New York Oneidas under siege

New York, Sept. 26— Upstate New York Oneida Nation member Danielle Shenandoah Patterson and her three children face around-the-clock surveillance and the immediate threat of eviction and demolition of their home at the hands of the tribe’s illegitimate leader, Ray Halbritter.

Under the guise of health and safety violations, says Patterson, Halbritter has forcibly inspected, condemned and demolished the homes of 11 Oneida families since 2001. He continues to hone in on traditionalist dissidents, such as Patterson, who oppose his rule.

Since 1993, Halbritter has incorporated the nation as the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, Inc., established himself as its CEO, and built the profitable Turning Stone Casino, which many Oneidas say violate their spiritual tradition. He has also instituted a Men’s Council to supersede the traditional matrilineal government and the Iroquois Grand Council of Chiefs, locked the traditional longhouse and closed down the community food bank that had formerly served 280 native families, according to Patterson.

Last Friday afternoon, Sept. 20, about 50 people gathered outside Gov. Pataki’s mansion in Albany to voice support and raise awareness about the plight of the eight remaining traditionalist native families on the 32-acre territory, the only undisputed Oneida land which remains of the original 6 million acres occupied by the nation before the influx of white settlers.

Diane Shenandoah, Danielle’s sister and faith keeper of the Wolf Clan of the Oneida, delivered a letter to Pataki from the families at the territory. She also spoke of their struggle to resist the incursions of Halbritter’s self-instituted government and protect the traditional culture established on the territory by two Oneida women in 1961.

Halbritter’s Turning Stone Casino — the largest in the state — is the cornerstone of an expansive business enterprise that includes a chain of gas stations, a textile factory and a luxury hotel. Many Oneidas, including Diane Shenandoah, say Halbritter has violated the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee (Confederacy of the Iroquois) by embracing gambling. “Our spiritual tradition does not condone gaming,” she has said.

In 2001, Halbritter stepped up his assaults on Oneida traditions and territory, honing in on traditionalist dissidents such as Patterson (who is, incidentally, also Halbritter’s first cousin). Already, half of the territory’s residents (estimated at 160) had been forced to leave their homes in 1999, she said, when Halbritter installed an industrial-size water and sewer line on the territory.

Halbritter, a Harvard-trained businessman, was originally selected in the mid-1980s by the Wolf Clan mother to be one of three male spokespersons to represent the 1,100-member Oneida nation — which consists of at least 250,000 acres of disputed land — to the Grand Council of Chiefs, which oversees the Six Nation Confederacy of the Iroquois. When two of the spokespersons passed away in the early 1990s, Halbritter attempted to assume official leadership of the tribe, and instituted a Men’s Council to supersede the traditional matrilineal government as well as the Iroquois Grand Council of Chiefs.

The Grand Council of Chiefs then removed Halbritter as the Oneida representative and notified the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The decision was accepted by the BIA, only to be reversed 24 hours later, reportedly under pressure from local Congressperson Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), who leveraged his vote in support of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for BIA recognition of Halbritter as Oneida spokesperson for life.

Patterson argued in a recent phone interview that the BIA’s refusal to acknowledge the Iroquois’ rejection of Halbritter violated the Two Row Wampum Treaty, which has existed since the 17th century and “clearly states that both parties, the US and the Iroquois Confederacy will not interfere in each others’ affairs.”

“What the BIA has done is unbearably unmentionable. This American agency is supporting and enabling Halbritter,” she said.

Activist groups working with the traditional Oneidas, including anti-corporate globalization activists and the Ironweed Collective, view Halbritter’s dictatorial corporate governance in the context of corporate globalization extending beyond Boehlert’s controversial NAFTA vote. They suspect that Halbritter’s corporation wants the 32-acre territory for an “offshore” bank or as a new location for the Turning Stone Casino, if environmental and accounting irregularities challenges force Halbritter to relocate. Local Christian Peacekeeping Team (CPT) observers have cited the industrial pipeline as possible evidence of Halbritter’s intention to build a large-scale facility.

Backyard terrorism

Meanwhile, Patterson, her children and the other remaining traditionalist families have been harassed by Halbritter’s 80-man non-native police force, which, Patterson says, “has no deputation in New York State” and is “heavily armed.”

“We are a community of women, elders and children, and a few older men. And they [the police] are heavily armed. It’s ridiculous,” she noted.

Patterson herself was physically assaulted in a confrontation with 22 of Halbritter’s non-native tribal police trying to enter her home last November. The incident was caught on videotape, prompting Halbritter to ban all media from the territory. In response, Patterson and others launched a request for legal observers, and together with the observers, set up a Peace Camp outside of Patterson’s trailer where resisters and supporters have held prayer circles and drumming vigils.

Jason Jette, of the Ironweed Collective in Albany, participated in the Peace Camp as well as last Friday’s protest at the Governor’s mansion. Shining a positive light on the difficult situation, he focused on the strength cross-cultural communication has lent to the resistance efforts. “The one thing I thought was really wonderful,” he said, “was that natives and non-natives were working together.”

Members of area CPTs have also worked with the Oneidas in strategies of non-violent resistance.

Shortly after the assault, Patterson’s brother, Jerry, enlisted the aid of an independent contractor, who said he saw nothing to merit condemnation and made minor repairs to Patterson’s trailer, according to a report on news site .

Nonetheless, Halbritter’s inspectors had condemned Patterson’s mobile home and slated it for demolition on Sept.15. However, the presence of 100 observers and activists — as well as Patterson and her family’s continued resistance — prevented the destruction.

Patterson says as many as 200 activists have participated in the Peace Camp since her home has been targeted for demolition.

“This is a severe violation of federal and international laws. All indigenous people have a right to be free of cruel and inhumane treatment,” she said, citing not only international law, but also the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibits Indian tribal governments from enacting or enforcing laws that violate certain individual rights.

Patterson is, moreover, outraged that, given the national and media focus on the so-called “War on Terrorism,” most New Yorkers and media continue to neglect the “War on Terrorism” in their own backyard. She charges that this is a case of “racial discrimination against the Native American people,” adding that the many criminal reports that the Oneidas have filed against the tribal police to the local Madison County District Attorney’s office have “all been ignored.”

“My children have been threatened, my life has been threatened,” added Patterson. “We are facing genocide here — the destruction of an entire native community.”

The Pataki connection

Native tribes and local observers strongly suspect that state officials’ support of Halbritter — including Governor George Pataki — is driven by a scheme in which Native American land claims settlements, desired especially by the state, are traded for casino contracts.

Pataki’s office issued an underreported memorandum to all State University of New York college presidents on Nov. 30, 2001, also shortly after the assault on Patterson, stating that all “contacts with Indian people” were to be reported to University Counsel. According to Northeast American Indian Movement, the memorandum stipulated that all campus personnel were then to “await further instructions before engaging in any further contact,” an attempt the organization sees as ultimately linked with “no less than forcible cultural genocide.”

Then, in February of this year, Pataki and Halbritter announced a tentative agreement to settle a 27-year-old Upstate New York land claim — without the consent of tribes of Wisconsin Oneidas also involved in the claim.

According to a March report in the Rochester, NY Democrat and Chronicle, the Wisconsin tribe and legal observers say “Halbritter wants to run two of the three casinos in the Catskills that Pataki has agreed to consider” in a deal that would give “a 25 percent cut off the top to the state.”

Resistance continues

Patterson, however, still faces trial in Halbritter’s unsanctioned tribal court, and is scheduled to appear before it tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 24. “They are trying to incarcerate me for one year for my vocal refusal to let them [Halbritter’s police force] enter my home,” she explained.

But Patterson is steadfast in her resistance to Halbritter, and refuses to appear. Instead, she and supporters will hold a Peace and Freedom Party outside her home, where she will issue a public statement calling for an investigation of the courts.

Tuesday’s event is meant “to celebrate our rights as a free people,” said Western Massachusetts activist Dan Gulko, who has been helping Patterson and her family defend her home for three and a half weeks.

Supporters are needed and encouraged to attend the event, he said, so that Patterson and other resisters are able to send a party from the house to the BIA office in Syracuse.

Thus far, NYC Indymedia has been unable to obtain a verbal statement regarding the Patterson case from Halbritter’s office.

Source: NYC Indymedia

Now you see, now you don’t: the Pentagon’s blinding lasers

By Frida Berrigan

Sept. 27— US weapons manufacturers are hard at work developing futuristic precision weapons that promise to keep Americans even further out of harm’s way: lasers.

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, who together had $20.3 billion in Pentagon contracts in 2001, are collaborating on development of “directed energy weapons” — powerful 100-kilowatt infrared lasers for use on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

The JSF program, worth an estimated $200 billion, is Lockheed Martin’s crowning accomplishment. If all goes well, the Pentagon will soon order as many as 3,000 F-35s, making it the largest acquisition program in history. This $40 million fighter plane will be ubiquitous in the US military and throughout the world. England, Norway, Italy, Singapore, Turkey, Israel and others have already expressed serious interest as well.

The JSF laser system could be used to destroy communication lines, power grids, or fuel dumps, or to zero in on part of a vehicle, like the engine. The weapons, which are scheduled to be ready for testing in 2010, would be covert, powerful and untraceable. “There’s no huge explosion associated with its employment, there are no pieces and parts left behind that someone can analyze to say, ‘this came from the United States,’ ” explains an unnamed Lockheed Martin official quoted in Aviation Week and Space Technology in July. “The damage is localized, and it is hard to tell where it came from and when it happened. It is all pretty mysterious.”

So mysterious, in fact, that engineers are only beginning to consider what the lasers will do to people. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology, military planners in Israel are not pursuing directed-energy weapons because of concerns they “might result in new, unanticipated types of collateral damage.” For example, the weapons could disrupt electricity at civilian sites or affect pacemakers.

They could also blind and injure people in the vicinity. As Gordon Hengst of the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico, where the research on the lasers is being conducted, points out: “The reflected energy typically will cover large amounts of real estate and space, since the energy is spreading in many directions.”

He adds that if the target is moving, the possibility of refraction is greater. According to New Scientist magazine, the human eye is very vulnerable to light from lasers: “Safety guidelines warn against staring into beams of only a few milliwatts. … The unpredictable reflections scattered from a 100-kilowatt laser could be devastating.”

Weapons manufacturers concede that blinding and other injuries could occur, but say the benefits outweigh the concerns. “As with all weapons, there is potential for inflicting collateral damage,” says Tom Burris, a Lockheed scientist.

And surprisingly enough, despite the fact that the United States signed the Geneva Convention’s Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons in 1991, these weapons are exempt. The convention prohibits “laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision.” [Emphasis added.] But a small phrase is a loophole big enough for a fighter plane to fly through. Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch explains, “That protocol was purposely drafted to avoid capturing other types of laser weapons systems.”

Laser weapons blind, whether or not they are “specifically designed” to do so as their “sole combat function.” They are also the wave of the future, says Mike Booen of Raytheon: “We want to replace high explosives [like bombs and missiles] with directed energy weapons.” The Pentagon has been investing accordingly.

Laser weapons seem like the answer to Washington’s prayers for an antiseptic warfare that plays well on television and will not offend the American public with civilian deaths or US casualties. But that’s easier said than done. The Afghan war, which is costing US taxpayers $2.5 billion a month and relies on high-tech weapons and sophisticated communications equipment, has produced deadly errors with macabre regularity. With laser weapons, we can only expect more of the same.

Source: In These Times

Landmark decision for US gays

By Mark Worrall

San Francisco, California, Sept. 25— A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that gays and lesbians may use federal civil rights laws to sue for sexual harassment. The ruling, by the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in San Francisco, is the first in the United States to grant protections for gays and lesbians in the workplace. The 7-4 ruling reverses a March 2001 decision by three judges in the same court.

The judges, in their written decision, said a victim’s sexual orientation was irrelevant in cases of sex harassment brought under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The case involved Medina Rene, a gay hotel employee at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas who said he was assaulted, mocked and vilified by his male co-workers. “We are presented with the tale of a man who was repeatedly grabbed in the crotch and poked in the anus, and who was singled out from his other male co-workers for this treatment,” the majority opinion, by Judge William Fletcher, said.

“It is clear that the offensive conduct was sexual. It is also clear that the offensive conduct was discriminatory. That is, Rene has alleged that he was treated differently — and disadvantageously — based on sex. This is precisely what Title VII forbids,” Fletcher wrote. Rene’s lawyer praised Tuesday’s ruling. Richard Segerblom called it an important gay civil rights decision.

“It really gives protection to gays and lesbians that courts have been going out of their way to deny,” said Segerblom. Rene’s case was dismissed by a lower court, which found that while the harassment took place it was not explicitly illegal because it was based on his sexual orientation, not his gender.

Although some states, such as California, have laws barring GLBT harassment on the job, most, including Nevada, do not.

“It is good news that the courts are recognizing our rights in the area of sexual harassment,” said Kevin Layton, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign, the largest lesbian and gay political organization in the country. “But blatant, in your face discrimination is still OK. It’s a sad day in America that you basically have to be beaten up on the job before the law will protect you.”

Source: 365Gay.com

Critical Mass: a decade of defiance

Compiled by Sean Marquis

Oct. 2 (AGR)— Bicyclists, stilt-walkers, and roller-skaters claimed the normally car-dominated streets of San Francisco, CA, on Friday, Sept. 27, to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Critical Mass, a pedal-powered phenomenon of civil disobedience.

The loosely organized movement, in which cyclists clog streets to demand more space and respect from city planners and motorists, has been copied in hundreds of cities around the world since its birth in San Francisco in 1992.

“It’s a reclamation of public space,” said Nicole McMorrow, a Critical Mass participant since 1995. “These are my streets too.”

“People in this country are in a car-dependent sleepwalk,” Rocco Pendola, 27, said from atop his red and silver bike. “The reality is that in the near future, you won’t be able to do that.”

Chris Carlsson, 45, and Jim Swanson, 43, came up with Critical Mass 10 years ago as a way to promote cyclists’ needs in San Francisco.

“Everybody is there for a different reason,” said Carlsson. Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration, a collection of remembrances that Carlsson edited, has just hit stores.

This monthly guerrilla theater on wheels has inspired a handful of bike-friendly laws and bikelanes, and changed the bike-motorist relationship. Sometimes for the better — although there are still a lot of motorists who hate stewing in traffic as the Mass rolls by.

“Back (in 1986), when I first started as a bike messenger, drivers were a lot more aggressive toward pedestrians and bikes,” said 34-year-old Craig Traver, who has ridden in several Masses and now works in a car rental agency. “That’s mellowed a lot since then.”

“Critical Mass has definitely brought attention to bicycle issues, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without them,” said Leah Shahun, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

What Critical Mass raises in spirit, mainstream groups like the coalition take to city halls and statehouses.

San Francisco now has freshly striped bicycle lanes on major streets, and signs urging drivers to share narrower roadways. Cyclist groups lobbied successfully for a $50 million lane for bikes and pedestrians on a new span proposed for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Refuse to be humble beginnings

Carlsson and Swanson had an idea to hold a mass ride around the city as a way to show how unfriendly the roads are for cyclists.

So they and others passed out flyers, not knowing who would show up. A couple of dozen did. More joined the next month. By the fourth ride, remembered Ted White, a Sebastopol filmmaker who has chronicled Critical Mass, “there were about 100 people, and from then it just grew exponentially.”

“It’s not about disrupting traffic. It’s about displacing traffic and becoming traffic,” said Carlsson. “It’s basically a party. It’s about finding the life we don’t get to have.”

“There’s not many things that are anarchic in our world,” Carlsson said. “But this is one of them.”

Ten years later, swarms of cyclists often numbering in the thousands have become an enduring phenomenon, taking over the streets on the last Friday of each month in hundreds of cities around the globe where cyclists feel they’re treated like second-class citizens.

Rolling occupations now begin at the Merkaz HaKarmel parking lot in Haifa, Israel, at Parnell Square in Dublin, Ireland, at Plaza del Castillo in Pamplona, Spain, and QEII Square in Auckland, New Zealand.

White added: “It reminded people how important it is to be a participant in our culture. One of the problems with this country as a whole is that people feel that they don’t count. Here, in Critical Mass, everyone riding together does count.”

Before Critical Mass was called “Critical Mass,” it was the “Commute Clot.”

Shortly after that first ride in September 1992, White screened his latest documentary, The Return of the Scorcher, about the bike culture overseas, to some Clotters at a South of Market bike shop.

In one scene, New York bicycle advocate George Bliss noted how cyclists in China wait to converge on an intersection until there’s a “critical mass” of riders. The locals took to the idea.

“Thank God it stuck,” said Carlsson. “I always hated the name ‘Commute Clot.’”

The infamous July 1997 ride, when 5,000 cyclists rode to show up Mayor Willie Brown and mostly wandered where they pleased, prompted plenty of ill will among those trapped in their cars. But that event got City Hall’s attention, said the Bicycle Coalition’s Shahun. Within a year, the coalition had won at least three new bike lanes in San Francisco, a then-unheard-of achievement.

Anniversary ride

On Friday the armada of riders, 3,500-5,000 strong, brought traffic to a halt along a circuitous path that led past City Hall and up Market Street.

A throng of riders crowded into Justin Herman Plaza at the bottom of Market — accountants and designers, bike messengers, activists, a unicyclist in a pink hooded leotard. They gathered with flowers in their hair or cell phones at their ears, forming a massive group of wheels, handlebars, and helmets.

George Wesely, 35, of San Francisco, pulled his 7-year-old son on a trailer bike behind him for the youngster’s first Critical Mass. Sarah Kaplan, 23, who came from Chicago with six friends, passed out tiny cartoon books a pal drew. Others wore stickers reading, “Help Prevent Death — Stop Driving,” and some wore banners opposing military action in Iraq.

In a new event San Francisco closed four blocks Friday for the Car-Free Day street fair, in which bike riders and pedestrians cruised along with an eclectic combination of alternative vehicles.

The city-run Car Free Day, modeled after efforts in other cities, was the first of its kind for San Francisco. A few people sniffed at the timing, landing on the same day as the Critical Mass anniversary ride.

“It’s just ‘Slick’ Willie wanting to upstage Critical Mass, wanting to steal thunder from them,” Bob Schneeveis said.

Mayor Brown, a longtime critic of Critical Mass, dismissed the accusation.

Police arrested about a dozen people during the ride Friday.

The arrests were for everything from assault to failing to disperse, police said. Several riders suffered minor injuries.

The 10th anniversary ride also saw solidarity rides around the country, including Washington, DC, New Haven, CT, and Portland, OR.

The Portland event was several hundred strong and also had several arrests but met with nowhere near the amount of police brutality as a similar ride last month where the police used pepper spray and a stun gun on riders.

As the Portland Mass swarmed west on West Burnside, a TriMet bus lumbered like a whale as it tried desperately to merge into the sea of cycles, which darted around it like a school of minnows. The sidewalk crowds cheered and clapped.

Firefighters trapped in their rig on Northwest 23rd Avenue happily handed out high-fives to some of the passing riders as they rode into the night.

Sources: Associated Press, Contra Costa Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Oregonian

Administration extends healthcare to “Unborn”

By Shawn Gaynor

Asheville, NC, Oct. 2 (AGR)—A change by the Bush Administration to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) (a federal block grant to states) will, for the first time, classify a woman’s fetus as an “unborn” child, extending it healthcare assistance from conception, while ignoring comprehensive pre-natal healthcare for pregnant women.

In the administration’s now familiar unilateralism, the new classification was passed as an amendment to a Health and Human Services regulation, therefore bypassing a legislative process.

Legislation is simultaneously being considered by the US Senate to extend S-CHIP coverage to pregnant women, eliminating the need to cover the newly classified “unborn.”

The change, announced Friday, has been harshly criticized by women’s groups and reproductive health providers across the country, who say the administration is attempting to undermine Roe vs Wade.

According to a statement from Planned Parenthood: “The Bush administration is attempting to circumvent the legislative process to define at which point life begins in law. Establishing fetuses as persons shows that the administration’s true intent is not to expand healthcare coverage for pregnant women, but to undermine a women’s right to choose.”

The change was first proposed by Bush in January, but, in a last minute surprise, coverage to the “unborn” was extended to the fetuses of women who are illegal immigrants as well.

“They are going to become citizens in nine months or less,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Thompson went on to deny that abortion was at issue, despite the regulations language “unborn children” originating within pro-life groups.

“Shame on the Bush administration for using immigrant women —a population desperately in need of real comprehensive health coverage — to promote an anti-choice agenda,” said Judith Lichtman of the National Partnership for Women and Families. “We urge the administration to stop its cynical manipulation of public health policy.”

The California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League said the new regulation was a “stealth campaign to end abortion rights, and could harm women’s health, by making them take a back seat to the program’s ‘patients” -- the fetus.

“Under this proposal would a pregnant women with cancer be able to get potentially life-saving radiation treatment or chemotherapy, since such treatment could harm the fetus? This proposal shows how the Administration sees pregnant women: as vessels for carrying a pregnancy rather than as people with important personal healthcare needs.”

Operation Rescue, a right-wing anti-abortion group with a history of violence against and harassment of healthcare providers, reacted to the new regulation by stating, “Tommy Thompson accurately redefined the term ‘health care’ and placed one more nail in the coffin of the abortion industry.”

All previous legal and legislative challenges to label a women’s fetus as an individual with rights and protections have failed.

The expansion to the S-CHIP program is estimated to cost $330 million for the next five years. States will be given the option of choosing whether or not to extend coverage to fetuses. The expansion does not provide funding for any additional healthcare for pregnant women.

Marines practice ‘urban warfare’ in Ohio

By Sean Marquis

Oct. 2 (AGR)— In Dayton, Ohio 600 marines took part in a two week “urban warfare” training exercise. The exercise, entitled “Training in an Urban Environment exercise or ‘Truex’,” ended on Sept. 26 according to Col. Andrew Frick of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) which conducted the exercise.

The unit’s home-base is Camp Lejeune, North Carolina but they were stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for the duration of the Truex training. According to Col. Frick and reports by the Dayton Daily News, some of the exercises used live ammunition. Other points during the training included:

• The 26th MEU conducted two nighttime assaults and one daytime raid on abandoned buildings in Dayton, making use of two assault helicopters and three transport helicopters to ferry marines to and from the sites.
• The building raids included Marines lowered onto the roof by ropes from the helicopters and room-to-room clearing of the building.
• The drill gave pilots practice landing in densely populated areas.
• Dayton police said a soldier had at least one finger blown-off when a flash-bang grenade exploded in his hand during room-clearing operations in an abandoned school building.
• As part of a PR move, two Marine helicopters landed on a soccer field between Beavercreek High School and Ferguson Middle School on Sept. 18 for a “show and tell” of military life for the students. The Daily News reported that 11-year-old Chris Rike described the helicopters’ flying over the school as being just like a video game and then said: “This has changed me. I want to do this. I want to join the Marines.”

Of special note was the fact that during the Truex exercises, the Greene County Commission approved a “mutual aid” agreement between the sheriff’s office and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, according to the Daily News.

“In case of civil disturbances, disasters, or calamities that seriously endanger life and property to an extent that local police can’t control the situation, the 88th Security Forces Squadron [stationed at the base] agreed to provide Department of Defense police to assist [and] both parties also agreed to make available its jail space in case of an emergency,” according to the Daily News.

NATION BRIEFS

Armey blasted for anti-Jewish remarks

Democratic leaders lashed out Sept. 24 at House Majority Leader Dick Armey for comments he made that described the Jewish-American community as split between those with “deeper intellect” and those with “shallow, superficial intellect.” Texas Rep. Martin Frost, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), released a joint statement condemning the comments, which Armey, a Republican, made Friday during a campaign event in Florida.

Armey, who has strong pro-Israel views, defended his comments Tuesday at a Washington news conference, saying that the split he described is due to the ideological differences between liberals and conservatives. Liberals, Armey said, are “just not very bright people,” and it was this fact, he said, which led him to make the comments.

Art Teitelbaum, the south area director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the comments did not reflect anti-Semitism. However, he said some in the Jewish community would be angered and hurt by the comments. (AP)

Few Muslims seek office post-Sept 11

The number of Muslims running for elective office across the US has dropped by 85 percent in two years because potential candidates fear the post-Sept. 11 anti-Muslim backlash would doom their campaigns.

That’s the conclusion reached by the Newark-based American Muslim Alliance, the nation’s largest Muslim political organization, which found the number of Muslim candidates dropped from about 700 in 2000 to about 100 this year.

Most Muslims who do run for office are inspired to do so because of what they see as the scapegoating of their community. Some say there is pressure for Muslim candidates to below and change their names. Agha Saeed, founder of the American Muslim Alliance, said the drop in the number of candidates is disappointing because Muslims need more representation at every level of government. He and other leaders said Muslim politicians can fight anti-Muslim backlash and educate the general population on issues important to the community. (Mercury News)

ACLU criticizes lack of protections in Homeland Security bill

The American Civil Liberties Union strongly criticized a new version of the legislation establishing the cabinet-level Homeland Security Department Sept. 24, saying that it is a “constitutionally bankrupt” measure that lacks privacy of civil rights protections.

The new legislation, sponsored by Sens. Zell Miller (D-GA) and Phil Gramm (R-TX), is designed as a substitute for the Senate Homeland Security Department plan drafted by Sen Joseph Leiberman (D-CT). Its supporters may try to ram through the bill by invoking cloture, which would forestall debate and preclude amendments. The new version closely mirrors Bush’s wishlist Homeland Security plan, and contains virtually none of the civil-liberties safeguards of previous versions.

The bill contains no civil rights oversight mechanisms, the refusal to take into account broad public concern over Operation TIPS, provisions that allow advisory committees to be secret and a provision that would gut protections for non-citizen children in the Lieberman bill. (ACLU)

No-fly blacklist snares political activists

A federal “No Fly” list, intended to keep terrorists from boarding planes, is snaring peace activists at San Francisco International and other US airports, triggering complaints that civil liberties are being trampled. And while several federal agencies acknowledge that they contribute names to the congressionally mandated list, none of them, when contacted by the San Francisco chronicle, could of would say which agency is responsible for managing the list.

One detainment forced a group of 20 Wisconsin anti-war activists to miss their flight, delaying their trip to meet with congressional representatives by a day. That case and others are raising questions about the criteria federal authorities use to place people on the list, and whether people who exercise their constitutional right to dissent are being lumped together with terrorists.

Federal law enforcement officials deny targeting dissidents. They suggested that the activists were stopped not because their names are on the list, but because their names resemble those of suspected criminals or terrorists. Congress mandated the list as part of last year’s Aviation and Transportation Security Act, after two Sept. 11 hijackers on a federal “watch list” used their real names to board the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon.

At least two dozen activists who have been stopped say they support sensible steps to bolster aviation security. But they criticize the no-fly list and its murky system of accountability as being, at worst, a Big Brother campaign to muzzle dissent and, at best, a bureaucratic exercise that distracts airport security from looking for the real bad guys. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Community confronts World Church of the Creator

Hundreds of people turned out Sept. 19 at the Chesterfield, VA Public Library to oppose a meeting of the racist organization The World Church of the Creator. The group was attempting to meet for recruitment purposes, but was vastly outnumbered by members of the NAACP, anarchists, activists, and local residents. Many questioned why Chesterfield had easily granted the WCOTC a space in the public library while other counties in the state had denied the group permission to use facilities.

According to the group’s website, the WCOTC exists to promote the “advancement of white people” and the “natural superiority” of white people.

One hundred police officers sectioned off grassy areas of the library grounds and searched individuals as they entered the building. Outrage was the word as people gathered with signs, sang gospel and prayed before the meeting began. The protest was peaceful until Billy Brown, a North Carolina recruiter for the WCOTC, arrived, unfurling a WCOTC flag and passing out pamphlets exclusively to those he and supporters perceived as “white.” He was confronted by activists, but was whisked to safety by police when shoving occurred. (Richmond IMC)

Second ruling against US death penalty

A federal judge in Vermont ruled Sept. 24 that the federal death penalty law is unconstitutional, saying the law denies defendants’ rights to due process, allowing evidence and procedures that could not be used at trial to be used to sentence a convicted person to death. The judge, William K. Sessions III of the federal District Court in Burlington, ruled that the law, which expanded the list of federal crimes that qualify for capital punishment, was incompatible with three recent Supreme Court decisions, including one in June that found juries rather than judges must make the crucial factual determinations to support a death penalty.

Those decisions rigorously safeguard due process in a way that the “relaxed” standards of the federal death penalty law do not, Judge Sessions ruled.

Capital punishment legal experts said that Tuesday’s ruling, while limited to the Vermont case, was likely to provide new ammunition for challenging death penalty cases across the country. (NYT)

HIV prevention groups say Bush administration is targeting their work

The Bush administration has pulled information about the effectiveness of condoms from a government web site and is engaged in a “witch hunt” against those who promote condoms in the fight against AIDS, several groups charged Sept. 29.

They argue that the administration is hostile to HIV prevention and sex education that is not based on “abstinence-only,” which discourages all sex before marriage and bars discussion of the benefits of birth control or condom use.

The advocacy groups said they are particularly concerned about federal agency audits of AIDS groups now underway, examining their finances and programming. The administration says it is simply making sure that tax dollars are properly spent. Audits by the Department of Health and Human Services include several actions that AIDS groups consider regressive.

Information explaining the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission has been pulled from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site. Also gone: a section which focused on HIV and highlighted several proven programs that involve condom use.

The HHS inspector general is also investigating at least eight AIDS programs to see if their content is too sexually explicit or promotes sexual activity. Several of those reports are expected by the year’s end. The inspector general has already issued one report highly critical of Stop AIDS in San Francisco, saying their programs aimed at gay men were promoting sex and were possibly obscene. (AP)