawals” are not enough, the cam-paign calls on all representatives and senators to publicly pledge to vote against any addition-al funds for the Iraq war and occupation. If they don’t, non-violent civil disobedience is called for at the offices of representatives and sena-tors who refuse to make such a public pledge.

Voices can be reached at 773-878-3815, occupationproject@vcnv.org; www.vcnv.org.

Mark your Calendars for March 17, 2007 Large demonstrations are being planned

for San Francisco and other US cities on the fourth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.

US-made crisis with KoreaLike Iran (see Nov/Dec BPM, “The US Threat

to Attack Iran”), the Bush administration is seek-ing a pretext to overthrow the government of North Korea. Below are excerpts from a histori-cal analysis by Brian Becker, written in October, 2006.

Looking back to 1994: ‘almost war’In 1994, Clinton’s administration was on

the verge of initiating military action against North Korea. At issue was North Korea’s plan to develop nuclear power as an energy source.

Instead of escalating into a full scale war, the two sides signed the General Framework Agreement. Korea agreed to suspend and freeze its program to construct “heavy water” nuclear energy reactors in exchange for the US agreeing to finance and construct light water nuclear reactors.

North Korea, which had experienced a catastrophic loss of energy supplies with the collapse of its socialist allies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from 1989 to 1991, desperately sought a replacement source. ... [Light water reactor] technology does not pro-duce the plutonium byproduct or waste that could be enriched and used for the creation of nuclear weapons.

Although North Korea lived up to its side of the General Framework Agreement, the US did not. Eight years passed before the US took even the first steps to begin constructing the light water reactors. Lacking energy sources, North Korea’s agricultural system nearly collapsed. [With] only 15 percent of the land [being] arable, the absence of energy sources was a kind of death sentence….North Korea was sup-posed to collapse, according to…policy makers in Washington, DC, the Pentagon and Wall Street. But [it] survived. Its resilience opened a short-lived shift in US policy.

In the final years of the Clinton administra-tion, the US began moving back toward the promise of the 1994 General Framework Agree-ment… [But] the Clinton administration, like all US governments, embraced the need to over-throw the government in North Korea....

Bush White House changes strategyIn 2002, Bush used his state of the union

address to label North Korea as part of the so-called axis of evil, along with Iraq and Iran. Instead of normalizing relations with North Korea and lifting economic sanctions, North Korea was explicitly targeted for “regime change.”

Bush’s open bellicosity and threats led North Korea to unfreeze its nuclear program, expel inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and announce that it would pursue developing nuclear weapons as a legiti-mate form of self-defense.

North Korea, like the entire world, knows that the US government possesses 16,000 nuclear weapons and has adopted a nuclear first-strike option against North Korea as part of its official operational strategy. (National Secu-rity Strategy of the United States, 2002).

Seeking nuclear primacyThe US, as evidenced by [the] invasion of

Iraq and destruction of its government, wants absolute power. It wants to crush those who seek independence, or even neutrality, from the US empire. The idea that North Korea could develop nuclear weapons is a sign that resistance to Washington’s plans by formerly colonized countries is possible.

This runs contrary to the strategic planning of the Pentagon and the White House. Their goal in the next decade is to retake the posi-tion of US nuclear primacy. …All people who fear the danger of new and even larger military conflict must understand that the origin of the threat emanates not from Pyongyang, but from within the belly of the US military-industrial complex.

Brian Becker works with the ANSWER Coali-tion in New York and writes for Socialism and Liberation magazine.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1967.

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2007 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 1�

Coffee from NicaraguaSupport Sacramento’s sister city, San Juan de Oriente, Nicaragua, by purchasing organic whole bean coffee grown in the rich volcanic soil on the island of Omotepe, Nicaragua. Thanks to the efforts of the Bainbridge-Omotepe Sister Island Association in Washington, we are able to bring you this wonderful medium roast coffee.Your purchase helps the farmers on the island and helps support Sacramento’s long relationship with San Juan de Oriente. All profits go directly back to the Nicaraguan communities. $9.00 a pound. Available in Sacramento at: The Book Collector, 1008 24th St.

Time Tested Booksis now buying

Political posters, handbills & pamphletsBooks on history, labor, & politcs

Records of blues, jazz, rock, punk, world, R&B, & spoken word.And, of course, we are selling books & records, too!

We are located at 1114 21st Street, Sacramento.Our hours are 11 – 5:30 M-Sat. (but please call for appt. if selling).

916-447-5696.

www.timetestedbooks.com

By Dan Bacher

The ground-breaking release of nine reports by the Pentagon’s Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON)

surveillance program last November 21 reveals a chilling web of surveillance by federal counter terrorism agencies directed against peace and social justice activists engaged in anti-war and counter-recruiting work, including George Main, president of the Veterans for Peace (VFP) Sacra-mento chapter.

The Pentagon released the reports under a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The first report tar-geted the protest at the Sacramento Military Pro-cessing Station (MEPS) on November 11, 2004 by VFP and other local peace organizations.

In response to the revelations of the Penta-gon spy files, the ACLU called on Congress to investigate the widespread surveillance of politi-cal and religious groups by the Defense Depart-ment, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The TALON documents are the latest in a series of domestic spying scandals that include secret wiretapping by the National Secu-rity Agency (NSA) and the California National Guard’s spying on Grandmothers for Peace.

“There is increasing evidence that the Pen-tagon improperly targeted innocent Americans for surveillance,” said Ben Wizner, an ACLU staff attorney. “These documents send a chilling mes-sage that if you oppose the war, the military is watching you. That is simply un-American.”

Main blasted the surveillance of him and other anti-war activists disclosed by the release of the documents and noted that reading the document has only recommitted him to working harder against the Iraq war, military recruitment and domestic spying.

“What kind of father and what kind of patriot would accept an America for his children that enjoys less freedom?” emphasized Main. “Every GI sacrificed in Iraq pledged fealty to the Constitution and its guarantees of liberty.”

The documents released consist of nine reports from the Pentagon’s TALON database that describe as “threats” several planned dem-onstrations at military recruitment stations, including sites on college campuses, apparently considering domestic activists as some sort of “terrorist threat” to the country, according to the ACLU.

The first report focuses on the planned pro-test at the MEPS in Sacramento by “a Sacramento

chapter of a US domestic group,” VFP. “This specific group is deeply into ‘counter-recruiting,’” and views the station “as their last chance to influence a decision to enlist,” according to the report.

The San Francisco Joint Ter-rorism Task Force advised the commanders of the Sacramento and San Jose stations of the protests. “It appears this protest will most likely be peaceful, but some type of van-dalism is always a possibility,” the report ominously noted.

Main is concerned that his personal emails were monitored to obtain some of the material in the report, although the rest of the information was apparently obtained through press releases about the event distributed openly to the media and posted on activist websites.

One specific quote listed in the report documented Main’s involve-ment in a demonstration: “The promoter of this event further states that there are 65 MEPS stations and ‘maybe one is located near you.’”

This quote is particularly trou-bling to Main who explained, “This information was not from a press release, but could have only been obtained by intercepting an email that I sent out to people on the VFP list a week on November 5, 2004. …Also the quote made it sounds like an implied threat—it makes me sound like a terrorist.”

“This is absolutely outrageous,” said Main, emphasizing that he believed his cell phone and home phone were also tapped. “The echo delay on my cell phone was so bad that you would make the statement, listen for it being echoed back, and only then could talk again or respond. I couldn’t even hold a conversation with my wife. There was an eight-second delay all of the way until this summer.”

Main’s idea for the demonstration came about after the election of 2004, when local activ-ists were discouraged that another presidential election had been stolen by the Bush regime. “I knew that people were devastated that we had been robbed again in the election,” said Main, “so I put out an email to have a demonstration in front of MEPS on Veterans Day.”

On the wettest November 11 ever, over 65 demonstrators turned out—and federal law enforcement agencies were watching the whole time.

Ironically, Main himself worked in army counter-intelligence for 7 years during the Viet-nam War, so he had inside knowledge about the methods and procedures used by military in conducting military surveillance.

“The 902 Military Counter intelligence Group that monitored us is based out of Fort

Meade and is part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” he said. “What’s amazing is that that the report indicates that it was the 110th report that day, so this group was very busy.”

“This shouldn’t be happening,” said Main. “It is a touch ironic that I was in the US Army Security Agency, whose chain of command went to the NSA. My first assignment was to monitor allies everywhere worldwide. Our motto was ‘In God we trust. All others we monitor.’”

The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU earlier this year after evidence surfaced that the Pentagon was secretly conducting sur-veillance of peaceful anti-war and counter-mili-tary recruitment groups, including Quakers and student groups.

“So far Congress has failed to investigate how the Pentagon collected the information on innocent Americans, and which other agencies received these reports,” according to the ACLU.” In addition, Congress has yet to act on the hun-dreds of FBI documents previously obtained by the ACLU that show widespread surveillance by Joint Terrorism Task Forces of peace activists, religious groups, environmental groups and ani-mal rights activists.”

For more information on government sur-veillance of innocent Americans, including FBI documents and The TALON reports, visit www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/27459lgl20061121.html.

Dan Bacher is an outdoor writer, alternative journalist and satirical songwriter in Sacramento.

“The echo delay on my cell phone was so bad that you would make the statement, listen for it being echoed back, and only then could talk again or respond.” George Main, Veterans for Peace Sacramento chapter.

Pentagon Spied on Sacramento Activists Peace groups targeted

George Main at the Radisson Hotel in solidarity with the Israeli peace movement, and protesting the policies of AIPAC, which was meeting inside the hotel. Photo: Dan Bacher

1� BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER January / February 2007 www.bpmnews.org

By Brigitte Jaensch

Killed in Gaza this past year were civilians like six-year-old Rawan Farid Hajjah, who died along with his sister and moth-

er, the seven Salmeya children—Basma (16), Somaya (17), Aya (9), Yehya (10), Nasr (7), Huda (13) and Eman (12) and newborn Shahed Saleh Al-Sheikh Eid. All died in Israeli air strikes.

Palestinian civilians are under attack from the fourth most powerful military in the world. The Israeli occupation is in its 39th year and 80 percent of Gazans know nothing else. Fifty percent of Gazans comprise 850,000 children, all under age 15. Their tiny world is surrounded by a wall and razor-wire-topped fencing on three sides. There are two openings into Gaza. Karni checkpoint is closed 85 percent of the time and Rafah checkpoint almost 100 percent of the time. On side four, the Mediterranean Sea, there are Israeli gunboats. The gunboats shell Gaza’s beach-es. F-16 fighter jets fire missiles. Apache helicop-ters drop ordnance. Houses are flattened and cars burned. The night sound is the whine and boom of missiles followed by the wail of ambulances.

Since July, more than 400 Gazans have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded. Our main-stream news outlets don’t report this. If too many Palestinians are killed at once, like the 18 mem-bers of an extended family in Beit Hanoun, Israel claims “terrible mistake” or “technical problem.”

Also targeted is life’s support: the electric power plant, bridges, roads, government build-ings and houses. Since the power station was bombed in June, one million people live without electricity, without water or sewer pumping. No elevators operate in the multi-story apartment buildings. Hospitals rely on generators that wear out. Dialysis and other critical hospital machines aren’t running. Medicine can’t get through Karni checkpoint. Fuel is scarce. The only supplier is Dor Energy, an Israeli company.

And what about agriculture? Basic needs, including food supplies are kept out of the occu-pied territories. In just one month the Israeli military uprooted 5,500 olive and citrus trees, 800 palm trees and 73 acres of vegetables. Also gone are seven acres of greenhouses and 200 acres of irrigation systems torn apart by Israeli forces. When there is a surviving harvest, it rots at Karni checkpoint, held back by Israeli military resulting in more than $30 million worth of rot-ted produce.

Gaza’s 1.4 million residents are hermetically sealed off from the world, strangled by Israeli military actions.

One Israeli newspaper theorized that the Israeli military is especially vengeful in the West Bank (and Gaza) to compensate for its poor showing against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The West Bank isn’t included in the cease-fire. Illegal Israeli settlers beat and shoot Palestinians in the West Bank. They throw stones and scream murderous taunts particularly at children and the elderly. Israeli soldiers enable them.

There are more than 550 permanent Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, plus more temporary, “flying,” checkpoints. When they’re closed, the sick can’t go to the hospital. Workers can’t get to work. Kids can’t get to school. Qalqui-la, population 35,000, is completely encircled by an Israeli wall. The only opening, an Israeli mili-

tary checkpoint, is too often closed. Expatriate Palestinians who’ve worked in the

West Bank for decades can’t get visas anymore. Residents who get to travel don’t know when they’ll be permitted to return home. Students from the occupied territories can’t study in an Israeli university any more. And beginning this January, it will be illegal for a West Bank Pales-tinian to ride in a vehicle that has Israeli license plates.

What Israel does is “collective punishment” and it’s illegal under the Geneva Conventions. “War crimes” is the term used by B’Tselm, the Israeli human rights group. Last year the Israeli parliament passed a law, effective back to Sep-tember 2000, which forbids Palestinians to sue the Israeli government for damages.

And the US government is complicit. In August 2006 and again in November, the US

vetoed UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel. Thus Israel is protected from official criticism and protected from international laws. Palestinians don’t have military might and are blocked from legal recourse.

Israel-apologists in the Democratic Party as well as Republicans assailed former President Jimmy Carter for calling the Israeli Occupation “apartheid.” South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who lived through South Africa’s apart-heid, dubbed it “Israeli Apartheid” in 2002. John Dugard, Special Reporter on Palestine to the UN Human Rights Council, says “many aspects of Israel’s occupation surpass those of the [South African] apartheid regime.” For example, the Israeli military uses mortars, rockets, missiles, bombs, against unarmed Palestinian children, women and men.

Brigitte Jaensch is a human rights advocate.

“The wall was originally conceived by [former Israeli Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin to be put along the border of Israel—along the Israeli territo-ry—to prevent cross-border raids by Palestinian terrorists. But when Rabin was assassinated, [former Prime Ministers Ariel] Sharon and [Benjamin] Netanyahu had the idea: Let’s use it to confiscate Palestinian land. We won’t build the wall on our border. We’ll build the wall on Palestinian land. And we’ll make tremendous intrusions to encompass settlements that already exist, and other areas on which we want to build settlements. So that’s what they’ve done… Gaza’s completely surrounded by walls.”

—Former President Jimmy Carter speaking with freelance writer John Freeman for Sacramento News and Review in December, 2006.

Sacramento SoapboxProgressive Talk ShowAccess Sacramento, Channel 17with Jeanie Keltner & Ken Adams.Monday, 8pm, Tuesday noon, Wednesday, 4am.Now in Davis, Channel 15, Tuesday, 7pm.

“There are more than 550 permanent Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, plus more temporary, “flying,” checkpoints. When they’re closed, the sick can’t go to the hospital. Workers can’t get to work. Kids can’t get to school.”

Ugly Realities in PalestineHuman rights violations abound in Gaza and West Bank

Left: A Palestinian boy in front of the cordoned-off area of the Old City of Hebron in the West Bank where 500 Israeli settlers have declared their permanent homes.Photo: Don Knutson

Gaza: Coming back from kindergarten across the wall.

www.bpmnews.org January / February 2007 BECAUSE PEOPLE MATTER 1�

The Marxist School of SacramentoP.O.Box 160564 Sacramento, CA 95816

September–October 2006 Activities

Point of View Speaker SeriesLectures are held in Sierra 2 Ctr, Green Room, 2791 24th St., 7–9pm

Thursday, Jan. 18: Doyle Saylor, Cohost of KPFA radio show “Push-ing Limits,” speaking on Marxism and Disability rights.

Thursday, Feb. 15: Class Struggle at CSUS: A Marxist Analysis of the assault on academic excellence. A panel discussion with faculty and students.

Discussions/ClassesDiscussions are held in Sierra 2 Ctr, Rm. 11, 2791 24th St., 7–9pm.

Tuesday, January 23: “The Limits of Electoral Politics” Discussion led by Jackie Carrigan.

Tuesday, February 13: “The Attack on Higher Education.” See website for readings on this background discussion for the Feb. 15 panel.

Tuesday, February 27: Book Discussion: The Right to be Lazy, by Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx’s son-in-law. Led by Mike Monasky.

“Capital” Reading GroupWe’ll be starting Chapter 2! Extended book discussion, Vol. 1 of Capi-tal, by Karl Marx. meets 7-9pm, 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month, at SMUD, 6301 S St. (the new building!), Timberline Rm. 3, 3rd Floor. Preferred edition of Capital is Vintage Books 1977, translation by Ben Fowkes. It’s not too late to join!

INFO: www.marxistschool.org; email info@marxistschool.org; 799-1354. All activities are free and open to the public.

January / February CalendarONGOING EVENTS

MoNDAyS Sacramento Poetry Cen-ter hosts poetry read-ings. 7:30pm. 1631 K St. INFO: 441-7395; w w w . s a c r a m e n t o poetrycenter.org.

1St MoNDAySO r g a n i c S a c t o : C o u n t e r o n g o i n g threats to our food. 6:30pm. INFO: www. OrganicSacramento.org.

2nd & 4th MoNDAySUUSS/SAPA Peace and Sustainability Commit-tee. 6-8pm. INFO: Peace Action, 448-7157.

3rD MoNDAySCapitol Outreach for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty. 11am –1pm, L Street @ 11th. INFO: 447-7754.

tUESDAySSacramento Area Peace Action Vigil.4-6pm. 16th & J Sts. INFO: 448-7157.

1st tUESDAySAmnesty Int ’l, Davis Chapter Meeting. Int’l House (10 College Park). 7pm. Free Pizza. Invited speakers. INFO: www.humanrights.ucdavis.edu.

2nd tUESDAySGray Panthers. 2–4pm. Hart Senior Ctr., 27th & J St. INFO: Joan, 332-5980.

4th tUESDAySAmnesty Int ’l. 7pm. Sacto. Friends Meeting House, 890-57th St. INFO: 489-2419.

4th tUESDAySPeace and Justice Films. 7pm. Peace Action of-fice at 909 12th Street. INFO:448-7157.

WEDNESDAySChrist Unity Church: Speakers and Music. 7pm. Cost: Donation. 9249 Folsom Blvd. INFO: 368-3950.

1st WEDNESDAySPeace & Freedom Party. 7pm. INFO: 456-4595.

2nd WEDNESDAySSacto 9/11 Truth:Ques-tioning the “War on Terror.” 6–8pm. Juli-ana’s Kitchen, 1401 G Street, at 14th. INFO: sac911truth@gmail.com. 372-8433.

3rd WEDNESDAySCAAC Goes to the Movies. 7:15pm. INFO: 446-3304.

thUrSDAySDaddy’s Here (Father Enhancement Program). Men’s support group; info on custody, divorce, raising children. 7-8:30pm. Free! Ctr for Families, 2251 Florin Rd, Ste 102. INFO: terry @fathersandfamilies.com. 424-3237x 205.

thUrSDAySHouse of Spoken Words. 7–10pm. Colonial Café, Stockton Blvd. & Broad-way. $5. INFO: 308-2766.

3rd thUrSDAySNational Organization for Women (NOW). 7pm. INFO: 443-3470.

FrIDAySShiny Object Digital Video/Fools Foundation Film Series. Weekly in-dependent/foreign films,

documentaries. 7pm. 1025 19th St. $5. INFO: 484-0747or www.shiny-object.com/screenings.

1st FrIDAySBeginner/intermedi-ate tango class. 8-9pm. Social tango dancing. 9pm–12am.YWCA, 17th & L, Sacto. $10 for lesson and social dancing. INFO: Kendra.kambestad@tango -rena i s sance . com or www.tango- renaissance.com.

1st FrIDAySCommuni ty Cont ra Dance. 8-11pm; 7:30pm beginners lessons. Clunie Auditorium, McKinley Pk, Alhambra & F. INFO: 641-7781.

2nd FrIDAySDances of Universal Peace. 7:30–9:30pm. Sierra 2 Ctr, 2791- 24th St., Rm. 10. $5–$10. INFO: 361-3153.

3rd FrIDAySProgressive Free Thought Exchange. Discuss topics of interest to atheists, agnostics, humanists. I N F O : p f x o f s a c @ prodigy.net.

SAtUrDAySWorkshops at La Raza Galleria Posada. 1–3pm. 1421 R St. Under 18, $1; Students over 18, $5; Adults, $10. INFO: 446-5133.

1st SAtUrDAySHealth Care for All. 10am. Hart Senior Ctr, 27th & J. For universal access to health care. INFO: 424-5316.

1st SAtUrDAySSacramento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am–1:30pm. Arden and Heri-tage (entrance to Arden Mall). INFO: 448-7157

2nd & 4th SAtSCommuni ty Cont ra Dance. 8-11pm; 7:30 lessons. YWCA Audito-rium, 17th & L Street. INFO: 641-7781

3rd SAtUrDAySSacramento Area Peace Action Vigil. 11:30am-1:30pm. Fulton and Mar-coni. INFO: 448-7157

SUNDAySSacto Food Not Bombs. 1:30pm. Come help dis-tribute food at 9th and J Streets.

SUNDAySCommunity Debke les-sons 3–3:50pm, children and 4– 5pm adults. Yosemite 187, CSUS. Free, open to all ages. Beginner level adults welcome to come to the children’s lessons for ex-tra practice. INFO: nca-sac@arab- american.net or sjpsac@gmail.com (530) 902-4000

1st SUNDAySPoemSpirits. 6pm. Re-freshments and open mic. Free. UUSS, Rm. 7/8, 2425 Sierra Blvd. INFO: 481-3312; 451-1372.

1st SUNDAySZapatista Solidarity Co-alition. 10am–noon. 909 12th St. Info: 443-3424.

2nd SUNDAySAtheists & Other Free-thinkers. 2:30pm. Sierra 2 Center, Room 10, 2791 24th St. INFO: 447-3589.

Send calendar items for the Mar.–April 2007 issue to <bpmnews@nicetechnology.com> by Feb. 10, with “calendar item” in the subject line. Make it short, and in this order, please: Day, Date. Name of event. Description (1-2 lines). Time. Location. Price. INFO: phone#; <email>.

For online calendars of progressive events, go to www.sacleft.org and www.sacpeace.org.

Peace Action Vigils

tUESDAyS: 4-6pm. 16th and J Streets. Be Visible For Peace. 1st SAtUrDAyS: 11:30am-1:30pm. Arden & Heritage (entrance to Arden Mall).3rd SAtUrDAyS: 11:30am-1:30pm. Fulton and Marconi.INFO: 448-7157

Saturday, Jan 6Freedom From War Monthly Meeting.1–3:30pm. Blanchard Room, Davis Library, 314 E. 14th St, Davis. INFO: Mary Wind, windml@gmail.com, (530)758-8431.

tuesday, Jan 9Film Sir No Sir. 7pm. Davis Library Blanchard Room, 314 E. 14th St, Davis. Free. Info: Free-dom From War, (530)758-2362 or windml@gmail.com.

Wednesday, Jan 10Sacramento 911 Truth: Questioning the War on Terror, monthly meeting. 6 - 8pm. 1401 G St, Sac. INFO: sac911truth@gmail.com; 372-8433.

Saturday, Jan 13Continuing seminar on foreign policy and nuclear weapons. 11am–1pm. Hart Center, 915 27th St. INFO: 916-482-4627.

tuesday, Jan 234th Tuesday Films. In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Bursts, shows the role, level of control, and impacts resulting from debt, credit card companies, and the banking industry. 7pm 909 12th St. INFO: 448-7157; sypeaceact@jps.net.

Sunday, January 14 Annual People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo Blueberry Blintz Brunch, featuring Michael Sands talking about and singing the songs of Woody Guthrie. No-sugar and No-wheat brunches available. 10am–Noon. 4774 Marlborough Way, Carmichael. $10 or what you can afford. INFO and RSVP: 481-5566.

Sunday, Jan 14“Iraq, Islam, Democracy and the War on Terror” presentation by Ayad Al-qazzaz, CSUS prof. of Sociology. 2pm. Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd. (2 blocks north of Fair Oaks & Howe). Free. INFO: 483-9283.

Monday, January 15 Anti-War March. Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. March. Starts 8:30am at Oak Park Community Center (3425 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd), passes by Sacramento City College at 9am and goes to the Sacramento Convention Center (1301 L St) to the job/health/education faire. INFO: 448-7157 or www.mlk365.org.

thursday, Jan. 18Doyle Saylor, Cohost of KPFA radio show “Pushing Limits,” speaking on Marxism and Disability rights. 7–9pm. Sierra 2 Ctr, Green Room, 2791 24th St. INFO: see Marxist School box below.

Saturday, January 20Memorial for Ruth Holbrook,. 1pm. Central Labor Council, 2840 El Centro Rd. INFO: 456-9282.

tuesday, January 23: “The Limits of Electoral Politics” Discussion led by Jackie Carrigan. 7–9pm. Sierra 2 Ctr, Rm. 11, 2791 24th St. INFO: see Marxist School box below.

thursday, January 25Lecture in honor of Ruth Holbrook. Human rights lawyer Ann Fagan Ginger speaks on New Paths for Action. 7pm. Coloma Center, 4623 T St. INFO: 456-9282.

thursday, January 25Lecture. “Bin Laden’s Chessboard” by Ben Sher. Eclectic Lecture Series, lectures with discussion presented by Ben Sher. 7-9pm. Green Room @ Sierra 2, 2791 24th St. Free. INFO: 798-1072.

Friday, Feb 2Film: Iraq For Sale. 7pm. Davis Library Blanchard Room, 314 E 14th St, Davis. Free. INFO: Free-dom From War, (530)758-2362 or windml@gmail.com.

tuesday, February 13“The Attack on Higher Education.” Background discussion for the Feb. 15 Marxist School panel. INFO: see box below.

thursday, Feb. 15: Class Struggle at CSUS: A Marxist Analysis of the assault on academic excellence. A panel discussion with faculty and students. 7–9pm. Sierra 2 Ctr, Green Room, 2791 24th St. INFO: see Marxist School box below.

thursday, February 22Lecture. “The Neocon Liberal Hawk Consensus” by Ben Sher. Eclectic Lecture Series, lectures with discussion 4th Thursdays. 7-9pm. Free. Green Room @ Sierra 2, 2791 24th St. INFO: 916-798-1072.

Saturday, February 24 (Registration deadline Weds, January 24) Early Music Workshop. Sacramento Recorder Society sponsors “Music of Peace from the Cold North.” 9:30-4pm, Central Methodist Church 5265 H St. $45 ($5 discount for members). Day-long work-shop features renowned international instructors Eileen Hadidian and Hanneke Van Proosdij lead-ing 16th and 17th century music from Northern Europe. The workshop offers instruction for voice, recorder, viol, lute, harp, and early wind instruments. INFO: Billie Hamilton, 451-7614 or billieham@maxnexus.org.

tuesday, February 27Book Discussion: The Right to be Lazy, by Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx’s son-in-law. Led by Mike Monasky. 7–9pm. Sierra 2 Ctr, Rm. 11, 2791 24th St. INFO: see Marxist School box below.

Gather for president’s messageWatch for time and date!

President Bush has promised to share with the nation his new program for “moving forward in Iraq.” Sac-ramento Peace Action wants to gather to listen to the plan and discuss responses.

Unfortunately the White House has not set a date. As soon as Peace Action learns the specifics, they will email their lists, post it on www.sacpeace.org, and add the information to SAPA’s phone message at 916-448-7157 so that people can gather at the Dose Coffee House at 1825 Del Paso Boulevard (920-3367), which serves wonderful coffees, teas, freshly-made sandwiches, and muffins at good prices and has a large, flat TV high on the wall.The Arden-Del Paso light rail stop is only blocks away.

Monday, Jan 15, 8:30am, Join the anti-war contingent MLK annual March, Sunday, January 15, 2007 (Info: 916-448-7157). The march starts 8:30am at the Oak Park Community Center (3425 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd), passes by Sac-ramento City College at 9am and goes to the Sacramento Convention Center (1301 L St) to the job/health/education faire. (Above: Scene from the 2004 march.)

Perspectives on Venezuela Friday, January 19, 7-9pm

Sacramento Friends Meeting, 890 57th Street, SacramentoDirections: 369-8046.

Slides and narrative by Don Knutson, who trav-eled to Venezuela in late November, witnessing the December presidential election in which Hugo Chavez was elected to a third term and document-ing the Venezuelans’ fascination with democracy.

Don visited several cooperatives and other govern-ment “mission” programs to reduce poverty and also saw how members of the opposition have adopted “Rovian” political strategies which have so polluted the wells of democracy worldwide. Final-ly, Don will discuss his concerns about how much young women in Venzuela devote themselves to their personal appearance (the “Miss World/Miss Universe syndrome”) and ask what that does to them as people and what the consequences are for the Bolivarian revolution.

Sacramento Valley Branch, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom presents:

NON-PROFITORGANIZATION

U.S. POSTAGE PAIDPERMIT NO. 2668SACRAMENTO, CA

Access Sacramento tV Cable Channels 17 and 18

Sacramento Soapbox: Progressive Talk Show w/ Jeanie Keltner & Ken Adams. Mon 8pm, Wed 4am. (In Davis: Channel 15, Tues, 7pm.)Being Gay today: Thurs 6am, 10pm, Sat 6am.Democracy Now!: Weekdays 6pm, 12mid-night, 5am.Media Edge: progressive documentaries, including local productions.Sundays 8–10pm

other sources for Media EdgeDavis, Channel 15, Sundays, 8–10pm. Nevada County, Channel 11, Mondays, 10:30pm –12:30am. West Sacramento, Channel 21, Mondays, 9–11pm.

Dish Network Satellite tV ▼ Channel 9415, Free Speech TV.

Democracy Now!: News and Analysis. Mon-day–Friday: 8am, 12pm, 7pm ET.

▼ Channel 9410, Link TVDemocracy Now!: Monday–Friday, 11am. Mosaic—World News from the Middle East: Tues–Saturday, 4:30am and 10:30am; 4:30pm and 10:30pm.

radio▼ KVMR 89.5 FM

BBC News, M-F 6, 7, 8am; News & Attitude with travus t. hipp, M-F 7:30am; KVMr Morning News, M-F 8:05am; Stories & Songs with U. Utah Phillips, Sun 11am; Soundings (Science), Tues noon; rabble rousing, Wed noon; Full Logic reverse, Thu noon; Who Cares? (health), Fri noon; KVMr Evening News, 6pm daily; Democracy Now!, Mon-Thu 7pm; Women’s Show, Mon 8pm.

▼ KCBL Cable 88.7 FM

▼ KYDS 91.5 FMSaturdays, approx. 3–4 pm., followed by Coun-ter Spin from the media watch group FAIR:

▼ KDVS 90.3 FMDemocracy Now!: Mon–Fri noon. Free Speech radio News (FSRN) Mon–Fri 4:30pm. Printed Matter on the Air (interviews with local writers) alternating with Panic Attack (attorneys and guests discuss what makes people panic): Mon 5pm. Making Contact (int’l radio seeks to create connections): Tue 8am. Proletarian revolution (focusing on politi-cal, social, and economic issues) alternating with the Simple Show (talk show on human rights): Wed 8am. Speaking in tongues (labor, environmental, social, and political topics. Callers welcome, interviews frequent): Fri 5pm. Memo Durgin and Eddie Salas (Public affairs and music of the Chicano/Mexicano people): Sat 6–8pm.

▼ KPFA 94.1 FM BerkeleyDemocracy Now!: Reports on US and world news. M–F 9am.Living room: Chris Welch. M–F Noon.Seven Generations: M–F 1pm.New Directions: including visionary astrolo-ger. Thur 2pm.Flashpoints: News and analysis. M–F 5pm.

▼ KSQR 1240 AM (TalkCity Radio Sacramento)Progressive talk radio all day long with Christine Craft, Thom Hartman and others.

▼ KCTC 1320 AM (AirAmerica Radio)Progressive talk radio all day long with Randi Rhodes, Al Franken, and others.

▼ KZFR 90.1 FM ChicoPeople Powered Radio! managed and operated by volunteers, provides mostly locally produced and community oriented programs.

Sacramento and Central Valley INDyMEDIA: www.sacindymedia.org.

Progressive Media

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Chew On This!“Chew on This!”, a monthly progressive TV show, can be seen on these cable channels:

Access Sacramento Channel 17 (Com-cast, SureWest) and Davis Community Television Channel 15 (Comcast) the first Sunday of the month at 8pm.

West Sacramento Community Access Channel 21 (Charter) the first Monday of the month at 9pm

Nevada County Television Channel 11 (Comcast) first Mondays at 10:30pm.

Check out our Web site <www.pcwp.org> and click on “ChewOnThis!” We need volunteer help in many ways. If you have video production skills, or-ganizational skills, writing or research ability, or if you just have ideas to share, please email us at <chewonthis@pcwp.org>

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Incisive. Insightful. Independent radio commen-tary, twice each week from Black Agenda Report Radio. Freely downloadable broadcast quality MP3 files for radio stations or personal use.

The Black Agenda Report is led by Executive Editor Glen Ford

Glen Ford is a veteran journalist and seasoned broadcast professional with a career stretching back more than three decades. Ford conceived, co-founded and hosted America’s Black Forum in the early 1980s, and was lead editor, co-publisher and founder of the internet magazine Black Commentator, till leaving there to start Black Agenda Report. Ford is based in Jersey City NJ.

Managing Editor Bruce Dixon A native Chicagoan living in exile near Atlanta, Bruce Dixon is a longtime and incorrigible activist whose most recent internet home was also Black Commentator.