Public i Contact

David Lee
wanted to run
for office as
an Independent
in the
44th state
senate district.
He
found that to
even get on the ballot, he would need to collect 6,995 valid
signatures. He would need to file his petitions 323 days
before the general election (two and a half months before
any other independent candidate in the country). And the
signatures that he collected would need to come from voters
who did not want to vote in the primary election. Discouraged
by his chances, Lee gave up his bid for the 44th
state senate district and sued the members of the Illinois
State Board of Elections.
Lee won his suit in the 7th District Court of Appeals
this September. In Lee v. Keith, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS
23686, (7th Cir. 2006), the Court described Illinois’s ballot
access requirements in Illinois as “the most restrictive
in the nation” and having the result of eliminating Independent
candidates from the Illinois political scene.
Indeed, the effects of this case may have a significant effect
on the Illinois political scene.
In Illinois, there is a sharp distinction between independent
candidates and third party candidates. Third
party candidates, such as Joe Parnauskis, Socialist Equality
Party candidate for state senate, and Tom Abram, are third
party candidates. In order to get on the ballot, they were
required to collect a number of signatures equal to five
percent of the voters that voted for that office in the last
election. In addition, these candidates must file in June the
year of the General Election, instead of the Independent
filing deadline of 323 days before the election.
Independent candidates, those without any party affiliation
whatsoever, were required to collect signatures from
10% of the number of voters that cast a vote for that office
in the last election. There currently are no elected independent
officials in the state. State Senator James Meeks is
often described as an independent, but he ran and won
using the third party ballot access requirements as an
“Honesty and Integrity Party” candidate.
The prohibition on the ability of new parties and independents
to appear on the ballot in the United States has
only arisen in the last century. In 1896, twenty-two members
of the People’s Party were elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives and five held seats in the Senate. Significant
parties in the early 1900’s included the Union Labor
Party, the Socialist Labor Party, Progressive Party, Populist
Party, and the Prohibition Party. Minor political parties
have been attributed with the introduction of ideas such as
certain rights (child labor laws, women’s right to vote,
minimum wage etc.) into the political debate.
Restrictions to ballot access in the United States arose
for several reasons. Illinois, for example, raised its
statewide signature requirements from 1,000 signatures to
25,000 signatures in the 1930’s in an attempt to keep
Socialist Party candidates off of the ballot. In other states,
the reasons were more invidious; in many Southern states,
ballot access restrictions were put into place to prevent
new black political parties from gaining ground.
The restrictions to Independent candidates in Illinois are
more recent. The signature requirement to get on the ballot
as an Independent was increased from 5% to 10% of the
number of votes in the last election for that office in 1979.
Prior to 1979, 16 independent General Assembly candidates
qualified for the general election ballot from 1956
through 1978. After the enactment of the 10% requirement,
three independent candidates qualified for the ballot in
1980, but since that time, not a single independent General
Assembly candidate has qualified for the ballot in Illinois.
The U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged that there
is a First Amendment right to appear on the ballot with a
person’s party of choice, but more recent decisions have
focused on the state having a “compelling state interest” to
limit the number of candidates on its ballots. The Court in
Lee v. Keith considered the compelling state interest of Illinois’s
Independent candidate restrictions and found that
the restrictions, were “not sustainable based on the state’s
asserted interest in deterring party splintering, factionalism,
and frivolous candidacies.”
The debate over ballot access restrictions centers on the
very purpose of elections. Is the purpose of our elections
solely to pick a winner? Or is there a broader purpose to
elections that involve the important role elections serve in
the debate over policies in this country? If so, it’s important
that many viewpoints be represented in that debate
and be given the opportunity to play a meaningful role in
the political process.
That debate will play an important role in the future of
Independent candidates in the state of Illinois, a future
which will be determined by the state legislature. In other
words, a future determined by a group of elected persons
who chose to appear with the terms “Republican” or “Democrat”
next to their names on the ballot in an election where
the voters did not have the option of choosing an Independent
candidate. The results of this debate could contribute to
a friendlier atmosphere to those who want to appear on the
ballot as an Independent or a new party candidate, leading
ultimately to a livelier election process in Illinois.

Urbana-Champaign may be “Impeach Bush Central”- and one of the
very few places in the country where voters can have their say directly on
both impeachment and war. Local voters will see a referendum on each
of these questions on the ballot this November 7.
Of course the local referenda are advisory only, not binding. But
activists, including Yarbrough, hope there will be a ripple effect. “She is
looking to broaden the appeal of her resolution,” says Jan Kruse, an
activist with the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort (AWARE), “and we hope her resolution will
help our referenda.”
The big news about that is: the ripples could extend to Washington. If the state resolution
passes, by federal law it must go directly to the floor of the US Congress for debate.
“Sometimes people think this is not a legitimate effort,” says Durl Kruse, also an
activist in AWARE, “but then they see that there is a way to impeach the President, and
that changes.”
Actual impeachment would be an uphill battle, especially in the current Republicancontrolled
Congress. But local activists think the debate itself is valuable as a platform to
raise awareness on an illegal and immoral war, imperialist occupation and cynical assaults
on the Constitution.
WAR AND IMPEACHMENT
Stated reasons for impeachment run very close to arguments against the war. Bush lied.
Cheney lied. The Administration intentionally distorted intelligence reports to make
them seem like reasons for war. They said they would go to war only as a last resort,
and then kept raising the bar to ensure noncompliance. Finally, as millions marched
against war in the US and around the world, the Bush Administration thumbed its nose
and attacked.
The invasion was illegal under international law, which only allows for the use of force
in self-defense, to prevent an imminent attack- as in, warplanes are on the way, can we
shoot them down? (yes)- or as part of a UN-authorized action, which this was not. International
treaties, such as those with these requirements, are under the US Constitution
the highest law of the land, and the Bush Administration broke it. His Administration,
arguably with the complicity of the Congress but nonetheless, has also undermined the
US Constitution by essentially ignoring it.
If lying about having sex with an intern is cause for impeachment, Durl Kruse
notes, then thousands of wrongful imprisonments and deaths, US and Iraqi, must
count for something.
CITIES FOR PEACE
The Urbana City Council early on passed a resolution opposing the invasion of Iraq, joining
over 100 other “Cities for Peace.” At the time 300-400 area residents were protesting
every Saturday on North Prospect Avenue in Champaign against the Bush Administration’s
plans to invade Iraq, which it was claiming was not the plan.
There has been a constant anti-war presence at local events, from the Martin Luther
King Day celebration, to the Taste of Champaign, the Fourth of July parade, Sweet Corn
Festival and Urbana Farmers’ Market. And last year a new Urbana City Council passed
another resolution, this time calling for withdrawal of US troops from occupied Iraq.
Residents again filled the Council chambers to speak up for the resolution, while a
handful of opponents wrote bitter letters to the editor, portraying supporters as
“activists”, as if the designation somehow meant they couldn’t also be neighbors, community
members and voters. Opponents, including some at the News-Gazette, asked rhetorically:
if anti-war council members were so sure their position represented the city populace,
why not let the voters decide?
In the Spring, AWARE took their detractors up on this. At the founding conference of
the Illinois Coalition for Peace and Justice, here in town, AWARE members learned that a
little-known provision in Illinois law provides that every year in every township in the
state, at one particular township meeting, a majority of voters who live in the township
and attend the special annual meeting can choose to add up to three referenda to the
November ballot. The annual meeting was about two weeks away.
The Mayor of Champaign would later accuse activists of a kind of stealth campaign,
but in fact they acted openly within days of learning of the opportunity. AWARE organizers
proposed two referenda, one calling for an immediate troop withdrawal, another for
both Bush and Cheney’s impeachment. Activists at both meetings, Cunnigham Township
in Urbana and Champaign Township in Champaign played to packed houses. These
meetings usually consist of about two people, whose thankless job it is to attend. Participation
for a change was welcome- at least in Urbana.
Spirits ran high in the Cunningham Township office, jammed with anti-war voters, as
township officials patiently explained the process. The only debate was over specific
wording and the order in which the referenda would appear.
In Champaign, Mayor Schweighart, upon learning of the effort, sent out a call for war
supporters to attend and defeat the move, apparently unwilling to hear from voters on the
issue. Anti-war attendees in Champaign did achieve the required two-thirds majority to
place their items on the ballot for voters, after heated debate, by a single vote.
Anti-war activists in a few other Illinois townships added anti-war referenda the same
night. Apparently no others succeeded in adding a referendum for impeachment,
although some reportedly tried. In at least one township, officials blocked the item from
the agenda.
THE CAMPAIGN
AWARE has purchased yard signs in support of the referenda (available at the Urbana
Farmers’ Market), sponsored signs in MTD busses, and attempted to purchase a billboard
ad (but the company turned them away).
Door-to-door canvassing, voter registration up until October 10, and fundraisers small
and large are helping to spread the word throughout the month of October.
Rep. Karen Yarbrough will speak in the Urbana City Council chambers October 17 at
7pm, and at a campus rally for impeachment the next day at noon.
Other events fill out the month. There may be a demonstration on October 28 to coincide
with national protests against the war.
On November 7, it will fall to the voters to decide the referendum questions. It could
go either way, regardless of popular opinion. Mid-term elections are typically low-turnout
elections. Numerous studies have found that low turnout often means conservative
turnout. In a local election such as this a single vote, as in the Champaign Township
meeting, could decide.
National polls consistently show a clear majority in the US oppose the ongoing war, in
line with polled majorities of US troops, including those currently stationed in Iraq. In
forum after forum, activity after activity, campaign after campaign, local residents have
shown that they oppose this war and they oppose the Bush Administration.
It appears that the support is there in the community for these referenda, but their success
depends upon supportive voter turnout on November 7.

Soon after I began attending Print Group
meetings I heard someone ask, “are you going
to block consensus?” When I asked what was
happening someone whispered, “we practice
anarchy here.” Immediately I expected a
group with no structure, no organization, and
no action. Contrary to my expectations the
group accomplished a lot.
As I participated in more groups at the IMC, I routinely
discovered how the anyone-can-join philosophy and the
consensus-voting format enabled a kind of decision making
that I had never witnessed in academia, the cooperative
housing organization where I live, or the supposedly
grassroots movements I had joined. In my previous experience,
differences were often shut down rather than built
upon. When voting we were left with winners and losers
(all those in favor say ‘aye’), little understanding (“You can
spout off for the next 5 hours and my opinion will not
change”), and a tendency for issues to resurface. At the
IMC I was participating in a dialogical process whereby
participants could seek to understand and to be understood,
with unforeseen higher-level solutions to differences
often arising from the dialogue.
Given my excitement to have finally found a less hierarchical,
less bureaucratic, grassroots practice, I was eager
to share this approach with others. Alas, others were not
as excited as I. “The only reason consensus works for your
group is because you all think alike” or “you are a small
group” or ” you have more time than those of us in the
real-world.”
Indeed, we do have many comparable values like harmony
(not avoidance of conflict, but collective over competitive
solutions). But we do NOT always agree. We
believe that the dialogical process inherent to consensus
decision-making can bring harmony about: differences are
explored without categorizing views as inferior or superior.
Since such exploration inevitably spawns creative
prospects, we respect the time that the dialogical process
takes. We are not interested in efficient decision-making that
ineffectively fits the people we represent: that would not be
grassroots. Although a looser concept of time likely
smoothes this process, one should not assume that we ignore
time. Papers must be published. Grants have deadlines. Bills
must be paid. Meetings must end. Instead, group members
save time by searching for the intentions behind proposals
and rephrasing proposals so they fit the intentions of all.
Obviously this will be easier to accomplish in a group
of eight people than a group of 40, but it is not impossible
for a larger group. Time and again I see IMC members who
have honed the skill of “reframing proposals until creative
solutions arise” assume the role of facilitator in larger
groups. In other words, size does have an impact, but ultimately,
it’s what you do with it that counts.
After reflecting on how much goes in to making consensus-
voting work, I had to reconsider my hopes for broader
use of this method. After all, there is very little opportunity
for our citizens to develop such advanced diplomacy. Political
leaders are not very good models (you’re either with us
or against us). Robert’s Rules of Order dominate most adult
committees. Schools that are pressed to test by No Child
Left Behind policies have little time for student dialogue.
Early childhood educators plagued by large class-sizes find
respite in teacher-directed class structures. Parents that are
working countless hours to make ends meet have little time
for family meetings or harmonious parenting: the “no ifs,
ands, ors, or buts” is far easier in stressful moments.
In light of the degree to which children practice decision-
making in early childhood (see interview insert),
early socialization should not be ignored. Most of us
remember raising our hands to vote for this or that in
school. But years of exposure to this winners-losers majority-
voting may be one reason why citizens fail to question
the voting styles in our country. I wonder what would
happen if children were schooled in variety of group decision-
making skills. Might we see a world with more mutual
aid and voluntary cooperation?
The Project Approach is one early learning model that
can foster collaborative decision-making. Teachers use
responsive and inductive strategies to guide small groups
of children through in-depth investigation of topics that
interest them. Locally, professors like Lilian Katz have
helped teachers finesse the art of problem-solving with
children during these projects (exploring hypotheses, generating
creative solutions, establishing joint goals, etc.).
The Project Approach capitalizes on children’s natural tendencies
to organize and empowers children to develop
views and integrate these views with others.
EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW WITH 4-YEAROLD
WHO ATTENDS A LOCAL PRESCHOOL:
Today I Voted.
When you choose a book to go to the library? Tell me how
that works.
We both raise our hand. Whoever has the most, we take
that book to the library.
Can you give me an example?
If I say, “do we want to read this book or this book and
take it to the library?” then we vote. And whoever has
the mostest team gets to take it to the library. “Okay,
this team has the most so we’re going to take this one”
(stated in teacher’s voice).
What about the team that was the smallest? What happens to
their book?
Some people are sad. Some people don’t care.
Tell me about the sad ones.
I don’t know if anyone is sad or not.
Has that ever happened to you, that you didn’t get to take the
book you wanted to?
Yup.
What happened?
I didn’t care.
What about the kids who get to take their book with them?
I think they’re happy.
Are you happy when you get your book chosen?
Yeah. But I’ve never really gotten it (stated in a frustrated
tone).
Why does the teacher only take one book?
Because we only take one book.
I wonder if there is another way to solve that problem? Voting
like that is one way.
During the story at the library, they could think of their
book while they are reading the other book.
They could think about it in their head?
They could tell it after the other story. Like when you tell
an imagined story. They can’t take two books?
No, only uno.
Do they take turns?
They could take one book this time and
the other book the next time.
Is that the way it works?
No, it’s just one.
How do they decide which books to vote on?
The teacher takes two books and the kids
have to vote on whichever teams wants
this book, takes it. And then the other
team doesn’t get to take their book.
Do the kids get to suggest another book?
They would have to raise their hand and
say, “I don’t like those two books.”
And what would happen if they said that?
Well, what they get is what they get.
Remember last year when you voted on what
songs to sing for wings?
I voted on Love Can Build a Bridge. That
was my favorite.
The teacher asked you to raise your hands?
Yeah and then we got it. Because a lot of
the kids wanted it so we got it.
I wonder about the other kids.
I don’t remember. I was happy and I wanted
Fireman because I wanna be a fireman.
You can only choose one song and
another person choosed it so I got it.
Did the kids tell each other what to vote for
before hand or what?
No, you have to think about it by yourself.
The teachers make that a rule?
You have to make your own decision.
If somebody doesn’t get their vote do you
have a chance to talk about it?
We just have to go on.
Do you ever work on projects at school?
You can’t work on each other’s projects at
school.
So you don’t do group projects?
Only when a teacher does it.
How did you decide what to do for your project?
The teacher.
Have you ever been on a project where the
kids decide what to do?
No, we can’t do that in our class.
What if you have five kids working on one
puppet and one kid wants to put on a big
long grey snake and the other kids don’t
want it?
They could make one big puppet first and
then they could make another puppet
that they could put that on.
What if the person feels left out and wants
their snake on the big puppet?
They could make it the next day.
What if they say it’s not fair to wait?
[No response.]
What questions could you ask that kid to
find out why the kid wants to do that?
I’d ask, ‘do you want to do that in the afternoon
today?”
What if the kid says no?
I could say, “Why do you want to put it
on?”
What if the reason is that it is the only thing
that is long and grey?
Well, just have to not let that kid put it on.
What if that kid asked you why you don’t
want the grey snake on the puppet?
Because it would look uglier.
What if the kid said, “What is it about the
grey snake that looks ugly to you?”
It’s the color.
I wonder if you could ask the kid to change it
in some way to make it look better.?
The color. I could ask him if he could draw
a different color of snake on the puppet.
Let’s imagine you ask him but he says he
likes the color grey.
I sorta kinda like grey.
I wonder why he likes the grey color.
Maybe if the other kids put grey on it then
they’d like it. Maybe the other people
could put on grey to make it a little bit
ugly then he could. Or he could put one
different color and on the other end he
could put grey.
What if said he liked grey because it was the
color of his mom’s hair?
Then he could do it.
What if to him grey is a color that is a bad
mean color?
Then he could put a different one.
So if he says mean things?
I would say, “I don’t want to be around
him”
At my work when we make a rule we have to
have everybody agree. But there was one
person who didn’t like it.
I don’t like it.
Why?
Because one person didn’t
like it and everybody
had to like it and he has
to move.
Yeah?
To a different town where
he likes the rules.
What if he couldn’t find a
town that he liked or
didn’t have money to
move?
Then he’d have to work
really hard to get his
money before he
moves.
Did you know that people
vote in the US for presidents
and presidents
make rules about what
people should do? What
do you think about that?
I would choose a president
who listens to people.
If you have 5 people and 3
people vote for 1 president
and 2 people vote
another, the two people
still have to follow the president’s rules
even if they didn’t vote for that president.
Not fair.
Why?
They could hurt their feelings. They would
want their president that they voted for.
What do you think they should do instead?
They could move to the place where that
president lives that they voted for.

If you read the police blotter in the newspaper or listen to the news in Champaign County,
you have probably noticed that “obstruction of justice ” is a charge that appears often.
Some high profile people have been charged with obstruction of justice, Former President
Clinton, Martha Stewart and our own former Governor George Ryan including. But the
majority of people who are charged with obstruction of justice are just ordinary people.
The legal definition for obstruction of justice is found in 720 ILCS 5/31 INTERFERENCE
WITH PUBLIC OFFICERS.
Part of that code is as follows:
“A person obstructs justice when, with intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct
the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly commits any of the following acts:
(a) Destroys, alters, conceals or disguises physical evidence, furnishes false information…”
(720 ILCS 5/31-4). Under this code section, obstruction of justice is a class 4 felony unless
it falls under 720 ILCS 5/31-4 d-(2), which has to do with street gangs.
A case in point is People vs. Antonio B. Brown (02-CF-1942). In this case from 2002, a
Champaign police officer was driving past 904 N. Fourth Street at 6:46pm on a Saturday
evening when he saw Brown, a Black man, standing alone in a parking lot. Brown was
standing in front of a grocery store and about 15 to 20 feet from a restaurant that was
closed. The police officer said he “thought it was odd” that someone was standing in front
of a closed business, so he circled around and pulled into the parking lot. Brown had not
moved, but as the squad car entered the parking lot Brown began to walk away. The officer
testified that at this point he “asked (Brown) if he would stop so (the officer) could talk to
him.” He told Brown that he wanted to speak to him about why he was standing in front of
a closed business.
When the officer asked Brown for identification, Brown replied that he had none. The
officer asked for Brown’s name, address and date of birth. Brown responded that he was
Tony B. Brown and gave his birth date. The officer then radioed Met cad, the computeraided
dispatch service, with this information. Finding an outstanding warrant in Champaign,
the officer arrested him. The State originally charged Brown with one count of
obstructing justice. The information alleged that Brown, intending to prevent his own
apprehension, “knowingly furnished false information to the officer namely: a name of
Tony B. Brown, as opposed to the correct name of Antonio B. Brown.” The State’s Attorney
later added two more counts, one alleging that Brown had falsely stated that he was not
carrying ID, and the other alleging that he had given a false name (Tony B. Brown) when
asked what name appeared on his birth certificate.
Brown’s attorney filed a motion to quash arrest. After hearing the evidence presented at
the hearing, the trial court found that Brown had been stopped without justification and
ordered that Brown’s answers to the police officer’s questions be suppressed. The State
appealed this decision, because without the officer’s testimony Brown could not be convicted
of obstruction of justice.
In the motion to quash arrest, Brown’s attorney argued that “Officer Baltzell had no reason
nor articulable suspicion that defendant was committing or about to commit a crime
when he stopped defendant and started questioning him” and that “the detention, questioning,
and subsequent arrest of defendant was in violation of the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments of the US Constitution, Sections 2,5,6 of the Constitution of the State
of Illinois, and 725 ILCS 5/107-14.”
The State argued that under People vs. Abrams the Supreme Court held that when an
illegal search leads to retaliation by the person whose constitutional right have been violated,
state may use evidence of that retaliation. The Appellate Court in its decision stated,
“the thrust of these cases is clearly the protection of law enforcement officers from people
who PHYSICALLY resist unconstitutional searches and seizures.” “We decline to extend the
Abrams rule to cover Brown’s conduct in this case…. Brown falsely stated that he was not
carrying identification in answer to police officer’s question, when the officer had seized
him without justification…. Refusing to provide identification does not raise the same policy
concerns as assaulting a law enforcement officer.”
Justice Turners dissented, but still noted, “As a final matter, I note the dubious nature of
the charge against Brown.”
Brown gave his name, even his middle initial, and his correct birth date – who was he
trying to fool? The officer had no problem pulling up the warrant with the information
Brown gave him. He still charged him with felony obstruction of justice. Lots of people use
different forms of their given name everyday! Are we to attach some malicious intent to
every one of those?

My ancestor John Bartmess, a Pennsylvanian,
came to the Illinois Territory
after the War of 1812, finding land near
Vincennes. The Bartmess family had
been Huguenot, and had fled to Pennsylvania
from a Europe where Protestant
beliefs were often a death sentence. Two
years after John settled in Illinois, his brother-in-law
James Baird, who had settled nearby, was killed by an
Indian while plowing a field. I have no letter or diary
describing why James was killed or describing life in Illinois
when it was still heavily populated by Indians. Like
most Midwesterners, I grew up not knowing why Indians
are now largely absent.
The mechanisms for “Indian removal”, as it was sometimes
called by those who promoted it, were simple. Indians
were encouraged to move to a reservation of which
they were promised exclusive use. White settlers then
flooded in, establishing farms in the
reservation. The government took no
action to stop this illegal settlement.
When conflicts between the Indians
and settlers occurred, as was inevitable,
the government took the side of the settlers.
The treaty that established the
reservation was voided, and the Army
saw to it that the Indians could not
refuse to accept a new reservation further
to the West. This process continued
until the Indians were pushed onto
land not suitable for farming.
When we think of genocide, most of
us think of the Nazi death camps, of
overt mass murder. Although such
atrocities did occur on the American
frontier on a smaller scale, it was usually
the case that the Indians were simply
deprived of their land. Few but
other Indians were there to watch them starve to death.
When a people is deprived of its land, it is not usually
called genocide, because the intent is not to harm the people
but only to profit by taking their means of sustenance.
By this standard, cannibalism is not murder, because the
intent is only to have a meal, with the victim’s death merely
an unfortunate side-effect. One should be clear about
this- depriving a people of its means of sustenance is genocide.
Yet this is usually not the intention of individual settlers,
who often do not see the larger pattern.
Anna Baltzer was invited to town this summer by
AWARE Presents. She spoke on her experiences in the
West Bank. In travels around the Middle East, she had
found that she was hearing “a different narrative about the
state of Israel from the one I had heard growing up as a
Jewish American.” At issue seemed to be not Israel’s right
to exist, but rather Israel’s right to expand. The West
Bank, occupied by Israel in the 1967 War, appeared to be
undergoing a process of annexation into Israel. In order to
take a closer look at the situation, she volunteered to
work in the West Bank with the International Women’s
Peace Service. She brought back a story of Palestinian
removal eerily similar to Indian removal.
The West Bank is an oddly-shaped area bordered on the
East by the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, which form a natural
border with Jordan. Israel has settlements
distributed throughout the West
Bank. These, with the connecting roads,
are largely off-limits to the Palestinians.
In addition to the settlements, there
are the “outposts”, which are set up by
those who believe that the lands of
historical Israel, which includes the
West Bank, are still the property of
Israel. The outposts, heavily-armed
trailer camps set up on Palestinian
land, appear overnight. When the
inevitable conflicts occur with the
Palestinians whose land has been
seized, the Israeli Army protects the
outpost. The perimeter is expanded
for security reasons, the outpost
grows, and it eventually becomes or
joins a recognized settlement.
This gradual process of land annexation
turns Palestinian towns into ghettos cut off from their
fields. The roads connecting the Palestinian towns are
often blocked by checkpoints or simply by the destruction
of the roads. Without fields or easy travel to adjacent
towns, these towns are no longer economically viable.
They must either exist on charity or be abandoned.
The taking of land without due process is illegal in
every country that has any pretense of civilization. How
can this happen in an Israel whose citizenry largely supports
the rule of law? How could the Midwest be cleared
of Indians when American citizens largely supported the
rule of law? The annexation of the West by white America
differs in some ways from the annexation of the West
Bank now underway, but the mechanisms of annexation
are all too similar.
When I asked Anna why Israeli citizens, most of whom
didn’t support the illegal land grabs in the West Bank,
didn’t stop them, she said that the reason seemed to be
apathy- the average Israeli was too preoccupied with his
own life and family to speak out against the land grabs.
Presumably the same was true of white Americans during
the period of Indian removal.
Early American settlers escaped likely death in the
slums and backwaters of Europe, only to inflict likely
death on the American Indian. Israel happened partly in
response to the Holocaust, yet a people who knew the
reality of the ghetto are now inflicting the ghetto on Palestinians.
There seems to be no lesson learned, with evil
simply begetting evil.
Reading history, it is evident that justice is not the natural
order of things, but exists only because people
demand that it exist. The Palestinians will not be treated
justly unless it is demanded. There is no ultimate source
of justice but the demands of each person. Because the
individual is the source of justice, the ultimate responsibility
for injustice is with each of us. Apathy is not only
unacceptable, it is immoral.
But, you might ask, who am I to object to the annexation
of the West Bank, given my ancestor’s similar treatment
of the American Indian and given the fact that I am
not Israeli? To the first objection, I offer that one often
learns, or certainly should learn, from mistakes. To the
second objection, I offer that America is to some extent the
guarantor of Israel’s existence. Israel is the largest recipient
of American military aid. America is often the lone vote for
Israel’s interests in the United Nations Security Council.
We would be remiss, therefore, to assume that American
opinion would not be considered with respect in Israel.
For more information on Indian removal, see Howard
Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Anna Baltzer
has written about her experiences in her book Witness to
Palestine. Her web site is at www.annainthemiddleeast.com.

We have been taught in America not to
worry about nuclear weapons. We are supposed
to pretend that they will never be
used, as if their only function is symbolic,
as if they are mighty but ultimately peaceful
sentinels deterring the aggression of others.
For over 50 years we have been taught that
the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) protected
our safety by guaranteeing that anyone who launched
a nuclear strike against the U.S. would be mutually assured
of its destruction. It is clear now, however, that both our
MAD fears and our MAD hopes were displaced.
Our MAD fear was displaced in two senses, for the
nuclear arsenal will not destroy life on earth via a massive
conflagration of warring robotic weapons but rather
through the slow filling of our planet with never-dying
nuclear waste and the slow strangulation of the Great Society.
That is, you cannot live on earth when the water is
poisoned, when the land is radioactive, when the air itself
simmers with silent death—and that, of course, is what
will happen some gorgeous afternoon when a cooling
pond loses control of its radioactive rods, when a train carrying
nuclear waste crashes, when some micro-sensor
fails, when the deadly waste produced by our arsenal of
weapons leaks out into the world, leaving it ruined forever.
While we await this ecological nightmare, let’s agree
that you cannot fund the programs that make civil democracy
possible when hundreds of billions of dollars are
spent each year building and maintaining nukes. Democracy
in America will not end because the Russians have
nuked it into oblivion but because the Pentagon has bankrupted
the nation, turning America into a flaccid land of
uneducated, sugar-devouring, TV-addicted, war-mongering
yahoos. We are rapidly approaching the suicidal position
of having the best weapons systems in the world yet
the worst schools among all modernized nations. We can
end life on earth, yet we cannot feed our homeless. We can
wipe Moscow or Beijing off the face of the earth, yet we
cannot count votes in Ohio.
Our MAD hope was displaced as well, for selling
democracy down the river in the name of building nukes
has not produced a world of insured safety. MAD worked
against the Soviets, but it will not work against Al Qaeda—
what could we possibly bomb?—or any of the other terrorist
groups currently threatening to wage asymmetrical warfare
against us, perhaps with “dirty bombs” or other blackmarket
nukes. 50 years of nuclear MADness has thus left
us helpless before the threat of more 9/11s—we are not
safe, our nukes are useless, they stand now solely as testaments
to waste and delusion.
AND SO WE MARCHED
And so we marched. Marking the 61st anniversary of the
U.S. dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
and protesting both war profiteering in Iraq and the continued
production of nuclear weapons, over 100
marchers converged on August 6 on the Bettis Atomic
Power Lab (BAPL) in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, just
south of Pittsburgh. We marched on the BAPL because it
is one of the nation’s largest nuclear weapons facilities,
where Bechtel helps design and refurbish the nuclear
reactors that drive many of the U.S. Navy’s submarines
and aircraft carriers. The 14 Trident submarines that run
on nuclear reactors built by Bechtel at the BAPL each
carry 24 nuclear warheads (336 total), meaning these
submarines alone—to say nothing of our land and airbased
nukes—have the capacity to extinguish life on
earth. And so we marched.
Fifteen activists dressed all in white to commemorate
the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki carried large cardboard
white doves held high on wooden sticks. Standing
in the BAPL parking lot awaiting the protesters, the phalanx
of police thus saw gliding toward them a flock of
doves, a cloud of peace, a message of hope. Behind the
doves came drummers, singers, chanters, clappers, those
with heads held down in silence and those with cameras
held high, those full of anger and those weeping with sadness.
We gathered before the gates of the plant and
splayed ourselves out on the screaming hot pavement,
performing a symbolic “Die In,” a theatrical moment of
lying in sweaty silence to mark those whose bodies were
vaporized 61 years ago in Japan, bombed yesterday in
Baghdad, shot today in Kabul, forgotten tomorrow in
Detroit. We sang old peace songs led by the “Raging
Grannies,” a group of elderly peace activists who have
embraced their role as grandmothers. OK, they say, you
respect grandmothers, so hear this: we oppose this rotten
war, we oppose nuclear proliferation, we oppose war profiteers.
Next to the Raging Grannies were the black-clad
skateboarders and next to them the flowing skirted hippies
and next to them the retired pastors and professors
and next to them the union organizers and next to them
the Code Pink women so strong and sexy—and regardless
of age or race or class or religion we chanted together,
shouting No Nukes, No War, No War Profiteers! No
Nukes, No War, No War Profiteers!
We were but a hundred—nearly outnumbered by police
and media, the march thus representing one of the key
dilemmas of our historical moment, where citizens of conscience
find themselves literally surrounded by the state’s
forces of oppression and the corporate means of perpetual
numbing. Television will report our march wedged
between ads for aspirin and mouthwash and new tires.
Nonetheless, we assembled outside the BAPL because
United for Peace and Justice (UPJ) and Pittsburgh’s local
August 6 Organizing Committee had issued a call to action:
“Stop Bechtel! Stand Up Against War Profiteers!” Linking
war profiteering in Iraq and the ongoing production of
nuclear weapons, we focused on Bechtel, the San Francisco-
based transnational corporation that UPJ calls “the
world’s number-one nuclear profiteer.”
BECHTEL, THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX,
AND THE TOXIC WASTE OF EMPIRE
As a charter member of the military-industrial-complex,
Bechtel is among the largest war profiteers in Iraq and around
the globe. One of its Iraq contract is ostensibly for $34.6 million,
yet the indeterminate nature of the deal has led one
commentator to estimate that the work contracted to Bechtel
may eventually cost as much as $680 million. It would be
hard not to reach this figure, for the New York Times reports
that the contract “covers virtually all the major projects in
Iraq, including two international and three domestic airports,
ensuring potable water is available, reconstructing electric
power plants and rebuilding roads, railroads, schools, hospitals
and irrigation systems.” The “reconstruction” of Iraq has
been managed so poorly by Bechtel and its fellow war profiteers,
however, that the International Advisory and Monitoring
Board of the Development Fund for Iraq, an auditing
board established by the United Nations, has argued that U.S.
firms being paid with Iraqi oil funds should pay back the
Iraqis more than $200 million.
Given its overwhelming record of botched work, readers
will tremble with fear when they learn that Becthel is
among the chief contractors of the U.S. nuclear weapons
arsenal. Indeed, among its work that is not classified, Bechtel
currently holds contracts for:
• $626 million worth of “operations management”
at the Kwajalein Atoll Missile Site
• $553 million for managing the Los Alamos
Nuclear Laboratory
• $1.9 billion worth of “nuclear waste disposal” at
Yucca Mountain
• $14.7 billion for “weapon refurbishing” at the
Savannah River Site
• $500 million for “development and repair of
naval propulsion reactors” at the Bettis Atomic
Power Lab
Bechtel is thus immersed in virtually every aspect of the U.S.
nuclear arsenal. Making nuclear reactors, handling nuclear
waste, and managing weapons labs, Bechtel grows rich by
making the weapons that may one day end the world. As
Frida Berrigan has argued, Bechtel is among the leading corporations
privatizing the apocalypse. And so we marched,
chanting “Stop Bechtel! Stand Up Against War Profiteers!”
HISTORY CALLING: 61 YEARS OF LIVING WITH
THE BOMB
As we marched through the rural poverty of West Mifflin,
we were shadowed by history. For sixty-one years ago, on
August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic
bomb on Hiroshima. When news of the bombing was
reported the next day, President Truman warned the Japanese
that if they did not surrender immediately, they could
“expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has
never been seen on this earth.” U.S. war planners were so
impressed by the destructive capacities of their new
weapon that they referred to it not as an atomic bomb but
as a “Cosmic Bomb”—it was the first weapon so powerful it
could alter the cosmos. And in fact the destruction caused
by the cosmic/atomic bomb was so great that the War
Department reported on August 7, 24 hours after bombing
Hiroshima, that it was “unable to make an accurate report”
about the damage to that city because “an impenetrable
cloud of dust and smoke” prevented U.S. reconnaissance
planes from actually seeing the city. The New York Times
covered the story with a mixture of awe, reverence, and
horror, yet it said not one word about casualties. We now
know that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (later
that week, on 9 August) injured hundreds of thousands,
killed over 200,000 innocents, and caused immeasurable
amounts of environmental and genetic damage. While the
Times avoided talking about specific death totals, it reported
that the scientists who helped design the bomb spent
those first early days of the new atomic age “frankly fearful
to witness the results of the invention, which might turn
out to be either the salvation or the Frankenstein’s monster
of the world.” Whether readers believe the bomb was salvation or monster
depends in large part on which school of history they
subscribe to. President Truman famously predicted that a
full-scale U.S. invasion of Japan would cost “half a million
lives,” meaning that dropping atomic/cosmic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki spared U.S. lives by forcing the
Japanese to capitulate. This atomic-bomb-as-saving-livesand-
ending-war theory worked perfectly with post-war U.S.
triumphalism, for it portrayed U.S. scientific and military
supremacy as the culmination of a new age of civilized U.S.
global leadership. We now know, of course, that Truman’s
estimate of likely U.S. dead was wildly inflated, that the
Japanese had in fact tried to surrender prior to the bombings,
and that using the atomic/cosmic bombs was not so
much a humane way to end World War II as a murderous
way of beginning the Cold War. Indeed, most historians
now believe the bombings were meant to intimidate China
and the U.S.S.R. From this atomic-bomb-as-wasting-livesand-
perpetuating-war perspective, the U.S. bombed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki to produce a deadly form of political
theatre offering viewers this harrowing lesson: mess with
the U.S. and this will be your fate.
CALL TO ACTION
The world thus worried in those early days after the U.S.
first unleashed the age of atomic/cosmic bombs if we could
survive such a monstrous predicament. In words as painfully
precise then as they are today, the New York Times wondered
“can mankind grow up quickly enough to win the
race between civilization and disaster?” To put the question
in contemporary political terms: can we reclaim democracy
from the clutches of Bechtel and the other war profiteers
who have made the U.S. military-industrial-complex the
greatest threat to life on our planet? We marched on the
BAPL because we believe the answer to that question is YES.
If you believe the answer to that question is YES, then get
involved with one of the following groups, who are all fighting
against war profiteering and the proliferation of nuclear
weapons:
• United for Peace and Justice, “No Nukes, No Wars”
Campaign: www.unitedforpeace.org
• Code Pink: codepink4peace.org
• The August 6 Committee: www.august6.org
• War Resisters League Stop the Merchants of Death
Campaign: www.warresisters.org
• The Declaration of Peace: www.declarationofpeace.
org
• Physicians for Social Responsibility: www.psr.org

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s installation of George W.
Bush as President in January of 2001, the peoples of the
world have witnessed a government in the United States of
America that demonstrates little if any respect for fundamental
considerations of international law, international
organizations, and human rights, let alone appreciation of
the requirements for maintaining international peace
and security. What the world has watched instead is a comprehensive
and malicious assault upon the integrity of the
international legal order by a group of men and women
who are thoroughly Machiavellian in their perception of
international relations and in their conduct of both foreign
policy and domestic affairs.
This is not simply a question of giving or withholding
the benefit of the doubt when it comes to complicated matters
of foreign affairs and defense policies to a U.S. government
charged with the security of both its own citizens and
those of its allies in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and
the Pacific. Rather, the Bush Jr. administration’s foreign
policies represent a gross deviation from those basic rules of
international deportment and civilized behavior that the
United States government had traditionally played the pioneer
role in promoting for the entire world community.
Even more seriously, in many instances specific components
of the Bush Jr. administration’s foreign policies constitute
ongoing criminal activity under well-recognized
principles of both international law and U.S. domestic law,
and in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg
Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles.
Depending upon the substantive issues involved, those
international crimes typically include but are not limited to
the Nuremberg offenses of crimes against peace, crimes
against humanity and war crimes, as well as grave breaches
of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1907
Hague Regulations on land warfare, torture, disappearances,
and assassinations. In addition, various members of
the Bush Jr.
administration committed numerous inchoate crimes
incidental to these substantive offenses that under the
Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles were international
crimes in their own right: viz., planning, preparation,
solicitation, incitement, conspiracy, complicity,
attempt, aiding and abetting, etc. Of course the great
irony of today’s situation sis that six decades ago at
Nuremberg, representatives of the U.S. government participated
in the prosecution, punishment and execution of
Nazi government officials for committing some of the
same types of heinous international crimes that members
of the Bush Jr. administration currently inflict upon people
all around the world.
To be sure, I personally oppose the imposition of capital
punishment upon any person for any reason no matter how
monstrous their crimes: Bush Jr., Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein,
Slobodan Milosevic, Vladimir Putin, Ariel Sharon, my
former client John Wayne Gacy, etc. Furthermore, according
to basic principles of international criminal law, all
high-level civilian officials and military officers in the U.S.
government who either knew or should have known that
soldiers or civilians under their control committed or were
about to commit international crimes, and failed to take the
measures necessary to stop them, or to punish them, or
both, are likewise personally responsible for the commission
of international crimes.
This category of officialdom who actually knew or at
least should have known of the commission of such substantive
or inchoate international crimes under their jurisdiction
and failed to do anything about it typically includes
the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Director of
Central Intelligence, the National Security Adviser, the
Attorney General, the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and
regional CINCs, and presumably the President and Vice
President. These U.S. government officials and their immediate
subordinates, among others, were personally responsible
for the commission or at least complicity in the commission
of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity,
and war crimes as specified by the Nuremberg Charter,
Judgment, and Principles – at a minimum. In international
legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration itself should be
viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy
under international criminal law.
Consequently, on Tuesday 11 March 2003, with the Bush
Jr. administration’s war of aggression against Iraq staring the
American People, Congress and Republic in their face, Congressman
John Conyers of Michigan, the Ranking Member
of the House Judiciary Committee (which has jurisdiction
over Bills of Impeachment), convened an emergency meeting
of forty or more of his top advisors, most of whom were
lawyers. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss and
debate immediately putting into the U.S. House of Representatives
Bills of Impeachment against President Bush Jr.,
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, and then Attorney General John Ashcroft in
order to head off the impending war. Congressman Conyers
kindly requested that Ramsey Clark and I come to the meeting
in order to argue the case for impeachment.
This impeachment debate lasted for two hours. It was
presided over by Congressman Conyers, who quite correctly
did not tip his hand one way or the other on the merits of
impeachment. He simply moderated the debate between
Clark and I, on the one side, favoring immediately filing
Bills of Impeachment against Bush Jr. et al. to stop the
threatened war, and almost everyone else there who were
against impeachment for partisan political reasons. Obviously
no point would be served here by attempting to
digest a two-hour-long vigorous debate among a group of
well-trained lawyers on such a controversial matter at this
critical moment in American history. But at the time I was
struck by the fact that this momentous debate was conducted
at a private office right down the street from the
White House on the eve of war. Suffice it to say that most of
the “experts” there opposed impeachment not on the basis
of enforcing the Constitution and the Rule of Law, whether
international or domestic, but on the political grounds that
it might hurt the Democratic Party effort to get their presidential
candidate elected in the year 2004.
As a political independent, I did not argue that point.
Rather, I argued the merits of impeaching Bush Jr., Cheney,
Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft under the United States
Constitution, U.S. federal laws, U.S. treaties and other
international agreements to which the United States is a
party, etc. Article VI of the U.S. Constitution provides that
treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” This socalled
Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution also
applies to international executive agreements concluded
under the auspices of the U.S. President such as the 1945
Nuremberg Charter. Congressman Conyers was so kind as
to allow me the closing argument in the debate.
Briefly put, the concluding point I chose to make was
historical: The Athenians lost their democracy. The Romans
lost their Republic. And if we Americans did not act now
we could lose our Republic! The United States of America is
not immune to the laws of history! After two hours of most
vigorous debate among those in attendance, the meeting
adjourned with second revised draft Bills of Impeachment
sitting on the table.
Certainly, if the U.S. House of Representatives can
impeach President Clinton for sex and lying about sex,
then a fortiori the House can, should, and must impeach
President Bush Jr. for war, lying about war, and threatening
more wars.
All that is needed is for one Member of Congress with
courage, integrity, principles and a safe seat to file these
currently amended draft Bills of Impeachment against Bush
Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, and now Attorney General Albert
Gonzales, who bears personal criminal responsibility for
the Bush Jr. administration torture scandal. Failing this, the
alternative is likely to be an American Empire abroad, a
U.S. police state at home, and continuing wars of aggression
to sustain both—along the lines of George Orwell’s
classic novel 1984. Despite all of the serious flaws demonstrated
by successive United States governments that this
author has amply documented elsewhere during the past
quarter century as a Professor of Law, the truth of the matter
is that America is still the oldest Republic in the world
today. “We the People of the United States” must fight to
keep it that way!

If Joe Parnarauskis prevails against the Democratic Party’s
attempt to remove his name from the ballot, students and
workers will have a socialist, anti-war candidate to vote for
in the November election.
Parnarauskis, a registered nurse and lifelong resident of
East Central Illinois, is standing for State Senate in Illinois’
52nd District. This past spring and summer, his supporters
gathered nearly 5,000 signatures from workers and students
in order put the Socialist Equality Party on the ballot. This
was far more than the arbitrarily high signature requirement
of 2,985 created by the Democratic and Republican parties
in order to defend their political monopoly.
Even so, Democratic Party functionaries organized
from the offices of powerful machine politicians—speaker
of the house Mike Madigan and senate president Emil
Jones—have launched a bad-faith effort to disqualify the
signatures of thousands of legally-registered voters, and
thereby remove Parnarauskis from the ballot.
Simultaneously, the Democratic Party is attempting to
remove the entire slate of the statewide Green Party. The
efforts to bar socialists and Greens from the election is in
keeping with the policy of the national Democratic Party,
which fought a ruthless campaign against Ralph Nader’s
presidential bid in 2004, and that same year attempted—
and failed—to remove Socialist Equality Party candidate
Tom Mackaman from the ballot for state representative in
Champaign and Urbana.
While the Democratic Party grovels before Bush and
the right wing, they spare no means, no matter how base,
against those who would challenge the two-party system
from the left.
In their attempt to disqualify legitimate voters from
Parnarauskis’ nominating petitions, highly-paid Democratic
attorneys have demanded that names be disqualified that
have been printed rather than signed. They have demanded
that addresses that include typos—for example, writing
“street” rather than “avenue”—be disqualified. They routinely
object to “foreign-sounding” names and the names of
women voters who sign petitions using their maiden rather
than married name. Most obnoxious, given that this is a
college community, the Democratic Party has demanded
and won the disqualification of hundreds upon hundreds
of legally-registered students, simply because students have
frequently changed local address in between the time they
registered and the time they signed nominating petitions.
WHY DOES THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RESORT
TO SUCH ANTI-DEMOCRATIC METHODS?
First, the Democrats hope to inflict enormous legal and
organizational costs on third party candidates. The Illinois
Democratic Party is flush with corporate money;
even a few million dollars spent to quash challenges from
the left is considered a pittance. The same tactic will
serve, the Democrats hope, to intimidate and silence
potential opponents.
More importantly, however, the Democrats’ effort to
close ranks with Republicans and shut the gates to third
party challenges is symptomatic of an ossified political
system that can brook no challenge from the left. The
Democrats fear that the enormous opposition to the war in
Iraq and the erosion of living standards in this country,
once it finds political expression, will prove impossible to
contain within the framework of the two-party system.
With well over half of Americans and an enormous-majority
of rank-and-file Democrats now opposed to the war —
in spite of overwhelming bipartisan and media support—
this fear is very real.
This tension became visible in the recent primary election
defeat of Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman—the most
pro-war and pro-Bush Democrat—by multi-millionaire
Ned Lamont. Even though Lamont’s differences with
Lieberman were of a purely tactical character—how better
to execute the interests of the ruling elite in Iraq and the
Middle East rather than whether or not to do so—his antiwar
rhetoric provided a lightning rod for the enormous
and growing national sentiment against the war.
Though Lamont has rushed to reassure the corporate
elite since his victory, authoring a column in the Wall
Street Journal in which he promised to champion
rightwing fiscal policies, both major political parties and
the talking heads of the news media have been stunned by
Lieberman’s defeat. Despite their best efforts to conceal it,
the enormous hatred against the imperialist designs of the
Bush administration has grown to such an extent that it
cannot be reliably contained.
Over the past century, the Democratic Party has been
the time-proven means by which the ruling elite has harnessed
mass opposition from the bottom up and diverted
it along lines harmless to American capitalism. The struggle
raging in and around the Democratic Party now is over
this fundamental question: will the Democratic Party be
utilized, once again, as a trap for anti-war opposition; or
will it remain uncritically aligned with the policies of the
Bush administration? Lamont’s rush to reassure the Wall
Street Journal suggests that no faction of the Democratic
Party will be willing or able to house opposition to the war
for long.
This brings us to the third reason why the Democratic
Party attempts to outlaw third party challenges from the
left. In essence the practice represents an attack on the
right to vote, and is part and parcel of the on-going attack
on basic democratic rights. The policies—foreign and
domestic—being put into place by the Bush administration
with Democratic complicity are inimical to the interests
of, and have become odious to, the great majority of
the nation’s population. Despite minor and transitory differences,
the Democratic and Republican parties faithfully
enact the agenda of the American ruling elite, a thin layer
of billionaires and multimillionaires who have prospered
enormously at the same time wages and living standards
for the broad masses have stagnated and declined.
Under these conditions, basic democratic rights can no
longer be tolerated, including the right to vote for a candidate
of one’s choosing—a right without which democracy
has no meaning. In essence, the Democratic Party is
attempting to thwart the democratic process for the same
reason that the Bush administration is assuming quasi-dictatorial
powers: open political opposition cannot be tolerated
for fear it may catch fire and spread.
Working people, students, and those who would fight
for peace must chart their own, independent course. They
must throw off, once and for all, the dead weight of American
liberalism, and build a political movement of the
international working class that seeks to create a social
system which places human need above the relentless
drive for profit of the big corporations.

I was asked to write this article by the folks at the Public i to add support to
this issue highlighting misuses of the enforcement and justice system in
Champaign County. I want to point out that my story pales in comparison
to the trespasses that the police and justice system commit everyday against
more targeted social and racial groups in C-U. I don’t want my story to
come off as whiny. I understand that I got off comparatively easily for the
supposed crime that I committed, but I still do not understand why this situation
has to happen to anyone. My story should be used to stimulate thoughts of the more
ridiculous incidents happening to people even more targeted by the police and justice system.
As you read this, I urge you to think about whether or not this is how you want your tax dollars
spent on fighting crime. Do you want our police force’s, judge’s and lawyers’ energy
spent this way, or do you want them taking care of real crimes? Who is profiting from incidents
like this filtering through the justice system? Please consider the larger implications of
what my relatively inconsequential story means as you read.
My story begins the evening of May 24, 2005. I was attending some parties in my
neighborhood in celebration of the latest round of U of I graduations. First, I attended a
cocktail party at Green and Orchard (in the same block as my house) and then went on
with two friends to a party at Iowa and Orchard. I was handed a beer as I was leaving the
second party. I cracked it open and continued on home to High and Orchard, as it was
late. I realize that this is a ticketable offense in C-U, but at 3 AM my thoughts are not
about running into police in the sleepy streets of Urbana. My thoughts are of retiring to
my bed.
As my friends and I turned onto Orchard St., we ran into a parked cop car with Officer
Christopher Darr standing nearby. Officer Darr claims in his report that he was drawn
to the corner by a group of people talking loudly and “wandering all over the roadway.”
He was “concerned for [our] safety.” Never mind that the intersection of Orchard and
Iowa at 3 a.m. is not necessarily the busiest intersection in town. Not a single car passed
the spot we occupied while this all went down. My guess is that the police were probably
called to monitor the party and just happened to spot us coming around the corner.
Officer Darr asked me to hand over my freshly opened beer and I did so without incident.
He then went through the usual routine of asking for my information because he was
going to give me a drinking ticket. I didn’t have any ID on me because I was partying in my
neighborhood and did not have any pockets in my evening gown to carry anything. For
some stupid reason I chose to give the officer a false name, an outcome of a bit too much to
drink and “quick” thinking. Honestly, if the police don’t make you nervous then you must
have super-human strength. Why is that? Why are we so scared of those chosen to “protect
and serve” us? Is it because the police can play by their own rules? Read on, read on.
After I realized what I had done, I felt had to keep up the charade, which I did for a
second. Officer Darr realized I was lying after checking me out in every computer system
his squad car was wired to, oh, and finally he asked my friends what my name was. The
ol’ divide and conquer technique. I had already confessed my real information to the
other officer that had arrived on the scene (Officer Jackson) while Officer Darr was talking
to my friend, because I realized how stupid this situation was turning out. I was then
handcuffed, charged with a felony(!), and taken to jail because I had committed an
“obstruction of justice”.
I was asked, while in cuffs, by Officer Jackson, why I had lied to them. I responded
that I did not trust the police because they are “shady” and that I was drunk and tired. I
told him there was only one officer in town that I trusted, Sergeant Anthony Cobb,
because I felt that he treated all people with respect and had always shown integrity in his
dealings with the public he protects and serves. I referenced the VEYA Citizen’s Watch
video, made by Martell Miller and Patrick Thompson, that I had seen the previous fall,
which spotlighted how white people and black people were given separate treatment by
the police in CU. The video also shows Sgt. Cobb being the only police officer without an
authoritarian “you will do as I say” attitude. (If you have not heard of this video, please
check out previous issues of the Public i. There is a massive saga going on in this town
concerning that video, and now Patrick Thompson, an innocent man, is being threatened
with jail time for a crime he did not commit, simply for making this video that shows the
police force’s true colors.)
I was never rude to the police. I never shouted at them. I never swore at them or
insulted them. I simply did not blindly comply with everything they asked me to do. I
merely referenced the VEYA video, and that was the end of my time as a free woman for
that night. It is my belief that because I spoke of this video I was taken to jail
When I called the police department before my court date to find out how much the
drinking ticket would cost, a woman in the legal department asked me why I was going
to court when I could have just paid and been done with it. I explained that the police
officer had checked the option that I must appear in court on my ticket. Her immediate
response was, “What did you do to make the police officer mad?” It saddens me that an
outside party, who knew nothing of the details of my case, was able to see that I had
angered the police officer. The worst part is not necessarily that she could tell that he had
acted out of emotion and not integrity. The worst part is that we continue to let this happen
to us while shrugging “that’s just the way it is.” I now have a criminal record, because of a
simple drunken mistake and an officer who
used his emotions instead of professional
integrity. I have a misdemeanor on my record
(my Class 4 felony was plead down) and can
never leave the “Have you ever been convicted
of a crime?” box blank on a job application.
I spent around $1500 for court costs,
the ticket, a drug evaluation (even though
drugs had nothing to do with my case), and a
condescending lawyer that constantly insulted
my lack of knowledge of the justice system.
I am headed off to veterinary school in
South Africa, and believe me, that money
would have served me much better there
paying for school costs. And believe me, my
time spent going to court, drug/alcohol evaluations,
and in jail could have been spent
much better doing just about anything else.
I ask again, is this how you want your
tax dollars spent in Champaign county?
Keeping “bad” people like me locked up
and caught up in the justice system? I think
we all have better things to do.

Police corruption is something that can go
undetected for long periods of time, but
when a scandal breaks, it often exposes
many individuals—from patrol officers on
the streets, all the way up to their supervisors.
Most police officers will not even talk
about corruption. Although many good
cops do not condone the misuse of power by corrupt officers,
the brotherhood of law enforcement officers keeps
them from condemning illegal acts.
Examples can include planting evidence, falsifying a
police report, or committing perjury on the witness stand.
These tactics are often used to secure a conviction. In these
instances, a police officer serves as judge and jury for an
individual they believe to be guilty. More serious crimes can
include police brutality, drug running, prostitution rings,
and framing of suspects. These abuses can lead to the loss
of integrity and an erosion of public trust in the police.
PLANTING EVIDENCE
Tampering with evidence allows police to establish that
some type of crime has been committed. By using this
method, they are able to circumvent the lack of evidence
and ensure an individual is prosecuted. This results in innocent
people being wrongly convicted based on false evidence.
The “Rampart scandal” in Los Angeles is one of the
most infamous examples. The Rampart Crash Division, an
anti-gang unit, was found planting drugs on prostitutes and
then setting up a prostitution ring. Additionally, they were
planting weapons on dead bodies to cover up their murders.
Whether the individuals who ended up dead were innocent
or guilty, we will never know. But one thing is certain—their
lives were lost due to serious police corruption.
FALSIFYING POLICE REPORTS
Police have also been caught falsifying reports. Often times
they have another officer file supplemental reports to further
validate their claims. Information such as confessions, witness
statements, and testimonies are altered to develop a
plausible police report, a document that is heavily relied
upon during prosecution. This kind of corruption was seen
with a veteran officer in Pittsburgh, James Hartley, who
repeatedly falsified reports on drunken-driving suspects. Old
arrest reports were used as templates rather than writing the
reports from scratch. Regardless of whether Hartley’s victims
were innocent or guilty, the means do not outweigh the ends.
Upholding citizen’s rights is a necessary component of law
enforcement that is essential to enforcing the law.
COMMITTING PERJURY
False testimony, or committing perjury on the witness stand,
is one of the most frequent types of police corruption. Often
times, members of a jury are more apt to believe a police officer
than the accused. Many cases are decided by an officer’s
testimony and therefore this is an extremely important issue.
Police perjury is so common that there could be thousands
of innocent people convicted every year.
Sometimes police are well-trained and coached by
other officers and State’s Attorneys on how to lie and give
false statements. Judges and prosecutors may be aware,
tolerate, and even encourage police lying in court in order
to convict someone. You can often see this type of conduct
in unlawful traffic stops, when an officer believes a
driver is carrying some type of contraband drugs or
weapons. They will say in the police report that the driver
ran a red light, was speeding, or committed some type of
minor traffic violation. This type of corruption is the most
damaging of all because nine times out of ten the officer
on the stand will not be judged as falsely testifying. Their
word is taken to be truthful and honest.
PROTECTING THEIR REPUTATION
Police corruption occurs when officers and supervisors
look the other way and refuse to hold other officers
accountable. Whether they do so to protect the reputation
of their friends, or for favors and bribery, the integrity of
all police officers is compromised. Planting evidence,
falsifying police reports and committing perjury are just
the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the types of
corruption that police officers engage in. If there were
stricter standards of accountability—cops losing their job,
being stripped of their pensions, or facing incarceration—
it would help to eliminate this behavior.
However, this can only be accomplished if there is
cooperation from police departments and a desire to
root out the illegal actions of dirty cops. Until this issue
is taken seriously and steps are put in place to eliminate
such conduct, more innocent people will be incarcerated
for crimes they did not commit. Most individuals who
are wrongfully convicted are poor and do not have the
financial means to hire adequate legal representation.
Therefore the chances of their case ever being re-tried is slim to none.

Investing in lies and blaming the youth
Ruminate,
Murder is designed to hide the truth
Murder is designed to hide the truth
Murder is designed to hide the truth
5 deaths,
5 deaths in the county jails in less than two years
Inmates beaten and tased by officers/overseers,
Is legal lynching the new scoop?
Officer Hjort escapes
With a history of sexual misconduct
And physical evidence of a rape!
The response from his “friends” is political jargon,
13 year veteran Sergeant Myers repeatedly
Unmercifully sends 50,000 volts of electricity into detained citizens
And is rewarded with a plea bargain
Overcharging persists and it’s a damn shame
Obstruction of Justice
Obstruction of Justice
Obstruction of Justice
Judge Heidi Ladd sentenced Terrell Layfield (25)
to SIX YEARS in prison
For giving a false name!
Our condolences to the other four men,
Marcus Edwards (18),
Joseph Beavers, (37)
William D. Marshall (31)
& Quentin Larry (36), who died on Memorial Day weekend
Abuse of power
Malicious prosecution as retribution
All to instill fear,
Unequal protection under the law
And the message is clear,
We do what the hell we want to do
And the same thing that happened to Amber Groholl, Patrick Thompson, etc.,
Can happen to you!
For those of you who don’t believe this piece
Pick up your camcorder
And start videotaping the police
Start tracking their actions on the streets in your community
Do some research and find out how many young females
Get raped by officers that are on duty
Rodney King and Amadou Diallo
are just two of the obvious Constructions of Injustice
There’s a long history of bogus cops receiving slaps on the wrist
Now Champaign County
can add two more names to that growing list
but I guarantee you this
at some point, the poor and repressed
will get tired of this shit!
There will be no respect for authority
& no trust in the system,
There will be mass civil unrest
And everyone will be a victim.

“It’s the fox in charge of the henhouse,” noted one Urbana resident at a
recent City Council meeting. He was expressing in the negative the most
elementary principle of justice: you just can’t investigate yourself. The
rule applies to government agencies as well as individuals, or ought to,
especially in a democracy.
Yet from time immemorial one local agency has been exempt in every
community, arguably the one that needs it most. It is the one agency with
the broadest authority to carry weapons, to use force—sometimes deadly force – on
armed or unarmed citizens, to invade homes, to stop traffic, to arrest and imprison individuals
prior to any hearing before judge or jury, to confiscate property, to demand proper
identification, and to interrogate.
The police are charged with enforcing the law and, somewhat ambiguously, with keeping
the peace. They represent the single most ubiquitous arm of the government, the one that
the most people see most and the one with which the most people interact most frequently.
In some circles they are the most trusted part of government, in others the most feared.
All these are reasons that a grassroots coalition of local groups has been working
for the past five years on establishing an independent board of ordinary residents to
oversee the local police. Now the coalition’s work is finally bearing fruit. A Mayor’s
Taskforce on Citizen Police Review, including representatives of the Urbana police
administration and union as well as community groups, studied and discussed the
issue for the better part of the last year. Their proposal for a citizen police review
board is before the City Council, which held hearing sthis summer and should be
voting on the proposal soon.
URBANA EXCEPTIONALISM
The timing couldn’t be better. This summer the News-Gazette reported that the City of Urbana
had paid out $100,000 to settle a lawsuit against an Urbana police officer accused of raping a
local woman while on duty. It was part of a larger, undisclosed settlement mostly paid by the
City’s insurance. The officer had admitted having sex while on duty and resigned. The woman’s
accusations fell on deaf ears. No charges were filed despite the precedent of charges filed in
other cases with less evidence, but not against police officers. There had also been more than
one accusation in the past involving the same officer harassing women while on duty.
A recent report from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) also shows that
local police are stopping black drivers well out of proportion to their numbers in the “driving
population”, as well as issuing citations in disproportionate numbers to blacl drivers
for the same or similar offenses for which white drivers are let go. Despite official policy
against “racial profiling” there appears to be a problem, sparking a somewhat heated discussion
at another Urbana City Council meeting in August.
The effect of these revelations seems to have been to all but silence a rather kneejerk
response from critics of oversight of the police, that “we are not New York or
Chicago.” The implication, that a small Mid-Western town with liberal or progressive
leanings is somehow immune to police misconduct, seems to have lost much of its earlier
appeal.
True, there has been no local Rodney King equivalent, at least not on TV. (There was one
incident in 2000, in which police broke a man’s neck by putting a knee in his back and
pulling back on his head. The victim in that case received $373,000.) But activists in the
area black community say far worse incidents occur without ever seeing the light of day.
Certainly the local police have a history of discouraging observers.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS—AND SHUTTERED WINDOWS
Recently two local activists received a great deal of attention, and rightly so, when Champaign
police charged them with “eavesdropping” for videotaping area traffic stops as part
of a Copwatch program the two initiated. An outraged public caused the charges to be
dropped in their case, but many believe this was the tip of a very large iceberg, one that
includes both Champaign and Urbana.
One evening in 2002 another Urbana resident was alone in his home when he noticed
some police activity outside in the street. He went out with his camcorder and started
recording the police from his porch steps. Urbana police officers then allegedly yelled at
the citizen to stop, at which point he ran back inside his house. The police gave chase,
broke down his door and hauled him away in handcuffs. Later they obtained a warrant,
confiscated the videotape and released the citizen.
In the course of public hearings over the past year and a half, several other cases have
surfaced in which police threatened or arrested citizens for the apparently serious crime
of keeping an eye on the police.
Other residents have told other kinds of stories. Many say they never filed a complaint
either because their lawyer discouraged it or because they felt the internal complaint
process was not objective enough.
Local advocates of police review say that an independent process would restore public
confidence in the system. And one of these $100,000 settlements would pay for a civilian
oversight board for 20 years or more.
The City is currently in negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police, the police
union. Pending these negotiations, the City Council should be taking up the issue of
oversight of the police again soon. This fall look for a vote on it. Community input will be
needed for that vote. That’s what oversight of government authority is all about.
For more information, go to www.prairienet.org/cprb.

This is a slightly revised version of the remarks I prepared for
an October 26 public forum sponsored by AWARE Presents on
“What Should be the U.S. Policy in the Middle East? The Confrontation
of Israel with its Neighbors.”
I’d like to begin with some observations about the way
that we in the U.S. discuss Israel and the Middle East. All
too often our discussions are unproductive due to the
rhetorical moves we make, and so I’m going to mention
some examples before discussing our policy.
For a long time I’ve been bothered by the way we use the
terms “pro-Israel” as opposed to “pro-Arab” or “anti-Israel.”
We need to stop thinking and speaking in these simplistic
terms, which imply that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a
zero-sum game. To label someone or some idea as pro-Israel
or anti-Israel implies that the existence of the State of Israel is
at stake. It isn’t. Israel is by far the strongest power in the Middle
East, and the majority of the Arab states are now eager to
normalize relations, as soon as a satisfactory Israeli-Palestinian
settlement is reached. The issue is Israel’s boundaries, not
Israel’s existence. The real existential question is the Palestinian
question—the question of whether they will achieve selfdetermination
in a territorially viable state, which is their
right. The “pro-Israel” v. “pro-Arab” or “anti-Israel” dichotomy
only serves the interests of those who see some advantage
in promoting the conflict. A good example of that is the ongoing
campaign to smear academic Middle East Studies programs
and even academia as a whole as “anti-Israel.”
Another sterile exercise is the “blame game.” We who
are interested in a just political settlement need to stop
playing that game, debating who is at fault, who is the
aggressor, who “started it,” and so forth. There is plenty of
blame on both sides for the continuing conflict. Both sides
are guilty, to paraphrase the late Abba Eban’s words, of
almost “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity”
for peace and normalization. However, it is an asymmetrical
situation, in which the Palestinians have had
much less control over events, and less influence over the
public debate. Here are a couple examples of the blame
game. Some of Israel’s “new historians” have implied that
in the early 1950s Ben-Gurion missed an opportunity by
not responding to secret peace “feelers” from Egypt and
Syria. Well, maybe, but we have no way of knowing what
might have happened if he had. Arafat was also blamed for
“rejecting peace” at Camp David in 2000. But in actuality
the Israeli-American offer was unacceptable. An inability
to agree is not the same thing as “rejecting peace.”
“Peace” is another problematic term. Maybe we should
stop kidding ourselves that the parties in this conflict are
seeking peace. Between Israelis and Palestinians the conflict
has always been about land. Nowadays Israelis are divided
between those who would accept a state within boundaries
based on the June 4, 1967 frontiers and those want to annex
part or all of the Occupied Territories, either out of security
concerns or nationalist irredentism. The Palestinians are
also divided between those who support a two-state solution
based on the June 4, 1967 boundaries and nationalist
irredentists who want to liberate “all” of historic Palestine.
The nationalist irredentists on both sides are delusional and
dangerous, but they are in the minority. They can be undercut
if there is a clear understanding on the June 4, 1967
boundaries as the basis for a final settlement agreement.
“Peace,” in the sense of an end to violence, will only be
achieved as the result of a just settlement.
Finally, there are a number of terms in usage that I would
lump together under the heading of “political fundamentalism.”
Fundamentalist discourse uses catch words in place of
reflection. Too often we slide into a kind of fundamentalism,
applying labels such as “terrorism,” “Islamofascism,” “anti-
Semitism,” “racism,” “terrorist state,” “apartheid state,” and so
on to those we oppose. These terms generate more heat than
light, and are only useful if you’re preaching to the choir.
Terrorism is the targeting of civilians or non-combatants
for political ends. It is a strategy, albeit an ugly, reprehensible
one. Terrorism is practiced by virtually everyone,
because it is effective, at least some of the time. We should
denounce terrorism, but we should remember that terrorism
is not an ideology, and no organization or state is
essentially a “terrorist” organization or state. Nor is any
religion. There are Muslim terrorists (and other kinds), but
there is no such thing as “Islamic terrorism.”
Arab and Muslim objections to Israel are not due to an
inherent anti-Semitism. Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism is
a product of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not a root cause of it.
Holocaust denial in the Arab and Muslim world is motivated
by the misperception that Israel was created and is
supported by the West in compensation for the Holocaust.
On the Israeli side there is nakba denial.—Palestinians
refer to their uprooting and dispersal in 1948, as the
nakba or “disaster.” Nakba denial is not denial of the event
itself but denial of any Israeli responsibility for it. In that
view, the Palestinians “ran away,” they were “ordered” to
run away, they weren’t there to begin with, and besides
they started it. Israeli nakba denial springs from the same
source as Arab Holocaust denial, namely an unwillingness
to accept any legitimacy to the other side’s case.
Similar to the accusation that Arabs or Muslims are inherently
anti-Semitic is the charge that Zionism is a form of
racism or that Israel is a racist “apartheid state.” Again, this is
political fundamentalism. The equation of Zionism and
racism was cooked up by the Arab states in the early 1970s
in the hope of isolating Israel as a “pariah state” like the white
regime in Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe). The connection is
very clear if one reads the UN General Assembly resolution
of 1974. The absence of any racial doctrine in the foundational
Zionist texts is equally clear. On the other hand, there
is a mixture of de jure and de facto discrimination against
non-Jewish (mainly Palestinian) citizens in Israel that is analogous
to racial discrimination in the U.S. half a century ago.
The term “apartheid” is more appropriate to the situation in
the West Bank, which is why Israelis on the left will use this
term—not to condemn Israel as a whole but to warn against
the direction they see their country going in.
As for U.S. policy toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict,
our policy has not been consistently the same, but has evolved
in zigs and zags. Approximately 40 years ago Israel became a
strategic ally of the US. Before then and since, though, the U.S.
made periodic attempts to reconcile the two sides—and to reconcile
our Israeli alliance with our Arab alliances—by mediating
the conflict and working toward a settlement. Starting in
the 1960s that policy of mediation was occasionally abandoned
in favor of relying on Israel as a strategic asset in our efforts to
dominate the Middle East and to exclude the influence of
rivals. This was the strategy during the Nixon administration’s
first term and during much of the Reagan administration. It
was a Cold War, anti-Soviet policy. Throughout those decades,
whether mediating the conflict or not, the U.S. had an overall
“status quo” strategy, seeking “stability.”
I maintain that the policy of the current Bush administration
is exceptional in its revisionist goals and its militancy.
It is “revisionist” in its stated goal of changing the political
order in the Middle East. Regime change has been the
avowed policy toward Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinian
Authority, and traditional allies (though not Israel) have
also been pressured to change their political systems. It is militant insofar as military means are
believed to be capable of producing the
desired political and social results. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice’s description of
last summer’s Lebanon war as the “birth
pangs” of a new Middle East was consistent
with previous statements about the folly of
previous administrations pursuing “stability
at the expense of democracy” in the region.
This neo-conservative view is congruent
with the Israeli Likudist perspective—
namely, that conflict in the Middle East is
caused by dysfunctional Arab and Iranian
politics. It is as if Israel were not there, and
not contributing to regional conflict.
The failure of this militant, revisionist
policy should be evident. It has produced
more instability, more polarization, more
terrorism, and more sympathy for terrorism.
Notwithstanding President Bush’s
endorsement of the goal of a Palestinian
state and his “Road Map” plan, his administration
has de-prioritized the Israeli-
Palestinian question, allowing that situation
to deteriorate. Israeli colonization of
the occupied West Bank continues, with
hardly a protest from Washington, making
a “two-state solution” to the conflict seem
less and less likely. This is bad for everyone—
Israel, the Palestinians, and the U.S.
It is a myth that anti-American sentiment
in the Arab and Muslim world is driven
by “what we are.” It is driven by what
we do. Currently there are three things that
stoke anti-American feeling that we could
do something to change. First is our support
of authoritarian regimes in the Middle
East—and that means all of our Arab allies.
We need to temper our concern for stability
with concern for human rights. The two
are not incompatible, as Secretary Rice has
suggested. Second is our occupation of
Iraq, which has been a disaster, but which
needs no elaboration here. Third is our
normally uncritical support for Israel,
including during last summer’s war in
Lebanon and the continuing siege of Gaza.
The US should adopt a pro-active policy
to promote an Israeli-Palestinian settlement
consisting of the following elements:
• a territorial settlement leading to a
Palestinian state based on the June 4,
1967 borders
• normalization of relations between
Israel and the Arab states
• a just resolution of the Palestinian
refugee’s plight (one that respects
Israel’s sovereignty as well as the rights
of the refugees)