-Caveat Lector- RadTimes # 122 December, 2000 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE: "Every exploitation of public economy by small minorities leads inevitably to political oppression, just as, on the other hand, every sort of political predominance must lead to the creation of new economic monopolies and hence to increased exploitation of the weakest sections of society. The two phenomena always go hand in hand." --Rudolf Rocker, 'Nationalism And Culture' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to assist RadTimes--> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --------------- --Organizing in the Face of Increased Repression --Bush campaign spokesman Governor Marc Racicot tied to extreme-right forces --IPS Releases Study on Corporate Power --Bush and Gore are neck-and-neck in hypocrisy --FBI steps up efforts to fight crimes related to computers --Attack on Luna Linked stories: *Cheney Urges Gore to Concede Defeat *Global: Corruption - A necessary evil? *If Bush Wins, Watch Out for the Long Knives *Gun Rights: Power to the People *The Next Seattle *The Watchers *Supreme Court Rules for Bush ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Begin stories: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Organizing in the Face of Increased Repression by Starhawk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Since the very first morning of the Seattle blockade a year ago, the police forces of the world have greeted the antiglobalization movement with a high level of violence and repression. As the international movement has continued on, the repression has fallen into a pattern discernible from DC to Prague and beyond. This pattern involves: 1. A concerted media campaign by the police and government forces that begins long before the demonstration, painting the activists as violent terrorists. All previous demos are equally characterized as violent, regardless of the actual facts. 2. Surveillance of meetings, email lists, phones, listservs, etc. 3. Attempts at pre-emptive control, which range from mass illegal arrests in DC the night before the action, shut downs of convergence centers and IndyMedia centers, and border closures, to declaring a 5-kilometer no-protest zone five months before the planned action in Quebec. 4. Less obvious violence on the street. Seattle taught them that tear gassing whole sections of the city was a bad idea. However, tear gas, pepper spray, beatings, projectile weapons, water cannon and concussion grenades, etc. are routinely used now from Prague to Cincinnati. 5. Random arrests and targeting of peaceful protestors, while those throwing rocks are often let go. Maybe nonviolent protestors are easier to catch? Or maybe this is a concerted effort to discourage wider participation in these actions? 6. Use of provocateurs. I am not saying that all who throw rocks are provocateurs. However, there is a growing body of eyewitnesses and stories of 'protestors' seen one moment throwing a rock at a window and the next, being sheltered behind a police line to indicate that provocateurs are being used. Along with them, we can suspect the whole range of fun Cointelpro tactics. 7. Intimidation and brutality in jail, which reached levels of outright torture in Prague. 8. Some sporadic attempts to identify and neutralize 'leaders' i.e. holding John Sellers of Ruckus on a million dollars bail for charges that were all later dropped. What fun! It¹s enough to make you think we¹re being effective, especially when, as in Prague, the protestors still managed to disrupt the meeting and send the banksters home a day early. What can we do about it? Are we doomed to have these actions become more and more dangerous, and smaller and smaller? Or can we succeed in building a mass movement in spite of repression? 1. The greatest restraint to police violence during an action is the organizing and alliance building we¹ve done before the action ever happens. We need to counter their disinformation campaigns with our own community outreach, to leaflet, to talk to people, to go door to door, to explain to the community what we¹re doing and why long before we do it. 2. We need to build alliances with labor, churches, NGOs, all the groups who are fighting the same vested interests. We don¹t have to do the same work they do, we don¹t have to change our hairstyles or analysis to accommodate them, but we do need to build bridges so that we can call on them to defend our‹and their‹civil rights, at the border, on the streets or in jail. 3. We need to train and prepare as many people as possible. The more people have had a chance to play out a dangerous situation, to think out possible responses and try out different tactics, the calmer and more resilient they¹ll be on the streets. Even a few centered people in a crowd can be enough to prevent panic and spark an effective moment of resistance. Trainings need to stress flexibility and developing a range of possible responses to widely varied situations, so activists are prepared in the moment to make choices about what to do. 4. We also need ever more flexible and creative tactics. The more we can plan for orchestrated spontaneity, the harder we¹ll be to stop. For example, in Prague part of the plan was for smaller marches led by flags of different colors to break away from the main march and go in different directions. While this tactic had been discussed at open meetings for at least a month before the action, it still seemed to confuse the authorities. 5. We may need to focus more on preparation for surviving jail, for resisting intimidation and being prepared for interrogation, than on the classic jail solidarity tactics we¹ve used in the U.S. Those tactics focus on attempting to stay in jail where our strength of numbers allows us to pressure the system to drop or lower charges, and helps to protect individuals at risk. These tactics were developed, however, in a very different time, when the authorities often were interested in releasing most and when jail experiences were often hard and uncomfortable but relatively decent. At times those conditions still prevail and that kind of jail solidarity has been effective in Seattle and DC. However, if people are being chained to the wall and beaten, the focus needs to shift to getting them out of jail. Solidarity then becomes what people outside jail do to put political pressure on the system, from calling on allies, phoning, faxing and emailing the authorities, to blockading the jail itself. 6. Organizing an action needs to include planning post-action and post-jail support, debriefing, trauma counseling, etc. 7. We need to continue building a broader, larger movement, to find ways to encourage participation at varied levels of risk, to support a wide variety of forms of protest that can mobilize different groups of people, to confront the racism, sexism, classism etc. in our own groups and reach out to more diversity. Most of all, we need to clarify our vision of the world we want to create, so we can mobilize peoples¹ hopes and desires as well as their outrage. And we need to be creative, visionary, wild, sexy, colorful, humorous, and fun in the face of the violence directed against us. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bush campaign spokesman Governor Marc Racicot tied to extreme-right forces <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/raci-n27.shtml> By Jerry White 27 November 2000 The fact that Montana Governor Marc Racicot has emerged as a leading spokesman for the campaign of George W. Bush says a great deal about the social and political physiognomy of the Republican Party. In recent days Racicot, a close friend and advisor to Texas Governor Bush, has held press conferences and appeared on the Sunday morning news shows, making allegations of Democratic vote-rigging and whipping up opposition within the military to a possible victory by Democratic candidate Al Gore. At one press conference Racicot, citing the rejection of overseas military ballots by local election officials in Florida, declared, "I am very sorry to say, but the vice president's lawyers have gone to war, in my judgment, against the men and women who serve in our armed forces." Such incendiary language, bordering on incitement to mutiny, has become almost routine in Republican quarters. It is the language of the militia groups and white supremacist cults that have found a comfortable home in Racicot's state, becoming part and parcel of what the media calls, in its disarming way, the "base" of the Republican Party in Montana. The cozy relationship between the Republican Party, including Racicot, and the terrorist fringe was on display two years ago, at the height of the anti-Clinton impeachment hysteria. On October 9, 1998 Racicot attended a Republican fundraiser and candidates' forum in Bozeman, Montana, where Bob Davies, a candidate for the state legislature, declared that President Clinton "should be shot." Davies said he routinely uttered that sentiment in response to voters who asked about his stand on the impeachment controversy. Davies also told the forum that Clinton was guilty of treason and should be executed for selling satellite technology to the Chinese government, likening the president to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were electrocuted as Soviet spies at the height of the 1950s McCarthyite witch-hunt. Neither Racicot nor any of the other Republican officials at the forum interrupted Davies, opposed his threats against the president, or reported Davies' comments to law enforcement agencies, even though advocating attacks against the president is a federal crime. Davies' comments only came to light two days later when one of those in attendance at the meeting wrote a letter to a local newspaper, declaring, "I am filled with disgust when I hear someone like Bob Davies who is running for public office advocate violence against other public officials." In the aftermath of the October 1998 forum, Racicot did not respond to reporters' inquiries about Davies' remarks for nearly a week. He finally issued a perfunctory statement disassociating himself from the threats against Clinton. The director of the state Republican Committee told the World Socialist Web Site at the time that the party would not retract its endorsement of Davies' campaign. Racicot's political rise is indicative of the far-right character of Republican politics in Montana, where the party has close ties with racist and anti-Semitic organizations, including paramilitary militia groups like the Montana Freeman and the Militia of Montana. The thinly-populated Western state has seen an influx of wealthier, conservative social layers trying to escape the more racially- and ethnically-diverse, and politically liberal, West Coast. Top elected officials, including Republican Congressman Rick Hill, have appeared at militia gatherings and the party has solicited support from these organizations for political campaigns. In August of 1999, the Montana Human Rights Network reported that Republican Senator Conrad Burns' office had sent a letter to the Militia of Montana appealing for support against the "gun control crusade" in the US Congress, a reference to pending legislation requiring background checks at gun shows. The senator's spokesman insisted there was nothing wrong with writing to the militia, a sentiment that was immediately echoed by John Trochmann, the leader of Militia of Montana, whose ties to the white supremacist Aryan Nation are well known. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IPS Releases Study on Corporate Power <http://www.ips-dc.org/top200.htm> Study Reinforces Public Distrust of Corporations View Report (Adobe Acrobat format): <http://www.ips-dc.org/downloads/Top_200.pdf> On the first anniversary of the Seattle protests that shut down negotiations of the World Trade Organization, the Institute for Policy Studies is releasing a study that shows: Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries; The world's top 200 corporations account for over a quarter of economic activity on the globe while employing less than one percent of its workforce. According to study co-author Sarah Anderson, "The Seattle protestors expressed their anger at institutions like the WTO for elevating the interests of large corporations over everyone else. We analyzed just how powerful the world's biggest firms are and our findings are staggering." Other key findings include: The Top 200 corporations' combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 10.The Top 200s' combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 billion people (24 percent of the total world population) living in "severe" poverty. Between 1983 and 1999, the profits of the Top 200 firms grew 362.4 percent, while the number of people they employ grew by only 14.4 percent. A full 5 percent of the Top 200s' combined workforce is employed by Wal-Mart, a company notorious for union-busting and widespread use of part-time workers to avoid paying benefits. U.S. corporations dominate the Top 200, with 82 slots (41 percent of the total). Japanese firms are second, with only 41 slots. Of the U.S.corporations on the list, 44 did not pay the full standard 35 percent federal corporate tax rate during the period 1996-1998. Seven of the firms (including the world's largest, General Motors) actually paid less than zero in federal income taxes in 1998 (because of rebates). Between 1983 and 1999, the share of total sales of the Top 200 made up by service sector corporations increased from 33.8 percent to 46.7 percent. To receive a paper or email version, contact Sarah Anderson, tel: 202/234-9382 or email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bush and Gore are neck-and-neck in hypocrisy <http://www.townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/sc2000124.shtml> December 4, 2000 To become president of the United States, says the Constitution, a person has to be at least 35 years old and a "natural born citizen." Conniving, dissembling, opportunistic snakes are not disqualified, which is a good thing for George W. Bush and Al Gore. Not that either side is incapable of honesty. Both Democrats and Republicans accuse their opponents of trying to steal the election, and both are right. Each side is striving to prevent the other from winning through unfair and unscrupulous means, so that it can win through unfair and unscrupulous means. The warring parties bring to mind the 17th-century Puritans, who allegedly came to America in search of religious freedom. Actually, they wanted religious freedom only for themselves, not for anyone else. Gore and Bush each want to exploit the various types of electoral unfairness to his own advantage, not wipe it out. What partisans portray as a battle over principle looks more like the Super Bowl of hypocrisy. Bush has argued against hand recounts, and particularly against including "dimpled chads." Yet he signed a law in Texas authorizing those very practices. Letting human beings inspect disputed ballots one by one is dangerously subjective in Florida, but indispensable to honest elections in the Lone Star State. Gore claims that all he wants is a fair count of all the votes cast in Florida. But he hasn't stopped other Democrats from suing to exclude absentee ballots in Seminole County, which conveniently would deprive Bush of several thousand votes. The vice president's passion for inclusiveness is also absent when it comes to absentee ballots from military personnel stationed abroad: Hundreds of them have been rejected because they lack postmarks. It's Bush's attorneys, not Gore's, who went to court insisting that those votes be counted. Republicans say state law gives counties just seven days to report their vote totals, and that the limit must be enforced even if some counties need more time for recounts. The extension ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, they say, amounts to a flagrant rewriting of the law. At the same time, Bush and Co. think it would be horribly unjust for election boards to actually abide by that law requiring postmarks, because it means some military votes (which tend to go Republican) won't be counted. Should we enforce the law as written, or should we make adjustments to get a better measure of the will of the people? Bush and Gore have a clear, coherent answer: Enforce the law when it will help me, and don't when it won't. Democrats were pleased when Secretary of State Katherine Harris was told she couldn't enforce the seven-day rule but had to abide by the Sunday, Nov. 26 deadline established by the Florida Supreme Court. But when Palm Beach County election officials took Thanksgiving off and then wanted yet another extension, Democrats thought Harris should disregard the timetable established by the court and grant extra time entirely on her own. Republicans have taken pride in the near-riot by Bush supporters, "newly assertive Republicans," in the admiring words of conservative writer Peggy Noonan, at the Miami-Dade county board offices, which helped induce the board to abandon a recount that would have helped Gore. If a raucous protest led by Jesse Jackson had intimidated election officials in a GOP stronghold, do you think Noonan would be praising the demonstrators' assertiveness? Democrats are fond of resolving disputes by turning to the federal government, which they trust more than state and local bodies. But it's Gore taking the position that the U.S. Supreme Court should stay out of the squabble because it's the rightful province of the state of Florida. Bush, whose party is usually the champion of state sovereignty, wants the Supreme Court to rule that Florida's state courts can't be trusted to interpret their own laws and need benevolent guidance from Washington. Gore says it's critical that every vote be counted. But from the start, his real concern has been on getting recounts only in counties where he might gain votes, taking advantage of Bush's failure to ask for recounts within 72 hours after the election, the time limit set by law. Early on, the two candidates could have asked Katherine Harris to authorize a statewide recount to find out who really got the most votes, and the chances are good she would have agreed. But neither was much interested in that option. Each could think of an option that would be better, better for himself, that is. When Election Day arrived, the country was divided more or less equally between those who disliked Gore and those who disliked Bush. Before long, Americans may be united in detesting them both. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FBI steps up efforts to fight crimes related to computers <http://web.lexis-nexis.com/more/cahners-chicago/11407/6592826/1> by Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES November 26, 2000 The FBI has opened its first multiagency, multijurisdictional office aimed at combating the escalation of computer-related crimes and has assigned it the task of acquiring, archiving and analyzing digital evidence in support of criminal investigations. The new facility, located in San Diego, is designed as a prototype for new regional laboratories being established across the country. "The role of the computer forensics examiner will become increasingly more important as criminals continue to exploit emerging computer technology," says FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. "As we have found on the national level, joining forces with other federal, state and local agencies produces higher levels of service in the full range of cases where computers are either used to facilitate crime or the computer itself is the target of a criminal act," he says. Attorney General Janet Reno has called for an aggressive effort to combat computer crimes, saying government and industry need to work together to determine what should be done both to increase security and to catch criminals. Mr. Freeh has urged Congress to consider expanding the use of the federal racketeering law, known as RICO - traditionally used against organized-crime figures and drug cartels - to apply against computer criminals. He also has urged members of Congress to lower the $5,000 minimum in damages that victim companies must suffer before attackers can be prosecuted under federal computer crime laws. The new San Diego office, known as the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, consists of computer forensic examiners from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, U.S. Customs Service, San Diego County Sheriff's Office and District Attorney's Office, California Highway Patrol and police departments in Chula Vista, El Cajon, Escondido, La Mesa and San Diego. FBI officials say it is organized into three main functions: imaging, analysis, and research and development. The officials say examiners will rotate among those assignments, allowing each to develop a variety of skills. Each of the examiners, the FBI says, will be given responsibility for quality control and training. The bureau says as the volume and complexity of computer evidence submissions grow, the laboratory's flexible structure will allow it to adapt and seek whatever additional training, equipment or other resources are needed to complete the job. "Computer crimes have become the crimes of this century," says San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender. "We are experiencing a large increase in the number of people who are victims of fraud, identity theft and other offenses. We in the sheriff's department are very pleased to be a part of this task force." San Diego Police Chief David Bejarano says that because of the "explosion of high-technology and associated crimes," the new facility is a welcome addition to his department's effort to control computer crime. "This ensures that we will have highly trained examiners - using state-of-the-art technology and investigative techniques - to support federal, state and local investigations and prosecutions," Mr. Bejarano says. Mr. Freeh says that with the creation of the San Diego office, law enforcement authorities will have the "best-trained computer forensics examiners, functioning as one team," that will be able to "utilize state-of-the-art facilities to perform complex examinations." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attack on Luna <www.circleoflifefoundation.org> ANCIENT REDWOOD TREE LUNA WHERE JULIA BUTTERFLY HILL LIVED FOR OVER TWO YEARS HAS BEEN ILLEGALLY CUT AND ENDANGERED The small hamlet of Stafford, California is the site of a landslide that originated on PL/Maxxam land that destroyed seven families' homes. Stafford is also home to the Stafford Giant, an ancient redwood tree now known to the world as Luna. The tree was named Luna by forest activists who used the light of the full moon to rig a treesitting platform 180 feet high in the redwood in October, 1997. On December 10, 1997 Julia Butterfly Hill climbed into the tree to protect the magnificent redwood and to help make the world aware of the plight of the ancient forests. From her perch she carried out a tremendous amount of outreach to politicians, religious leaders, school children and citizens worldwide. After two years of risking her life, Julia, with the help of members of the US Steelworkers of America and other forest activists, successfully negotiated the permanent protection of Luna and a nearly three-acre buffer zone. The tree was protected by a Deed of Covenant, similar to a conservation easement that is held by the land trust Sanctuary Forest. The Luna Preservation Agreement, signed by Julia Hill and PL/Maxxam Corp., was designed to protect Luna in perpetuity so the tree could live for another millennium. On Thanksgiving weekend it was discovered that a critical cut had been made into Luna by a large chainsaw. The perpetrator made one deep and precise cut that went through a significant portion of the tree. While the tree is still alive and standing, Luna is extremely vulnerable to a windstorm. Judging from the precision of the cut and the fresh sawdust, the criminal action appears to have been committed by an experienced treefaller within the last few days. Julia Butterfly was devastated to learn of the injury to Luna, "Luna is the greatest teacher and best friend I have ever had. I gave two years of my life to ensure that she could live and die naturally. But two years is nothing compared to the thousand years she has lived, providing shelter, moisture and oxygen to forest inhabitants. It kills me that the last 3% of the ancient redwoods are being desecrated. I feel this vicious attack on Luna as surely as if the chainsaw was going through me. Words cannot express the deep sorrow that I am experiencing but I am as committed as ever to do everything in my power to protect Luna and the remaining ancient forests." Circle of Life Foundation and Sanctuary Forest are researching what can be done to stabilize the critically injured tree. There is a criminal investigation at the crime site for clues as to who may have committed this spiteful and malevolent action against this permanently protected tree. The forests surrounding Luna are sacrifice zones that were not protected under the Headwaters Forest Agreement. Other sacrifice zones include the old-growth Douglas fir forests on Rainbow Ridge in the Mattole River watershed. Police convoys are actively trying to stop forest activists from defending these forested steep slopes that are slated to be clearcut during this rainy season. Please send prayers and healing thoughts to Luna and ancient trees everywhere. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linked stories: ******************** Cheney Urges Gore to Concede Defeat <http://tm0.com/IHT/sbct.cgi?s=80180978&i=282270&d=687555> As legal wheels turned through the weekend, Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential candidate, said Sunday that it was time for Al Gore to concede defeat in the U.S. presidential election. ******************** Global: Corruption - A necessary evil? <http://library.northernlight.com/FB20001201950000182.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc> Worldwide, corruption costs at least $80-billion a year. Attempts to end the corruption of foreign nationals have met with resistance. So how realistic is it to think we can put an end to the practice? ******************** If Bush Wins, Watch Out for the Long Knives <http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/US_election_race/Story/0,2763,406095,00.html> A lot of the extended Bush support system - businesses, the right wing, family members, etc. - are just waiting to pull out the shivs. A British paper offers up an excellent analysis of who are the puppeteers behind Junior. And it's a pretty scary picture. ******************** Gun Rights: Power to the People <http://www.sierratimes.com/dantre.htm> "Why don't the politicians want us to own weapons? What are the politicians afraid of? That we're all going to kill each other? I don't think so. The politicians are afraid of an armed populace. And they're supposed to be." ******************** The Next Seattle <http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2501/slaughter2501.html> Naomi Klein talks about the movement's future. ******************** The Watchers <http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2501/berkowitz2501.html> Multinationals take aim at protesters. ******************** Supreme Court Rules for Bush <http://news.findlaw.com/ap/a/p/1130/12-4-2000/20001204165754430.html> ******************** ====================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. 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