-Caveat Lector-
TOP 25 "CENSORED" STORIES OF 1998 <cont'd>
No. 8 NO MERCY FOR WOMEN AS CATHOLIC HOSPITAL MERGERS THREATEN
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS:
Nationwide hospital mergers with Roman Catholic church
medical facilities are threatening women's access to abortions,
sterilization, birth control, in vitro fertilization, fetal
tissue experimentation, and assisted suicide. In 1996, over 600
hospitals merged with Catholic institutions in 19 states. The
merged partnerships extend from Portland, Maine, to Oakland,
Calif., and these mergers and partnerships with hospitals and
health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are resulting in the
impairment of reproductive health care rights across the nation.
Ms. gives the example of Kingston Hospital in Rhinebeck,
N.Y. Kingston once performed about I00 abortions a year, but if
merged with Benedictine Hospital, a Roman Catholic facility, it
will provide the service for medical reasons only. No hospital
in the community would provide birth control counseling or
family planning services. Collaborations between secular and
Roman Catholic hospitals have made the Roman Catholic Church the
largest private health care provider in the nation. Why would
they want to join forces with secular hospitals?
"The big money in the hospital comes when you have a closed
system of doctors, HMO'S, and hospitals all feeding each other
in a closed loop," writes Dinsmore.
Though activists object to partnerships between religious
and secular hospitals that result in the ban of reproductive
services, they are sometimes willing to accept lesser
collaborations, such as joint ventures or affiliations, in which
it's more likely religious directives won't be imposed. In
response to community pressure, some health care agreements have
resulted in independently run women's health clinics. Some
activists, however, say it's a lousy solution because separate
women's health clinics are often easier targets for
anti-abortion extremists.
Source: Ms.,"Women's Health: A Casualty of Hospital Merger
Mania?" July/August 1998, BY Christine Dinsmore
No. 9 U. S. TAX DOLLARS SUPPORT DEATH SQUADS IN CHIAPAS:
On December 22, 1997, in the village of Acteal, in the
highlands of the Mexican state of Chiapas, 45 local men, women
and children were shot as they were praying. Their bodies were
dumped into a ravine. Elsewhere throughout the state of Chiapas,
unarmed women face down armies "with fists held high in
rebellion and babies slung from their shoulder." In Jalisco,
more than a dozen young men were kidnaped and tortured. One of
them, Salvador Jimenez Lopez, drowned in his own blood when his
tongue was cut out. The group responsible for these and other
atrocities are allegedly members of the Mexican Army Airborne
Special Forces Groups (GAFE)-a paramilitary unit trained by U.S.
Army Special Forces.
Mexican soldiers are being trained with U.S. tax dollars to
fight an alleged" War on Drugs, but peasants activists say the
real motive driving the U.S.-supported war is the protection of
foreign investment rights in Mexico. "In Chiapas, U.S. tax money
pays for weapons and military ... to destroy a movement for
social justice ... . The United States transfers aid to the
Mexican military in cash, weapons and comterinsurgency training.
The 1998 Clinton administration budget earmarked more than $21
million dollars for the Mexican Drug War, including $12 million
for Pentagon training in "procedures for fighting drug traffic."
Anti-drug effort seems to continue to focus on the Chiapas
region where 80 percent of the communities are in conflict
zones. According to the Zapatismo Papers (Wood), acts of
inhumanity by GAFE were led by Lt. Col. Julian Guerrero Barrios,
a 1981 graduate of the U.S.-sponsored School of Americas (SOA).
Although it remains unknown how many of the 15 soldiers charged
in the Acteal incident were trained at U.S. bases, the Pentagon
has admitted that some of the soldiers arrested were U.S.
trained.
Sources: SLINGSHOT, "Mexico's Military: Made in the USA,"
Summer 1998, by Slingshot collective; DARK NIGHT FIELD
NOTES/ZAPATISMO, "Bury My Heart At Acteal," by Darrin Wood.
No. 10 WHAT PRICE, CHEAP OIL? ENVIRONMENTAL STUDENT ACTIVISTS
GUNNED DOWN ON CHEVRON OIL FACILITY IN NIGERIA:
For three days last may, 121 youths from 42 different
communities had gathered to oppose the environmental destruction
brought on by Chevron's oil extraction practices. For decades,
the people of the Niger Delta have been protesting the
destruction of their wet lands. Discharges into the creeks and
waterways have left the region a dead land, resulting in the
Niger Delta becoming one of the most heavily polluted regions in
the world.
The students claim they had voiced their concerns many times
and had scheduled a number of meetings with the company, but the
meetings had been repeatedly canceled by Chevron. As a next
step, the students organized the protest around a Chevron barge
in order to draw Chevron's attention to the goal of
environmental justice. Student demonstrators had peacefully
occupied an anchored barge in a protest since May 25. According
to student leader, Bola Oyinbo, approximately 20 of the 121
students surrounding the barge in small boats went on board to
meet with a Nigerian Naval officer who was working for Chevron.
Oyinbo stated that the students wanted to speak to a Mr.
Kirkland, Chevrons managing director. Although the director never
came, other Chevron officials did arrive the next day and
promised to set up a meeting with the students at the end of
May. The students agreed to leave the barge on May 28 in order
to attend the proposed meeting. On May 28,1998, Nigerian
National soldiers were helicoptered by Chevron employees to the
Chevron owned oil facility off the coast of Nigeria where after
an onslaught of attacks, two students were dead and several
others wounded.
Sources: ERA ENVIRONMENTAL TESTIMONIES, "Chevron in
Nigeria," July 10, 1998, by Environmental Rights Action/Friends
of the Earth Nigeria; PACIFICA RADIO, "Drilling and Killing:
Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship"
PacificaRadio/www.pacifica.org, September 1998, by Amy Goodman
and Jeremy Scahill.
===
#11. PRIVATE PRISON EXPANSION BECOMES BIG BUSINESS
Source: TURNING THE TIDE "The Prison Industry and The Global
Complex" Summer 1998
Private prisons are one of the fastest growing sectors of
the prison industrial complex. Under contract by the government
to run jails and prisons, and paid a fixed sum per prisoner,
corporate firms operate as cheaply and efficiently as possible to
insure a profit. This means lower wages for staff, no unions, and
fewer services for prisoners. Substandard diets, extreme
overcrowding, and abuses by poorly trained personnel have all
been documented as practices of this private business approach
to incarceration.
# 12. MILLIONS OF AMERICANS RECEIVED CONTAMINATED POLIO VACCINE
BETWEEN 1955 AND 1963
Sources: CHICAGO LIFE, "Ticking Time Bomb", October 1997 by
Vicky Angelos, and http://www.sightings.com/health/salk.htm,
"The Forty Year Legacy of Tainted Polio Vaccine", May 14, 1998
by Harold Stearley
The once hailed 'miracle' vaccine was contaminated by a
virus called Simian Virus 40 (SV40) between the years of 1955
and 1963. The virus hid in the renal cells of the monkeys which
were used to make the vaccine. SV40 has been linked to rare,
incurable cancers such as ependymomas (brain tumors),
mesotheliomas (pleural tumors, usually of the lung), and
osteosarcomas (bone malignancies).
# 13. CHINA VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS IN TIBET
Source: TOWARD FREEDOM, "China's War on Women", March/April
1998 by Natasha Ma
Throughout most of history, Tibetan women have enjoyed
greater equality with men than have their Asian neighbors. Since
China's invasion of Tibet in 1959, they have been at the
forefront of the nonviolent struggle for independence-nearly
half of the protests staged over the last decade have been led
by nuns. During that time, however, thousands of Tibetan women
have been arrested, incarcerated, sexually abused, tortured, and
publicly executed.
# 14. POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS COMPROMISE AMERICAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM
Source: THE NATION, "The Buying of the Bench", January 26,
1998 by Sheila Kaplan
America's justice system is being compromised by campaign
contributions to judges from special interest groups and
Corporate Political Action Committees (PACS).
# 15. SWAT TEAMS REPLACE CIVILIAN POLICE: TARGET MINORITY
COMMUNITIES
Source: COVERT ACTION QUARTERLY, "Operation Ghetto Storm:
The Rise In Paramilitary Policing", Fall 1997 by Peter Cassidy
In the twenty-five years since the creation of the first
Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams in Los Angeles, police
forces across the United States have become increasingly
militarized. Paramilitary police teams originally only operated
in urban areas, but in recent years the number of special task
forces throughout the country, including rural police
departments, has dramatically increased.
# 16 MERCENARY ARMIES IN SERVICE TO GLOBAL CORPORATIONS
Sources: CAQ, "Mercenary Armies & Mineral Wealth, Fall 1997,
No. 62 by Pratap Chatterjee, and MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, "Guarding
the Multinationals", March 1998 by Pratap Chatterjee
In many countries, multinational corporations have paid
directly for private policing services from the local army; or
have hired outside security companies to harass nationals who
protest against the environmental impact of their operations.
The firms involved represent a growing number of new corporate
security operations around the world, linking former intelligence
officers, standing armies, and local death squads.
# 17 U. S. MEDIA PROMOTES BIASED COVERAGE ON BOSNIA
Sources: CAQ "Misinformation: TV Coverage of a Bosnian
Camp", Fall 1998, No. 65 by Thomas Deichmann, and CAQ "Seeing
Yugoslavia Through A Dark Glass", Fall 1998, No. 65 by Diana
Johnstone. For further reading see "NATO in the Balkans"
published by the international action center, 1998 email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
A visit to the camps of Omarska and Trnopolje by a British
team from Independent Television (ITN) on August 5, 1992 gave
rise to the image of the Serbs as the new Nazis of the Balkans.
A widely published photo taken by ITN pictured an emaciated
Muslin behind barbed wire with comrades imprisoned behind him.
ITN's photo was not, however, as accurate as it seemed. The men
in the photo were not standing behind barbed wire. In fact the
Hague Tribunal confirmed that there was no barbed wire
surrounding the Belesn 92 at Trnopolje. The emaciated Muslim
shown with his shirt off was in fact a very ill man selected to
be featured in the photo. Trnopolje was not a concentration
camp, it was a refugee and transit center. Many Muslims traveled
there for protection and could leave whenever they wished.
# 18. MANHATTAN PROJECT COVERED UP EFFECTS OF FLUORIDE TOXICITY
Source: WASTE NOT, "Fluoride, Teeth and the Atomic Bomb",
September 1997 by Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson
Recently declassified government documents have shed new
light on the decades-old debate over the fluoridation of drinking
water, and have added to a growing body of scientific evidence
concerning the health effects of fluoride. Much of the original
evidence about fluoride, which suggested it was safe for human
consumption in low doses, was actually generated by "Manhattan
Project" scientists in the 1940s. New evidence shows that
researchers were ordered to cover-up evidence of the dangers of
fluoride and its levels of toxicity to avoid lawsuit by exposed
civilians.
# 19 CLINTON ADMINISTRATION LOBBIED FOR RETENTION OF TOXIC
CHEMICALS IN CHILDREN'S TOYS
Source: MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, "Out of the Mouths of Babes",
June 1998 by Charlie Gray
The Clinton Administration and the Commerce Department have
lobbied on behalf of U.S. toy and chemical manufacturers against
proposed new European Union (EU) restrictions which would
prevent children's exposure to toxic chemicals released by
polyvinyl chloride (PVC) toys such as teething rings.
# 20. DEVELOPERS BUILD ON FLOOD PLAINS AT TAXPAYERS EXPENSE
Source: MOTHER JONES, "Rain Check", March/April 1998, vol.
23 issue 2 by Marc Herman
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),
some 10 million people in the U.S. currently live on floodplains,
and developers are rapidly building more homes in these areas. Of
these households at risk of flooding, only one fourth actually
carries insurance; the rest will rely on federal disaster relief
funds if their homes are flooded. Many of these people face
repeated flooding, and the American taxpayer is paying the tab.
# 21. GLOBAL OIL RESERVES ALARMINGLY OVERESTIMATED
Source: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, "The End of Cheap Oil", March
1998 by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrere
Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrere, two independent
oil-industry consultants, predict that global production of
conventional oil will start to decline within the next ten years,
and be unable to keep up with demand thereafter. Their analysis
contradicts oil-industry reports which suggest we have another
50 years worth of cheap oil to sustain us. As the independent
report points out, economic and political motives cause
oil-producing companies and countries to publish the inflated
figure, and this affects all of us.
# 22. ACADEMIA AT RISK AS TENURED PROFESSORS VANISH
Sources: ON CAMPUS, "The Vanishing Professor", September
1998 by Barbara McKenna
The bedrock of higher education, the tenured full-time
faculty, have become an endangered species. According to the
American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the number of tenured
full-time faculty is rapidly decreasing on college campuses.
Full-time faculty are being replaced by part-time faculty who
are paid two-thirds what tenured professors earn, and receive
substandard benefits. At least 43% of college instructors
nationwide are now part-time faculty. The hiring of part-time
lecturers increased by 266% between 1979 and 1995.
# 23. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT CHARGED WITH HUMAN RIGHTS
VIOLATIONS AGAINST THE SHOSHONE NATION
Source: NEWS FROM INDIAN COUNTRY: THE NATION'S NATIVE
JOURNAL, "BLM fines Western Shoshone $564,00 Despite OAS
Request", May 1998, Vol. 12, No. 9 by Pat Calliotte
A decades-old dispute with the Bureau of Land Management
has led the Western Shoshone tribe to take the conflict to an
international level. The OAS' Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights has asked the United States to "stay" all actions pending
further investigations; but, according to News From Indian
Country (NFIC), the BLM has "not responded" to documents
supporting Western Shoshone land rights.
#24. COCA COLA FAILS TO MEET RECYCLING PLEDGE
Source: EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL, "Coca Cola: Recycling Outlaw",
Winter 1998 by Marti Matsch
In 1990 Coca Cola made a promise to use its recycled plastic
bottles in new production as it has successfully done in Europe
and numerous other countries. Eight years later they have yet to
follow through with that promise. This failure to act has kept
the price of recycled PET bottles low in the market place and
discouraged expanded PET recycling programs nationwide.
#25. ABC BROADCASTS SLANTED REPORT ON MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Sources: REFUSE AND RESIST, "A Case Study in Irresponsible
Journalism", by C. Clark Kissinger and Leonard Weinglass
On May 7 and 8, 1998, KGO-TV, an ABC affiliate in San
Francisco, broadcast a two-part series attacking the
international movement to prevent the execution of Mumia
Abu-Jamal. Mumia, a black activist, has been on death row in the
state of Pennsylvania for 16 years for the killing of a
Philadelphia police officer in 1981. KGO claimed to do an
objective review of the case. The final broadcast presented a
very one-sided story.
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