Update 10/07/07 - here's the article in the LA Times:

Court bars removal of Santa Monica trees
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer.

Right on! Chris and the gang called me up last night to let me know that all of our hard work paid off and they have a restraining order to protect the trees for three weeks while everything is re-investigated.

I'll have more up on all this soon -- but I must swim before I start working every day - my new rule! :-)

Okay I just wanted to let everyone know -- those of you who've been asking or following this for the last few weeks -- thanks so much for your concern. It's been a great experience...and whaddaya know...

This time we saved some trees!

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ficus6oct06,1,2585776.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

Court bars removal of Santa Monica trees
template_bas
template_bas
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 6, 2007
Protesters obtained a restraining order Friday to stop the destruction of a stand of ficus trees in downtown Santa Monica that the city had planned to remove starting Monday as part of an $8-million downtown development project.

Local activist Jerry Rubin got the order approved by a judge on behalf of Santa Monica Treesavers. The order prevents the city from removing 54 ficus trees on 4th and 2nd streets unless they pose a danger to the public.

The city planned to remove 23 trees that its arborist considered damaged or diseased and to replant 31 of them elsewhere in the city.

Protesters doubt the trees are damaged and want time to get a second opinion.

"If the trees were truly a danger to the public, they would have been removed already," said the group's attorney, Thomas Nitti.

molly.hennessy-fiske @latimes.com

Hey LA-based tree hugger peeps!

Time to come out in full force tomorrow evening in Santa Monica for a
March to Save The Trees in memory of Gandhi's Birthday.

Chris Paine, and old friend of mine, and Director of the awesome film, Who Killed The Electric Car, has been helping to organize a series of Tree Saver meetings that have been going on over the past few weeks to save over 50 Ficus trees scheduled for removal under the guise of being diseased (extreme disagreement over this point by experts in the community).

There's a Tree Saver Blog where you can get more information about it all.

Below: The Tree Savers Crew

Here's more about Who Killed The Electric Car too! Lots to talk about on this front in the days - and years, to come: Press/Reviews of Film Why Electric Cars Are Better Cool Scenes From The Film I found on YouTube Trailer Buy The DVD

If you're in LA tomorrow night - Thursday, September 27, 2007, please go to the meeting and show your support.

Video footage of the meeting would be highly appreciated too!

The FCC is in the process of rewriting cable law. Unfortunately, what's being "rewritten" is the writing off of PEG channels. PEG = Public, Education and Government Access Channels

As always, this comes to me at the last minute and there's nothing we can do directly besides hassle our Congresspeople to hassle the FCC to leave PEGs alone:

Take 30 seconds right nowto use this form to write them.

Then get the phone numbers it gives you and phone them all and tell them to tell the FCC to "save the Public, Education and Government Channels."

I sent my letters. Now I'll call in the AM.

Now...what is all this really about? Well I hopped over to the FCC website to see what I could see, and it would appear, yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have another Regulatory "Review of the Commission's Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules Adopted Pursuant to Section 202 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996."
word doc    PDF

There's a public meeting on Wednesday, December 20th where I guess the damage can
be done:
word doc   PDF

I'm still reading through these docs now, trying to figure them out. This FCC stuff is such a drag...

Thanks for sending emails and making phonecalls Tuesday!

Update September 27 - I emailed the World Can't Wait folks and they said that the permit negotiations seem to be going smoothly now. Thanks everybody for writing!

Please take a couple minutes this morning to send an email and make a phone call to Gavin Newsome, our sometimes-liberal SF Mayor, and tell him to "grant World Can't Wait their Oct 5 Justin Herman Plaza protest permit." (I have a letter you can cut and paste below)

It's already a little hokey to need to get a permit to have a protest, but it can be a good thing too, in that portopotties and other civic arrangements can be made when everyone knows what's going on that day.

But not granting the permits, or waiting till the last minute to grant the permits, adds an air of uncertainty around the whole thing that hurts the process. I'd like to think that Gavin Newsome isn't blocking the permits on purpose. But at the very least, there is some incompetence going on. And it's really bad timing for it. And it can't be tolerated.

So email Gavin at gavin.newsom@sfgov.org AND call him at 415-554-6141
and for that matter, Fax him at 415-554-6160

thanks!

Here's the letter I wrote - so you can just cut and paste it:

Dear Gavin,

Please grant World Can't Wait its protest permit for the October 5 Justin Herman Plaza event.

I hope this is just an oversight or something, and there aren't seriously people in your administration that are knowingly blocking these permits.

Thanks for your time,

Lisa Rein
address here

OCT 5 PERMIT EMERGENCY

EMERGENCY NOTICE: OCT 5 permits being stalled - call

Greetings!

WCW has applied for permits to rally at Justin
Herman Plaza at noon, OCT 5 to march on Market
Street to a main rally with prominent speakers at
4PM in Union Square, and then to march back to
Justin Herman Plaza for the all-night vigil.

The San Francisco Police Department has denied the
march permit. The SF Recreation and Parks Department
is responsible for permits at the sites and has not
yet granted them.

Everyone who knows how important the October 5
demonstrations will be needs to call and email THIS
MORNING to let SF City officials know you support
the plans to rally, march and vigil on October 5.
Demand that all the permits be immediately granted
for the sites and routes applied for!

Please contact Mayor Newsom to urge him to take
urgent, immediate action to grant all requested
permits for World Can’t Wait on October 5-6. Please
also contact SF Supervisors and the General Manager
of the SF Recreation and Park Department. Letters
should clearly and respectfully state your reasons
for supporting the permit applications from World
Can’t Wait to demonstrate as part of the national
day of mass resistance called with actions across
the country.

Somebody's Name

* CALL NOW!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* CALL NOW!

NOTE: Supervisors Tom Ammiano, Chris Daly, and Ross
Mirkarimi are signators and supporters of the World
Can't Wait Call. Assemblymen Mark Leno and Leland
Yee have also signed the Call, as has State Senator
Carol Migden.

(1) Mayor Gavin Newsom: Phone: 415-554-6141

gavin.newsom@sfgov.org Fax 415-554-6160

City Hall, Room 200

(2) San Francisco Supervisors:

Tom Ammiano: (415) 554-5144 Fax 554-6255
Tom.Ammiano@sfgov.org

Chris Daly: (415) 554-7970 Fax 554-7974
Chris.Daly@sfgov.org

Ross Mirkarimi: (415) 554-7630 Fax 554-7634
Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org

Jake McGoldrick: (415) 554-7410 Fax 554-7415
Jake.McGoldrick@sfgov.org

Michela Alioto-Pier: (415) 554-7752 Fax 554-7843
Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org

Aaron Peskin: (415) 554-7450 Fax 554-7454
Aaron.Peskin@sfgov.org

Fiona Ma: (415) 554-7460 Fax 554-7432
Fiona.Ma@sfgov.org

Sean Elsbernd (415) 554-6516 Fax 554-6546
Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org

Bevan Dufty: (415) 554-6968 Fax 554-6909
Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org

Sophie Maxwell: (415) 554-7670 Fax 554-7674
Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org

Gerardo Sandoval: (415) 554-6975 Fax 554-6977
Gerardo.Sandoval@sfgov.org

(3) Mr. Yomi Agunbiade, General Manager (415)
831-2700

San Francisco Recreation and Park Department

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!
2940 16th Street
San Francisco, California 94103
(415) 864 5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
http://www.worldcantwait.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read “The Call to
Drive Out the Bush Regime”
(http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=szqdqybab.0.yavxdtbab.9ii95sbab.2281&ts=S0207&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldcantwait.org%2F)
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the rest of the site!! See today's reason to Drive
Them Out located on the right side of our Home Page.

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I don't want this to be true. But I think it is. Update 5/16/06 - this is true guys. I've found a lot of info on it and will be posting here asap.

Things are getting really freaky. Sure, it happened in Cleveland, but it could happen anywhere, if it's allowed to happen there.

Here's the link from the World Can't wait website.

Defend World Can't Wait Activist Brutalized and Arrested by Police for Postering

This is from an email sent to me:

May 9: Judge Timothy McGinty forcibly incarcerated Carol Fisher in
the psych unit of the Cuyahoga County Jail in downtown Cleveland,
where she now sits for an indefinite period of time.

In a hastily called hearing yesterday, Judge McGinty made a highly
unusual and outrageous decision to force Carol to undergo a state
psychological exam as part of her pre-sentencing investigation. From
the very start of Carol's case, the judge has openly said that she
must have mental problems for resisting an unlawful and brutal
encounter with Cleveland Heights police. He went even further in
yesterday's hearing, saying that her opposition to the Bush regime
makes her "delusional."

Dear World Can't Wait Supporter,
Judge Orders World Can't Wait Activist to Jail Psych Unit
CAROL FISHER REMAINS STRONG AND UNAPOLOGETIC

May 9: Judge Timothy McGinty forcibly incarcerated Carol Fisher in
the psych unit of the Cuyahoga County Jail in downtown Cleveland,
where she now sits for an indefinite period of time.

In a hastily called hearing yesterday, Judge McGinty made a highly
unusual and outrageous decision to force Carol to undergo a state
psychological exam as part of her pre-sentencing investigation. From
the very start of Carol's case, the judge has openly said that she
must have mental problems for resisting an unlawful and brutal
encounter with Cleveland Heights police. He went even further in
yesterday's hearing, saying that her opposition to the Bush regime
makes her "delusional."

The small courtroom on the 21st floor of the Justice Center was
ringed with 5 armed court bailiffs. McGinty started off the hearing
by making Carol stand up and had one of her attorneys read her t-
shirt, which said:

"Wanted for Illegally Crossing Borders: The Bush Regime

"If you are going to insist that crossing borders illegally is a
crime which cannot be tolerated, how about George Bush, Dick Cheney,
Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice (and yes, Colin Powell) and the
rest of that gang, with their highly illegal, and violent, 'crossing
of the border'-into Iraq, among other places?!"

McGinty then said this was proof of her delusion! He also kept
saying Carol "wants" to go to jail, and that she has a "martyr
complex." When Carol tried to explain why she wouldn't take this
test, the judge's only response was, "I do not negotiate with felons."

Does Carol really want to go to jail? No! But she is not willing to
comply with a vindictive court ordered test to "prove" her sanity.
And more than that, she is taking a stand for everyone who is angry
and fearful of a government that, under the rubric of "national
security and the war on terror," willfully and unapologetically
tramples on the most basic rights of privacy. Think about this in
light of the NSA spying scandal, and now Bush wants to install the
head of the notorious NSA to be CIA chief! As Carol said before she
went to jail, "I'd be crazy to go along with this shit! That which
you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn--or be
forced--to accept."

Just look at this whole case: a woman posts a "Bush Step Down" poster
on a telephone pole, being brutalized by the police in the process,
and now not only faces 3 years in prison but also a mandatory psych
exam. As Terry Gilbert, one of Carol's attorneys said, "This is
Gulag stuff--saying that people who are dissidents are crazy." He
further added that in his 33 years of practicing law, he has never
seen anything like this.

Is this the kind of country you want to live in?

On the phone this morning, Carol Fisher stated that, in addition to
sending her to the psych unit, McGinty has also put her on "suicide
watch"! They have taken away her eyeglasses. And if she refuses the
psych exam, she will be forcibly sent to North Coast Mental Institute
for a 20 day evaluation.

Legal challenges are continuing, including seeking a writ of habeas
corpus.

When the transcripts are available to the public, they will show how
outrageous this hearing was.

(Click here for previous news and more information about Carol
Fishers arrest and trial)

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Donate to Carol's legal defense. It costs a lot of money
to get transcripts, file appeals, etc. Make checks payable to “Carol
Fisher Defense Fund” and mail to “NION/WCW PO Box 609034 Cleveland,
OH 44109.
• Call Judge Timothy McGinty and express your outrage:
216-443-8758
• Join us at a "Speak Out!" for Carol Fisher - Saturday,
May 13 at 7pm at the corner of Coventry and Euclid Heights Blvd in
Cleveland Heights.
• Get your legal organization to be part of Carol's
defense: make statements, file friend of the court briefs, etc.
• Have your church group, school group, organization or
club join this battle by sending statements of support, donating
funds, etc.
• Request radio stations play any of the following songs,
dedicate it to Carol Fisher and explain what is going on with her case:
• Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down”
• Pearl Jam’s “World Wide Suicide”
• Pink’s “Dear Mr President”
• Neil Young’s “Let’s Impeach the President”

• Write letters to the editor of:
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Go to website:
www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/lettertoeditor
• The Cleveland Free Times. Email: editor@freetimes.com
• The Sun Press. Email: sun@sunnews.com

• Send this article to your list serves and post to blogs.
• Join the World Can't Wait- Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Contact: World Cant Wait, Cleveland 216-633-6200
PO Box 609034 Cleveland OH 44109
cleveland@worldcantwait.org
www.worldcantwait.org

World Can't Wait
info@worldcantwait.org
866-973-4463
305 W. Broadway #185
New York, NY 10013

Next Tuesday, November 8, California is having a Special Election so that our Governor Arnie can try to pass a bunch of crazy, arguably unconstitutional, legislation.

This is his way of attempting to surpass the checks and balances of our State Senate to quickly enact plans of actions that would never fly, were the public and legislators given the chance to learn about the details.

His first trick is having a Special Election in the first place - few voters actually show up to vote for those. Only the peeps already in Arnie's corner are planning on showing up to usher in their bogus legislation.

The solution is quick and easy - show up and vote NO on everything!

Thanks,

lisa

This thing is funny as hell, but its message is extremely important:
non-organic food can be bad for your health.

It's sad to me that, instead of regulating our "regular" food so it's safe (doesn't contain pesticides, hormones, or other harmful ingredients), we've sort of given up on our regular food and decided to try to start up a brand of "healthy" food that won't hurt us.

STORE WARS

I've written a second letter that I'm sending now to all of the members on the judiciary committee. (Hopefully I'll have a better list by email of them soon...)

Here's a link to the first letter, in case you haven't sent that one yet.

Subject header: Protect Our Troops - Oppose Gonzales Nomination

Dear Senator,

I'm writing you to a second time to request that you vote against the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General because I feel it is so vitally important.

We must protect the Geneva Conventions, the War Crimes Act, and our diplomatic credibility throughout the rest of the free world. Now more than ever, with an unprecedented number of our armed forces and National Guard forces on active duty all over the world.

Send a message of strength and a clear signal that the abuses of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are being taken seriously, and that those days are over. Otherwise, you will send our troops, our country and the rest of the world in a very dangerous direction.

Sincerely,

Lisa Rein

All the senators on the
judiciary committee.

Senator Dick Durbin, (202) 224-2152,

http://durbin.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.htm

Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242, senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

Senator Barbara Boxer, (202) 224-3553,

http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Senator Russ Feingold, (202) 224-5323, russ_feingold@feingold.senate.gov

Senator Edward Kennedy, 202/224-4543, senator@kennedy.senate.gov

Senator Tom Harkin, (202) 224-3254, tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov

Senator Jim Jeffords, (202) 224-5141, Vermont@jeffords.senate.gov

Please do this today! Every second counts on this one guys-lr

Learn more via Video, Audio, Transcripts and Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings.

I just realized today that we've found our first bi-partisan issue of this administration: opposing Gonzales as US Attorney General.

Republican and Democrats should be able to join together in opposition to Gonzales for many reasons.

(In case you're not familiar with this situation, Gonzales is the legal counsel that wrote the "torture memo" that declared that the geneva convention was "quaint" in the context of the war on terror. And basically said that torture was OK.)

It's just bad politics to place a man who openly condones torture and provides a legal justification for it as head of our Federal Justice system.

As a Republican, one should be concerned about how an extremist such as Gonzales places the entire Republican party in a bad light. Surely not all Republican's condone torture, but if the Republican-appointed Attorney General condones it, it sure looks like that way.

We have enough bad faith across nations without the man who wrote the infamous "Torture Memo" as head of our Justice Department. Plus, it sends a skewered message to the rest of the world that could put our troops at risk, by suggesting that the Geneva convention is somehow outdated.

Now, more than ever, with our troops spreading out all over the world, we need the Geneva convention to help protect them from being mistreated as POWs in other countries. (Let's not get into whether they should be fighting there or not. The point is they're there, and we need to protect them by keeping the Geneva convention in full force.)

I think that most Democrats would agree with the above reasoning as well.

Basically, anyone against torture and in favor of the Geneva Convention should be in agreement with this objective.

That means, for once, we might be all be on the same page.

Let's take advantage of this opportunity to work together to send a strong message to Congress opposing Gonzales as Attorney General.

With Gonzales on hold, there are a few days to get the word out to our Senators.

Here's a little letter that you can cut and paste and modify for your own letter.

Write as many letters to as many Senators as you can. (Time count: 6 minutes to email/fill out forms for everyone below.)

I'll be posting clips from the confirmation hearings over the course of the day to try to clarify some of the more complex issues.

In the subject header, write "Please Oppose Gonzales And Protect Our Troops."

Dear Senator,

I'm writing you to request that you vote against the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General. I feel that placing a man with such questionable values as head of our Justice Department will send a very damaging message to the rest of the world and place our troops abroad in unnecessary danger.

We must protect the Geneva convention and our diplomatic credibility abroad by voting against Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General.

Sincerely,

Lisa Rein

Here's a list of senators to start with. I'm trying to put together a list of particularly relevant senators, like the one's on the panel asking the questions.

Update 1/24/05 - send letters to these senators on the Judiciary committee.

I know that Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy are on it, because I saw them during the hearings, so I'm putting them at the top of the list.

Senator Dick Durbin, (202) 224-2152,
http://durbin.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.htm

Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242, senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

Senator Barbara Boxer, (202) 224-3553,
http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Senator Russ Feingold, (202) 224-5323, russ_feingold@feingold.senate.gov

Senator Edward Kennedy, 202/224-4543, senator@kennedy.senate.gov

Senator Tom Harkin, (202) 224-3254, tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov

Senator Jim Jeffords, (202) 224-5141, Vermont@jeffords.senate.gov

Alright, back in a bit with some clips and discussion from the hearings...

Rep. John Conyers has been our one friend in congress who has been compelled to investigate the obvious hanky panky that went on during the Ohio election.

He would like to compel the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings about the 2004 election, but he feels he would need a million emails to turn their heads enough to go for it.

Let's give him two million!

Go here:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/contact.html

Type "Ohio Voting Irregularities" in the "Other" box of the form, and then write your own letter, or cut and paste this email in the body of the form, and send it off. (Update: Yeah, the first version of the below letter was corny, so I amended it.)

Estimated time: 30 seconds.

I am writing to urge the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings as soon as possible on the irregularities of the 2004 election.

There were too many things that just didn't add up, including several precincts where there were more votes for Bush than registered voters.

It is important to know exactly what happened in Ohio, and many other states, so that it does not happen again.

With all this in mind, I ask you to take these discrepancies seriously by holding hearings immediately to investigate them.

More thoughts on this from an email sent to me:

Please spread this message among your list of friends and associates.

There's a growing awareness, with increasing coverage now in national
papers such as the Washington Post and LA Times, that we need an
investigation of the voter suppression and other fraud in Ohio and
elsewhere.

Like Watergate, this issue will build momentum -- and we, the people, to keep it alive until it can no longer be ignored.

This just in from t r u t h o u t
(See the entire article under "More" below, including a letter to Kenneth Blackwell from Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Rep. Melvin Watt, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC...

Any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact their Senators and Representatives and ask that they attend. Furthermore, any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact the television network C-SPAN and ask them to broadcast the event in its entirety. C-SPAN accepts suggestions for events to be broadcast at events@c-span.org. The network can also be contacted via telephone at (202) 737-3220.

I just sent the following letter:

Hi guys,

Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC.

I hope you will be broadcasting this event in its entirety.

Thanks,

Lisa Rein

Starting Monday morning, when their offices open, I'll be calling every day to say the same thing the letter does. Hope you do the same. (I'll post a reminder here, no worries :-)

Thanks!

lisa

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120404W.shtml

Editor’s Note | Any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact their Senators and Representatives and ask that they attend. Furthermore, any who wish to see this hearing receive wide attention should contact the television network C-SPAN and ask them to broadcast the event in its entirety. C-SPAN accepts suggestions for events to be broadcast at events@c-span.org. The network can also be contacted via telephone at (202) 737-3220. - wrp

Also see below:
Letter from House Committee on the Judiciary to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell •

Conyers to Hold Hearings on Ohio Vote Fraud
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 03 December 2004

Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking Minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Wednesday 08 December 2004 to investigate allegations of vote fraud and irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election. The hearing is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington DC.

Democratic Representatives Melvin Watt and Robert Scott will also be centrally involved with the hearing. Rev. Jesse Jackson will be in attendance, along with Ralph Neas (President, People for the American Way), Jon Greenbaum (Director, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights Under Law), Ellie Smeal (Executive Director, The Feminist Majority), Bob Fitrakis ( The Free Press), Cliff Arnebeck (Arnebeck Associates), John Bonifaz (General Counsel, National Voting Institute), Steve Rosenfeld (Producer, Air America Radio), and Shawnta Walcott (Communications Director, Zogby International). Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been invited to attend.

The term ‘hearing’ is technically not accurate in this matter, as Conyers and his fellow Representatives will be holding this forum without the blessing of the Republican Majority leader of the Judiciary Committee. Staffers from the Minority office at the Judiciary Committee describe the event as a ‘Members Briefing.’ That having been said, this event will be a hearing by every meaningful definition of the word. Expert testimony will be offered, and a good deal of data on potential fraud previously unreported to the public will be discussed and examined at length.

The hearing came together thanks to a confluence of events, and through the work of like-minded individuals who are deeply concerned about the allegations of vote fraud in the Ohio Presidential election. Tim Carpenter and Kevin Spidel, along with other members of Progressive Democrats of America, went to Washington DC to speak with the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee about the need for an investigation into these allegations. They found Rep. Conyers, his fellow Judiciary Democrats, and their staffers already working on assembling such an investigation.

The core of what Conyers and his fellow Minority members will be discussing at this hearing can be found in the letter below, which was sent by the Minority office to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell on 02 December. In the letter, Conyers, along with Reps. Watt, Nadler and Baldwin, outline a broad and detailed series of questions and concerns about the manner in which the Ohio election took place.

I will be traveling to Washington DC to begin t r u t h o u t coverage of this event on Tuesday night, and we will keep you posted on further developments as they arise.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.'

Go to Original

One Hundred Eighth Congress
Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC 20515-6216
(202) 225-3951

December 2, 2004

The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell
Ohio Secretary of State
180 East Broad Street, 16th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215

Dear Secretary Blackwell:

We write to request your assistance with our ongoing investigation of election irregularities in the 2004 Presidential election. As you may be aware, the Government Accountability Office has agreed to undertake a systematic and comprehensive review of election irregularities throughout the nation. As a separate matter, we have requested that the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff undertake a thorough review of each and every specific allegation of election irregularities received by our offices.

Collectively, we are concerned that these complaints constitute a troubled portrait of a one-two punch that may well have altered and suppressed votes, particularly minority and Democratic votes. First, it appears there were substantial irregularities in vote tallies. It is unclear whether these apparent errors were the result of machine malfunctions or fraud.

Second, it appears that a series of actions of government and non-government officials may have worked to frustrate minority voters. Consistent and widespread reports indicate a lack of voting machines in urban, minority and Democratic areas, and a surplus of such machines in Republican, white and rural areas. As a result, minority voters were discouraged from voting by lines that were in excess of eight hours long. Many of these voters were also apparently victims of a campaign of deception, where flyers and calls would direct them to the wrong polling place. Once at that polling place, after waiting for hours in line, many of these voters were provided provisional ballots after learning they were at the wrong location. These ballots were not counted in many jurisdictions because of a directive issued by some election officials, such as yourself.

We are sure you agree with us that regardless of the outcome of the election, it is imperative that we examine any and all factors that may have led to voting irregularities and any failure of votes to be properly counted. Toward that end, we ask you to respond to the following allegations:

I. Counting Irregularities

A. Warren County Lockdown – On election night, Warren County locked down its administration building and barred reporters from observing the counting. When that decision was questioned, County officials claimed they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a “10" on a scale of 1 to 10, and that this information was received from an FBI agent. Despite repeated requests, County officials have declined to name that agent, however, and the FBI has stated that they had no information about a terror threat in Warren County. Your office has stated that it does not know of any other county that took these drastic measures.

In addition to these contradictions, Warren County officials have given conflicting accounts of when the decision was made to lock down the building. While the County Commissioner has stated that the decision to lockdown the building was made during an October 28 closed-door meeting, emailed memos – dated October 25 and 26 – indicate that preparations for the lockdown were already underway.

This lockdown must be viewed in the context of the aberrational results in Warren County. In the 2000 Presidential election, the Democratic Presidential candidate, Al Gore, stopped running television commercials and pulled resources out of Ohio weeks before the election. He won 28% of the vote in Warren County. In 2004, the Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry, fiercely contested Ohio and independent groups put considerable resources into getting out the Democratic vote. Moreover, unlike in 2000, independent candidate Ralph Nader was not on the Ohio ballot in 2004. Yet, the tallies reflect John Kerry receiving exactly the same percentage in Warren County as Gore received, 28%.

We hope you agree that transparent election procedures are vital to public confidence in electoral results. Moreover, such aberrant procedures only create suspicion and doubt that the counting of votes was manipulated. As part of your decision to certify the election, we hope you have investigated these concerns and found them without merit. To assist us in reaching a similar conclusion, we ask the following:

1. Have you, in fact, conducted an investigation of the lockdown? What procedures have you or would you recommend be put into place to avoid a recurrence of this situation?

2. Have you ascertained whether County officials were advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent and, if so, the identity of that agent?

3. If County officials were not advised of terrorist activity by an FBI agent, have you inquired as to why they misrepresented this fact? If the lockdown was not as a response to a terrorist threat, why did it take place? Did any manipulation of vote tallies occur?

B. Perry County Election Counting Discrepancies – The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received information indicating discrepancies in vote tabulations in Perry County. For example, the sign-in book for the Reading S precinct indicates that approximately 360 voters cast ballots in that precinct. In the same precinct, the sign-in book indicates that there were 33 absentee votes cast. In sum, this would appear to mean that fewer than 400 total votes were cast in that precinct. Yet, the precinct’s official tallies indicate that 489 votes were cast. In addition, some voters’ names have two ballot stub numbers listed next to their entries creating the appearance that voters were allowed to cast more than one ballot.

In another precinct, W Lexington G AB, 350 voters are registered according to the County’s initial tallies. Yet, 434 voters cast ballots. As the tallies indicate, this would be an impossible 124% voter turnout. The breakdown on election night was initially reported to be 174 votes for Bush, and 246 votes for Kerry. We are advised that the Perry County Board of Elections has since issued a correction claiming that, due to a computer error, some votes were counted twice. We are advised that the new tallies state that only 224 people voted, and the tally is 90 votes for Bush and 127 votes for Kerry. This would make it appear that virtually every ballot was counted twice, which seems improbable.

In Monroe Township, Precinct AAV, we are advised that 266 voters signed in to vote on election day, yet the Perry County Board of Elections is reporting that 393 votes were cast in that precinct, a difference of 133 votes.

4. Why does it appear that there are more votes than voters in the Reading S precinct of Perry County?

5. What is the explanation for the fluctuating results in the W Lexington AB precinct?

6. Why does it appear that there are more votes than voters in the Monroe Township precinct AAV?

C. Perry County Registration Peculiarities

In Perry County, there appears to be an extraordinarily high level voter registration, 91%; yet a substantial number of these voters have never voted and have no signature on file. Of the voters that are registered in Perry County an extraordinarily large number of voters are listed as having registered in 1977, a year in which there were no federal elections. Of these an exceptional number are listed as having registered on the exact same day: in total, 3,100 voters apparently registered in Perry County on November 8, 1977.

7. Please explain why there is such a high percentage of voters in this County who have never voted and do not have signatures on file. Also, please help us understand why such a high number of voters in this County are shown as having registered on the same day in 1977.

D. Unusual Results in Butler County

In Butler County, a Democratic Candidate for State Supreme Court, C. Ellen Connally received 59,532 votes. In contrast, the Kerry-Edwards ticket received only 54,185 votes, 5,000 less than the State Supreme Court candidate. Additionally, the victorious Republican candidate for State Supreme Court received approximately 40,000 less votes than the Bush-Cheney ticket. Further, Connally received 10,000 or more votes in excess of Kerry’s total number of votes in five counties, and 5,000 more votes in excess of Kerry’s total in ten others.

It must also be noted that Republican judicial candidates were reportedly “awash in cash,” with more than $1.4 million and were also supported by independent expenditures by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

While you may have found an explanation for these bizarre results, it appears to be wildly implausible that 5,000 voters waited in line to cast a vote for an underfunded Democratic Supreme Court candidate and then declined to cast a vote for the most well-funded Democratic Presidential campaign in history. We would appreciate an answer to the following:

8. Have you examined how an underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate could receive so many more votes in Butler County than the Kerry-Edwards ticket? If so, could you provide us with the results of your examination? Is there any precedent in Ohio for a downballot candidate receiving on a percentage or absolute basis so many more votes than the Presidential candidate of the same party in this or any other presidential election? Please let us know if any other County in Ohio registered such a disparity on a percentage or absolute basis.

E. Unusual Results in Cuyahoga County

Precincts in Cleveland have reported an incredibly high number of votes for third party candidates who have historically received only a handful of votes from these urban areas. For example, precinct 4F in the 4th Ward cast 290 votes for Kerry, 21 for Bush, and 215 for Constitution Party candidate Michael Peroutka. In 2000, the same precinct cast less than 8 votes for all third party candidates combined.

This pattern is found in at least 10 precincts through throughout Cleveland in 2004, awarding hundreds of unlikely votes to the third party candidate. Notably, these precincts share more than a strong Democratic history: the use of a punch card ballot. In light of these highly unlikely results, we would like to know the following:

9. Have you investigated whether the punch card system used in Cuyahoga County led to voters accidentally voting for third party candidates instead of the Democratic candidate they intended? If so, what were the results? Has a third party candidate ever received such a high percentage of votes in these precincts.

10. Have you found similar problems in other counties? Have you found similar problems with other voting methods?

F. Spoiled Ballots

According to post election canvassing, many ballots were cast without any valid selection for president. For example, two precincts in Montgomery County had an undervote rate of over 25% each – accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president. This is in stark contrast to the 2% of undervoting county-wide. Disturbingly, predominantly Democratic precincts had 75% more undervotes than those that were predominantly Republican. It is inconceivable to us that such a large number of people supposedly did not have a preference for president in such a controversial and highly contested election.

Considering that an estimated 93,000 ballots were spoiled across Ohio, we would like to know the following:

11. How many of those spoiled ballots were of the punch card or optical scan format and could therefore be examined in a recount?

12. Of those votes that have a paper trail, how many votes for president were undercounted, or showed no preference for president? How many were overcounted, or selected more than one candidate for president? How many other ballots had an indeterminate preference?

13. Of the total 93,000 spoiled ballots, how many were from predominantly Democratic precincts? How many were from minority-majority precincts?

14. Are you taking steps to ensure that there will be a paper trail for all votes before the 2006 elections so that spoiled ballots can be individually re-examined?

G. Franklin County Overvote – On election day, a computerized voting machine in ward 1B in the Gahanna precinct of Franklin County recorded a total of 4,258 votes for President Bush and 260 votes for Democratic challenger, John Kerry. However, there are only 800 registered voters in that Gahanna precinct, and only 638 people cast votes at the New Life Church polling site. It was since discovered that a computer glitch resulted in the recording of 3,893 extra votes for President George W. Bush.

Fortunately, this glitch was caught and the numbers were adjusted to show President Bush’s true vote count at 365 votes to Senator Kerry’s 260 votes. However, many questions remain as to whether this kind of malfunction happened in other areas of Ohio. To help us clarify this issue, we request that you answer the following:

15. How was it discovered that this computer glitch occurred?

16. What procedures were employed to alert other counties upon the discovery of the malfunction?

17. Can you be absolutely certain that this particular malfunction did not occur in other counties in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election? How?

18. What is being done to ensure that this type of malfunction does not happen again in the future?

H. Miami County Vote Discrepancy – In Miami County, with 100% of the precincts reporting on Wednesday, November 3, 2004, President Bush had received 20,807 votes, or 65.80% of the vote, and Senator Kerry had received 10,724 votes, or 33.92% of the vote. Miami reported 31,620 voters. Inexplicably, nearly 19,000 new ballots were added after all precincts reported, boosting President Bush’s vote count to 33,039, or 65.77%, while Senator Kerry’s vote percentage stayed exactly the same to three one-hundredths of a percentage point at 33.92%.

Roger Kearney of Rhombus Technologies, Ltd., the reporting company responsible for vote results of Miami County, has stated that the problem was not with his reporting and that the additional 19,000 votes came before 100% of the precincts were in. However, this does not explain how the vote count could change for President Bush, but not for Senator Kerry, after 19,000 new votes were added to the roster. To help us better understand this anomaly, we request that you answer the following:

19. What is your explanation as to the statistical anomaly that showed virtually identical ratios after the final 20-40% of the vote came in? In your judgment, how could the vote count in this County have changed for President Bush, but not for Senator Kerry, after 19,000 new votes were added to the roster?

20. Are you aware of any pending investigations into this matter?

I. Mahoning County Machine Problems – In Mahoning County, numerous voters reported that when they attempted to vote for John Kerry, the vote showed up as a vote for George Bush. This was reported by numerous voters and continued despite numerous attempts to correct their vote.

21. Please let us know if you have conducted any investigation or inquiry of machine voting problems in the state, including the above described problems in Mahoning County, and the results of this investigation or inquiry.

II. Procedural Irregularities

A. Machine Shortages

Throughout predominately Democratic areas in Ohio on election day, there were reports of long lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines. Evidence introduced in public hearings indicates that 68 machines in Franklin County were never deployed for voters, despite long lines for voters at that county, with some voters waiting from two to seven hours to cast their vote. The Franklin County Board of Elections reported that 68 voting machines were never placed on election day, and Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder admitted on November 19, 2004 that 77 machines malfunctioned on Election Day. It has come to our attention that a county purchasing official who was on the line with Ward Moving and Storage Company, documented only 2,741 voting machines delivered through the November 2 election day. However, Franklin County’s records reveal that they had 2,866 “machines available” on election day. This would mean that amid the two to seven hour waits in the inner city of Columbus, at least 125 machines remained unused on Election Day.

Franklin County’s machine allocation report clearly states the number of machines that were placed “By Close of Polls.” However, questions remain as to where these machines were placed and who had access to them throughout the day. Therefore, what matters is not how many voting machines were operating at the end of the day, but rather how many were there to service the people during the morning and noon rush hours.

An analysis revealed a pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, and more machines to the primarily Republican suburbs. At seven out of eight polling places, observers counted only three voting machines per location. According to the presiding judge at one polling site located at the Columbus Model Neighborhood facility at 1393 E. Broad St., there had been five machines during the 2004 primary. Moreover, at Douglas Elementary School, there had been four machines during the spring primary. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. There were reportedly only two voting machines at that precinct. The House Judiciary Committee staff has received first hand information confirming these reports.

Additionally, it appears that in a number of locations, polling places were moved from large locations, such as gyms, where voters could comfortably wait inside to vote to smaller locations where voters were required to wait in the rain. We would appreciate answers to the following:

22. How much funding did Ohio receive from the federal government for voting machines?

23. What criteria were used to distribute those new machines?

24. Were counties given estimates or assurances as to how many new voting machines they would receive? How does this number compare to how many machines were actually received?

25. What procedures were in place to ensure that the voting machines were properly allocated throughout Franklin and other counties? What changes would you recommend be made to insure there is a more equitable allocation of machines in the future?

B. Invalidated Provisional Ballots

As you know, just weeks before the 2004 Presidential election, you issued a directive to county election officials saying they are allowed to count provisional ballots only from voters who go to the correct precinct for their home address. At the same time, it has been reported that fraudulent flyers were being circulated on official-looking letterhead telling voters the wrong place to vote, phone calls were placed incorrectly informing voters that their polling place had changed, “door-hangers” telling African-American voters to go to the wrong precinct, and election workers sent voters to the wrong precinct. In other areas, precinct workers refused to give any voter a provisional ballot. And in at least one precinct, election judges told voters that they may validly cast their ballot in any precinct, leading to any number of disqualified provisional ballots.

In Hamilton County, officials have carried this problematic and controversial directive to a ludicrous extreme: they are refusing to count provisional ballots cast at the correct polling place if they were cast at the wrong table in that polling place. It seems that some polling places contained multiple precincts which were located at different tables. Now, 400 such voters in Hamilton county alone will be disenfranchised as a result of your directive.

26. Have you directed Hamilton County and all other counties not to disqualify provisional ballots cast at the correct polling place simply because they were cast at the wrong precinct table?

27. While many election workers received your directive that voters may cast ballots only in their own precincts, some did not. How did you inform your workers, and the public, that their vote would not be counted if cast in the wrong precinct? How many votes were lost due to election workers telling voters they may vote at any precinct, in direct violation of your ruling?

28. Your directive was exploited by those who intentionally misled voters about their correct polling place, and multiplied the number of provisional ballots found invalid. What steps have you or other officials in Ohio taken to investigate these criminal acts? Has anyone been referred for prosecution? If so, what is the status of their cases?

29. How many provisional ballots were filed in the presidential election in Ohio? How many were ultimately found to be valid and counted? What were the various reasons that these ballots were not counted, and how many ballots fall into each of these categories? Please break down the foregoing by County if possible.

C. Directive to Reject Voter Registration Forms Not Printed on White, Uncoated Paper of Not Less Than 80 lb Text Weight

On September 7, you issued a directive to county boards of elections commanding such boards to reject voter registration forms not “printed on white, uncoated paper of not less than 80 lb. text weight.” Instead, the county boards were to follow a confusing procedure where the voter registration form would be treated as an application for a form and a new blank form would be sent to the voter. While you reversed this directive, you did not do so until September 28. In the interim, a number of counties followed this directive and rejected otherwise valid voter registration forms. There appears to be some further confusion about the revision of this order which resulted in some counties being advised of the change by the news media.

30. How did you notify county boards of elections of your initial September 7 directive?

31. How did you notify county boards of elections of your September 28 decision to revise that directive?

32. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many registration forms were rejected as a result of your September 7 directive? If so, how many?

33. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many voters who had their otherwise valid forms rejected as a result of your September 7 directive subsequently failed to re-register? If so, how many?

34. Have you conducted an investigation to determine how many of those voters showed up who had their otherwise valid forms rejected to vote on election day and were turned away? If so, how many?

We await your prompt reply. To the extent any questions relate to information not available to you, please pass on such questions to the appropriate election board or other official. Please respond to 2142 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 by December 10. If you need more time to investigate and respond to some of these inquiries, we would welcome a partial response by that date and a complete response within a reasonable period of time thereafter. If you have any questions about this inquiry, please contact Perry Apelbaum or Ted Kalo of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff at (202) 225-6504.

Sincerely,

Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Rep. Melvin Watt
Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Rep. Tammy Baldwin

Hmmm. Seems like these kids understand the direction of the country perfectly.


Worried students spend night in school to protest direction of country
By P. Soloman Banda for the Associated Press.

At least 85 students worried about war, a return of the draft and the future of the environment staged an overnight protest in the Boulder High School library before leaving peacefully Friday morning.

The students said they wanted assurances from political leaders about the direction of the country. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., met with some of the students for about an hour after they left the library at 7 a.m.

''We're worried that in four years we're going to be at war with five countries and we're going to have no trees,'' senior Cameron Ely-Murdock said.

''I know that's an extreme position, but I'm really worried about the draft,'' he said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.casperstartribune.net/apdata/wire_detail.php?wire_num=40707

Worried students spend night in school to protest direction of country

AP Photos pursuing

pbde

By P. SOLOMON BANDA

Associated Press Writer

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - At least 85 students worried about war, a return of the draft and the future of the environment staged an overnight protest in the Boulder High School library before leaving peacefully Friday morning.

The students said they wanted assurances from political leaders about the direction of the country. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., met with some of the students for about an hour after they left the library at 7 a.m.

''We're worried that in four years we're going to be at war with five countries and we're going to have no trees,'' senior Cameron Ely-Murdock said.

''I know that's an extreme position, but I'm really worried about the draft,'' he said.

President Bush and other administration officials have repeatedly said they have no plans to reinstate a draft, despite concerns about the number of troops needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Principal Ron Cabrera agreed to let the students spend the night in the library if they would leave in time for Friday morning classes, which they did. A handful of teachers and parents stayed with them.

''It's become a really large learning event about civics and having a political voice. And you can't beat that,'' Cabrera said.

The sit-in began after school Thursday. The students, who brought sleeping bags and food, said they were not protesting Bush's re-election but were worried about the national debt, Iraq and other issues.

The students said they wanted to talk to representatives of GOP Gov. Bill Owens and U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo. Musgrave sponsored the failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

It was not immediately known whether either received a request or responded.

This is from the September 13, 2004 program.

Drew Barrymore On The Daily Show (Small - 17 MB)

I was really impressed with Drew and the movie she made (that she ended up selling to MTV). She's trying to educate youth about voting and make politics hip and sexy. Right on Drew!

If anyone knows where her movie may be online, please let me know.

The Daily Show (The best news on television.)

Hey folks, just a few words to sort of check in with everyone.

I've been in Europe for the past few weeks, and have made a move from San Francisco back to the East Bay right before I left. So I just came home to an apartment full of boxes and, needless to say, no Tivo or computer hooked up yet. The cable guy comes today, so I should be back in business soon.

My sister and her fiancee, Pete, were kind enough to record all of the Daily Shows and Presidential debates for me while I was away, so those should all be up soon. Bill O'Reilly was on the Daily Show last week, and that will be up next week (it will be on the next DVD they send me, along with tonight's debate).

I'm also taking the plunge and learning how to make .mov files from a DVD source (read: Lisa enters the present -- I know many of you have been trying to help me get there for over a year :-)

So I just wanted to let you know where the hell I've been -- many of you have expressed interest, and perhaps a little concern. Things are well. More than well. I've just been busy doing this european distribution thing for my latest project, Wide Hive Records.

Now, back to the issues at hand...

Last night, on Frontline (PBS), I watched a two hour documentary on John Kerry and George Bush. Damn. I wish I had been recording it. Perhaps one of you have it and can send it to me so I can put it up for everyone. Perhaps it will re-air this weekend or something and I'll have a chance to put it up...but anyway it was an incredible piece.

The show parallelled the lives of John Kerry and George W. Bush from their time at Yale through to the present. Kerry goes to Vietnam, in good faith, even though he knows it's bullshit. He does a great job, but feels horrible about the War and his part in it, and comes back to the states full of information that nobody wants to hear. George W. is basically a networking guy that knows how to take visitors out on the town for a good time, while pumping their heads full of whatever ideas are on his agenda at the time. Admittedly, a useful and valuable skill -- in any industry.

He did get special treatment by several members of our government and Texas National Guard folks by being let into the guard and not having to go to Vietnam. I really wouldn't have a problem with this, to be honest (anyone in their right mind at the time was trying to get out of Nam, and rightly so), HOWEVER, he was still talking like Nam was the right thing to do the whole time, and that pisses me off. If Nam was the right thing to do, he should have suited up and gone over there himself.

His actions strongly parallel the situation now, where we've got Hawks in our government saying Iraq is the right thing to do, while none of their children or people they care about are actually over their fighting it. Plus, these hawks aren't treating the soldiers they've sent over there properly -- not paying them enough, giving them enough supplies, taking care of their families, or even giving them proper medical care when they get back. (See my category Against The War, Support Our Troops for specifics on this.) I don't think there's a single person on either side of this war that would agree with this behavior. It's just plain wrong in the truest sense of the word.

Meanwhile, back to last nights documentary. In the late 60's and early 70's, Kerry is touring the country and talking to Congress and going on talk shows and doing whatever he can to put an end to the war through education and information and public awareness of the situation. He talks about things like "Free Fire Zones" (where soldiers are allowed to shoot anything in the area -- including civilians, women and children, entire villages, you name it) -- and how these zones, by definition, violate the Geneva convention.

This situation also hits home right now with the Iraq war, in that many of the acts that our soldiers are being ordered to carry out can be likened to these Free Fire Zones. We're fencing villages in, leveling them entirely, torturing prisoners, and imposing marshall law where death is the legal punishment for any crime the government sees fit to apply it to. We are the terrorists of Iraq right now, and our boys and girls want no part of it, and they are also literally trapped over there -- in many cases serving against their will, even though their tour of duty has officially ended. At the same time we're sending virtually untrained National Guard troops over there like lambs to the slaughter.

Again, just plain wrong in the truest sense of the word. Oh, and don't forget that the whole war was based on a series of lies -- namely the one big WMD lie, much like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that never happend which enabled us to righteously enter Vietnam in the 60's.

But back to Kerry. It was really the second half of the program I watched last night, combined with a dream I had that I just awoke from moments ago -- when I was sort of hanging out with Kerry at some political event, much like I used to converse with Howard Dean during events last year before this year's primaries. The dream made me want to get up and write some words to you about him. (My server was actually down at 5am this morning when I wrote this, hence the discrepancy in the time stamp on this post.)

Kerry was very involved in the Nuclear Freeze campaign in the 80's. He made it the centerpiece of his political platform, and had some political disappointments as a result, due to his seeming like such a lefty. Incredible that stopping the planet from destroying itself through the use of nuclear weapons is seen as a 'left wing' stance. You would think it was in everyone's interest to not blow ourselves up, but go figure. Anyway, he's on the right side of that issue, and, as the story progressed, he seemed to be on the right side of every issue. Now I know that he hasn't come out as strong as some of us would like on some of the issues, but I have a feeling that he will do so when the time is right, when he doesn't have to play it safe so as not to freak out the moderate voters he's trying to attract away from Bush.

All I'm trying to say is that I feel better about Kerry now that I know more about his history. And I don't feel that he's only the lesser of two evils. Admittedly, that's how I've been feeling these last few months, and why I haven't been more vocal on the subject, to be honest. Well, I don't feel that way any more. I feel like Kerry is a good guy and will make a great President. His morals are in the right place, and you can't say that about many politicians these days.

So I'm getting my equipment back up and running over the next few days, and I'll be posting a ton of important stuff to help get the word out about the issues and help you guys make your case to any moderates you know -- perhaps in your family, for starters. I myself have some moderates on the fence that I am trying to gently persuade. We have two important things on our side: (1) the facts, and (2) their lies coming to light. Nobody likes to be lied to, especially by their leaders, and especially about life and death situations, but Bush and Cheney have been lying to us about life and death situations since their first days in office.

Whether they are lying about the reasons for entering the war, or making up stories about Jessica Lynch that never actually happened, in order to give us some false hero to worship (while ignoring the real heroes of this war -- and yes there are a few, like Sergeant Patrick Miller -- whose story will go up later today). The point is they lie. They lie, and kill people for money, and do it all for personal gain, and now we're back into territory that everyone can agree on is just plain wrong.

But I digress -- which I get to do if I want because it's my blog. And I guess I didn't realize how much I've missed blogging and talking to you guys. It's a form of therapy really. And I'm back on therapy, for the time being :-)

Long story short - these next few weeks are a very critical time. It's a time when we need to get every person over 18 over to the polls on November 2.

Which brings me to my last two points. One is that a number of folks in Europe told me that there are a million plus ex-patriots that are mobilizing to vote for Kerry to help him win. It's actually more than a million -- I think a couple million -- but I can't remember the exact number and I like to round down when I'm not sure about a statistic -- so I can't be accused of embellishment. (There's also the Howard Stern vote -- over 8 million people -- this statistic I'm sure of. Howard is an unlikely ally in this fight - certainly not someone I ever saw myself aligning with - but there he is, speaking the truth about Bush and Clear Channel, and mobilizing his army of listeners to do the right thing.)

BUT -- and here's my last point -- as many have brought to my attention. We are on the electorate system. What does this really mean? How do we get to these people? Assuming that the popular vote is under control, how do we secure the electorates? I'm not sure yet. But I'm going to try to find out. Perhaps you can help me -- and I can publish our findings here.

So that's it guys. I just wanted to catch up a bit, and let you know where I've been, and where I'm going -- on several different fronts. I'm actually going to put my music stuff on hold a bit to take care of what's really important over these next few weeks, and I hope you'll do the same. I'm here if you want to talk -- and please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you help the situation.

We're all in this together.

Peace,

Lisa

P.S.
Side note: I blew it as far as signing up as a poll worker. I hadn't considered how leaving for three weeks in September/October would kind of ruin the chances of being a poll worker. So I apologize for failing in that regard, but I hope that those of you that I might have inspired to be poll workers won't be too mad at me about it. I would of done it if I was able, so if you've signed up, I hope you'll follow through on it. (And please let me know about your experiences so I can chronicle them here.)

Here's footage of the June 3rd eviction of "Bushville," an encampment of 30 homeless families on the outskirts of Jersey City, NJ, who wished to make a statement about the Shrub's policies and how they are slowly killing American families with the lack of affordable housing in this country. They feel that he is wasting billions of dollars on this senseless war in Iraq while millions of families across the country are wasting away.

The Fall Of Bushville (Quicktime - Small - 29 MB)

"The poor in this country are dying under the policies of George W. Bush, and frankly we can't afford to be invisible. Our lives are at stake here as poor and homeless families across this country and George W. is responsible for that and we can't allow it to continue because our very lives are at stake."

Also mirrored here in my own archive. (For safekeeping)
(Note: this won't be up for a few minutes)

The Fall Of Bushville (Newsbrief)

This just in from my pal Bobby Lilly.

Bobby's trying to get the word out about the Million for Marriage.org website and petition in favor of same sex marriages.

It's all from the Human Rights Campaign.

From Bobby: Got this request and am passing it on to friends I think might support the issue. So, if you haven't signed the petition yet, please use the link they offer in the body of the message below and maybe pass it on to a friend.

Click the following link to sign a petition that will be delivered to Congress in favor of same sex marriage:

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/ct/3daiyNY1FBPx/

****************************
Human Rights Campaign/MillionForMarriage.org
Let's get to a half-million by May 17

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/ct/37aiyNY1FBP3/

****************************

Dear Bobby,

In just 10 days, same-sex couples will be issued marriage licenses for the first time in Massachusetts. As the newlyweds celebrate their marriages, we know that our ultra-conservative opponents will use this historic moment to viciously attack them and all GLBT families.

We - all of us who support marriage equality - must demonstrate our strength and unity at this critical time. Here's one important way you can help: Right now, almost 450,000 people have signed the Million for Marriage petition. By May 17th, we'd like to get to 500,000 - a half-million people.

Please, take a minute to think of one more person that you could persuade to stand up for equality. Click here to send them a message right now:

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/ct/37aiyNY1FBP3/

Or forward this e-mail to your friends and ask them to click the following link to sign the petition:

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/ct/3daiyNY1FBPx/

Our voices - 500,000 loud and strong -- will help counter the right-wing extremists' wave of fear and lies, and will give hope and support to the couples about to marry in Massachusetts. Thank you, as always, for your actions today.

Many thanks,

Cheryl A. Jacques President

**************************** (c)2004, Human Rights Campaign, 1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036-3278 Phone: 202/628-4160 TTY: 202/216-1572 Fax: 202/347-5323, membership@hrc.org

Hope I can make it. I wanted to let you guys know about it.

CAN THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE SIMPLY DISAPPEAR BY PRESIDENTIAL ORDER?

NO TO THE "ENEMY COMBATANT" STATUS!

WHEN: TUESDAY, APRIL 20TH, 12 NOON

WHERE: FEDERAL BUILDING, SAN FRANCISCO, GOLDEN GATE & POLK

WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE DEMONSTRATION AT THE SUPREME COURT IN WASHINGTON D.C., WHERE ORAL ARGUMENTS WILL BE HEARD ON BEHALF OF GUANTANAMO BAY PRISONERS BEING HELD AS "ENEMY COMBATANTS"

Press contacts: 510-610-7070 or 510-684-8270

General information: Larry, 510 684-8270

Bay Area participants and endorsers:

Bob Kearney of ACLU of No. California
American Muslim Voice
Blue Triangle Network
California Interfaith Alliance For Prison Reform
Cecilia Chang of Justice for New Americans*
Global Exchange
Grace Shimizu, Japanese American Community organizer
Gray Panthers
Stacy Tolchin, National Lawyers Guild, Immigration Committee
Not In Our Name
Riva Enteen, Chair KPFA Board*
Refuse and Resist
Reverend Michael Yoshi, Buena Vista Methodist Church*
Sara Olson, Indep. Radio Journalist, author of "Under Attack" 30 min. audio documentary
about attacks on the Muslim, Arab, S. Asian community
Shashi Dalal, Board of Trustees, *Fellowship Church
Rev. Dorsey O. Blake, Sr. Pastor

* Organizations mentioned for identification purposes.

Below is a national call and a list of national endorsers for actions
at the Supreme Court in opposition to the use of Guantanamo Bay as a torture center/prison camp and against the ability of the president to designate persons, including citizens, as in the cases of Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, as 'enemy combatants' and then lock them away incommunicado indefinitely without charges or judicial review:

Can the Rights of People Simply Disappear by Presidential Order?

What does it mean when the President of the United States can on his own designate a citizen in the U.S. as an "enemy combatant" and order the military to hold that person incommunicado, indefinitely, and without charges? The U.S. Supreme Court is now deciding whether the courts even have the right to question the President's action.

What does it mean when the U.S. military internationally can literally snatch people off the street, designate them as "enemy combatants," and assert that they are beyond the reach of either U.S. or international law? Many are transported to a facility under total U.S. control and funded by Congressional appropriations, where they are held incommunicado, indefinitely, without charges, and some are threatened with trials before a military commission that falls short of basic standards of justice.

If the Supreme Court upholds these actions, it will condone the President's claim of virtually unlimited "wartime powers" without a formal declaration of war by the Congress, and with no or extremely limited oversight by the courts or the Congress.

On April 20 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the President's alleged right to create a "law free zone" at the Guantánamo detention center in Cuba. And on April 28, the Court will hear oral arguments on the President's asserted right to designate citizens as "enemy combatants," hold them at the U.S. Navy base in Charleston, SC, and deny them the ability to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

We believe that the President cannot be allowed to create a "legal Black Hole" into which people are dropped with no recourse to the courts or to international law. Among us we hold many varied views on how and why this situation has arisen and what is ultimately needed to ensure justice. But we all agree that this dangerous new presidentially designated category of "enemy combatants" who have no legal rights is unjust, illegal, and immoral, and cannot be allowed to stand.

The silence over this perilous issue must be broken, and public opposition must be manifested. Join us in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 and April 28 to declare a resounding NO!

Our future and the future of hundreds of anonymous detainees now hang in the balance. This is a watershed event in history. What is at stake is just how much the President will be allowed to get away with. Your silence will be taken as assent.

[list in formation]
American Friends Service Committee
Amnesty International USA
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Blue Triangle Network
Cambios Planetarios
Community Solutions Foundation Trust, LLC.
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Equal Justice USA/Moratorium Now!
First Amendment Foundation
Freedom Socialist Party
Guantanamo Human Rights Commission
La Resistencia
Muslim Civil Rights Center
National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL)
National Lawyers Guild
Oct. 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation
Pax Christi USA
Refuse & Resist!
Solidarity USA

This just in from:

Amnesty International USA
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Blue Triangle Network
First Amendment Foundation
Guantanamo Human Rights Commission
National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL)
National Lawyers Guild
Refuse & Resist!
Solidarity USA
Communities United Against Police Brutality (Minneapolis)
Greensboro Justice Fund
Elaine Cassel, Civil Liberties Watch
Stephen Rohde, Civil liberties lawyer

Website: http://www.nlg.org/eccases/

On April 20 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the President'??s alleged right to create a '??law free zone'?? at the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba. And on April 28, the Court will hear oral arguments on the President'??s asserted right to designate citizens as '??enemy combatants,'?? hold them at the U.S. Navy base in Charleston, SC, and deny them the ability to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

We believe that the President cannot be allowed to create a '??legal Black Hole'?? into which people are dropped with no recourse to the courts or to international law. Among us we hold many varied views on how and why this situation has arisen and what is ultimately needed to ensure justice. But we all agree that this dangerous new presidentially-designated category of '??enemy combatants'?? who have no legal rights is unjust, illegal, and immoral, and cannot be allowed to stand.

The silence over this perilous issue must be broken, and public opposition must be manifested. Join us in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 and April 28 to declare a resounding NO! Legally permitted, non-violent demonstrations will occur on both days from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm with a program of speakers beginning at 11:am.

Our future and the future of hundreds of anonymous detainees now hang in the balance. This is a watershed event in history. What is at stake is just how much the President will be allowed to get away with. Your silence will be taken as assent.

To endorse this call, e-mail eccases@nlg.org.

Exact email that I received:

Below is a call for protest outside the US Supreme Court on the dates of hearings about the presidentially designated category of enemy combatant. As the call says: Our future and the future of hundreds of anonymous detainees now hang in the balance. This is a watershed event in history. What is at stake is just how much the President will be allowed to get away with. Your silence will be taken as assent. Please endorse this call and start mobilzing for it. Email eccases@nlg.org for more info.

Demonstrate April 20 (Tuesday) & April 28 (Wednesday)

9:30am-12:30pm In front of the US Supreme Court, Washington, DC

11am Speakers. Legally permitted rally. www.nlg.org/eccases/

Can the Rights of People Simply Disappear by Presidential Order?

What does it mean when the President of the United States can on his own designate a citizen in the U.S. as an '??enemy combatant,'?? and order the military to hold that person incommunicado, indefinitely, and without charges? The U.S. Supreme Court is now deciding whether the courts even have the right to question the President'??s action.

What does it mean when the U.S. military internationally can literally snatch people off the street, designate them as '??enemy combatants,'?? and assert that they are beyond the reach of either U.S. or international law? Many are transported to a facility under total U.S. control and funded by Congressional appropriations, where they are held incommunicado, indefinitely, without charges and some are threatened with trials before a military commission that falls short of basic standards of justice.

If the Supreme Court upholds these actions, it will condone the President'??s claim of virtually unlimited '??wartime powers'?? without a formal declaration of war by the Congress, and with no or extremely limited oversight by the courts or the Congress.

On April 20 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the President'??s alleged right to create a '??law free zone'?? at the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba. And on April 28, the Court will hear oral arguments on the President'??s asserted right to designate citizens as '??enemy combatants,'?? hold them at the U.S. Navy base in Charleston, SC, and deny them the ability to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

We believe that the President cannot be allowed to create a '??legal Black Hole'?? into which people are dropped with no recourse to the courts or to international law. Among us we hold many varied views on how and why this situation has arisen and what is ultimately needed to ensure justice. But we all agree that this dangerous new presidentially-designated category of '??enemy combatants'?? who have no legal rights is unjust, illegal, and immoral, and cannot be allowed to stand.

The silence over this perilous issue must be broken, and public opposition must be manifested. Join us in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 and April 28 to declare a resounding NO! Legally permitted, non-violent demonstrations will occur on both days from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm with a program of speakers beginning at 11:am.

Our future and the future of hundreds of anonymous detainees now hang in the balance. This is a watershed event in history. What is at stake is just how much the President will be allowed to get away with. Your silence will be taken as assent.

To endorse this call, e-mail eccases@nlg.org.

[national and international organizations]

Amnesty International USA

Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Blue Triangle Network

First Amendment Foundation

Guantanamo Human Rights Commission

National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL)

National Lawyers Guild

Refuse & Resist!

Solidarity USA

[regional and local organizations]

Communities United Against Police Brutality (Minneapolis)

Greensboro Justice Fund

[individuals]

Elaine Cassel, Civil Liberties Watch

Stephen Rohde, civil liberties lawyer

Website: http://www.nlg.org/eccases/

Move On.org's PAC is organizing bake sales all across the country to raise money for the Kerry campaign.

This announcement got me all teary eyed for some reason. Throwing bake sales for democracy in an attempt to at least do something. It's beautiful.

You hear us Mr. Shrub sir?

We may be broke, but there are more of us than there are of you and your corporate fat cats.

We're gonna bake sale your ass right out of the White House.

President Bush presents himself as a man of the people, but a look at his fundraising shows otherwise. Over $95 million of his money has come in the form of bundles of $2000 checks from high-rolling CEOs and lobbyists.

So this week, we're holding a fundraiser that will highlight the contrast between Bush's big-money supporters and the hundreds of thousands of small donors on our side. On Saturday, April 17, MoveOn PAC will hold the world's largest bake sale -- an event which will show the voters and the media that while Bush has the millionaire vote locked up, we've got the grassroots on our side.

MoveOn members around the country will hold Bake Sales for Democracy in their neighborhoods to raise some dough, have some fun, and support our campaign to take back the White House and Congress and elect John Kerry. Sign up here to find a bake sale near you:

http://action.moveonpac.org/bakesale/

Or, to hold your own bake sale, go to:

http://action.moveonpac.org/bakesale/new.html

Here's the entire email that was sent to me yesterday:

Dear MoveOn Member,

President Bush presents himself as a man of the people, but a look at his fundraising shows otherwise. Over $95 million of his money has come in the form of bundles of $2000 checks from high-rolling CEOs and lobbyists.

So this week, we're holding a fundraiser that will highlight the contrast between Bush's big-money supporters and the hundreds of thousands of small donors on our side. On Saturday, April 17, MoveOn PAC will hold the world's largest bake sale -- an event which will show the voters and the media that while Bush has the millionaire vote locked up, we've got the grassroots on our side.

MoveOn members around the country will hold Bake Sales for Democracy in their neighborhoods to raise some dough, have some fun, and support our campaign to take back the White House and Congress and elect John Kerry. Sign up here to find a bake sale near you:

http://action.moveonpac.org/bakesale/

Or, to hold your own bake sale, go to:
http://action.moveonpac.org/bakesale/new.html

You can organize your own bake sale and recruit your friends to help. You can also sign up to bake something and bring it to a sale near you, or just to come by and help out. While we're out selling cookies we'll also be registering voters and passing out flyers on John Kerry's positions and accomplishments. After you sign up, you'll get a kit with everything you need (posters, voter registration forms, John Kerry factsheets, etc.).

And since a bit of competition makes things fun, we'll take a page from the Bush campaign: sell 100 items at your bake sale and be a MoveOn Pioneer. Sell 200 and be a MoveOn Ranger. We've also got a few other tricks up our sleeves, with some celebrities who are going to come to some bake sales--maybe yours! Chip in and do your part:

http://action.moveonpac.org/bakesale/

So far, more than 500 sales are set up, with names like:
-- Mountain Park Patriots Bake Sale, Roswell, GA
--Have Your Cake and Beat Bush Too, Brooklyn, NY
--Cookies for Kerry, Milwaukee, WI
--No CARB (Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfield, Bush) Bake Sale, Denver, CO
--Aunt Polly's Warm Scones & Hot Coffee for Cool Democrats, Albuquerque, NM

Whether you prefer brownies or blondies, lemon meringue or apple pie, we can all agree that it's time for a change in our country's leadership.

Sincerely,

--Eli Pariser & Adam Ruben
MoveOn PAC
April 12, 2004

P.S. We’re sad to announce Zack Exley’s departure from the MoveOn team. Zack’s leaving to become Director of Online Communications and Organizing for the John Kerry campaign. As a master of online organizing, he’ll equip the most important presidential campaign in decades with an understanding of the powerful new techniques we’ve helped to pioneer. It’s an exciting development, and one we heartily endorse even though it’s a big loss for our small team.

Federal election laws prohibit coordination between independent groups like MoveOn PAC and the Kerry campaign on media expenditures. And since MoveOn is in the hot seat for this election cycle, we’ve agreed with Zack that we won’t communicate in any way until after the election. But we thank Zack and wish him the best.

----------------------
Bush's amount raised in $2000 checks from Campaign Finance Institute data from 2/29/04, http://www.cfinst.org/pr/pdf/Table1_Feb.pdf

MoveOn PAC retains final control over all funds raised for the PAC that are not earmarked to be passed on to a particular candidate.

Update 8:33 am 2/22/04 - Damn. He's gonna run as an Independent.
Oh well. Let's hope nobody cares.

Update 4:50pm 2/21/04: Nader will be
announcing his plans tomorrow on Meet the Press (8 am CBS). (Yes, I'll be recording it. I'll try to get it up in the morning quick-like. Just play back any old tape of him from 2000. He's saying the same thing. I'm not going to promote him any by re-running the footage.)

I just sent this letter to Ralph Nader's exploratory committee.

The email is info@naderexplore04.org, in case you want to let them know what you think. Please do.

Dear Ralph (and his committee),

Please don't do this guys.

I can't believe you would all risk the safety of our country and the world, by doing anything that could jeopardize removing President Bush from power this year.

Even though I have mixed feelings about his not pulling out the day before the election in 2000, I've been defending Ralph over the last few months, and telling people that he eventually would come out on the side of the Democrats this year in order to help secure the election -- because he realizes what's at stake.

We simply can't afford to fragment the votes against Bush this time.

If Ralph runs in this election this time, I will have to question his ulterior motives for doing so. No "greater good" can ever come from such a thing that can only do damage to the movement in the short term.

If Ralph runs in this election this time, to me, he will have let his country down. (Again.)

I hope you guys will do the right thing.

Thanks for listening.

Lisa Rein

http://onlisareinsradar.com

here's the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/41576%7Ctop%7C02-20-2004%3A%3A18%3A45%7Creuters.html

Nader to Announce Presidential Plans on Sunday
Email this story

Nader to Announce Presidential Plans on Sunday

Feb 20, 6:27 PM (ET)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, whose third party run in 2000 many Democrats say cost Al Gore the presidency, will announce on Sunday whether he will run again this year.

"He will be announcing his decision on 'Meet the Press,"' said Linda Schade, a spokeswoman for Nader's presidential exploratory committee.

She said only Nader knew what he was planning to do when he appears on NBC's Sunday morning talk show.

Many Democrats, still angry at Republican George W. Bush's narrow victory in 2000, blame Nader's liberal, consumer-oriented run as the Green Party's presidential nominee for taking away votes from their candidate, then-Vice President Gore.

The number of Nader votes in key states such as Florida and New Hampshire were greater than the gap between Bush's winning total and Gore's losing total. Gore would have been elected president had he won one more state.

Nader, who turns 70 next week, said last year he would not run again as the Green Party nominee but did not rule out running as an independent candidate. An independent run, however, might make it more difficult for him to get on all 50 state ballots.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe told CNN he had met with Nader several times to urge him not to run. He said he told Nader that his legacy should not become eight years of Bush as president.

"It would be a shame if what Americans remember after a lifetime fighting for working families is the fact that he did not fight on the side of the Democratic Party and its nominee when all of those issues he and us hold dear were at risk," the Democratic committee said in a statement.

Info about today's Special Registration Protest

The schmuks running this country are about to do it all over again. They are requiring a second round of immigrant special registrations.

Incredible.

Wish I had more time to elaborate. But I'll just see you at noon on Wednesday.

Refuse & Resist has endorsed the opposition to the special INS registrations - has part of taking on the whole reactionary agenda! Please get your friends and co workers to come out on Wed Nov 19th - Support our Arab, Muslims and South Asian brothers and sisters!

Remember what happened in World War 2 to the Japanese Americans - what would you have done then, what will you do now?

TAKING A STAND AGAINST SPECIAL RE-REGISTRATION

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2003 BICE (INS) BUILDING, WASHINGTON AND SANSOME, San Francisco 11 AM TO 1 PM (Press conference at 12 noon).

The Dept. of "Homeland Security" Special Re-registrations of men and boys from 24 mainly Muslim countries has already begun again this month. Last year special registration meant humiliation, detentions and brutality for many of the nearly 90,000 who came in to register. This program has created fear, anxiety, frustration and despair in the Arab and Muslim communities, causing great distress to wives, children and relatives as reported by the American Muslim Voice nationwide hotline. Last year, registerees were fingerprinted, photographed, and had to turn over bankcards, social security cards, driver's licenses, credit cards and other information. Every time they left the country they were required to get an exit stamp and re-register upon return. And in the end, about 13,000 men are facing deportation proceedings! The pettiest of visa violations, even those caused by INS incompetence are now tearing families apart.

Now the same people who registered last year are being registered again.

Last year the protest of Iranians in Los Angeles in December and opposition in the streets in January across the country, brought the reality of this ugly program to light. These actions drew attention to the fact that the 1940s Alien Registration Act foreshadowed the round up and detention of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Registration also preceded the round up of Jews in Europe. This year, as the ACLU has pointed out, the secrecy surrounding registration has all the markings of a TRAP, by which those who do not realize they have to register or miss a deadline will be subject to deportation. The Blue Triangle Network in close association with American Muslim Voice and many other organizations is calling for a rally and press conference Wednesday, Nov. 19 to denounce special re-registration, demand an end to it, and stand in solidarity with people subjected to it. Please join this effort and PASS THE WORD.

Borders employees are going on strike.

You can help by signing this petition.

Estimated Time Factor: 15 seconds.

Good luck guys!

T r u t h o u t had
a couple good stories about the revivied anti-war effort here in the states and abroad.

Here is the full text in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/102503I.shtml

Protesters Try to Revive Antiwar Effort
By Manny Fernandez
Washington Post

Friday 24 October 2003

Deep in a cluttered basement in Southeast Washington, the message comes to life. A 51-year-old courier from San Diego and a 24-year-old law student from New Jersey's Rutgers University crouched over a yellow banner yesterday, dipping brushes in black paint to complete the slogan that brought them both to Washington: "End the occupation of Iraq."

"I think we're not going to solve this problem just at the voting booth," said David Tworkowski, who flew in from San Diego on Wednesday night to help with logistics and banners at an organizer's office in preparation for tomorrow's antiwar march. "We have to put people in the streets."

Tworkowski was part of a small first wave of protesters that began arriving Wednesday. Tens of thousands more are expected to call for an end to the occupation of Iraq at tomorrow's demonstration, organizers said, as protesters from across the United States and Canada try to give renewed energy to the antiwar movement.

Buses are picking up participants at 13 locations in and around New York City. The Boston area is sending nine buses, and Philadelphia is sending eight, organizers said. Cleveland and Buffalo will fill four buses each, and one veteran opposed to the occupation started driving in his RV last week from Washington state.

"I have two granddaughters," said Nancy Jakubiak, 54, a legal assistant preparing for a 12-hour trip to the District on a charter bus leaving Louisville tonight. "They're 3 and 1, and I do this for them. I tremble when I think of the world they're going to grow up in."

With two of the biggest antiwar coalitions sponsoring the demonstration, International ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice, a broad range of protesters is planning to take part. Student activists from Columbia University, Ohio State University and several Washington area colleges will join the march. Muslim and Arab American activists are expected in large numbers, as well as family members of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, organizers said.

U.S. Park Police and D.C. police officials said yesterday that street closures would follow the marches, both with and without permits. Cmdr. Cathy Lanier, head of the D.C. police special operations division, said that based on permits for the event, police were expecting "well over 30,000 people." She said no disturbances were expected. D.C. police announced they will activate their network of 14 closed-circuit cameras in the downtown area and set up five more cameras along and near the march route to "assist with crowd management and public safety."

At 9 tonight, veterans and military family members have a vigil scheduled at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to demand that the troops come home. Among them will be Stephen Cleghorn, 54, an executive at a D.C. nonprofit group whose stepson is in the U.S. Army in Iraq. "I believe he's a conscientious young man who went into the service to defend his country," Cleghorn said in an interview. "I just think he's been put on the wrong mission."

Protest leaders estimated tomorrow's crowd, in discussions with the National Park Service, at 30,000, but some organizers expect to exceed that. ANSWER organizer Brian Becker said the gathering would not be as large as ANSWER's Jan. 18 march, which police said drew 100,000 but organizers said attracted 500,000. Activists have said one of the movement's challenges has been to mobilize large numbers in the face of an occupation as opposed to the imminent threat of war that sparked previous demonstrations.

In the days leading up to the January march, protesters in about 250 cities across the country were coordinating transportation to Washington. This time, activists in about half that number of cities are organizing bus and car trips. "The bar was set very high last winter," said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of the United coalition, which organized a protest in February in New York. "It's really not a numbers game. It's about keeping alive the notion that there is a place for public dissent."

The purpose of tomorrow's march, organizers said, is to demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and to protest the Patriot Act, the legislation enacted two years ago that expanded the government's powers of surveillance and detention.

The last major peace rally in Washington was an ANSWER protest in April that police said as many as 30,000 attended. The weeks and months since then without major street protests were not a sign of defeat, organizers said, but instead a period of reflection and education. Some said they and others felt a kind of demoralization when their efforts failed to stop the war. One New Jersey organizer even had a name for it: "discouraged peace activists syndrome."

ANSWER announced plans for tomorrow's march at the end of June, with the date selected to coincide with the Patriot Act's anniversary and to give organizers time to mobilize college and high school students. Activists said ANSWER's timing for a display of dissent could not have been better, as attacks continue against U.S. forces in Iraq, as the House and Senate discuss different versions of an $87 billion spending package for Iraq and Afghanistan and as support for President Bush's Iraq policy slips in the polls. "It's called a movement for a reason," Cagan said after a news conference Tuesday in Washington. "It has its ebb and flow."

The permitted protest begins with an 11 a.m. rally at the Washington Monument. A march at 1:30 p.m. will pass the White House and the Justice Department. Black Voices for Peace and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation are planning separate feeder marches.

Anti-capitalist activists in the Washington area said they will protest an expo to attract residents to the District at the Washington Convention Center before joining the main march. Protesters say they will meet at Seventh and P streets NW at 11:30 a.m. Michael Loadenthal, 20, an American University student and an organizer with the unnamed group sponsoring the event, said the purpose of protesting the city-living expo is "to send a very loud message to the mayor and real estate prospectors that there are people in this city who say no to gentrification."

Kristinn Taylor said he is helping to organize a counter-demonstration to let protesters know that "their anti-American message is not going to go unanswered, like it was during Vietnam." Taylor, 41, co-leader of the D.C. chapter of Free Republic, said 1,000 people are expected for a rally at 11 a.m. at the West Front of the Capitol to show support for U.S. troops and protest tyrannical regimes. At 2 p.m., they plan on being at Pershing Park on Pennsylvania Avenue NW to greet marchers, though they are not looking to start trouble, he said.

Go to Original

Protesters to Bush: How dare you?
By Claire O'Rourke
The Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday 23 October 2003

Buses carrying hundreds of protesters were expected to leave Sydney for Canberra this morning, to coincide with the visit by the United States President, George Bush.

Rallies and marches in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne yesterday evening kicked off a series of actions to oppose the presidential visit and that of the Chinese leader, Hu Jintao.

In Sydney yesterday, the crowd, estimated by protest organisers to be 5000 people and by police at between 3000 and 4000, filled Town Hall square during peak hour.

Senator Bob Brown of the Greens was greeted with wild cheers and applause before he called on Mr Bush to release two Australians held in the US military jail in Cuba.

"How dare you lock up Australian citizens in Guantanamo Bay?" Senator Brown said.

He demanded that Mr Bush repatriate Mamdouh Habib, of Sydney, and David Hicks, of Adelaide, to Australia "the same as you repatriated the Americans to America".

A federal Labor MP, Harry Quick, repeated his wish to turn his back when Mr Bush addresses Parliament today, despite strict instructions from his party leader, Simon Crean.

"They told me I have to be respectful, respectful of the US President," he told the rally.

"But I will tell you, why should we respect this duplicitous conniving and lying President of the United States?"

Wearing a white band on his right arm, he said he hoped to be joined by a number of fellow MPs including Jennie George, Tanya Plibersek and the Greens senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle.

Protesters marched peacefully, albeit noisily, along George Street and up King Street, slowing as they passed the US consulate at Martin Place, which was guarded by police. They chanted "No racism, no war, this is what we are fighting for", and "Troops out now, Iraq for Iraqis" as they walked.

Donna Mulhearn, who acted as a human shield in Iraq and plans to go back there next month to establish houses for children left homeless in the conflict, said yesterday's protest meant the Australian public have not disengaged from the issue.

"The concerns and the fears that they had when the war was brewing in February-March is still deep within the Australian people," she said.

"I would like to see this translated into action and support for Iraqis and I think that it will."

A Democrat member of State Parliament, Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, told the rally in Martin Place that Australia should be a non-racist neighbour.

"John Howard does not speak for us - we oppose the war on Iraq, we oppose the use of pre-emptive strikes," he said.

Five buses filled with a total of 250 protesters were expected to leave from Central railway station early this morning to join protest actions in Canberra near Old Parliament House scheduled to begin at 9am. Additional buses were expected to leave from the eastern and western suburbs of Sydney, while protesters from Brisbane and Melbourne travelled to Canberra last night.

One of the protest convenors, Nick Everett, of the Stop the War Coalition, predicted that there would be even larger protests in Canberra today.

"I think the protests revive a sense of confidence and determination . . . that we can make headway and push back Bush and Howard's agenda," he said.

Simon Smart, a high school history teacher who had a "peace monitor" sticker stuck to his back over his blue business shirt, said he was drawn to yesterday's protest to "express some sort of voice against George Bush and Australia jumping on the bandwagon".

"The Australian population seems to have been clearly misled in [Howard and Bush's] justification for war," he said.

Hey if you've got a few minutes this afternoon, why not stop by the protest going on at Civic Center in San Francisco? :-)

I don't have an official link for it, but it starts around 11 am and probably goes most of the afternoon.

I'll be meeting up with my old protest buddy Kevin Burton, and some other folks to take pictures and video and have lunch around noon.
(My usual protesting activities :-)

If you want to meet up with us, email me your cell phone number (lisarein@finetuning.com) by 11 am or so -- so I can call you around noon when we meet up at Civic Center.

Peace!

lisa

I've always been against the Recall -- I'm shocked and dismayed that we're wasting so much of our valuable time and resources when we have so little of either. It's really important for you to get out and vote this Tuesday!

I've been toying with the idea of trying to organize some kind of exit polls the night of the election. I know a lot of us have to work that day (those of us lucky enough to have jobs), but what if we all spent even just that last hour between 7 and 8 pm asking people how they voted on the way out of the polling place? I'd be happy to coordinate the results by hand if necessary.

Would anyone be willing to work on this with me? Email me at lisarein@finetuning.com if you would.

Thanks!

This came in yesterday from MoveOn.org:

***In front of a national audience last night, Arianna Huffington outlined the dramatically simple reality facing Californians: if you don't vote against the recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger will become governor. Today we're passing along a letter from her explaining why she dropped out of the race and is working to defeat the recall. Please get the word out that a vote for the recall is a vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger: FORWARD THIS EMAIL to friends, coworkers and family.

Dear Friend,

Last night I withdrew my candidacy from the recall race and today I am writing to sound an alarm about what is at stake in this election. I am devoting all my time and energy in these remaining six days to defeating the recall -- and to defeating the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Pete Wilson forces that are trying to use the recall to hijack our state. Please help me do that by forwarding this message.

I have signed MoveOn's "Recall No, Democracy Yes" pledge and I urge you to do the same. More than 260,000 people have pledged to do something -- such as forwarding this email! -- in these last days to defeat the recall and stop Arnold Schwarzenegger. Click here to sign the pledge:

http://moveon.org/pac/recall/

From the beginning of my campaign I have said that I opposed the recall on principle. It was backed by a bunch of Republican sore losers looking for a backdoor way to overturn an election they lost. Nevertheless, once the recall was set, I felt that the opportunity it offered to elect a truly independent and progressive governor was too important to let pass. And so I entered the race.

Here's the rest of the email message:

Now that it's clear that's not going to happen, my highest priority is to issue a wake up call and bring a sense of urgency to what is at stake. The people of California simply cannot afford to have Arnold Schwarzenegger as their governor.

In 2000, we were taken in by a charming, affable man who promised us compassion but gave us war in Iraq, a soaring deficit, millions of lost jobs, two million more people living in poverty, and the rollback of vital environmental protections. I look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, and see more of the same. We don't need another figurehead for all the usual Republican special interests. Let's not be fooled again.

When this race started, Arnold Schwarzenegger was an unknown quantity. And a week before the election there is still far too much we don't know about him.

If, as he says, he is going to balance the budget but raise no taxes, shouldn't he have to tell us -- before the election, not after -- precisely what vital programs and services he proposes to cut to make that happen -- and precisely who is going to feel the pain of those cuts?

Arnold Schwarzenegger has spent millions of dollars crafting and selling a political persona that is completely contradicted by reality:

• He promised to take no special interest money, but then turned around and raised millions from special interests for his campaign.
• He painted himself as an outsider, but then surrounded himself with Pete Wilson operatives and a Who's Who of GOP insiders.

• He went on Oprah to appeal to women, but didn't include a single woman on his team of economic advisors. In a state where there are tens of thousands of women in positions of power, including both U.S. Senators, there was not even one woman who he thought worthy of adding to the mix?

• A vote for the recall is a vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger. We must not vote for a fantasy leader and end up with a nightmare: a Bush Republican who thinks the answer to all of California's problems can be found in making life even easier for businesses and giant corporations.

We can defeat the recall. But what will it take? It will take forwarding this email to all your friends, and picking up the phone and talking to those friends who might need your encouragement to vote, or who might need to hear more about what's at stake from you before they make up their mind. There are already 260,000 of us working against the recall in these simple ways. Sign the "Recall No, Democracy Yes" pledge to join us:

http://moveon.org/pac/recall/

Sincerely,

-- Arianna Huffington
October 1st, 2003

If you forward this email to others, please be sensitive that you are sending to friends or colleagues who want to hear from you on this. Spam hurts our campaign.

This just in from MoveOn:

Dear MoveOn member,

According to the Washington Post, "two top White House officials" committed a high crime in the first weeks of July. They handed over the identity of an American secret agent to journalists. They blew her cover, risking the lives of colleagues and contacts and possibly erasing years of intelligence work. Why? "Purely and simply for revenge," an administration official told the Post. The spy's husband was a vocal critic of the Iraq war. (Sources below.)

The White House and the Justice Department have known about this crime for months -- after all, the agent's identity was published in scores of newspapers in early July. But until a few days ago, they did nothing about it. And even now, President Bush has said he has no plans to ask his staff whether they were connected to it.

Republicans contend that an investigation by the Justice Department will reveal any wrongdoing. But Justice Department chief John Ashcroft -- who was appointed by President Bush and who employed key Bush advisor Karl Rove -- is hardly neutral. Already, there are signs that the investigation will give the White House room to cover the crime up.

The simple fact is that the truth will only come out under pressure. If we don't speak up now, the investigation could be left in John Ashcroft's hands, and the perpetrators and the crime could be swept under the rug. Please tell John Ashcroft and Congress that you want a special prosecutor -- someone who isn't tied to the Bush Administration -- to investigate this illegal and vindictive act.

Join us now at:

MoveOn.org - Intimigate

Here is the full text of the MoveOn Email:
Dear MoveOn member,

According to the Washington Post, "two top White House officials" committed a high crime in the first weeks of July. They handed over the identity of an American secret agent to journalists. They blew her cover, risking the lives of colleagues and contacts and possibly erasing years of intelligence work. Why? "Purely and simply for revenge," an administration official told the Post. The spy's husband was a vocal critic of the Iraq war. (Sources below.)

The White House and the Justice Department have known about this crime for months -- after all, the agent's identity was published in scores of newspapers in early July. But until a few days ago, they did nothing about it. And even now, President Bush has said he has no plans to ask his staff whether they were connected to it.

Republicans contend that an investigation by the Justice Department will reveal any wrongdoing. But Justice Department chief John Ashcroft -- who was appointed by President Bush and who employed key Bush advisor Karl Rove -- is hardly neutral. Already, there are signs that the investigation will give the White House room to cover the crime up.

The simple fact is that the truth will only come out under pressure. If we don't speak up now, the investigation could be left in John Ashcroft's hands, and the perpetrators and the crime could be swept under the rug. Please tell John Ashcroft and Congress that you want a special prosecutor -- someone who isn't tied to the Bush Administration -- to investigate this illegal and vindictive act.

Join us now at:

MoveOn.org - Intimigate

Although almost 7 in 10 Americans believe that Ashcroft should appoint a special prosecutor to handle the investigation, he currently refuses to do so. But he had a point back in 1997, when he said that "A single allegation can be most worthy of a special prosecutor. If you're abusing government property, if you're abusing your status in office, it can be a single fact that makes the difference on that."

It certainly appears that people in the Bush White House abused their status in office.

On July 6th of 2003, Valerie Plame's husband Joe Wilson wrote an editorial in the New York Times. Joe Wilson was a former Ambassador to Iraq, appointed originally by President George H. W. Bush, who had been sent in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. He concluded that "based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

On July 14th, conservative columnist Robert Novak revealed that according to "senior administration officials," Wilson's wife was "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Up to this point, Valerie Plame's identity was a carefully kept secret, but Novak blew her cover.

Then, last Sunday, the Washington Post printed an article titled "Bush Administration is Focus of Inquiry." The article contained a revelation: "Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. . . . 'Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,' the senior official said of the alleged leak."

In 1999, President George H. W. Bush said that "I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." Right now, it looks like possible traitors in the White House are being given a free pass. Please call on Attorney General Ashcroft and Congress to appoint a special prosecutor today. We need to get to the bottom of this.

Sign now at:
http://moveon.org/intimigate/?id=1744-1870203-OKDDz8hEhhTQn55DDBLyFw

Sincerely,
--Carrie, Eli, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn Team
October 2nd, 2003

Sources:

1. "two top White House officials" and "Purely and simply for revenge":
BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS FOCUS OF INQUIRY
By Mike Allen and Dana Priest, Washington Post, 9/28/03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11208-2003Sep27.html

2. Leak was published in scores of newspapers in early July:
MISSION TO NIGER
By Robert Novak, multiple papers, 9/14/03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30055-2003Oct1.html

3. Bush has no plans to ask his staff:
BUSH AIDES SAY THEY'LL COOPERATE WITH PROBE INTO INTELLIGENCE LEAK
By Mike Allen, Washington Post, 9/29/03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14909-2003Sep28.html

4. Ashcroft employed Karl Rove; signs of room for a cover-up:
ATTORNEY GENERAL IS CLOSELY LINKED TO INQUIRY FIGURES
By Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, 10/2/03
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/02/politics/02ASHC.html?hp

5. 7 in 10 Americans want a special prosecutor:
OUTSIDE PROBE OF LEAKS IS FAVORED
By Dana Milbank and Mike Allen, Washington Post, 10/2/03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29560-2003Oct1.html

6. "A single allegation can be most worthy of a special prosecutor":
CNN’s Evans and Novak, 10/4/97

7. Joe Wilson's New York Times editorial:
WHAT I DIDN'T FIND IN AFRICA
By Joseph C. Wilson 4th, New York Times, 7/6/03
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm

8. "I have nothing but contempt and anger":
REMARKS BY GEORGE BUSH AT THE DEDICATION CEREMONY FOR THE GEORGE BUSH CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE
26 April 1999
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/1999/bush_speech_042699.html

I just plum forgot about the September 28, 2003 protest this last weekend against the Shrub's Occupation of Iraq. Luckily, KPIX was there with a camera crew. My man Tom Ammiano was there, too. (Hopefully the next Mayor of San Francisco!)

KPIX On Sunday's Protest Against The Shrub's Occupation Of Iraq (Small - 8 MB)

This was just sent to me from MoveOn:

Dear fellow Californian,

California is at a crossroads. Our finances, schools and society are all in crisis. And at this, our state's most vulnerable moment, a handful of self-interested political players are attempting an unprecedented power grab.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and his backers are seizing the recall as a once-in-a-lifetime chance for him to buy the governorship. The abbreviated race has allowed him to duck tough questions and avoid unscripted debate. He has promised voters a balanced budget without new taxes or spending cuts -- an impossibility except perhaps in a Hollywood movie. He has no plan for helping California and absolutely no experience that might help him come up with one.

The recall and Schwarzenegger's self-funded, media-driven campaign are sucker punches to our democratic system and values. We have seven full days left to fight back and a team of 250,000 people for this final push.

If you have not joined the team by signing our "No Recall" pledge, then please join us now by clicking here:

http://moveon.org/pac/recall/

If you've already signed, then forward this message to all your like-minded friends, coworkers and family and ask them to join us for this final one-week blitz to defeat the recall, stop Schwarzenegger and defend democracy. Let's grow our team to 300,000 people.

Don't be discouraged by the weekend's far-out poll: this race is so unusual that polls are even more meaningless than they usually are. We believe this is still an incredibly close race. And it's a fact that there are enough of us working on this to make the difference ourselves. But we've got to work hard: pick up the phone and call that friend you know might forget to vote, put up a sign in your window, sign up for phone banking -- do whatever it takes.

Over the next seven days we'll be highlighting several different things you can do to make a real, tangible difference in the recall election. With 300,000 people working together, we'll each just need to influence one other person to vote against the recall who might not have without us. If we can do that, then we'll defeat the recall by a wide margin and democracy will have a decisive victory on October 7.

Sincerely,

-- Carrie, James, Joan, Peter and Wes
(The Californians of) MoveOn.org PAC
September 29th, 2003

PS: For more on how Schwarzenegger leads the pack in fundraising thanks to his own personal contributions, check out this article.

Hope to see you today at the protest.
(Maps and instructions provided.)

It's very important for the Supreme Court to know that we respect and support yesterday's decision by the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals to halt the recall election.

It really is like Florida all over again. Let's hope the Supreme Court does the right thing this time. I have a good feeling that it will. The facts are a lot more clear cut this time around.

Thanks again, Bobby, for being so on top of things!

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE IN THE BAY AREA TO SAY NO TO THE RECALL

I know it sounds like the Courts are going to push the recall back a few months, but there is still a week before the Supreme Court will finally decide and it is important to keep the anti-recall momentum going forward.

SO.........Why don't YOU show up at Sproul Plaza (Bancroft/Telegraph in Berkeley on the UC Campus) at noon or stop by the Third Baptist Church in SF at 2pm. (The church is at 1399 McAllister Street, at Pierce, in the Western Edition in San Francisco.)

If you want more info, the message MoveOn sent me is below.

Just wanted to let you guys know that I will be going to this protest in Berkeley tomorrow.

I have just enough time between my morning and afternoon class at SFSU to take BART out to Berkeley and record the speeches and head back. So you'll get to see the event either way. But it's really important for there to be a huge turnout at these events, so that the Supreme Court will know how we feel and take that into account while it's making its decision.

Jesse Jackson will be there. It ought to be really cool.

Footage will go up promptly tomorrow night. (After I get home from class at 5 and have a chance to upload it.)

Hope to see you there!

Here's the message that MoveOn sent Bobby:

Dear MoveOn member,

This Tuesday, Sept. 16, Rev. Jesse Jackson will be speaking in two locations,
urging voters to vote No on the Recall and No on Prop. 54. In SF, he will be
joined by Governor Davis.

Please join him and show your support for the message.

Wes Boyd, President
MoveOn.org

---------

Rev. Jackson with Governor Davis in San Francisco
KEEP HOPE ALIVE - STOP THE RECALL TOUR

WHERE: Third Baptist Church - 1399 McAllister St. @ Pierce Street

WHEN: 2pm

Contact: Third Baptist Church at 415-346-4426
Hosted by Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Rev. Amos Brown, Third Baptist Church

http://www.rainbowpush.org

* or *

Rev. Jackson at UC Berkeley:
KEEP HOPE ALIVE - CAMPUS TOUR 2003

WHERE: Sproul Plaza (off Bancroft and Telegraph)

WHEN: Tuesday, September 16, noon - 1pm

Contact for more info: Peter Gee 510-207-9058
Hosted by: Associated Students, California Faculty Association, Stay in
School Program, Coalition for an African American Community Agenda,
Rainbow/Push Coalition, PowerPAC, Justice Matters Institute, Stop
Prop 54 Coalition, Campus Coalition Against 54, & more.

Jesse Jackson will be visiting four college campuses throughout
California this week, and will be kicking it off in the Bay Area
with a visit to UC Berkeley on Tuesday, September 16th, from 12-1pm.
The rally hosted by the UC Berkeley student government will be in
the midst of one of the largest voter registration drives in school
history to register students for the Recall Election. Jesse Jackson
will be speaking to the importance of the upcoming election and the
power that youth have to mobilize and shift the direction of the
election. He will also be speaking to the disastrous impacts
proposition 54 will have on our state, public health, education
and civil rights.

Students from the NO on Proposition 54 coalition have been working
on the campaign for over 10 months and are enthusiastic to have the
Reverend come to campus in the midst of the campaign to speak out
against the proposition.

This just in from my pal
Bobby Lilly.

Dear Lisa,

I got a notice from http://MoveOn.org asking me to sign a petition opposing the California Recall. You and I both know it's a power grab by the Republicans blaming a relatively unpopular governor for stuff HE didn't do and inflaming the political process just because some of them couldn't stand to LOSE the last election.

I signed to show my opposition to this misuse of the Recall process which I believe should be used against serious malfeasance by an elected official not just because someone had the money it took and thought they could get away with it.

I hope there are a lot more people out there besides the two of us willing to take the time to oppose this Recall which has become a media circus and just another reason for the rest of the country to dismiss Californians as kooks. People need to be educating themselves about the unreality of the charges against Davis and realize that changing leadership at this point is NOT going to make the economic woes of this state (which are very similar to the problems states all across the country are facing) any better and all of us who believe it is WRONG need to be sure we are registered and get to the polls and VOTE it down.

In the meantime, I'm writing to ask you to join me in signing a "Recall No! Democracy Yes!" pledge to defeat the California recall AND pass it on. Click here to sign:
http://moveon.org/pac/recall?id=-1744928-coYdH6bxsqDEmbLGkTJDog

This is the message Moveon sent to me:

If the recall succeeds, it will set a dangerous precedent for the whole country. A far-right businessman spent 1.7 million dollars to bring us the recall campaign, and has thrown California into chaos. GOP leaders who should have condemned the recall instead cheered it on, hoping they could gain from the unraveling of our democracy. We can't stand by and let this happen. These attacks on democracy are not a California issue or a Texas issue or a Florida issue -- we all must step forward together and make it clear that elections will be honored in this country. This pledge is a national effort to mobilize one million California voters in the recall election. Please sign the pledge no matter where you live and please ask friends and family in California to sign the pledge and to remember to vote October 7.
http://moveon.org/pac/recall?id=-1744928-coYdH6bxsqDEmbLGkTJDog

Thank you.

Doug Byers sez:

I'm a photographer living in Portland Oregon. As you may know we had a large demonstration against George Bush's fundraising visit to Portland today. Thousands of people flooded the streets to send a message to our president of strong protest on many political and social fronts.

The show of force by the Portland Police was VERY SCARY INDEED !! The storm troopers have landed !!

Here is a link to additional images.
(http://www.byersphotography.com/bushprotest1)

Sorry for not letting you guys know about this sooner.

It's basically another lunch time activity from 12-2pm at the intersection of Polk and Golden Gate in San Francisco. One block from the Civic Center Bart Station.

There will be a press conference and rally where you can learn more about what's going on and show your support. These events are also excellent opportunities to speak to one of several legal experts personally if you have specific questions.

We've got to fight back swiftly against the travesty of justice that is the Domestic Enhancement Security Act (Patriot II). The very future of our nation, and I believe, the rest of the world, depends on it.

There will be a ton of great speakers there from the ACLU, Refuse and Resist, Amnesty International and many other groups.

Hope to see you there!

Here's the whole message I received:

MEDIA ADVISORY
Sunday, July 6, 2003
CONTACT: Stella Richardson
ACLU
415-621-2493 or Colleen at 510-288-7432

Civil Rights and Community Groups Launch Week of Action to Stop **Patriot Act II**

What: Rally to Reclaim Patriotism and Stop **Patriot Act II**

When: Monday July 7th from noon to 2 pm

Where: San Francisco Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate Avenue

Who: Bob Kearney, Associate Director of the American Civil Liberties Union; Matthew Von Saun, Amnesty International; Dave Meserve, Arcada City Council person; Allan Solomonow, American Friends Service Committee; Shahram Agahamir, fired Oakland City worker; Henry Norr, fired SF Chronicle reporter; Ladan Sobhani, Global Exchange; Samena Faheem, American Muslim Voice; Cecilia Chang, Justice for New Americans; Riva Enteen, National Lawyers Guild; Maryjane, Oakland High School student; Rev Michael Yoshi (Buena Vista Methodist Church of Alameda); Colleen Akai, Refuse & Resist!

SAN FRANCISCO ** Following Independence Day celebrations over the July 4th weekend, community organizations will launch a week of action designed to reclaim patriotism and to stop the passage of draft legislation dubbed **Patriot Act II.**

At a July 7th rally, community leaders will call on northern Californians to urge their Members of Congress to prevent the introduction and passage of the proposed **Domestic Security Enhancement Act** (Patriot Act II). They will also urge Congress to fix provisions within the original USA Patriot Act of November 2001 that needlessly erode civil liberties and rights.
Less than two years after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, giving new, sweeping powers to the federal government to compile information on ordinary Americans, Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to introduce legislation that would further erode constitutional checks and balances.
The Domestic Security Enhancement Act would further enhance government powers, eliminating or weakening remaining limits on government surveillance, wiretapping, detention and prosecution.

Endorsements:ACLU, Amnesty International; American Muslims Voice; Blue Triangle Network; Global Exchange; SF Gray Panthers; Justice for New Americans; National Lawyers Guild; Tri City CAREs, Tri City Action, Refuse & Resist!; Not In Our Name; Pakistani American...

Glad these guys made it, but I'm kinda glad I didn't go too. I was unprepared and would've gotten heatstroke in a traffic jam, sounds like.

(Unrelated side note: Boy am I glad it's cooled down here in S.F. -- That was a miserable couple of days [and nights] last week...)

Protesters battle heat to boo Bush --
Tough day to make voice heard as cars jam airport-area streets
By Ryan Kim for the SF Chronicle.

The day was trying for many of the protesters and Bush supporters trying to converge on Friday's luncheon. While the relentless heat did its share of damage, the closure of Millbrae Avenue and Old Bayshore Highway for security reasons caused major traffic headaches on streets and Highway 101.

Opponents of Bush harped on a number of topics but consistently hammered home their belief that the president lied about Iraq's weapons capabilities as a false pretext for invasion.

"Bush lied, people died," shouted the throng of protesters as he arrived.

Inside the hotel, five members of Code Pink, a nationwide anti-war organization, gained access to the lobby after they booked a hotel room together. Dressed in pink evening wear, the women engaged many of the luncheon guests, knocking Bush and his $2,000-a-plate fund-raiser.

"I find it obscene to charge $2,000-a-plate when he's making sweeping budget cuts across the country in veterans' benefits and health care," said Carol Norris, an organizer with Code Pink.

The Code Pink women drew their own protester -- Terri Connell of Fairfield, who paused from checking into the Marriott to say, "I respect your First Amendment rights, but you're wrong."

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/28/MN278215.DTL&type=news

Despite near triple-digit heat, extensive street closures and frustrating traffic, about 1,000 protesters turned out Friday to boo the arrival of President Bush during a brief fund-raising lunch in Burlingame.

The president's visit to the San Francisco Airport Marriott attracted a vocal but peaceful gathering of protesters, who along with more than 50 Bush supporters, lined a half-mile stretch of Old Bayshore Highway just outside the hotel.

About 300 police officers formed a human barricade in front of the hotel, but they made no arrests and reported no major incidents.

Protesters used Bush's rare visit to the Bay Area to blast him on everything from the war in Iraq to his handling of domestic issues. Many called for his impeachment.

"I'm in 'shock and awe' about what Bush is doing to this country," said Bridgette Fuller, a 48-year-old unemployed tech worker from Santa Cruz. "We're spending far too much of our budget on the military, and we need to spend more money back at home. I just think for the sake of this country, we can't have another four years of Bush."

Mill Valley resident Martin Guffler, however, defended the president and touted Bush's vision and strength in the face of adversity.

"He's one of the most courageous presidents we've had," said Guffler, 59, a business analyst. "He has the ability to make difficult decisions that are necessary. He's a leader and we need a leader in this world."

The day was trying for many of the protesters and Bush supporters trying to converge on Friday's luncheon. While the relentless heat did its share of damage, the closure of Millbrae Avenue and Old Bayshore Highway for security reasons caused major traffic headaches on streets and Highway 101.

Opponents of Bush harped on a number of topics but consistently hammered home their belief that the president lied about Iraq's weapons capabilities as a false pretext for invasion.

"Bush lied, people died," shouted the throng of protesters as he arrived.

Inside the hotel, five members of Code Pink, a nationwide anti-war organization, gained access to the lobby after they booked a hotel room together. Dressed in pink evening wear, the women engaged many of the luncheon guests, knocking Bush and his $2,000-a-plate fund-raiser.

"I find it obscene to charge $2,000-a-plate when he's making sweeping budget cuts across the country in veterans' benefits and health care," said Carol Norris, an organizer with Code Pink.

The Code Pink women drew their own protester -- Terri Connell of Fairfield, who paused from checking into the Marriott to say, "I respect your First Amendment rights, but you're wrong."

Connell, who came to the Marriott specifically to counter anti-Bush protesters, praised Bush's character and said she was "sick and tired of no morals in the presidency."

Chronicle staff writer Mark Simon contributed to this report. / E-mail Ryan Kim at rkim@sfchronicle.com.

There's an "emergency" protest going on tomorrow afternoon to protest the Shrub Administration's deportation of over 13,000 muslim men who cooperated voluntarily with the INS Special Registration Program.

The news conference and rally afterwards is going on from 12pm (noon) - 1:30pm at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Building on 444 Washington Street (at Sansome) in San Francisco. Here's a map of the location and a gif of that map, in case the mapquest link doesn't work.

I'll be there recording it so you'll still be able to check it out if you can't make it, but it's very important to get as many people there as possible for this so please try to make it if you can.

See you there!

Here's the official scoop (courtesy of an email I received from Refuse and Resist:

Civil rights and community organizations will hold a
news conference and demonstration outside the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) offices in San Francisco on Friday, June
13. Following reports that 13,000 of the Arab and Muslim men who
voluntarily registered with the INS as part of the government's
controversial Special Registration Program (NSEERS) will face
deportation, the groups are calling on the INS to halt the expulsions
of men from a list of mainly Arab and Muslim nations. The groups say
that the proposed deportations constitute racial profiling and will
not aid the fight against terrorism.

Speakers will include:

-Jayashri Srikantiah, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern
California
-Samina Faheem, American Muslim Alliance / Pakistan American
Democratic Forum
-Matthew Van Saun, Amnesty International
-Ben Allen, Blue Triangle Network
-Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
-Riva Enteen, National Lawyers Guild
-Rev. John Oda, Pine United Methodist Church
-Greg Marutani, SF Japanese American Citizens League
-Statement from Attorney Lynne Stewart

Speakers at the protest following the news conference include
representatives of ANSWER, Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee, Global Exchange, Refuse & Resist, South Alameda Peace &
Justice Committee, Not in Our Name, and others.

MEDIA ADVISORY
Thursday, June 12, 2003
CONTACT:
Samina Faheem,
American Muslim Alliance:
650-387-1994
Ben Allen, Blue Triangle Network:
415-713-3103

Civil Rights, Community Groups Protest Looming Deportations of 13,000
Immigrants,
Call on INS to Halt Expulsions of Muslim and Arab Men

What: News Conference and Protest

When: Friday, June 13, 2003, 12:00 noon-1:30 PM

Where: Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Building
444 Washington Street (at Sansome), San
Francisco

Who: News Conference Speakers
„X Jayashri Srikantiah, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern
California
„X Samina Faheem, American Muslim Alliance / Pakistan American
Democratic Forum
„X Matthew Van Saun, Amnesty International
„X Ben Allen, Blue Triangle Network
„X Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
„X Riva Enteen, National Lawyers Guild
„X Rev. John Oda, Pine United Methodist Church
* Greg Marutani, SF Japanese American Citizens League
„X Statement from Attorney Lynne Stewart

Speakers at the protest following the news conference include
representatives of ANSWER, Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee, Global Exchange, Refuse & Resist, South Alameda Peace &
Justice Committee, Not in Our Name, and others.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Civil rights and community organizations will hold a
news conference and demonstration outside the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) offices in San Francisco on Friday, June
13. Following reports that 13,000 of the Arab and Muslim men who
voluntarily registered with the INS as part of the government¡¦s
controversial Special Registration Program (NSEERS) will face
deportation, the groups are calling on the INS to halt the expulsions
of men from a list of mainly Arab and Muslim nations. The groups say
that the proposed deportations constitute racial profiling and will
not aid the fight against terrorism.

I'll be at 340 Townsend at 5pm sharp tonight for a rally against Clear Channel.

Look for one in your town. (Here's one going on in Washington D.C.

Remember to bring your video cameras! I can always store your footage in my library at the Internet Archive if you don't have the space or bandwidth to do so.

See you there!

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

WHAT: No More Clear Channels!
Stop the FCC Media Giveaway

WHEN: Thursday, May 29th 2003 5 PM -
(the Thursday before the FCC votes to
dramatically deregulate the media)

WHERE: 340 Townsend Street, San Francisco

The FCC is poised to approve the most dramatic
changes to media ownership regulations in
decades. Leading the charge is FCC Chairman
Michael Powell, Colin Powell's son, who
essentially declared war on diversity in
media at the same time that his father was
spearheading the war against Iraq.

The Thursday before the June 2 FCC vote,
media activists and concerned citizens will
protest at Clear Channel radio stations
throughout the United States with the
message: No More Clear Channels!
Stop the FCC Media Giveaway!

Clear Channel Communications is the
poster child of everything that's wrong with
media deregulation. After the media
deregulation of 1996, Clear Channel gobbled
up hundreds of radio stations throughout
the country and now owns more than 1200
stations nationwide, dominating the audience
share in 100 of 112 major markets. Not only
is the company the world's largest radio
broadcaster, it's also the world largest
concert promoter and billboard advertising
firm. Clear Channel promotes a cookie-cutter
style radio that has urban stations
throughout the country seemingly playing the
same seven songs. It shuts out independent
artists and eliminates local programming.

The company also uses its stations to promote
its right-wing political agenda, such as the
pro-war rallies that Clear Channel
has sponsored in numerous cities since
the start of the war against Iraq.

In San Francisco, Clear Channel station
KMEL fired popular public affairs director
Davey D after he invited anti-war
Congresswoman Barbara Lee to speak on
a KMEL public affairs show.

Let's send a message to the FCC and Congress before
the FCC vote on media deregulation:

PROTEST CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO AND THE MEDIA MONOPOLY!

Location:
Clear Channel/KMEL Office, 340 Townsend Street
San Francisco California

Sponsored By:
Sponsored by Media Alliance, Youth Media Council,
Global Exchange, and others. For more information,
415-255-7296 x263, andrea@globalexchange.org.

Today's stop: Oakland, California.

(These are two shots from the same Starbucks.)

Why am I starting to feel like a Starbucks spokesmodel?

(More background on this here.)

Lawrence Lessig was a bit upset yesterday at the prospect of Starbucks not allowing pictures to be taken inside of their stores.

I wonder what would happen if hundreds of people from around the country experimented this holiday weekend by taking pictures at their local Starbucks …

I had no problems whatsoever from the Starbucks staff while having my picture taken. They were their usually cheery selves behind the counter while everyone else in the store watched as I danced around holding up my venti iced soy latte.

Another customer took the shots of me, so they're a little shaky (even shakier than normal :-)

Tomorrow I'll have more time to visit a few more locations.

Perhaps you can do the same at a Starbucks in your town :-)

(When you do, be sure to post them to Larry's comment page.)

Taking Pictures Inside Starbucks - 24th St (Small - 2 MB)
Taking Pictures Inside Starbucks - 24th St (Hi-Res - 11 MB)

"We still live in a free society! Yay!"

Here is the full text in case the link goes bad:

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/archives/2003_05.shtml#001223

dear Starbucks, say it ain’t true?

So I have this from an extremely reliable source, who vouches totally for the facts that follow.

Story one: Last month while visiting Charleston, three women went into a Starbucks. They were spending the weekend together and one of them had a disposable camera with her. To commemorate their time with one and other they decided to take round robin pictures while sitting around communing. The manager evidently careened out of control, screaming at them, “Didn’t they know it was illegal to take photographs in a Starbucks. She insisted that she had to have the disposable camera because this was an absolute violation of Starbuck’s copyright of their entire ‘environment’--that everything in the place is protected and cannot be used with Starbuck’s express permission.

Story two: At our local [North Carolina] Starbucks, a friend’s daughter, who often has her camera with her, was notified that she was not allowed to take pictures in any Starbucks. No explanation was given, but pressed I would think that the manager there would give a similar rationale.

I wonder what would happen if hundreds of people from around the country experimented this holiday weekend by taking pictures at their local Starbucks …

posted on [ May 23 03 at 2:10 PM ] to [ bad code ] [ 43 comments ]

Estimated time: 3-7 minutes.

It took me about ten minutes, but I didn't already have the two things to say below written for me -- like you do -- and I also had to wait on hold for a couple minutes listening to classical music because the line was busy.

Please look up your Senators and then use my really simple talking points (below) or pehaps some of the more detailed talking points (with resources) that some folks were nice enough to put together.

I called up Barbara Boxer (I can't bring myself to contact Feinstein) and left a message that:

1) I am very concerned about the proposed changes in the FCCs media ownersip rules.

and

2) To please do everything in her power to demand another official public hearing regarding the details of the changes before any kind of final ruling can be made.

(Thanks to Michelle Wolf and Alison Brzencheck and anyone else I forget to mention that helped write and distribute the information below before it found its way to me.)

Hi All,

Moveon.org is facilitating a national call in campaign to coincide with the
FCC's meeting today. They are asking all Americans concerned about the
state of the mass media to phone there state legislators to express their
concern (see note below). I have attached a PDF of the numbers for the
senate and the House of Representatives.

For individuals that do not feel they have enough knowledge of the issues,
I have provided talking points at the bottom of this email for them to use
in the call.

Thanks,
Alison Brzenchek
Vice President of Media Reform
Action Coalition for Media Education Board of Directors

____________________________________________________________________

Hi all,

I'm really sorry for the late notice but it's been decided
that the call in day is tomorrow/today Thursday May 15th to
coincide with the FCC's meeting.

MoveOn will send out the call late tonight/early morning
to ask folks to call their Congresspeople asap. Please
forward on to your lists and let's make sure our elected
officials in DC hear us (and the NRA :)

Word is that MoveOn got over 150,000 people to sign their
petition last week, and all of those folks will be emailed
to make a call tomorrow.

We should discuss as a group whether we want to build for
another call-in day closer to the FCC's vote.

Let's burn up those phone lines and keep the momentum
building!

jeffp
____________________________________________________________________

Talking Points

1. I am aware of the letters you have received from legislators:

There was a letter sent from Senate Commerce Committee members Allard,
Snowe and Collins to Chairman Powell.

The letter urged Powell to publicly address how any changes in media
ownership rules "will promote diversity, competition, and localism" before
issuing a final ruling.

See more the letter at: http://www.acmecoalition.org/fcc1.html

2. I have been made aware of a poll done by the Project for Excellence in
Journalism and the Pew Research Center for the People and The Press that
asked:

"How much, if anything, have you heard about a Federal Communications
Commission proposal to reduce current limits on the number of news outlets
one company can own," the survey asked. "A lot, a little, or nothing at
all?"

72% of Americans have heard "nothing at all"

4% of Americans have heard "a lot."

Find out more at:
http://journalism.org/resources/research/reports/fccsurvey/default.asp

3. I am concerned that corporations are being prioritized over the public
welfare.

"Chairman Powell defines his job as promoting variety in the entertainment
market," said Mark Cooper, CFA's Director of Research, "but the First
Amendment is about ensuring vibrant civic discourse through diversity of
viewpoints and vigorous competition between institutions in the gathering
and dissemination of news and information."

4. I am familiar with the Supreme Courts 1945 decision on the First
Amendment. I believe that further elimination of media ownership
regulations is in conflict with this decision.

In 1945, the Supreme Court decided that "the widest possible dissemination
of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the
welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society."

See full case decision at:
http://www.usscplus.com/online/index.asp?case=3260001

5. I am aware of evidence that shows that eliminating media ownership
regulations will not support the diversity, localism and competition the
FCC is charged to protect.

A study by the Consumer Federation of America called, Democratic Discourse
in the Digital Information Age demonstrates that the FCC studies are asking
the wrong questions.

"They look at variety of entertainment when they should be looking at
diversity of information."

"They worry about number of outlets when strength of journalistic
institutions is what matters."

"They downplay the key role of concentration of ownership, and they ignore
the size and diversity of the population served by the media."

See the Executive Summary at:
http://www.consumerfed.org/demodiscoursesum.pdf

6. I am aware of differing opinions within the commission. Additionally, I
am concerned that the Chair of the Commission (Powell) has only held one
"offical" public hearing and has only participated in one "unofficial"
hearing spearheaded by Commissioner Copps.

There have been 4 unofficial hearings through out the US and Powell only
attend 1

There are four additional unofficial hearing scheduled between now and May
7th

"If you take this to its logical conclusion, you could end up with a
situation where one company owns the newspaper, the television station, the
radio station and the cable system. That may have some economic
efficiencies attached to it, but I daresay it also has some profound
democratic and social and political considerations that we ignore only at
our own tremendous peril."(Statement made by Commissioner Copps in an
interview with Bill Moyers on NOW, 2002)

7. I am extremely concerned because the majority of television, newspaper
and cable broadcasters are not covering this extremely important issue.

We do not hear about ownership issues in the mainstream media due to the
financial benefits that the owners stand to gain with further deregulation.

------ End of Forwarded Message

Okay so something has come up (family thing--nothing terrible :) and now I'm not sure if I'm going to get video up before I have to leave at noon. So I thought I would at least share some images from yesterday while they are still fresh in my mind.

Last night's march was a huge success. The whole thing was peaceful and the cops didn't even have their riot gear out. (They sure had a lot of cameras going though!)

The Chief of Oakland Police even came out to say "hi." Okay, he didn't actually come out and say "hi". Several people recognized him, but he just looked at us from inside his men-in-black looking car while we all said "hello" and smiled and waved.

It sure was a long walk to the docks from the West Oakland Bart station, and I gotta start remembering to always wear my walking shoes to these events. Of course, it could have seemed longer because I had a coat on that I didn't need (with the sun shining so bright and all). I was also carrying my camera and tripod the whole time, and they got progressively heavier as time passed along.

Once we had secured all of the docks (and "secured" just means that there was a little picket circle of people out in front that would politely ask drivers of cars and trucks coming up to the gate to please turn around -- and yes, they were all turning around, from what I could see), we walked clear from one end of the docks to the other -- apparently with the blessings of a police escort the entire time. At that point, things felt stable enough for me to go home.

Luckily, a VW bus of cheerful older ladies gave me a ride back to the Bart station. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of them -- I must have been too exhausted from being in the sun too long. Hopefully I'll see them at another protest soon and can get a snapshot then. They were a cheerful bunch. The youngest one must of been at least 65, and they said they had been there for most of the afternoon and they had been doing stuff like this for over 60 years. How cool!

I promise I'll have video up in a day or two! Hope this gives you a feel for what happened 'till you can see for yourself!

As of approximately 6:40 pm, all was well over at the Oakland Dock protest.

I'll have footage up of it tomorrow.

Peace.

So there's another peaceful, non-civil disobedient rally going on today at the West Oakland Docks.

Just go to West Oakland Bart and look for the people and signs.

If you're in the SF Bay Area, try to come by. It's going on from 5-9 pm.

I'll be there for the first hour or two...

Or go about your business, and I"ll have footage of it up tomorrow morning :-)

I'm bringing my health care card with me, in case the Cops open fire with rubber bullets for no reason again (eleven more articles on this), and I end up in the hospital.
(Boy, that's kind of a reassuring/creepy feeling...)

This is at 444 Washington Street.

More information is below.

See you there!

PROTEST THE REGISTRATIONS, DETENTIONS AND ROUND-UPS OF OUR ARAB, MUSLIM, AND SOUTH ASIAN BROTHERS!

Friday, April 25 – 12pm to 1 pm

PROTEST AND PRESS CONFERENCE
San Francisco INS Office, 444 Washington St @ Sansome, San Francisco

Spread the word about the protest. Please call your friends, family, co-workers and members of the press and tell them why it’s important to stop these arbitrary detentions and scapegoating.

Wear a blue triangle as a symbol of resistance — and in solidarity with those who are in detention. Please visit www.bluetriangle.org

Contact INS District Director David Still at 415-844-5110. Tell him the INS should stop its arbitrary detentions and its special registrations, and to release all detainees now.

Also share this message with your Members of Congress and ask for an inquiry into INS activities since the passage of the USA Patriot Act. The Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121 or 800-839-5276

Background:
The U.S. government is requiring Middle Eastern and South Asian visitors, immigrants and students to register with the INS. By singling out a certain group of people for special registration, the government is engaging in racist scapegoating. To make matters worse, hundreds of well-meaning people who went
to be registered have been detained without hearings. This is not only wrong, but also counterproductive, since the government is punishing the very people who have chosen to cooperate. Singling out an entire group of people for harsh treatment is simply racist, and it sets us on a path toward the kind of detentions seen during World War II. Please act today to protect the civil liberties of all people.

ENDORSERS
ADCSF
ACLU
Blue Triangle Network
Global Exchange
Not in Our Name
October 22nd Coalition to Stop
Police Brutality
Refuse & Resist!
South Alameda Peace & Justice Coalition
CodePink

I wish I could say I am happy with her response.

Letter To Me From Leader Nancy Pelosi regarding the INS Special Registrations.

I believe that the US government must ensure that immigration laws are not applied in a way that violates fundamental protections against discrimination. Any registration process must be administered fairly, and those facing questioning, detention or other legal proceedings should be given prompt access to lawyers...

There is no doubt that the tragic events of September 11 have changed our country. Some additional security measures and policy changes are necessary to reduce the threat of future attacks. In 2002, Congress passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which authorized the implementation of an entry/exit system in order to track the flow of non-immigrants arriving into, and departing from, the United States. However, NSEERS was not contemplated in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act and was developed by the Department of Justice without any Congressional consultation or oversight.

In February, the Senate agreed to an amendment (S.Amdt.54) during it's consideration of the FY2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill (H.J.Res.2) that prevented funds from being spend on any NSEERS activity and directed the Attorney General to provide Congress with NSEERS-related documents and materials. The final version of H.J.Res.2, signed into law by President Bush, restored the funds for NSEERS, but required the Attorney General to provide Congress with materials regarding NSEERS by March 1, 2003. To date, the documents have not been provided to Congress.

Here is the full text of the letter in case the link goes bad:

http://www.lisarein.com/peace/pelosi-reply-4-4-03.html

This letter was sent to me in reply to this letter I wrote to Nancy on January 10, 2003.

Note: All underlines were included in the original.

April 4, 2003

Ms. Lisa Rein
(My home address here)

Dear Ms. Rein,

Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about the Department of Justice's "special registration" program. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

I believe that the US government must ensure that immigration laws are not applied in a way that violates fundamental protections against discrimination. Any registration process must be administered fairly, and those facing questioning, detention or other legal proceedings should be given prompt access to lawyers.

As you know, the Department of Justice has implemented a new system of tracking non-immigrant visa holders in the United States through a process known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). Under the NSEERS program, all non-immigrant men over the age of 16 from a list of 25 countries must register in person at Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) offices before certain deadlines.

There is no doubt that the tragic events of September 11 have changed our country. Some additional security measures and policy changes are necessary to reduce the threat of future attacks. In 2002, Congress passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which authorized the implementation of an entry/exit system in order to track the flow of non-immigrants arriving into, and departing from, the United States. However, NSEERS was not contemplated in the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act and was developed by the Department of Justice without any Congressional consultation or oversight.

In February, the Senate agreed to an amendment (S.Amdt.54) during it's consideration of the FY2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill (H.J.Res.2) that prevented funds from being spend on any NSEERS activity and directed the Attorney General to provide Congress with NSEERS-related documents and materials. The final version of H.J.Res.2, signed into law by President Bush, restored the funds for NSEERS, but required the Attorney General to provide Congress with materials regarding NSEERS by March 1, 2003. To date, the documents have not been provided to Congress.

Thank you again for taking the time to express your views on this important subject. I hope you will continue to communicate with me on matters of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Nancy Pelosi
Member of Congress

I wasn't around to participate in any of last weekend's peace rallys, so I'd REALLY love to see whatever footage you guys have.

Please email me with your links so I can post them here.

I'll have photos and hi-res and audio up soon, but I didn't want to sit on this any longer so here's
My Video Directory for April 5, 2003 in Oakland, CA.

Right now I have a complete ("all") version of Barbara Lee's speech.

An "edited" version of Barbara Lee's speech that includes all of the major quotes without waiting for the crowd to finish clapping and all of the thank you's.

The edited version broken down into two parts for easier download.

and...

Then I have Harry's Belafonte's entire speech in two parts.

The file names should be pretty self-explanatory, but I'll be putting up a better interface up in the morning.

Peace!

For those who care:
Pictures (1-4).

This is referring to this post.

For a number of reasons, my protest buddy, Kevin Burton, and I decided not to go to the protests at the Port of West Oakland this morning.

Sure, it was partly because I have ton of homework to do, and he's about to release a new version of his software.

But we also smelled a rat because of an article we'd seen on MSNBC that seemed to mischaracterize the nature of the protest.
(We reached this conclusion after comparing the artcle with the protest website.)

Looks like it was a lucky decision for us, because a number of innocent bystanders were struck by stray rubber bullets, courtesy of the Oakland Police.

Here are two articles about it, one from the SF Chronicle and one from Globe and Mail.

Here's an excerpt from the Globe and Mail and SF Chron articles (looks like variations of the same article):

Police opened fire with non-lethal bullets at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland on Monday morning, injuring several longshoremen standing nearby.

Police were trying to clear protesters from an entrance to the docks when they opened fire and the longshoremen apparently were caught in the line of fire.

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics and at least one was expected to be taken to hospital. It was unclear if any of the protesters was injured.

"I was standing as far back as I could," longshoreman Kevin Wilson said. "It was very scary. All of that force wasn't necessary."

...Police used non-lethal bullets, sandbags and concussion grenades to try to break up about 500 protesters, who split into groups in front of different terminals.

Oakland Police officer James Carroll said police set up a "skirmish line" and ordered the protesters to disperse.

"It escalated pretty quick," he said. "Usually you go to these protests and you wait around for three to four hours. Today, all of a sudden, people were being taken into custody."

He could not confirm that anyone was hit by the bullets.

Protests also took place at the federal building in San Francisco and at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. Seven people were arrested when they temporarily blocked a highway exit ramp.

Here's the full text of the SF Chronicle article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/04/07/national1158EDT0617.DTL

Police fire rubber bullets at anti-war protest at port in Oakland; nearby longshoremen injured

MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer Monday, April 7, 2003

(04-07) 08:58 PDT OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) --

Police open fired Monday morning with rubber bullets at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland, injuring several longshoremen standing nearby.

Police were trying to clear protesters from an entrance to the docks when they opened fire and the longshoremen apparently were caught in the crossfire.

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics and at least one was expected to be taken to a hospital. It was unclear if any of the protesters was injured.

"I was standing as far back as I could," said longshoremen Kevin Wilson. "It was very scary. All of that force wasn't necessary."

Last week, a San Francisco-based peace group, Direct Action to Stop the War, had announced that it would stage a series of protests Monday involving new acts of civil disobedience.

The Port of Oakland was among the targets, organizers had said, because at least one shipping company is handling war supplies.

Here's the full text of the Globe and Mail article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030407.wprot0407/BNStory/International

Bystanders injured at anti-war protest
Associated Press

E-mail this Article E-mail this Article
Print this Article Print this Article

Oakland, Calif. — Police opened fire with non-lethal bullets at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland on Monday morning, injuring several longshoremen standing nearby.

Police were trying to clear protesters from an entrance to the docks when they opened fire and the longshoremen apparently were caught in the line of fire.

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics and at least one was expected to be taken to hospital. It was unclear if any of the protesters was injured.

"I was standing as far back as I could," longshoreman Kevin Wilson said. "It was very scary. All of that force wasn't necessary."

Last week, a San Francisco-based peace group, Direct Action to Stop the War, had announced that it would stage a series of protests Monday involving new acts of civil disobedience.

The Port of Oakland was among the targets, organizers had said, because at least one shipping company is handling war supplies.

Trent Willis, a business agent for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said angrily that dockworkers were leaving the docks after the incident.

"They shot my guys. We're not going to work today," Mr. Willis said. "The cops had no reason to open up on them."

Police used non-lethal bullets, sandbags and concussion grenades to try to break up about 500 protesters, who split into groups in front of different terminals.

Oakland Police officer James Carroll said police set up a "skirmish line" and ordered the protesters to disperse.

"It escalated pretty quick," he said. "Usually you go to these protests and you wait around for three to four hours. Today, all of a sudden, people were being taken into custody."

He could not confirm that anyone was hit by the bullets.

Protests also took place at the federal building in San Francisco and at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. Seven people were arrested when they temporarily blocked a highway exit ramp.

Not only did MSNBC mischaracterize the nature of this morning's protest at the Port of Oakland,
but the website than swapped the original article for an updated (pre-prepared?) version of the
article that ran this morning at the same URL.

Luckily, I had the old article open in a window from last night. (I'll get some screen grabs and try to grab the HTML too.)

Update: 2:40 pm - My browser crashed when I was trying to get the HTML from the cached page to work. Luckily, I had already taken some screen grabs, which I have uploaded here (1-4).

From Direct Action To Stop The War website:

ARREST This is not a civil disobedience action; although we are taking direct action our goal is to maintain the picket line not to get arrested.

Here's what was at the below URL Sunday, April 6 around 8-9 pm:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/895056.asp?cp1=1

Protesters plan to stop war shipments Antiwar group seeks to shut port of Oakland with picket line By Tom Curry MSNBC April 3 — Shifting protests against the war in Iraq to a new level, a San Francisco group says that it will set up a picket line Monday to block supplies being shipped to U.S. forces fighting in Iraq. The group, Direct Action to Stop the War, said will attempt to “shut down the war merchants” at the port of Oakland by urging members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to not cross the picket line.

E-mail This Complete Story

• MORE EXCLUSIVES WEBLOG WEBLOG • Army family journal: A soldier's family copes SLIDESHOW
SLIDESHOW • Demonstrators: For and against war INTERACTIVE INTERACTIVE • Impact on airlines: Guide
to service changes

‘We are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war.’ — SASHA WRIGHT Antiwar organizer in Oakland, Calif. THE TARGET OF Monday’s action is American President Lines, a cargo carrier that has contracts with the Defense Department to ship supplies to U.S. forces overseas. The port of Oakland is the fourth-busiest cargo container port
in the United States.

‘UNJUST AND ILLEGAL’ “Whether or not war cargo is there on that day, we are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war,” said Sasha Wright, an organizer with Direct Action to Stop the War. “We will hold them accountable.” Patrick Reinsborough, a spokesman for the group, said it hoped that members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union would respect the picket line, as union members
usually do, and thus shut down APL’s Oakland operations by refusing to work.

• Complete MSNBC coverage • Exclusive: Ansar's terror toxins • The Experts: Iraqi ingenuity •
Iraqi ambush described • U.S. looks for al-Qaida link • Jordan's worries over war • Arab
channels show clout • Dispatches from the field • Video coverage from NBC • Blog: Army family's
journal • Encarta: Detailed Iraq map • WashPost: Special coverage LATEST FROM NEWSWEEK • Special
war section • Saving Private Lynch •
The grunts' war

Asked whether cutting off supplies to American soldiers would jeopardize their lives, Wright said, “We feel like the war is what’s putting their lives in danger. This is an effort to save lives by stopping the war as quickly as possible.” ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone told MSNBC.com “the union is much like the rest of American society, it’s split on the war.” But, he said, “Our contract is that we are supposed to load those ships — and we have every intention of abiding by our contract.” Although the ILWU opposed the Vietnam War in 1960s, its members
continued to load cargo ships carrying military materiel to U.S. forces in Vietnam.

Add local news and weather to the MSNBC home page.

A source at the port who spoke on condition of anonymity said Direct Action’s protest was misplaced. “Ninety-five percent of what’s shipped out of Oakland (to Iraq) is food which is going to help Iraqi citizens,” he said. Reinsborough said that on Monday some antiwar activists would also seek to disrupt shipments at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, which is northeast of Oakland. Across the bay from Oakland, antiwar demonstrators in San Francisco disrupted traffic in
the city’s’ financial district two weeks ago, leading Mayor Willie Brown to criticize them. “Some protesters ... have chosen to specifically try to disrupt this city, rather than gather peacefully to voice their desire for peace, at the expense of the day-to-day lives of ordinary San Franciscans and at a great cost to this city,” Brown said. “It is one of the painful ironies of this war that one of the most anti-war cities in the nation, San Francisco, is being disproportionately harmed by the tactics of anti-war protesters.”

Here is what is up there right now (noon on monday the 7th) at the same URL:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/895056.asp?cp1=1

Police battle with Oakland protesters Officers fire non-lethal projectiles to disperse group

MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS OAKLAND, Calif., April 7 — Police fired wooden dowels and bean-bag pellets Monday at hundreds of antiwar protesters blocking a road near Oakland’s port. Several longshoremen were injured as police tried to disperse the demonstrators, who were trying to block supplies being shipped to U.S. forces fighting in Iraq.

E-mail This Print This Complete Story

• MORE EXCLUSIVES WEBLOG WEBLOG • Army family journal: A soldier's family copes SLIDESHOW
SLIDESHOW • Demonstrators: For and against war INTERACTIVE INTERACTIVE • Impact on airlines: Guide
to service changes

‘We are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war.’ — SASHA WRIGHT Antiwar organizer in Oakland, Calif. SEVERAL PEOPLE were injured, including some who suffered large bruises. One man lifted up his shirt to show a welt about the size of a baseball. Most of the 500 demonstrators at the port were dispersed peacefully, but police fired at two gates when protesters refused to move and police said some of them threw rocks
and bolts. The longshoremen, pinned against a fence, were caught in the line of fire. The police fired bean-bag rounds and wooden dowels. They also used “sting balls,” which send out a spray of BB-sized rubber pellets and a cloud of tear gas. “We gave our dispersal order, we gave them an order, we gave them ample time to disperse,” said Oakland police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford.

“When we give our dispersal order, that’s pretty much it. (If) there are safety issues involved, that’s when we step in.” At least six demonstrators and six longshoremen standing nearby were injured. “Oakland police are being the most aggressive of any department I’ve seen in the Bay Area since the war began,” said protester Damien McAnany, a database manager. “The San Francisco Police
Department never used any of this stuff against us.”

ACTION AGAINST CARGO SHIPPER The demonstrators carried signs including “Shut down the war makers.”

• Complete MSNBC coverage • Exclusive: Ansar's terror toxins • The Experts: Iraqi ingenuity •
Iraqi ambush described • U.S. looks for al-Qaida link • Jordan's worries over war • Arab
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They were trying to block access to the terminal of American President Lines, a cargo carrier that has contracts with the Defense Department to ship supplies to U.S. forces overseas. “Some people were blocking port property and the port authorities asked us to move them off,” said Deputy Police Chief Patrick Haw. “Police moved aggressively against crowds because some people threw rocks and big iron bolts at officers.”

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics. It was unclear if any of the injured protesters sought medical treatment. “I was standing as far back as I could,” said longshoremen Kevin Wilson.

“It was very scary. All of that force wasn’t necessary.” Trent Willis, a business agent for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said enraged dockworkers were leaving the docks after the incident. “They shot my guys. We’re not going to work today,” Willis said. “The cops had no reason to open up on them.” A group called Direct Action to Stop the War had vowed last week to
“shut down the war merchants” at the port of Oakland by urging members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to not cross its picket line.

‘UNJUST AND ILLEGAL’ “Whether or not war cargo is there on that day, we are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war,” Sasha Wright, an organizer with Direct Action to Stop the War told MSNBC.com last week. “We will hold them accountable.” Patrick Reinsborough, a spokesman for the group, said it hoped that members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union would respect the picket line, as union members usually do, and thus shut down APL’s Oakland operations by refusing to work. Asked whether cutting off supplies to American soldiers would jeopardize their lives, Wright said, “We feel like the war is what’s putting their lives in danger. This is an effort to save lives by stopping the war as quickly as possible.” ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone told MSNBC.com, “Our contract is that
we are supposed to load those ships — and we have every intention of abiding by our contract.”

Although the ILWU opposed the Vietnam War in 1960s, its members continued to load cargo ships carrying military materiel to U.S. forces in Vietnam.

Add local news and weather to the MSNBC home page.

Meanwhile in New York, police arrested several dozen people who blocked the entrance to the Manhattan building of the Carlyle Group, a firm which has a stake in the defense industry. Up to 300 people chanted: “Carlyle gets fat on war” outside the offices of the $14 billion investment group. Police said about two or three dozen demonstrators were arrested outside the Fifth Avenue building and charged with disorderly conduct. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this
report.

Here is the full text from the page on the actagainstwar website that describes the protest (as referenced in my introduction to this post):

http://www.actagainstwar.org/article.php?id=122

CONFRONT THE WAR MERCHANTS AT THE OAKLAND DOCKS

Community Picket of APL

MONDAY APRIL 7, 7AM (Continuing all day-come when you can)
Meet: 7am outside the West Oakland BART

COMMUNITY PICKET We will keep one or more mass high energy moving picket lines at the entrance to APL to confront them for war profiteering. Simultaneous nonviolent direct actions will take place across the US— New York City, Washington DC-and throughout the Bay Area—SF Federal Building and Concord Naval Weapons Station. If the picket is large and lively enough we will impact APL and throw some sand in the gears of the war machine. There is a long history of community pickets successfully confronting shipping lines involved in Apartheid in South Africa, military repression in Central America, union-busting in Liverpool, UK, and the Italian government’s crackdown on the global justice movement in Genoa, Italy. We will have orientation teams to check in with and orient people as they arrive.

ANTI-WAR/PRO-WORKER Many of us in the anti-war movement are trade unionists and active supporters of union fights against corporations, including the recent ILWU fight with the Pacific Maritime Association and the Bush Administration for a decent contract.

ARREST This is not a civil disobedience action; although we are taking direct action our goal is to maintain the picket line not to get arrested.

WHEN/WHAT TO BRING People will be meeting at 7AM on April 7th at West Oakland BART, one mile from the site of the picket. If you can’t come at 7am, come when you can and stay as long as you can-- look for the orientation folks at outside West Oakland BART. Folks can either walk, or shuttles will be available. Bring water, food, and protection from the sun as we will be subject to the elements with very little shade and the action will continue all day. Also prepare for cold and wind, particularly early morning and in the afternoon and evening. APL’s entrances to it’s docks are at 1395 Middle Harbor Rd.

DRIVING Driving Directions: From Hwys 80, 24, or 580; Get on 980 South, exit “11th St” to Bush, right on 7th to 1451 7th, the West Oakland BART Terminal.

PARKING Park in the BART Parking lot, on nearby residential streets (some have two hour limits, though not strictly enforced—be careful) $6 All Day Parking Lot is on Kirkham between 5th and 7th, just past BART, heading east on 7th.

WAR PROFITEERS While services of all kinds are cut, there is endless money for the unjust and illegal war being waged in our name. Those corporations that profit from this war, including San Francisco based Bechtel, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, Stevedoring Services of America(which was just awarded a contract to manage the Iraqi port of Um Qasir) and must be exposed for their role in fuelling this war and reaping profits from it. Direct Action to Stop the War with Presente Affinity Group initiated actions at Bechtel world headquarters in downtown San Francisco, closing it for two days after the war started. On Monday April 14th Direct Action to Stop the War will use mass nonviolnet civil disobedience to shut down ChevronTexaco World Headquarters in San Ramon, near Walnut Creek in Contra Costa County. This all helps to impose an economic, political and social cost on those who make war and those who profit from it.

APL You are invited to join a community picketline at the Oakland Docks that will be established to confront APL (formerly American President Lines). APL has been a major shipper of military cargo from the port of Oakland. APL is not only a carrier of military cargo; they also operate as a direct arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. APL receives millions of taxpayer dollars every year for shipping military cargo through the Department of Defense Maritime Security Program (MSP). APL makes nine of its vessels available to the Department of Defense in order to move "ammunition and sustainment cargo." Several of these vessels have already been called up to service the military this year. The MSP is authorized to make payments of $2.1 million per vessel per year through the program. Therefore, APL is potentially receiving $18 million dollars of taxpayer money per year from the Department of Defense to be a gunrunner. In fact, according to AsiaWeek, APL was receiving $100 million in subsides from the DOD in 1997.

APL is headquartered in Oakland. It was the second-largest container shipping company in the U.S. until it merged with Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) to become one of the top five cargo carriers in the world with total sales in 2001 of nearly $4.7 billion. On the U.S. West Coast, it operates ocean terminals at Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles. At Concord Naval Weapons station, APL’s stevedoring company, Eagle Marine Services, provides the stevedoring (a stevedore is another name for longshoreman, loads and unloads cargo) for the military cargo that goes out of Concord.

Boy oh boy are there a whole lotta letters that need to be written to our representatives this coming week. And fast!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great Legislative Directory where such contact information can be obtained easily.

I'll be preparing drafts letters on the various issues that you can use as a starter page to save time.

Note: This time we need to take an extra step and send a copy of the emails/faxes we sent to our representatives to a local newspaper or two as well.

These letters can really matter when there are a lot of them.

Let's make this week the week that our Reps start talking about all the mail they are getting.

For those of you who are so inclined:

March for Peace and Justice in Oakland!

March for Peace and Justice in Oakland!

Saturday
April 5th

Gather: 10:30 AM in Mosswood Park
(Broadway and MacArthur, close to MacArthur BART) and march downtown

-or-

10:00 AM at UC Berkeley, Sproul Plaza and march to Mosswood, then downtown

1:30 PM Gather for rally and music
Frank Ogawa Plaza near Oakland City Hall
(12th St. BART Station)

For more information, contact:

Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

Paper Tiger TV - March 27, 2003

Great work guys!

This is probably a long shot guys, but we're only talking about sending an email.

Estimated time commitment: 10 seconds.

Subject: URGENT: Potential stop-the-war vote in Congress

Friends and Concerned Americans,

Against all odds, there were enough signatures, e-mails telegrams and
phone calls within the last 24 hours to Congressman Dennis J.Kucinich
of Ohio to persuade him to introduce before the House of
Representatives
in Washington, D.C. a little known resolution that deprives the
President of his authority to wage war.

However, we must now persuade Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert
that there is a growing consensus if not a plurality to mandate the
resolution for a House ballot.

Therefore, please take a moment to e-mail Speaker Hastert by simply
saying, "I am in favor of introducing HJ Resolution 20 for a vote."

Speaker Hastert's e-mail:
Speaker@mail.house.gov

Please do this NOW.
And please forward to every other concerned citizen you know

AFTRA RALLY AGAINST CLEAR CHANNEL March 27 12:30 P.M. - 2 P.M.

(Clear Channel is an organizer of pro war rallies;
sent a memo to their 1000+ stations suggesting they
NOT play John Lennon's "Imagine" and a multitude of
other songs right after 9/11; has links to Bush
Administration; and also are accused of unfair
practices by artists touring who, in order to get
airplay on their stations in certain markets, must use
Clear Channel promoters.)

* * *

original call from AFTRA:

American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
March 2003

AFTRA

New York
Local

AFTRA RALLY
at BRYANT PARK,

Thursday, MARCH 27th at 12:30 PM

Clear Channel Communications,
the owner of WKTU, WLTW, WAXQ, WWPR, and WHTZ,
wants the right to fire DJs and replace them with
cheaper, out-of-state announcers who pre-record shows
through a process called "voice-tracking."

Clear Channel Communications wants to take the
hometown voices out of New York City radio.
COME TO THE RALLY TO
SUPPORT AND MEET
THE DJs YOU LISTEN TO EVERYDAY!

Bryant Park
42nd Street and 6th Avenue at the Fountain
Thursday, March 27th
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

For more information contact:
Broadcast Department,
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists,
New York Local

www.keepnyradiolive.com
(212) 532-0800

It is a fight we are in together.

Here's NY Congressman Gregory W. Meeks (D) sticking up for protesters' rights to express themselves -- while being overpowered -- literally, a la microphone levels and camera angles -- against one of the many nameless ranting talking heads on the FOX network.

(If anyone can identify this guy from Fox, I'll be happy to cite him accordingly. It's just that he didn't seem to care about telling us who he was, and Fox didn't seem to care about giving us his name during over 10 minutes of programming from the guy, so I figured, "why should I care? He's just making it up as he goes along, without any regard to accuracy or the thoughts and feelings of anyone else." Not much of a "news" man. Not sure what else I expected from Fox...)

Meeks also brings up that the protesters are largely rising up against a policy of pre-emption, and uses the situation in Northern Iraq with the Kurds and the Turks as an example of why this policy is not one we want other countries to start following. The talking head calls this scenario "fantasy-land" and accuses Meeks of going off of the subject.

Notice how Meeks is quickly replaced with Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) as soon as touchy material like what a "democracy" means enters the conversation.

Audio - Gregory Meeks Sticking Up For Democracy On Fox (MP3 - 6 MB)

Gregory Meeks Sticking Up For Democracy On Fox (Small - 11 MB)

This is wireless technologies (and, ideally community wireless networks) are so important. They help us to organize and communicate with each other.

This time it was to organize the protest. Next time it might be to discuss an important issue or to provide eye witness accounts of some other event that has just taken place. To let loved ones know that you're okay -- or to tell friends and neighbors where not to go when there's an emergency.

Wireless can help us get organized -- which is what it's all about right now.

Power To The People! :-)
Protesters relying on wireless, Web tools
By Jessie Seyfer for the Mercury News.

Sent from the thick of Thursday's massive demonstrations, these messages are an example of how protesters are using the latest technology to communicate and coordinate their activities.

Over the past three days, activists created pirate radio broadcasts that streamed live on the Web and were rebroadcast at numerous sites across the world. They uploaded live video of marches to the Internet and sent hundreds of digital images of clashes with police to the Web. And they communicated on those cell phones to keep close track of one another's whereabouts.

Instant communications helped the protesters stay ahead of events and solidify their community...

"Every desktop is a publishing station now, and so is every telephone, every PDA, every laptop with a wireless connection,'' said Howard Rheingold, author of the book "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution.''

Police officers have used walkie-talkies and wireless radio communications for decades. Now, the digital revolution has put mobile technology in just about everyone's hands, he said. Thursday, demonstrators used it to play a cat-and-mouse game with police. Once protesters were forced out of one intersection, they coordinated by cell phone and swarmed another intersection, Rheingold said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5462381.htm

Posted on Sun, Mar. 23, 2003 story:PUB_DESC
Protesters relying on wireless, Web tools
By Jessie Seyfer
Mercury News

The bulletins came rapid-fire, straight from a San Francisco protester's wireless handheld device to a Web page for all the world to see.

``6:47 p.m.: Fremont street on-ramp shut down by demonstrators.'' ``8:00 p.m.: 6,000 strong at Castro and Market.'' ``10:00 p.m.: 500 marching down Howard.''

Sent from the thick of Thursday's massive demonstrations, these messages are an example of how protesters are using the latest technology to communicate and coordinate their activities.

Over the past three days, activists created pirate radio broadcasts that streamed live on the Web and were rebroadcast at numerous sites across the world. They uploaded live video of marches to the Internet and sent hundreds of digital images of clashes with police to the Web. And they communicated on those cell phones to keep close track of one another's whereabouts.

Instant communications helped the protesters stay ahead of events and solidify their community. But whether they went beyond the ranks of committed activists to reach a public that, polls show, support the war by ever-widening margins, remains to be seen.

Within the movement, the technology that is bringing the 1960s adage ``Do your own thing'' back to life is spreading around the globe, to hundreds of Web sites and makeshift newsrooms from Idaho to Jerusalem.

Experts say the technology-enabled, do-it-yourself ``Independent Media Center'' concept was born during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. All this digital documentation represents the face of the movement that is opposing the war in Iraq.

``It's now possible for us to create our own media,'' said a 26-year-old ``Otto,'' who was shooting video at a march Saturday in San Francisco for the Web site Indybay.org. ``We don't have to rely on the mainstream media to tell us what's going on, or have someone else filter what is happening. We can do it ourselves.''

Thursday's bulletins from a protester's handheld, for example, were sent to sf.indymedia.org, a Web page where demonstrators are encouraged to self-publish in just about any possible way.

``Every desktop is a publishing station now, and so is every telephone, every PDA, every laptop with a wireless connection,'' said Howard Rheingold, author of the book ``Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution.''

Police officers have used walkie-talkies and wireless radio communications for decades. Now, the digital revolution has put mobile technology in just about everyone's hands, he said. Thursday, demonstrators used it to play a cat-and-mouse game with police. Once protesters were forced out of one intersection, they coordinated by cell phone and swarmed another intersection, Rheingold said.

Mercury News Staff Writer Dana Hull contributed to this report. Contact Jessie Seyfer at jseyfer@mercurynews.com or (650) 688-7531.

Today was a wonderful, completely peaceful and non-violent protest.

I'll have a brief movie or two up soon so you can get a feel for it.

(But first...the rest of my footage from Thursday...)

I hear Monday is the next big gathering. Not sure if I'll be able to make that one or not yet.

It would appear that weekends are OK to protest, but the cops don't like it on weekdays.

(It would also appear that, when the cops don't start trouble, there isn't any :-)

Also, today's protest was sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. -- and, to date, those people have been really organized about their events -- so maybe that's another reason today went so well.

I hear there are 30,000 or so people in Civic Center so, you know, I hate to be a party pooper!

I'll have whatever I shoot today -- and the rest of footage from Thursday going up tonight and all day tomorrow. (I've got to catch up so I can get back to my SXSW and Spectrum Conference footage.)

I wasn't there but Kevin Burton took some pictures for us to see:
Powell and Market Protest - March 19, 2003.

I just finished making my daily calls to my local radio stations to request the latest and greatest anti-war songs.

Remember these guys:

Beastie Boys - In A World Gone Mad
John Cougar Mellencamp - To Washington
Dixie Chicks - Traveling Soldier

Here's the scoop on what's happening in the San Francisco Bay Area:

Refuse & Resist! received the following new call to action from Not in Our Name Project. The Not In Our Name Pledge and Statement of Conscience have given people the world and been key to building the movement we need to build another world. As we said in the pledge: Another world is possible and we aim to make it real!

Act Now As If The Future Depends On It! Because it Does!

Bush issued his ultimatum in an address to the nation Monday: Sadam Hussein and his sons must get out of Iraq by 8 p.m. Wednesday or bombs will start devastating the country. In the name of ridding the world of Sadam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, 3,000 cruise missiles and the mother of all bombs will be dropped on the people of Baghdad in the first 48 hours. Pentagon officials have bragged "there will not be a safe place in Baghdad."

We say, Not in Our Name!

In response to Bush's ultimatum, Not in Our Name calls on everyone to begin MASSIVE opposition NOW to this war. We cannot go about our daily business as usual while bombs designed to flatten Baghdad and "shock and awe" the world into submission to U.S. might are loaded into planes. This war will be an outrageous crime against the people of Iraq and a blow to the very humanity of people the world over. We can't wait for the bombs to fall. We must act now to show the world that people in this country repudiate this war and are doing everything in our power to stop it.

As Bush and his allies have made murderously clear, this diplomacy was never
really about disarmament. It was about "regime change." In the name of liberating Iraq from brutal dictatorship, our own government and others plan to launch a full out invasion and occupation of another country. After the deaths of many thousands of civilians who will be heartlessly dismissed as collateral damage, Saddam Hussein will be deposed and a military dictatorship will be established in the name of bringing democracy to Iraq. But as the U.S. Government's own state department reports make clear,there is no plan for any kind of democratic government (even after indefinite military occupation and rule by US generals and UN troops) because "electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements."

How dare this President call on us to support this unjust and illegitimate war! This President who has put the United States beyond any international treaties; Who has declared all votes that go against his imperial designs invalid; Whose administration is unprecedented in eroding the very freedoms he claims to be fighting for; Who has detained people without trial based on their nationality and religion; Who is torturing prisoners of war being held in Guantanamo; Who has manufactured fear to herd people into endless war and a big brother society that George Orwell only dreamed of; Who is ordering the spending of billions for weaponry that will secure oil and, through death and mass destruction, reorder strategic regions of the world to serve a U.S. imperial order while people the world over will have to go without.

How dare this President ask us to support this unjust and illegitimate war in ANY way.

At this time when they try to stifle dissent and intimidate opposition by the loud drums of war, it is important to understand that the powerful anti-war resistance around the world, including in the U.S., has had a huge impact. It has torn the legitimacy from this war and demonstrated that the U.S. government is acting against the will of many millions worldwide.In these crucial few days ahead, we need to intensify this resistance.

War begun by governments can be stopped by people and the last few months
have witnessed the moral and material power of people who have organized this historically unprecedented international movement. We in this country stand with people all over the world in saying WE DON'T WANT THIS WAR!

As Bush demands that the world fall in line, as he threatens whole countries and people, our resistance must rise to new heights of breadth, daring, creativity and determination.

Another World is Possible and We Pledge to Make it Real
No War on Iraq! No War on the World!

Wednesday, March 19th
Noon - Work Party at Not in Our Name Oakland office (1611 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 530, Oakland CA 94612)
5pm - San Francisco Protest at Powell and Market
. Act Now As If The Future Depends On It! Because it Does!
6:30pm - Not in Our Name General Meeting, Oakland office (1611 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 530, Oakland CA). . Help plan for "Day of" and "Day After" actions

The "Day of" a US Attack on Iraq:
Noon - San Francisco Protest at Powell and Market
5pm - Oakland at City Hall/Frank Ogawa Plaza
5pm - Palo Alto City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue
5 pm - Peace Plaza, SF Japantown, Post & Buchanan
6 pm - United Nations Plaza, Vigil - with Amnesty International and various religious forces

The "Day After":
All-day Not in Our Name anti-war convergence gathering at San Francisco Civic Center, beginning at 7am.
7am - Direct Action to Stop the War, Embarcadero BART
7am - Oakland Federal Building Vigil

For more information call: Not in Our Name at: 510-444-6466

Update Member Info:
http://ezinemanager.com/subscriber/member_profile/?skid=14301955

Cancel Subscription:
http://srv.ezinemanager.com/?fa=r&id=14301955&c=964632405

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Posted by Lisa at 06:23 PM

This is the one that counts guys!

I'll be there with my camera -- my first protest outside of California. Should be interesting.

See you there!

Austin Against War

I wasn't actually present at these protests today (Friday, March 14, 2003), because I'm still in Austin, Texas, but I was able to find a link to some video footage, a legal report (which cops did what to whom),
pictures, and a summary of the details on the Indymedia website.

Protesters Shut Down Stock Exchange, Blockade Bush & Market
3/14: Some 80 protesters were arrested this morning in downtown San Francisco taking part in an emergency direct action to prevent war in Iraq. Direct Action to Stop the War has been organizing "day-after" actions for the business day after war starts, but many felt the need for a "preemptive strike" to stop war before it starts.

Over 200 demonstrators gathered at dawn at the old Pacific Stock Exchange building at Pine and Sansome. Several speakers rallied the crowd, including student, queer, labor, faith, and people of color activists. Some protesters formed a blockade outside the financial trading floor, while others blocked the intersection of Bush and Montgomery. About 30 sat down in the street, chanting "We are blocking Bush!", and were arrested around 8:30am after police gave a dispersal order. Protesters continued down Bush Street to Market, where two separate groups blockaded the street and were also arrested and loaded into sheriff's buses.

I was wondering who was going to be the first popular musical act to write a song taking a stand against the war. Turns out it's one of my favorites!

Thanks guys! I love you for this.

In A World Gone Mad

Now we all have to start calling radio stations to demand
request that they play this song!

Check out the lyrics!

Mirrors, smokescreens and lies
It’s not the politicians but their actions I despise
You and Saddam should kick it like back in the day
With the cocaine and Courvoisier
But you build more bombs as you get more bold
As your mid-life crisis war unfolds
All you want to do is take control
Now put that axis of evil bullshit on hold
Citizen rule number 2080
Politicians are shady
So people watch your back 'cause I think they smoke crack
I don’t doubt it look at how they act...

It’s time to lead the way and de-escalate
Lose the weapons of mass destruction and the hate
Say ooh ah what’s the White House doin’?
Oh no! Say, what in tarnation have they got brewing??!!!!???!!
Well I’m not pro Bush and I’m not pro Saddam
We need these fools to remain calm
George Bush you’re looking like Zoolander
Trying to play tough for the camera
What am I on crazy pills? We’ve got to stop it
Get your hand out my grandma’s pocket
We need health care more than going to war
You think it’s democracy they’re fighting for?

Here is the full text of the lyrics at:

http://beastieboys.com/song_lyrics.html

In a World Gone Mad

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

Mirrors, smokescreens and lies
It’s not the politicians but their actions I despise
You and Saddam should kick it like back in the day
With the cocaine and Courvoisier
But you build more bombs as you get more bold
As your mid-life crisis war unfolds
All you want to do is take control
Now put that axis of evil bullshit on hold
Citizen rule number 2080
Politicians are shady
So people watch your back 'cause I think they smoke crack
I don’t doubt it look at how they act

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

First the ‘War On Terror’ now war on Iraq
We’re reaching a point where we can’t turn back
Let’s lose the guns and let’s lose the bombs
And stop the corporate contributions that their built upon
Well I’ll be sleeping on your speeches ‘til I start to snore
‘Cause I won’t carry guns for an oil war
As-Salamu alaikum, wa alaikum assalam
Peace to the Middle East peace to Islam
Now don’t get us wrong ‘cause we love America
But that’s no reason to get hysterica
They’re layin’ on the syrup thick
We ain’t waffles we ain’t havin’ it

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

Now how many people must get killed?
For oil families pockets to get filled?
How many oil families get killed?
Not a damn one so what’s the deal?

It’s time to lead the way and de-escalate
Lose the weapons of mass destruction and the hate
Say ooh ah what’s the White House doin’?
Oh no! Say, what in tarnation have they got brewing??!!!!???!!
Well I’m not pro Bush and I’m not pro Saddam
We need these fools to remain calm
George Bush you’re looking like Zoolander
Trying to play tough for the camera
What am I on crazy pills? We’ve got to stop it
Get your hand out my grandma’s pocket
We need health care more than going to war
You think it’s democracy they’re fighting for?

In a world gone mad it’s hard to think right
So much violence hate and spite
Murder going on all day and night
Due time we fight the non-violent fight

Tomorrow's the day you'll need to contact your representatives to tell them to vote against Estrada.

Make sure the staffers know you're a constituent. Then urge your
Senators to:

"Please SUPPORT the filibuster to stop Miguel Estrada.
Please vote AGAINST cloture."

Please let us know you're making these important calls, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callmade2.html

.....

A recent New York Times story on the filibuster is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/politics/12ESTR.html

For more information on Estrada, there's a good fact sheet at:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=7795

* For more information on filibusters, see our bulletin at:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html

Dear MoveOn member,

As we continue our Iraq campaign, we're also working to track the
most pressing domestic challenges from the Bush administration. While
Iraq is taking all the media focus, the right wing is using this
diversion to cover attacks on almost every front.

Tomorrow -- Thursday, March 6th -- our ability to withstand this
onslaught may come down to one crucial Senate vote. This vote
-- on the Miguel Estrada judicial nomination -- is widely seen as
a key moment defining whether the Democratic opposition can turn
back the worst of the right-wing initiatives.

The Senate will be voting on the filibuster* on the nomination of
Miguel Estrada to the D.C. appeals court. We need to support this
filibuster and the courageous Senators who are stepping forward
at this key moment. Please call your Senators *immediately* to make
your voice heard.

We've arranged a TOLL-FREE number for you to use. Please call it
twice to speak with both your Senators:

1-888-508-2974

If that number is busy, please call your Senators directly, at:

Senator Feinstein
DC Phone: 202-224-3841

Senator Boxer
DC Phone: 202-224-3553

Make sure the staffers know you're a constituent. Then urge your
Senators to:

"Please SUPPORT the filibuster to stop Miguel Estrada.
Please vote AGAINST cloture."

Please let us know you're making these important calls, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callmade2.html

Miguel Estrada is a stealth right-wing extremist who has never served
as a judge before, yet has been nominated by the White House to a seat
on America's second-highest court. He stonewalled the Senate during
his confirmation hearings last year, refusing to answer basic questions
about his legal & judicial philosophy. Estrada is widely thought to be
President Bush's top choice for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. His
silence on his views on the law is a direct challenge to all of us.

Calling Estrada's behavior "a new height of arrogance," Senators Tom
Daschle (D-SD) and Harry Reid (D-NV) have finally gotten their fellow
Democrats to take a unified stand on principle, and are rightly
refusing to allow Estrada's confirmation.

They have launched a filibuster -- a tactic of last resort that is a
minority party's only recourse to ensure that a narrow majority party
does not gain absolute power. It's a bold move. If the filibuster
holds, as it has for 3 weeks now, it will send a clear signal that the
right wing can not ram its radically unfair agenda through Congress.
If it fails, that will send the opposite, frightening message.

In effect, the Estrada filibuster is now our main line of defense
safeguarding the democracy we believe in and the society we want our
children to inherit. Republicans have just called for a "cloture" vote
-- an attempt to break the filibuster -- to take place this Thursday.

MoveOn members have played a huge part in making this filibuster
possible. For weeks, key Senators have been citing our thousands of
phone calls as a major force keeping the Democrats together. Even
today, they're talking about what a difference we're making.

Unity among Senators to maintain this filibuster is crucial. Please
call your Senators right now.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

--The MoveOn Team
Carrie, Eli, Joan, Peter, Wes, and Zack
March 5, 2003

P.S.:

A recent New York Times story on the filibuster is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/politics/12ESTR.html

For more information on Estrada, there's a good fact sheet at:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=7795

* For more information on filibusters, see our bulletin at:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html
________________

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please visit our subscription management page at:
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If you're looking for footage from the February 15, 2003 Protest In San Francisco -- you'll want to take note that I've moved all of the "My Little Adventure In Hacktivism" footage from that day into its own category.

So I had my 2:55 EST time slot, and I called (almost) on schedule, but I couldn't get through. All ciruits were busy!

Good work guys!

MoveOn.org has organized a
Virtual March On Washington today, February 26, 2003.

The idea is to literally have all of the Senators and Representatives' phones ringing off of the hook all day long -- asking them not to rush into this War, please -- in your own words. (Perhaps "please" isn't a word that seems appropriate anymore...)

Estimated Time Investment: 1-2 minutes total.

It took me about 30 seconds to enter my information into a form, including two sentences that I want to say when I leave a message for my reps.

The website creates a page with the names and phone numbers of your representatives that you can print out and keep handy so it's easy to remember what you want to say when it's time to make the calls.

This is the kind of organized communication to our representatives that I hope to see a lot more of.

Give it a try, will you? I'm curious what people's experiences are.

I'll tell you about mine after I make my calls around noon.

The Shrub was going on and on about the Miguel Estrada nomination during his radio address yesterday. (Which I will upload shortly once I'm convinced it's not already available online.)

We'll probably need to call our Democrat congress critters tomorrow to show them support for Filibustering the vote on this guy.

It just isn't right for him to refuse to answer questions by the Senate Judiciary Committee. I've got more video from CSPAN a week ago when they were debating this issue, but my guess is there will be a lot of new debate tomorrow over this.

Remember that Bill Frist agreed that no vote can be taken until 5:30 pm on Monday. That means it could be a late night indeed...

That still gives us all day tomorrow to remind congress how much we care about this issue.

It took me less than a minute to call my senator last week and leave a message thanking her for "doing whatever he/she can to oppose the Miguel Estrada nomination."

These calls are typically tallied. No more than a sentance or two stating how you feel is required. They're busy too. The people on the phone are always very nice and glad you called, whatever you have to say.

Let's get in the habit of letting them know how we feel!

I'm swamped today with life n' stuff but I've got a bunch more footage already captured so I can get the next round of Sunday's little adventure up later this evening.

I could really use some suggestions for software for making these video files smaller. I've been using 10 MB chunks, but am told that I should be able to get more minutes of footage for the MB sizes of the downloads that I have.

I'm already compressing them down to 10% in Premiere and I don't have the funds to blow $600 on Cleaner right now (the most obvious solution).

Anybody know of some cool open source tools for video compression on Mac OSX?

pick an email and let me know (some are easier to remember than others): lisarein@finetuning.com, lisa@creativecommons.org, lisa@xml.com, lisa@lisarein.com...

Back later today!

I've got a ton of links to put up about the protests that have been going on all over the world the last two days, and then I'm going early to the protest around 10:30 so I won't miss anything. (Update at 10am: I'm running late and will have to post all of this stuff this afternoon after the protest -- in between video crunching.)

Downtown San Francisco isn't really equipped to hold more than it had to at the last protest (150,000+), so it will be quite interesting to see how everything pans out.

If you're into showing your support, but not into walking 15 blocks or so with a huge crowd, you should just show up at Civic Center around 2pm. If it's anything like last time, the entire area in a six block radius around the Civic Center will be alive with people, music, dance, theatre and song.

If you live within walking distance -- even a bit of a long walk -- that's definitely the best form of transportation.

See you there! I'll have footage up tonight!

If you haven't heard about this Estrada guy until know and it doesn't seem like it could be that important or you would have, please keep reading.
It's important...Promise :-)

This just in from Move On.

You can look up your reps to call and thank them (Congressmerge -- anyone know of a better lookup service?)

In any case: do it now guys! Thanks!

Responding to thousands of our calls, Democrats have just launched
a filibuster* to prevent the confirmation of Miguel Estrada to
America's second-highest court. This filibuster is the first sign
of real resistance to extremism in Congress and the White House...

Please call your Senators now, at:

Senator Feinstein (D)
Local Phone: 310-914-7300
DC Phone: 202-224-3841

Senator Boxer (D)
Local Phone: 415-403-0100
DC Phone: 202-224-3553

If your Senator is a Democrat, say:

"Thank you for supporting the filibuster
to block the Estrada nomination.
Please speak out on the Senate floor."

If your Senator is a Republican, say:

"Please support the filibuster to block
the Estrada nomination."

A story on the filibuster in today's New York Times is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/politics/12ESTR.html

For more information on Estrada, there's a good fact sheet at:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=7795

* For more information on filibusters, see our recent bulletin at:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html

Responding to thousands of our calls, Democrats have just launched
a filibuster* to prevent the confirmation of Miguel Estrada to
America's second-highest court. This filibuster is the first sign
of real resistance to extremism in Congress and the White House.

Weíve got to support this filibuster.

Please call your Senators now, at:

Senator Feinstein (D)
Local Phone: 310-914-7300
DC Phone: 202-224-3841

Senator Boxer (D)
Local Phone: 415-403-0100
DC Phone: 202-224-3553

If your Senator is a Democrat, say:

"Thank you for supporting the filibuster to block the Estrada
nomination. Please speak out on the Senate floor."

If your Senator is a Republican, say:

"Please support the filibuster to block the Estrada nomination."

If you are asked why you support the filibuster, make some of the
following points in your own words:

- Estrada has hidden his views on the law from the public;
- Estrada has a reputation as a right-wing extremist;
- The Senate must be informed to advise and consent on nominations.

Please let us know you're making your calls, at:

http://www.moveon.org/callmade2.html

The filibuster is a bold move -- playing the Senate's ultimate ace --
and bold moves carry big risks. This filibuster is now the battle line
on which everything we care about depends. Republicans will make every
effort to peel Dems away from the filibuster.

If they succeed, we're screwed. It's that simple. If the Dems cave
in here, the right wing will steamroller us on every issue, gutting
environmental protections, giving enormous new tax breaks to the rich
while the economy tanks, and eviscerating our civil rights.

But if the filibuster succeeds, it will be a resounding victory, giving
us a real chance to protect the things that matter to us. It could
even embolden the Democrats to challenge the White House's war plans.

Six weeks ago, nobody thought we'd get this far. Yet more than
18,000 MoveOn members have called since last week in support of the
filibuster. Hundreds of us vistited Senate offices a month ago.
Senators are telling each other what a difference MoveOn is making.
Our work is paying off and we've got to keep it up.

Please make your calls today. Please call again, even if you've called
before.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

--The MoveOn Team
Carrie, Eli, Joan, Peter, Wes, Zack
February 12, 2003

P.S.:

A story on the filibuster in today's New York Times is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/politics/12ESTR.html

For more information on Estrada, there's a good fact sheet at:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=7795

* For more information on filibusters, see our recent bulletin at:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html

Here's a list of organizations opposing the Estrada nomination:

ADA Watch/National Coalition for Disability Rights
AFL-CIO
Alliance for Justice
American Association of University Women
Americans for Democratic Action
Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Congressional Black Caucus
Earthjustice
Feminist Majority
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
MoveOn.org
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
NARAL Pro-Choice America
National Council of Jewish Women
National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association
National Fair Housing Alliance
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Women's Law Center
People For the American Way
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund
Sierra Club
Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project
United Auto Workers
Working Assets
________________

February 16, 2003 Peace March

Sorry it took me so long to get these prepared. I wanted to make them available in a few different sizes for people, and had to make sure the pieces were all complete, etc.

This radio broadcasts explains everything you ever wanted to know about crowd estimation and solves many of the myth's about it.

Hear, straight from the sources (the cops, computer crowd estimation experts, historians), how there is no such thing as an "official count" and how everyone is in basic agreement on the count of the January 18, 2003 protest in San Francisco (150,000-200,000), learn about the latest in computer-oriented crowd estimation techniques, and discover how the methods for determining their size and scope of peaceful demonstrations have evolved over the last century.

The situation surrounding the Million Man March is also discussed in detail. Really neat stuff!

Media cycle: Radio/Cassette Tape/Video Camera/Computer

Hope you enjoy it:
MP3s of KQED Forum's Crowd Estimation Progra

Host: Angie Coiro

Guests:
Dr. Farouk el Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University

David Brunelle, Public Affairs Officer for Capital Protection

Lucy Barber, Archivist at the California State Archives and author of "Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition"

Gregory Suhr, Deputy Chief of the San Francisco Police Department

All on one page:

Give Peace A Chance - Footage from January 18, 2003 March - San Francisco, CA

How brightpathvideo.com Used 802.11 Wireless "Hotspots"
To Live Webcast The Jan 18 Peace March In San Francisco

People love to watch webcams. To capture the
constant stream of thousands of people marching
in "real time" was our goal. To accomplish this,
we decided on using popular webcam technology,
and the growing availability of wireless cafe
"hot spots" along the parade route.
Here's how it works...

On January 18th, setting up our webcams
was then as easy as can be. Once we
secured an internet connection, we then
enabled the webcams and started uploading
pictures to the brightpathvideo server and
to indymedia. We put out a message on
our site that anyone was free to use the
images on their sites, so as to increase the
exposure of this event. Because the wi-fi
signal travels at least 300 feet, we were
able to set up one of the cameras outside
on the sidewalk, to get better shots. A 164
amp tractor battery, with a dc laptop power
converter, powered the sidewalk laptop all day.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.brightpathvideo.com/802.htm

How We Did It 802.11b and J18
.
How brightpathvideo.com Used 802.11 Wireless "Hotspots"
To Live Webcast The Jan 18 Peace March In San Francisco

I had no idea that setting up "live webcams" during the January 18th
peace march in San Francisco would receive about 603,000 hits.
The idea to try this sprang from a desire to show the world, and more
importantly, the mainstream press, that many thousands of
diverse groups of people attend these marches. I, like many others
who attended the October 26th peace march in San Francisco,
were disappointed to see crowd estimates from the SF police and the
press, far below the nearly 100,000 that many observed there.
Even the New York Times had to print a retraction of an earlier
grossly underestimated crowd estimate for the October march in
Washington, DC.

People love to watch webcams. To capture the constant stream
of thousands of people marching in "real time" was our goal.
To accomplish this, we decided on using popular webcam
technology, and the growing availability of wireless cafe " hot spots"
along the parade route. Here's how it works.
To start with, we downloaded a good piece of software from
Webcam32
Their site contains all the info you need on webcams and how
to set them up. A little HTML knowledge will be helpful.
The cams themselves are the garden variety webcams you can
purchase for under $40 bucks online or in places like CompUSA.
We used laptops with wireless network pci cards installed...this is
the famous "wi-fi" connectivity everyone is talking about these days.
We logged onto 802.11 hotspots.com for a detailed directory of "hot
spot" cafes & locales around the country. We found at least a dozen
of these places on the entire length of the parade route on Market St.
in San Francisco. These hot spot cafes charge a small amount for
using the connection, which is usually dsl or faster.
The week before the march, Gabe and I walked up and down Market St.
testing the wi-fi connections and looking for the best camera locations.
On January 18th, setting up our webcams was then as easy as can be.
Once we secured an internet connection, we then enabled the webcams
and started uploading pictures to the brightpathvideo server and to indymedia.
We put out a message on our site that anyone was free to use the
images on their sites, so as to increase the exposure of this event.
Because the wi-fi signal travels at least 300 feet, we were able to
set up one of the cameras outside on the sidewalk, to get better shots.
A 164 amp tractor battery, with a dc laptop power converter,
powered the sidewalk laptop all day.

Key to getting the word out about these cameras, was a week's
worth of emailing webmasters from the international indymedia system,
as well as many other peace activist groups and webcam lists.
As people people passed our cameras, many expressed a keen
interest in what we were doing, and some even volunteered their
time helping us for a few hours.
The most important help came from a cast of young volunteers,
my son Gabe, Eli Mendez, Kena Hazelwood, and Cory Sturdevant.

For the next peace march, on February 16th, we plan to do more of the same
and perhaps add another webcam with an overhead position.
additional thanks go to the web team at sf.indymedia.org

John Parulis, webmaster

This seems reasonably fair and balanced. (Note: The photograph of Civic Center seems right but the picture of market street seems to have been taken later in the day after the crowds had moved on.)

An Independent Count at the Jan 18, 2003 San Francisco Anti-War Demonstration

I took as my project for the SF demonstration to do my own crowd estimate to see whether the organizers or the media were giving a better version of the numbers.

We arrived early and started our march from Embarcadaro. By 11:00, the nominal starting time, the street was packed to the point where you couldn't easily move around in the crowd without people squeezing out of the way to let you by. Some people who had walked ahead and scouted out the parade route said they had gone 15 blocks and still couldn't see the front of the crowd. They estimated that the entire parade route was essentially filled from the start. It was well over an hour before we started to move.

My estimate of the stationary crowd density was 500 people for each 10 feet along the parade route. That's 1000 people per 20 feet or upward of 10,000 people in the first city block. To make that more conservative, allowing for lack of uniformity, I would allow a factor of 2 margin of error. That makes my initial estimate 5 thousand people in that first block. The blocks don't appear to be the same length, the first one being about 100 m long, but it is easy to see that a 20 block stretch would put the numbers in the 100,000 range.

When I got home I downloaded aerial photographs of Market Street from http://mapserver.maptech.com. Based on the images Market Street is about 34 m across and the parade route was 2.7 km long. This put the total area of the parade route, not counting the square at Civic Center, at 92,000 square meters. For comparison, the first block was about 100 m long, so its area was 3400 sq.m. If we use the 5000 people per block estimate of the crowd density, that makes it about 1.5 people per square meter. If you place a bunch of people 1 m apart you will see this is fairly loose packing, so 1.5 per sq.m is not very far off. Once we got walking the spacing increased somewhat, but not by much. The moving crowd was almost stationary much of the time. It took us about 3 hours to amble a mile and a half.

Using that density for the parade route, not counting the square at the civic center, the count would be 138,000, which I would round down to 100,000, again just to be conservative. The kicker is that when we arrived at the civic center there was an announcement that the end of the parade was back where we had started! In other words we filled the parade route twice. 200,000 people is not at all out of line.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://southvalleypeacecenter.org/Articles/SFRallyCount.htm

(Return to South Valley Peace Center Home Page)

An Independent Count at the Jan 18, 2003
San Francisco Anti-War Demonstration

Pictures from Indy Media:

I took as my project for the SF demonstration to do my own crowd estimate to see whether the organizers or the media were giving a better version of the numbers.

We arrived early and started our march from Embarcadaro. By 11:00, the nominal starting time, the street was packed to the point where you couldn't easily move around in the crowd without people squeezing out of the way to let you by. Some people who had walked ahead and scouted out the parade route said they had gone 15 blocks and still couldn't see the front of the crowd. They estimated that the entire parade route was essentially filled from the start. It was well over an hour before we started to move.

My estimate of the stationary crowd density was 500 people for each 10 feet along the parade route. That's 1000 people per 20 feet or upward of 10,000 people in the first city block. To make that more conservative, allowing for lack of uniformity, I would allow a factor of 2 margin of error. That makes my initial estimate 5 thousand people in that first block. The blocks don't appear to be the same length, the first one being about 100 m long, but it is easy to see that a 20 block stretch would put the numbers in the 100,000 range.

When I got home I downloaded aerial photographs of Market Street from http://mapserver.maptech.com. Based on the images Market Street is about 34 m across and the parade route was 2.7 km long. This put the total area of the parade route, not counting the square at Civic Center, at 92,000 square meters. For comparison, the first block was about 100 m long, so its area was 3400 sq.m. If we use the 5000 people per block estimate of the crowd density, that makes it about 1.5 people per square meter. If you place a bunch of people 1 m apart you will see this is fairly loose packing, so 1.5 per sq.m is not very far off. Once we got walking the spacing increased somewhat, but not by much. The moving crowd was almost stationary much of the time. It took us about 3 hours to amble a mile and a half.

Using that density for the parade route, not counting the square at the civic center, the count would be 138,000, which I would round down to 100,000, again just to be conservative. The kicker is that when we arrived at the civic center there was an announcement that the end of the parade was back where we had started! In other words we filled the parade route twice. 200,000 people is not at all out of line.

With numbers like these, news reports of "10's of thousands" (CBS, SF Chronicle, etc.) come across as pretty blatant counter-movement propaganda, especially considering that the news agencies had helicopters. Reports that ranged from 100,000-200,000 (which included some major media outlets) seem to be honest efforts, but I would go with numbers in the 200,000 range myself.

The numbers were only one piece of the picture. The major contribution of the rally was bringing the West Coast branch of the peace movement together in a very positive, upbeat atmosphere. On the other hand, we apparently live in a time when many of those who would like to rule in our name don't count people voting with their feet any better than they count ballots.

So yeah I'm still pissed off about the Eldred decision , but the style of this weblog is really more of a technical and design issue for me to iron out over the next few days.

I'll be upset about the Eldred decision for at least the next 18 years (until things start going into the public domain again -- and that's if we're lucky and more extensions haven't been passed by Congress before then).

I've decided to upgrade a number of things about my style and templates while I'm at it.

I'll also be updating the video index over the next few days (which doesn't deserve to be linked to at this point, being so out of date.)

Sorry for the delay - but I will be putting together a single page on my peace site devoted to last Saturday's protest.

I'll also be updating my INS Detainee Protest site with updates from the last week of special registrations.

(Note: All this after I do some "real" work and pay a few bills updating things over at the XML.com Resource Guide...)

I'm also very serious about making a movie about how many people were present at last weekend's protest. I need a group of about 50 people to do it right (because there were at least that many people across Market Street at Embarcadero for 3-4 hours. I just want to show the photographic evidence, and have fifty people saying they were there and everything's on the level, etc. So we can come up with a figure that at least most reasonable people can be happy with. Email me at lisarein@finetuning.com if you're interested in participating or in filming the activity yourself when I put it together for your own website, film or tv program.

Jon Stewart with his usual impeccable timing:

Jon Stewart On Last Weekend's Numbers (Hi-res - 17 MB)

Jon Stewart On Last Weekend's Numbers (Med-res - 13 MB)

Jon Stewart On Last Weekend's Numbers (Lo-res - 7 MB)

Here's a little montage of shots from the march itself, which went on from 11 am until after I left around 3-ish.

Bart trains weren't even allowed to stop at Embarcadero Bart by 11:30 am because there were so many people in the area. There was just nowhere to put these people. (I had to get off at Montgomery. I'm sure they started letting people back off there eventually. And we were told they added 60 extra trains.)

I'm telling you there were people pouring in from every street connected to Market and people pouring up out of the Bart Stations for hours on end.

It was bad craziness at its finest. And what a happy peaceful and well-behaved crowd. Most of the cops were sitting down or standing around staying out of the way unless people came up to them to ask questions. It seemed like they were around to make the store owners feel better more than anything else -- because there were so many people.

Anyway, you get the message. Check it out for yourself.

SF Peace March (Hi-res - 27 MB)

SF Peace March (Med-res - 21 MB)

SF Peace March (Lo-res - 12 MB)

Poverty, Racism and War: The REAL axis of evil

Representative Barbara Lee In San Francisco

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 1 of 3 (Hi-res - 41 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 1 of 3 (Med-res - 33 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 1 of 3 (Lo-res - 19 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 2 of 3 (Hi-res - 40 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 2 of 3 (Med-res - 32 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 2 of 3 (Lo-res - 19 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 3 of 3 (Hi-res - 39 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 3 of 3 (Med-res - 32 MB)

Barbara Lee In San Francisco Part 3 of 3 (Lo-res - 18 MB)

Audio - Barbara Lee In San Francisco (MP3 - Hi-res - 9 MB)

Audio - Barbara Lee In San Francisco (MP3 - Lo-res - 5 MB)

I just wanted to clarify that I'm talking about the number of people in attendence at the event -- not the number of people shown in that one snippet of video I feature. Or the number of people that could actually fit into Civic Center. (I'm sure many people just hung out a few blocks away for a while and went home -- there was no way for them to even physically enter the Civic Center area untill sometime after 3pm.)

My estimate was based on a formula for a number of people across walking past a certain point on Market Street for 3 hours straight.

I'm happy to use my video footage from the event, and to actually go back down there to a specific point on Market street so we can all do the math together. But I would, of course, have to make a movie about it, so everyone could see for themselves what I was doing -- and I'm on a deadline for a class today.

So you'll have to give me a few days.

But I did want to make sure that everyone understood that I wasn't just talking about how many people could fit into the Civic Center portion of the rally towards the second half of the day's events.

That would be like only counting the first 200 rows of Woodstock :-)

Speaking of the march -- footage of it on the way...

(Note: I'm actually posting this entry while the files are still uploading to the archive. May need a few more minutes to finish.)

Here's video footage of the unprecedented crowd of peaceful protesters. I was able to score a press badge on the fly and get up on stage to get this.

I wanted to get this footage out as soon as possible in the hopes of getting the truth out before the facts become completely distorted by the commercial media.
(It's happening already -- A friend of mine heard on the Television last night that there were "at least 50,000 or more people".)

Crowd Shot - SF Peace Rally (Hi-res - 22 MB)

Crowd Shot - SF Peace Rally (Med-res - 19 MB)

Crowd Shot - SF Peace Rally (Lo-res - 10 MB)

Here are video and MP3 files of the speaking part of her performance:
(The music part can be found here.)

Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco - 1 of 2 (Hi-res - 23 MB)
Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco - 1 of 2 (Med-res - 29 MB)
Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco - 1 of 2 (Lo-res - 11 MB)

Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco - 2 of 2 (Hi-res - 13 MB)
Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco - 2 of 2 (Med-res - 10 MB)
Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco - 2 of 2 (Lo-res - 6 MB)

Audio - Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco (MP3 - hi-res - 4 MB)
Audio - Bonnie Raitt Live In San Francisco (MP3 - Lo-res - MB)

The great music part of the new peace movement is starting up!

Note that the cool tambourine you hear is coming from behind me from someone in the audience!

Bonnie Raitt Sings A Jackson Browne Song

Bonnie Raitt Singing Live In San Francisco (Hi-res - 44 MB)
Bonnie Raitt Singing Live In San Francisco (Med-res - 35 MB)
Bonnie Raitt Singing Live In San Francisco (Lo-res - 21 MB)

Audio - Bonnie Raitt Singing Live In San Francisco (MP3 - Hi-res - 4 MB)
Audio - Bonnie Raitt Singing Live In San Francisco (MP3 - Lo-res - 2 MB)

Just got back from the protest. It was totally amazing. I've never seen so many people in one place in my life (in person or on TV).

Estimates range from 350,000 to half a million people.

I've got footage of the march, Barbara Lee and Bonnie Raitt on the way!

Back soon!

I'm a little late -- but it won't matter. If you can't get there till about 1:00 pm, you should go straight to civic center.

I'll have footage of this up by Monday Morning -- and probably something up tonight.

See you there!

Embarcardero Bart - San Francisco.

Tom Ammiano - San Francisco District Supervisor



Here's Tom Ammiano - San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Tom Ammiano -San Francisco Board of Supervisors (Hi-res 30 MB)
Tom Ammiano - San Francisco Board of Supervisors (Med-res 20 MB)
Tom Ammiano - San Francisco Board of Supervisors (Lo-res 9 MB)
Tom Ammiano - San Francisco Board of Supervisors (MP3 - 3 MB)

Jeff Adachi - San Francisco Public Defender



Here's Jeff Adachi - San Francisco Public Defender

Jeff Adachi - San Francisco Public Defender (Hi-res 49 MB)
Jeff Adachi - San Francisco Public Defender (Med-res 35 MB)
Jeff Adachi - San Francisco Public Defender (Lo-res 19 MB)
Audio - Jeff Adachi - San Francisco Public Defender (MP3 - 4 MB)

Speakers have been announced for today's rally!

Where:444 WASHINGTON (at the corner of Washington and Sansome), Downtown San Francisco
Press conference at 1:30 pm featuring: Yuri Kochiyama, Human Rights Activist
Cecil Williams, Glide Memorial Church
Renee Saucedo, La Raza Centro Legal
Tom Ammiano, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Linda Sherif, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, SF Chapter
Marc Van Der Hout, National Lawyers' Guild
Hatem Bazian from the Islamic Society of San Francisco
Khalil Khaid, SEIU 1877
Kawal Ulanday, Filipinos for Affirmative Action
Others, as confirmed

For more information please call the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, San Francisco Chapter at 415-861-7444 or Not in Our Name 510-444-NION

Okay guys, now's where I can use your help.

If you can't make the protests tomorrow, please FAX a letter to Nancy Pelosi or do whatever else you can to help.

Chris Michael at the INS Detainee Protest, January 6, 2003 - San Francisco - (Med-res 41 MB)

Chris Michael at the INS Detainee Protest, January 6, 2003 - San Francisco - (Lo-res 23 MB)

Audio - Chris Michael at the INS Detainee Protest, January 6, 2003 - San Francisco - (MP3 - 4 MB)

Montage - INS Detainee Protest, January 6, 2003 - San Francisco - (Hi-res 12 MB)

Montage - INS Detainee Protest, January 6, 2003 - San Francisco - (Med-res 9 MB)

Montage - INS Detainee Protest, January 6, 2003 - San Francisco - (Lo-res 5 MB)

I had the oddest encounter with a police officer today at the INS Detainee Protest in San Francisco at 444 Washington Street. (Note: protests going on from 11am-1pm all week long.)

Unfortunately, my camera wasn't recording when he came over to start asking me questions (I really need to just start the thing rolling and leave it going) and I was paying to much attention trying to understand exactly what he was saying to me -- and trying to figure out what exactly his concerns were -- that it didn't even occur to me to press the record button or anything. (Turned out my camera had already timed out.)

After all this happened, I was pretty much intimidated and didn't feel much like filming too much more today.

I didn't want to forget the details of what had taken place, so I had someone film me right afterwards while I had a fresh recollection...

Lisa Rein at the INS Detainee Protest, January 8, 2003 - San Francisco - (Hi-res 20 MB)

Lisa Rein at the INS Detainee Protest, January 8, 2003 - San Francisco - (Med-res 15 MB)

Lisa Rein at the INS Detainee Protest, January 8, 2003 - San Francisco - (Lo-res 9 MB)

Audio - Lisa Rein at the INS Detainee Protest, January 8, 2003 - San Francisco - (MP3 - 3 MB)

I've just launched my INS Detainee Protest website. It's not too late to organize something for Friday in your town. Email me at lisarein@finetuning.com with any details and I'll post them to my site.

It's been a really interesting experience working with the ad-hoc group of concerned citizens over the last two weeks planning this protest. This is really the first protest that I've ever been involved in organizing. I'll be writing more about all that soon.

For today, I'll be fleshing out the FAQ and How You Can Help sections more over the course of day. (Sorry that those are still a bit rough -- they're like the most important pages, I know! There's a ton of questions to answer and the letters need polishing and I just had to get some zzzz last night :)

If you have a specific question - please email it to me so I can answer it in the FAQ.

I just wanted to get this up in time to get the word out -- If you're here in San Francisco - we're protesting out in front of the INS Building at 444 Washington everyday between 11am-1pm. Then the big protest is Friday from 11-1pm. There will also be a rally and a number of speakers on Friday.

Thanks for spreading the word and coming back to the site to check out the footage of the protest.

I've got footage from Monday and Tuesday going up this morning.

I've also posted a page of a lot more Footage from the December 23, 2002 INS Detainee protest in San Francisco. (And added the footage to my video index.)

Here are audio files of Farhan Memon, Legal Aide for the Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers -- from the protest last monday.

Farhan Memon explanation 1 (6 MB)

Farhan Memon explanation 2 (6 MB)

I'm finishing up some nice compressed versions of more footage from monday, with MP3s of everything to match, and I promise they will all be up by this time tomorrow.

Sorry for the hold up. I know that Indy Media and some other media affiliates are actually waiting for this footage (a dream come true for me to have this stuff redistributed through as many channels as possible) -- and I promise that I am putting the systems into place so that I can shoot footage of events like these and have the video and mp3s up on the web in hours rather than days so I can be of real use to the "real" media outlets. (That's what I'm here for -- to help you guys report on this stuff!)

So pardon me while I figure out my equipment and software and get my cataloging act together!

Come down to the protest in San Francisco this morning at 11:00 AM -- that's Monday, December 23, 2002 at 11:00 AM -- at the INS building at 444 Washington Street, San Francisco.

Here's a map to the event

Here's a gif of that map if the mapquest link above doesn't work.

444 Washington is sort of in between the Embarcadero and Montgomery St. BART stations (a couple blocks west of market street ).

From Embarcadero BART Go south on Market (away from the Ferry Building) and make a RIGHT on Drumm street. Then make a LEFT on WASHINGTON St. to the INS building at 444 Washington.

From Montgomery St. BART, take Montgomery St. to Washington and make a RIGHT on Washington to 444 Washington.

Otherwise bring $5-$10 to park in a parking garage somewhere.

I will, of course, be filming the event, so if you can't make it, check back here for footage tomorrow afternoon.

I just send a letter to Orrin G. Hatch (Judiciary Comittee Chair) via the EFF's Action Center asking him as chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, to permit either the Technology and Terrorism Subcommittee or the
full Judiciary Committee to hold oversight hearings on Total Information Awareness. A copy was also sent to my Representative, Nancy Pelosi.

I timed it and it took me less than a minute. (Including having them send me a new password.)

Very Cool. (I'd like a round of applause please for Ren Bucholtz, EFF Activisit.)

Think I'll go back and send another one. (This time asking to cut TIA funding.)

(This could be habit forming.)

I finally finished transcribing the speeches and organizing my video footage from Nancy Pelosi's Celebration Party on November 23, 2002 in San Francisco, California.

I say to people "you can take any issue or you can take any day of the week, and there is a case to be made against the Republicans." But let's just take yesterday.

Yesterday, Congress adjourned without passing unemployment benefits for Americas workers -- who worked hard, played by the rules, lost their jobs through no fault of their own but because of the downturn in the economy.

On December 28, 800,000 hard working Americans will no longer have their benefits because the Republicans refused to pass that. There was even a compromise from the Senate, which we still controlled up until yesterday, that said: 'Let's extend the benefits until February at least to give people a chance past the holidays and the rest.' They absolutely refused.

The Democrats said 'We're going to hold up the adjournment of Congress so that we cannot leave until you pass these benefits.' They said 'you can bring the Congress back here every single day from now on. We're never going to pass those benefits.' That's who the Republicans in Congress are...insensitive to the concerns of working families in America."

I went to the San Fransisco Department of Elections page to learn about volunteering to be an "Election Officer" (Poll Worker).

So I've decided that I'm going to volunteer to be an Election Officer here in San Francisco and that it would sure be great if you did the same in your town.

This way, we can all learn about the nuts and bolts of our country's elections together. Doesn't that sound like a blast! It sure won't be fun on my own, I'll tell you that much.

It's also going to take a lot of us on our toes in all fifty states if we're actually going to be able to make a difference in 2004 -- so working together on a little thing like this seems like a great starting point.

So far I've stumbled across and downloaded a Election Officer's Training Manual and an Application Form. More soon...

I've uploaded my video footage from the Anti-war in Iraq/Anti-Feinstein protest in San Francisco Monday, November 18, 2002.

As always with my news video footage, everything is Dedicated to the Public Domain.

Lisa Rein's Movies and Pictures From the November 18, 2002 Anti-war/ Anti-Feinstein Protest in San Francisco

I'm working on a better interface and a comprehensive index so folks won't get lost in the quagmire of my rapidly-expanding library of video footage.

I'll also have some technical notes up soon to help explain how to install the software required to get the movies to run on various platforms for you non-uber techie folks.

I also still need to re-encode everything as MPEGs capable of running on unix-based operating systems.

Time 8:30 am - On my way to "some kind of protest" going on at 555 Market Street.

I happen to have had the TV on the local news this morning, and it was treating some "protest" event as more of a traffic nuisance than anything. The news broadcast did, however, have time to show coverage of a dismal little anti-homosexual rally that took place at some church last night, which made me feel like taking a whack at covering whatever was going on in the financial district. (I was curious what wasn't being reported on. Why would they show a taped rally from the night before instead of a live one as it was happening?)

Two more stops till Montgomery Street. I have absolutely no idea what to expect...

____ 30 minutes pass____

Wow! That hunch really paid off. It turns out that it was an anti-war/anti-Feinstein march and rally protesting what the protesters were claiming was that Diane Feinstein was directly profiting from Iraq-War defense contracts. (I haven't had time to investigate and attempt to confirm these allegations one way or the other yet.) (Actually, what they were saying is that Diane accepted campaign contributions from the, in their view, questionable, McKesson Corp. I have since confirmed the connection between Feinstein and McKesson. The company contributed $6,750 to her last year, according to open secrets.org.)

A guy with a speakerphone explained that there were 20 people having a sit-in upstairs in the building at Feinstein headquarters.

The Cops were generally cool at the beginning -- really cool in fact (as the pictures I post soon will demonstrate), but when the crowd started to congregate in front of the McKesson building, they soon threatened to arrest anyone touching the front doors. It looked like things were about to be uncool for a minute, definitely. One cop singled out one of the protesters, and said he wanted to talk to him privately. The guy quickly walked over to me and asked me if I would mind taping their conversation. I just nodded and kept filming.

I'm going over to use my buddies' editing in about an hour to compress my footage and edit it into a few digestible chunks. Maybe the popular media will see fit to report on the event...

I'll be uploading my footage soon!

Here are some rough notes for those of you who are interested...

This is incomplete still but what I've figured out so far:

A-y

B-y

BB - money to fix Bart- yes

C- yes

D- yes

E-

F-

G-

H-

L- yes

M-No - looks like more spending on unneeded bureaucracy.

R-No

S - Medical Pot - Yes!

Governor - Gray Davis

46-yes

47-yes

48-yes

50-yes

52 yes -- voter registration!

Judges:

Marvin R. Baxter - no
http://www.appellate-counsellor.com/profiles/baxter.htm
see the list of bad decisions for yourself, including:
School administrators may detain minor students without reasonable suspicion
http://www.appellate-counsellor.com/newsletter/0109.htm#Randy_G

Kathryn M. Werdegar-no
appointed by Deukmejian (a horrible gov from years back)

James J. Marchiano - yes
Judge of the year Alameda/Contra Costa Trial Lawyers Association - 1990.

William J. Stein - No
also appt by the duke
http://www.appellate-counsellor.com/profiles/stein.htm

He authored this opinion:
Sporadic racial insults do not constitute unlawful harassment
(http://www.appellate-counsellor.com/newsletter/9811.htm#Etter)

Linda M. Gemello - yes
San Mateo Trial Lawyers Association lawyer of the year - 2000

Mark Simons- can't tell. abstaining

Gail Dekreon - seems ok
http://www.smartvoter.org/2002/11/05/ca/sf/vote/dekreon_g/endorse.html
http://gaildekreonforjudge.com/www/about.htm

After much research, I've decided that Proposition "O" is better than "N"...

If you have to vote yes on "N" (please don't), at least vote yes on "O" too to keep "N" in check...

So I've spent a fair amount of time researching Proposition N and Proposition O over the last month or so, and this is what I've decided:

NO on Proposition N: Prop N, the "Care not Cash" initiative, proposes to take General Assistance Recipients' $350 a month away in exchange for only $59 a month and "services."
It says nothing about exactly these "services" would be supplied in exchange for taking the money away. (Hey, I just found out today that the ACLU of Northern California has taken a stand against Prop N too...)

Yes on Proposition O: This proposition has no immediate effect on the current cash general assitance benefits. It leaves them alone and instead, requires the city to develop more low-income housing and drug and alcohol treatment programs.

Here's the language straight out of the PDF file:

(1) requires the City to develop 1,000 units of housing
for formerly homeless residents and 700 new drug and alcohol
treatment slots, and requires the Departments of Human Services
and Public Health to submit plans and budgets to reduce
wait-lists for housing and supportive services;

(2) establishes a baseline
appropriation for housing and related services;

(3) establishes a City policy that the
State should be responsible for all treatment and care for people with mental
disabilities; and,

Prop O also has language in it that would at least require some accountability regarding Prop N's "care" benefits that are provided in lieu of the usual "cash", should Prop N pass (currently Prop N is rather vague on what exactly the G.A. recipients would be receiving in exchange for the $300 a month that would be taken away froom them.)

Here's the language straight out of the same PDF file:

(4) limits any City program that provides in-kind services in lieu of cash to 180 days of shelter stay per recipient, with certain exceptions, including exceptions for homeless recipients of the County Adult Assistance Programs who have applications pending for the CalWORKS program or who are age sixty-five (65) or over;

(5) requires the provision of specified services to recipients of in-kind services in lieu
of cash; and,

(6) requires Controller certification regarding shelter and housing before
the implementation of a program of in-kind services to aid recipients.

As is often the case,
Ryan Junell has sent out an email articulating
my sentiments exactly.

This time, it's about getting out there and VOTING TODAY!

Here's where you can
find your polling place in the San Francisco Bay Area

http://sunset.ci.sf.ca.us/pollup3.nsf/searchdata?openform

Here's where you can
read about state and local measures
in California
http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/election/guides/measures110502election.htm

------------------------------------------------------ AMBIVALENT SAN FRANCISCO DROPOUT -> VOTE NOVEMBER 5th! ------------------------------------------------------ if you are registered to vote, then dudes... you gotta get out and vote. don't slack. our activity is what makes san francisco such a special place to live. here are some voter stats in sf that I think are interesting. we have one of the highest registered voter populations in the country, though we are terrible at actually showing up to vote. I recall about a fourth of us actually showed up to vote in the last election. voting is one very powerful and specific way of seeing our values reflected in public policy. plus... it's fun!

so... find your polling place

http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/election
(and click on "Polling Place Lookup")

so... read about state/local measures

http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/election/guides/measures110502election.htm

------------------------------------------------------
San Francisco Registered Voter Stats - October 7, 2002
------------------------------------------------------
eligible 574,401
registered 441,654 (76.89%) !!!
democratic 244,309 (55.32%)
decl. to state 110,722 (25.07%)
republican 57,852 (13.10%)
green 13,095 (2.96%)
am. ind. 8,002 (1.81%)
libertarian 2,811 (0.64%)
natural law 1,044 (0.24%)
reform 1,046 (0.24%)
misc 2,773 (0.63%)

from
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/ror_100702.htm

These tables are just an experiment I've been working on with my friend Jim Woolum over the last few months.

Each Senator/Congressperson's listing (Senators are on the top, and then in alphabetical order) includes:
Name, Party, District, Date First Elected, Date Up For Reelection and direct links to competitor in tomorrow's election, complete mailing addresses for both Legislative and District Offices, Voice Number, Fax Number, Email, and Major Funders.

California Reps.

New York Reps.

Please let me know if the information they contain is useful.
(lisarein@finetuning.com)

I also look forward to any general feedback regarding how they can be improved.

It is my goal to have tables like this for every state of the union. It's part of a larger project I'm working on that I can't talk about yet.
(Or I would have to kill me.)

http://lisarein.com/peace/

Text of my peace site as of today:

Last Updated: October 11, 2002 - 1:46pm PST

Bad news guys. The House and the Senate both approved Bush's Resolution yesterday.
Although there were some minor amendments made to it, it basically did exactly what we didn't want: give Bush the power to do what the hell he wants in Iraq. (Where that may lead to exactly, no one really knows...)

Some Senators and Representatives did stand up for peace and vote "NO". Here's a link with some voting record numbers from a letter I received from Ryan Junell.

But I'll be posting more here later tonight and over the course of the weekend.

I want to thank everyone that faxed letters and made phone calls. Your voices were heard and I think it made a difference.

So let's keep up the good work guys.

Next time, there will be even more of us, and or voice will be heard even louder!

Talk soon!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Ryan Junell has given me permission to reprint a very thoughtful email he sent me earlier today.

I think it comes down to POWER and energy and fuel for our lifestyles.
I think if we want things to change we need to consider alternative, independent, sustainable fuel resources. we also need to tune into government and policy. and most importantly - we must REGISTER TO VOTE and ACTUALLY
SHOW UP TO VOTE. there's a statewide election coming up on november
5th along with a few dozen local propositions. voting is EASY and
IMPORTANT. here's the sf url for local stuff. there's a link at the
bottom where you can register to vote online. do it.

http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/election

From: ryan junell
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 12:15:29 -0700
To: xxxx
Subject: who votes


AN ORIGINAL EMAIL WRITTEN BY RYAN JUNELL (and not a forward, whoa!)

---

in a democrat controlled senate (50 dems/49 reps/1 ind)
and a republican controlled house (208 dems/223 reps/1 ind/3 vacancies)

nancy listened and voted "no" to bush war-powers.
barbara listened and voted "no" to bush war-powers.
diane feinstein did NOT listen and voted "yes" to bush war-powers.

and together, the house and senate passed the resolution granting
bush powers to wage war on iraq, enabling a preemptive attack without
approval from the united nations and/or the security council.

---

MOST house and senate democrats voted FOR war with iraq. middle
america doesn't seem to mind war so much. but our california democrat
senator voted FOR bush and war with iraq.

call feinstein's office and tell her how you feel about her vote.
read her press release on the issue on her website and see WHY she
voted the way she did. her office received THOUSANDS of responses
about the issue which she chose to ignore when casting her vote
this morning. she sits on the senate "intelligence" committee, but
that doesn't necessarily signify any sort of meaningful intelligence.


http://www.senate.gov/~feinstein/Releases02/r-iraq10.htm

---

my understanding of all of this is that we as americans are complicit
in a lifestyle and civilization that requires our dependence on finite
resources (OIL and GAS), both foreign and domestic. our values of
consumption and depletion know no bounds. we as a nation continue to
morally and ethically CHALLENGE OURSELVES in this world to preserve
our unsustainable, dependent civilization. I think it comes down to
POWER and energy and fuel for our lifestyles. I think if we want
things to change we need to consider alternative, independent,
sustainable fuel resources. we also need to tune into government and
policy. and most importantly - we must REGISTER TO VOTE and ACTUALLY
SHOW UP TO VOTE. there's a statewide election coming up on november
5th along with a few dozen local propositions. voting is EASY and
IMPORTANT. here's the sf url for local stuff. there's a link at the
bottom where you can register to vote online. do it.

http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/election

oh well,
ryan junell






Senator Barbara Boxer (dem)
DC Phone: 202-224-3553
Local Phone: 415-403-0100

Senator Dianne Feinstein (dem)
DC Phone: 202-224-3841
Local Phone: 619-231-9712

Representative Nancy Pelosi (dem)
DC Phone: 202-225-4965
Local Phone: 415-556-4862

Look up your Rep's fax and phone numbers here.

John Perry Barlow sent this out today...

If you have opened this e-mail today, Thursday, October 10, stop
reading it right now.

Drop your mouse and grab your phone.

Call the offices of your senators and representatives and tell them how you feel about their willingness to give "President" Bush blanket authorization to make war whenever and however he feels like it, renewable indefinitely. They may vote to do so as early as this evening.

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
-- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916, Ch.9

(Thanks, Cory)

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r107:6:./temp/~r107TB8tOV::
oct 4 byrd

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Perry Barlow barlow@eff.org
Date: Thu Oct 10, 2002 12:17:18 PM US/Pacific
To: John Perry Barlow barlow@eff.org
Subject: (SPAM?) [E-S] BarlowFriendz 8.6: Please, Folks, Call The
Capital Today!

^

(o)

/_ _\
--------- B a R L o W F R i e N D Z
-----

A continuing series of occasional outbursts to about 1052 of my
dearest friends. Please let me know if you wish to be removed from
this list. But you'll miss some great parties if you do...

Also, if this broadcast feels as spammish to you as it obviously is, I
hope you remember that individual responses generally elicit personal
replies. And whether or not I have time to write back, I always read
your replies with careful delight.
------------------------------ ------------------- --------

CALL YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES. NOW.

If you have opened this e-mail today, Thursday, October 10, stop
reading it right now.

Drop your mouse and grab your phone.

Call the offices of your senators and representatives and tell them
how you feel about their willingness to give "President" Bush blanket
authorization to make war whenever and however he feels like it,
renewable indefinitely. They may vote to do so as early as this
evening.

This is nuts, folks. Good Ol' Dubya has the brains of a cocker
spaniel, but unlike a cocker spaniel, he has nuclear weapons. Not to
mention the masculine insecurities of a Houston frat jock working on
his second six pack. Not to mention the conscience-anaesthetizing
belief that God is on his side.

Worse, he has in the background some very bright people whose almost
autistic capacity for compassion would make Stalin look like the Dalai
Lama.

It was Stalin who said, "The death of one person is a tragedy. The
death of a million people is a statistic." Dick Cheney, whom I've know
quite well since 1976, is perfectly capable of thinking something like
that. It's no small wonder that he has a heart condition. For years,
his heart has been crying out for the attention of the HAL 9000 in his
head.

Dick wants to impose the Pax Americana upon the world. By force. He
wants to disarm Irag for the same reasons that Caeser wanted to disarm
Gaul. The reason he isn't, like George Bush I, concerned about what
sort of government would replace Saddam's is because *we* would govern
Iraq for the indefinite future. As we now govern Afghanistan and will,
according to his plan, come to govern the entire oil-producing portion
of the Islamic world.

But Rome ruled by fear, not moral example. They crucified a lot more
people than Jesus Christ. They had no more interest in the well-being
of their subjects than do the architects of Pax Americana, which was
first designed by Cheney and Wolfowitz at the end of Bush I.

This concept was buffed up and re-codified in September 2000. It took
the form of a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses, which
was released then by an outfit called The Project for the New American
Century. You may find this document at
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf.

After you've called DC, I strongly recommend that you read it. Like
all great authoritarian literature, it produces in the reader a
perfect combination of boredom and terror.

One of its authors, Yale's Donald Kagen, gave us a foretasted flavor
of our Imperial ruling style when he said recently, "People worry a
lot about how the Arab street is going to react [to the invasion of
Iraq]. Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet
since we started blowing things up."

This is not the quiet of tranquillity. This is the smoldering quiet of
rage.

We have the military force to blow a lot of things up. But if that is
how the Pax is to be maintained, it will be a pox on America's soul.
For most of our history, we have led by moral rather than military
force. Are we ready to forsake that tradition?

Besides, I believe the strategy of coerced Islamic pacification will
backfire hideously. Those quiet Arab streets will produce a virulent
bloom of young men who have nothing to lose and Paradise to gain.

As we learned on September 11, it doesn't take a nation state to
threaten us, nor does it take a nation state to create genuine weapons
of mass destruction. A pencil sized stick of Cesium 137, which can be
easily acquired at any food irradiation facility, could, with 10
pounds of dynamite wrapped around it, deliver a lethal dose of
radiation to everyone in Lower Manhattan.

Modern technology greatly favors the underdog. As a purely practical
matter - never mind the moral questions - do we want to be the
perpetual Overdog in a world like that?

Pax Americana may slouch out of the Capital tonight and head off to
Baghdad to be born. If it is, we will make America safe for SUV's. And
almost nothing else.

Call your senators and representative. Now.

We contained the Soviet Union for 57 years. We've contained Iraq for
11 years. However dishonest or barbaric or conniving Saddam's
government, they have provided us with precisely zero identifiable
threat since 1991. We can go on containing them for a long time. With
proper intelligence - which may be hard for us to muster - we could
probably neutralize them as well and do so without "collateral damage"
(our pleasant phrase for killing innocent bystanders).

But, as a nation, we no longer seem to think there are Moslem
innocents. We are systematically dehumanizing them. I beg you not to
do this. Do not turn the Islamic world into statistics instead of
human beings like yourselves. Following one of my previous missives on
this subject, I received some astonishingly bigoted replies. One
former BarlowFriend said, essentially, "kill them all, let Allah sort
'em out."

I make faint defense for either the cultural or political practices of
the Middle East. I've spent time there. It's pretty awful, at least by
my standards. Egypt is a place so broken that it makes Mexico look
like France. But the people, even the ones who hated everything I
stood for, were incredibly sweet to me.

However bad their governments may be, however narrowing their
ideology, each of them is, like you, another mask that God wears. They
laugh, they love, they toss their babies in the air with as much
affection as you toss yours.

There are many babies in Iraq who will likely soon be tossed into mass
graves, assuming there's a recognizable body to toss. There are many
adults in Iraq who have done nothing to you who will die horrible
deaths simply because their leader, whom they hate as much as we do,
just might possibly someday become able to do something bad to us.

These are real human beings. Very few of them mean you any harm. Even
their leader, who probably does mean you harm, is smart enough to know
better than to inflict it.

Imagine them, not as millions, but one person at a time. Grace them
with actual faces. Look into their deep, dark eyes. Are you still
ready to kill them? Do you have reason enough?

Call your senators and representatives. Now.

It's probably too late. Even Tom Daschle has caved. But if we lose
today, we can begin to organize the long struggle that will be
necessary to save America and the world from Pax Americana. And you
might as well begin your new career as a political activist with a
phone call today. You'd do well to get into the habit.

With bleak heart,

Barlow

P.S. Please scroll down to my current .sig quote. It's timely.

--

*************************************************************
John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident
Co-Founder & Vice Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Berkman Fellow, Harvard Law School

Home(stead) Page: http://www.eff.org/~barlow

Call me anywhere, anytime: 800/654-4322

Fax me anywhere, anytime: 603/215-1529

Current Cell Phone: 646/286-8176 (GSM)

Alternative (Inactive) Cell Phone: 917/863-2037 (AT&T)

**************************************************************

Barlow in Meatspace Now: New York City! (Until 10/12) 212/965-1991

(Provisional) Trajectory from Here: Salt Lake City (10/12-15) -
Steamboat Springs, CO (10/15-16) - Pinedale, Wyoming (10/17-20) -
Eugene, OR (10/21-22) - Down the West Coast (10/22-24) - San
Francisco (10/24-28) - LA (10/28-31) - Las Vegas (11/1-2) - Salt
Lake City (11/3) - New York City (11/4-5) - London (11/6-9) -
Pinehurst, NC (11/9-12) - New York City...

**************************************************************

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the
nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by
convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the
better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

-- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916, Ch.9

Drat! I didn't get much of the stuff from the Senate transcribed over the weekend due to my having to get ready to fly to Washington DC today for Wednesday's Eldred argument.

Just know that on Friday in the House and Senate in particular there was a lot of talk about accountability to the people -- about how questions about this War have not been answered to the members of the House and Senate's satisfaction and therefore not to the people's satisfaction -- and that many of the committees put together to discuss and decide on some of the most critical issues surrounding the exact details of the situation still have not yet been provided with the information promised to them by the Defense and Intelligence Agencies that were assigned to the task.

There was also a strong urgency from the Senate to at least wait until we could invade with a proper international coalition. Also we would be going against the advice of a number of our own War experts if we invade now.

Damn I wish I had time to transcribe a bit more of the tape. I'm bringing it with me, maybe there's a library or something somewhere I can use this week...

I'll fish around for links online backing this stuff up, once I'm back online this evening.

Bush is going to come on television tonight and try to scare you into believing in this War. Don't be fooled.

Now it looks like the safety of our own troops during an invasion of Iraq is largely in question, and just plain hasn't been thought out all that well yet.

There could be a ton of bogus equipment (including as many as 250,000 unaccounted for defective biohazard suits) that's mixed in with the inventory shipped out to our active troops.

The Department of Defense Reps are also admitting that they are recalculating the risk because the old way of calculating the risk was inaccurate. Although they don't want to commit to saying one way or the other yet until they are finished, they did admit that they no longer feel that the risk would clearly be "low" (their previous assessment) and in fact might be "high" but that they really don't know yet because they've just come up with a new, better way of calculating the risk and they're not done yet.

It's worth watching and recording on CSPAN-HOUSE if you've got a VCR handy.

Wow things are finally heating up in the Senate today:

"I was one of the people that voted yes on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and I made a huge mistake...I don't want to make that mistake again," said Senator Robert Byrd, holding up the President's Resolution for attacking Iraq. "That's what this is -- another Gulf of Tonkin Resolution!"

I'm recording it all today and I'll be transcribing it tonight and tomorrow as fast as I can.

Still watching the House and Senate on CSPAN waiting for something to happen on any of the war/anti-war and/or internet radio bills.

Now everyone's all giddy about some Sherman Amendment. (Looks like the same ill-defined war on terror-type legislation to me...)

Well there seems to be a lot of good stories up today, so let me get back to posting them for you...

Watching the House in action is pretty funny. They are doing one minute speeches.

One Rep has been introducing a Reverend and his family for the last full minute, for instance. This next one is explaining how a particular company has progressive health care policies (ah, back to issues of governmental concern...) Now another Rep is talking about what a big fat liar Saddam is (fair enough). Now another one is talking about a church again (what is it with that? what do these churches have to do with running our country?) "God has truly blessed the _______ Congregation..." (so what? let's get back to healthcare and the war...)

Now they're looking at a Mosquito Control Bill. Wow, cases of West Nile Virus have gone up 160% in the last year. Over 2,400 cases across the us and over 100 deaths. Holy moly! Better pass that sucker...

Yeah I've actually been meaning to write about the Mosquito Invasion of this country for a while, actually. But there's not a whole lot people can do besides try to keep the little buggers away and have treatment facilities ready. (Oh yeah, and spray the hell out of everything -- which I have mixed feelings about.)

But I digress -- No word on the Peace Bill or the Internet Radio Fairness Act :-)

I've created a little site with links to the text of the Bill and more information about how you can let your Reps know NOW how much you care:
Save Internet Radio - Vote Yes On the Internet Radio Fairness Act

Today's the day to fax a letter to your representative asking them to Vote Yes on the Internet Radio Fairness Act!

This is being voted on tomorrow in the House! Act now guys!

Here's the letter I'm faxing out.

I'll have a little site up with more information, like my peace site soon, but I wanted to get this out as soon as possible so you can start sending your own letters to your representatives.

Thanks!

September 29, 2002

Your rep here
FAX Here - Fax it to their Washington Number

Re: Vote Yes on The Internet Radio Fairness Act HR 5469

Dear Representative X:

Please vote "Yes" on the Internet Radio Fairness Act (HR 5469), a bill that will be voted on October 1 by the House of Representatives.

On October 20 a new copyright royalty will have to be paid by all Internet radio services -- even those owned by non-commercial, non-profit and academic organizations (we're talking College and Public Owned/Operated Community Radio Stations!).

Hundreds of small Internet radio services have already shut down as a result of these impending fees and many hundreds more services that cannot afford the royalty and will shut down when the payment comes due, unless HR 5469 can save the day on October 1st.

I hope you will not let CARP's unrealistic pricing structure destroy the incredible range of freely available artistic and cultural diversity that has been made possible by the existence of Internet Webcasting.

Please don't let it all be destroyed overnight.

Vote Yes on the Internet Radio Fairness Act (HR 5469).

Sincerely,

Your Name
Address
City/State/Zip (zip very important)
Phone number good too!

I know I just asked you to send a letter to try and stop this war, but it turns out that an Internet Radio Bill was introduced last week (HR 5469) that is basically the legislation we've been waiting for to be introduced, has been!

This six month freeze and call for new rates is basically what I was asking for in the song I wrote to James H. Billington and Marybeth Peters.

This thing gets voted on early this week -- making it really important that you fax a letter out to your Representative by Monday morning at the latest!

Thanks for checking it out and spreading the word:
The Rifle Shot
Contact your U.S. Rep NOW! .

This is an experiment...

If you email me at lisarein@finetuning.com with your full name and snail mail address (or even just your name and zip code) with "FAX A LETTER FOR ME PLEASE" in the subject header, I'll look up your Representative for you and FAX him or her the appropriate letter, depending on whether or not they already support HR 473.

Re: The obvious question -- can you trust me to not use this information in some way other than intended?

How about this: I will permanently delete your email (without saving your address anywhere) and will literally burn the letter I've faxed over for you in my fireplace afterwards. This will be the default procedure unless you explicitly say not to do so in your email. (It's just easier that way.)

I'm just trying to help out those folks who might not have a FAX machine handy, who would still like for their voices to be heard by their Representatives (but don't want to end up on some mailing list either).

Thanks!

So I've got all my HR 473 letter-writing stuff all in one place now.

Letters you can send now, links to the actual texts of the opposing Bills, and what will hopefully be a growing list of Congressional Supporters.