How to Make a Slumlord Repair Your

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Issue #98, February 1 – 21, 2007 THEINDYPENDENTA FREE PAPER FOR FREE PEOPLE

Where Is Everybody? p8 ANTIWAR ORGANIZERS TALK ABOUT HOW TO ESCALATE A MOVEMENT

FRANK REYNOSO

DISASTER HOW TO MAKE A CAPITALISM SLUMLORD REPAIR BISEXUALITY STRIKES THAILAND YOUR APARTMENT ROCKS! p12 p4 p14

www.indypendent.org • nyc.indymedia.org 2 FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 THE INDYPENDENT Christina Zawerucha man, StevenWishnia,AmyWolf & Stephanie Wakefield, MatthewWasser- T Xavier Tayo, ErinThompson,Chloe SarahStuteville,JohnTarleton,Stern, Reynoso, AnnSchneider, Andrew Donald Paneth,NicholasPowers,Frank Heglar, AnaNogueira,EricaPatino, Mary NikMoore, Clark Merrefield, DianeMason,EdgarMata, Martin, Kelton, UlaKuras,JessicaLee,Gary Irina Ivanova,GillianKalson,Ruth Heglar, DennisHo, Hanrahan, Mary LianaGrey,Gorelick, A.K.Gupta, Leijia Ghoshal, AntonioGolan,Samantha Neela Sandyra George, Garcia, Fu,Leo Faerber, Karen DavidFerris, Dunsmuir, Denitzio,Ryan Jeff Lauren Linnea Covington,EllenDavidson, Kepfram Cauley, SusanChenelle, AntrimCaskey,Burke, JoséCarmona, Baumer, LeilaBinder, JedBrandt,Mike CharlieBass,BennettJ. Gino Barzizza, KazembeBalagun, Steven Arnerich, Nicholas Allanach,ChrisAnderson, VOLUNTEER STAFF: editorialprocess. in theentire clarity. We forlength,contentand articles edit ofparticipation. encourage allforms we onvolunteersupport, tion relying Asanor theoffice. help usrun just or totheweb,takephotos articles lies, Indypendent can The IMChasanopendoor. You WHAT CANIDOTOGETINVOLVED? viduals withsimilarmissions. andindi- organizations from and ads fits, the driveofprofit. in thehandsofpeople,awayfrom back of communicationandcreativity open dialogueandplacingthemeans seeking tocommunicate.We espouse viding media tools and spacetothose and communities analyze cultural self-representa using mediatofacilitate acommunity-basedorganization are and accuratecoverageof in-depth progressive, ethic byproviding activists. internati the IndependentMediaCenterisan theworld, than 150citiesthroughout With autonomouschaptersinmore WHAT ISINDYMEDIA? ribich, CarlyTriche, HannahVahl, The print team reserves therightto The printteamreserves The Indypendent anew The IMCseekstocreate NEW YORKCITY MEDIA CENTER [email protected] INDEPENDENT update the subscriptions, donations,grants write anddistribute NYC: nyc.indymedia.org GLOBAL: indymedia.org U.S.: us.indymedia.org phone: 212-221-0521 onal networkofvolunteermedia issues affecting individuals, issues affecting indypendent.org welcome yourparticipation P NY, NY10276 , videotapeeventsandral- .O. Box1417 E-mail Web Mail website, ecosystems bypro- is fundedbybene- tion. We seekto issues. We political and self-publish for ganiza- media The tre r eaie Ineverunderstandwhenthey stories arenegative. Questions Asked! the shouting slogansagainst West sellshot–No withbearded men effigies with American flags, daro Induscivilization?… When burningBush it’sknow hometotheancient2700BCMoen-jo- most ancientBuddhadisciples? Who wants to the world? itishome tothe Who wantstoknow P if Whowantstoknow them andtheircustomers. Themediaprojectsitthewaysuits in Pakistan. the West anditsmediaperceivetheircountry. feelingsabouthow withtheirown Indypendent.org Pakistanis many weighedinon 2007), 10, Jan. of Pakistan (“Reflections fromPakistan,” Stuteville analyzingwesternjournalists’treatment In responsetoafirst-personarticle bySarah THOUGHTS ONPAKISTAN letters totheeditor P Workers &Indigenous BOLIVIA: TA 6pm •Free MON FEB5 n [email protected] pleaseRSVPto School, Brooklyn Law toIraq. his decisiontoresistdeployment Watada & EhrenK. support &defendLt. Expertwitnessesto CITIZENS HEARING: 4-7pm •Donations Accepted or212-889-0303 [email protected] PleaseRSVP: A&B. Ave. bet. near 7thSt. Park, To beheldat Tompkins Sq. 3/31. scheduled asitis WHOLE EARTH BAKERY INSTITUTION SAVE THEVEGAN RALLY: 2pm SA 212-475-7710 orlamama.org 2nd&Bowery) (bet. 4thSt. 74A E. 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It’s truethat reflection America seesherown T FEB3 to permanently shut down on to permanentlyshutdown LENDAR —ANONYMOUS boycottdiamonds.net 215-387-0919, St. 13th 201 W. theChurchof on at Village Forum tobeheldlater 53rd&54th). (bet. ofthe Americas 1335 Ave. NYC Hilton, CONVENTION INNY. PROTEST INTERNATIONAL DIAMOND DEMO/PRESS CONFERENCE/FORUM: T 631-632-7536 2ndFl. (28thSt), So. 401 Park Ave. BrookManhattan, Stony of Center forStudy Working ClassLife. worldcantwait.net 212-561-1567 ornispop.org& JacksonHeights. 2ndFl., 76-11 37th Ave., Diversity CenterofQueens, Heights. the Philippines& World Can’t Wait Jackson Network inSolidaritywiththePeople of F in oustingacorruptpresident2001. Fi Seethevideo PRESIDENT. HOW TO OUST A FILM &DISCUSSION: 7pm •Free THU FEB8 212-633-6646 [email protected] Group &LeonardPeltier DefenseCmt. Sponsored byLeonardPeltier Support 5thFl. 17thSt., 55 W. ActionCenter, Intl. &auction. radio interviews live legalupdates, spokenword, history, toinclude music, arrest ofLeonardPeltier ofthe the31stanniversary commemorate 31 YEARS OFINJUSTICE TO to BENEFIT: 7-9pm •Donation 718-701-4580 [email protected] @125thSt. 2031 5th Ave. Black National Theater, Penalty.Against theDeath Penaltythe Death andNew Yorkers Y speakersfromNew recently exonerated Hear fromwrongfullyconvictedand JUSTICE DELAYED ISJUSTICEDENIED: 7pm •Free TUE FEB6 ork State. ollowed bydiscussion. ollowed ime TBA l pn epesmvmn,whichsucceeded ipino people’s movement, Sponsored byCampaigntoEnd you’d hardly find a negative story onIndiathough story you’d hardlyfindanegative itnow, Lookat case withIndiaduringCold War. Samewasthe wouldincrease. ucts andservices stance assoontherelianceonPakistani prod- problems! Itellyouthismediawouldchangeits fabricated home-grown crumbling initsown —AHSAN respectable position. Pakistan hasnochanceofwinninga ical scenario, government andtokeepaholdonthelocalpolit- in ordertoremainimportanttheeyesofU.S. aboutthecountry going toportrayillusiveimages are dictators Aslongasself-appointed selves. way istogivethepeopleachanceprovethem- Theonly butneverutilized. potential, has agreat …[Pakistan] insight into American stereotypes. —KK orblackpeopleupuntilnow. brown gunsintheirtruckandtheydon’tlike carry Theyall noturban. wasahat, difference Isaw …Only Texas. Stillwater, Oklahoma, Goodwill, suchas remotecitiesof in very America, lived Imyselfhave a burkacrossingtheroad. theymustfindapoorwomanin find thisman, andiftheycan’t andangerat hate America, Allah hu –screaming Akbak –Godisgreat son theymustfindabeardedmanscreaming todowithit? donkey have [does]a What donkey orcamelcrossingtheroad. startsbyastarving italways thevideoclip, show [email protected] & [email protected] ha tpbiga plgs!TeUS is Ahsan stopbeinganapologist! 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Bleecker&Bond), (bet. 339 LafayetteSt. AJ MusteRoom, from 1885to1908. colony private turned Congointohisown KingLeopoldIIofBelgium detailing how BLACKDEATH RED RUBBER, FILM SCREENING: 3pm •Free ny 212-694-8762 or 260Audubon CULTURARTE, Childcare &refreshmentsprovided. by theParty forSocialismandLiberation. AND FOREQUALITY. THE STRUGGLE WOMEN CONFERENCE: SOCIALIST WOMEN’S 11am •$10 SUN FEB11 [email protected] orcaafgroup.com 52ndSt. at 6115th Ave. Saks 5th Ave., Sponsored byCaring Activists Against Fur. HAVE A HEART RALLYPROTEST: AGAINST FUR 1-2:30pm SA ALK/BOOK SIGNING: l:7:30pm•$2 ilm: [email protected] T FEB10 (no one turned away forlackoffunds) (no oneturnedaway Sponsored bytheFreedom exposes tactics OG:WHITEKING, CONGO: The Radical& Ave. (at 178St.). (at Ave. .F february ilm oraim basedinSan Francisco. Journalism, ent entitycalledNew Voices inIndependent also spunoffundermydirectionasanindepend- theyhave Instead, Campus JournalismProject. …NY-IPA isnot housing the George Washington Williams Fellowship orthe 2007). 10, Jan. inaPinch,” Publications of IndieMediaLeaves c would liketoaskyoumakeacorrectionand I including NY-IPA, the IPA’s editorialprograms, IPA CORRECTION l h iehr,yetbondedtogether. ple wholivehere, ings andthecontrastofculturesharedbypeo- traditionalandcolonialbuild- contrast ofmodern, Comeandseethe cornerofPakistan. across every ablendofpeopleyouwillfind mosaic ofculture, It’s a Pakistani. hometoevery come toKarachi, just If youwanttoseetruepictureofPakistan, … tabloid. asiftheyarereportingforacheap che, psy- views about Western media’s Selling” “Cheap Ifully endorsethewriter’s an rather American. honest reportingpiecebya Western or traveler ANONYMOUS — ofPakistan. issimilartothat the Indianstate aiiain(TeIAsDmn fet TheEnron (“TheIPA’slarification DominoEffect: As the former associate directorsupervising As theformerassociate rv.Perhaps it’s thefirsttimeI’veseenan Bravo. 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gina Monologues. The NewSchool. tics letters arecontinuedonpage15 T FEB17 T FEB24 by JimOakes IT’S ALL ABOUT MEE (MEDIA, MEE IT’S ALLABOUT Sponsored byHip-Hop —SAJID SAEED .Efforttobring ). FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 THE INDYPENDENT 3 a project of the National Lawyers Guild NYC National Lawyers PHOTO: GOTHAMIST.COM S ’ YER hat should we expect as the Sean Will Bell case goes to the grand jury? Amadou Diallo case,it be like the in HE ops T EOPLE ace the LAW The right to a grand jury is contained in the In order to preserve of the presumption A suspect has the right to testify before the When he testifies, he is not allowed to have The surviving victims of the Kahlua Cabaret The four other cops have said they will tes- Even if there are no criminal charges, there ttorney may not enter the grand jury room. ifth Amendment to the U.S.ifth Constitution; the P W BY ANN SCHNEIDER which the grand jury found reason to press criminal charges, although the officers were ultimately acquitted? F function is to provide a community filter on a discretion.prosecutor’s It is designed to protect a suspect from having to face serious criminal charges on flimsy evidence.York, In New grand juries are composed of 23 people and 12 of them must vote for an indictment or else the case cannot be prosecuted as a felony. innocence, the proceedings of a grand jury always stay secret – much to the consterna- tion of the media. grand jury but may decide not to do so, pre- serving the right to remain silent throughout the duration of the criminal proceedings. Officer Michael Oliver, who fired 31 shots, has said he will testify before the grand jury, but he wants to be the last, following an expected 40 to 50 witnesses. he is hoping that Perhaps some of that secret testimony will leak out to his advantage. a lawyer with him. He may step out of the grand jury room to confer with his attorney,the but a shootout will speak to the grand jury. They say the officers did not reveal their plainclothes status, and they thought they were being robbed. Unless the other officers convince the grand jury that they thought their lives were in danger, there will have to be an indictment. tify. No announcement has been made as to whether any of them will receive immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony.Abner together like They may stick abusers did,Louima’s apparently to concoct a story that would keep all but one of them out of jail, as well as provide grounds for an appeal. will certainly be a civil lawsuit for deprivation of civil rights. Most likely, the taxpayers will pay the cost of the defense and the damages. One effective reform would be to take the damages award out of the NYPD budget. Presently it comes from general coffers. With an ineffective Civilian Complaint Review Board and a politically powerful police union, there is very little deterrent to shooting first and asking questions later. Lawyer is a project of the National The People’s Lawyers Guild, City Chapter,York New 212- 679-6018, www.nlgnyc.org. C F JuryGrand In addition to New York City, the pro- City, In addition to New York Although the American venture has use “From what I understand, they don’t since 1979. The program was founded by since 1979. The program was founded Kennedy II, former Congressman Joseph P. and claims no Kennedy, son of Robert F. political affiliations or motives. According spokeswoman for the to Ashley Durmer, get oil just trying to “We’re organization, to people who need it.” 16 gram reaches out to needy households in states. Chavez has allotted 100 million gallons of oil for the heating season, from Nov. 14, 2007. 15, 2006 to Mar. come under heavy fire by conservatives as a personal publicity stunt by Chavez, who has repeatedly denounced the Bush administration, it is in line with many of Chavez’s domestic initiatives such as discounted food, health clinics and free education citizens. through college for Venezuelan says Celia in her com- that oil in Venezuela,” fortably warm living room, “So they give it to people who need it. It was very nice of them to help the people of the U.S.” PHOTO: DENNIS W. HO PHOTO: DENNIS W. TILL MARCHING FOR JUSTICE Protesters (top) rally outside the U.N. on Jan. 29 to S olice Commissioner Ray Kelly. (Bottom) Omawale Clay of the December SEAN BELL: denounce NYPD human rights violations and call for the resignation of P 12th Movement speaks. PHOTO:W. DENNIS HO of the South Bronx can now afford to stay warm in the winter thanks to ant to sign up? Chavez’s program is coordinated by Chavez’s Who’s eligible? Who’s Households making less than 60 percent of the state median income, or $43,000 for a family of four. Homeowners and housing cooperatives are eligible. However, the entire building must sign up. W Call 1.877.JOE.4.OIL Income (SSI) that total $729, the season’s savings Income (SSI) that total $729, the season’s in of approximately $315 allow her to stay warm she the winter and buy the asthma medicine to needs. Before, the building was “frozen” due both the lack of oil and a damaged heating system, a problem that Celia says still persists. Corporation, a Boston- Citizens Energy based non-profit that has provided heating oil to low-income people in the Northeast CELIA MARTINEZ subsidized heating oil provided by Venezuela. subsidized heating oil provided by Venezuela. federal judge rejected New York City's York federal judge rejected New

,a New York Times New York EGLAR H vention training manuals – from public view. ARY Pier 57 environmental and “police exposure”“police Pier 57 environmental and reports and NYPD or the first time in years, residents of Spofford Hills, a housing cooperative the feel in the South Bronx, won’t

ollowing a sweeping judicial ruling on Jan. 22, activists and journalists may soon have access to additional information on the circumstances surrounding the arrest of more than 1,800 people during protests M

As of November 2006, the going rate for Martinez’s good fortune is a gift from Martinez’s “This year, there is heat. In years past, for- “This year,

Church St. and Fulton St. in lower Manhattan and at Union Square East The NYCLU has delayed the latest document release while the City An earlier, limited release of convention-related materials documented Additional evidence ordered released includes videotapes of mass arrests Additional evidence ordered released includes Among the evidence to be released, and of particular concern to many “The public has an important interest in knowing what was behind the Responding to litigation filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union York Responding to litigation filed by the New Y

gainst the Republican National in the summer of 2004. Convention (RNC) Security check and a Supplemental Security who lives alone and survives on a monthly Social heating oil was $2.27 per gallon. For Martinez, low-income New York City households. low-income New York counted heating oil to as many as 100,000 provide as much as 25 million gallons of dis- program to all five boroughs and looks to state-owned oil company, has expanded the state-owned oil company, CITGO, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s at several South Bronx housing cooperatives, percent discount last winter as a pilot project After providing subsidized heating oil at a 40 who lives in the housing cooperative. leftist president. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s Celia Martinez, a 74-year-old grandmother Celia Martinez, a 74-year-old B winter chill inside their building. get about it. This building was frozen!” said

the City

Heats Up

Hugo

F F

BY CHRIS ANDERSON BY CHRIS RNC Data Freed decides whether to appeal the judge’s ruling. decides whether to appeal the judge’s of dozens of RNC related protest permits. arrest and arraignment for hundreds of protesters. selective granting or denial the political considerations involved in the City’s on Aug.on 31, as well as internal NYPD charts documenting the time between at “asbestos, lead and multiple fire hazards.” that the City had information as early as May 2004 that Pier 57 contained articles in 2005 by Drew Poe,articles first published on NYC Indymedia, reported used to hold hundreds of those arrested atconvention protests. A series of health hazards at “Pier 57,”health hazards at Side West far an empty building on Manhattan’s RNC arrestees, be three environmental reports documenting potential will NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn after the ruling. NYCLU NYPD’s mass arrest and detention of protesters during the convention,”NYPD’s said a (NYCLU) and the tapes, pre-con efforts to block voluminous RNC-related police video- materials – including Take it to the Bank IRATE TENANT GROUPS FORCE BIG LENDERS TO TURN ON SLEAZY SLUMLORDS. “WE STAYED WHERE WE WERE AND FOUGHT,” SAYS ONE RESIDENT.

BY CHLOE TRIBICH residence of the then-landlord, Gadi Zamir, repair needs. “Some banks still the front courtyard, in Battery Park City. act like they just want to meet was completed. or residents of 443 Cyrus Place in the In response, Citibank, the building’s with us without taking real “We have come a Bronx, securing repairs for the ever- mortgage lender, brought the landlord to action, but we will make very long way in the past Fpresent leaks, mold and broken mail- the table to discuss repairs and began a more progress as long as we keep the year and a half and the boxes in their 16-unit building was always a extended series of negotiations over their pressure on.” inspections from NYCB fight. But in September 2005, a fire forced multifamily lending policy. Zamir eventu- were one of the best strategies the relocation of the majority of the tenants ally sold the building. Since summer 2005, THE NOTORIOUS MOSHE PILLER against Piller. But still we have and left the rest to live in charred apart- significant work has been completed by a 2654 Valentine Avenue in the Bronx is a very long way to go,” said ments without security or heat. new landlord, including the installation of owned by the notorious landlord Moshe Xiomara Mejias, a tenant leader. Infuriated by the deteriorated conditions, new stoops and structural stabilization. Piller and mortgaged by NYCB. Tenants do not yet have the remaining tenants organized with the Hoping to build on the success with Piller has been singled out as full confidence that Piller Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Citibank, in January 2006 HHN began a uniquely problematic by the New will undertake the more Coalition (NWBCCC) and Housing Here grassroots effort targeting New York York City Department of substantial and expen- and Now (HHN), ultimately negotiating sive rehabilitation work, with the mortgage lender, Citibank, to such as upgrades of the secure repairs. plumbing system or “We had a meeting with the tenant boiler replacement. association, Citibank officials and the Getting NYCB to take landlord in my living room,” said more drastic and costly tenant leader Ramona Santana, action against a borrower “And it was only then, after we got who is meeting his debt the landlord and the bank involved, obligations and making that the situation improved.” some repairs will be a challenge. Since spring 2006, dozens of buildings in THE GOOD REPAIR CLAUSE the four major boroughs have received As individual landlords and the City of inspections from mortgage lenders at the New York prove unable or unwilling to request of HHN groups, resulting in many respond effectively to tenant concerns, repairs. But whether the increase in repair banks, which often underwrite loans activity continues or simply constitutes a to landlords of properties in disrepair, token effort intended to demobilize angry are positioned as attractive tenant organ- and exhausted renters depends on the extent izing targets. to which tenants stay united and ready to The “good repair clause” – a common mobilize. mortgage clause that requires the borrower to For tenants at 552 Academy Street in maintain the building well – can be used as Inwood, there has been slow progress on leverage to engage lenders in forcing repairs. repairs, and residents will likely soon be “Mortgage lenders have to be held account- confronted with Major Capital Improve- able for building conditions – until the loan is ment (MCI) rent increases. paid off, the building is their collateral. It’s The Cyrus Place tenants have been suc- common sense for them to care about the cessful in securing substantial work, but conditions,” said have faced their own share of unantici- James Staton, an pated obstacles. In the fall of 2006, as activist with the the extent of the necessary rehabilita- NYC AIDS tion work became clear, the landlord Housing indicated his intention to seek Major Network. Capital Improvement (MCI) rent Most mort- increases, relocate tenants to other gages outline apartments in the building, and reissue obligations of the borrower and the their leases. lender and punitive actions that the lender can When tenants refused, the landlord take if the borrower defaults on obligations. brought his frustrations to housing court. These obligations commonly include timely The landlord submitted papers insisting debt payment, adequate maintenance and reg- that the tenants be added as respondents in istration of rents. Lenders often reserve the the litigation HPD had brought against right to inspect the property without notifica- him for housing code violations. tion, raise the interest rates, perform repairs ART BY LEO GARCIA The landlord argued that HPD should without the borrower’s knowledge or consent name the tenants as a guilty party – along and foreclose. with the landlord himself – in a case in which If they are making their expected profit, Community Bank (NYCB), the biggest Housing Preservation and Development the crime was lack of repairs. Luckily, tenants banks are hesitant to take action, however, multifamily lender in the city, with hun- through housing court litigation and the were able to exploit the antagonism between and courts – the institutions that facilitate dreds of distressed buildings. Targeted Cyclical Enforcement the City and the landlord to win com- the foreclosure process – are not sympathetic The campaign included tours of NYCB- Program, which identifies particu- mitments from both parties to to efforts to foreclose based on maintenance. mortgaged buildings with politicians, larly distressed buildings. keep their current leases and protests at the home and office of the CEO, Despite protests at his Borough refrain from seeking MCI LAUNCHING A CAMPAIGN Joseph Ficalora, and ultimately face-to-face Park home, tenant-landlord negoti- rent increases. HHN’s Fix It Now campaign was negotiations that resulted in a written com- ations and press conferences, Piller “No matter how much the launched in July 2005. One goal was to mitment from NYCB to improve conditions refused to make significant landlord pressured us, we ensure that banks make building condi- in its mortgaged properties. Since then, repairs. refused to leave and we refused

THE INDYPENDENT tions a key consideration in all stages of HHN has secured similar agreements from With organizing support to sign new leases,” com- their multifamily lending business. several other lenders. from NWBCCC, tenants then mented Ramona Santana, the As part of this campaign, residents at “When we went to Ficalora’s secured NYCB’s full engagement. tenant leader in the building. 552 Academy Street in the Inwood neigh- house we brought tenants from all The bank performed monthly “We stayed where we were and borhood of Manhattan, along with organ- over the city together and really held door-to-door property inspections we fought. This is why we izers from ACORN and HHN, held vig- the bank accountable,” said Shirlene and corresponded regularly with were successful.” ils and press conferences during the Cooper, the lead organizer of the Piller regarding repair work. It

FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 summer of 2005. The actions culminated NYC AIDS Housing Network and was only then that more signif- Chloe Tribich is an organizer

4 with a protest in the lobby of the luxury tenant in a building with many icant work, such as repavement of with Housing Here and Now. To HPV AND YOU GIRLS LEARN ABOUT HPV FROM COMMERCIALS, NOT THE CLASSROOM.

HPV, many New York City schools do approving it, and I wish that all 11 and 12 teach their kids about the risks that they year old girls can get vaccinated now.” face. Beth Israel Medical Center partners “Is the vaccine a green light to go have with Washington Irving High School to irresponsible sex? No. It is to protect girls offer a school-based clinic providing men- from potentially contracting a serious dis- The Facts on HPV and toring and peer education to students. ease,” said Dr. Gale Blakley, an ObGyn, at Washington Irving High School Senior the Helen B. Atkinson Center in Harlem and Cervical Cancer Simmone Leslie, after learning about HPV the Associate Medical Director for Women's in a jeopardy game in her health class, Services at the Community Healthcare HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that worked with other students to petition the Network in New York City. She also warns causes up to 70 percent of cervical cancer city to get the vaccine offered at her school’s that just because someone has been vacci- cases in women. The vaccine is effective in JOSE CARMONA free clinic. She has already received the first nated, they should not forget about the dan- preventing the two main strains of HPV that dose of the vaccine. “I would encourage any gers of cervical cancer altogether. lead to cervical cancer. However, a dozen BY MYRA HELLERSTEIN AND female who is a teenager to go out and get While the vaccine is effective in prevent- or more other strains exist that can result in AMANDA THIEROFF this shot,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt to go ing the two main strains of HPV that lead to the disease. that extra mile and get that shot done.” cervical cancer, there are still 12 or more “ heard about Gardasil because my friend other strains that can result in the disease. Condoms significantly reduce many HPV was in the ‘one less’ commercial, she A GREEN LIGHT FOR IRRESPONSIBLE SEX? Dr. Blakley estimates that close to 99 percent transmissions, but cannot protect against Itold me about it,” said 16-year-old Dr. Ed Lewis, a pediatrician in Rochester, of all cases of cervical cancer are caused by open sores located in areas not covered by a Lillian Oquendo from Brooklyn. Lillian has New York, has experienced a torrent of some kind of HPV infection. She urges condom. It is possible to contract HPV without recently undergone the first dose of Merck’s interest in the HPV vaccine from adolescent patients to get vaccinated, but to also get pap engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse. new vaccine, Gardasil, which prevents the girls and their mothers. He has presently smears on a regular basis (1-2 times per year). four strains of HPV (Human given out several hundred doses, some girls Pap smears can detect cervical cancer in its Clinical tests have shown that the HPV vac- Papillomavirus) that most commonly cause already on their second dose, which is early stages and consequently save lives. cine will only provide protection for four genital warts and cervical cancer in women. offered two months after the first dose has “Now with this vaccine coming on board, the years. It is administered in a three-shot regi- “I figured, why not?” she said, “I’m not been administered. vaccine along with the Pap smear, we’re men, spread out over a time period of five to really stressed about risks. If it will help “The most common misconception I’ve going to see even fewer cases of cervical can- seven months. protect me, it’s probably safe. My mom was heard is that people don’t need [the vac- cer in the near future,” Dr. Blakley said. cool with it.” cine] if they’re not sexually active or have The HPV vaccine introduces particles of the Teenage girls get their sex education from been exposed to or infected with HPV. But WHO IS COVERED AND WHO IS NOT? dead virus into the bloodstream, and the diverse sources. Often, in New York City, the they should still get it to protect them- Gardasil is the most expensive preventative human body develops antibodies to these information does not come from their selves,” Dr. Lewis said. vaccine on the market. At $120 per shot – particles. Women never run the risk of acci- schools, where health classes are either absent The vaccine protects girls and women $360 for the three-shot regimen – ques- dentally contracting the virus through the or focus only on pregnancy prevention and against four major strains of HPV; however, tions arise as to who can afford the vaccina- vaccine to because the virus is never alive in select STDs like gonorrhea, chlamydia and according to the Centers for Disease tion and who cannot. their system. HIV/AIDS. Much of the current buzz about Control (CDC), there are about 40 strains of “A lot of physicians are concerned about the HPV has come from television ads featuring the virus. Several healthcare providers have costs of the vaccine. Insurance companies Women should get Pap smears, which can girls who want to be “one less” – one less suggested that this number is actually even might not cover the full cost of [Gardasil],” detect pre-cancerous cells, one to two times death due to cervical cancer. While many higher, closer to 90 or 100 different strains. said pediatrician Dr. Ann Hellerstein. per year.The American Cancer Society and the girls have seen the ad, which features ener- The vaccine protects against the two strains The Federal Vaccines for Children pro- American College of Obstetrics and getic girls jumping rope while chanting “o- that cause about 70 percent of cases of cer- gram (VCF) will provide the vaccination free Gynecology suggest that women begin having n-e-l-e-s-s, I’m gonna be one less,” some girls vical cancer and the two strains that cause to females under the age of 19 who are either Pap smears three years after their first sexual are still confused about the details of the about 90 percent of cases of genital warts. uninsured, on Medicaid, or who are either contact and no later than the age of 21. virus and of the vaccine. “Even if a girl has been infected with American Indian or Alaskan Natives. Jaene Knight is an 11th grader at Urban HPV, she should still get the vaccine to Doctors and the FDA are recommending Assembly Media high school in Manhattan. prevent against the type of HPV that causes that Gardasil be administered largely to 11 She claims that the only sex education that cervical cancer,” Dr. Lewis said. year olds, as they are also getting vaccinated costs of the Gardasil vaccine for teenagers. she has received was a single day of workshops “My mom would probably not want me that year for Tetanus/Diphtheria among Additionally, Merck offers a little-known at the beginning of her junior year. Students to get it because she’d think it would pro- other immunizations. patient assistance program for women aged were taught the dangers of HIV/AIDS and mote sex or something,” said 17-year-old While the recommended age for adminis- 19-26 who are uninsured or underinsured. the importance of condom use, but did not Che’te Bey from Long Island City, Queens. tration is 11-12, Gardasil has been approved The program requires an application process learn about HPV, despite the fact that 50-75 Christian groups like Focus on the Family up until the age of 26. Unfortunately for the and forms demonstrating income. To qualify, percent of American men and women will have opposed mandatory administration of 3 out of 10 women age 19-26 who are unin- women must be low income (below 200 per- become infected in their lifetime. the vaccine fearing it will promote promis- sured, trying to protect oneself against cer- cent of the poverty line), be uninsured and Jaene’s classmate, 16-year-old Megan cuous behavior and girls will feel better pro- vical cancer could mean some hefty out-of- see a private physician who already distrib- Fernandez, also claimed that she had not tected when they have sex early or have sex pocket expenses. utes other Merck products. heard about HPV until she saw the TV ads. with multiple partners. Many, but not all, public and private Currently in New York City, Planned “I know it has something to do with cervi- “I wish that I had been vaccinated,” said insurance companies plan to cover the HPV Parenthood and New York State cal cancer,” she said, “but I want to know Sara Edmunds, a woman who currently has a vaccine, and policies about who will be cov- Department of Health-run clinics do not more about how you get it.” strain of HPV that leads to cervical cancer. “I ered and to what extent has yet to be deter- offer the vaccine for free or reduced prices Although there is no standardized health wish that we all had. I wish that the FDA mined. Presently, Empire Blue Cross Blue yet; however, both organizations expect to curriculum that includes education about hadn’t sat on the vaccine for a while before Shield has confirmed that they will cover the offer the vaccine in 2007.

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A FREE PAPER FOR FREE PEOPLE Center Kim’s Video TH Laundromat Atlantis Super Spoken Word Cafe Phone: 212-221-0521 638 East 6th St. 14 TO 113th St. @ Broadway Laundry Center TH 561 Metropolitan Ave. 4th Ave. & Union St. Email: 472 Atlantic Ave. 96 ST. Karrot [email protected] May Day Books Revolution Books YWCA 155 First Ave. 181st St. @ Cabrini El Loco Burrito Photoplay Video For complete distro info: 9 W. 19th St. 243 Bushwick Ave. 3rd Ave. @ Atlantic (Btw. 9th @ 10th Sts.) 933 Manhattan Ave. indypendent.org 5 6 FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 THE INDYPENDENT abuses and atrocities across Latin acrossLatin abuses andatrocities America. Wa SOA extortionandexecution. torture, advocated theschoolthat released trainingmanualsusedat and madeheadlinesin1996whenthePentagon trainingschoolforLatin combat American soldiers Thebaseishometothe months infederalprison. tosix sentences rangingfromoneyearprobation face demonstrators 2006 fortheannualevent.The 17-19, thebaseonweekendofNov. verged at con- More than20,000peacefuldemonstrators (SOA/WHINSEC). Institute forSecurityCooperation the Schoolof Americas/Western Hemisphere 19toprotest the Fort baseNov. Benningmilitary guilty oftrespassingafterpeacefullywalkingonto aGeorgiajudgefound 16individuals 29, On Jan. 16 CONVICTEDFORSOA PROTEST violent policeresponseandmassarrests. resultingina first WTO conferenceintheU.S., toprotestthe sevenyearsago verged inSeattle Morethan50,000people con- be negotiated. enters thepenaltyphasewhereasettlementwill Theclass-action now lawsuit wrongdoing. individualizedevidenceof any failed togather policehad rights basedontheassertionthat due-process in1999violated testers inSeattle about 170 World Trade (WTO)pro- Organization thearrestof ruledthat afederaljury 30, On Jan. SEATTLE WTOPROTESTERS GETJUSTICE a particularly ture andabuseinthiscountry, oftor- government hasahistory theU.S. us that toremind “Serves Legal DirectorBillGoodman, contendsCenterforConstitutionalRights case, The torturewasusedtoextractconfessions. that revelations outofcourtin1974following thrown oftheoriginalchargeswere many note that asitisaboutjustice, about politicalretaliation the three-decadeoldprosecutionisasmuch whoarguethat fortheaccusedmen, Lawyers Young. John V. San Francisco policeofficerSgt. tothe1971killingof 23onchargesrelated Jan. T including Francisco Eight formerBlackPanthers, COP KILLING BLACK PANTHERS ARRESTEDFOR1971 than repairthemfromthehurricanedamage. rather 49,000 displacedNewOrleansresidents, hometonearly development, housing apartment a F posed demolition. frompro- whichtheyhopetosave the buildings, the activistshadbeencleaning andrenovating P gunpointbytheNewOrleans during thenightat 31aftertwoactivistswerearrested ended Jan. BernardParish was housing developmentinSt. ofafenced-offpublic A 17-dayoccupation OCCUPATION ENDED NEW ORLEANSPUBLICHOUSING whileGeorgeBushlostsix. only 17votes, gained JohnKerry 600,000 ballotswerecast, countywhereapproximately Democratic According tothe2004recountinheavily misconduct affectedtheelection’s outcome. the Theprosecutiondidnotallegethat county. expensive handrecountofallvotesinthe alengthyand asawaytoavoid tronic results, theelec- percent oftheballotswouldmatch thehandcountofthree 2004 recountsothat 16, of pre-selectingtheballotsforDec. Theelectionworkerswerefoundguilty prison. Dreamerfaceupto18monthsin Kathleen JacquelineMaidenandassistantmanager nator Countyelectioncoordi- Cuyahoga tial election. 24 ofriggingtherecount2004presiden- T PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONFRAUD TWO CONVICTEDINOHIOFOR2004 re fQen,NwYr,werearrestedon New York, orres ofQueens, wo OhioelectionofficialswereconvictedJan. gencies have planstorazethe5,000-unitpublic gencies have gainst African-Americans.” lc eatetSA em ic a.15, SinceJan. olice DepartmentSWAT team. nat’l briefs tch blames the military schoolforhumanrights tch blamesthemilitary ederal andlocalhousing and sion oftheprimaries the nomineeis. toinfluencewho voters – orevenprimary grassroots movements– trends thathavemadeitdifficultfor private donationsislikelytoacceleratethe her campaignandrelyentirelyonmassive her decisiontoforegopublicfinancingfor assault onworkingpeople.Specifically, and r energy andnationalhealthprograms, Gulf Coast,developingserious of Iraq,rebuildingNewOrleansandthe Democratic partytoadvocategettingout gr might betheyearinwhichastrong not bodewellfortheideathat2008 ally pandertoRepublicans. the party’s financialbackers,andoccasion- the desiresofDemocraticvoters,please calculates stancesthatpaylipserviceto ket positioning,inwhichsheconstantly she hasarefarovershadowedbyhermar- stem fromthat.Andwhateverprinciples Whatever principlesshehasprobably tious yuppiecorporatelawyer. Like herhusband,she’s anambi- bian witchnorafeministheroine. Hillary Clintonisneitherales- B Same Clinton,Different Gender DON’T WAIT special offer… -alPhone your subscriptionrightaway! [email protected] even fasterservice P.O. Box1417,NewYork,NYC IMCPrintTeam NY10276.Orfor andsend to: $25/year(20issues).Makechecks payabletothe Regular subscriptionrate: E-Mail City StateZip Address Name Y $ GARY MARTIN as In the1960s, Her entryintothepresidentialracedoes S 2 HILLARY CLINTON LAUNCHES CORPORATE-BACKED BIDFOR WHITEHOUSE sr the declineofpolitical TEVEN ilm Checkenclosed Bill me eversing theReaganomic-corporate oots movementcouldswingthe 5

F O W R ISHNIA the

expan- W H O L E alternative-

Y E A R crowd ofsupportersdejectedbyhisloss terminally unfunkyattempttorousea cast. TheBeltwayworlddeemedhim doomed beforeasingleactualvotewas antiwar movement’s electoralenergy, was the Democratwhoattractedmostof tarian credibility. In2004, possesses theintangiblesofestablishmen- who’s amassedthemostfundsandwho from the“fringe”candidatesbasedon front-runners, separating money, mediaandpowerthatanointsthe “Washington consensus,”thenexusof activists tofinanciersandthe primary, powershiftsfromvotersand begins morethanayearbeforethefirst of March.Andwhenthecampaign often beeneffectivelyoverbythemiddle process havemeantthattheracehas “front-loading” ofthenomination rocketing costsofcampaigningandthe for DemocratGeorge McGovernin1972. and theantiwarmovementdidsame nomination forBarryGoldwaterin1964, California primaryandtheRepublican roots movementwontheclimactic seek re-election.Theconservativegrass- mary convincedLyndon Johnsonnotto near-victory intheNewHampshirepri- antiwar candidateEugeneMcCarthy’s W ing thataBostonCatholiccouldwinin Kennedy gottheDemocraticnodbyprov- nominating process.In1960,JohnF. machines democratizedthepresidential demented afterther In thelast20years,however, thesky- isconsin andWest Virginia; in1968, in theIowacaucuses. epeated airingsofhis Howard Dean, the “serious” Blair; Murdoch’s a Margaret Thatcher, he’lltakeaTony candidate hecanworkwith.Ifcan’t get will beaDemocraticyear, sohewantsa ment whenObamawasinsecondgrade.) that therewasn’t muchofajihadistmove- edge ofrecentMuslimhistorywouldreveal any terroristtrainingcamps.”(Anyknowl- pundit wonderedifhe’dseenthekids“in ally wasapublicelementaryschool,Fox went toIndonesiaandfoundthatitactu- Indonesia asachild.WhenCNNreporter attended anIslamic-fanaticmadrassain dubious allegationthatBarackObamahad W owns intoaspeweroffar-right propaganda. greed andwillingnesstoturnanyoutlethe media world,withhismetastasizing-tumor Murdoch isthemostevilfigurein global wattageofhisintentionsandpower, there’s areasonforit.Measuredbythe sidered left-liberalpuristparanoia,but to her. CriticizingHillaryforthisiscon- New York Post held afundraiserforherlastyear, andthe Rupert Murdoch’s not-so-tacitsupport;he Clinton’s presidentialcampaign,it’s bonfire roastingfetuseslikemarshmallows. ting withJanetRenobythelesbiancoven’s right haspaintedherasasatanicharpy, sit- of herown.Forthesamereason,far a candidate’s wifewithacareerandopinions Nancy ReaganandBarbaraBush,herewas buttons simplybecauseafter12yearsof in 1992sporting“ElectHillary’s Husband” Lots ofleft-liberalwomenwaltzedaround celebrity imagepoliticsthanfromreality. from thepsychologicalprojectionsof monly heardopinionsabouthercomemore olition ofNewOrleans’housingprojects. nothing aboutstoppingtheplanneddem- and about “phasedredeployment”– hearing alotoftough-soundingmush we’ll likelyspendthenext22months spending themoneyinNewOrleans, bly endorsegettingoutofIraqand where amajorityof Blair’s roleinIraq:“Bush’s poodle.” provided thebestdescriptiontodateof intensifying others.AndJohnLydon has largely intact,amelioratingafewand left Thatcher’s domestic depredations as BillClintondidwithRonaldReagan, the 1997,2001and2005elections.Blair, paper, endorsedBlairforprimeministerin Murdoch isprobablybettingthat2008 If thereisanythingsatanicaboutHillary Love Hillaryorhateher?Themostcom- What thismeansisthatinacountry itness FoxNews’broadcastingofthe has becomesurprisinglykind Sun voters wouldproba- , hisBritishflagship hell no we won’t go

Involuntary Conscription

NICHOLAS ALLANACH Not So Bitchin’ BY RICK JAHNKOW which are easier to get when you have the who say they are “peace activists” – is the at the time of 9/11. In that period of emo- money to pay for braces or private medical increased militarization that comes with tional nationalism, Bush could have easily ver since House Democrat Charles exams and documentation that are the key conscription. Because draftees are in the gotten away with boosting draft calls and Rangel introduced his first proposal to getting disqualified at an Army induc- military for only two-year terms instead of deploying a much larger force to the Eto bring back the military draft in tion physical. And those with a better edu- four or six, there is a much higher turnover Middle East. Following the neocon agenda 2003, it’s been amazing to see how much cation – which is linked to one’s socio-eco- of personnel, and this means that a much for the region, then, we could have already amnesia there is on the subject, especially nomic status – will have a distinct advan- larger portion of society is required to go extended the fighting to Syria and Iran by among some of those who consider them- tage when it comes to successfully wading through military training. One of the main now, and then moved on to a confrontation selves liberals or “progressives.” through the process to secure conscientious functions of this training, especially at boot with North Korea. Supporters of Rangel’s bill (which objector status. camp, is to strip the civilian identity from includes a mandatory civilian service option) I know how these factors work because as every trainee, instill in him or her the values HOLDING OUR CHILDREN HOSTAGE make what seems on the surface to be a com- a community college draft counselor during of military culture, and perform the condi- This leads me to point out a major con- pelling case. They say one reason our gov- the Vietnam War, I struggled to help low- tioning needed to produce an obedient sol- tradiction in Rangel’s rationale for a draft. ernment is so willing to launch aggressive income students whose limited resources dier who is acclimated to the use of violence. He and others are arguing that it would military action is that the children of politi- made it harder to gain recognition of legit- What many people ignore is that there is help slow down the rush to war (a claim cal leaders and the wealthy elite do not face imate claims for medical deferments and no comparable effort made to reverse this unsupported by any historical facts), much risk from combat. They point out that conscientious objector status. It won’t be process when draftees leave the military. So while at the same time arguing that we this is because the armed forces are main- any different under Rangel’s proposed even though the conditioning doesn’t stick in need a draft because our military is tained by a system of recruitment that draft. Furthermore, affluent individuals everyone, the net effect over time is to further exhausted and more troops are required unfairly targets working-class and middle- who do wind up in the military would still militarize civilian society, not civilianize the for the mission they’ve been given. So income people. They also argue that a have the advantages of their education and military (which some people have argued). which is it? Is a draft going to help pre- stronger service ethic is needed, along with political connections to help avoid combat. Indeed, this militarization function is one vent or end a war, or help wage it? And if more civilian options for performing tasks Whenever we go to war, whether our mil- reason why conscription has been so favored it’s the latter, then isn’t opening up the that would benefit society. The points are itary is drafted or recruited, socioeconomic by authoritarian states. Examples include tap for more troops the last thing that war valid, and so it seems reasonable when some status is always a factor in determining who Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Prussia and opponents should want to do? If we really people conclude that a system of conscrip- is at greatest risk. And in a system with a dictators like Napoleon, Stalin and Franco, are against military aggression, isn’t it tion is needed to address such issues. civilian service component like Rangel is just to name a few. In today’s context of a better that we stick to demanding that But the problem with this thinking is proposing, advantages in education, personal U.S. government that wages preemptive war, the current mission be cancelled and, that it is far too simplistic and only focuses wealth and political influence will still be a threatens countries that have done nothing to simultaneously, do everything we can to on limited parts of the picture. It ignores factor in avoiding the battlefield. harm us and assumes police powers that the cut off the flow of personnel for war? important historical facts and fails to con- Constitution disallows, a system that would If you believe the other part of Rangel’s sider an entirely different set of social and MILITARIZING CIVILIANS further militarize the U.S. is the last thing argument, he essentially wants to force a political consequences that are inherent in Another part of the picture ignored by sup- that anyone should support. change in foreign policy by holding people’s any system of involuntary service. porters of Rangel’s legislation – one that is Imagine, for a moment, what would have children hostage – which includes the chil- especially ironic for those draft advocates happened if conscription had been in place dren of people who have been struggling MAKING WAR POSSIBLE and sacrificing to end the Iraq war. Isn’t One of the forgotten historical facts is that hostage-taking something we generally whenever a draft has been employed in the condemn in our society, and shouldn’t we U.S. (which has been infrequently), it has have serious reservations about supporting been used to make waging war possible, not A SHORT HISTORY OF THE DRAFT such a tactic? as a device to keep our government from The reality is that popular opposition entering a conflict. A good example is our Memories of the social unrest the draft caused during the Vietnam Era still haunt the U.S. to bringing back the draft is still over- most recent experience with conscription political establishment. However, forced military conscription has a checkered past that long whelming, and legislators know that it during the Vietnam War. The draft that predates the advent of flower power: would be political suicide to attempt was already in place as the war developed such a thing at the moment. So why go made it easier for presidents Johnson and 1863: The bloodiest riots in U.S. history 1964-1973: Escalation of the U.S. war to the trouble of rebutting pro-draft Nixon to merely open the tap and pour out break out in New York City when Congress in Vietnam leads to call-up of hundreds of arguments from liberals or anyone else? more bodies to fuel the conflict. As a result, institutes a draft at the height of the Civil thousands of young men to fight in an The answer is that such efforts to pro- the Vietnam war lasted almost 10 years, War. Under the law, young men of means unpopular conflict. The draftees are over- mote conscription can, over time, accli- took the lives of millions of people and could obtain a substitute or pay a $300 whelmingly poor and working-class as those mate enough people to the idea of a draft caused massive destruction in Southeast commutation fee. Of the 776,000 men with more education and connections that at a point in the future, in the con- Asia. All of this happened despite the drafted by the Union, 74,000 furnished sub- (including dozens of future conservative text of some national emergency pretext, strong antiwar and draft resistance move- stitutes and another 87,000 paid the com- leaders) obtain academic or medical defer- the politicians may then attempt what ments that spread across the country. mutation fee. ments or gain appointments in cushy they now are afraid to do. Draft supporters say that, in the past, the National Guard units that would not be People who are now advocating a draft THE INDYPENDENT rules of the Selective Service System favored 1917-1919: The government puts in deployed overseas. need to be challenged to look more care- privileged youths and therefore didn’t trig- place a full-scale draft upon entering World fully at the facts and consider the full, ger the kind of opposition from the elite War I. Some 300,000 men failed to respond 1970:A 15-member presidential com- global implications of what they are pro- that would have stopped the Vietnam War to their draft notice altogether, and as many mission that includes free-market guru posing. Otherwise, they may eventually get sooner. But there is no evidence that draft- as 170,000 more deserted within weeks Milton Friedman calls for abolishing the draft what they are asking for, which would come ing a few more affluent kids would have of reporting. and switching to an all-volunteer army. back to haunt us all. FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 made a difference, since initial support for the war was high and was driven by a gen- 1940: Congress imposes the first-ever 1973: The draft is abolished. Rick Jahnkow works for two San Diego-based eral Cold War fever that affected almost the peacetime draft that continues through Sources: civilweek.com, U.S.Army War College, antimilitarist organizations, the Project on entire population. World War II, the Korean War and the wikipedia.org, rand.org. Youth and Non-Military Opportunities, The claim that a draft could be made Vietnam War. —JOHN TARLETON (www.projectyano.org) and Committee Opposed fairer today isn’t realistic anyway. There to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org). will always have to be medical deferments, This article originally appeared on zmag.org 7 Jan31_p8_9.qxd 02.01.07 2:52 AM Page 1

ANTIWAR

Escalating the Antiwar Movement Confusion on the Left AFTER 4 YEARS OF MARCHING, IRAQ WAR OPPONENTS LOOK TO RAMP UP RESISTANCE

BY A.K. GUPTA mobilize large numbers in ritualistic they are refocusing on community 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division of many recruiting grounds for build- the Iraq Freedom Caucus (IFC), a People Powered Strategy Project, a protests, but it is unable to translate organizing instead of national organ- A new Democratic congressional majority, growing public opposition to the war and George Fort Lewis. Police responded with ing their own vanguard parties.” coalition of trade and industrial decentralized strategy of encourag- he Iraq War may be just as those numbers into political leverage izing. This is the same mistake the pepper spray, tasers, and batons McLaughlin is one of the founders unions, women’s groups, student ing communities to organize them- unpopular among the to bring an end to the war or sustain left made in the early 70s when it W. Bush’s call to “surge” 21,000 more troops to Iraq has brought the antiwar movement to against the peaceful demonstrators, of the newly-revived Students for a unions, Left parties and others com- selves to take action against the TAmerican public as the day-to-day organizing. fragmented into a hundred different ultimately arresting 37 people. Democratic Society (SDS), the radi- mitted to a non-sectarian Iraq and a three pillars that support war – the Vietnam War was but there is no By early 2005, military recruit- movements from labor, environ- a critical juncture. Will large marches, like the Jan. 27 march in Washington, D.C., and One month later, as the troops cal student movement that helped popular front against the occupation. military, the corporate war profi- mass movement agitating for its end ment was faltering, but few groups ment, back-to-the-land, feminism, were deploying to Iraq for a second found the New Left in the 1960s. “If we’re serious about “supporting teers, and the corporate media – as a despite thousands of U.S. casualties. have been able to sustain the hard identity politics, etc. congressional lobbying stop the war? The Indypendent spoke with various activists within the tour, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Ehren The revival of the resistance,” this is the way to do way to slowly crumble at the foun- The Vietnam antiwar movement work it takes to be a constant pres- Movements gain power by tying Watada of the 3rd Stryker Brigade SDS is proof that it,” said McLaughlin. dations of the war machine across drew strength from the explosion of ence outside recruiting stations. community organizing to national movement – including students, advocates of direct action, military resisters, community became the first commissioned offi- while it hasn’t the country. His proposal narrowly social movements in the 60s – pri- With more than half-a-trillion and international issues. The cer to publicly refuse deployment to yet stopped the DAVID SOLNIT escaped the two-thirds majority marily among Blacks, students and dollars burned on the Iraq War explosive growth of the global jus- organizers and engaged Buddhists, – in search of new directions for ending the war. Iraq on grounds the war is illegal. war, the antiwar People Powered Strategy Project vote needed to pass. women – there was a sense of mov- already, there is an organizing tice movement at the turn of the Lt. Watada is facing a court martial movement has Since then, Solnit has chosen to focus ing from victory to victory with the opportunity in tying the defunding millennium strengthened local on Feb. 5. Two journalists and one been successful “Hundreds of thousands of people his energy on the military pillar, sup- political establishment and wealthy of social programs to the obscene organizing by joining them in a Olympia activist recently had sub- in inciting a new have been turning out for four years, porting the organization “Courage to under constant attack. military budget. But, with the rise broader movement against the poenas dropped after being ordered era of student- at some point it is time to escalate,” Resist” and building a movement in The draft also played a critical of neoliberalism, the majority of political and economic forces that INTERVIEWS BY JESSICA LEE the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but it DREW HENDRICKS AND to testify at Watada’s hearing led activism. said longtime San Francisco Bay counter-recruitment, GI resister sup- role in antiwar organizing. The GI Americans buy into the notion that shape our lives. Taking on issues of was also a bold opening up of PHAN NGUYEN Evergreen College student Phan “The initiative activist and artist David Solnit on port and supporting soldiers. antiwar movement reached its peak government should not provide neoliberalism and imperialism – in LESLIE KAUFFMAN political space in this country. It Port Militarization Resistance Nguyen, the subpoenaed activist largely came from youth who were in the current antiwar movement. “It’s “How many people are really in the early 70s, leading to the social welfare or monetary assistance a way that is connected to people’s United For Peace And Justice opened the space for what we see (Olympia WA) who is also facing charges for the their first or second year of activism not up to UFPJ to do that. If the doing civil disobedience or finically breakdown of the military machine (unless it’s middle-class entitle- lives – brings far more people into now, a supermajority of people May actions, notes that antiwar and they were struck by the [antiwar] existing networks aren’t doing what supporting families of resisters? and the eventual U.S. withdrawal ments like social security or mort- movements than toiling away on (UFPJ) speaking out against the war.” In Olympia, Wash., a small antiwar direct action has been successful as a movement’s inadequacies in terms of needs to be done, then we need to When people like Lt. [Ehren] from Vietnam. gage deductions). narrow issues. “It’s hard from the vantage point However, from its hierarchical community is directly confronting result of the small, dedicated com- long term militant strategy as well do it ourselves. I am critical of why Watada are putting their lives on Today, there is no left. What exists As for anarchists and the remnants of 2007 to remember how little organizing structure to its unique the U.S. military. “We are organiz- munity in Olympia. as democratic process,” explained there isn’t national radical organiz- the line and going to jail, we need is fragmented, episodic and reactive. of the global justice movement, they For the full version of this article, see political space there was for dis- focus on mass mobilizations and, ing against the militarization of “When people see people they McLaughlin. ing. There is no reason way we can’t to have a community behind them,” The antiwar movement is able to have been largely invisible. Many say indypendent.org. sent before the Iraq war,” said most recently, its decision to focus Port Olympia, which might not know involved in a public act of With 245 registered SDS chapters organize widespread direct action said Solnit, who during the inter- Leslie Kauffman, Mobilizing efforts to lobbying congress, UFPJ seem like a big deal from an out- civil disobedience, they can better in the country, the philosophical roots with public support.” view was traveling to Olympia to Coordinator for United for Peace has been held responsible by many sider,” said Drew Hendricks, relate to it. The key to empowering of new SDS stem more from the Solnit points to the antiwar support Watada during his upcom- and Justice (UFPJ) – a coalition of in the left for the failure of the Olympia organizer and DJ on Free is letting people see that they can do autonomist/anti-authoritarian/anar- movements’ missed opportunities to ing court martial for refusing to be more than 1,300 local and antiwar movement to actually end Radio Olympia. this too.” Hendricks adds that the chist tradition than the socialist begin- escalate the level of resistance at deployed to Iraq. national organizations. the Iraq War. “Port Olympia is the only option success of PMR is also due to the nings of the original organization. critical junctures such as in March Solnit challenges organizers UFPJ is the “Criticizing UFPJ is not a con- the U.S. military has to ship combat presence of independent media out- “Many of us in SDS are disillu- 2003, when antiwar activists tem- across the country to escalate the mainstream face structive way to move the anti- vehicles and larger units from Fort lets in Olympia. sioned with the tactics, strategy and porarily shut down downtown San level of direct action tactics and of the antiwar war movement forward,” said Lewis, Wash. If we can stop them partisanship within the antiwar Francisco and targeted war profi- develop a national direct action net- movement; Kauffman, whose activist history from using that port, then one of the movement. We’ve managed to make teers. “We should have shut down work. “The biggest hurdles in since its cre- is deeply rooted in the direct largest military bases in the country MATT MCLAUGHLIN youth and students more prominent every city in the U.S. at that time organizing [are] our own conscious- ation in Dec. action tradition. “The direct action cannot support the wars in Iraq or Students For a Democratic at demonstrations by putting pres- and escalated from there.” ness of feeling disempowered. We 2002, it has suc- movement for the most part has Afghanistan,” Hendricks said. Society (SDS) sure on the movement hierarchy. Two years ago at the Second need to shift how people think cessfully organ- been invisible since the Iraq war In May 2006, activists with Port There simply doesn’t seem to be National Assembly of UFPJ Solnit about protest and resistance in this ized several began. The people from the direct Militarization Resistance (PMR), part “Some, like those in charge of UFPJ, much interest in talking strategy, at put forth an antiwar strategy to the country. Radicals and anti-authori- of the largest action background should be of the umbrella see the antiwar movement as a pool least among those in positions of voting member groups based on the tarians need to challenge themselves marches against doing the organizing, rather than group Olympia of support for the Democratic Party, power in the large coalitions. Action to organize locally and then network the Iraq War, bringing together a criticizing UFPJ for what it is Movement for yet the Democrats have just as much has become ritualized. And frankly, themselves nationally to create a coalition of 1400 groups to oppose the doing. We have emphasized creat- Justice and Peace at stake for maintaining U.S. control without a major shake-up of the sta- broad base of power.” Bush administrations’ policy of perma- ing an organization that can offer (OMJP), briefly over Middle East oil,” said Matt tus quo in the movement, I can’t He points to activists in Olympia nent warfare. the broadest group of people a began a 10-day McLaughlin, a freshman at Capital imagine how the movement could as an inspiration for the movement. “To do what UFPJ did in the space to support opposition to the protest at Port Community College in Hartford, ever become a relevant force in shap- “When people blocked the Port of early days, such as the organization war… for ordinary people who Olympia block- Conn. “Others, like ANSWER ing U.S. foreign policy.” Olympia, people from all over the of the massive Feb. 15, 2003 won’t put themselves in the line of ing a convoy of (Act Now to Stop War and End McLaughlin emphasized that the country were excited about it.” demonstration, wasn’t just an fire of tear gas or sit for four hour Stryker combat Racism) and World Can’t Wait, see antiwar movement needs to provide Antiwar militants, seeking to storm Capital Hill, break away from the main march at the Jan. 27 peace mobilization in Washington, D.C. important move to try to prevent meetings.” vehicles from the the antiwar movement as one of solidarity with people in Iraq, such as continued on page 10 PHOTO: GILLIAN KALSON

OCTOBER 7, 2002 FEBRUARY 3, 2003 Tens of thousands of school students military operations in Iraq in his MAY 19, 2005 SEPTEMBER 24, MAY 24, 2006 estimate of civilian deaths in Iraq. Ehren Watada, Iraq Veterans JANUARY 27, 2007 As many as 20,000 people fill the Five members of the “Pit Stop across the U.K. stage walkouts, and “Mission Accomplished” speech Police arrest at least 16 activists 2005 Thirty members of the Port Against the War Deployed estab- An antiwar march in Washington, East Meadow of Central Park in the Ploughshares” enter into Shannon thousands of protesters across the from the flight deck of the U.S.S. during a protest of more than 300 Between 200,000 and 500,000 pro- Militarization Resistance group DECEMBER 30, lish a protest camp called “Camp D.C. draws “tens of thousands” of largest antiwar demonstration, Airport in Ireland and use household U.S. flood urban centers. Protesters Abraham Lincoln. people outside Halliburton’s annual testers organized by ANSWER and blockade Port Olympia,Wash. to stop 2006 Resistance” at Fort Lewis in sup- protesters demanding the new Iraq anti-war timeline organized by Not in Our Name hammers to damage a U.S. Navy in San Francisco shut down large shareholder’s meeting. UFPJ march in Washington, D.C. to a convoy of Iraq-bound Stryker com- Saddam Hussein is hanged. port of Watada. Democratic congressional major- (NION), on American soil since the logistics plane. The five, who could parts of the city, including the finan- APRIL 28, 2004 end the occupation. In the wake of bat vehicles making their way from ity stop the war. BY IRINA IVANOVA AND CHRIS ANDERSON buildup to war in Iraq. have faced 10 years in prison, were cial district. 1,025 are arrested. Images of torture at Abu Ghraib are AUGUST 2005 the destruction of New Orleans by the port to be loaded on cargo ships. DECEMBER 31, 2006 JANUARY 16, 2007 acquitted in 2006. revealed on CBS News. Cindy Sheehan camps out for four Hurricane Katrina, Bush’s approval The U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches A group of service members deliv- [Sources: bbc.co.uk; wikipedia.org; JANUARY 18, 2003 APRIL 7, 2003 weeks at George W. Bush’s ranch in rating is at a historic low. OCTOBER 11, 2006 3,000. ered a petition to Congress of more thinkprogress.org; cnn.com; Antiwar demonstrations take place FEBRUARY 15, 2003 Police preemptively arrest more NOVEMBER 8, 2004 Crawford, Texas, to protest her son, A team of American and Iraqi epi- than 1,000 military personnel who msnbc.com; infoplease.com; white- THE INDYPENDENT around the world. International Millions of people protest the inva- than 95 people attempting to block American and Iraqi forces invade Casey’s, death in Iraq. The Bring OCTOBER 25, 2005 demiologists release a study esti- JANUARY 4, 2007 oppose the war. house.gov; portland.indymedia.org; ANSWER and NION jointly organize sion of Iraq in more than 600 cities entrances to the Carlyle Group in Falluja, destroying large swaths of Them Home Now Tour begins. U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches mating the Iraqi “excess death toll” Outside the pre-trial court martial hist.umn.edu/] large protests in Washington, D.C. around the world. The event is listed New York City. the city, in the bloodiest single bat- 2,000. at 655,000, twenty times Bush’s hearing of military resister Lt. and San Francisco. in the Guinness Book of World tle of the war. THE INDYPENDENT Records as the largest protest in APRIL 9, 2003 JANUARY 27, 2003 human history. The global turnout is U.S. forces take Baghdad. While MARCH 2005 PHOTOS: FREDASKEW.COM FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 As U.N. Chief Arms Inspector Hans estimated at 10-15 million. some Iraqis cheer in the streets, oth- U.S. Army misses its monthly Blix address the U.N. Security ers are rounded up by the American recruiting goal by 27% - the first Council about the failure to locate MARCH 20, 2003 military to help stage the toppling of time in more than five years the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction Explosions are heard in Baghdad at a statue of Saddam Hussein. U.S. Army fails to meet a monthly (WMDs), as 17 people are arrested 5:30 a.m. local time. At 10:15 p.m. target. In June, the U.S. National FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 at a demonstration in the bitter cold EST, Bush announces an “invasion of MAY 1, 2003 Guard misses its monthly recruiting 9

8 outside the U.N. opportunity.” The war has begun. President Bush declares an end to target for the ninth month in a row. Upcoming Escalating the Antiwar Movement Antiwar continued from page 9 (POP) in Newark, New Jersey. carry the deaths and For the last four years, the public face of injuries of their CAITRIONA REED the antiwar movement has been largely in friends on their shoul- Events AND MAIA DUERR the form of a few large demonstrations a ders,” said José Engaged Buddhism & Activism year, leaving a disturbing silence in between. Vasquez, New York “We need to organize and mobilize at the City Iraq Veterans “We understand that social responsibility local level with the same intensity as you do Against the War and spiritual practice is the same thing,” to go to D.C. If everyone went back to their (IVAW) Chapter explained Caitriona Reed, Dharma instruc- towns and organized and mobilized all over President. tor at Manzanita Village Retreat Center in the country, we’d have an antiwar move- IVAW members Warner Springs, Calif. ment,” Hamm said. are uniquely posi- “We teach people to take responsibility And Hamm did just that. Last May he tioned to speak about for their own personal tendencies to react to came up with the idea to help organize “The the situation on the ground in Iraq. internal emotional issues in their lives or to People’s Peace Conference.” “The U.S. War Vasquez, staff sergeant and medical/health the external dynamics of society. When we in Iraq & Our Communities,” which came services instructor in the U.S. Army look at our personal shit, we see that how together Jan. 20 in Newark. More than 115 Reserves, still reports to duty one weekend we respond to foreign policy and the neigh- local organizations and 500 people – largely a month while his application for conscien- FEBRUARY 2 – 7 bor’s dog are all part of the same internal people of color – came together for a day to tious objector is pending. SUPPORT LT. EHREN WATADA process,” Reed said. “We all have choices of learn how the war on Iraq is impacting their “We are speaking from within the mili- Take action against the Iraq war and in sup- how to respond. We have to learn to take local communities. Hamm noted that one of tary institution, giving a story people don’t port of Lt. Watada during his military court responsibility.” the most popular workshops was “How do see in the mainstream media,” Vasquez martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq. However, many who practice meditation we stop the war in our streets?” said. IVAW participated in the Jan. 27 Brooklyn Action: Feb. 3, 4pm. are not involved in the antiwar movement. “For many people in urban communities, D.C. march, although Vasquez admits he Brooklyn Law School “I often talk to people who are very resist- the violence going on in front of them is isn’t sure how effective it was. 250 Joralemon St. ant to the imperial thrust of our culture, just as important as the war in Iraq,” “Given the nature of the war and the thankyoult.org, couragetoresist.org but distance themselves from the antiwar Hamm said. “It is essential to make the audacity of the Bush administration, I feel movement because of its adversarial connection between the two; the decay and that people should be stepping it up a bit,” BEGINS FEBRUARY 5 nature,” noted Reed. “They get turned off despair is because we have to put so much said Vasquez. THE OCCUPATION PROJECT by the strident nature of the march.” of our national resources abroad in Iraq.” IVAW members were arrested handing A campaign of sustained nonviolent civil Maia Duerr, Executive Director of the The other goal of the conference was out- out fliers on depleted uranium in front of disobedience by occupying Congressional Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), said that reach to communities of color to get them the Pentagon Sept. 9, and while protesting offices. her job is to make sure there are alternative involved in the peace movement. Bush’s speech to the U.N. on Sept. 19. In vcnv.org/project/the-occupation-project ways for people to feel involved in the peace “African-American communities have the next year, he said that IVAW plans to movement. consistently been opposed to this war from do more direct actions in front of military FEBRUARY 9, 16 8pm “Our intention is the beginning,” Hamm said. “African- bases and offices of corporate war profiteers SCREENPEACE: AN ANTIWAR FILM FESTIVAL to strongly express Americans have a long history of struggle such as Hummer and KBR. War Resisters League and Brecht Forum: some peaceful solu- in America, and that makes us more sensi- “We use our credibility to focus on the 451 West St. tion to the war and tive to oppression and making war against war on Iraq, however among our member- warresisters.org more humanitarian other people of color. ship there is a spectrum of political views, ways to respond to He wanted the Conference to challenge including the contingent who believe one FEBRUARY 17 9am-5pm. conflicts,” said Duerr, the low involvement in antiwar movement, of the things that leads to these types of STUDENTS FOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY who helped plan which for the African-American community, wars is capitalism itself.” NE REGIONAL CONFERENCE the Buddhist Peace he believes is due to a failure of national and While many in the antiwar movement tout MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY 1ST Delegation at the Jan. 27 D.C. antiwar local Black leadership. “While people might the need to organize the troops, Vasquez cau- ANNUAL CONFERENCE march. “We won’t be screaming or yelling, not respond to a call from an antiwar activist, tioned that you have to know how to do it. studentsforademocraticsociety.org but rather trying to embody peace as much as they would respond to a pastor, union or “We want to hold workshops on how to reach mds-inc.org possible during the march.” lodge president, or local elected officials.” He out to the troops, to understand military cul- The New School According to the mission of BPF, the noted that the success of the recent confer- ture, such as what it feels like preparing to work of an engaged Buddhist is to free all ence was due to the immediate support from deploy. People in military can be intimidating, MARCH 2 beings from contemporary suffering caused Rev. Dr. M William Howard, Jr. of Bethany but we are all people like you, just in uniform. BARRICADING THE WAR MACHINE by racism, sexism, militarism, species-ism Baptist Church in Newark. Also, don’t assume that all troops are pro-war.” IN PITTSBURGH and class oppression. Barricade the National Robotics Engineering Reed noted that many activists visit JOSÉ VASQUEZ INDYPENDENT.ORG EXCLUSIVE: Center, a branch of Carnegie Mellon Manzanita Village because it is a safe place Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) More interviews with antiwar activists. Go to the University (CMU) that develops robotic to practice meditation for individuals in web to read about Medea Benjamin (Code Pink, vehicles and weapons delivery systems for queer, mixed race and political communi- “I don’t feel a sense of urgency in the antiwar Global Exchange), Ruth Benn (National War the U.S. Army and Marines. ties. “How many social organizations have movement. But within the IVAW, the vets Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee) and organizepittsburgh.org been destroyed by interpersonal dynam- are doing what they are doing because they Steve Theberge (War Resisters League). ics?” Reed noted. “We have so little time to MARCH 17 – 18 make social transformation to resist the 4TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR machinery of this nightmare.” 2007 is the 40th anniversary of the historic 1967 "From Protest to Resistance" antiwar Finding a Visionary Narrative march to the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. HOW THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT CAN GROUND ITSELF FOR answer.pephost.org THE LONG HAUL Demonstrations nationwide: unitedforpeace.org March on the Pentagon: BY JOHN TARLETON hen the moment of reckoning about Iraq does come it will offer a painful but MARCH 19 potentially liberating process of collective self-examination as people ask what TAKE IT TO WALL STREET Wwent wrong. The easy answer will be to blame Bush, Rumsfeld, poor planning Challenging the war profiteers with Wall St. and execution or the demonstrators who “emboldened the enemy” with their protests. It will civil disobedience. LAWRENCE HAMM be up to the antiwar movement to pose more difficult questions about the impact of U.S. march19peaceactions.org People’s Organization for Progress/ imperialism at home and abroad and the racial and gender constructs that help sustain it. Troops Out Now Coalition Such a dialogue is urgently needed and could help open up space for an alternative, MARCH – APRIL life-affirming vision of peace and justice that many can share in creating. This vision PORT MILITARIZATION RESISTANCE, “The question becomes, what do you do stands in stark contrast to the Pentagon’s dystopian plans for a future filled with OLYMPIA, WA. when you return home after the massive, resource wars, climate chaos, seething social tensions, urban counterinsurgency, Activists are preparing to blockade Port successful demonstrations in Washington, advanced robotic weaponry, limited nuclear war and so on. Olympia when military shipments are D.C.?” asked Lawrence Hamm, chairman For more, see indypendent.org expected to pass through in March or April. for People’s Organization for Progress THE INDYPENDENT omjp.org NATIONAL peoplepowerstrategy.org War Resisters League: warresisters.org 212-633-6646 • iacenter.org JUNE 27 – JULY 1 Buddhist Peace Fellowship: bpf.org SDS: .studentsforademocraticsociety.org World Can’t Wait: worldcantwait.org Jersey City Peace Movement: U.S. SOCIAL FORUM: ATLANTA, GEORGIA Campus Antiwar Network: Thank You Lt. Wadata: thankyoult.org LOCAL 201-222-3135 Five day conference to challenge war and campusantiwar.net The Occupation Project: Bronx Action for Justice and Peace: [email protected] repression. Courage to Resist: couragetoresist.org vcnv.org/project/the-occupation-project 718-548-1145 • [email protected] NYC World Can’t Wait: 212-969-0772 Iraq Veterans Against the War: ivaw.org Troops Out Now Coalition: troopsoutnow.org Brooklyn Parents for Peace: 718-624-5921 nyc.worldcantwait.org

FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 ussf2007.org Military Families Speak Out: mfso.org UFPJ: unitedforpeace.org [email protected] Prospect Lefferts Voices for Peace and People Powered Strategy: Voices for Creative Non-violence: vcnv.org International Action Center-NYC: Justice: 718-282-3372 CONTACT INFO CONTACT 10 World briefs

TARGET: IRAN For the first time since 2003, the U.S. is station- ing two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf in an order to send what Dick Cheney described as a “strong signal” to Iran. The military buildup coin- cides with President Bush’s directive for U.S. forces to assassinate or capture Iranian operatives found in Iraq. In late January, Israel hosted a major security forum in Herzliya to build public support for an attack on Iran. Speakers included prominent neoconservatives (Richard Perle, James Woolsey), top U.S. and Israeli officials and four U.S. presidential candidates. Democrat candidate John Edwards warned that Iran “threatens the security of Israel and the entire world.” Edwards added, “We need to keep all options on the table, Let me reiterate – all options must Participants march in this year’s World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. Started in 2001, the forum brings together tens of thousands of activists from remain on the table.” around the world every year to network and learn from each other’s struggles. PHOTO: KENYA.INDYMEDIA.ORG GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE HEATS UP The tide of the global climate change debate is rising on Capital Hill as the new Democratic majority moves to create a global warming committee and legislation by July 4.Top U.S. scientists recently testified to members of the House World Social Forum Goes to Africa Oversight and Government Reform Committee that White House officials pressured them to tailor their opinions on climate change to support the BY JORDAN FLAHERTY Humphrey Otieno, of the Nairobi other movements and build solidarity,” leg- Bush administration’s stance on the subject. More People’s Settlements Network, another endary Palestinian resistance figure Leila than 6,000 scientists from around the world met rom Jan. 13-26, tens of thousands of grassroots group active in the slums, also Khaled told me. in Paris late January to finalize details to a report participants, representing nearly every complained of police harassment. “In talk- Khaled spoke at the Forum’s opening con- detailing the first worldwide assessment in six Fnation and people, gathered to strate- ing about rights issues, especially with this cert, calling for international sanctions years on the evidence of global warming. gize, debate and struggle for solutions to administration, you can be caught, against the Israeli state, the closure of worldwide problems of injustice and inequal- detained…four of our group are in prison, Guantanamo prison and for an international ity at the Annual World Social Forum. charged with no proof,” said Otieno. These struggle against oppression and colonialism. Taking place this year in Nairobi, Kenya, activists have been held for six months so Outspoken criticism of U.S. policy and the conference was situated in a massive far, according to Otieno. imperialism continued throughout the sports complex neighboring the slum of Nairobi is a city of contrasts, where those weekend, as Kenyan Forum organizer Oduor Korogocho, where tens of thousands of who can afford it live in gated communities, Ongwen declared, “One American life Kenyans live in abject poverty, a contrast to shop at gated stores, and eat at gated restau- should be no more valuable than one Iraqi the wealth of many of the conference partic- rants, never seeing the approximately 1.5 life. One life of a corporate chief should be ipants from the so-called “developed world.” million slum dwellers living nearby. Paul, equal to the life of one slum dweller.” As with many Nairobi slums, Korogocho the schoolteacher, told me, “Some people in Referring to the Ethiopian military began when squatters built shacks on Nairobi, if you mention to them Korogocho, presence in neighboring Somalia, Professor empty government land. Most of these they will say, ‘Korogocho, is that in Kenya?’” Edward Oyugi, another Social Forum original squatters later rented these small This year’s Forum happened behind gates organizer, declared, “The war next door is structures out to families who pay up to and walls and was guarded by heavily an American war by proxy.” $10 per month to live in a space with no armed Kenyan police, a source of much ten- running water, stolen electricity and the sion at the conference. CRASHING WSF’S GATED COMMUNITY constant threat of government eviction. Initiated in Brazil in 2001, as a counter- Among the demonstrations at the Forum Nairobi has at least 200 slums, where point to events such as the World were daily protests against the Forum itself, almost half of its population lives, accord- Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, especially focused on the high costs of ing to local activists. where the rich and powerful gather to make attending the Forum, placing attendance During a visit to a small school on the decisions that affect the poor, the World out of reach of most Kenyans. PAYING UP FOR TORTURE edge of the slum, teachers told me of the Social Forum was envisioned as an annual Conference organizers replied that the The Canadian government has agreed to pay conditions under which they work. We gathering of grassroots movements from Forum already has a sliding scale, where Maher Arar about $9 million for its role in the talked in one of ten cramped classrooms, around the world. Organizers describe it as registrants from “Global North” coun- U.S. abduction of the Canadian computer scien- less than 10x10 feet, with almost nothing in “an open meeting place for reflective think- tries such as the United States and tist. In 2002 U.S. agents seized Arar during a the way of desks or other basic supplies. ing, democratic debate of ideas… and Europe pay $110 while Kenyans pay stopover flight in New York. He was secretly These ten rooms and 15 teachers serve 450 inter-linking for effective action.” about seven dollars. Organizers also claim flown to Syria where he was jailed and tortured. children. A hubcap hanging from the wall Among the hundreds of topics presented that of the 46,000 people registered for Initially, the U.S. and Canada claimed Arar had acts as a school bell. Several of the basic at the five-day conference were discussions the Forum in the first two days, 7,000 ties to Al Qaeda but Canada now admits he was stone rooms have no ceiling. Many of the among African youths about democracy and were free scholarships given to Kenyan innocent. The Bush administration, however, is students are orphans whose parents have movement building, several presentations on grassroots organizations. refusing to apologize to Arar or remove him from died from AIDS. Sewage runs in a river just New Orleans and the Gulf Coast sponsored Despite these assurances, protesters its terrorist watch list. past the school. by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, work- remained dissatisfied, and a contingent of The teachers described concerns around shops on nonviolent strategy and tactics, pan- slum dwellers, joined by conference partic- U.S. STEPS UP SOMALIA AIR STRIKES security, as drug addicted armed youth els of veterans from Third World liberation ipants, marched through the gates and into The U.S. military has admitted it carried out a roam through the neighborhood. “We have struggles, teach-ins on the Moroccan occupa- the Forum. second round of airstrikes in Somalia opening up to shift our hours according to the threat,” tion of Western Sahara and a workshop called At the Forum, everything is up for a new front in the so-called war on terror. Paul, one of the teachers, told me. The Open Government Through Mass Document debate, including the rules of the Forum. The strikes on Jan. 8 and Jan. 25 occurred FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 police do not enter the camp, which may be Leaking. Africa, which has been underrepre- As a Ugandan activist said at a Saturday just weeks after U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops for the best, as Kenyan police inspire more sented at past forums, was definitely visible panel called Memories of Resistance, “The invaded Somalia and toppled the Islamic fear than the gangs. in large numbers this year. question posed here is, do we, the people, Courts Union. “If you see the police coming, you turn Throughout the week, participants want to be architects of our world, or just The U.S. military says the target of the strikes the other way as quickly as you can,” marched and demonstrated on a range of interior decorators?” were members of Al Qaeda connected to the

Cynthia, a young volunteer with Youth issues, including a march against war in The hope that a better, more just and 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya THE INDYPENDENT Initiatives Kenya (YIKE), told me. “If they Somalia and a march of disabled Ugandan democratic world can be constructed and Tanzania. catch you, they will ask for a bribe, and if activists chanting, “You laugh because you through these encounters is what lies But Oxfam reports that the bombing raids you can’t pay them, they will lock you up. If think we are different, we laugh because we beneath this gathering. actually killed about 70 nomadic herdsmen. Vital you are arrested, you have no rights.” This are the same.” water sources for the region were also disrupted. month, 60 civilians have been killed by the “These Forums are very important. It’s a Jordan Flaherty is an editor of Left Turn

police. There are no investigations into time when people can meet from different Magazine – www.leftturn.org. He can be reached 11 police killings. parts of the world, we can network with at [email protected]. 12 FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 THE INDYPENDENT ret e hi w or.POO VIRGINIALEAVELL PHOTO: hours. free tosettheirown buttheyworkabouthalfasmuchandare tobuildresorts, liketheonesemployed laborers, wage Fishermen hereearnroughlythesameamountaslocal sunrise. A NaiLairesidentcastshisnetat lagers sportfadedtsunamivolunteer T-shirts. and logosonroadsidetrashcans, andvil- aid organizations. NGOshave blazedcrosses village islitteredwithtracesofinternational this sleepyMuslimcommunity. Today, the ment soldiersweren’t theonlynewvisitorsin grove treesandcoastlineforests. onslaught ofthewavetoabufferman- Many attributetherelativelyslow were destroyed,onlyonevillagerdied. and, althoughtheirhomesandmosques ing. Theygatheredtheirchildrenandran, claiming morethan200,000lives. shores ofSouthandSoutheastAsiaAfrica, ter andsentsetsofmammothwavesontothe billions oftonsseawaterupfromitsepicen- seafloor earthquakeof9.3magnitudeforced The tsunamihitonDec.26,2004aftera OPEN FORBUSINESS? saved theirhomesthatday. sive resistancetothesoldiers’ordersleave out ontheirmorningcatch,butaggres- women wereunarmed,theirhusbandsstill with herorphanedgrandsononhip.The describing howshehelpeddefendthehomes Where elsecouldwego?”Singkalarecalls, built onlandtheynolongerowned. diers, theirnewlyconstructedhomeswere property immediately:accordingtothesol- her neighborswereorderedtovacatethe southern Thaifishingvillage.Singkalaand officials broughtguns,notrelief,tothis struck justthreemonthsprior, butthese ing fromthemassivetsunamithathad two yearsago.Residentswerestillrecover- village onabrightMarchmorningnearly nets whenthirtysoldiersmarchedintotheir 49, andherneighborswererepairingfishing Nai Lai,THAILAND—HalimaSingkala, B Y In theaftermathofdisaster, govern- V “We screamed.We yelled‘getout!’ V illagers inNaiLaisawthewavecom- IRGINIA L EAVELL o’clock mostmornings,guns through the organizer. Heleaveshomeinhisboatat5 is afishermanandpart-timecommunity Singkala’s neighbor, NaisuthinLeebumroong, “NONE ASFREETHIS” land salestodeveloperssincethedisaster. ancestral homestoevictionandgovernment fishing communitieslikeNaiLaihavelost for corporateinvestmentinthesouth.Many aster insteadopenedupmanynewavenues pretense oflivelihoodpreservation.Thedis- promotion oftourismdevelopmenthasno “open forbusiness.”Butthegovernment’s cheerfully reportedthatthecountrywas stages, theTourism AuthorityofThailand most recoveryeffortsstillintheirearly nities areresistingjustthesame.” nities hitbythetsunami,andothercommu- taken villagers’landinmanycoastalcommu- land issuesaren’t unique.“Developershave Aid Center, says Andaman Community swept awayandreplacedwithnewones.” when theoldbuildingsandhomeswere Most ofthebeachesbecamemoredesirable Phuket andsouthThailandonthemap. Observer: illustrated inaninterviewwith opment modelhasbeenspreading. Andaman Coast,thisopportunisticdevel- Coast andthetsunamihereon America, KatrinaontheAmericanGulf than thetsunami:DisasterCapitalism. the AndamanCoastevenmoredramatically a newthreatwhichcouldchangelifealong But alongwiththeblessingofaidhascome plastic stationsdonatedbyaGreekNGO. now growhydroponicvegetablesinthemany ful: newhouseswerebuiltandsomefamilies Just monthsafterthetsunamihit,with Panon Butakeaw, alegalworkerwiththe As PhuketrealestateagentKristaHunter After HurricaneMitchinCentral Some oftheaideffortshavebeensuccess- “[The tsunami]hashelpedput Thailand’s post-tsunami Development orDisaster? THE TIDEOFDISASTER CAPITALISM THAILAND FISHERMENSWIMAGAINST Rights andLegal London’s who feeltheymustchampion forthem- represents otherportionsofthe population Thailand’s nationalslumnetworkwhich sprung upbetweensouthernsurvivorsand Bangkok formeetingsandprotests. larly sendsvillagerstwelvehoursnorthto Thailand’s people’s movement.NaiLairegu- the AssemblyofPoor, thenetworkbehind government, manycommunitieshavejoined before. Inthefaceofabandonmentfromtheir struggled topreservethelivestheyknew Since survivingthetsunami,villagershave FIGHTING TOGETHER Butakeaw, “theyarestronger.” lem andbegintostruggletogether,” says selves anddeterminetheirownfuture. rights andthelawsotheycanorganize them- he explains,helps property tovisitors report beingtrickedintohandingovertheir acres hasbeenboughtfromvillagers.Many acres ofpubliclandtodevelopers,and1800 Nai Lai,thelocalgovernmenthassold240 lic landholdingsintsunami-affectedareas.In bill ($2.70).Shedeclined. an aidworker, wasofferedasingle100-baht little signofit.Onegrandmother, visitedby baht ($400)perschool-agedchildhaveseen 30,000 baht($800US)eachplus15,000 survivors. Familiesthatwerepromised through localgovernment–hasyettoreach international organizations –funneled sell offtheirancestrallands. desperate decisionsomevillagersmadeto lack ofassistancemayhavemotivatedthe often slowtoarrive,ifitcameatall;this following thetsunami,governmentaidwas developers werequicktoarriveonthescene rebuilding ontheiroriginalland.While sometimes prohibitedresidentsfrom official governmentresponseinthearea few heartswithhisdisasterresponse.The “Thaksin, getout!” he tiesthemwithyellowflagsthatsay marks hisseanetswithbuoys.Unlikemost none asfreethis.” ing. “I’vehadalotofjobs”,hesays,“but enough tohelpsupporthisfamily. much asbeforethetsunami,buthecanearn sometimes sharks.Hedoesn’t bringinas sea. Hecatchescrab,fish,squid,rays,and hanging mangroveforests,andridesoutto for and organizes regionalweekendtrainings says PanomButakeaw, cation intheirvillages. and LegalAidCentertodobasiclegaledu- trained bytheAndamanCommunityRights fers, villagerslike how theirlandwassoldoutfromunderthem. Singkala andherneighborsarestillunsureof land titlesor From Bangkok,asolidalliancehas “When villagersseetheircommonprob- The Thaigovernmenthasliquidatedpub- In NaiLai,muchoftheaidmoneyfrom The recentlyoustedPrimeMinisterwon Like mostfishermen, Besides, otherworkjustisn’t asappeal- “ In responsetoquestionable community members.The It’s betteriftheycanteachthemselves,” represent thegovernment. villagers Leebumroong havebeen claiming toholdtheir who visitsvillages understand their Center’s work, Leebumroong land trans- For moresee:www.commonlanguageproject.net not goinganywhere.” village-removal schemes. to meetawell-organized resistance toany villagers promisethatdeveloperscanexpect right toreturntheirland.TheNaiLai dents arecurrentlyfightingincourtforthe demands. InnearbyNamKhem,fiftyresi- allies growsstrongerandunitesaroundclear ground, amovementoffisherfolkandtheir these coastalcommunities.Butonthe tsunami waveswouldhavewashedaway and businessrelationships. the Thaigovernment’s developmentschemes turquoise sea,isnotoneeasilyoverlookedby sands, shadymangrovesandglittering Nai Lai’s postcardbeach,withitswhite geous cornersoftheworldliketheirsare. because theyknowhowhighindemandgor- cal. Theyknowwhatthey’reupagainst, being ofsomehelp,butvillagersareskepti- to useforceevictvillagers. return, oriftheydo,won’t beprepared ment willmeanthatthesoldierswon’t coup againstThaksinShinawatra’s govern- idents areoptimisticthatlastSeptember’s staving offthesoldierseachtime.Manyres- off guardagain,andthey’vesucceededin Lai villagershavemadesurenottobecaught returned threetimesinthepastyear, theNai little more.Thoughthemilitaryhas themselves fishingalittlelessandmeeting Newly politicized,manyvillagersfind “WE’RE NOT GOINGANYWHERE.” destroys theother.” two worldscan’t coexist,”hesays.“One the localenvironmentandfisheries.“Our often-overlooked impactofnewcomerson new subdivisions.Heworriesaboutthe has hadoddjobsdoinglandscapingforthe ers liveinthem,”saysLeebumroong,who is lookingtobuildinthearea. one companyorganizers havereasontothink a fivestarresortandspachaininThailand,is local middlemenareontheground.Amari, are behindtheconstruction,asusuallyonly tourism. Mosthavenoideawhatcompanies sea orhavebeenotherwisepushedoutby labor ofvillagerswhohavelostaccesstothe landscapers. Theindustrywelcomesthe many villagersnowworkasbuildersand site forexpensivehomesandresorts,where hotels. Thewholeareaisabusyconstruction city ofPhuketisbrimmingwithluxury a lotlikePhuket.Sixtykilometersawaythe “It makessensethatwefighttogether.” northeastern Thailand,saysofthealliance. Boonjear, aslumcommunityorganizer in nity rebuildandmoveforward. year afterthetsunamitohelpcommu- organizer moveddowntoNaiLaiforthe protesting forlandrights.OneBangkok rebuild, andhavesincejoinedforcesin trucked downafterthetsunamitohelp selves. Representativesfromthenetwork Naisuthin laughsattheprospect:“We’re To There areevenrumorsofthegovernment “Thais buildtheresorts,butonlyforeign- If theydon’t, NaiLaimightstartlooking “We havethesamegoals,”Kovit

outsiders, itmightseemthatthe reviews

NY CHILDREN NECTAR CAFÉ 198 COURT ST., BROOKLYN. 8AM – 8PM DAILY

FILM have a concrete impact on what Jacob Riis called the city’s “other half.” Unlike Riis, though – who used his camera to expose the Back in squalid living conditions in Lower East Side tenements – Goldfield leaves the harsh realities the GDR of political and economic divide almost entirely out of the picture. In less skilled THE DECOMPOSITION hands, this effect might have come across as OF THE SOUL stagy and unrealistic. But Goldfield’s beauti- DIR. MASSIMO IANNETTA fully composed portraits capture poignant, AND NINA TOUSSAINT, 2002 personal moments, and the universal emotions that come with them: a West African girl OPENS AT FILM FORUM FEB. 7 wincing as a relative tightly braids her hair, or FOR A 2-WEEK RUN an Algerian boy bending over in prayer in a Brooklyn mosque. DECOMPOSITION: OPERATIVE Because NYChildren lacks broader METHOD USED BY STATE political context, viewers might find them- SECURITY TO EFFICIENTLY selves wondering what spurred participants to FIGHT SUBVERSIVE ACTION. flee their homelands for New York in the first Given this definition, from the East Toumani from Mali, who lives in the Bronx. PHOTO: DANNY GOLDFIELD place, or whether they have faced any obstacles German secret police depart- in their pursuit of the proverbial American ment’s Dictionary of Operative ART Dream. The project is narrower in scope than, Work, The Decomposition of the Soul, a for example, Meter Menzel’s brilliant 1994 Belgian-produced documentary book Material World, which uses portraits of about the former East German A City View of the World’s Children families surrounded by all of their belongings police state, couldn’t be better titled. to address global class differences. Menzel Opening with the sound of anny Goldfield plans to photograph says, despite financial struggle. One is the devoted about eight pages worth of photo- wind on empty institutional one child from every country on the daughter of an Uzbek barber, for instance, and graphs and text to each featured family, so grounds (establishing a chill Dplanet – without stepping foot out- another is the child of a South Korean pastor that readers could acquaint themselves with that stays with us throughout), side New York City. who recently moved to Tennessee. the people behind the possessions; Goldfield, the film features interviews with A former art director for films and tel- While these children don’t seem to have on the other hand, insists that his subjects’ sto- two former detainees at Berlin- evision commercials, Goldfield has snapped much in common, Goldfield has made it his ries are not his to tell – and that he isn’t trying Hohenschönhausen, the central portraits of immigrant kids from 136 countries mission to help their communities find com- to make a political statement. political prison of the former since founding the project NYChildren in mon ground. In 2005, subjects mingled at an It is ironic, then, that some of his most fas- German Democratic Republic. 2004. Now he is working with volunteers to exhibit in a Brooklyn cafe, where Goldfield cinating snapshots seem rich with symbol- Established in 1945 as an intern- track down 58 more subjects – families with says they danced and played, seemingly ism. One of the most memorable ones shows ment camp by operatives of the roots in tiny or isolated places like North unaware of cultural stereotypes. Now, the a Malaysian girl gleefully clutching a plastic NKVD, the predecessor to the Korea, Vanuatu and Seychelles. (A complete artist-cum-activist has outlined plans on his spoon with a pair of chopsticks, as if striking KGB, it was converted one year list is posted on the project website, website for a program that will help families an ideal balance between assimilation and later to the central “preventive www.nychildren.org) Photo shoots have taken arrange play dates for their children. When cultural pride. Her portrait, and all of the [pretrial] prison” for political dis- him all over the five boroughs, from a public the project is complete (next summer, others, seem to suggest that each immigrant sidents and held the distinction of housing project to a penthouse owned by a Goldfield hopes), subjects from all 194 coun- is reaching for a distinct and personal human containing more interrogation wealthy lesbian couple. But many of his sub- tries will gather again at the final exhibition. dream – American or otherwise. rooms than cells. Operated by East jects are the children of middle class workers – In this way, NYChildren is able to transcend Photos posted at www.nychildren.org. German secret police (the “Stasi”), ordinary citizens who are “thriving,” Goldfield its current confinement to the internet and —LIANA GREY which counted 90,000 official and an estimated 300,000 “non- official” collaborators, the prison was part of what is widely regarded Hohenschönhausen (its name lated before his death in 1999 from table worlds focused on the people and journalist Sacco penned a as one of the most effective intelli- translates to “beautiful village on a a rare type of leukemia that he had behind the stories. In The Fixer: A tome of misery and humanity gence systems in history. hill”) continued operating until been deliberately irradiated during Story from Sarajevo, Joe Sacco con- with The Fixer. Sacco returns to a Detained for helping others days before the Berlin Wall fell, his detention in the prison. He had. tinues this tradition in the personal, potent yet half forgotten cross the Berlin Wall, one man and reaching a final crescendo of panic Even as Hohenschönhausen is medium of a graphic novel. moment of the Twentieth Century one woman recount the many in which officials attempted to converted into a memorial, this Author of the groundbreaking – the Bosnian War. hours of interrogation, sleep depri- destroy records, tearing files by austere first effort from writer- comic series Palestine, illustrator vation, humiliation and mock tri- hand when shredders collapsed directors Massimo Iannetta and continued on next page als that preceded conviction and under the load. The memories of Nina Toussaint reads as warning of more “traditional” imprisonment. just two former prisoners, how- both a past and a future much too Remon Froment’s camera follows ever, provide a trove of painstak- close for comfort. them silently through the empty ing detail to carry the narrative. rooms, still marked with signs of The single document the film —IRINA IVANOVA human presence – an empty relies on is the Stasi Dictionary of teacup, some lumps of sugar. Political Operative Work, whose Unmoving, suspenseful visuals definitions and interrogation tac- BOOKS have a hypnotic effect, exacerbat- tics, read aloud throughout the ing the sheer weight of the spoken film, provide a chilling backdrop Bosnian War words. of governmental doublespeak. This The documentary is Orwellian is the one area in which an appreci- Drawn Out THE INDYPENDENT to the core, simultaneously dated ation of German and its hypercom- and eerily futuristic both in visuals pound noun structures would help THE FIXER: A STORY and subject, and exploits this to its in understanding the film, as the FROM SARAJEVO advantage. Though the bleak envi- English subtitles fall short of con- rons could easily belong to some veying this linguistic complexity. BY JOE SACCO RAWN UARTERLY underfunded Soviet school or hos- The film’s most unnerving qual- D & Q , 2003 FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 pital, nothing in the decrepit ity is its quiet demonstration of the buildings is accidental – windows after effects of torture outside the let in light but are too thick to see prison: former detainees, including erociously honest texts that through; light switches are inef- the two we meet, continued to be change our perception of the fectual. There truly is no darkness watched after their release, even in Fworld and ourselves are rare. and nowhere to hide – your fellow the West. Ex-prisoner Jürgen Fuchs, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and prisoners are probably informing whose poetic writings are inter- Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle are but 13 on you as well. spersed throughout the film, specu- two examples that create unforget- LOOK BOTH WAYS: BISEXUAL POLITICS reviews BY JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 2007 Bi is Beautiful

continued from previous page ennifer Baumgardner looks both ways, chasm between superstars and regular folks is Yet in all spheres, people do check each which in her parlance means that she enormous, and their example is no more likely other out, and anyone or anything that In a deserted hotel lobby Sacco Jsleeps with both men and women. Her to lead to tolerance than Ciara’s ode to absti- encourages openness is to be lauded. meets Neven, a chain-smoking, latest book explores what it means to be nence, a song called Goodies, will slam a psy- Baumgardner’s assessment of her own rela- hard-drinking native of Sarajevo, bisexual. While it is provocative and enter- chic chastity belt on horny adolescents. tionships illustrates what it means to adopt a Bosnia. Neven guides the author taining, it sidesteps several important Similarly, when Baumgartner writes consciously chosen identity. Honest and to smoky café bars, pool halls aspects of American sexual pathology, that,“College campuses are good barometers forthright, she questions whether the Jennifer filled with regulars and debris- which renders it less comprehensive than it who dates men is “just a straight girl,” cluttered streets that were might have been. then analyzes what “just” scenes of war. A former mem- The book merges memoir, cul- means. Her candor is refresh- ber of a paramilitary outfit tural critique and polemic with a ing. with connections to nefarious “look-who-I’ve-slept-with” At the same time, I wished figures, Neven was in a ripe bravura. Along the way, it that she had paid less atten- position to “find [for] war cor- attempts to deconstruct tion to Freudian missteps respondents the human bisexual behavior and elbow and turned, instead, to tragedies that make news edi- its place onto feminist and helping people appreciate tors happy.” In other words, a queer agendas. Time will the continuum of desire and fixer. From arranging prosti- tell whether this gives the concomitant behavior at the tutes for foreign journalists to “B” in LGBTQ organiza- core of human existence. paying locals with beer to tions more clout or adds Such understanding might retell their post-war ordeals, bisexual demands to feminist mitigate the trend of men the moral implications of a wish-lists. denying that they have sex fixer’s job are dubious at best. “Bisexuality, like feminism, with other men in order to pre- The fixer himself serves as the has freedom at its root,” serve the illusion of heterosexual- center of the tragic maelstrom, Baumgardner writes, “the need to ity. It might also allow those who and through him we get to have more, not less, to say ‘and’ not eschew monogamy to talk about ways know some of the “defenders of ‘or.’” She sees bisexuality’s political to safely love multiple partners, a topic Sarajevo,” such as Ismet invisibility as a reflection of society’s love that tends to be avoided despite many peo- Bajramovic, a.k.a. Celo. With a of the binary and desire to keep things simple ple’s forays in this terrain. RA KO history of drug dealing and – straight or gay, normal or deviant. SY Despite these flaws, Look Both Ways is INE explosive violence, he became a Of course, life is rarely this cut-and-dry. ROL important. Sassy, bold and cleverly written, charismatic paramilitary leader. Baumgardner heralds public figures like Ani CA Baumgardner celebrates bisexual women as We also meet Musan Topalovic, DiFranco, Anne Heche and Alice Walker as major players in the pro-sex feminist move- a.k.a. Caco, a former folk musi- exemplars of sexual freedom, because they have ment. Likewise, she reminds us that political cian with no criminal past publicly affirmed their bisexuality. This, she of this moment in history” because they are and psychic liberation are entwined, that turned paramilitary leader argues, forces conversations open. Furthermore, rife with bisexual exploration, she is getting social reorganization requires that we address whose “exploits became the stuff it shifts the domestic paradigm, creating what only part of the story. According to the the impulses that goad our behavior. Lastly, of legend and myth.” The war- she calls “gay expectations” – intimacy, open- American Council on Education, less than she revels in her power to attract and go after torn city is characterized by ness and female orgasms – in straight relation- half of U.S. residents get college degrees. what and whom she wants. The power to images of a desolate Holiday Inn ships, and “straight expectations” – visibility, What’s more, commuter schools, including objectify, coupled with subverting the male splayed against a bombed-out marriage, children – in queer ones. community colleges, are vastly different gaze, can be heady. Take it, she tells us, and section of the city. Against this In some ways she’s right, and celebrities are from institutions in which students live in don’t look back. backdrop Neven scavenges the to be commended any time they publicly dorms; the experimentation rampant at terrain for physical and psycho- declare their identity or politics. Nonetheless, Princeton or Smith is far less likely at Nassau —ELEANOR J. BADER logical sustenance. I’m not 100 percent sold on the argument. The Community College. The interconnected stories crisscross through time: from 2001 to 1991 to 1995 with the point of view shifting seamlessly from first person to second and commentary back. At times the panels swim BY NICHOLAS POWERS across the page; at others they Married to the Left are bruised photographs tossed in a forgotten scrapbook. The overall effect is a powerful reud famously wrote that a man’s first love is defeats became a life passion. After fighting her for Orleans handing food to homeless families, after mosaic of exploitation, absurd- his mother and each woman afterward is a years I’ve achieved a small measurable success. The seeing Sean Bell’s grey face as he lay in a coffin it ity, humor and violence. The F prism through which he loves a new view of price is I'm now married to the Left. has become painfully clear that the people we talk author’s obsessive attention to her. I was wary of his theory until my mom was re- I am more conservative than my mom. My love for of saving need more than words. So I went to D.C. minutiae, exhibited through his telling stories of her 1960s activism, and it sounded her was always greater than my love for the Left. to march again, but the knowledge is rising that it’s meticulous crosshatching, is like my life right now. How did the Left become a sub- Ideas never impressed me; emotions, not thoughts, time to risk more than my voice – it’s time to risk comparable to his drive to “get stitute for my mother? were my compass. Leftism felt like a maze and to find my life. the story.” He gives as much For my mom, activism was an escape from a her I followed a convoluted map of ideology. I found The last time I saw my mom in Boston she’d care to the stitching in a sweater closed-in Puerto Rican family and a mother who the center of it to give her a son she can be proud of. gone natural. She was so proud. I rubbed her hair; as he does to the sullen faces in a said she was born too dark. Even as she grew older Now the question arises: was love worth the lie of it was tight, curly and soft. It was hers, all hers. My crowd. Although Joe Sacco dis- and lighter she saw herself as small and ugly. The acting more Left than I am? mom claimed her body and its history. When I con- tances himself from the fully- Left gave her a larger world that said “Black is It’s too late for me to answer. Instead I accept that gratulated her, my left-wing revolutionary voice felt rendered subject of the book by beautiful.” When the movement collapsed in the what is true about lies is not what they say but our like a wedding ring around my throat. But when I caricaturizing himself, his con- Seventies, the reason for her life fell with it and she need to tell them. And I’ve gotten so good at it that returned to New York and to my work, it began to stant presence, rendered with began to doubt her body and her politics. She was Leftist ideology is fun. I can raise my fist knowing feel like a slave collar. simple lines and textures, is a drifting, and I wanted to save her from the fatigue that it grabs hold of a higher law. My passion is legal- The Left is my wife. She’s tired of theory but loves nice change from the “objectiv- of being lost. ized. It scares people and I get strength from their to talk in abstractions. She marches in circles while ity” that most journalists We began a silent war. She got a nosejob to fix her- fear. But now, after years of rhetoric, the Left’s our leaders murder the world. She claims their vic- assume. self “white.” I soaked in the sun to be brown as a embarrassing ineffectiveness is scaring me. tims as private property and uses their blood to In the end this black-and- peanut. She straightened her hair. I let mine lock into At the city-flooding antiwar march of 2003, I was deepen the red of our flag. She’s gone vegan. She’s white graphic novel presents a dreads that swung like chains binding me to the in Times Square. Cops panicked as we rocked the always been brown but now feels okay about it. THE INDYPENDENT malleable world of gray where slaves in our blood. If she scowled at my hair, I’d only barricades. We pushed through into the street, eager Sometimes she jokes of shooting whites and/or everyone’s goal is survival at any date sistas who flaunted Afro-puffs, twists, cornrows to go further when a headline slid across the large capitalists. She’s always asking for money. cost. With The Fixer, Joe Sacco and Nubian dreads a la Jada Pinket in The Matrix; Times Square screen, “George Bush and Tony Blair Not long ago, sometimes even still, I would’ve reinforces his place as a comics each style being another angle on the Black pride she halt war against Iraq in response to global outcry.”We accepted the state of affairs to keep the faith. Now master and journalist, and his left in the sixties. cheered with one voice. Weeks later, Baghdad glowed her 9/11 conspiracy theories, tribal fetishes and work merits examination and When she was fired from Manchester Community with bomb explosions. self-righteous guilt feel like betrayals of my politi-

FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 celebration. College for organizing welfare mothers to retrieve Lately our ineffectiveness, our selfish fear is not cal origin, that love is a universal need. The Left is book money cut from the state budget, I vowed to be only embarrassing, it’s dangerous. After I breathed my best friend. I love her. I just don’t know how to

14 —HUESO TAVERAS paid in full for being progressive. Each of her political ash on 9/11 and waded through a flooded New show it anymore. the a-string BY STEVEN WISHNIA BOOKS FOR CHANGING THE WORLD

Last Song for Alice Coltrane The lice Coltrane, who died both leading and following the follower of Indian guru Swami Meaning Jan. 12 at the age of 69, free-jazz revolutionaries blow- Satchidananda, her music became Acreated some of the ing out of the Lower East Side. more exclusively devotional. of Marxism most furiously chaotic and Yet it was also intensely spiri- “Everything I do is an offering to serenely spiritual music in the tual, questing music; his 1966 God,” she told Jazz & Pop maga- By Paul D’Amato history of jazz. Although best album Meditations roils and zine in 1968. Two years later, she’d It is fashionable for known as the widow of the howls furiously for almost 20 write of trying to create “an pundits to declare great John Coltrane – she minutes before settling down ancient, sacred sound.” played piano in his last band – into a track called “Serenity.” She eventually quit the com- every so often that she also recorded at least one Struggling hard to achieve mercial jazz world to dedicate Marxism is dead. masterpiece on her own, her peace seemed to be its message, herself to religious music, though But you can’t keep a 1970 album Ptah the El Daoud. one that resonated with Black she returned in 2004 for a last Along with Sun Ra and her activists, post-beatnik and ghetto album, Translinear Light, recorded good theory down. fellow Coltrane collaborators, poets and the more adventurous with her saxophonist son Ravi. The poverty, class Pharoah Sanders and McCoy white psychedelic-rock musicians. inequality, war and Tyner, Alice Coltrane was one The Coltranes’ music overall ALICE ISBN 1-931859-29-9 $12 environmental of the key musicians who seemed to be settling into such a COLTRANE degradation that brought Indian, African, and hard-won serenity on the last 1937 – 2007 today’s globalized capitalist system creates on an Middle Eastern tonalities and recordings they made before ever-expanding scale raises questions for which rhythms into jazz. She was also John’s death in 1967, and Alice one of the rare women instru- continued in that vein on her first Marxism still offers fresh and relevant answers. mentalists prominent in jazz, a solo albums. A Monastic Trio The Meaning of Marxism introduces the most field that has had fewer women (1968) brought the screaming- important of Marx’s ideas in a truly acceesible actually creating the music for-freedom quality down into a format. than even the notoriously frame of raga reflectiveness and macho genres of hip-hop and modal jazz-gospel swing. Ptah the heavy metal. El Daoud is my personal favorite, SPECIAL OFFER FOR INDYPENDENT READERS: Born Alice McLeod, she grew with Coltrane’s rippling, beauti- up in a musical family in Detroit, ful harp on “Blue Nile” and Ron JUST ENTER “INDY” WHEN ORDERING FROM OUR also playing organ, harp and Carter’s descending bassline WEBSITE AND SAVE 25% ON ALL HAYMARKET TITLES! vibraphone. “She could have been walking under Pharoah one of the true giants on vibes,” Sanders’ sax on the title said bandleader Terry Gibbs, track. Journey in Available in stores, or by calling (773) 583-7884. with whom she played in the Satchidananda (1970) www.haymarketbooks.org early sixties. She met John blended the apart- Coltrane in 1963, when the ment-at-winter-dusk Gibbs band opened for him. warmth of jazz piano They were married in 1965, and with the hyp- she joined his band after Tyner notic drone of left the next year. the Indian John Coltrane at the time was tanpura and playing some of the most the meditative intense and dissonant music plucking of the ever created by a significantly Middle Eastern oud. popular American musician, After she became a bluestockings radical bookstore | activist center fair trade cafe 172 ALLEN ST. • 212.777.6028 letters to the editor bluestockings.com All $$ is suggested, not required A FREE PAPER FOR FREE KIDS Continued from page 2 over the masses of working people, the majority of Americans and even more THURS., FEB. 8TH @ 7PM - FREE Democrats will continue to take the lib- so the world, but it doesn’t serve the RELEASE PARTY: NEXT MEETING: eral left’s support for granted and go on interests of Empire. T COOPER WHERE QUEER HIP-HOP RESPONSES TO A.K. GUPTA’S AND LITERATURE MEET Sat, February 10, 1–3pm IRAQ ARTICLE supporting the war, Israel, “globaliza- Take a look at history, it has only been Celebrate the paperback release Come help as we copy edit A.K. Gupta’s analysis of the unwilling- tion,” etc. And that will continue for as those movements willing to confront of Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry and finalize our next issue. ness of Democratic leaders to end the long as the reformist lesser-evilists, who power with power that made real change Blondes, surely the only Jewish immigrant / Charles Lindbergh / All are welcome! war in Iraq (“Antiwar Dems Say Yes to believe that any social change in this happen. Do you think the Vietnam War transgendered Eminem book in Empire,” Jan. 10, 2007) sparked a country, on any issue, has to come from ended because of some marches, letter the history of literature. heated debate on Indypendent.org. within the Democratic Party, are allowed writing and pleading with elected repre- NYC INDYMEDIA OFFICE to dominate what passes for a left in this sentatives? It ended because of the civil- FRI., FEB. 9TH @ 7PM - $5 SUGG. 4 W. 43rd Street, Room 311 PERFORMANCE: (between 5th & 6th Ave.s) country. So, by all means hit the streets ian and military antiwar movements that EMAN RIMAWI BRILLIANCE COMES The writer is needlessly attacking the on Jan. 27 and March 19 but connect revolted against the state and made the FROM THE HEART Subway: F/V/4/5/6/7 to 42nd St. Democrats, who, aside from a couple the movement against the war to a fight war too difficult to continue. Eman Rimawi returns to bless the antiwar rallies, are the only barrier to build an independent working-class stage with poetry, songs and stories. IndyKids is a free progressive against the Bush plan. The Dems are alternative to both bosses’ parties. SAT., FEB. 10TH @ 7PM - FREE current events newspaper and rightly going to pass a resolution against —ROY ROLLIN LETTER FROM BEHIND THE RELEASE PARTY: teaching tool for grades 4-8. the war and test the waters for broader WALLS GAYLE BRANDEIS SELF-STORAGE The politically resonant story of a action in Congress against the war. Dems A.K. Gupta responds: I enjoy your paper. Keep up the great THE INDYPENDENT woman whose habit of buying and [email protected] must take a cautious approach in cutting Why won’t [the Democrats] confront work of exposing corrupt government. reselling storage unit contents funding of the war to avoid damaging the imperial presidency? Because The problem with government is that sets her on a path of self-discov- 212-592-0116 “selling-out-the-troops” rhetoric that despite the blunders of Vietnam and they are not organized in any funda- ery inspired by Whitman’s Leaves will/is coming from the White House. As a now Iraq, it works well for the eco- mental way to actually create reason- of Grass. liberal, I hope this happens, but the timing nomic elite. Having power centered in able righteous self-respect to any WED., FEB. 14TH @ 7PM must be right. It is easy for those like the one narrow institution headed by one human dignity. All they are doing is READING: FEBRUARY 1 – 21, 2007 writer to take shots from the sidelines at powerful individual allows the state to being self-centered and prejudicial to BERNARDINE DOHRN the Dems.The Dems were elected to take quickly deploy power in the interests of everyone that doesn’t meet their stan- SING A BATTLE SONG These communiques of the this war head on, but we must be the elite. Having foreign policy and war- dard. And what is that standard? Weather Underground are idealis- thoughtful and smart about how we do it. making decided by hundreds of voices Actually they have no idea themselves. tic, inspired, pissed-off, and often —BLUE STATE DEMOCRAT in Congress, which is what is supposed God Bless Ya’ll. way-over-the-top, they epitomize the psychedelic, sexual, anti-war to happen, is messy and time consum- —ROBERT F. CALDWELL counterculture of the American As long as no viable left alternative ing and far less likely to result in action. MICHAEL UNIT ’60s and ’70s. INDYKIDS.NET 15 exists that threatens their stranglehold Of course this would be great for the TENNESSEE COLONY, TX Jan31_p16.qxd 02.01.07 2:26 AM Page 1