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NEWS
BRIEFS : Day of Peace
| Rabbit Hunt Nixed | OSU
Takes a Stand | Toss the Keys | The
Radical King |
News:
Slinking Toward War Undercovered #28. More news from the world
press.
Happening
People: Alice Johnson
DAY
OF PEACE
Saturday, Jan. 18 is becoming a national
day of action against the impending war against Iraq and the Bush
administration's foreign and domestic policies. The timing of the
events coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday, Jan. 20.
Eugene activists are carpooling and busing to major
demonstrations in Portland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and
some are staying home to bolster local events, such as the display
of peace signs from 10 am to 2 pm Saturday near the Ferry Street Bridge
(call 484-9167 for more information). An MLK observance is also planned
for 6 pm Monday at the Hult Center.
A Buddhist peace walk is planned in Salem, and peace
vigils and events are also happening this long weekend in Cottage
Grove, Brownsville, Corvallis, Ashland, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls,
Florence, Astoria, Hood River, The Dalles, Coos Bay, McMinnville,
Newport, Pendleton, Silverton, Cave Junction, Yachats and Waldport.
Some of the events will be held Sunday and others Monday.
In Portland, a large gathering is planned at 12:30
pm Saturday at Shemansky Park at SW Salmon and Park. A rally begins
at 1 pm followed by a march. More than 50 Oregon and Portland groups
are involved in the event.
In San Francisco, a massive rally begins at 11 am
Saturday at Market Street and Embarcadero. For details on the Bay
Area and D.C. rallies, visit www.internationalanswer.org‚
In Eugene, the third annual Wellspings Friends School Peace Festival
is planned for noon to 4 pm Saturday at the Mennonite Church on West
18th near Bailey Hill. For more information, call 686-1223 or e-mail
wfs@pacinfo.com
Tricia Brown and others will present and answer questions
about their work in Colombia and Palestine as part of the Christian
Peacemaker teams. A panel discussion will feature James DeMeo, Ph.D.,
author of Saharasia, a book exploring the origins and causes
of violence. The day will conclude with a "giveaway ceremony" and
people are asked to bring a few items of importance for the ceremony.
In Eugene, a forum Jan. 18 on "political prisoners,
state terror, and anti-imperialist resistance" will include two guest
speakers, Dacajeweiah Splitting the Sky John Hill and Ed Mead. This
event sponsored by Break the Chains will begin at 7 pm at 150 Columbia
on the UO campus.
Dacajeweiah emerged as a principal leader of the Attica
rebellion at the age of 19, and later became a major figure with the
American Indian Movement. He is author of From Attica to Gustafsen
Lake.
Mead is a former political prisoner, the co-founder
of Prison Legal News, and organizer of Men Against Sexism (a
group that militantly opposed sexism, racism, homophobia and rape)
inside the walls of the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla,
Wash.
The No Shame Singers, an inter-tribal group of local
American Indian musicians, will be performing traditional Native songs.
For more information e-mail breakthechains02@yahoo.com
In Florence, Citizens Democracy Watch is hosting
a discussion and action forum to celebrate the life and ideas of Martin
Luther King beginning at 1 pm Saturday at the Port of Siuslaw parking
lot and ending with remarks by officials and citizens at 3 pm at the
Old Town Coffee Company.
|
SLANT
Yes
on Measure 28
Ballots are now arriving for Measure 28
and must be cast by Jan. 28. Remembering the election date is
easy. Getting people to make the right choice to vote "yes"
is harder. Mistrust of government is running high, local taxes
are going up, and we're stuck in an economic rut. But we are
not overtaxed compared to other states. Oregon actually has
one of the lowest tax rates in the nation, ranking 46th out
of 50 in share of income dedicated to state and local taxes.
And our percentage of government employees in the workforce
has declined steadily in recent decades.
The actual cost of Measure 28 for middle-income
Oregonians is likely to be only about $3 a month, according
to the Oregon Center for Public Policy. It's a small price to
pay for what we get to keep in education and social services.
The predictions of overcrowded classrooms, disabled people forced
onto the streets, and unemployed social workers are not exaggerated.
It's already happening.
Is Measure 28 the perfect solution? Hardly.
What we really need is reform of our state tax structure. We
need to pump less state money into prisons and the war on drugs,
and more money into prevention, intervention and education.
Our new governor is calculating that tax reform is impossible
before the voters are convinced that Oregon has "smart" government
without waste and inefficiency. So our best bet is to pass Measure
28, try to boost the economy, demonstrate "smart" government
and elect majorities in both houses who will work with Gov.
Kulongoski to really reform the tax structure.
Looking for bargains? Local non-profit
thrift shops such as Goodwill and St. Vinny's are loaded with
merchandise right now following a donations spree at the end
of December. It happens every year as people clean out their
closets and garages to get those donation receipts for tax write-offs.
We hear it takes a couple of weeks for employees to sort, price
and stock the bounty. Happy hunting!
In case you missed our note a few weeks
ago, EW is celebrating its 21st anniversary this
year and our Jan. 30 issue will look ahead to what the Eugene
area will become 21 years from now. Imagine the future music
scene, arts, politics, business, technology, environment, health
care, etc. Send us your 200-word predictions and we'll print
as many as we can. Deadline is Jan. 17. E-mail (preferred) to
editor@eugeneweekly.com and type 2024 in the subject line.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing
notes compiled by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately?
Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com
|
RABBIT
HUNT NIXED
The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife
(ODFW) and the Mary's Peak Hound Club have postponed a "family rabbit
hunt" scheduled for Jan. 11 at the E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area near
Corvallis..
"This inhumane event has been postponed as a result
of public outcry," says a statement from concerned citizens Lauren
C. Regan, Kris Maenz and Misha Dunlap, "and ODFW will now consider
whether to permanently cancel the event ... We are concerned that
our tax dollars are supporting the possible maiming of animals by
novice hunters, as well as the larger implications of encouraging
children to use guns to kill other living things."
Comments can be sent to ODFW at PO Box 59, Portland
97207-0059; or e-mail mike.g.lueck@state.or.us
OSU
TAKES A STAND
Faculty at Oregon State University have
dared to do what UO faculty would not. Last week the OSU Faculty Senate
passed a resolution opposing war in Iraq.
A similar anti-war resolution failed in a UO faculty
senate vote last month in the face of opposition from UO President
Dave Frohnmeyer.
OSU Faculty Senate member Angelo Gomez told the Corvallis
Gazette-Times that if the faculty remained silent it could
be interpreted as supporting an Iraq war. "We have an obligation to
speak," Gomez said.
Supporters of the UO resolution hope that their Faculty
Senate will reconsider an anti-war resolution. — Alan Pittman
TOSS
THE KEYS
Where is our national obsession with incarceration
leading us? A free, one-day conference exploring the social, political
and economic effects of prison growth is planned from 9 am to 5 pm
Friday, Jan. 24 in the Knight Law Center on the UO campus.
Conference speakers and participants will discuss:
budgeting for corrections in an era of fiscal restraint; the effect
of prison growth on communities; the imminent release of the first
wave of inmates who served mandatory-minimum sentences; and other
topics.
During the 1970s and '80s, indeterminate sentencing
and the ideal of offender rehabilitation were replaced with harsher
sentencing policies requiring incarceration for an inflexible number
of years. The result has been an explosion nationally in incarceration
and its associated costs. Oregon's prison population has increased
five-fold since 1982, due in large part to the passage of Measure
11.
Featured speakers at the conference include: Marc
Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, and author of
Young Black Men and the Criminal Justice System and The
Race to Incarcerate; Jeremy Travis, senior fellow at the Urban
Institute and former director of the National Institute of Justice;
Frank Zimring, professor of law at UC-Berkeley and a national expert
on criminal justice and sentencing policy; Steve Aos, associate director,
Washington State Institute for Public Policy; Neil Bryant, former
Oregon senator and chair of the Judiciary Committee; Jean Daugherty,
director of women's services at Sponsor's Inc. Brigette Sarabi, director
of the Western Prison Project, and many others.
For schedule and registration, visit www.morsechair.uoregon.edu/prizgrowth.shtml
THE
'RADICAL' KING
Selected quotes from Martin Luther King
Jr.'s speeches:
"We have committed more war crimes almost than any
nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't
stop it because of our pride, and our arrogance as a nation."
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected angry
men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not
solve their problems. But they ask — and rightly so —
what about Vietnam? Wasn't our own nation using massive doses of violence
to solve its problems? Their questions hit home, and I knew that I
could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed
in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly against the greatest
purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government."
"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right
side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical
revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented"
society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers,
profit motives and property rights are considered more important than
people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are
incapable of being conquered.
"A nation that continues year after year to spend
more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is
approaching spiritual death. .... We still have a choice today; nonviolent
coexistence or violent co-annihilation."
For more quotes by MLK, visit www.mlkonline.com
EW
CLOSED FOR MLK
Eugene Weekly offices will be closed
for Martin Luther King Day Monday, Jan. 20. Questions? Call 484-0519.
CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS
The last line of Vanessa Salvia's Misty
River interview column last week was inadvertently cut off. The complete
line is as follows: "The band has two CDs available, Rising,
released in 2000 and Live at the Backgate Stage, a live CD
available since 2001."
Back to Top
Slinking
Toward War
Undercovered
#28. More news from the world press.
BY
KATE ROGERS GESSERT
Defense Secretary Rumsfield says that presenting U.S.
evidence of Iraq's work on banned weapons to the world or even the
U.N. Security Council is inadvisable because it might jeopardize military
efforts (London Times Online).
U.S. and British planes have intensified bombing in
southern Iraq, targeting radar and anti-aircraft batteries to minimize
threats to a future air attack on Bagdad, according to Western diplomatic
sources (Middle East Newsline). Some 12,000 U.S. troops recently
engaged in live-fire exercises in Kuwait, near the Iraqi border. U.S.
and British warships have moved into Iraqi waters, where they could
encounter mines, or exchange fire with Iraqi ships, thus triggering
war (Maria Tomchik, Counter-punch). And 62,000 more U.S. soldiers,
sailors, pilots and marines will soon arrive in the Gulf, swelling
American forces to 150,000. "By mid to late February," says a senior
military official, "we'll be in the best position to provide the president
immediate flexible options to respond" (New York Times).
Preparations for Gulf War II enhance a growing web
of U.S. military facilities, stockpiles, and/or presence in Bahrain,
Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman. Turkey, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzystan, Dijbouti, Philippines, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Israel, Jordan, and India. These U.S. "forward bases" create flexible
infrastructure for intervening in or starting wars across the globe
(Nation).
Iraq Peace Team volunteers live in Iraq for months,
helping at orphanages and working with teachers and students (www.iraqpeaceteam.org).Hundreds
of would-be "human shields" are leaving London in a caravan, to reach
Iraq "before the war starts." Their leader is Nichols O'Keefe, an
American ex-Marine who served in the Gulf War (Sidney Morning Herald).
Speakers at a London nuclear policy conference warned
that a 50-year taboo on nuclear weapons use is wavering as the U.S.
develops new tactical nuclear weapons, targets "rogue states." and
prepares to resume nuclear testing. NATO policy is drifting toward
the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear assaults, and defense
with "magic umbrellas" of missiles (Guardian). Helen Caldicott
warns that a new war with Iraq will be a nuclear war — like
the war in 1991. American weapons containing depleted uranium have
caused cancer, deformities, and environmental contamination in Iraq,
and persistent illnesses for Gulf War veterans (Baltimore Sun).
Early tests in Afghanistan indicate that U.S. precision bombs, even
those dropped in mid-Kabul, contained uranium; and up to 25 percent
of babies born near bomb sites may have congenital and postnatal health
problems (www.umrc.org).‚ "We will
export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense
of this great land," stated President Bush. In "Bush's Armaggedon
Obsession" (Counterpunch) Michael Ortiz examines Bush's religious
belief in "dominionism," when "people of God" seize earthly power
to hasten the coming of the Messiah. Ortiz concludes that Bush is
apocalyptic in beliefs and actions. His political destructiveness
and lack of response to widespread concern about war with Iraq are
explained by his trust that he is doing God's will.
Meanwhile, America and the world are alight with peace
marches, massive demonstrations, and civil disobedience. American
TV ads accuse SUVs of funding terrorists, and British train engineers
refuse to transport ammunition destined for the Gulf (www.unitedforpeace.org).Weekly
peace vigils dot our Willamette Valley and the Oregon coast.
In metal shipping containers in Bagram, Afghanistan,
7' x 8' cages in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and secret locations around
the world, nearly 3,000 suspected al-Qaeda members and supporters
are imprisoned indefinitely. In Guantanamo Bay, hunger strikes and
suicide attempts are frequent, and some prisoners have become mentally
ill. Many of the 625 inmates may not be terrorists, but people forced
to fight for the Taliban, and charity workers and others picked up
by accident. In Bagram, prisoners of the CIA may be "softened up"
by being beaten, confined in tiny spaces, tied in painful positions,
deprived of sleep, food, and pain medication for wounds. Two men have
died in custody (Observer). "If you don't violate someone's
human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job,"
explains an official who captured and transferred accused terrorists
(Washington Post).
Experts warn that a war with Iraq may cost $1.6 trillion
(www.moveon.org)A U.N. report
predicts slow recovery for the world economy, shaky in the face of
many uncertainties, especially a war in Iraq (Washington Post).
An EU commissioner warned that Europe may not pay for reconstructing
Iraq unless the U.S. gets U.N. clearance for war (Guardian).
Bush administration officials are considering using revenue from Iraq's
oil to pay for American military occupation of the country (Newsday).
The new Brazilian government postponed buying $760
million of military jets, saying the money would be better used to
fight hunger. "If at the end of my term of office," President Lula
said, "every Brazilian has the opportunity to eat breakfast, lunch
and dinner, then I will have completed my mission in life" (Harper's
Weekly).
Back to Top
 |
Alice
Johnson
Lane County's annual Martin Luther King
Jr. Celebration is set for 6 pm Monday, Jan. 20 at the Hult Center.
"A small group of us pulls it off together," says Alice Johnson, secretary
of the celebration committee. "It's a lot of work — we're constantly
looking for volunteers." Growing up in Birmingham, Ala., Johnson developed
a passion for theater. At age 22 she escaped to Los Angeles, hoping
to work in the entertainment industry. Instead, she landed a human-relations
job at an aerospace firm, and worked on film and stage productions
during off hours for seven years. She met her husband, Lane County
juvenile probation counselor and former UO football star LaDaria Johnson,
while he was visiting his family in L.A. "His mother did some matchmaking,"
she notes, and they were married in the summer of '95. "Two weeks
later I was in Eugene." Johnson is currently the mother of daughters
Brittani and Kaira, a full-time senior recruiter at PeaceHealth, a
part-time student at LCC, an active member of her church and of Sankofa,
an African-American women's reading group. "Alice has been my right-hand
person," says Kellie Johnson-Coleman, chair of the MLK event. "She
is that gentle guiding force that keeps everything on track." —
Paul Neevel
Nominate A Happenin' Person
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