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Saturday, September 24, 2005

The week in review (September 18-24)

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Vol. 1 No. 29
Saturday, September 24, 2005



FROM THE EDITOR

(0) The week in review

THIS WEEK'S NEWS

(1) Anti-war rally to be a first for many
(2) Antiwar protesters going on offense
(3) ACLU sues Homeland Security for arresting, spying on vegans
(4) ACLU targets abstinence-only programs
(5) Sheehan's anti-war campaign reaches DC
(6) Sheehan caravan stopped by police
(7) Protesters draw link between Katrina and Iraq war
(8) Baker-Carter commission recommends national voter ID card
(9) Sheehan anti-war tour lands in New York

THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARY

(10) Gitmo's passive resisters
(11) The anti-war moment
(12) Trial of the St. Patrick's Four, Day 1
(13) The Cindy Sheehan peace train
(14) Sheehan takes on the Democrats
(15) Time to also march on the media?
(16) NYPD unplugs Sheehan
(17) Sit down in DC
(18) How the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is rigging 2008
(19) Far cry from Vietnam
(20) Seeking real resistance to the war
(21) The Gitmo hunger srikers
(22) Government failure, private success
(23) Failed hurricane response is an opportunity for libertarians
(24) Watch out
(25) New Orleans, Katrina and the government response
(26) Lessons from the debacle
(27) Today, the anti-war movement goes on trial
(28) Hunger strike against censorship
(29) Katrina and the battered statist syndrome
(30) The same old played out schemes
(31) Don't be surprised who shows up in New Orleans
(32) Blank check for tyranny
(33) How government agencies would respond to Katrina
(34) The feds confront the anti-war movement

ACTIONS

(35) Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
(36) Shame Utah for Rave Bust
(37) Petition: Shield Journalists and Whistleblowers

FROM THE EDITOR

(0) The week in review

This week's activism story: the anti-war 'peace train' ... Sheehan is 'unplugged' by the NYPD (didn't get the right kind of gov't permit to exercise First Amendment rights) but the peace train chugs on to DC, where the caravan is stopped by police to 'check for bombs'. In DC, the caravan merged with other anti-war activists from all over the country for the long planned 'big rally' at the Mall ... organizers estimate crowds of 100,000 or more. (Of course, no matter how many are there, we all know the numbers will be 'downplayed' ... as Danny Schechter says, is it 'Time to also march on the media?'.

In other activism this week, over 200 of the prisoners at Gitmo continue their hunger strike (the gov't is force feeding 16 of them) ... "After three-plus years in confinement, only four of the 504 prisoners have been charged with a crime and none knows what will happen next or when - if ever - he will be released." ('Gitmo's passive resisters'); the second trial of the St. Pat Four continues; the ACLU sues Homeland Security for arresting, spying on vegans and targets abstinence-only programs; and the Baker-Carter commission recommends national voter ID card while fair election advocates warn that ' the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is rigging 2008'.

The extent of the gov't incompetence (or malfeasance) in the Katrina tragedy is beginning to sink in even to the sheeple and the statists ... and, as several columnists point out, the 'Government failure, private success ' in the 'Failed hurricane response is an opportunity for libertarians' .... if we learn the right ' Lessons from the debacle '.

In humor this week don't miss Brad Rodriquez' blog entry 'How government agencies would respond to Katrina' ... truly a small gem (and, sadly, not too far fectched...)

Two new 'actions' this week .... 'Shame Utah for Rave Bust ' and a 'Petition to Shield Journalists and Whistleblowers'; and a wonderful resource for all of us 'cyberactivists' ... Reporters without Borders downloadable 'Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents '.

Til next week

For freedom!

Mary Lou



THIS WEEK'S NEWS

(1) Anti-war rally to be a first for many
Source: Washington Post


"The seasoned protesters who organized tomorrow's antiwar demonstration are well-versed in many other causes. They have marched and rallied against police brutality, racism, colonialism and the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. But their message on the Mall tomorrow will be singular: "End the war in Iraq." Because of that sharp focus, they will be joined by novice protesters such as Patrice Cuddy, 56. Interviewed by phone yesterday, the former public school teacher in Olathe, KS, said she had to pull off her gardening gloves each time a neighbor interrupted her yardwork to ask about joining the bus she had chartered to go to the nation's capital. .... Organizers say that similar busloads of teachers, nurses, housewives and others with little experience in mass protest are coming from Wisconsin, New Mexico, Illinois, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio and many other states. "This demonstration will reflect, by far, the most diverse group of antiwar protesters since before the war began," said Brian Becker, national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, one of the event's sponsors. "We have people coming from all political persuasions, including a very large number of people who have never before been part of the antiwar movement or protest activity.'" (09/23/05)


Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/22/AR2005092202186.html

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(2) Antiwar protesters going on offense
Source: MSNBC


"Antiwar groups are using a $1 million ad campaign and a demonstration they say will attract 100,000 people to try to re-energize their movement and pressure the Bush administration to bring troops home from Iraq. Organizers of Saturday’s protest, which will take marchers past the White House, say it will be the largest since the war began more than two years ago. Cindy Sheehan, the woman who drew thousands of protesters to her 26-day vigil outside President Bush’s Texas ranch last month, is among those planning to participate." (09/22/05)


Link: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9442386/

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(3) ACLU sues Homeland Security for arresting, spying on vegans
Source: The Raw Story


"The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal lawsuit in Atlanta on behalf of two vegan protesters who were subjected to imprisonment, arrest and harassment by Homeland Security officials, RAW STORY has learned. The lawsuit stems from a Dec. 2003 incident, when vegans Caitlin Childs and Christopher Freeman were protesting on public property outside a Honey Baked Ham store in Georgia's DeKalb County. After the protest, the duo noticed they were being watched and photographed by a man in an unmarked car. They approached the car and wrote down the make, model, color and license plate number on a piece of paper. They then noticed the unmarked car was following them." (09/22/05)


Link: http://tinyurl.com/c2242

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(4) ACLU targets abstinence-only programs
Source: Washington Times


"The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday began a campaign to urge officials in 18 states to reject abstinence-only sex-education programs. Many abstinence programs contain false or misleading information, discriminate against homosexual youth and promote religion, ACLU leaders said, citing a December report issued by Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat. The effort began as Maine announced that it had become the third state to reject federal abstinence-education funding, because of new rules that conflict with state policy. Maine officials said this week that they will forgo a grant offered through the 1996 welfare-reform law because it must be used for abstinence programs and because they prefer comprehensive sex education. They used the grants for abstinence ad campaigns before the rules change." (09/22/05)


Link: http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050921-102450-1568r.htm

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(5) Sheehan's anti-war campaign reaches DC
Source: Detroit Free Press


"Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan pledged Wednesday to 'force change to happen' during protest speeches outside the White House and Capitol. Sheehan arrived in Washington after a three-week cross-country bus tour that began near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. She is expected to participate in an anti-Iraq war rally Saturday that organizers hope could draw tens of thousands of people." (09/21/05)


Link: http://tinyurl.com/cfakh

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(6) Sheehan caravan stopped by police
Source: Village Voice


"At just past noon on Wednesday, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the Bring Them Home Now tour were stopped by a pair of squad cars two blocks from the U.S. Capitol by members of the Capitol police force. Officers explained that they wanted to use bomb-sniffing dogs to inspect the caravan of three RVs and several cars. The officers said it was standard practice to inspect large vehicles in the area. “RVs aren't allowed on Capitol Hill,' one said. 'That's standard procedure. Any trucks that come on Capitol Hill are stopped and turned around.' Campers aren't allowed at all, the officer said, 'unless they've been previously authorized.' Officers told the peace activists they couldn't park at the Capitol because they don't have the proper permits. Sheehan and company then began preparing to make the rest of the trek on foot." (09/21/05)


Link: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0538,fergusonweb2,68087,2.html

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(7) Protesters draw link between Katrina and Iraq war
Source: Yahoo! News


President George W. Bush's faltering performance after Hurricane Katrina, like his decision to invade
Iraq, show his priorities are at odds with actions needed to keep Americans safe, anti-war protesters said on Monday. "One of the bogus reasons that George Bushgives for this invasion (and) occupation of Iraq is to make America safer -- and Katrina exposed that clearly he has made America more vulnerable through his policies in Iraq," anti-war activist and bereaved mother Cindy Sheehan told a morning news conference. U.S. troops fighting an unexpectedly stubborn insurgency in Iraq should come home to help face domestic challenges like the unprecedented humanitarian relief and recovery effort on the Gulf Coast, said the activists, who will stage a march on Washington this weekend." (09/19/05)


Link: http://tinyurl.com/8yz4n

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(8) Baker-Carter commission recommends national voter ID card
Source: Raw Story


"A voting reform commission which has already taken heat for playing host to sham voting rights groups run by members of the Bush-Cheney campaign has now recommended the institution of a national voter ID card. ... Among other major recommendations, the commission calls for voter verifiable paper trails for electronic voting machines, and elections run by nonpartisan officials rather than party-affiliated secretaries of state." (09/19/05)


Link: http://tinyurl.com/78u36

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(9) Sheehan anti-war tour lands in New York
Source: NewsDay


"Cindy Sheehan brought her anti-war message to a Brooklyn church last night, earning thunderous applause while urging her supporters to help press Congress to end the war in Iraq. 'We are just doing what we believe is right,' Sheehan told 400 people at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene -- the latest stop on the national Bring Them Home Now tour that will culminate with a massive protest in Washington Saturday through next Monday." (09/19/05)


Link: http://tinyurl.com/8dx4t

THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARY

(10) Gitmo's passive resisters
Source: Baltimore Sun
Author: staff


"The numbers are in dispute, but the fact remains: Dozens of men imprisoned at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are starving themselves. At least 16 are in the infirmary, being tube-fed sustenance to prevent their deaths. It's an ugly reaction to an ugly fact: They are being mistreated by the United States. After three-plus years in confinement, only four of the 504 prisoners have been charged with a crime; none knows what will happen next or when - if ever - he will be released. At least some have been brutalized by their captors. Many are invisible to the world, their names never released to the public or their families. Many apparently have lost faith in their fellow man, or at least Americans. As one told his lawyer last month, "Look, I'm dying a slow death in this place as it is. I don't have any hope of fair treatment, so what have I got to lose?" (09/23/05)

Link: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.gitmo23sep23,1,4635940.story

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(11) The anti-war moment
Source: Common Dreams
Author: Mark Engler


"Growing public dissatisfaction; rumblings in Congress against indefinite occupation; expressions of organized resistance. These three factors represent the pillars of opposition to the war in Iraq. Each can fortify the others, and together they could well grow strong enough to force an ignominious U.S. exit from our country's newest imperial outpost. But while the first two pillars have been holding their weight recently (Bush's approval ratings are at historic lows, and nascent Congressional hearings have been called to discuss potential exit strategies), the peace movement has lately seemed to be missing altogether. Come this weekend that will change. With large crowds amassing just outside the White House, led by the likes of Cindy Sheehan, George W. Bush will once again have "hit the trifecta.'" (09/23/05)

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0923-34.htm

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(12) Trial of the St. Patrick's Four, Day 1
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Lucia Dailey


"This second trial at the behest of federal officials was not completely unexpected by the defendants and their families. Marie De Mott Grady said her family was not entirely surprised when four FBI agents came to her parents' home to serve papers with new charges, the most serious being "conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States." After the first trial they didn't think "the matter was going to be dropped." Although not entirely unexpected, she said, it still came "like a stroke out of the blue." The new charges carry extremely harsh penalties of up to six years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines for each defendant. Several lesser charges were filed also against the four. The trial venue was moved from Ithaca to Binghamton, NY where Judge Thomas McAvoy has forbidden mention of the Iraq war in the proceedings thus scuttling the defense the Four used with success in their first trial and preventing them from explaining why they protested as they had on March 17, 2003. "This court offers no opinion on the war in Iraq as it is entirely irrelevant to the matter," the judge said." (09/22/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/dailey09222005.html

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(13) The Cindy Sheehan peace train
Source: National Review
Author: Byron York


"It's not easy staging a cross-country antiwar protest, even a tiny cross-country antiwar protest. Just ask the organizers of Cindy Sheehan's 'Bring Them Home Now' tour, which rolled into Washington Wednesday, starting with a hassle with police near the Capitol and ending with a minor traffic accident just a few yards from the White House. It was that kind of day." (09/22/05)

Link: http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200509220828.asp

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(14) Sheehan takes on the Democrats
Source: Village Voice
Author: Kristen Lombardi


"Sheehan isn't stopping her critique with Bush. On the contrary, she has begun to set her sights on Congress and the Democratic Party as well. When she spoke in Brooklyn on the night before, she took note of the fact that Senator Hillary Clinton voted to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq and -- like most Senate Democrats -- has done little to bring the troops home. Clinton, in fact, has filed legislation calling for more troops. In an interview after her speech, Sheehan told the Voice she was 'so frustrated' by leading Democrats like Clinton 'who should be leaders on this issue, but are not.' Already, she has set up a future meeting with New York's junior senator this weekend. And she plans to sit down with the state's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, too. 'It's time for them to step up and be the opposition party,' she said." (09/20/05)

Link: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0538,lombardiweb,68015,2.html

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(15) Time to also march on the media?
Source: Common Dreams
Author: Danny Schechter


"But, notice, how once again, most of the energy is aimed only at government, at the White House, at Bush and his boys (and girl, Ms. Condoleezza.) They are the targets but, alas, they are only part of the problem. With so many activists coming to town, and some staying for Monday, why not split them up into teams and smaller marches and bring some popular fury to other government institutions and interests that are complicit in the war and the policies that activists want to oppose. Where is the march on the media? The media is the front face of the corporate interests who stage mange the government. In an age of globalization, challenging corporate power is essential." (09/21/05)

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0921-31.htm

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(16) NYPD unplugs Sheehan
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Joshua Frank


"They can't stop the antiwar movement, but that doesn't mean they aren't trying. On Monday Sept. 19, Cindy Sheehan spoke in New York City's Union Square to a group of supporters and onlookers when police rushed in to break up her speech as it was winding down. 'I was speaking and someone grabbed my backpack and pulled me back pretty roughly,' Sheehan told the Associated Press. 'I was shoved around.' Police arrested organizer Paul Zulkowitz, who was charged with disorderly conduct as well as for using an unauthorized sound device. ... There is no question that the New York Police Department overreacted. I can't tell you how many times I've personally shuffled through Union Square where musicians and others were plugged into (unauthorized, I am sure) amplifiers singing their tunes or spewing their political propaganda. And never once I have I seen a police officer run in and pull the Bob Dylan or Abbie Hoffman wannabe from his microphone. No, there's a reason why they targeted Cindy Sheehan and not these fellows." (09/21/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/frank09212005.html

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(17) Sit down in DC
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Mike Ferner


"If nonviolent direct action is the most powerful tool we have to stop this war, what is the best time to exercise it? When a few hundred people surround the White House on September 26 for an orchestrated civil disobedience activity, or when a half-million (and more) people are in the streets September 24?" (09/21/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/ferner09212005.html

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(18) How the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is rigging 2008
Source: Free Press
Author: Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman


"The stolen elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004 are nowhere to be found in the milquetoast Carter-Baker Report now passing for wisdom on America's broken electoral system. And unless the public is ready to face the reality that we no longer live in a nation with credible elections, the 2008 balloting is all but over." (09/20/05)

Link: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1462
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(19) Far cry from Vietnam
Source: Pacific News Service
Author: Sanford Gottlieb


"Today's temperate anti-Iraq War movement is a far cry from the turbulent one that mobilized during Vietnam. But it has the potential to be more effective. Big marches on Washington are mostly a thing of the past, although two activist coalitions will sponsor one on Sept. 24. The Internet has replaced them. ... As mainstream support for the Iraq war dissolves, antiwar activists find themselves in a very different position from their Vietnam War counterparts. Can this momentum be sustained, and focused into concrete demands on when and how to pull out from Iraq? One rallying point may be a resolution, introduced in the House by two Republicans and two Democrats, calling for troop withdrawal to begin no later than Oct. 1, 2006." (09/20/05)

Link: http://tinyurl.com/djwqs

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(20) Seeking real resistance to the war
Source: Common Dreams
Author: Gordon Clark


"Nonviolence, and specifically nonviolent resistance, is probably the single most misunderstood concept in the peace movement. Many committed peace activists believe that nonviolence means simply the absence of violence. Others now use the terms 'protest' and 'resistance' interchangeably, as if they were equivalent. The mass nonviolent resistance action being planned for the White House on September 26th, at the culmination of the upcoming anti-war mobilizations in Washington DC (see below), is still a rarity in a movement which regards Gandhi and King as heroes, yet which rarely discusses nonviolence as a central component of our strategies -- even though it is at the core of everything Gandhi and King taught and practiced." (09/20/05)

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0920-24.htm

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(21) The Gitmo hunger srikers
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Mike Whitney


"I have a word of advice I would like to offer Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon chieftains who currently preside over the 200 or more hunger-strikers at Guantanamo Bay, 20 of whom are near death. For God's sake, let them die. What more could you possibly want from them? They've already provided you with the subjects you needed for your newly-perfected sense-deprivation techniques and your sadistic methods of torture. They supplied you with the lab-rats for your new drugs, your improved methods of psychological torment, and your sexually-deviant abuses. Now, let them die. The experiment is over. Show that there is some speck of humanity left in your withered heart by allowing these men to pass away with dignity; the dignity you deprived them of in life." (09/20/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09202005.html

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(22) Government failure, private success
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Author: Michael Tanner


"While the response to hurricane Katrina has uncovered failures of government at every level -- federal, state, and local -- it has also revealed again the amazing generosity and effectiveness of America's private charitable efforts. ... As we hear calls for a 'compassionate' response to the victims of this tragedy, it is important to remember that you can't be compassionate with other people's money. This difference is as simple as the difference between my reaching into my pocket for money to help someone in need and my reaching into your pocket for the same purpose. The former is charity -- the latter is not. Moreover, private charity has long been recognized as more effective and efficient than government welfare programs. Local churches and community groups are the best positioned to understand the needs in their respective areas, and can direct money or services to where they are most useful." (09/20/05)

Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0920/p09s02-coop.html

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(23) Failed hurricane response is an opportunity for libertarians
Source: Liberty For All
Author: Phil Jacobson


"The ongoing disaster to the US Gulf coast, will have serious consequences for US politics. Libertarians will have a rare opportunity to exploit the policy failures of current and past regimes. But we may not be well prepared to take full advantage, by offering well-considered alternatives. Over a span of decades, the political pendulum in the USA tends to swing back and forth between 'progressive' and 'conservative' forces (I put these terms in quotes because actual regimes, while always claiming to follow some variety of one or the other of these ideologies, are in fact based on opportunism - though they typically get knee-jerk support from true adherents)." (09/20/05)

Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/2005/sept30/response.html

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(24) Watch out
Source: Truthout
Author: Cindy Sheehan


"This week I arrive in Washington DC to begin my Vigil at the White House just like I did in Texas. But this time I'll be joined by Katrina victims as well. In your America we are all victims. The failed bookends of your Presidency are Iraq and Katrina. It is time for all of us to stand up and be counted: to show the media, Congress, and this inept, corrupt, and criminal administration that we mean business. It is time to get off of our collective behinds to show the people who are running our country into oblivion that we will stand for it no longer. That we want our country back and we want our nation's young people back home, safe and sound, on our shores to help protect America. That it is time for a change in our country's "leadership." That we will never go away until our dreams are reality." (09/19/05)

Link: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091905Z.shtml

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(25) New Orleans, Katrina and the government response
Source: The Libertarian Enterprise
Author: Herself


"The national perception has been that New Orleans was a sort of wide-open dive, filled with strippers and queens, butch lesbians, hustlers, mad masquers of all sort. And now it is being raided, in precisely the manner of a Vice raid on a dive. The Mayor's ordered all the freaks out: stubborn little old ladies, quiet (and loud) urban survivalists, the folks keeping open the bar the never closes in the French Quarter, street people, whatever -- out! And the Feds are beaming with joy. Surely it must indeed be God's Work, their oh-so-concerned expressions tell us, to rid the city of the impoverished hangers-on, the people too cantankerous to depart, the young and careless, the queer, the odd and similar trash! (Were you wondering why the Feds were so slow to proffer help, even to express concern, compared to their usual performance before the cameras when disaster strikes? Is it clearer now?)" (09/19/05)

Link: http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle337-20050918-04.html

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(26) Lessons from the debacle
Source: The Libertarian Enterprise
Author: Ron Beatty


"The final lesson, and one of the most important, is this: The government is not your friend. As we have seen in New Orleans, government agents will evict you from your home, steal your property, threaten you, arrest you, and in general treat you like scum for the crime of surviving without government aid. We have seen reports that indicate that survivors are being put into refugee camps, which they will not be allowed to leave for months, if ever. In summation, it is up to each and every one of us to make preparations and plans to take care of ourselves, should the need ever arise." (09/19/05)

Link: http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle337-20050918-05.html

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(27) Today, the anti-war movement goes on trial
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Leigh Saavedra


"Today, the rights of all peace activists go on trial. Representing us are four Catholic antiwar activists who have already stood trial for their stand against the invasion of Iraq. Now, more than two years later, cleared of the original charge of criminal mischief, they are being charged with conspiracy and will be tried again. ... Whether our constitutional right to freedom of speech will live or not is the point. What happens in Binghamton in the coming week or weeks will probably be a barometer. If Daniel, Clare, Peter, and Teresa are found guilty of conspiracy, then all those who vocally support them are guilty. And if we are, then our worst fears about the so-called PATRIOT Act have grown as real as a match held up to our Constitution." (09/19/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/saavedra09192005.html

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(28) Hunger strike against censorship
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Katherine Yeaw


"Seven antiwar activists remain on a hunger strike in front of the Farnesina, the Italian Foreign Ministry in Rome, to protest censorship. Leonardo Mazzei, 49, employed by national electric company and spokesman for the Italian 'Free Iraq' Committee; Anika Persiani, 31, active in the 'Free Iraq' Committee; Lara Wintzer, 21, active in the 'Free Iraq' Committee in Germany; Ilia Montani, 20, philosophy student and activist in the Umbria Student Movement; Jörg Ulrich, 38, student and former PKK militant of the 'Free Iraq' Committee in Germany; Roberto Gabriele, 66, of the international Foundation 'Nino Pasti' of Rome; and Emanuele Fanesi, student-worker in Perugia active in the 'Anti-Imperialist Camp' have been on strike since August 31 to protest the refusal of the Foreign Affairs Minister of Italy, Gianfranco Fini, to grant visas for six prominent Iraqi anti-occupation activists to attend the 'Leave Iraq in peace -- support the legitimate resistance of the Iraq people' conference in Chianciano, Italy." (09/19/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/yeaw09192005.html

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(29) Katrina and the battered statist syndrome
Source: Strike the Root
Author: Per Bylund


"It seems there is no end to how much beating these people can take .... They still return to the source of this domestic violence demanding it to 'do more.' Like any victim of the Battered Woman Syndrome, they refuse to admit that they have been beaten or that there is something fundamentally wrong here: 'It was an accident.' They offer excuses for the beating, they blame themselves, and they have to convince themselves that 'it won’t happen again'." (09/19/05)

Link: http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/bylund/bylund3.html

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(30) The same old played out schemes
Source: Common Dreams
Author: Christopher Cooper


"All we have is our voices and our bodies. Few of us will risk our lives for truth or decency, and not just because of fear or lack of strength, but because there is no opportunity for me here on a crumbling country road in Maine to attack Donald Rumsfeld with a fence post or to force Barbara Bush at the point of an electric prod to live for a week with one of the poor black families she thought were enjoying such a good deal in the shelter. But we can risk our reputations. We can put our comfort on the line. We can say, loudly, in the October sunshine outside the store or post office, 'President Bush is stupid, incompetent, uncaring. Condoleeza Rice is a liar. America is reviled the world over for evil done in our name, with our money, with our acquiescence.' Our neighbors will object. Many will not listen, others will argue, still others may shun us." (09/18/05)

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0918-27.htm

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(31) Don't be surprised who shows up in New Orleans
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Alexander Cockburn


"So, as Sonny Landreth puts it in his song Levee Town, 'Don't be surprised at who shows up, down in the Levee Town.' As the waters recede, poor neighborhoods will be swiftly redtagged for the bulldozers and their erstwhile occupants scheduled for permanent expulsion. The post-Katrina 'reconstruction' of New Orleans promises to be the first really big outing for the Kelo decision." (09/18/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09172005.html

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(32) Blank check for tyranny
Source: Moscow Times
Author: Chris Floyd


"Four years ago, the United States was hit by a terrorist attack. Three days later, the U.S. Congress signed away the people's freedom, writing a blank check for tyranny to a ludicrous little man installed in office after the most dubious election in American history. Last week, the poisonous after-effects of this abject surrender took yet another sinister turn, as Bush factotums in the courts once again upheld the Leader's arbitrary power over the life and liberty of his subjects" (09/16/05)

Link: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/16/120.html

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(33) How government agencies would respond to Katrina
Source: McBlog
Author: Bradfor J. Rodriquez, Ph.D.


"I blame the late night pizza and resulting indigestion. That's why I woke up this morning thinking about how various government departments would have handled Katrina. (Warning: black humor.) Postal Service -- Takes two weeks to deliver supplies to New Orleans; 10% of the supplies are lost. Nevertheless, demands that no private firm be allowed to deliver supplies. Recipients must wait in line for hours at a few inconvenient offices to receive their supplies. A few postal workers fire guns at recipients. Asks for a postage increase. ... Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) -- Surrounds New Orleans with snipers and shoots anyone attempting to escape. Eventually requests military support to bomb the city with napalm. Afterwards finds some unregistered firearms in the rubble; officially exonerated for its actions. Asks for more money." [editor's note: And what's worse ... this is not that far-fetched:-) ... be sure to read em all - MLS] (09/17/05)

Link: http://www.zetetics.com/mac/blog/00001094.html
-----------------

(34) The feds confront the anti-war movement
Source: CounterPunch
Author: James Petras


"On September 19 the first federal conspiracy trial of civilian war resisters to the US invasion of Iraq will take place in Binghamton, New York, a declining and decaying city in upstate New York, 3 hours northwest of New York City. This is the second trial of the 'St Patrick Four' ... they were acquitted a year earlier by a jury in Ithaca, New York by a 9 to 3 vote in which the presiding Judge David Peeble conceded that the four had represented themselves 'probably better than some of the attorneys that practice in this court.' The trial of the St. Pat Four has national significance because it raises several fundamental issues regarding constitutional freedoms and the Bush-Gonzalez ongoing campaign to silence and intimidate dissent and public expressions of opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. " (09/16/05)

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/petras09162005.html

ACTIONS

(35) Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
Source: Reporters without Borders


"Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they’re tremendous tools of freedom of expression. Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles." Download the handbook online.

Link: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

----------------

(36) Shame Utah for Rave Bust
Source: Drug Policy Alliance
Event Date(s): ongoing


"An armed SWAT team with helicopters and dogs violently raided a party in Utah on Aug.20,2005. Though the partygoers attempted to disperse peacefully, several were tackled, hit and kicked. There is never an acceptable excuse for using such extreme force against people who are peacefully assembled. Tell the governor and the state tourism office that your tourist dollars will not support this kind of civil liberties violation!" (09/05)

Link: http://actioncenter.drugpolicy.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=27658

----------------

(37) Petition: Shield Journalists and Whistleblowers
Source: Free Press
Event Date(s): ongoing


"The Supreme Court recently refused to hear a case that could imprison two reporters for refusing to reveal their anonymous sources to a federal prosecutor. The decision casts a chill over investigative reporters, whistleblowers and the public's need to know about government wrongdoing -- information that would not see the light of day without laws to shield journalists and their sources.
Sign our petition to support federal shield laws (S.340 and H.R.581) protecting journalists and their confidential sources." (09/05)

Link: http://www.freepress.net/action/shield

-----

-------

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Saturday, September 17, 2005

The week in review, Sept.11-Sept.17

The 'aftermath of Katrina' continues ... more horror stories of the police state mentality surface ... police blocking evacuees, barbed wire in Mississippi to 'protect' residents, reporters told 'no stories, no photos' and physically assaulted, clueless politicians telling children at a shelter 'isn't this fun' ... and more stories of the indefagitable human spirit of individuals working together to guard their neighborhoods, set up medical clinics and makeshift 'radio stations' to 'drown out the roar of helicopters and military trucks that has replaced New Orleans' more usual sounds of jazz'. The question we 'liberty activists' are asking ... will this be 'A moment of ephinany', as L. Neil Smith explores, when folks finally wake up and see that gov't, any gov't, no matter WHO is 'leading' it or 'managing' it is the problem, not the solution ... will this indeed 'blow away the illusion'? or will it just lead for calls more 'more gov't, better gov't, more responsible gov't' , and will the 'respect for authority' meme prevail ... does 'Everybody love martial law'?

Again, as I said in weeks 1 and 2 of the Katrina aftermath ... "it will be up to US to
make sure the important message of Katrina, that the gov't was the problem
in the first place and made matters even worse stays alive, and spreads" ...

Meanwhile, on the anti-war front .... in the UK, the Arts world unites for Iraq pullout plea, in Australia, a visting peace activist is jailed and deported, and here at home, not to be outdone by the Aussies, the Feds prepare to confront the anti-war movement by retrying the St. Pat Four on 'federal conspiracy charges' ...

These are, indeed, interesting times. Educate, agitate, organize ... and keep your powder dry.

Til next week

For freedom!

Mary Lou

The daily updates are now being posted at the Liberty Activist News web site.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Mississippi: Toeing the line
Source: Sun Herald


" Since Katrina departed, some residents have been faced with confusion and frustration. To compound the confusion, residents were shocked Friday to see a work crew laying out double coil rows of razor wire, also called concertina wire. Lynn Bauer, who is living with her mother after her MIlls Avenue home was damaged, said she also was stopped from accessing her home. "I want to get to work taking out the drywall, insulation and flooring. The longer I wait, the worse it's going to be," Bauer said.
At a briefing of the Emergency Operations Center Saturday, Col. Joe Spraggins, chief of emergency services for Harrison County, said he decided to install the razor wire to secure the stretches of land between checkpoints. "I can put 1,000 national guardsman there (instead), but that's a waste of assets," Spraggins said. He said the wire is easy to lay down and remove. "We are not trying to put you in a concentration camp or make it look like a war zone," he said. A concentration camp is exactly what Bauer thought of when she first saw the wire. The razor wire is being installed from Gulfport to Pass Christian. Biloxi is installing three-foot high metal barricades instead of razor wire, said Vincent Creel, Biloxi public information manager. They are the same barricades used for crowd control during parades. Spraggins said the wire and the increased security at the checkpoints is to protect residents. "Razor wire is there to prevent others from accessing their home. It's there for their own safety," he said." (09/10/05)

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12618194.htm

-----

St. Patrick's Four protesters offer an explanation
Source: Common Dreams
Author: Peter Demott, Clare Grady, Danny Burns and Teresa Grady


"On Sept. 19, the four of us will go on trial a second time for trying to prevent the Iraq war. We are charged with conspiracy to impede "by force, intimidation and threat" an officer of the United States and three lesser charges. If convicted of federal conspiracy, we face up to six years in prison, a period of probation and $275,000 in fines. .... In April 2004 we were tried in state court, where nine of twelve jurors voted, after listening to our defense, that we were not guilty. The judge declared a mistrial after 20 hours of deliberations. .... Now, with an ever worsening situation in Iraq, the United States government wants to retry us for conspiracy. We believe our actions were moral, legal and necessary. As with our first trial, if the jury is allowed to hear about the illegality of the war, our country's history of nonviolent resistance to injustice, and how our faith in God calls us to work for a world unified by love, solidarity and mutual cooperation, we expect our peers will vote to acquit." (09/15/05)

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0915-34.htm

-----



Everybody loves martial law
Source: Strike the Root
Author: Joe Plummer


"At some point the propaganda we're subjected to becomes so utterly ridiculous, you've just got to ask yourself: "Is this really being said?" Chris Matthews (MSNBC - HardBall) nonchalantly informed his viewers today that EVERYONE just LOVES the military occupation in New Orleans. .... Is ANYBODY so ignorant as to not see through this "in our face" whitewash of yet ANOTHER power grab; this precedent-setting violation of our country's founding principles? Who do they think they're kidding? What will they tell us next? Will they claim people are dancing in the streets because they've been forcibly disarmed? . . . Or maybe that they're thrilled to be getting shipped off to the "safety" of a concentration camp?" (09/15/05)

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/plummer/plummer2.html

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Back inside New Orleans
Source: CounterPunch
Author: Jordan Flaherty


"I spent yesterday inside the city of New Orleans, speaking to a few of the last holdouts in the 9th ward/ bywater neighborhood. Their stories paint a very different picture from what we've heard in the media. Instead of stories of gangs of criminals and police and soldiers keeping order, there were stories of collective action, everyone looking out for each other, communal responses. .... I asked Okra, in his house off of Piety Street, what the biggest problem has been. He said, "It's been the police - they've lost the last restraints on their behavior they had, and gotten a license to go wild. They can do anything they want. I saw one cop beat a guy so hard that he almost took his ear off. And this was someone just trying to walk home" Walking through the streets, I witnessed hundreds of soldiers patrolling the streets. Everyone I spoke to said that soldiers were coming to their house at least once a day, trying to convince them to leave, bringing stories of disease and quarantine and violence. I didn't see or speak to any soldiers involved in any clean up or rebuilding." (09/14/05)

http://www.counterpunch.org/flaherty09142005.html

-----

Federal judge declares Pledge unconstitutional
Source: CNN


"A federal judge declared Wednesday that the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional, a decision that could potentially put the divisive issue back before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words "under God" was rejected last year by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation 'under God' violates school children's right to be 'free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.' Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools." (09/15/05)


http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/14/pledge.ruling.ap/

-----

Speaking out against war
Source: Brunswick Times Record


" Appearances are deceiving in the case of Kathy Kelly. The high-profile peace activist visited Brunswick to protest the weekend's air show and promote her eternal message of peace; but rummaging through luggage in her hosts' car after returning from Peaks Island, Kelly looked more like a tourist stretching the last days of summer. With her characteristically peaceful and almost otherworldly expression, Kelly hardly looks like an outraged, demanding poster-child for extremist government protests, as some who don't hold her views have portrayed her." (09/13/05)


http://www.timesrecord.com/website/main.nsf/news.nsf/0/9340D7B048144D720525707B0058949C?Opendocument

-----

As bodies recovered, reporters are told 'no photos, no stories'
Source: San Francisco Chronicle


" A long caravan of white vans led by an Army humvee rolled Monday through New Orleans' Bywater district, a poor, mostly black neighborhood, northeast of the French Quarter. Recovery team members wearing white protective suits and black boots stopped at houses with spray painted markings on the doors designating there were dead bodies inside. Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state. "No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.
On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims. But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed." (09/13/05)


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/13/MNG3HEMQHG1.DTL&type=printable'

-----

Activist 'baffled' at deportation
Source: Daily Telegraph [Australia]


"US peace activist Scott Parkin was strongly opposed to political violence and is "baffled" at the reasons for his deportation from Australia, he said today. Mr Parkin, who has had his visa cancelled on the grounds he poses a national security risk, is expected to be flown out of Melbourne for Los Angeles tomorrow morning. He will not oppose his removal from Australia, but he has vowed to continue to fight the cancellation of his visa to visit Australia. The 36-year-old teacher from Houston, Texas, was detained by the Australian Federal Police in Melbourne on Saturday after an "adverse security assessment".
Mr Parkin, who had been in Australia since early June on a six-month visa, has been held in solitary confinement in a Melbourne custody centre since then. The Federal Government refused to explain why his six-month tourist visa had been cancelled, other than to say it was based on matters relating to "politically motivated violence"." (09/14/05)


http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,16602992-5001028,00.html

Great News!! The Liberty Activist News site news feed is back online with the daily updates (divided into news, commentaries and events).

I will continue to mirror here for awhile.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Nietzsche, New Orleans, and 'Nam

Source: Unknown News
Author: Herb Ruhs


"Granted the horror of New Orleans is grand even by battlefield standards, but something like this is happening in the world, somewhere, nearly all the time. For much of the world it is relatively normal. What is unusual is that these are Americans, and many of us identify with them very strongly, and the fear touches our hearts, and we hurt deeply, for a change. If my apocalyptic vision turns out, unfortunately, to be premonitory, then there will be more New Orleans, coming soon, to a town near you. Get a leg up on your survival skills, grow a thick skin. Besides, it is hard to be compassionate and helpful when you are disabled by horror." (09/13/05)

http://www.unknownnews.org/050913a-hr.html

-----

It's an ill wind

Source: CounterPunch
Author: Ben Tripp


"A tiny group of particularly horrible individuals run the entire nation to suit themselves. Moneymen at the top, followed by celebrities and the Church or church; then you have your executive class, people that carry out the wishes of the upper class; then talk show hosts, creative types, and scientists and academics, living just a little better than the next folks by making the executive classes' orders seem more palatable to the working class, at the bottom of which are the rednecks, followed by immigrants, people with ethnic identities, and finally Mexicans and Wal-Mart employees, and then me. Race and Class aren't enough for such a ruddy-cheeked infant as the USA. We can do more. And we have, and in the 21st Century we will. The Master of Disaster, George W. Bush, has ensured that America will be an authoritarian nation as the weary century creeps by. More laws, more enforcement, more cracking down. More intolerance. More surveillance. More secret files on more citizens for more and more tenuous reasons; restrictions on travel and civil rights and freedom, that hoary canard. The government is going to get bigger and bigger on the insidious end of things: more warmaking power, more control-grasping mechanisms. But for the average Joe, Jane, and Undecided, the government will become a remote and inscrutable force, like the Evil Empire in George Lucas's epic sci-fi cycle 'Bedtime for Bonzo'. " (09/13/05)

http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp09132005.html

-----

Crisis is the health of the state

Source: Strike the Root
Author: George F. Smith


"The attitude of turning our worries over to government prevailed, and now, as bodies are collected, we witness federal officials playing their hand, giving us spinning press conferences, bureaucratic stonewalling, a growing military occupation, and a craven Congress writing fat checks without cutting spending, starting with a $50 billion appropriation to FEMA for what President Bush considers the 'heck of a job' it’s doing." (09/13/05)

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/smith/smith1.html

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Respecting authority

Source: Strike the Root
Author: Richard Rieben


"I have written elsewhere that the meme that runs the show is authority worship – in any manifestation – but the 2,000-year-old lie that fuels the meme is that freedom is a subset of submission to authority, that we are free only within the context of the clan, upon the strength (security) of the clan, by virtue of the clan, and, therefore, through subordination to the clan (from which all blessings flow). .... The authority meme is across-the-board. It can never achieve or even simulate anything that is humane...it can only lead to misery, suffering, poverty, war, brutality, and slavery..... It is, at every minor occurrence, a complete capitulation to hell." (09/13/05)

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/rieben/rieben3.html

-----

Blowing away the illusion

Source: Strike the Root
Author: David MacGregor
Posted on 09.13.05 by Mary Lou Seymour Edit This

"When it comes to private companies, we expect accountability. And if we don't get it, we demand it. But when it comes to the state, it seems we are under a strange hypnotic spell, which blinds us to its colossal failures - in every realm. Where is the accountability? Where is the outrage? Where is the demand for heads to roll?" (09/13/05)

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/macgregor/macgregor4.html


-------------------

IS IT TIME YET?????

Quotes from Katrina ....

*"I must say, this storm is much bigger than anyone expected." -- FEMA Director Michael Brown, on CNN, Aug. 31.

*"Excuse me, senator, I'm sorry for interrupting . . . for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people out here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated . . .
And when they hear politicians . . . you know, thanking one another, it just . . . cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body in the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the streets for 48 hours . . ." -- CNN's Anderson Cooper, Sept. 1, in an awesome tirade directed at Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who had been tossing compliments to fellow politicians and blowing bromides up the wazoo before Cooper cut her off.

"It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children . . . they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw . . . people who are dying in front of you." -- CNN producer Kim Segal, describing conditions in the New Orleans Convention Center, Sept. 1.

*"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well." -- FEMA chief Brown, Sept. 1.

*"We just learned of the convention center -- we being the federal government -- today." -- FEMA Director Brown, trying to deflect criticism to local government, on "Nightline," Sept. 1.

*"Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today." -- Koppel's response.

*"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job." -- President Bush, Sept. 2. One of the most idiotic, misguided, clueless and smug things the president has said during his two terms in office.

*"I'm satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with the results." -- President Bush, later that day.

*"Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." -- President Bush, cracking wise in Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2. And maybe when he sits on that porch, one of those unemployed evacuees can bring him a nice iced tea and a fan. After all, they'll be looking for work.

*"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them." -- Former First Lady Barbara Bush, sounding like a bad caricature of a "Dallas" character, in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5.

*"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." -- Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.), Sept. 8, in a quip to lobbyists quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Baker is denying the quote; the WSJ reporter stands by his story.

*"How, then, did we get here? How did the richest country on Earth end up watching children cry for food in putrid encampments on the evening news? How did reporters reach crowds of the desperate in places where police, troops and emergency responders had not yet been--three days after the storm?" -- Time magazine, in a report to be published today.

Reporters without Borders: Police violence against journalists in New Orleans
Source: Halifax Live


"Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about police violence against journalists covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, especially about the attacks on reporters and photographers that took place on September 1. .... Reporter Tim Harper and photographer Lucas Oleniuk of the Canadian Toronto Star daily were the victims of police violence while covering a clash between police and looters. The police threatened them several times at gunpoint and, when they realized Oleniuk had photographed them hitting looters, they hurled him to the ground, grabbed his two cameras and removed memory cards containing around 350 pictures. His press card was also torn from him. When he asked for his pictures back, the police insulted him and threatened to hit him. Harper said in a report about the police violence in the Toronto Star that, given the situation in New Orleans, there was not doubt that the police saw journalists as an obstacle to their efforts to regain control of the city." (09/07/05)

http://www.halifaxlive.com/artman/publish/journalists_070905_771.shtml

Louisiana nursing home operators charged in deaths
Source: Yahoo News


"The owners of a nursing home where 34 people were found dead after Hurricane Katrina have been arrested and charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide for not evacuating those patients, the Louisiana attorney general's office said on Tuesday. Mable Mangano and her husband, Salvador Mangano Sr., surrendered to Medicaid fraud investigators in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and were being held in a parish prison. The Manganos declined an offer from St. Bernard Parish authorities of buses to evacuate the residents of their facility, and they did not use a contract they had with an ambulance service, the state said. "When we decide we're going to put ourselves in harm's way, we do it voluntarily and it's our problem. But you can't do it when you have the care and control and custody of patients," Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti told a briefing." [Editor's note: So, when are Bush, Brown, Chertoff, and Nagin gonna be jailed?-MLS] (09/13/05)

http://tinyurl.com/c6pfc

Blame me for Katrina shambles, says Bush as ratings hit new low
Source: Times Online [UK]

"As the official death toll from Hurricane Katrina rose above 600, President Bush took personal responsibility yesterday for the failures in the US Government’s response to the disaster. He said that serious questions had been raised about America’s ability to deal with a terrorist attack. With Mr Bush’s approval rating at a record low, the White House announced that the President would address the nation from Louisiana tomorrow night at peak television viewing time. There was growing speculation last night that Mr Bush may use the occasion to appoint a “czar” to oversee the recovery effort. Possible candidates include Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, and Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York. Mr Bush’s acceptance of responsibility for the Government’s slow and inadequate response is a sign of how serious the political fallout from the hurricane has become. It is a rare step from a president who abhors admitting mistakes." (09/14/05)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23889-1779465,00.html

Monday, September 12, 2005

Algiers Point militia guards neighborhood
Source: The Statesman


"The Algiers Point militia put away its weapons Friday as Army soldiers patrolled the historic neighborhood across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter. But the band of neighbors who survived Hurricane Katrina and then fought off looters has not disarmed. "Pit Bull Will Attack. We Are Here and Have Gun and Will Shoot," said the sign on Alexandra Boza's front porch. Actually, said the woman behind the sign, "I have two pistols." .... The several dozen people who did not evacuate from Algiers Point said that for days after the storm, they did not see any police officers or soldiers but did see gangs of intruders. So they set up what might be the ultimate neighborhood watch. At night, the balcony of a beautifully restored Victorian house built in 1871 served as a lookout point.
"I had the right flank," Vinnie Pervel said. Sitting in a white rocking chair on the balcony, his neighbor, Gareth Stubbs, protected the left flank. They were armed with an arsenal gathered from the neighborhood: a shotgun, pistols, a flare gun and a Vietnam-era AK-47. They were backed up by Gregg Harris, who lives in the house with Pervel, and Pervel's 74-year-old mother, Jennie, who lives across Pelican Street from her son and is known in Algiers Point as "Miss P." .... There are gas lamps on the columned porch that stayed on during the storm and its aftermath. The militia rigged car headlights and a car battery on porches of nearby houses. Then they put empty cans beneath trees that had fallen across both ends of the block. When someone approached in the darkness, "you could hear the cans rattle. Then we would hit the switch at the battery and light up the street," Pervel said. "We would yell, 'We're going to count three, and if you don't identify yourself, we're going to start shooting.' " .... Now the Algiers Point militia has defiantly declared it will not heed any orders for mandatory evacuation. The relatively elevated neighborhood area is across the Mississippi River from the city's worst flooded areas and has running water, gas and phone service. "They say they're going to drag us kicking and screaming from our houses. For what? To take us to concentration camps where we'll be raped and killed," Ramona Parker said. "This is supposed to be America. We're honest citizens. We're not troublemakers. We pay our taxes.'" (09/10/05)


http://www.statesman.com/search/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_342278fe0324917e000f.html

Bay Area journalist jailed in Haiti
Common Dreams
Leisa Faulkner

"Reporter Kevin Pina opened his family home to me last month in Port au Prince, Haiti when violence closed the orphanage where I usually stay to do human rights work. Tonight, Kevin sleeps in a jail cell like those I visited in Cap Haitian just weeks ago. He has become part of the story he risks his life daily to tell. He was arrested September 9th while covering the ransacking of Father Jean-Juste's church, the humanitarian priest who routinely served 600 hungry and impoverished children the only meal they often got before he became yet another of the hundreds of political prisoners held by the government that came out of the US-sponsored Coup d'État of February 29, 2004 that overthrew democratically elected President Aristide. .... Our concern is not only for Kevin Pina, Jean Ristil and Father Jean-Juste and the other political prisoners; our concern is also for Merlande, the wife Kevin leaves at home with their infant son. Paulo was born in Haiti while his father paced the floor of the hospital, now his father paces the floor of a prison cell. While we remember those who where killed by terrorists on 9/11, let us not forget those who are victims of political terrorism, especially victims of terrorism that is endorsed by our own government." (09/12/05)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0912-09.htm

Twenty three freedoms
The Libertarian Enterprise
L. Neil Smith

"Busheviks speak of freedoms that we Americans seem to enjoy almost uniquely on this otherwise benighted, squalid, and pestilence-ridden planet, freedoms that the rest of the world hates and resents us for so much that they're willing to steal gigantic aircraft from innocent, helpless, and very nearly bankrupt corporations, and smash them willy nilly into the grandest, most conspicuously shining symbols of Yankee mercantilism and the Aristocracy of Pull they can identify, murdering thousands of men, women, and children—and themselves—in the process. Having something of a professional interest in the subject of freedom myself—each and every one of the two dozen books I've written so far is about very little else—I decided recently to find out exactly what freedoms our kindly and benevolent rulers are talking about. Surprisingly, so far, I've come up with twenty-three." (09/12/05)

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle336-20050911-07.html

-----

Hurricane Katrina - Labor Day 2005
LoneStar Military Vehicle Preservation Association
by John


"My name is John and I live in Central Texas. I have served in three different military components totaling 25 years of service and I am recording this story for posterity. All opinions are the author's and if you disagree with them, that's really too bad." [The saga of one man's trip to deliver aid to Katrina victims, Aug.29-Sept.5] (09/09/05)

http://lonestar-mvpa.org/events/2005/05_Katrina.htm

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Boston in 1774, New Orleans in 2005

Cartoon by Scott Bieser
http://thetimesink.blogspot.com/2005/09/tshtf.html

Australia: Visiting US peace activist arrested as 'security threat'
The Age [Australia]

"An American environmentalist and peace activist, in Australia to talk about non-violent methods of protest, has been arrested as a security threat. History teacher Scott Parkin, 35, was arrested by the Australian Federal Police in Melbourne on Saturday as he travelled to a workshop he was conducting on the US peace movement. Last night he was being held at the Melbourne Custody Centre. An Immigration Department spokesman confirmed he had been arrested on "character grounds" at its request and he would be deported "as soon as practicable". The move has sparked outrage among politicians, refugee groups, environment and legal groups. At the end of a week in which the Federal Government put forward unparalleled anti-terrorist arrest and detention provisions, they say Mr Parkin's arrest highlights the abuses to which such sweeping powers are open." (09/11/05)


http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/visiting-us-peace-activist-arrested/2005/09/11/1126377206348.html

A moment of epiphany
The Libertarian Enterprise
L. Neil Smith

"From the beginning—four days late, as many another observer has pointed out—there was something foul-smelling about the "rescue" of the Crescent City under the direction of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, starting with heavily-armed and armored troops prowling the flooded streets, machineguns and grenade launchers ready, admitting refugees from the disaster into shelters only after they'd been relieved of any means of self-defense they happened to possess. Even if it meant keeping the sick and elderly lined up outside in the wind and rain, shaking them down for guns and booze, as if the Bill of Rights had no Second Amendment and Prohibition had never been repealed.
Now the Imperial Storm Troopers, many of them fresh from breaking things and killing people in Afghanistan and Iraq, are going door to door, dragging folks out, searching their homes for—you guessed it—guns. .... Open war has been declared by the United States against the people of America. Why is it happening now? What is to be gained from it? The dead giveaway occurred when a company hired by local authorities to preserve water-damaged legal archives—including registries of deeds—was curtly turned away by heavily-armed federal goons whose masters apparently want no record to survive of who owned what before the flood." (09/11/05)

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle336-20050911-02.html

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Review: How to kill the job culture before it kills you by Claire Wolfe
Loompanics


"Brilliant freedom-fighter Claire Wolfe recognizes that there is more to "freedom" than getting the "State" off our backs -- we must liberate ourselves from the life-mangling Job Culture as well. How to Kill the Job Culture Before It Kills You: Living a Life of Autonomy in a Wage-Slave Society was written with two goals in mind. The first is to help anyone who wants to break out of the job trap do so. Claire Wolfe provides the tools to escape the wage slave job culture that to some extent we have created ourselves. The escapee's part is to provide the desire and the effort needed to end the cycle.The second goal is to raise questions about the job culture as it exists today and plant the seeds of change that will germinate and grow into a healthier work structure, one that will replace the present job culture altogether. Claire reveals her vision as to what that new structure might be in the last part of the book." [Editor's note" Hot off the press, Claire's latest ... I ordered mine today!-MLS](09/11/05)

http://tinyurl.com/8dlry

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Marigny music gives New Orleans new heartbeat
Yahoo! News

"Some angrily defy Mayor Ray Nagin's order to evacuate; others hope they can convince the authorities that they can contribute to the city's revival by staying.From a rickety wooden home, musician Kenny Claiborne and bartender Joshua Nascimento, are trying to breathe a bit of life back into a city devastated by Hurricane Katrina by turning their balcony into what they call "Radio Marigny."Using power from a generator and the biggest speakers they could find, they have been broadcasting whatever their few remaining neighbors request or they themselves want to hear to drown out the roar of helicopters and military trucks that has replaced New Orleans' more usual sounds of jazz.In Marigny and the French Quarter, both largely untouched by the storm and the floods that at one point swamped 80 percent of the city, several dozen residents have remained.They have generators for power, water to flush toilets and mineral water for drinking and washing. Several neighborhood groups have organized petitions, appealing to the mayor to allow them to stay.Claiborne and his neighbors sweep the streets, distribute ice to those who need it and try their best to keep alive the neighborhood where many of them were born."
[Editor's note: Another example of just plain folks surviving just fine WITHOUT gov't 'assistance'... -MLS] (09/10/05)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050910/music_nm/music_dc_1



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Suburban police blocked evacuees
Arizona Republic

"Police agencies to the south of New Orleans were so fearful of the crowds attempting to leave the city after Hurricane Katrina that they sealed a crucial bridge over the Mississippi River and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees, according to two paramedics who were in the crowd. The paramedics and two other witnesses said officers sometimes shot guns over the heads of fleeing people, who, instead of complying immediately with orders to leave the bridge, pleaded to be let through, according to the paramedics and two other witnesses. The witnesses said that they had been told by New Orleans police to cross this same bridge because buses were waiting for them there. Instead, a suburban police officer angrily ordered about 200 people to abandon an encampment between the highways near the bridge. The officer then confiscated their food and water, the four witnesses said. The incidents took place in the first days after the storm last week, they said." [Editor's note: Another horror story of how gov't action helped exacerbate the disaster- MLS] (09/10/05)


http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0910katrina-flee10.html

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Judge rules in favor of ACLU in Patriot Act case, lifts gag order
Yahoo! News


"A federal judge has lifted a gag order that shielded the identity of librarians who received an FBI demand for records about library patrons under the Patriot Act. U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that the gag order prevented their client from participating in a debate over whether Congress should reauthorize the Patriot Act. "Clearly the judge recognized it was profoundly undemocratic to gag a librarian from participating in the Patriot Act debate," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson." (09/10/05)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050910/ap_on_re_us/patriot_act_records_8

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Isn't this kind of fun?
Dome Blog

"U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's visit to Reliant Park this morning offered him a glimpse of what it's like to be living in shelter. While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots. The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" (09/09/05)


http://blogs.chron.com/domeblog/archives/2005/09/delay_to_evacue.html

The week in Review September 3-September 10

The story of the week ... the aftermath of Katrina ... government totally fails not only to 'protect' the citizens and provide 'security' and rescue, but actively obstructs private charities and citizens, and ends the week by forcibly (but supposedly gently) evacuating residents from undamaged homes ... and confiscating guns. Yes, here in America. Look at the video of gun confiscation .... and tell me that the final line hasn't been crossed.

The contrast between the efforts of private citizens, rescuing the stranded, forming 'tribes' in the affected areas to survive, giving help in a 'tremenous outpouring' of donations and volunteerism, is apparent not only to libertarians, but to thinking people of ALL poilitical persuasions .... note that I say "thinking" people ... there are many, on the left and right, who STILL believe that government is the solution ... either "more money", "more power", "better people in charge" .... anyone who believes that after these past 2 weeks is, I'm afraid, beyond hope. Mark their words now, and remember who they are.

Ah, but the bright spots ... 'just plain folks', stripped of the illusion of security provided by the gov't react nobly, courageously, and efficiently ... "individual persons operating together in harmony based on freely reached agreements concluded between individual members and groups of a society", as Mark Roberts puts it in his excellent essay "Defining anarchy' ... yes, of course there were those who reacted poorly and paniced and looted (though not as many as news reports indicated) ... but chaos in New Orleans was caused BY the gov't ... not by the lack of it. Remember that, too, when the spin doctors try to spin away your brain and make New Orleans into a plea for "more gov't, more money, more troops".

And what now? In last week's update, I noted that "it will be up to US to make sure the important message of Katrina, that the gov't was the problem in the first place and made matters even worse stays alive, and spreads" .... and that is now even more important, the politicians of all persuasions scramble to hold on to their illusory power and the colunists and pundits and think tank heads toady up to their favorite branch of the Boot on your Neck Party .... watch for "we need more money, FEMA needs more money, we need power to confiscate, evacuate, lock up the looters" from both branches of the BOYN... watch for "this proves that 'limited gov't' is baaad, we need moooore gov't" and "just get rid of Bush and all will be well" from the left boot, and, 'the Bush administration wasn't really at fault, it's the local gov't, the welfare folks looting ' and "it's not really that bad, after all we got rid of all those nasty public housing projects and maybe TBE will now be Republican once all those black folk are gone" and "there aren't really THAT many dead" from the right boot..... Mark their words now, and remember who they are.

For now ... continue to educate, note who says what and remember who they are (statist lackey or freedom lover) And, of course, make sure that you and your family are prepared for disaster ... and that you have unregistered weapons, stashed safely, as well as your month's supply of food,clothing and water and your 'bug out' bag ready for action. And, for charitable donations and volunteer work that actually gets TO the victims, with an excellent "empowerment" method of involving the victims in the rescue efforts, may I again suggest "Food not Bombs" .

Til next week

For freedom

Mary lou

Friday, September 09, 2005

New Orleans gun confiscation video
Source: WOLFESBLOG


Footage from ABC News (approximately 7.2 megs, AVI format) of New Orleans gun confiscation (compliments of Claire Wolfe's blog)


http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/NewOrleansGunConfiscationSmall.avi

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New Orleans begins victim disarmament
Source: New York Times


"Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. 'Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,' he said.But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons." (09/08/05)


http://tinyurl.com/9ot44

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Defining anarchy
Strike the Root
Mark Davis

"Anarchy is a functioning society free of government controls. That is individual persons operating together in harmony based on freely reached agreements concluded between individual members and groups of a society. Anarchy is simply a free society. Anarchy is not the result of a statist-government failure; that would be chaos. The chaos in New Orleans is not due to anarchy, it is an example of the failure of statist-government. .... To define anarchy as statist-government failure is such an obvious distortion of the concept of a free society that it is hard to decide where to begin to dismantle such thoughtlessness. I like to begin by simply pointing out that at least four layers of statist-government agencies still claim jurisdiction over the area known as New Orleans (city, parish, state and federal). The undeniable fact is that they all four failed to provide the services they had promised to provide when they were justifying the theft of individual resources called taxes." (09/08/05)

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/davis/davis4.html

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Invincible ignorance
Strike the Root
John Markley

"If the state performs its functions well, that is proof that we need the state. If the state performs its functions poorly, the resulting misery is, we are told, also proof that the state is needed. .... I do not think this is produced by willful intellectual dishonesty; it seems to be a pattern of thought that people easily slip into without realizing it. This may help explain why a single example of an unpleasant area with no state (which are usually themselves not anarchies of long standing, but are instead the wreckage left by failed and especially malicious states, e.g. Somalia) is often seen as an adequate refutation of anarchy, but no amount of incompetence and failure, no number of injustices and atrocities can ever shake people's trust in the state. How could they, when so many people have, without even realizing it, turned statism into a position that can never be touched by any evidence?" (09/05/05)

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/markley/markley1.html

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A disaster map 'wiki' is born
Wired

"Of all of the websites tracking the Katrina disaster, surely one of the most remarkable is Scipionus.com. Visitors swoop down over a map of the Gulf Coast that's awash in hundreds of red teardrops, each denoting information about specific geographical points in the area. That's pretty amazing in itself, but there's more: All of the information on the map has been provided by ordinary citizens, most of whom presumably have come to the site in search of information on the flood themselves. .... The site is the brainchild of Jonathan Mendez, a 24-year-old computer programmer living in Austin, Texas. Mendez says he grew frustrated combing message boards trying to find out if his family home -- the one his parents and brother had just fled from -- had been destroyed. Mendez turned to his co-worker, Greg Stoll, a 23-year-old software engineer who had experimented with Google Maps' API, and asked him to code a way for people to report and find damage assessments on a Google Map. " (09/02/05)

http://www.wired.com/news/hurricane/0,2904,68743,00.html

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What kind of extremist will you be?
Common Dreams
Cindy Sheehan

"I can feel my son's presence urging me on to save his buddies. I can hear him whispering in my ear and in my dreams: "Mom, finish my mission. Bring my buddies home alive" I can hear Dr. King's words similarly challenging me to action: "The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be?" Well, Casey, my son, my hero. Well, Dr. King, the hero of millions, I pledge to be the kind of extremist who works for peace with justice and who will never take "No" for an answer. I will strive to hold the bad people in our government accountable for all of the heartache and emptiness they have caused our world by their deliberate lies and deceptions and by their misuse of power and their abuse of our nation's precious human resources. I will be the kind of extremist who believes that our country can be taken back from the corporatocracy and unethical war profiteers that have control of it now. I will be the kind of extremist who believes that the people of Iraq can rebuild their own country without the dangerous "help" of the American military presence and I will be the kind of extremist who strives to bring our kids home from the Middle East immediately. If there ever was a time in our nation's history that required the passion and compassion of extremists, it is now: This very minute." (09/08/05)

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0908-31.htm

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Censored stories
Tucson Weekly

"Just four days before the 2004 presidential election, a prestigious British medical journal published the results of a rigorous study by Dr. Les Roberts, a widely respected researcher. Roberts concluded that close to 100,000 people had died in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Most were noncombatant civilians. Many were children. But that news didn't make the front pages of the major newspapers. It wasn't on the network news. So most voters knew little or nothing about the brutal civilian impact of President George W. Bush's war when they went to the polls. That's just one of the big stories the mainstream news media ignored, blacked out or underreported during the past year, according to Project Censored, a media watchdog group based at California's Sonoma State University." (09/08/05)

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Cover/index

I protest
Liberty Unbound
by Rycke Brown

"A street protest has two main purposes: informing the public about a cause, and demonstrating support or disapproval. Obviously, before you can get the masses out, you have to reach 'em and teach 'em. And you have to reduce the fear level: when people lose their fear of talking about a subject, they find that they are not alone in their beliefs, that they might even be a majority. That's when change happens in a democracy. (Don't tell me it's a republic. Franklin said that we had a republic, if we could keep it, and we didn't. But we can regain it.) Mass protest isn't necessary for radical change, and may even be counter-productive. The masses only get out on the street when they are really pissed off, and it is not pretty. The American people have plenty of reasons to be pissed off and they know it, but they're comfortable. Which is why we won't be seeing a draft anytime soon." (for publication 10/05)


http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2005_10/brown-protest.html

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Efforts to save documents stymied
Times-Picayune

"Specialists working for the New Orleans Notorial Archives have been stymied in trying to return downtown to rescue some of the most historic documents in the city’s history, from original land grants to slave sale records and title records. Federal troops have refused to let them through checkpoints into the city. The Notorial Archives hired Munters Corp., a Swedish document salvage firm that freezes and then freeze-dries records to slowly remove moisture from them. But Munters’ refrigerated trucks were turned away by uniformed troops as they tried to enter the city, said Stephen Bruno, custodian of the archives. The trucks were headed to the Civil District Courthouse on Poydras Street, where many of the city’s real estate documents are housed, and to the former Amoco building at 1340 Poydras St., which houses historic documents such as a letter from Jean Lafitte to Washington demanding for his expenditures during the Battle of New Orleans.Eddy Pokluda, head of national sales for Munters in Dallas, said the company tried to get one person in to make an assessment of the damage but was turned away, even though days earlier they had coordinated with New Orleans police to have an escort into the city..... Bruno was quick to point out that homeowners shouldn’t worry about others making claim to their properties. Further, “there won’t be any (real estate) transactions until this problem is solved. Sure, a lot of people are going to want to sell and a lot of speculators are going to want to buy.” But without access to the records by abstractors, “It isn’t going to happen,’’ Bruno said." [Editor's note: Oh no, don't worry, little peons, just cause the records are gone. All is well.-MLS] (09/05/05)

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09.html#077097

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Egypt: Activists defy protest ban
Independent [UK]


"Pro-democracy activists defied a ban on demonstrations to protest electoral irregularities as Egypt went to the polls in a multi-party presidential contest marred by blatant, pervasive rigging and intimidation. Hundreds of militants from the Kifaya (Enough) movement, chanting 'Mubarak, no, no, no,' and '24 years is enough,' disrupted traffic in Cairo's central Tarfir Square, urging Egyptians to boycott the vote - officially their country's first such multi-party presidential election - on the grounds that it was fixed by authorities to ensure President Hosni Mubarak remains in office for a further six years." (09/08/05)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article310985.ece

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Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Samaritan evacuates 82 to S.D.
Sign on San Diego

"A local businessman's concern for victims of Hurricane Katrina compelled him to charter a passenger jet and bring to San Diego 82 people who had lost everything in the disaster.
David Perez, 42, said he was so disturbed by images of ineffective disaster relief that he spent about $250,000 to hire the Boeing 737 and fly the evacuees from Baton Rouge, La., to Lindbergh Field yesterday." (09/05/05)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20050905-9999-1n5evacuees.html
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Need is vast, but so is outpouring
Christian Science Monitor

"The Chatmans popped the trunk on their aging Oldsmobile and pulled out garbage bags bursting with baby formula, clothes, shoes, sheets, and food. The Baton Rouge family didn't know anyone affected by hurricane Katrina. But when they heard a local television station was a designated donation drop-off location, they gathered up all they could and headed into town. The entire region - indeed, the nation - has responded in a huge outpouring of support for those affected by Katrina." (09/05/05)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0902/p01s01-ussc.html


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/05/katrina/main815185.shtml


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Churches take charge and care for survivors
Detroit Free Press

" They came to the steps of the altar, wearing dirty T-shirts and muddy flip-flops. They cried and prayed and thanked God for being alive.On the first Sunday after Hurricane Katrina, churches in Baton Rouge were filled with relief workers, volunteer coordinators and survivors.Many churches have found a niche, becoming mini-relief agencies, filling in gaps where the government has failed." (09/05/05)

http://www.freep.com/news/nw/kchurches5e_20050905.htm


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State failure and human solidarity
CounterPunch
Dan La Botz

"Government failed utterly. Homeland Security secured nothing. FEMA-the Federal Emergency Management Administration-managed nothing. The President, finally tearing himself away from his vacation, first dawdled and then dithered while people died. Only after almost a week of tragedy, suffering and shame did government being to respond.
But the people of New Orleans, poor African American people mostly, didn't fail. They gave us a model to live by. They helped each other. Ordinary men and women carried children and the elderly to high ground, built camps in the driest, most secure place, formed bands to forage for food and dry clothing. The strong helped the weak, as all helped each other. They also spoke out in righteous anger to the television cameras telling the world that the government had, after long neglecting them, now deserted them. They demanded to be treated with the dignity they deserved.Not all were steadfast it's true. Some behaved like our society taught them to behave: competed for resources, beggared their neighbors, hoarded their wealth. But most, the vast majority, stood together. The rejected competition and embraced cooperation and collective action." (09/06/05)

http://www.counterpunch.org/labotz09062005.html

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Superdome of shame
The Libertarian Enterprise
Jack Duggan

"Watching news coverage of the refugees trying to enter the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans for safety from the approaching force-five Hurricane Katrina, I was incredulous how the people attempting to enter the stadium were being treated by the national guard troops and local police. The people were made to stand for hours outside in the awful Louisiana climate while they were admitted one or two adults at a time so they could be searched "for firearms and alcohol." .... There were thousands of poor, mostly black citizens of the lower Louisiana area, many of them little children and sickly elderly, being forced to stand for hours while the government violated their civil rights with forced searches that were patently unconstitutional, unjust and unreasonable under the dire circumstances. 'Don't want to be searched? That's okay....now turn around, go outside and die!' Big choice." (09/05/05)

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle335-20050904-04.html

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North Carolina: Weapons counseling stays in bill
Charlotte Observer

"The House decided Wednesday to keep a new policy on advising domestic violence victims about carrying a gun, rejecting Gov. Mike Easley's request to nullify a law he signed a few days ago. The law requires court clerks to give victims information on applying for a concealed weapon permits. Advocates for domestic violence victims wanted something akin to a repeal because they think it's a bad idea to encourage domestic violence victims to get weapons. .... Victims advocates had hoped Easley would veto the bill. Instead, he signed it and his office worked with House leaders to change it. But a bill that would have repealed the section of the new law pertaining to notifying victims about the weapon permit was defeated, 49-57. .... Rep. Mark Hilton, the Conover Republican who sponsored the law, objected to a last-minute change after the legislature had already approved the idea overwhelmingly. "Simple educational information is all we're asking for," Hilton said. "This bill would gut what we're trying to do.'The gun-rights group Grass Roots North Carolina pushed for the law." (09/01/05)


http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/2774542p-9213041c.html

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New Orleans: A wakeup call for California
Gun News Daily
Ralph Weller

"The lessons learned from New Orleans are:1. Keep enough food and water to last for a minimum of one month. 2. Keep a lot of flashlights and batteries around along with a couple of portable radios. Keep a well stock first aid kit as well. Keep a portable stove for cooking and boiling water. 3. Own guns and plenty of ammunition. Know how to use them and that includes everyone in your family old enough to handle a firearm. 4. Be prepared to use your firearms in defense of your life and the lives of your family members and neighbors. 5. Share what you can with your neighbors and form a neighborhood security team to keep unwanted people out until government authorities have secured the area.
6. When politicians tell you that only law enforcement and police should own guns in today's "modern society", tell them to go to hell... or New Orleans. There's no difference between either at this point in time." (09/02/05)

http://www.gunnewsdaily.com/rw726.html