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ElectPeace * Total Info Control * CivilLiberties * PeltierDefense



27 April 2003


1) Elect Peace in 2004
- - Far reaching damage caused by Bush's huge tax giveaways for the rich
- - Children held at Guantanamo Bay
- - Speculation Grows - - Will US Plant Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?
2) Total Information Control - Corporate Media and Homeland Security
- - Today Show Goes Dark on Tim Robbins -- (April 19, 2003)
- - San Francisco Chronicle Fires Reporter For Attending Peace Protest
3) Make your city or town a Civil Liberties Safe Zone
4) Chair of Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Statement of Resignation


Editor's Notes:


Will there be a regime change in the US in 2004? Item one is about an organization trying to unite the peace movement to remove what Dennis Kucinich called a war-like administration. MoveOn's efforts for this political solution for peace could be significant. It has a total membership of over 1.3 million, and plans to use its clout to help remove Bush from office in a number of ways, including a campaign to register a wave of new voters. Please consider joining this campaign to help bring democracy back to the US. Meanwhile, also in this item, is a link to an article describing the far reaching damage caused by Bush's proposed huge tax giveaways for the rich. Following that is an article about children being help captive at Guantanamo Bay with no trial, no representation, in suicidal-prone conditions. Another item in this same item is an article from ex-CIA professionals speculating on the US planting false evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq for political purposes. Item 2 is on the direction of total information control, the drive for corporate media to participate in what is called Homeland Security . The next item, is also about US civil liberties in crisis, from the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. This item shows how local communities can make a difference. Item 4 is a troubling report by Robert Free, in his letter of resignation as Chairperson of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (LPDC). Leonard Peltier was recognized by the UN as a human rights defender, and is perhaps the most widely known political prisoner in the US. The LPDC has been riddled with all sorts of problems throughout Leonard's 27 years of incarceration. One must wonder if these problems are part of a continuation of a COINTELpro-type policy. Hopefully we will have a more positive follow-up on this issue. Thank you Robert Free for your efforts to help Leonard and the LPDC.

For updated resources and links on each of these items and more, visit
www.FlybyNews.com



1) Elect Peace in 2004
- - Far reaching damage caused by Bush's huge tax giveaways for the rich
- - Children held at Guantanamo Bay
- - Speculation Grows - - Will US Plant Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?

From MoveOn.org
April 24, 2003

MoveOn.org has a total membership over 1.3 million and has begun a campaign to defeat Bush and the Republicans in 2004. The war in Iraq is over; the U.S. occupation of Iraq has now begun. In an unnecessary war, victory is never sweet: American soldiers, Iraqi civilians, and Iraqi soldiers lost their lives in a conflict that never should have happened. That's not victory, that's tragedy.

The hawks in the Bush Administration see this as a vindication of their belligerent world view. Never mind that we haven't found any weapons of mass destruction; never mind that Iraqi democracy (or even security) is nowhere in sight. The hotter heads have prevailed: pre-emptive unilateralism is now the official policy of the U.S.. Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle are now thinking even bigger about the "projection of American power." In the chilling words of a senior official close to the Bush administration, "Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran." Folks, we just have to stop this madness, and there's really only one way to do that: We need to throw these bums out. Regime change in the USA, the best way to repudiate Bush's policy of war.

Are you in? If you're willing to help show Bush the door in 2004, just click below. We'll count you among the participants in this next phase of the peace movement.

http://www.moveon.org/pac/newpres

We'll throw out Bush and the Republicans using every means available: by registering a wave of new voters, by organizing to make sure they get to the polls on election day, by raising enough money to compete with the President's mountain of special interest money, and by volunteering for political campaigns. We'll make it easy for you to play a part. President Bush believes he doesn't have to listen to the American public -- which, even during war, has overwhelmingly been skeptical or strongly resistant to the idea of an American empire. He has decided that his faith in the military takes precedence over his faith in democracy. The election in 2004 is our chance to take our democracy back.

Polls show overwhelmingly that American's do not trust President Bush to revive the failing economy. They're just as concerned with the Administration's assault on civil rights, civil liberties and the environment.. Let's elect a new President in 2004, and put an end to the politics of unnecessary war.
Sincerely,
The MoveOn Team
http://www.moveon.org

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- - Far reaching damage caused by Bush's huge tax giveaways for the rich

Published in The Charleston Gazette
April 23, 2003
Damage
Average Americans hurt
FAR-REACHING injury is being done to America by President Bush's huge tax giveaways for the rich, which have plunged the federal government back into debt, and his slashes in programs that help ordinary American families.

Sunday's New York Times said Bush's "misguided domestic agenda" is "a disaster, a national train wreck that must be headed off for the country's well-being."

For the complete article, see:
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/200304223/

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- - Children held at Guantanamo Bay

Children held at Guantanamo Bay -
The Guardian, UK
Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Thursday April 24, 2003

Children younger than 16 are being held as "enemy combatants" in the American detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, the US military admitted yesterday, a practice human rights groups condemned as repugnant and illegal. Three boys aged between 13 and 15 are among about 660 inmates at the controversial camp, a US military official told the Guardian, on condition of anonymity....But the children would still be held indefinitely and would not be granted access to lawyers, he said, because the US continues to view them as "enemy combatants" - a term it has used to argue that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the inmates, who have not been charged with any crimes....Holding the children was "wholly repugnant and contrary to basic principles of human rights," said Angela Wright of Amnesty International, and contravened UN rules with "near-universal acceptance" regarding the treatment of juveniles. The United States and Somalia are the only member states of the United Nations no to have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the US is a signatory, and thus has "an obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty," Ms Wright said. "This is clearly totally at odds with the purpose of the treaty." The precise legal ramifications are unclear, since many experts argue that the US is already in breach of international law by holding any of the detainees indefinitely without trial or charge, regardless of their ages. Guantanamo Bay has attracted the condemnation of human rights campaigners since the first detainees arrived at what was Camp X-Ray, in January 2002. Soon after, they were pictured cowed, blindfolded and bound in the intense Cuban heat. Since then, the US has built Camp Delta, a permanent and better-equipped facility, and has been at pains to describe how the inmates' religious and cultural preferences are being catered for. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross are in regular contact with the inmates. But reports of hunger strikes and attempted suicides have continued to emerge from the base. Military officials have confirmed 25 suicide attempts by 17 people since the inception of the camp, with 15 this year, often by inmates attempting to strangle themselves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,942347,00.html

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- - Speculation Grows - - Will US Plant Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?

Published on Friday, April 25, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Ex-CIA Professionals: Weapons of Mass Distraction: Where? Find? Plant?
by David MacMichael and Ray McGovern
For complete story, see: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0425-11.htm



2) Total Information Control - Corporate Media and Homeland Security
- - Today Show Goes Dark on Tim Robbins -- (April 19, 2003)
- - San Francisco Chronicle Fires Reporter For Attending Peace Protest


Corporate Media and Homeland Security
Move towards Total Information Control

By Peter Phillips

Freedom of information in American society is in danger because corporate media needs to maintain access to official sources of news. Consolidation of media has brought the total news sources for most Americans to less than a handful and these news groups have an ever-increasing dependency on pre-arranged content.

The 24-hour news shows on MSNBC, Fox and CNN are closely interconnected with various governmental and corporate sources of news. Maintenance of continuous news shows requires a constant feed and an ever-entertaining supply of stimulating events and breaking news bites. Advertisement for mass consumption drives the system and pre-packaged sources of news are vital within this global news process. Ratings demand continued cooperation from multiple-sources for on-going weather reports, war stories, sports scores, business news, and regional headlines. Print, radio and TV news also engages in this constant interchange with news sources.

The preparation for and following of ongoing wars and terrorism fits well into the visual kaleidoscope of pre-planned news. Government public relations specialists and media experts from private commercial interests provide on going news feeds to the national media distributions systems. The result is an emerging macro-symbiotic relationship between news dispensers and news suppliers. Perfect examples of this relationship are the press pools organized by the Pentagon both in the Middle-East and in Washington D.C., which give pre-scheduled reports on the war in Iraq to selected groups of news collectors (journalists) for distribution through their individual media organizations.

Embedded reporters (news collectors) working directly with military units in the field must maintain cooperative working relationships with unit commanders as they feed breaking news back to the U.S. public. Cooperative reporting is vital to continued access to government news sources. Therefore, rows of news story reviewers back at corporate media headquarters rewrite, soften or spike news stories from the field that threaten the symbiotics of global news management.

Journalists who fail to recognize their role as cooperative news collectors will be disciplined in the field or barred from reporting as in the recent celebrity cases of Geraldo Rivera and Peter Arnett.

Journalists working outside of this mass media system face ever-increasing dangers from "accidents" of war and corporate-media dismissal of their news reports. Massive civilian casualties caused by U.S. troops, extensive damage to private homes and businesses, and reports that contradict the official public relations line were downplayed, deleted, or ignored by corporate media, while content were analyzed by experts (retired generals and other approved collaborators) from within the symbiotic global news structure.

Symbiotic global news distribution is a conscious and deliberate attempt by the powerful to control news and information in society. The Homeland Security Act Title II Section 201(d)(5) specifically asks the directorate to "develop a comprehensive plan for securing the key resources andcritical infrastructure of the United States including information technology and telecommunications systems (including satellites) emergency preparedness communications systems."

Corporate media today is perhaps too vast to enforce complete control over all content 24 hours a day. However, the government's goal is the operationalization of total information control and the continuing consolidation of media makes this process easier to achieve.

Freedom of information and citizen access to objective news is rapidly fading in the United States and the world. In its place is a complex entertainment-oriented news system, which protects its own bottom-line by servicing the most powerful military-industrial complex in the world.

For the majority of Americans who depend on corporate media for their daily news, this monolithic news structure creates intellectual celibacy, inaction and fear. The result is a docile population, whose principal function within society is to simply shut-up and go shopping. The powerful would like us quiet and consumptive and the corporate media is delivering that message on a daily basis.

Peter Phillips is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State
University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization.

Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588

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- - Today Show Goes Dark on Tim Robbins - - (April 19, 2003)
Steve Rosenbaum, a NYC television producer,
Rock and Rap Confidential, April 18, 2003
For the complete story, see:
http://www.people-link.org/news/showupdates.php?upid=740

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- - San Francisco Chronicle Fires Reporter For Attending Peace Protest

Published on Thursday, April 24, 2003 by Democracy Now!
San Francisco Chronicle Fires Reporter For Attending Peace Protest
Former Chronicle columnist Henry Norr talks to Democracy Now!
by Amy Goodman and Henry Norr

For the transcript, see:
http://www.democracynow.org/norr.htm



3) Make your city or town a Civil Liberties Safe Zone

From the Bill Of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC.org)

About one hundred cities, towns, and counties have passed resolutions protecting the civil liberties of their residents. The USA PATRIOT Act (acronym for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism") was passed with many Congressmen stating later that they had not even had time to read the law, but it creates a new crime, "domestic terrorism," so broadly defined that it could conceivably apply to acts of civil disobedience.

The USA PATRIOT Act gives the FBI and the CIA greater rights to wiretap phones, monitor e-mail, survey medical, financial and student records, and break into homes and offices without prior notification. It creates a new crime of domestic terrorism that is so broadly defined that it may be applied to citizens acting legally to express their dissent. To our knowledge, Attorney General John Ashcroft defends this surveillance. Before he took that job, as a senator during the Clinton Administration, he wrote that such surveillance violated the 4th Amendment right to privacy. Read Keep Big Brother's Hands Off the Internet.

Under this Act and other legislation, non-citizens are being deported or detained indefinitely without judicial appeal.

The dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act are augmented by a Bureau of Prisons order allowing federal agents to abridge the attorney-client privilege by eavesdropping on conversations between lawyers and their clients held in federal custody.

The Justice Department has dismantled regulations against COINTELPRO operations that were enacted following abuses of the civil rights and peace movements of the 50's, 60's and 70's.

The Administration has ordered secret military tribunals for suspected terrorists. In addition to being unfair and unnecessary, the U.S. threat of using military tribunals increases the likelihood that U.S. citizens will be treated accordingly overseas, and decreases the likelihood that other governments will be willing to extradite suspected terrorists or other parties wanted by the U.S.

93 cities, towns, and counties so far have passed resolutions protecting the civil liberties of their 6,612,023 residents. To find out more on what you can do in support of this movement to protect our basic rights, visit the web site of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee

http://www.bordc.org/

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For a Washington Post article on this movement:

"Local Officials Rise Up to Defy The Patriot Act"
by Evelyn Nieves, April 21, 2003, page A1; see:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64173-2003Apr20.html



4) Chair of Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Statement of Resignation

The Official Website of Leonard Peltier and the
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (LPDC)
http://www.freeleonardpeltier.org/index.htm

LPDC UPDATES

4/24/2003 ROBERT FREE RESIGNS AS CHAIRPERSON
3/20/2003 Leonard Peltier on the passing of Standing Deer
3/19/2003 Questions About Delaney Bruce
3/18/2003 Leonard Peltiers Statement Regarding Peace
3/11/2003 Statement from the New Chair Robert Free
2/28/2003 Leonard Peltier Statement

4/24/2003

Dear Leonard and Global Supporters :

I had hoped to present a more productive report since my opening statement, but there are some highlights:

1.Regarding the Freedom of Information Act documents we have sought, 60,000 have been released as of July last year, and 40,000 more are currently being sought. The documents relating to Leonard Peltier have recently received National Historic Significance designation. This should allow quicker access and less tampering by the FBI. Mike Kuzuma of New York organized these successful efforts.

2.The 10th Circuit Court of Denver will hear legal efforts for appeal of parole denial, spearheaded by Barry Bachrach, soon. Other legal venues are being pursued and will be posted as news arrives. Lobbying efforts by Tamara Carter are yielding great results and will be shared as completed.

3.A web-site recovery program has been successful. The Leonard Peltier web-site was re launched on March 6th and the global response has been heartening. The LPDC and Leonard Peltier wish to express their thanks to Dave of the Tule River Tribe in California for his efforts. The idea of a support group page to post the efforts of groups with photos etc have been resisted and may never materialize.

4. The KOLA group of Europe and its VIP signatories campaign including high profile and international celebrities such as Madonna and others, has done a great deal for lifting the morale of international supporters.


5. Local support groups of Canada in Vancouver, Seattle and Tacoma have produced musical benefits featuring prominent local musicians and artists and have staged marches with over 300 participants. By the long time dedication of Arthur Miller, Sue Morales, Kitty Bell, and Dave from Tule River Res. Thanks to Shep, Candace, Andrea and others in the northeast. The Oakland and California groups, as well as the many long time supporters on reservations across the land, and countries far and wide. I feel I will stop trying to name the many, as I know I will leave too many out. Please excuse my not recognizing the many.

But I must now report to you Leonard that it has near impossible to conduct business and move forward with the six activities for your freedom with the people you have surrounded yourself at the office and on your board.

I have not received direct communications from you [Leonard] about the matters I brought to your attention concerning the way all communication is filtered to you by individuals who you have just recently met. This is a questionable practice that undercuts the authority of the Chair and has proven counter-productive. These people you are now empowering in this way have no history in our struggle. Curiously, they have refused to give me their resumes, a strange practice for people supposedly agreeing to my first chair report.

It was there that I promised transparency of decisions and an openness of inclusion and accountability. There are efforts to hide the board proceedings and not allow people to come and work in the office.

It does not help either the office or your organizing efforts that they have continually insulted the supporters and misrepresented your stated aims to me, by recognizing Russ Redner as the interim director of the LPDC, stating that this is your wish. This has disrupted relations with the International Treaty council and other native groups. Furthermore, they have created friction with unfounded accusations and causing many of us to be bombarded endless emails that distract from our primary work.

Your support for me and Russ has not been made explicitly clear with these people and I cannot implement the activities and programs you've asked me to with their constant demands that I explain myself to them and wait for their approvals. Anyone who has spent time in the front lines of this struggle would immediately understand the moves I have been requesting for your freedom, yet we are continually challenged and delayed. This is like a secretary questioning the judgment of the Board of Directors, and it causes chaos in the organization.

My priorities are different than theirs. They are spending most of their efforts trying to create a super mall merchandising web site. I need the web-site to be a work-site, where individuals and groups from around the world can check in and join the struggle for your freedom---which is our primary goal. I have proposed doing both simultaneously, but I am being challenged at every turn. This leads me to believe that there is an economic incentive beneath their activities which may go a long way to supporting them, but not your freedom.

I have been approached repeatedly by several of these people individually (behind each others backs) asking for my support so that they could get a contract to market your art work. With these priorities governing their work and with the stress and alienation and mis representation of my (and other people's)efforts for you, it is my sad duty to tell you that with out your total and direct support to me that I will not be able to work in the this office anymore. There are too many vital Native issues that I could be attending too, without seeing my efforts unraveled as they are being produced. Unfortunately, this situation is your fault Leonard. It is your fault because you have continually empowered people who manage to catch your attention in a given moment; people you don't really know; whose history you don't really know. With you in their corner, they are emboldened and empowered to run things as they see fit, making it impossible for your oldest and most loyal supporters to function at all. Just to remind you:

I have advised you since before you were arrested. I went to San Francisco to help you in organizing efforts in 1974. When you were my body guard during the Trail of Broken Treaties, you asked where to go for safety in Canada and I told you not Small Boy's camp, yet you went, with the consequences we know all too well. Then, you asked me to come help you in Vancouver and I have been working for you since that time.

Over the years, I've warned you repeatedly on certain issues and events. Often, you ignored my advice and would later write me apologies. Does this seem familiar? Now, you've asked for my assistance to recover your organization and its resources. Once again, I responded to your request, at great expense to myself personally, and to my children, who have suffered over the years from the time I've donated to this cause; who have watched my time, energy, and resources flow to you and not to them. When the consequences of having people you just met guide your LPDC onto the rocks of alienation and bankruptcy once again, will you later apologize for not listening to me again?

These new people are in a hostile takeover to remove me as your Chairman. They supply you with continual misinformation, work on your suspicions and fears and you respond by empowering them to be your gate keepers to you and to further entrench themselves in absolute control of your affairs. It is so self-destructive and counter-productive I could weep for you.

It is you who are doing the time, Leonard. I know that you are subjected to your letters and phone communication being scrutinized. I can only hope that a psych-op program has not been established and that it is playing you through such people. Can they go to any community such as Denver and have the community respond to them to rally and demonstrations for you?

I will still be out in the world, available to speak and work towards your freedom efforts. I can no longer work in the LPDC without your total, unconditional support. I'm sorry to put you on the spot this way. It will cause you pain I know and that grieves me. But you have created the problem and only you can solve it. You have to look deep into your heart and decide who it is you really trust and why. I should not be in your organization without your support. I pray that it is not the people you presently have working for you, but that is beyond my control. I await your thoughts and decisions, and will only accept them in your handwriting or voice, not through any of these other people I've mentioned.

In the mean time I regretfully resign, as do several others. My resignation is effective after the completion of a few business transactions.

Your long time friend,
Robert Free
Former Chairperson ~ LPDC

PS: Look for more information (as it becomes available) on my new website created by the Peacepipe Network
Details to follow in a later posting
http://www.freeleonardpeltier.org/index.htm

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For more on Leonard Peltier, see link from FlybyNews.com - -
News from inside the movements to free political prisoners


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