Public i Contact

Dad,
I am against a U.S. war against Iraq. I support other countries standing up to the warmongering rhetoric of Bush. I am for a nonviolent solution that is international in scope. I support stopping violence whether its one lover beating up another or one country killing the citizens of another. I want it stopped, but not with violence unless others means are seriously exhausted first. Bush came out of the bullpen with fighting words. He wants a war. That’s the difference between him and most of the American public.

I am aware of the U.S.’s economic power in the global economy and how it uses its power to bully other countries, such as Colombia, into supporting the U.S. position of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq.

My Congressional heroes with regard to Iraq are Conservative Republican Ron Paul from Texas, progressive Democrat Barbara Lee from California and Senator Robert Byrd.

I support the Lee Alternative to War Amendment. The Lee alternative amendment urges the U.S. to work through UN inspections and other diplomatic means to ensure that Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction. It would not authorize the President to use force against Iraq.

War is being sold to us like milk. War will suck billions of dollars from desperately needed programs in the U.S. I’m onto the President’s propaganda machine.

With regard to your questions about Hitler and Stalin, I have questions back:

Did the U.S. ever support Hitler or Stalin in their country’s wars against other countries by supplying them with weapons and other aid to fight those countries?

Are you not aware that in the mid-1980s the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein in
his war against Iran?

Hitler quashed dissent. That’s how he started his murderous campaign. Political activists were the first to be rounded up and killed by Hitler. We must stop Bush and Rumsfeld from continuing down this path of quashing dissent.

Did you not know that, according to Senator Bryd’s website (http://byrd.senate.gov/) the U.S. provided Iraq with its building blocks for biological weapons?

Don’t you remember the Kuwaiti woman who testified before Congress before the Gulf War? She said that she saw Iraqi soldiers tear Kuwaiti babies from incubators. It was later learned that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S. and that her story was a lie (prwatch.org).

Governments lie, especially during war.

I believe former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter who says that Iraq has no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons that pose an imminent threat to the U.S. or Iraq’s neighbors. Scott Ritter also told us how UN weapons inspectors were turned into spies. He quit the program after that.

Do you think Indonesian President Suharto is less evil than Saddam Hussein? Suharto is Bush’s ally.

Osma Bin Laden was our ally, too. We gave him money and weapons to fight the Soviets. Then the bully turned on us. We reap what we sow.

Why is the U.S. not demanding that Israel comply with UN mandates?

Did you forget that the US dropped Agent Orange, a chemical weapon, in Vietnam? It didn’t just defoliate trees, it eventually killed our own soldiers.

Have you forgotten that the U.S. is the only country that has used nuclear weapons, twice, against another nation?

What will Iraq look like after we bomb it and destabilize it? Who will we prop up as its leader and what will the consequences be?

Our foreign policy is filled with hypocrisy: “Do as I say, not as I do.” Our president is a cowboy whose language of “You’re either for us or against us” is divisive. He’s not interested in building coalitions, not really. He wants other countries to do what we say because we are the world’s only super power.

We have no right to be the world’s police or to unilaterally change the world’s policy from one of containment to one of pre-emptive strikes. We are the world’s biggest bully and if Americans don’t know this, then we’ve
got our heads in the sand. Any unilateral action by the US against any other country will create a new generation of haters of the U.S.

If we pre-meptively strike Iraq, what would prevent India from pre-emptively striking Pakistan and the other way around? If the US can do it, so can I.

This is a dangerous slope of aggressive thinking led by the U.S.

The only thing I can agree with you about, Dad, is that Saddam Hussein is evil. I do not agree with our attempted method of removal of the Iraqi dictator. The costs are too high. I am trying to prevent death and World War III. I am trying to prevent the U.S. from using another nuclear weapon. I am trying to expose the propaganda of the executive branch.

I am more afraid of our war mongering than I am of any external threat. I am more afraid of how our actions against Iraq might be catalysts for World War 3 than I am of terrorists from within or without.

If I am unfortunate enough one day to be killed, murdered or die in a chemical or biological attack or by some punk on the street, I do not want the perpetrator(s) to be killed in my name. Find my killers and lock them up, but do not kill in my name. I mean it. I will defend myself and my life and the lives of those I love against eminent danger, and if I lose, I do not want more violence to be done in my name. I want redemption not revenge, if such unfortunate circumstances were ever to occur.

I just got word from Danielle that she will be joining me the weekend I visit. I’ll let you know more later as the date approaches. We will want to visit the grandparents, too.

Have fun in Wyoming.
Love,
Kim

Oil may not be the only reason the U.S. government is rushing into war with Iraq, but it is certainly one of the main reasons. Domestic politics, arms industry sales, and other factors all play a role. But for the money-hungry oil corporations, like Exxon-Mobile, Shell, and BP, it is oil that glitters like a mountain of diamonds in the Iraqi desert.

Crude oil is the world’s most actively traded commodity, and when it comes to oil, Iraq has lots of it. With proven reserves of 112-bil bbl (barrels of oil) and probable reserves of 214-bil bbl, Iraq is second only to Saudi Arabia in crude oil reserves. Industry experts believe that Iraq’s true resource potential may be far higher, however, as years of war and sanctions have severely restricted exploration and development. At current prices of about $27 a barrel, this comes out to be a prize worth between $3 trillion and $8.1 trillion. No wonder a post WWII, U.S. State Department assessment called the gulf oil resources “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history … probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment.”

Buying Security Council Votes with Oil
The central role that oil is playing in this crisis was evident in recent U.S. efforts to get the support of Russia and France, who have been resisting U.S. pressure to authorize the use of force against Iraq before inspectors are allowed to return. Their backing has been crucial because they are among the five Security Council members with the power to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing force.

Why would Russia and France be so resistant to using force against Saddam Hussein? It is because both have a large stake in Iraqi oil and have already invested heavily in it.

On September 1st, the headline of a Washington Post article read “Russian-Iraqi Oil Ties Worry U.S.: Moscow’s Support for an Attack on Hussein May Depend on Economic Assurances.” The article talked about the “depth” of economic ties between Russia and Iraq, which have been long-time allies, ever since the emergence of the Ba’th party and Saddam Hussein in the late 60’s. Major Russian oil corporations such as LUKoil and Zarubezhneft have made major investments in Iraq and have been seeking to position themselves as leading exporters of Iraqi oil when economic sanctions are lifted. LUKoil currently owns 68% in a consortium that has invested a reported $6 billion in developing the 20-bill bbl West Kurna oil field; Iraq also owes Russia at least $7 billion in debt from previous decades.

In a September 9th New York Times article a senior Bush official said the arguments presented to the Russians to get their vote for war against Iraq had been “economic,” and that the U.S. “did not rule out the possibility of negotiating explicit guarantees for Russian interests, mostly oil-related.” The official also stated that “they’re a lot more likely to get their debts paid off” by supporting the U.S. policy.

France also has major investments in Iraqi oil. It, more than any other western nation, has cultivated a relationship with Iraq. France was the largest supplier of arms to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. In the 1970’s they helped Iraq build a nuclear power plant that was subsequently bombed by Israel in 1981. The French oil corporation TotalElfFina, the fifth largest oil corporation in the world, has a major presence in Iraq. Among other deals, TotalElfFina has negotiated with Iraq on development rights for the fabulously rich Majnoon oil field, the largest in Iraq.

A top French official candidly laid it out in a September 15th article in the New York Times. He said, “In a sense we’re trapped. Ultimately, we will want to re-engage in Iraq. We built a strategic relationship there. We have a market. We want the oil and we want to be in the game of rebuilding the country. If there were a new regime and we have not been with the Americans, where will we be?”

Actually, what is probably worrying the Russians and the French more than what might happen if they don’t go along is what might happen if they do. Will they get their “fair share” of Iraq’s oil even if they give their support, or will they be left to scramble after the crumbs left behind after U.S. and British oil corporations are allowed to sweep in and gobble up the juiciest and most lucrative fields?

Recent statements made by the U.S.-backed opposition group the Iraqi National Congress (INC) would certainly give Russia and France reason to pause. INC officials have made it clear that “they will not be bound by any of the deals” Iraq has made with Russia, France or other nations. Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, went even further, saying he supports the formation of a U.S.-led consortium to develop Iraq’s oil fields. “American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil,” he said.

Exxon and Mobil Had it First
But how did it come to be that Russia and France got the dominant position in Iraqi oil, a position they are now anxious about losing to the British and Americans? Not so long ago, before the era of Saddam and the Ba’th party, it wasn’t LUKoil and TotalElfFina that had the dominant position in Iraqi oil, but Exxon-Mobil, BP and Shell. From their perspective, ”regime change” in Iraq would give them the opportunity to reclaim what was “theirs” to begin with.

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, western governments and oil corporations descended on the Persian Gulf like a pack of hungry hyenas, growling and nipping at each other as they fought for the greatest share. Britain was the main military power in the region, and pieced together Iraq from remnants of the Ottoman Empire. They placed King Faisal, a British puppet, on the throne, and proceeded to block Exxon and Mobil’s exploration efforts in Iraq while giving full support to those of British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell. This led to intense diplomatic pressure by the Americans. A British foreign office official complained that “Washington officials began to think, talk and write like Exxon officials.” Finally, in 1928, as part of an overall deal to divide the region’s oil between the world’s great powers, known as the “Red Line Agreement,” Exxon and Mobil were granted a 25% share in the Iraq Petroleum Company. Production began in 1934. While the oil corporations were satisfied with the arrangement, many Iraqi’s were not. To insure their control, Britain maintained bases in the area and routinely bombed and strafed rebellious Kurdish and Shia tribesmen. When the Iraqi leadership rebelled in 1940, the British were forced to send in reinforcements leading to armed conflict with Iraqi forces in 1941. The conflict was short lived, the rebellious Iraqi leadership fled the country, and Britain reestablished its authority.

Iraq Slips Through Britain’s Fingers
In 1958, the British again lost control when an Iraqi revolution led by an army faction known as the Free Officers, under the leadership of Abd al-Karim Qasim, overthrew and executed the British puppet King Faisal II. This time, however, reestablishing British control would not be so easy. The Cold War was in full swing. Qasim soon established diplomatic relations between Iraq and Moscow, signed an extensive Iraqi-Soviet economic agreement, and the Soviets began supplying arms to Iraq. At the same time, Qasim was cautious in dealing with the western oil corporations, and only sought increased revenues rather than complete nationalization. Qasim also sought to keep his distance from the Soviets, first embracing and then later repressing the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP).

Internal division within the army soon led to Qasim’s overthrow and a series of internal coups. In 1968, the Iraqi Ba’th party, under the leadership of Ahmad Hasan al Bakr and Saddam Hussein, emerged as the dominant faction. Some claim that the CIA played a role in the successful 1968 coup that brought the Ba’th party to power. This may well have been, but as events turned out, it would have been a gamble that didn’t pay off. The Ba’th turned away from the U.S. and sought improved relations with the ICP. In April of 1972, Iraq signed a 15-year treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union and agreed to cooperate in political, economic, and military affairs. The Soviets agreed to supply Iraq with arms. Bakir also nationalized Iraq’s entire oil industry, including Exxon and Mobil’s 25% share in the Iraq Petroleum Company (a share worth today upwards of a trillion dollars). The Soviet Union, and later France, among others, provided Iraq critical technical skill and capitol needed to exploit the oil fields. And thus it happened that U.S., British, and Dutch oil corporations lost their hold on Iraq.

This is not to say that Iraq became part of the Soviet sphere. While the Ba’th turned to the Soviets for protection from British and U.S. imperialists, they maintained their independence, and did not allow the soviets to penetrate their security apparatus to the point of allowing them to ‘reach’ the inner leadership. In the mid-seventies, as had happened in the mid-sixties under Quasim, when it was felt the communists were getting too powerful, the Ba’th cracked down on the ICP and moved to distance themselves from the Soviets. During the Cold War period the Iraqi government, like other revolutionary governments at the time, was able to find a space to exist independently within the balance of power between the U.S. and the Soviet empires.

Strange Bedfellows
Neither should the temporary strategic alliance between the U.S. and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war be overstated, as some progressives have mistakenly done. Iraq under Saddam was never a “client state” of the U.S., though the U.S. did provide crucial military and political support for Iraq during the latter stages of the war (a time when Iraq was repeatedly using chemical weapons against Iran, with U.S. knowledge and support).

Both Iraq and the U.S. found themselves in conflict with Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, but for completely different reasons. The Ayatollah Khomeini promoted the spread of Islamic revolution across the Middle East, including revolution in Iraq to overthrow Saddam and the Ba’th party, who were secular nationalists that tended toward authoritarian socialism. The U.S., on the other hand, had just lost another oil rich nation to a revolution, and was intent on not letting the revolutionary fever spread.

The Prize and the Price
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 and end of the Cold War radically changed the global power arrangement. No longer can nations like Iraq play the superpowers off one another to maintain independence. So after more than 30 years, with no one to stop them, the U.S. and Britain, with Exxon-Mobil, BP, Shell, UNOCAL, and Chevron waiting in the wings, are moving in to reclaim their lost Iraqi prize. Impotent militarily, all France and Russia will likely do is sell their Security Council vote for the highest price they can get, which probably won’t be much.

The highest price of all, of course, is being paid by Iraqi children, innocent civilians, and young American troops. It is they, and not the oil company stockholders, executives, and political elites who die and suffer as the result of continued sanctions and the bloody horror that is war.

Jeff Sowers and his family recently moved to Urbana from Olympia, Washington for his wife’s graduate work in African Studies. He is currently working as a substitute public school teacher. He graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Physics in 1988 and then spent six months living in India, an experience that he says made the rest of the world much more real and human. He then came across the work of Noam Chomsky, which completely transformed his understanding of the world and the U.S. government. When the first Gulf war took place in 1991, he became very involved with the anti-war movement in Seattle. Since then he has been involved in a variety of issues and projects, including Pastors for Peace, the Green Party, sweatshop issues, and the promotion of Direct Democracy. He has also traveled to Haiti, Cuba, Mexico, and Tanzania. He is currently a working member at the Common Ground Food co-op and an active member of AWARE.

15 September 2002

There are strange things done under Bush’s sun
Where greedy men moil for gold;
They have no care for the fetid air
Breathed by the young and old.

Because oil pollutes and cuthroat pursuits
Is all for the bottom line….
And the mansions built fosters no guilt
When explained as being “God’s design”.

They think that war is the way to keep score
As long as they get the big slice.
That an oil-slicked pool is more than cool
It’s more than worth the price!

What’s a dying child or masses beguiled
While taking nature’s best?
Or if the ocean’s deep is in permanent sleep
By black gum or poisened ghosts?

Who cares as long as they right that wrong
With thier noses and a thumb?
They can laugh with ease in the Bahama’s breeze
And pray the press keeps mum

25 September 2002

the oil has run out.
we saw it coming
and it did.

no more bobbing arms
in corn fields.
just arms.

the oil has run out
and we’re still alive,
we’re just fine.

a brilliant plan
hatched mid-bush-2
soon after 9-11.

bomb the people,
terrify them,
read their email.

drive them to tears,
drive them to scream,
drive them to write.

make them generators,
churning words,
drilling for meaning.

the oil has run out
and we don’t care
we’ve moved on.

we switched
at the last second
to burning poetry.

THOU SHALL NOT PASS
On June 12, when Hubert Zhou, a resident of Chicago, presented his ticket at the Icelandic Air ticket counter in Minneapolis St.Paul airport for that evening’s flight to Iceland, rather than have his bags checked and his boarding pass issued, he was asked to step aside and speak to the station manager. The manager informed Mr. Zhou that his name was on “the list.” What list? The Iceland Ministry of Justice had given Icelandic Air a list of individuals in the United States and other countries around the world suspected of being Falun Gong practitioners. Icelandic Air was forbidden from allowing anyone on this list to fly to Iceland. Any employees who slipped up and allowed someone to make the trip risked losing their jobs. No refund was offered for the suddenly invalid ticket.

What happened to Hubert Zhou also happened to seven other Falun Gong practitioners that night in Minneapolis, six of them from Chicago and one from St. Louis. Around this time the same thing also happened to other practitioners in Baltimore, Boston, New York, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London, Paris, and Stockholm. These practitioners had wanted to travel to Iceland because Jiang Zemin, the head of the Communist Party, the government, and the military of the People’s Republic of China, was due there on a state visit. Jiang pressured the government of Iceland to do things it had never done in its proud 1,000 year long history of protecting fundamental rights– restrict travel to Iceland and detain people inside Iceland on the basis of their beliefs; and restrict the freedoms of speech and assembly.

Hubert Zhou had wished to go to Iceland in order to respond to the propaganda against Falun Gong that Jiang Zemin dispenses wherever he goes, and to appeal peacefully to Jiang himself, the people of Iceland, and the people of the world to end the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Falun Gong has no membership rolls. Mr. Zhou and his fellow practitioners wondered where this blacklist came from, and who compiled it. In order to understand what happened at the ticket counter in Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in June, a little background about what Falun Gong is and how Jiang began persecuting it may be in order.

WHAT FALUN GONG IS
Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) is an ancient, traditional form of practice that was taught in private for thousands of years before being made public in 1992 by Mr. Li Hongzhi. In the following five years, Mr. Li devoted himself to teaching it in China as well as outside China.

Falun Gong involves the practice of five, simple meditative exercises, and a set of teachings that are set forth in the speeches and writings of Li Hongzhi. Zhuan Falun is the principle book, and is studied regularly by practitioners. These teachings can be summed up in three words: truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Practitioners, all over the world including here in Urbana-Champaign, strive to become better people by embodying these three principles in everything they do.

Falun Gong is not a religion. There are no priests, hierarchy, churches or temples, dues, rituals, liturgies or catechisms in Falun Gong. It is a “loose cultivation practice,” with no official organization. All activities are free and voluntary. The teachings of Falun Gong forbid practitioners from being involved in politics. They are taught to devote themselves to self-improvement, with the understanding that society as a whole will benefit if the individuals in society work to become better people.

Practitioners of Falun Gong typically report improved health, sometimes dramatically so, with chronic or life-threatening diseases being completely reversed. And they also report various improvements in mental health such as less stress, a greater ability to handle conflicts, greater harmony in the family, and greater feelings of contentment.

FALUN GONG IN CHINA
Falun Gong enjoyed explosive growth in China before the persecution began, and has also spread rapidly around the world. A 1999 survey done by the Chinese government reported that between seventy and one hundred million people practiced Falun Gong in China. Falun Gong is now practiced in fifty-five countries outside China.

The sheer number of people practicing Falun Gong scared some members of the Chinese Communist Party, most notably Jiang Zemin. In fact, a large number of Communist Party members, including many very high-ranking ones, practiced Falun Gong, and found no conflict between it and their official duties. But the Communist Party in China has never tolerated any groups that are independent of it. In addition, under Jiang Zemin, the Communist Party has shown itself hostile to any forms of spirituality that the Party does not control. Freedom House recently released internal party documents that set out a campaign to suppress not only Falun Gong, but Catholics who acknowledge the Pope, Evangelical Christians, Uigher Muslims, etc. (See: http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/news/bn2002/bn-2002-02-11.htm)

On July 20, 1999, Jiang began a campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong. This campaign of terror has been comprehensive and brutal. At this time Falun Gong practitioners can confirm the deaths of 474 practitioners in police custody. Sources inside the government in October, 2001 placed the true death toll at over 1,600. The government’s official policy is to identify every single practitioner and brainwash her or him. If they do not renounce Falun Gong in writing after being brainwashed in centers created just for this purpose, then they are sentenced to China’s notorious labor camps. In addition to being held in Labor Camps, practitioners are held in “transformation centers” — places of detention created solely for the purpose of torturing Falun Gong practitioners — and jails throughout China. Sane and healthy practitioners are also involuntarily committed to mental hospitals, where they are tortured by medical personnel using massive doses of psychotropic drugs and electro-convulsive therapy, among other methods. All those who are detained, whether in jails or elsewhere, are likely to be subject to beatings and torture. Women are singled out for various forms of sexual abuse and humiliation, including rape and gang rape. The Hong Kong Center for Human Rights and Democracy estimates that 20,000 practitioners are held in Labor Camps, 100,000 in other forms of detention, and 1,000 in mental hospitals. Practitioners of Falun Gong believe that the numbers of those detained are in fact much, much higher.

THE GLOBAL PERSECUTION MACHINE
While the Chinese government has attempted to “eradicate” Falun Gong in China, it is also working to harass, intimidate and slander it here in the United States where there have been several incidents of practitioners being attacked, including two in Chicago. Also in Chicago a practitioner’s car was torched. Since July 1999, there have been several mysterious break-ins into practitioners’ apartments in which the only thing taken was information about Falun Gong. Practitioners have come home to find on their answering machines tape recordings of private conversations they had earlier in the day with other practitioners in homes, in public places, and on cell phones. The intent of the government is to intimidate the practitioners by letting them know that they are being spied upon. There have been death threats. E-mail accounts are regularly attacked.

The Chinese language media in the U.S., much of which is owned by the Chinese government, regularly carry government propaganda slandering Falun Gong.

In response to this campaign, fifty-one Falun Gong practitioners from every region of the country in April of this year filed a R.I.C.O. suit in the federal district court in D.C. alleging that two Chinese ministries, the China Star media corporation, and the staff of the embassy and several consulates in the United States were engaged in a conspiracy to deny Falun Gong practitioners their constitutional rights.

Outside the United States, there have been similar activities. For instance, in Canada a federal court found a Chinese newspaper in contempt for repeatedly slandering Falun Gong in spite of a court order to stop. During a visit by Jiang Zemin to Germany this spring, the German government, under pressure from the Chinese, forced Falun Gong practitioners out of hotels, and actually tried to prevent people from wearing the colors of blue or yellow, colors associated with Falun Gong. In Hong Kong, the government recently conducted a trial against sixteen practitioners, arrested simply for having a peaceful demonstration on a public sidewalk – in spite of numerous precedents that supported the practitioners right to be where they were. In Auckland, New Zealand, the government, under pressure from the Chinese, refused to allow Falun Gong practitioners to rent a billboard in the airport. In Cambodia, a few weeks ago the government violated its treaty agreements by forcibly returning to China two practitioners who had been granted refugee status by the United Nations.

Given this pattern of behavior in and out of the United States, what happened to Hubert Zhou and his fellow practitioners from Chicago and St. Louis is not hard to understand. The blacklist was compiled by spying conducted by the People’s Republic of China here in Illinois and the rest of the United States on our citizens and residents, and is now being used as yet one more tool in the Chinese government’s attempt to suppress Falun Gong.

The significance of the blacklist is simply this: Jiang Zemin fears Hubert Zhou and all of the other practitioners outside China. He fears them because he does not want them telling the truth about the infamy happening in China. He does not want them telling the truth to the Chinese population, who are subjected to daily propaganda meant to delude them about Falun Gong. And he does not want them telling the truth to governments and peoples outside of China, who are beginning to understand what a human rights catastrophe is taking place there.

A STRUGGLE THAT NEEDS AND DESERVES YOUR HELP
For three years now the practitioners of Falun Gong in China have heroically resisted Jiang’s campaign to eradicate them. They have done so by using every peaceful and non-violent means available to convey to the Chinese people and the Chinese government: the truth about Falun Gong; the fact that the government should obey the law and honor its constitution and treaty obligations that guarantee fundamental human rights; and the fact that the people of China do have such rights. The world should stand firmly at the side of the Falun Gong practitioners in China. When the most populous nation and the world’s next great power stops persecuting Falun Gong and begins to guarantee the human rights of its population, the whole world will enter a new era of respect for human decency.

In order to learn more about Falun Gong, please visit http://www.falundafa.org. In order to learn more about the persecution of Falun Gong, please visit http://www.faluninfo.net.

Stephen Gregory is an Administrator at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. student there with the Committee on Social Thought. He began practicing Falun Gong in November, 1998.

Dongdong Zhang came to the U.S. in 1997. She moved to Champaign two and a half years ago to obtain her Ph.D. in special education from the U of I. She has been practicing Falun Gong since May 1994.

In the interests of fuller disclosure, here is more background on a case that is getting limited coverage in the dominant media. Reports in the September 6-12 Cityview and the September 7 News-Gazette indicate that a local man, 21-year old Max Weissberg of Champaign, was indicted this week on a federal charge of sending a threatening communication. Weissberg appeared in federal court in Urbana on Friday, August 30, following his arrest on August 26. He was released on bond, ordered to have no access to the Internet and then was allowed to travel to Oregon to attend college, pending further court action on his case. What is left unclear in the above reports is the apparent motivation for Weissberg’s alleged threat.

The incident that led to Weissberg’s arrest, and an FBI raid on his mother’s Mahomet home where a computer was seized that was used in the commission of the e-mail threat, began when the editors of the CU Cityview received a threatening e-mail in the supposed name of ‘terrorists’ in opposition to the Cityview’s recent decision to suspend Carl Estabrook’s column until after this November’s election. Estabrook isrunning on the Green Party ticket for the Congressional seat currently held by Republican Tim Johnson.

The threat mentioned blowing up buses and implied that, unless Estabrook’s column was immediately restored to the Cityview, such action would be taken by the fictional group in support of the Green Party’s campaign at some unspecified date and location. The clear implication behind the threat was that ‘terrorists’ were working in support of Estabrook’s campaign.

The FBI was then called in by the Cityview editors to investigate this threatening communication. The FBI tracked the source of the message to the computer in Mahomet, which was seized after a warrant was issued authorizing a raid on the house of Weissberg’s mother.

Left unmentioned by both the News-Gazette and the Cityview articles on the arrest was Weissberg’s apparent motivation. He has been a regular writer of letters to the editor in the Cityview, hotly disagreeing with Estabrook’s stance on the Middle East, in particular the situation that exists in the struggle for a Palestinian state and the current Israeli government’s brutal suppression of this desire. It seems that Weissberg, like President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, has a myopic view of why opposition exists to brutal policies of oppression and hoped to connect all resistance to such policies to a vast international “terrorist” conspiracy.

Weissberg apparently chose to imply that the “terrorist” group in whose name he sent the threatening message was of Arab or other Middle Eastern origin in the hopes that the faked threat would draw an FBI crackdown on local Muslims, in addition to smearing the Estabrook campiagn by associating it with “terrorism”. The message was sent in name of the non-existent “Mohammed Arkady, Al-Aman Martyrs Brigade.”

This incident follows other recent attempts to smear local activists by associating them with unpalatable groups or messages. University of Illinois Law Professor Francis Boyle, a well-known international law expert and supporter of a Palestinian homeland, was the subject of a fake e-mail campaign earlier this summer. This was apparently done as part of a wider campaign of disinformation against supporters of the Palestinian cause that is said to have been traced to Israeli computer hackers. The Urbana-Champaign IMC site, like much of the rest of the IMC network, has been bombarded by supposed pro-Palestinian posts that have a distinctive white supremacist message in an apparent attempt to smear opponents of Israeli policy by falsely associating supporters of Palestine with neo-Nazi ideas and viewpoints.

The next court date for Weissberg was not mentioned in other coverage of this incident. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, if convicted of the charge.

The following information was taken from the website of the New Hampshire Gazette, http://www.nhgazette.com/chickenhawks.html

A chickenhawk is a term often applied to public persons — generally male — who (1) tend to advocate, or are fervent supporters of those who advocate, military solutions to political problems, and who have personally (2) declined to take advantage of a significant opportunity to serve in uniform during wartime.

Some individuals may qualify more for their political associations than for any demonstrated personal tendency towards bellicosity. Some women may be included for exceptional bellicosity.

There is another, less savory definition of the term chickenhawk. It is not relevant to this discussion; we intend no such associations to be drawn here.

We encourage every interested American to feel free to nominate chickenhawks, or to fill in missing information. Nominations are solicited from all sources.

George W. Bush: Yeah, right. He was in uniform. Big deal. See http://www.awolbush.com

Bill Clinton: He may have launched a few cruise missiles to distract us from a dalliance with a girl half his age, but our judges believe he wasn’t bellicose enough to make the cut. Your mileage may vary.

Tom Delay: “DeLay’s excuse for having a yellow streak as wide as the Rio Grande down his back is truly imaginative, if you take a delight in the bizarre. The man who believes Dioxin is good for you (again, we are not making this up), claims that he volunteered for Vietnam, but all the spots were taken up by minorities, so he was not allowed to serve. Clearly all those years of exposure to toxic chemicals had some serious side effects on ‘Ol Tom.” – Esther and/or Jeff Clark

Paul Harvey: A complicated case. We’re working on a dossier.

Ted Nugent: An amusing case. We’re working on a dossier.

Richard Perle: We’re working on a dossier.

Ronald Reagan: A complicated case. He remains listed because our judges believe his bellicosity outweighs his relatively painless service.

Pat Robertson: “[His own] libel suit [against fellow former Marine Pete McCloskey] turned out to be an embarrassment to Robertson. During depositions, Paul Brosnan, Jr., a retired university professor who served with Robertson in Korea, backed up [Congressman Pete] McCloskey’s claim and went even further, asserting that the televangelist had consorted with prostitutes and had sexually harassed a Korean cleaning girl who worked in the barracks.” –Rob Boston, The Most Dangerous Man in America, Prometheus Books, 1996. Our judges feel his remarkable service in the field of bonehead politics outweighs the marginal service he provided, particularly given his acquiescence to his old man’s efforts to snatch his chestnuts out of the fire.

Steven Spielberg: We read his films as ultimately adding to the glorification of war. Perhaps we’re wrong. This nomination has been challenged, and is open to debate.

John Wayne: “Another notable Hollywood faker to consider is Marion Morrison. Born in 1907, he decided to jump past his competitors like Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda by using his married status as a reason to avoid volunteering for the cause. As John Wayne, a phony name for a phony man, he played a lot of war heroes, while he ran away from anything resembling patriotism, except the pose. – Ray Duray

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Another Sort of Chickenhawk Altogether
We realized with a shudder today that with all the noise we’ve making about “chickenhawks” – who are in general a less-than inspiring lot – we’ve neglected to mention a self-described chickenhawk of an altogether different sort: Robert Mason.

Robert Mason was an Army helicopter pilot with the First Cavalry in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966. His best-selling memoir “Chickenhawk” will likely remain the definitive portrayal of the war as seen from the pilot’s seat of a Huey.

In 1984, when Mason’s “Chickenhawk” was on the New York Times best seller list, its author was in prison for trying to sail a boat full of marijuana into the country. How an ace Army helicopter pilot became a drug smuggler is revealed in Mason’s second book, “Chickenhawk: Back in the World.”

It will come as no surprise to Mason’s fellow veterans that PTSD – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – had something to do with the course of his life after the war. Mason’s aptly-named wife Patience wrote a valuable book of her own, Recovering From the War: A Guide for all Veterans, Family Members, Friends, and Therapists, published by Viking in 1990.

The fact that the term “chickenhawk” applies to belligerent draft dodgers like Saxby Chambliss and Tom Delay, and to men like Robert Mason, is, as far as we can tell, simply further proof that if you follow something to its extreme, you may meet its opposite.

One of the good things about the stock market coming back down to Earth after a prolonged bubble is that it leads people to question other misconceptions about the economy. When stock prices were soaring we heard all kinds of nonsense about a “new economy,” technological revolutions, and profit projections that were just too miraculous to be true.

The standard litany about the wonders of globalization could be the next myth that is ripe for debunking. For decades we have been told that increasing global trade and investment was great for everyone, with the exception of some inevitable “losers” who would hopefully retrain for new jobs (perhaps in the “new economy.”)

Like the investment advisers who hawked Enron and WorldCom stocks as they were heading toward disaster, most of the “experts” on globalization have long been avoiding the real numbers.

For starters: the real median wage in 1973 was $12.45 (measured in 2000 dollars). In 2000 it was about $12.90. Considering that the US economy grew by 72 percent (per person) during that period, somebody got shafted. Since the median is by definition the middle of the wage ladder, that somebody includes the majority of employees in the United States — not just the textile or steel workers who have been hit directly by foreign competition.

Anyone who is old enough to have lived through the 1950s, 60s, and 70s knows that it was not uncommon for a typical wage-earner to buy a house, support a family, and even put the kids through college with just one income. That doesn’t happen any more, and these statistics are another way of expressing America’s changed reality.

Interestingly, almost all of the research by economists shows that our opening up to foreign trade contributed to this massive redistribution of income. The only question is: how much? Even if we take the smaller estimates of how much redistribution was due to increased trade — not to mention US firms moving production overseas — it is easy to show that about three-quarters of the US labor force has suffered a net loss due to globalization. This takes into account (as do the above numbers on the real median wage) all the cheap DVD and CD players, clothing, and other consumer goods that we now import from overseas. For the vast majority of Americans, the losses from globalization have outweighed the gains, in strictly economic terms.

This should not be surprising, since our political leaders have made it their mission for more than 30 years to rewrite the rules of global commerce (for example, in such agreements as the North American Free Trade Agreement or the World Trade Organization) in ways that give corporations more power and workers less.
What about the developing world? Unfortunately the official, undisputed numbers tell a very different story here, too, than the one we have heard from the cheerleaders on TV. The growth of income per person in the low and middle-income countries dropped sharply over the last 20 years. If we compare the last two decades (1980-2000) to the previous 20 years (1960- 1980), we find that these economies advanced by less than half their prior rate of growth.

As a result of this slower economic growth, most developing countries also saw reduced progress over the last 20 years in such areas as life expectancy, infant and child mortality, literacy, and education. This long experiment in corporate-led globalization has been a failure, at home and abroad. As with the end of the “new economy,” it is time to face up to the facts.

Mark Weisbrot is a former resident of Urbana and one-time Democratic presidential primary candidate. He is currently the Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. This article was first published in the Washington Post.

After the terrorist attack last September, I attended a Rockford Peace & Justice meeting along with many other political activists who felt some concern about how the United States would choose to respond. The local television stations were there to cover the event and somehow my image appeared on the news segment that night. As a result, students from the high school where I teach saw that I was there and proceeded to spread a rumor that I was “un-American.” Another member of the faculty brought this to my attention during a passing period. He told me what a student had said and I started to get that familiar sinking feeling: that many people in this country never look beyond what their leaders tell them. Perhaps I should forgive the young woman who made the ridiculous accusation because she is uninformed, but I can’t help but ponder the reality that she represents a larger group of people here the United States who haven’t bothered to study their history, much less question the present.

With this experience in mind, I began to reflect on my political views and decided that I don’t care ‘who’ calls me ‘what’ anymore. The time has come to challenge the authorities that lead us toward the brink of an uncertain future as they plot their schemes of destruction.

It seems like just yesterday that I was in high school and a President named Bush was waging war on a foreign country called Iraq. Now it’s more than ten years later, I’m teaching high school and another President named Bush is going to wage war on the same foreign country, Iraq. The more life changes, the more it stays the same. What does this all mean? Saddam Hussein might be a ruthless dictator, but there are plenty of them around the world and we’re not invading all of their countries, at least not yet. It’s interesting how a lust for oil can make a nation act.

I have another uneasy feeling inside. As our leaders select enemies around the globe to target for military aggression, I can’t help but think that our fear of terrorism has empowered them to do so. After all, what was that President’s remark in his State of the Union Address about the “axis of evil?” Are we going to declare war on every country that doesn’t subscribe to our blend of political and economic values?

What I find really disheartening is that the average person permits the government to make these decisions, as if all are made in our best interest. Perhaps that’s the downfall of representative democracy – people assume too much, critically think very little, and openly speak out on a rare occasion in situations like this. Isn’t it strange that you can be ostracized for merely voicing an alternative perspective? Am I alone in thinking that? Are people so foolish? Or are they just so preoccupied with ‘getting paid’ to even care, like a junkie in search of a fix? They believe that because George W. Bush says we need a missile defense shield, that we must develop one. They believe that broad definitions of terrorism, granting police agencies the power to invade their privacy, holding innocent people in detention, and proposing that citizens spy on one another must be the path to solving our problems and promoting security.

Has anyone bothered to question what it is about our policy that provokes hostility toward our country in the first place? If you think the answer is that we’re a freedom-loving nation, you are grossly oversimplifying the issue. Is it possible that the world is tired of being treated as a means to an end? That foreign people are angry because they are seen only as a supply of natural resources or cheap labor in our eyes? If you study our history, you find a ‘privileged few’ that ordered the decimation of indigenous populations, enslavement of black people, and exploitation of the working class. Interestingly enough, a majority of the population considered this acceptable for quite some time. In retrospect, this injustice is dismissed as a necessary action in our evolution.

But for just a moment, consider all of the suffering that transpired. Most people are horrified at the thought because it’s incomprehensible. Have we learned anything from the experience in the past? One might argue that we have not. For years now, the ‘privileged few’ have been scouring the Earth in search of other lands that can be taken advantage of. It’s the only way for them to maintain their standard of living and the only way they know how to function. Welcome to the modern capitalist state. Trace the evolution yourself as the references change: colonialism, imperialism, and globalization. Perhaps there hasn’t been a change at all because force is the enduring tool of the policies we enact. If you choose to openly disagree with or resist the United States’ interests, you will eventually find yourself the victim of sanctions or bombs. Each of which kills far more innocent civilians than corrupt government officials.

I think that it’s time we reevaluated how we treat people abroad while keeping in mind that individuals we call terrorists today were at one time our allies. Remember, problems exist whether or not you choose to address them, and that ignorance fuels anger to unimaginable levels. Does this mean I excuse acts of violence against the United States? No, I do not. However, if we are really serious about ending the political violence, we must examine our role in fostering it. For more information: http://www.beyondtheself.org

John Duerk

Gentle Readers:
I am thinking of a country – one familiar to most of us. In this country, a state of open-ended war exists. It is a war against a nebulous and hard-to-define enemy, but an evil enemy to be sure. It is not a traditional war, but a battle against ideologies that threaten this country’s way of life. It is a fight for all that is good, against a powerful and wicked foe. In this war, the enemy could be a country, but it could also be your neighbor, a fellow student, or the person sitting with you in a stadium, or next to you on the plane.

For the prosecution of this war, the government has expanded its powers to clandestinely surveil the populace. Cameras observe the public unseen, and modern technology has created a virtual panopticon. Libraries and bookstores are required to report the reading habits of suspected enemies of the state, and secret courts may even rule and sentence without official charge or public trial. Detainees may be held without the protection of
international conventions, and without their identities released to a free press. These measures have been deemed necessary to protect national security.

In this war-torn country, a mass media campaign extols the virtues of patriotism and support for the government. Television screens throughout the land hammer home the leadership’s message of the need for paternalistic protection and oversight. Those who protest against the government’s stern measures have their very patriotism questioned by the executive authorities, and can be investigated without serving a warrant to justify the search of their homes or their financial records. National security demands these exigencies as well.

The economy of this country depends largely on a military-industrial complex that profits from the campaign against the enemy, but is nonetheless the only hope for victory. The army is funded beyond other priorities, and soldiers are sent to give their lives for the nation in far-off lands. Only through the prosecution of this war can true peace be realized in the end.

The workers of this country are at the mercy of government and corporate interests which operate in a realm so far removed from the common person that everyday people can barely even fathom the workings of the system itself, much less the motivations of those who control it. Livelihoods depend on decisions made by a
rich, powerful few, cloistered and guarded from pedestrian society. Most people live day-to-day, trying to pay rent and keep food on the table, and trying not to make waves – avoiding “radical” opinions that might attract attention. The public is encouraged to report any “suspicious behavior” to the police, and the police have substantial powers to investigate and arrest these “suspicious characters.”

The executive leaders of this country came to power by, at best, dubious means – and it is clear that it was not by the majority vote in a democratic process. It is probably fair to say that they attained their office with the aid of a small group of elite powerbrokers who maintain a system of nepotism and corruption to ensure their status. They are not leaders elected by the fully-counted will of the people.

In this country, the leadership speaks in simplistic phrases, designed to evoke a polar emotional response, rather than inspire reasoned criticism. Soundbites aired on screens nationwide exhort the populace to fear and hatred of the evil enemy, and praise the virtue of loyalty to the government, despite the erosion of civil liberty in the face of war. Nationalism is upheld at the expense of any semblance of global cooperation.

Have you guessed the name of this country? Do you recognize the state of affairs I have described? I have described, in some detail, a fictional nation known as Oceania, from that most important of novels, 1984, by George Orwell. If, even for a moment, from any perspective, you thought that my description might apply to the United States of America in 2002, I hope it gives you pause.

Perhaps I am an alarmist. Perhaps I am a radical. Perhaps I am a troublemaker. I, however, prefer to think of myself as a patriot, exercising the eternal vigilance that is the price of liberty. Despite the horrors visited upon us by extremists on September 11, 2001, let us not sacrifice the freedoms that make this country great. Let us rather accept the risks that are assumed by a free society, and not flinch from resisting those who – even with the best intentions – would drive us into the dark shadow of demagoguery and authoritarianism.

John Baldridge

“You’re fired because you’re gay.”
This was the message Red Lobster sent Dale Hall, an associate manager at the Lincolnwood restaurant, in 1996. In Illinois, there is currently no state law prohibiting an employer from handing a worker a pink slip bearing the simple explanation, “Reason for dismissal: Employee is homosexual.” The Illinois Human Rights Act protects people, at least in theory, from discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, marital status, and military status. But it does not include sexual orientation.
Cook County’s Human Rights Act does contain a provision which includes sexual orientation, and it is the only reason Dale Hall got his job back. Following the decision of the Cook County Commission on Human Rights to award Hall damages, back pay, and interest, Red Lobster’s owners, the Darden Restaurant chain, tried to appeal by having the civil rights law declared unconstitutional. However, bowing to the threat of a boycott and a spate of negative publicity generated by gay rights advocacy groups, the company dropped its appeal.
In 1991, the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain issued a memo recommending the termination of employees “whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values which have been the foundation of families in our societies.” Julie Davis, a Cracker Barrel representative, attributed the memo to “an erroneous statement issued by a vice president who was replaced.” But the eleven employees who were fired as a result of this “erroneous statement” were never rehired or offered compensation.
Only nine states and scattered counties in the United States offer legal protection against such discrimination. This means that if a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered individual (LGBT) wants to minimize his or her chances of being denied housing or employment due to sexual orientation, (s)he must live in an area with a strong law prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination, or at least with a strong vocal opposition to such practices. Champaign County arguably has the latter, but not the former.
A primary voice for change in Champaign County and east central Illinois is the 85% Coalition. Explains the groupís co-founder Mary Lee Sargent, “The name comes from a 1998 University of Illinois-Springfield poll that asked, ‘Do you think there should or should not be equal rights for LGBT people in terms of job opportunities and housing?’ More than 85 percent responded ‘should be.'”
In February of 2001, members of the 85% Coalition were arrested at the Capitol building in Springfield while trying to convince lawmakers to add the sexual orientation provision to the Illinois Human Rights Act. (The Act, besides protecting against discrimination in employment and housing, also covers public accommodations and credit.) Their strategy was to bring pressure to bear by raising public awareness. “We can’t influence the legislators,” group member Meg Miner said, “but we can influence the people who vote for them by getting our cause media coverage.”
There were certainly cameras clicking during the incident that February, when six of the 85%ers were thrown into a paddy wagon at the Capitol. Their crime? Chanting “No, no, we won’t go / until we have equality! / We’re your daughters, we’re your sons! / Pass House Bill 101!”
“We were arrested for the equivalent of disturbing the peace, which we were prepared to accept, and trespassing, even though we were in a public forum with 75 other members of the public,” Miner said. “It went to trial and we were acquitted.” The demonstration and subsequent arrest did, however, receive the desired media coverage.
Demonstrations by the group have continued at a steady rate, with several occurring this spring in response to the impending June 30 deadline for passing new legislation in this year’s legislative session. 85% Coalition co-founder Kimberlie Kranich explained the need for continued direct action this way: “There is historical proof that social change doesn’t happen by asking.” In her view, the fiery feminists of the early twentieth century women’s suffrage movement, and the defiant blacks of the more recent civil rights movement, demonstrated that turning a conservative tide is not an easy task.
House Bill 101 (chief sponsor Larry McKeon, D-Chicago) faced consistently stiff opposition in its previous incarnation as House Bill 474. Representative Rick Winkel (R-Champaign) and both former and current Republican representatives from Urbana, Tim Johnson and Tom Berns respectively, have voted against adding sexual orientation to the Illinois Human Rights Act. Repeated attempts to contact Winkel (three phone calls during business hours and three e-mails) and Berns (four phone calls during business hours) regarding their current positions on House Bill 101 yielded no response. But in the past both have stood by the claim that they are “against any bill that would give a group special or extraordinary rights.”
On the other hand, a letter from the Office of the Governor, dated March 19, 1999 and signed by Governor George Ryan, Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood, Attorney General Jim Ryan, Secretary of State Jesse White, Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, and Comptroller Daniel W. Hynes, addressed to “Colleagues in State Government” on the subject of House Bill 474, stated, “No group of Illinoisans should receive special privileges, and no groups should suffer from special legal disabilities. This law provides no special rights, affirmative action, or quotas. It simply protects us all from discrimination.”
The argument that this legislation would give homosexuals special rights is one commonly marshaled by right-wing religious groups, who have traditionally been the most vocal segment in opposition to laws which could be construed as condoning homosexuality. When contacted about the group’s political stance on this issue, Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute Dennis LaComb said, “We believe homosexuals are portrayed in a positive, though unrealistic, light in a media that often has a pro-homosexual agenda.”
The IFI, whose Director of Public Policy Virginia Nurmi is in the Governor’s Children and Family Leadership sub-cabinet, released several handouts in response to requests for further elaboration on its position. Homosexuality, the IFI states, “is just one form in which the brokenness of humanity reveals itself, along with greed, hatred, fear, dishonesty and intemperance.” According to the release, “there are substantial reasons for opposing the current attempts to grant gays, lesbians, and bisexuals the ‘special’ rights they seek.”
One of the reasons given in the group’s literature is that “they are not discriminated against in any of the key areas judged essential by the courts, namely economic status.” This despite the fact that a 1995 study by the University of Maryland found that “lesbians earn up to 14 percent less than their heterosexual female peers with similar jobs, education, age, and residence.” Controlling for the same factors, the study found that gay and bisexual male workers earned from 11 percent to 27 percent less.
Seated in the corner of a bustling vegetarian cafÈ on a drizzly Sunday morning, former history professor and sturdy matriarch of the 85% Coalition Mary Lee Sargent voiced her strong opinions on economic and employment discrimination affecting LGBT individuals, in addition to arguably lower wages. Using herself as an example, she said, “Illinois does not recognize a legal marriage union between homosexuals. If I die, my life partner will get a $1000 survivor benefit from Parkland College, because she is designated as my beneficiary. But if we were married, she would get half my pension for the rest of her life. If she lived ten years, that would be a quarter of a million dollars. If House Bill 101 passed, you could at least make a legal case in a civil suit.”
Irrespective of statistics in favor of either position, many LGBT people, not unlike their religious counterparts, view the fight over House Bill 101 as a question of values. “At least on one level,” Miner said, “the government would be admitting that not all homosexuals are scumbags.” Kranich added, “The religious right knows that if the law passes, it signals a change in values, and that shift would be away from their values, which view homosexuality as a condemnable sin.”
The current General Assembly has a little over two months left to vote on the bill, but members of the 85% Coalition are realistic about their struggle to get prohibitions against sexual orientation discrimination enacted into law. Questioned about the bill’s chances, Meg Miner replied, “I think theyíll use September 11 and the budget to say, ‘We have a lot more important things to deal with.'”
Despite the seemingly bleak immediate outlook, the dissidents are unwavering in their commitment. Regarding the uphill battle ahead, Kim Kranich vowed with her head held high, “It may take years to build the momentum, but my hope is based on a long-term vision.”