JUNE 8, 2006, CREATING A CULTURE OF PEACE
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A purpose of the Newsletter is to provide information for letter writing. Freely use anything in the Newsletter you wish. Addresses of our Congressional Delegation may be found at the end of each Newsletter.
NEWSLETTER CONTENTS: Read all or select what interests you most. In that each no. is comprehensive, covering the full local-world range and the full peace, justice, and ecology scope, the newsletter is unique, but consequently long even though most entries are edited for brevity. Comments about the content are welcome. Do we need a newsletter? Do we need the New York Times of newsletters? Should this format and scope be continued? If you think it is too long, what sections would you omit? And contributions are welcome. If you wish your event to be included, please send it following our format of equal attention (no color), except that OMNI events are in bold. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, simply reply “remove from list” or similar wording. We seek a new editor; contact Gladys or Melanie.
Past Events
Current Events
Fayetteville
NWA
Arkansas
USA
World
PAST EVENTS
OMNI’S FIRST ANNUAL PEACE GARDENS TOUR June 3
Thanks to Liz Lester for the distinctive yard signs identifying the five gardens; to Marie Riley for the beautiful flyer, and the tickets; Debbie Miller of TMN for the excellent writeup; Leonard for quickly painting plenty of peace poles; Jeffrey for getting the stakes ready; Hank Kaminsky for spending the day talking with Dick's visitors; but especially to the 5 gardeners: Marie, Nancy Maier, Dwain Cromwell, Mendy Knott and Leigh Wilkerson, and Dick. Join our Peace Gardens Network and think about participaiting in Peace Gardens Tour #2 2007.
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
According to the Rogers Hometown News, "several thousand people attending the sixth annual Rogers International Festival". I think that it was, and will, be worth having a booth there, but next time we will need more literature in Spanish - especially an OMNI brochure. Could anybody out there help us with that?
We introduced OMNI to a wide variety of Rogers people. Most had never heard of us before. Chris was a hit painting kids' faces, and Gladys handed out many OMNI stickers and brochures.
There are at least 3
articles posted online and the third one has several decent
photos.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2006/05/14/news/04rzinternational.txt
http://www.nwanews.com/rhtn/news/1038/
http://tinyurl.com/jqhfy
APPEAL FOR PEACE AT DEMOCRATIC WOMEN’S ANNUAL CONVENTION, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKER. Our first planning session was held May 31 (Chris, Karen I, Melanie, Steven S, Carl B, Ruth (Carl’s cousin), Dick). The 2nd was June 7. The wheels are turning for a demonstration outside the Rogers Convention Center/Embassy Suites. We need your support. Our next meeting will be Wed. June .14, 6pm at OMNI.
MEMORIAL DAY ORGY OF JINGOISTIC WAR FILMS
But AETN performed as it was intended by showing a thoughtful film that interlaced 2 narratives; one about 2 days of student protest against Dow Chemical’s Agent Orange and Napalm at the U. of Wisconsin and two days of a battle in Vietnam in which two companies of US troops receive heavy casualties.
COMING EVENTS
June 8, The First Annual Spiritual Jam Session beginning Thursday, June 8. We proceed as usual with a pot luck supper beginningat 6:00 PM followed by our evening¹s devotions at 7:00 PM (at Sufi Center of the Ozarks/Tekke Nur-i-Rasul in Eureka Springs). This week,however, will also include a gathering of our Sufi friends fromneighboring states to join us for a weekend celebration of fellowship,singing, dancing, zikr, eating, and plain old good times.
June 8, World Oceans Day: We should pay special attention to this day.
This morning June 8, on FSTV, Sourcecode with Mother Jones Magazine presented documentaries about the drastically declining ocean quality caused by greedy industrial fishery companies which have over-fished until 30% of fish stocks will not recover and now there are ocean dead zones. Just as people war on other people, people war on other species, and particularly fish, a holocaust against fish. www.motherjones.org
June 11, Fayetteville Dances of Universal Peace will be this Sunday. From Jamila
JUNE 9, FRIDAY, 6PM, OMNI’S ANNUAL ARKANSAS HEROES BANQUET
Reservations are past, but if you would like to sponsor the attendance of a nominee, awa rdee, or musician we will gratefully accept donations for this purpose....contact Karen or Melanie.
JUNE 10, SATURDAY, OMNI’S PETITIONS AT FARMER’S MARKET 7AM TO NOON We need you to solicit signatures for our petitions calling on the US to leave Iraq and the US not to bomb Iran. A half hour or hour would help. Here’s an opportunity to walk your talk. Call or write Barbara Jaquish. 575-3138, jaquish@uark.edu
JUNE 11, SUNDAY, 7pm, VIDEO UNDERGROUND
One day California wakes up and
not a single Latino is left in the state. They have all inexplicably
disappeared; chaos, tragedy, and comedy quickly ensue.
Show Time: 100
Minutes
June 12, Monday, “Video Franchising: What’s in It for the Public?” CAT 1:30 p.m.
And 6-14 1:00 p.m., 6-16 2:00 p.m.
June 12, Monday, “Summer with Thomas Merton: Peace in the Post-Christian Era”
Monday Evenings, 7-8 p.m., discussing Merton’s book (avail. Amazon.com for $10.88).
June 12, OMNI’s Demonstrations Committee discusses our July 15 Appeal for Compassion and Reason Toward Iraq with Arkansas Democratic Women. 6pm at OMNI at United Campus Ministry. Help us make this a helpful event for everyone involved—Sen. Clinton, Democratic Women, people of NWA, and OMNI. Especially talk to your pastor and fellow church members. Their silence is unconscionable.
JUNE 13, TUESDAY, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Conway will speak at Poltical Animals Club breakfast at Clarion. This is a good time to reread J. William Fulbright’s The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. Did you see the documentary on Joseph Goebbels on AETN a week ago? Eisenhower warned in the ‘50s and Fulbright in the ‘60s against the the rising militarism of the military-industrial (White House-congressional-mainstream media) complex. See James Carroll’s new book, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, and Andrew Bacevich’s New American Militarism, How Americans Are Seduced by War. And speak up!
June 13, 4p.m. “OMNI FORUM: WHY WATERSHEDS?” And 6-15 10:00 a.m., 6-16 6 p.m.
JUNE 14, WEDNESDAY, OMNI’S COMMITTEE FOR PEACE IN IRAQ AND WITH IRAN, GET OUT OF IRAQ, DON’T BOMB IRAN, Educate our Congressional Delegation. We offer petitions every Saturday morning at the Farmer’s Market. Come help us. And we demonstrate every first Saturday at Joyce Blvd. and Mall Ave next to McDonald’s, 10:30 to 12:00. Come join us even if for only a half hour, or bring coffee and snack. We also plan to appeal to Senator Hillary Clinton when she speaks at the Democratic Women’s Convention July 15. Come help us plan, develop a coalition, talk with Dem. Women.
JUNE 15, THURSDAY, OMNI’S STEERING COMMITTEE
At United Campus Minsitry. 5:30 potluck, 6 business. Visitors are not only welcome, we need your ideas.
June 17, Sustainable
Answers Network meeting and movie: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Community
Conversation will be answering the question, "How can we live more sustainably
in NW Arkansas, individually and collectively?", 4:30-9PM Yvonne Richardson
Center, on East Rock St. in Fayetteville, near
Willow.
JUNE 18, SUNDAY, 6:30, HOWL
OMNI’s open mic for women. Come read your own poems or prose or
written by others, or sing.
Refreshments.
This month's
subject will be SUMMER! Of course you don't have to write on summer, any subject
is welcome. But if you need a writing subject to get you going, there it is --
summer and her wonder, memories, tastes and smells. June's guest host will be
Leigh W. July's guest host will be Melanie D. Mendy will return to the mic in
August.
HOWL! Women's Open Mic happens the 3rd Sunday of every month at
6:30pm. Women share poetry, short prose, or songs -- their own or a favorite
female writer. Men and women are warmly invited to attend and listen to this
celebration of women's words. Doors open at 6pm and we welcome volunteers to
help set up, make coffee, or bring light snacks to share.
Where: OMNI CENTER
FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
902 W. Maple in Fayetteville (corner of Maple and Storer, U of A) Lower level of United Campus
Ministry.
Produced by Herwords as part of Omni's Women's Voices Series. Join our annoucement list: email
howl@herwords.org
June 18, Father’s Day
What's Father's Day all about, anyway? Is it commodified like Mother’s Day? And a day for military Air Fests? We have created an alternative to Mother’s Day. Who’s for an alternative Dad’s Day? Step forward for 2007. See below: Gransroots Militarism.
June 23-28, “Make Peace,” World Peace Forum, Vancouver, BC, Canada
JUNE 23, Friday
Unity of Fayetteville is showing the movie, "What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, The Next Evolution." Extended directors cut: proof that WE ARE ONE! The cost of the ticket is $8.00. 4880 W Wedington Dr 479-442-0680
JUNE 25, Sunday, Interweave GLBTS Pride Service at UUFF and Picnic after the Service at Agri Park. Bring a side dish and support Pride.
JUNE 25, VIDEO UNDERGROUND, at OMNI at United Campus Ministry
In the early 1950's, the threat of Communism created an air of paranoia in the United States and exploiting those fears was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. However, CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow and his producer Fred W. Friendly decided to take a stand and challenge McCarthy and expose him for the fear- monger he was. However, their actions took a great personal toll on both men, but they stood by their convictions and helped to bring down one of the most controversial senators in American history
June 30-July 2, Radical Bookfair for Informed Resistance
Baltimore, www.redemmas.org/bookfair
JULY 5, WEDNESDAY, VIGIL AT EXECUTION OF DON DAVIS
OMNI’s Human Rights Committee plans to participate in the Vigil Contact Mark Swaney, Carol Tarvin, Dick Bennett. The March-April 2006 edition of Judicature, the journal of the American Judicature Society, includes a series of articles about the effects of the death penalty on the administration of justice. From Betsey W
JULY 15, ARKANSAS DEMOCRATIC WOMEN’S ANNUAL CONVENTION
Rogers Convention Center on 540. Senator Hillary Clinton keynote speaker. OMNI will continue its appeal for the end of the Iraq war and for negotiation with Iran by demonstrating outside the Convention Center. Contact Chris Delacruz or Greg Moore for more details.
AUGUST 6, ANN WRIGHT HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Letter to Melanie: I would be honored to be the keynote speaker
at the commemoration of the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki on August 6. I will be coming from Washington, DC where I will be in midst of a fast for peace in Iraq. Medea Benjamin is a dear friend and I am honored to speak the year following her address. Peace! Ann
SEPTEMBER 1-3 Fayetteville Fine Arts Festival scheduled at Town Center.
September 17, there will be a meeting next September 17 at the Dayton Convention Center to "initiate a program to reinvent Dayton as The City of Peace." Efforts to designate cities of peace are important, for their challenge to cities to identify the criteria and to seek to meet them. Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville are Cities of Peace?
October 14-15, Dissident Folk Festival, Howland Cultural Center, Beacon, NY.
October
26-29, 2006 Kalamazoo, Michigan USA
International Conference on "ENGAGING THE
OTHER" The Power of Compassion,
international, multi-cultural,
multi-disciplinary conference examining concepts of "The OTHER" from a
universal, cross-cultural perspective to promote wider public dialogue about
concepts of "Us and Them"
www.cbiworld.org for full
details.
FAYETTEVILLE
OMNI’S WEB SITE
See OMNI’s home page for up-to-date statistics about Iraq and full contact info. for our Congressional Delegation.
NEW BOOKSTORE
At bottom of Archibald Yell at 557 S. School, # 103. Nigthbird Books is beautiful, and has a splendid bird enclosure. Go upstairs for Current Events: Carroll, House of War (Pentagon); Ahmed, The War on Truth; McLean and Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room (Enron); Carter, Our Endangered Values; Allison, Nuclear Terrorism; Bloom, Dying to Kill (suicide bombers); Benjamin, Stop the Next War Now; Blum, Rogue State (US foreign aggressions); etc.!
NWA
FREE TREES
Dick B has trees to give away or for donation to OMNI. Expand your canopy, reduce your lawn. Red bud, silver maple, blue spruce, oak.
CONTROVERSIAL BILLBOARD MESSAGE
“The owner of a billboard in Bentonville said…he had an anti-Wal-Mart ad removed because it was ‘controversial’.” (TMN 6-3). What might OMNI do to counteract such censorship? Do you have or do you know anyone who has a highway property, and would you/they give it to OMNI for a permanent “controversial” sign (peace and justice and species rights!)? Or sell?
GRASSROOTS MILITARISM: AIR FEST 2006
All over the U.S. (and Canada) every year Father’s Day is associated with patriotic air war through “Airfests.”. In Fayetteville its proceeds shrewdly benefit not only with the Ozark Military Museum and Angel Flight but also the Am. Cancer Society and American Heart Assoc. But of course air war is one of the two or three chief moral catastrophes of the modern world in its indiscriminate mass destruction of people, the land, and the creatures of the land. See Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon and James Carroll, House of War on WWII (chaps. One and Two).James Hou
ARKANSAS
Arkansas Senators Lincoln and Pryor voted against the gay marriage ban. Please thank them, by email through their web sites : http://lincoln.senate.gov/webform.html http://pryor.senate.gov/contact or by phone: Lincoln toll-free from AR - 1-800-352-9364, or various other numbers Pryor toll-free from AR - 1-877-259-9602, or other numbers
TMN endorsed this candidate for Lt. Gov.
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR LT. GOVERNOR: WOOLDRIDGE
OPPOSES Roe v. Wade, the
1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gives
women the right to choose an
abortion.
SUPPORTS a state law banning homosexuals from adopting
children.
SUPPORTS allowing student-led, voluntary prayer in
public schools.
SUPPORTS requiring all sex education programs
offered in public schools to teach only abstinence until
marriage.
OPPOSES "Hate-crimes" legislation that provides for
enhanced penalties for crimes committed because of a person?s sexual
orientation.
OPPOSES requiring all health facilities in
Arkansas to
dispense drugs such as the "morning-after-pill," which are designed to prevent
or terminate a pregnancy.
SUPPORTS preventing the advertising of
sexually oriented businesses on billboards. From Lindsley S
USA
BUSH
IMPEACH BUSH PSAs ON PEACE TRAIN http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/video From Jim H
“Charge Bush With War Crimes?” By Marjorie Cohn, Tue May 30th, 2006:: Human Rights Five months after the Haditha Massacre, in which Marines from Camp Pendleton allegedly went on a rampage and killed 24 unarmed civilians, including several young children, the mainstream media has jumped all over the story. Accusations of murder and a cover-up by the Marines are gaining traction in official circles. But no one is talking about whether Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be charged with war crimes for setting the conditions that led to this atrocity. Read my piece and let me know what you think. See House of War, a history of the Pentagon and the long preparation for wars and atrocities.
BUSH AND TORTURE
Amnesty
Compares Bush to Pinochet
AP
Wednesday 24 May 2006 (I have shortened the text,
D)
Amnesty International says President George Bush's
tactics in his fight against terrorists have made the United States comparable
to Augusto Pinochet's Chile and Hafez Assad's Syria in its acceptance of torture
and disregard of legal restraints….
Among Amnesty's
major condemnations of the US
was the use of civilian contractors - Amnesty estimated 25,000 in Iraq
alone.
"Outsourcing" unsavory jobs to largely
untrained contractors, without contractual restrictions or legal restraints
under military/civilian laws" has helped create virtually rule-free zoneS sanctioned with the
American flag and fire power", said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty
International USA.
In its annual report of human
rights conditions around the world, Amnesty included the US alongside China, Russia, Colombia, Uzbekistan and others as states that
claim anti-terrorism to justify gross
violations.
Amnesty officials, speaking in a news
conferences about release of the report in London
and Washington, had particularly harsh words for
the Bush administration.
"It's difficult to believe
that the United States government, which was once considered an exemplar of
human rights, has sacrificed its most fundamental principles by abusing
prisoners as a matter of policy, by disappearing detainees into a network of
prisons and by abducting and sending people for interrogation to countries that
practice torture," Cox said….
Amnesty also slammed European countries,
described in the report as "partners in crime" with the US by eroding civil
liberties and allowing terror suspects to be taken to countries where they might
risk torture, a practice known as rendition.
BUSH AGAINST LAWS: A PETITION FROM
SENATOR LEAHY
As you know, I am gathering
signatures on an online petition demanding an end to the Bush Administration's
arrogant and unprecedented practice of using presidential "signing statements"
to ignore the law. Thank you for signing my
petition!
No President has the
right to pick and choose what parts of the law he will follow -- especially a
President with a track record of misleading the American people.
George W.
Bush has issued more "signing statements" than all previous Presidents combined
-- over 750 all told. Liberal and conservative scholars of the
Constitution say that this arrogant practice is "scandalous," "wrong," and not
supported by mainstream interpretations of the
Constitution.
Now
invite your friends & family to sign my petition today -- Demand an end to
the Bush Administration's unconstitutional signing
statements.
Last Sunday, the
Boston
Globe
reported that this unconstitutional practice is being directed from the highest
echelons of the Administration -- the office of Vice President Cheney.
The
paper reports that Cheney's office routinely reviews every piece of legislation
passed by Congress, looking for provisions that conflict with his radical view
of unlimited executive power. Here is a link to the Boston Globe
article if you want to read more about this Dick
Cheney's power grab.
Sincerely, Patrick Leahy U.S. Senator (I shortened the letter.
D)
BUSH DISMISSES 750 LAWS
Bar
Group Will Review Bush's Legal Challenges
By
Charlie Savage
The Boston
Globe
Sunday 04 June
2006
Washington - The board of governors of the
American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether
President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right
to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office. See google for article or go to
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060506N.shtml
HARDENING REPRESSION AT
HOME
This
essay is worth reading about Bush’s increasingly anti-democratic
methods.
“Bush Brandishes Jail Time at Critics” By Robert Parry April 23, 2006 www.consortiumnews.com Over the past five-plus
years, the American people have gotten a taste of what a triumphant George W.
Bush is like, as he basked in high approval ratings and asserted virtually
unlimited powers as Commander in Chief. Now, the question is: How will Bush and
his inner circle behave when cornered?
Article Forwarded to me from Catholic Peace
Fellowship.
AND ABROAD: PENTAGON AGAINST INTERNATIONAL LAW
“Pentagon Plans to Dump Geneva Rules for Detainees” (TMN 6-5, from LA Times by Julian Barnes). “The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee polices a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that bans “humiliating and degrading treatment…a step that would mark a potentially permanent shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.” OMNI has a Human Rights Committee, and although we have been focused on the death penalty and police violence, we can embrace other subjects like this one if someone wishes to take the lead.
2004 ELECTION “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Rolling Stone June 1, 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060106R.shtml#a125
I know [this] article is extremely long, but it is also amazingly researched. Even if you don't have time to read the entire piece, please scan it and note the reference sites for you to check out. How have we come to this state and how can any future election be trusted? Joyce H
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
MEMORIAL DAY AND US WARS
What should we remember on Memorial Day? Here is Norman Solomon’s answer in “Media Memorial Day” from Truthout 5-29 (parts omitted D):
We remember that superficial news reports and commentaries, routinely describing war in flat phony antiseptic terms, are helpful to the US war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq - where the deaths of American troops, while horrific, are small in number compared to the civilian deaths as a result of daily slaughter catalyzed by US military activities.
We remember that each war death takes a precious life, and media outlets rarely convey more than surface accounts of the actual grief of loved ones left behind.
We remember that massive amounts of front-page space and unchallenged air time on television and radio are used by the president and other top administration officials, who speak glibly about patriotism and sacrifice while their long records of deception continue to underlie insistence that sacrificed lives must be honored by sacrificing more lives.
We remember that lies from the White House, widely parroted and commonly touted as credible by news media, have preceded every major US military action in the last five decades, including invasions of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq.
We remember that after the United States led the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia for 78 days in the spring of 1999, more than a few American journalists joined with Pentagon commanders to hype the fact that no American lives were lost in combat during that time - as if the killing of people on the ground was of scarcely any human consequence.
We remember that onslaughts of media spin followed by exuberant coverage of high-tech US air attacks can shift public sentiment drastically almost overnight. That's why opponents of reckless and deadly policies should draw little comfort from the Pew Research Center's mid-May report that at the moment "the American public strongly prefers non-military approaches to dealing with Iran's nuclear technology program," with just 30 percent in favor of "bombing military targets in Iran."
We remember that, no matter how much glorious rhetoric and how many chronic euphemisms are brought to bear on public opinion, most of war's victims are not - by any definition - combatants or enemies. As New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent, has pointed out, "In the wars of the 1990s civilian deaths constituted between 75 and 90 percent of all war deaths."
We remember that, although it received scant and fleeting US media coverage when released by the Lancet medical journal in late October 2004, a study using sample-survey techniques found that about 100,000 Iraqi deaths had occurred over an 18-month period as a result of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq - and, according to the study's data, more than half of those who died were women and children killed in air strikes.
DRAFT BILL IN CONGRESS
Universal National Service
Act of 2006 (Introduced in House) HR 4752 IH, February 14, 2006
109th
CONGRESS 2d Session H. R. 4752
To provide for the common defense by requiring
all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42
to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in
furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other
purposes. Mr. RANGEL
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed
Services
ECOLOGY, GLOBAL WARMING, CORPORATE CONTROL
OF INFORMATION
“Swift Boating the Planet” By PAUL KRUGMAN
For the full article go to: <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/
columnists/paulkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
A brief segment in "An Inconvenient Truth" shows Senator Al Gore questioning James Hansen, a climatologist at NASA, during a 1989 hearing. But the movie doesn't give you much context, or tell you what happened to Dr. Hansen later.
Dr. Hansen was one of the first climate scientists to say publicly that global warming was under way. In 1988, he made headlines with Senate testimony in which he declared that "the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now." When he testified again the following year, officials in the first Bush administration altered his prepared statement to downplay the threat. Mr. Gore's movie shows the moment when the administration's tampering was revealed.
In 1988, Dr. Hansen was well out in front of his scientific
colleagues, but over the years that followed he was vindicated by a growing body of evidence. By rights, Dr. Hansen should have been universally acclaimed for both his prescience and his courage. But soon after Dr. Hansen's 1988 testimony, energy companies began a campaign to create doubt about global warming, in spite of the increasingly overwhelming evidence. And in the late 1990's, climate skeptics began a smear campaign against Dr. Hansen himself.
--“An Inconvenient Truth” is receiving rave reviews. Will you lead on to get it shown here?
--ARCTIC DRILLING
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/155931/
Arctic drilling. Passed 225-201, a
bill (HR 5429 ) to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR ) to oil and
gas drilling. The bill, which awaits Senate action, would dedicate about 1. 5
million of the refuge.s 19 million acres to energy extraction, with actual
drilling and related functions covering 2, 000 acres. Don Young, R-Alaska, said:
.We should be drilling offshore. Some people don.t want that. We should be
drilling in the Rockies. They don.t want that.... So if you don.t want to drill
in those other areas, if you don.t want to burn coal, then at least recognize
the valuable oil resource in Alaska.. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N. Y., said: .The
proponents of this bill... point out that if this legislation had been passed 11
years ago, ANWR would now be producing oil. Well, I would point out that if
Congress had not blocked higher [vehicle ] fuel economy standards 11 years ago,
we would save far more oil than ANWR would produce.. A yes vote was to pass the
bill. . Berry (D ) Snyder (D ) . Boozman (R ) . Ross (D )
--GLOBAL WARMING
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/155931/
Failed 170-251, an amendment to increase
Federal Emergency Management Agency spending by $ 500, 000 for a study of the
effects of global warming on hurricanes and other weather patterns. This
occurred as the House approved a fiscal 2007 budget (HR 5441 ) of $ 32 billion
for the Department of Homeland Security. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said:
.Hurricanes are getting stronger, heat waves are hitting harder... and the polar
ice cap and Greenland.s ice are melting. Several weeks ago, the Northeast saw
some of the worst flooding in 70 years, and the strength of Hurricane Katrina
created a tragedy of biblical proportions. These examples of what climate change
can do tell us we must act now before another disaster hits A yes vote backed
the amendment. . Berry (D ) Snyder (D ) . Boozman (R ) .
Ross (D )
--CALIFORNIA ENERGY CONSUMPTION
“Energy: Wiser on the West Coast” By Christopher Palmeri Fri Jun 2, 8:08 AM ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20060602/bs_bw/tc20060602187912 From the article
Since California began aggressively pursuing energy efficiency in the mid-1970s, the state's per-capita electricity usage has remained flat at around 6,500 kilowatt-hours per person. In terms of carbon emissions, that's the equivalent of keeping 12 million cars off the road. From Nancy
WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION REDUCED
--By 5-4 vote the Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who expose official misconduct. New Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote. The action was supported by the Bush Admin. Whistleblowers are our watchdogs against corruption within the government (and corporations and other centers of power), just as investigative reporters examine wrongdoing from outside. Without them our corporate state would be decisively more corrupt . The ruling indicates the SC’s shift with the departure of Justice O’Connor and arrival of Alito, and it dramatizes again the confusion in the labels conservative and liberal, for the ruling strengthens big government against individual truthtellers. The chairman of the Naitonal Whistleblower Center said” “The ruling is a victory for every crooked politician in the United States.” (TMN 5-31).
--“An Ominous Decision for Whistle-Blowers” by Ann McFeatters (TMN 6-3, 12A): leads off with 12 important areas of government behavior we might never know about without W-B, follows with analysis of the Supreme Court ruling. The ACLU said the ruling “will encourage public employees to stay silent.” How should OMNI respond? As an organization? Give me your views. As individuals we can join the ACLU, the National Whistleblower Center, Government Accountability Project.
--OMNI has started a collection of books and films at UA's Mullins Library on whistleblowers.
FOR CHRISTIANS: CHRISTMAS IN JULY?
What can we do to develop spiritual resistance to the messages of a consumer Christmas that will start this summer? Who will be our leader for this?
VOTING RIGHTS
From the ACLU: Your help is urgently needed. Countless
Americans continue to be denied equal access to the ballot box, and now, as the
Voting Rights Act heads for renewal, a handful of lawmakers from Georgia
and Texas are trying to delay the process in an attempt to severely
weaken the landmark law that has protected the rights of millions of
minority voters from discrimination. Your
voice is needed now to keep the renewal process moving. Please contact
your representative in support of the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and
Coretta Scott King Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 (H.R.
9). If passed, this bill will
renew and restore the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act that protect
minorities from discrimination.
A final House vote on H.R. 9 is currently
scheduled for next week -- the week of June 12 -- so we need you to contact your
representative right now and urge him or her to protect voting rights
and oppose efforts to weaken the act and prevent it from moving
forward. Act now at:
http://action.aclu.org/vra
DEFENDING THE MEXICAN BORDER
An old issue, see: Timothy Dunn, The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border 1978-1992; Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home (1996). Many features of U.S. lic in Central Am. (human rights violations) also characterize the border war.
WORLD
-- “First Officer Announces Refusal to Deploy to Iraq” By Sarah Olson t r u t h o u t | Interview Wednesday 07 June 2006 Ehren Watada is a 27-year-old first lieutenant in the United States Army. He joined the Army in 2003, during the run-up to the Iraq war, and turned in his resignation to protest that same war in January of 2006. He expects to receive orders in late June. He is poised to become the first lieutenant to refuse to deploy to Iraq, setting the stage for what could be the biggest movement of GI resistance since the Vietnam War. He faces a court-martial, up to two years in prison for missing movement by design, a dishonorable discharge, and other possible charges. He says speaking against an illegal and immoral war is worth all of this and more. Journalist Sarah Olson spoke with Watada in late May about his reasons for joining the military, and why he wants out.
TMN (3-21) article by Charles Hanley of AP, “Elaborate Bases Raise Questions,” reports on 3 of the bases-- Balad Air Base, al-Asad, Tallil—and mentions a 4th—al-Qayyarah. Despite the desire of the Iraqi people for a timetable of withdrawal by U.S. troops, the US is building highly expensive, long-lasting bases there. Of the 2005-06 $1 billion military construction budget for Iraq, most of it is going to these bases. For example, al-Asad will receive $7.4 million for security construction around its 19 square miles, and $39 million for new airfield lighting, air traffic control, and other upgrades that include plugging into the Iraqi electricity grid, a sign of a long-term base. The bases reinforce “the U.S. presence in the oil-rich Mideast.” Gen. Anthony Zinni, former U.S. Mideast commander and a critic of the original U.S. invasion said the bases were a “stupid provocation,” when the majority of the Iraqi and the U.S. people oppose them.
By Shanker, Schmitt, and
Oppel. The New York Times, May 25 A military investigation into the deaths
of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of
marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians,
Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.
Two lawyers
involved in discussions about individual marines' defenses said they thought the
investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. Officials
briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at Haditha, a lawless, insurgent-plagued
city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, did not die from a makeshift bomb,
as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers,
as was later announced. A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events
were deliberately covered up. Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed
during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five
hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint,
and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children,
officials said. (this is the
opening of the article)
Collateral Damage: The "Incident at Haditha"
The
tragedy is eerily reminiscent of My Lai—and it shows how desperate U.S. Marines
in Iraq have become.
June
7, 2006
HADITHA PREPARED FOR: CONTINUITY
OF US ATROCITIES
TMN (6-2) published a Vic Harville cartoon of
Uncle Sam with two black eyes labeled “Haditha”and “My Lai”—and the caption,
“Another Comparison.”
Infinitely more correct would have been an Uncle Sam bruised and
lacerated, bones broken, but still breathing. My Lai was only one of many atrocities
committed by U. S. troops there (there may never be a full accounting). For example, the new book, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War
by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss tells about unprovoked murders of civilians
(called “gooks,” “slopes,” and “wogs”) by a platoon of the 101st
Airborne Division in 1967.
According to James Carroll in House of War: The Pentagon and the
Disastrous Rise of American Power, President Bush’s “responses to 9/11…were
prepared for by all that had been unfolding in one presidential administration
after another since 1943” (496).
This is what William Blum has been saying in his two books about some 40
aggressions by the U. S.since World War II –Rogue State and Killing Hope. In Carroll’s opinion, “The
U.S war in Iraq, in particular, is both the crime and the evidence. What the Bush administration has done
there is to lay bare the real character of the ‘disastrous rise’ of Pentagon
power of which Eisenhower warned in 1961” (498).
UK DESERTIONS
“At Least 1000 UK Soldiers Desert.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5024104.stm
MIDDLE EAST, MEDIA, NEWS, CRITICAL THINKING From FSTV
“Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception” by Danny Schecter. Not to be missed. For example, sections on “Information Dominance” about the invasion of Iraq and misinformation on US use of cluster bombs, fire bombs, “depleted” uranium shells; “Fox News Effect,” Fox pulling all other networks rightward; “Post-War War,” on deception of the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad by U.S. psych-ops, and the Abu Ghraib story held back by CBS while military shifted blame; “Views in the Arab World,” the truth-telling by Al Jazeera and U.S. attempts to discredit it; “Lessons Learned and Work to Do”: don’t trust mainstream media, resist jingoism posing as objective news; etc.
SPECIESISM
Respect for the rights of animals is enlarging. Many studies reported in magazines and films have revealed the intelligence and feelings of creatures, and many people are beginning to think in terms of “fellow creatures.” The recent film about dophin and orca is an outstanding example, in which we witnessed the murder and enslavement of these astonishingly keen and perception animals. “Human rights” is an insufficient concept in the minds of a growing number of people. In two full pages the latest no. of UUWorld denounced speciesism as another form of bigotry like xenophobia (UUs for Ethical Treatment of Animals “widen the circle of justice to include the rights of all species to a life free from cruelty in a habitable environment”).
OCEANS
--from Jay Harris, publisher of Mother …a new Mother Jones project that I think you will appreciate. It’s called “Ocean Voyager” –to make the assault on the oceans into a narrative that can energize new audiences on behalf of change. Find it at http://www.oceanvoyager.org. The genesis of Ocean Voyager is in Mother Jones’ reporting. In March this year, Mother Jones published a great package on the oceans that I hope you have seen (http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2006/03/oceans_index.html). The lead article, by Julia Whitty, tied the threads of multiple stories and scientific findings into a picture of marine ecology as a whole; she makes the case that we are rapidly approaching a tipping point as the result of industrial fishing, pollution, and climate change. Ocean Voyager is a five-part, email-based journey around the globe to visit ocean “hot spots.” Each segment reprises a particular ocean problem (fish piracy, for instance, or the role of fertilizer run-off in creating of ocean “dead zones”) and gives readers actions they can take to support solutions. In honor of World Oceans Day (June 8), I would ask you to please sign yourself up by clicking this link: http://www.oceanvoyager.org and forward this message to your email list.
PEACE EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY
Mag.Dr.Ronald H.Tuschl
Team of the EPU
European University Center for Peace Studies (EPU) Rochusplatz 1/Burg, A-7461 Stadtschlaining/Austria
phone: +43-3355-2498-515; fax: +43-3355-2381
mail: epu@epu.ac.at; web: www.epu.ac.at
Dear Peace friends,
It´s a great pleasure for us to present a brand new EPU Trimester Program in Peace & Conflict Studies. The next possible entry is in Spring 2007; the official application Deadline for both of the programs starting in Spring 2007 on 15 September 2006.
CONTACT YOUR
CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
--Senator Blanche Lincoln: Web Site (they
have contact links): www.lincoln.senate.gov; http://www.lincoln.senate.gov/index.cfm; http://www.lincoln.senate.gov/webform.html
Washington Office:355 Dirksen Senate Office
BuildingWashington, D.C. 20510-0404
Phone: (202) 224-4843 Fax: (202)
228-1371. Fayetteville office: 251-1380;.
--Senator
Mark Pryor: Web Site (see contact link): www.pryor.senate.gov ; http://pryor.senate.gov/contact/
Washington Office:217
Russell Senate Office BuildingWashington,
D.C. 20510-0403
Phone: (202) 224-2353 Fax: (202)
228-0908
Main District Office:700 W. Capitol, Rm. 2527 Little Rock, AR 72201
Phone: (501) 324-6336 Fax: (501)
324-5320
--Congressman John Boozman, District 3, 12 counties from Benton to Washington
Lowell office: 479-725-0400. 213 W. Monroe, Suite K, 72745. Steve Gray, coodinator of office. Web site (with contact link): http://www.boozman.house.gov/ Heath Hasenbeck, intern (one of them). Boozman's new office in Lowell is located at 213 West Monroe in Lowell between I 540 and Business 71. To reach that office take Exit 78 off I - 540 and go east. You will be on Hwy 264 which is also West Monroe. The office is in the Puppy Creek Plaza, past the McDonald's on the right. His suite is in the back of the complex to the left.
Ft. Smith office: 479-782-7787; 30 South 6th St. Rm 240, Ft. Smith 72901.
Harrison office: 870-741-6900; 402 N. Walnut, Suite 210, Harrison 72601.
DC address: 1708 Longworth House Office Bldng., Washington, DC 20515; 202-225-4301. Leslie Parker, appointments secretary: 202-225-4301.