WW News Service Digest #248
1) Cops & Bush team violated rights of inaugural protesters
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Anti-capitalists gear up for Quebec
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Activists call for moratorium on welfare cutoffs
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Growing movement demands: 'Stop U.S. star wars madness'
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Bush axes Kyoto environmental accords
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
IAC VS. UNITED STATES:
"COPS & BUSH TEAM VIOLATED RIGHTS OF INAUGURAL PROTESTERS"
By Brian Becker
Attorneys representing the International Action Center and
other organizations and individuals charged that the
Washington police force and federal law enforcement agencies
violated the free speech rights of protestors at the Jan. 20
counter-inaugural demonstration.
The J20 lawsuit represents a groundbreaking legal and
political effort to challenge the common use of
unconstitutional police tactics against progressive
political demonstrations throughout the United States.
"It is obvious to all the activists in the anti-
globalization and anti-racist movements that the police have
opted for a new strategy since Seattle that is aimed at
repressing this new movement before it blossoms into a
massive struggle," said Larry Holmes, a co-director of the
IAC.
Tens of thousands of people protested on Jan. 20 in
Washington against racist disenfranchisement and the death
penalty, in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, in defense of
women's rights and in opposition to George W. Bush's right-
wing program.
IAC, ET AL V. UNITED STATES
A long list of allegations of police misconduct was included
in the March 15 amended complaint to a federal lawsuit,
"International Action Center, et al v. The United States,"
which was originally filed in a U.S. District Court in the
days before the massive J20 demonstrations.
The suit charges that law enforcement agencies used
unconstitutional tactics, including "agents provocateurs"
who carried out unprovoked felonious assaults using pepper
spray on peaceful demonstrators; detained hundreds of people
before they reached the site of the demonstration at Freedom
Plaza; and allowed the Presidential Inaugural Committee to
take control of a security checkpoint to prevent or delay
protesters from approaching Freedom Plaza.
The suit charges that the police Civil Disturbance Units'
tactics on Jan. 20 included the "routine use of paramilitary
force and threat of force; mobile police and riot lines to
splinter groups ... administrative detention, false
imprisonment and false arrest in which the CDUs will, after
splintering groups, trap them on all sides, seize, detain
and arrest demonstrators in the absence of probable cause."
Lawyers from the Partnership for Civil Justice and the
National Lawyers Guild filed the amended lawsuit. The suit
was originally argued in a Jan. 18 hearing before U.S.
District Judge Gladys Kessler. The protest organizers had
gone to court charging that the police security plans for
the inaugural event were being used as a pretext to inhibit,
obstruct or prevent anti-Bush demonstrators from exercising
their right to free speech.
The judge ruled on Jan. 19 that the police security plan was
"constitutional" but insisted that the demonstrators be
given equal treatment with Bush supporters. While the tens
of thousands of anti-Bush demonstrators had an overwhelming
presence along the inaugural parade route, they encountered
a wide variety of police attacks on Jan. 20.
One of the most dramatic allegations in the amended
complaint charges that "agent provocateurs," presumably
undercover cops, unleashed a fierce, unprovoked attack along
the parade route at the Navy Memorial at 7th and D Street.
They pepper sprayed protesters directly in the eyes and
mouth. Many were injured in the attack that lasted several
minutes. Other plainclothes agents carried out unprovoked
beatings of demonstrators.
The pepper-spraying attack and beatings by undercover police
agents are graphically depicted in video footage taken by
demonstrators.
'WE CAN WIN!'
The lawyers and IAC representatives held a news conference
on March 15 to explain why they are going forward with the
free speech lawsuit. The Washington Post, Associated Press,
ABC-TV, ABC Radio and other media attended the news
conference.
"We are challenging the tactics, deployment and use of Civil
Disturbance Units by the D.C. Metropolitan Police
Department, acting in conjunction with federal law
enforcement authorities. People are being presumptively
treated as criminals merely because they are exercising
their constitutional right to demonstrate and express their
political views," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer
with the Partnership for Civil Justice.
Protest organizers contended in their original suit that the
checkpoints were not really about "presidential security"
but a pretext to prevent demonstrators from getting equal
access to the parade route.
In her Jan. 19 ruling, Judge Kessler allowed the government
to proceed with the use of a security plan that included the
unprecedented use of checkpoints designed to screen, frisk
and search hundreds of thousands of people outside of the
inaugural parade route.
But her ruling was explicitly premised on the guarantees
made by government attorneys that the rights of
demonstrators would not be violated.
Despite promises made by the government in the Jan. 18
federal court hearing, the amended suit charges that the
checkpoints were used to prevent demonstrators from gaining
access to Pennsylvania Ave.
"They turned control of the Freedom Plaza checkpoint over to
the Presidential Inaugural Committee. The PIC thereafter
refused to allow the checkpoint to open, even though other
checkpoints were open. This proves that the protesters'
concerns from the start were justified--these checkpoints
were solely to benefit the PIC, and the incoming president's
political allies," stated Carl Messineo of the Partnership
for Civil Justice.
The suit also charges that the police used unconstitutional
tactics that have been widely employed against other
demonstrations since the November 1999 Seattle anti-
globalization protests shook the political establishment.
On Jan. 20, for example, hundreds of demonstrators were
detained at 14th and K streets, NW, as they tried to march
from Dupont Circle to Freedom Plaza. Police sealed both ends
of the block and beat a number of people.
The same tactic was used against a legal demonstration
sponsored by the IAC last April 15. Nearly 700 people were
arrested at that action, which was calling for the freedom
of death-row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
"The police used very similar tactics in Washington, D.C.,
last spring, and at the two political conventions in
Philadelphia and Los Angeles last summer, and these tactics
were repeated on Jan. 20," Holmes noted.
"Every significant social movement can expect to meet such
resistance and repression from the system that serves the
interests of Wall Street corporations and the biggest banks.
"Our lawsuit is part of a larger political struggle to
overcome state-sponsored repression. We can win by combining
mass organizing of the people around the issues that are
vital to their lives while simultaneously mounting a
vigorous defense of our rights through the legal process,"
Holmes explained.
The outcome of the J20 lawsuit is seen in the progressive
legal community as an important step in the struggle to
combat the national assault on free speech rights.
"The National Lawyers Guild urges the media and the general
public, as well as our members, to monitor this case. We are
aware of similar attacks on free speech in other
jurisdictions, and fully support this lawsuit and other
efforts to defend the precious constitutional right of free
speech," concluded Zachary Wolf, national vice-president of
the NLG.
To obtain a copy of the amended lawsuit, visit the Web site
www.justiceonline.org. Send financial contributions to the
IAC Free Speech Fund, 39 West 14th St., Suite 206, New York,
New York 10011. To make an online contribution, visit the
Web site www.iacenter.org.
---
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
ANTI-CAPITALISTS GEAR UP FOR QUEBEC:
ALL OUT FOR A20!
By Sarah Sloan
In April 2001--one year after protests rocked the meetings
of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in
Washington--activists from the anti-globalization movement
will again rise up in protest outside a meeting of
capitalist vultures.
This time it's the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City,
Canada on April 20-22--a meeting of heads of state and trade ministers
representing every country in the Western Hemisphere except
socialist Cuba. There they will discuss the "Free Trade Area
of the Americas"--a politely named plan led by U.S. banks
and corporations to super-exploit the western hemisphere.
Thousands of people from all over Canada, the U.S. and the
world will converge in Quebec City and numerous other
cities, in what will be another manifestation of a worldwide
anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movement.
Border crossings and demonstrations will take place in
Cornwall, on the New York State border; northern Vermont;
Buffalo, New York; Tijuana, Mexico/San Diego, CA; and other
locations.
Look for the Workers World Party signs and banners at all of
these activities. Join in our contingents and help get the
word out about a planned, socialist alternative to the
profit-driven capitalist system.
The International Action Center will be organizing
transportation from a variety of cities as well as providing
other organizational and logistical support. Contact the IAC
at 212-633-6646 on the East Coast or 415- 821-6545 on the
West Coast; email [EMAIL PROTECTED]; or see
www.iacenter.org.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WALK, KIM, WALK:
ACTIVISTS CALL FOR MORATORIUM ON WELFARE CUTOFFS
By Berta Joubert-Ceci
'Walk, Kim, walk!" And so she did, in her trademark orange
suit and cap, under a rainy and cold Philadelphia sky,
heading toward the State Office Building for an afternoon
rally.
Kim Denmark, the Ohio activist who's been on the road for
welfare rights since 1999, spoke vehemently in support of
the new dimension she has added to the welfare campaign: a
moratorium on time limits and sanctions.
In a leaflet appeal she has been handing out, Denmark wrote,
"I am calling on President Bush, the U.S. Congress and all
the governors and states legislatures across the country to
declare a moratorium on the expiration of time limits for
the millions of people who depend upon public assistance for
their subsistence. Furthermore, I call on all those in power
to declare a moratorium on using sanctions to push people
off of public assistance.
"In the midst of all the gloating about how successful
welfare reform has been, I believe that the true magnitude
of homelessness and hunger caused by the strict sanctions
policies, time limits and other punitive measures mandated
by the 1996 law has yet to be measured."
She continued: "In thinking about this problem it's
important to bear in mind that the five years since
President Clinton signed the welfare reform have been years
of economic prosperity in this country. It appears that the
prosperity is coming to an end as the stock market heads
south, and the announcement of layoffs continues to mount.
"We must ask ourselves, when dark clouds are gathering over
the economy, is this a time to be racing to see how many
people we can push into utter destitution? Indeed, is this
not a time when the so-called safety net is likely to be
needed the most? Should we even be considering granting a
trillion-dollar-plus tax break that will disproportionately
benefit the wealthy at such a time? It's time for the
government to stop beating up on the poorest in society."
This was also the topic she raised in an impromptu interview
with the city's main daily newspaper, the Philadelphia
Inquirer. Since the paper--located one block from the rally
site--did not send a reporter, the demonstrators marched to
its offices to demand an interview.
After a few minutes of negotiations involving supporter
State Senator Shirley Kitchen, Denmark met with reporters
from the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and associate
editors of both newspapers.
Accompanying Denmark to this meeting were Kitchen, Pam
Africa--a leader of International Concerned Family & Friends
of Mumia Abu-Jamal--and this reporter.
After the interview the activists went to the hall of
Service Employees Local 668 where the local's president, Ray
Martínez, welcomed Denmark. A spirited speak-out ensued at
the dinner/reception held there.
Martínez spoke of the role of his union in the progressive
struggle, including its support for ousting the U.S. Navy
from the Puerto Rican island of Vieques and freedom for Abu-
Jamal.
Africa gave a thorough update of Abu-Jamal's case.
Workfairness activist William Mason spoke of the struggle in
his home state, New York.
The groups One Day At A Time, Mothers on the Move,
International Action Center and Peoples Video Network, along
with progressive individuals, signed the call for a
moratorium on welfare cutoffs.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
GROWING MOVEMENT DEMANDS:
"STOP U.S. STAR WARS MADNESS!"
By Dianne Mathiowetz
Huntsville, Ala.
Activists from around the country traveled to Huntsville,
Ala., home of the Army's Redstone Arsenal and NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center. They traveled there in mid-
March for three days of meetings and protests called by the
Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
Much of the development for the space-based laser, a key
component of the Bush plan for a national missile defense
system, is being conducted here.
The conference participants included many who have spent
years researching and mobilizing against nuclear weaponry.
Also there were Huntsville residents, like the young mother
who brought her child because she wanted a peaceful future
for her daughter.
Speakers drew comparisons to the burgeoning anti-
globalization movement that is sweeping the world with its
direct action protests. Person after person raised examples
to illustrate how giant military-industrial corporations
such as Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon and TRW are
getting multi-billion-dollar contracts to develop space
weaponry to establish U.S. military control of the planet.
Speakers such as Professor Karl Grossman, author of numerous
articles and a recent book on the militarization of space,
cited official documents released by the U.S. Space Command
and Congress to show that the stated goal of the United
States is "dominating the space dimension of military
operations to protect U.S. interests and investment."
Treaties, such as the Outer Space Treaty, originally adopted
in 1966 and reaffirmed Nov. 20, 2000, by 163 nations,
specifically forbid the introduction of weapons in space.
Only three countries--the U.S., Israel and Micronesia--
refused this past fall to support this resolution which
"recognized the common interest of all mankind in the
exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes."
Interestingly, the U.S. helped develop this treaty following
the 1957 launching of Sputnik, the first artificial
satellite to circle the Earth, by the Soviet Union. It was
an attempt by the U.S. to curb space exploration by others
until it gained dominance in the field.
Instead the U.S. has spent over $95 billion so far in
numerous attempts to develop space-based lasers and other
weapons that will operate through and from space.
These include satellites that can provide 24-hour global
surveillance of communication and monitor and impact weather
conditions on earth. They can also detect human movement and
concentrations of metals, water, heat and natural resources
on and below the earth's surface.
According to Bill Sulzman, director of Citizens for Peace in
Space, a Colorado Springs, Co. group, the U.S. Space Command
is "readying itself to be the enforcement arm for the global
economy."
As current proof of that, Peter Lunsdaine of the Vandenberg
Action Coalition pointed to the role of Vandenberg Air Force
base in Santa Barbara County, Calif.
>From this base, the largest facility in the world of the
U.S. Space Command, surveillance and targeting satellites
are being launched that provide military intelligence for
the defoliation spray planes that are devastating large
areas of Colombia. This massive, poisonous defoliation is
being used to side with that country's elite in its war
against the millions of impoverished workers and peasants
who are fighting for justice.
Lunsdaine encouraged support for the May 19 direct action at
Vandenberg where like the peaceful occupation of the island
of Vieques, activists concerned with human rights and peace
will converge to challenge and disrupt business as usual at
the base.
Just as consistent and persistent actions at Ft. Benning,
Ga., exposed the role of the School of the Americas in the
violent repression of the peoples of Central and South
America by U.S.-trained and supplied militaries, Landsdaine
said the May 19 action will focus attention to the fact that
information from the intelligence and guidance satellites
launched at Vandenberg is used to direct counter-insurgency
operations from Turkey to Indonesia to Colombia.
For more information, contact the Vandenberg Action
Coalition at (831) 421-9794 or go to
www.geocities.com/vafb_m19/
According to Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network
Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, grassroots
groups all around the world are mobilizing to stop U.S.
efforts to turn space into a war zone. The network has
issued an international call for coordinated actions around
the world on Oct. 13, 2001, demanding the end to the
militarization of space. Suggested sites for local actions
include U.S. military bases, Department of Energy
facilities, NASA installations, U.S. embassies and offices
of aerospace industry corporations or academic institutions
working on military space projects.
For more information, go to www.space4peace.org or call
(352) 337-9274.
The Huntsville conference was another sign that more and
more, the issues of economic and social and political
justice in each country are intertwined with and impacted by
U.S. military domination--whether by conventional weapons
and troops on the ground or by the threat of nuclear bombs
or by the control of outer space.
Gagnon concluded, "The people of the U.S., the people of the
world, must learn what the U.S. is up to--and stop it."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
BOWING TO BIG OIL:
BUSH AXES KYOTO ENVIRONMENTAL ACCORDS
By Deirdre Griswold
George W. Bush is on a collision course with the
environmental movement around the world. The president's
announcements that he will oppose regulating greenhouse gas
emissions and that he will support oil drilling in the
fragile wildlife preserves of arctic Alaska have elicited
condemnation from all and cries of betrayal from those who
had taken his campaign promises for good coin.
Bush's long relationship with the giant oil conglomerates
preordained these moves. As former Secretary of Labor Robert
Reich said in an op-ed column in the New York Times of March
18, "It's payback time, and every industry and trade
association is busily cashing in." The oil giants own many
of the coal companies and utilities that burn coal to
produce power, emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide gas
in the process.
This move means that "the polluters are in control of the
White House," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director for
the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
Of course, Bush didn't say anything about paying back the
corporate sponsors who had donated heavily to his campaign.
A letter to four Congress members that laid out his stance
instead blamed the switch on "high energy prices" and
claimed there was an "incomplete state of scientific
knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate
change."
Bush is being less than honest. He and the corporate groups
leaning on him--like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the
National Association of Manufacturers, and the deceptively
named Global Climate Coalition--must know that a team of
British scientists has found absolute proof of the
greenhouse gas theory.
NEW SATELLITE PROOF OF GREENHOUSE EFFECT
Up until now, projections of global warming caused by a
human-produced layer of carbon dioxide blanketing the Earth
have been based on computer simulations. Now a comparison of
satellite observations taken 27 years apart has proven the
existence of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.
Calling their work "the first experimental observation of
changes in the Earth's outgoing long-wave radiation
spectrum, and therefore the greenhouse effect," team leader
John Harries said, "We're absolutely sure, there's no
ambiguity. What we are seeing can only be due to the
increase in the gases." Harries was president of Britain's
Royal Meteorological Society from 1996 to 1997.
This study, reported in the science journal Nature, merely
proves again what scientists have agreed on for some time
now. Changes in climate have become so unmistakable that the
UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted
a dramatic rise in the Earth's temperature by the end of
this century.
The evidence was already so strong in 1997 that the U.S.
government signed the Kyoto Accord, which agreed that global
warming was a grave problem. The accord committed its
signers, particularly the industrialized countries, to
reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by the
year 2007.
Given the threat, this is a modest goal. But Bush's
announcement was a death knell for Kyoto. The U.S., with 4
percent of the world's population, creates 25 percent of the
greenhouse gases. There can be no meaningful international
agreement without U.S. participation.
Bush's turnabout from his campaign promises was so abrupt
that it caught the head of the Environmental Protection
Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, by surprise. She had just
been in Europe assuring the environment ministers of the G-7
countries that the new U.S. administration supported a limit
on greenhouse gases.
True to her own conservative, big business-friendly
political history, however, Whitman quickly adapted to the
new administration line.
CLIMATOLOGISTS PREDICT FLOODS, DROUGHT FOR U.S.
While this little political charade was being acted out, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was
predicting damaging floods and drought in vast sections of
the U.S. this spring. Deep snow pack and heavy rains are
likely to cause flooding in sections of the Northeast and
Central states, while water shortages are expected to
continue in the Northwest and Florida.
The drought in the Northwest has contributed to California's
power crisis, although the power companies have exaggerated
the crisis to push up prices. Bush then uses the excuse of
these high-energy prices to ax the Kyoto Accord. But global
warming will only increase the freaky weather conditions
that are leading to drought and floods.
A report by the group Redefining Progress has found that the
communities most affected by climate change will be low-
income, especially with people of color. Ansje Miller, the
group's manager for environmental justice, said Bush's
decision "will have serious detrimental effects on the lives
of millions of people in this country."
It is already a life-and-death issue for low-lying countries
around the world like Bangladesh, Mozambique and island
nations in the Caribbean and South Pacific.
GERMANY HAS HYDROGEN-FUELED CAR
Meanwhile, breakthroughs in technology already offer ways to
avert global warming. The German auto manufacturer BMW has
produced a car that runs on hydrogen instead of gasoline and
produces no air pollution of any kind--no particles and no
carbon dioxide.
This prototype can cruise over 200 miles at speeds above 100
miles an hour on a tank of hydrogen and can be refueled in
four minutes. Engineers say it is as safe as a gasoline
engine. The technology could also be adapted for power
generation. European Ford, based in Germany, has also
unveiled a hydrogen-fueld car.
Why were these German companies the ones to make this
breakthrough, and not Ford or General Motors in the U.S.?
GERMANY HAS NO OIL.
U.S. capitalists, on the other hand, have a lock on most of
the world's oil production and profits. The entire
architecture of U.S. policy in the Middle East, including
more than five decades of building up Israel as a regional
military power at the expense of the Palestinians and other
Arab people, rests on the central role of oil to U.S. big
business. George Bush senior and the Pentagon showed their
commitment to the oil companies when they launched the Gulf
War against Iraq.
But the Democrats, too, do the bidding of big business even
if they speak in somewhat more popular language. While Bill
Clinton signed the Kyoto Accord, his administration did
nothing to implement it. And his policy toward Iraq and
Israel varied little from that of the Republicans.
This is what has to be grasped by those environmentalists
who have spent years trying to reason with the U.S.
capitalist class, demonstrating to them the great dangers of
global warming, and now are aghast at what is happening
under the Bush administration. The problem is not that this
president is a dodo. It is that the whole political
machinery that produced Bush is tied irrevocably to the
billionaire ruling class. And they are not in the mood to
agree to a gigantic retooling of industry--especially not
when a worldwide capitalist recession is looming.
Their concern is with undercutting imperialist rivals--like
Germany--by taking advantage of their weaknesses. They will
play their oil card as long as it is trump.
The degradation of the planet is yet one more urgent reason--
in addition to all the miseries inflicted on the workers and
the oppressed nations--why everyone has a stake in building
a fighting movement to liberate society from capitalist
ownership and control.
