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Call 1-877-BE-A-MENTOR http://click.topica.com/aaaad8bz8SnrbAjwjxa/www.savethechildren.org ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________________________________________________ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Friday, 10 March 2000 Vol. 4, Number 21 (#397) __________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS Action Alert AFAA #101: NY Diallo Verdict Protest TV Review: Discovery Channel Series -- Hate And Violence: No Simple Answers News On Hate Crimes Bills Ryan Keith (Chicago Tribune), "Lawmakers Targetting Hate Group Leaders: Chiefs Could Be Charged With Conspiracy In Violent Acts," 6 Mar 00 AP, "Expanded hate-crimes bill finally gets panel's OK," 7 Mar 00 Financial Damages For Mass Murder Pauline Jelinek (Associated Press), "[Victims of] Nazi Groups Argue On Compensation," 7 Mar 00 Pauline Jelinek (Associated Press), "No [Korean] Gun Ri Compensation Talks Sought," 7 Mar 00 FTP Supplement: Dr. Laura and Homophobic Propaganda -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ANTI-FASCIST ACTION ALERT #101: NY Diallo Verdict Protest New York City, Saturday, 11 Mar, 12 noon Youth March for Life: A militant and peaceful protest of the Albany verdict in memory of Amadou Diallo: March from Harlem to Gracie Mansion Place: Harlem State Ofice Building, 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. (7th Avenue). Defeat Giuliani! Civilian control of the police! Education not incarceration! Abolish street crimes unit! Fight racism! Initiated by United New York Black Radical Congress, Councilman Bill Perkins, People's Justice 2000 and Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence. For more info: Juanita Webster 212-889-4468 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TV REVIEWS: Public Awareness Initiative With Hate And Violence Discovery Channel to Launch Programming and Public Awareness Initiative With Hate And Violence: No Simple Answers: National Campaign Against Youth Violence to Co-Sponsor National Town Hall Meeting; Forrest Sawyer to Serve as the Anchor of Initiative Discovery Channel (press release) 1 Mar 00 BETHESDA, Md., -- Beginning in March, the Discovery Channel will launch HATE AND VIOLENCE: No Simple Answers, a comprehensive year-long initiative that will examine violence, its history and contemporary trends through a series of quarterly documentary specials, a national Town Hall meeting and a comprehensive website designed to help consumers, educators and students understand the issues surrounding violence and hatred and empower them to help make a difference. The multifaceted television components of the initiative will be anchored by Discovery Channel contributor and NBC News anchor Forrest Sawyer. In addition to producing and airing the world premiere television programming investigating the roots and causes of hate, Discovery Channel will partner with the National Campaign Against Youth Violence to convene and telecast a national Town Hall meeting to examine hate and violence in America. This meeting will be telecast and webcast live from Memphis, TN, on the Discovery Channel on Friday, April 14. The National Campaign Against Youth Violence was formed last year by President Clinton and other interested parties in the aftermath of the Columbine school shootings. The organization will also advise the Discovery Channel on issues related to youth violence and collaborate with discovery.com, Discovery's web portal, on content for a special HATE AND VIOLENCE: No Simple Answers website that will contain information for, about and by youth that will address issues of youth violence prevention. "Discovery Channel has the unique ability to look at this issue on many levels," said Mike Quattrone, Discovery Channel executive vice president and general manager. "Much of what has been reported on this disturbing trend in our society has been a quick follow-up to the latest headlines. We will take an in-depth look into the biology, history and psychology of hatred and violence in an effort to engage people in a constructive dialogue that will, hopefully, lead to a better understanding of the issue and solutions for preventing hate crimes." Jeff Bleich, the CEO of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence, said that the organization chose to kick off its national town hall meeting with Discovery Channel because of the network's commitment to take a serious and comprehensive approach to addressing violence. "I am deeply impressed by Discovery Channel's commitment to this issue. We are grateful to Discovery for recognizing that the sources of violence in our nation run deep, and that we all need to take stock of what we can do to reduce violence. By helping us to understand how violence starts, the Discovery Channel initiative will also help us learn how to make it stop." HATE AND VIOLENCE: No Simple Answers will examine the roots, history and manifestations of hate and violence in society, from a study of hidden prejudice found inherent in human behavior to the physiological factors that cause some people to commit violent acts. At the heart of the initiative are four world premiere documentary specials, each examining a different aspect of this complex topic, which will air throughout the year. The lineup of the specials, all being anchored by Forrest Sawyer, is as follows: HOW BIASED ARE YOU? premieres Monday, March 20 at 10 PM (ET/PT). The one- hour program examines the subtle everyday situations where prejudice and hate manifest themselves. Psychology experts reveal that prejudice can begin as early as three years of age, and how adults who consider themselves open-minded can harbor hidden biases. The second programming event is twofold. On Friday, April 14, Discovery Channel will provide viewers with a live telecast at 7 PM (ET) of EDUCATE ABOUT HATE, a Town Hall meeting that will take place in Memphis, TN. Co- sponsored by the National Campaign Against Youth Violence, EDUCATE ABOUT HATE will be moderated by Forrest Sawyer and feature a panel of experts who will encourage a lively discussion with viewers and online users. Discovery.com will also offer people an opportunity to participate in the Town Hall meeting online. Immediately following the Town Hall meeting, Discovery Channel will present a three-part special, EVIL AMONG US: Hate in America, which airs from 8-11 PM (ET/PT) and probes contemporary extremist group events and trends from a historical perspective. These films will attempt to assess the origins of radicalism and how prevalent it has become in our society and feature candid interviews with former leaders and members of the World Church of the Creator, Aryan Nation, and the Ku Klux Klan. The third installment in the initiative, WARNINGS FROM A SMALL TOWN, will focus on Eugene, Oregon's ongoing effort to rid its community of hate crimes. Most people do not associate Eugene with these acts, but in the last three years the number of hate crimes have quadrupled from 25 in 1997 to more than 100 in 1999. In the last decade, Eugene and the neighboring towns and cities along Oregon's Interstate 5 corridor have become havens for neo-Nazi skinheads. Airing in 3rd quarter 2000, this program explores the fight in between racists and community activists for the soul of Eugene and why the outcome is vitally important other cities around the country. Interviewed are Scott Britt and Steven Stroud, two former neo-Nazis who are now community activists. Together, with University of Oregon professor Randy Blazak, they run Oregon Spotlight, a group that tracks and fights skinhead activity around the state and across the country. The final special, RAGE TO REVENGE: THE SCIENCE OF VIOLENCE, will air in 4th quarter 2000 and look at the measurable physiological and predisposition factors that cause one person over another to become violent. The program will use graphics to go inside the human body to answer such questions as the role genetics plays in violence and if there is a difference in the brain of a violent and non-violent person. Each documentary will be supplemented by Discovery Channel's website, discovery.com, which will offer rich content providing people an interactive opportunity to explore this subject further. Users will be able to delve into information about solutions and approaches to preventing violence, resources for violence prevention programs, quizzes and polls to test awareness, share their own stories, and interact with people featured on the website and in the television programs. Complementing the coverage on discovery.com will be information targeted specifically towards the education community through discoveryschool.com. There, teachers will be able to find valuable information that they can incorporate into their lesson plans as they aim to enlighten young minds about this troubling issue. Both sites will update the content throughout the year as the initiative rolls out. ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS ON HATE CRIME BILLS: Lawmakers Targetting Hate Group Leaders: Chiefs Could Be Charged With Conspiracy In Violent Acts Ryan Keith (Chicago Tribune) 6 Mar 00 SPRINGFIELD -- Seven months after Benjamin Smith's shooting rampage targeting minorities and Jews, state lawmakers are considering beefing up what some already consider the nation's toughest state hate crime law. The proposal is aimed at leaders of groups who now cannot be prosecuted for hate crimes they may have encouraged but did not directly participate in. Bill supporters say Matt Hale, leader of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator based in East Peoria, is the most visible target because of his outspoken views and his public attempts to recruit members. Smith was a Hale follower. The bill would create a new conspiracy crime that could earn up to 3 years in prison for leaders found guilty. It also would create harsher penalties for others who commit hate crimes. Hate crimes are defined in Illinois as acts of violence or harassment against a person or his or her property based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or heritage. The bill passed the House last week and moved to the Senate despite concerns about the circumstances in which police and prosecutors would be able to charge offenders with hate crimes. Under the bill, leaders like Hale could be charged with conspiracy if authorities could prove they made an agreement to commit the crime, regardless of whether they actually acted upon that agreement. Smith's rampage over the 4th of July weekend left two people dead, including former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and injured nine others. Smith, a former member of Hale's racist group, ended the spree by killing himself. Some have questioned how much influence Hale had over Smith. For bill sponsor Rep. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston), Smith's attack was a brutal reminder of problems that prosecutors face in going after the causes of hate crime. "As we've unfortunately seen, these crimes sometimes result in death, and existing law regrettably has provided sufficient cover for leaders of hate groups to (insulate) themselves from direct prosecution," Schoenberg said. The proposal is part of a statewide and national push to reduce hate crimes. Although national records are incomplete, hate crimes reported to the FBI more than doubled from 4,558 in 1991 to 9,245 in 1998. Nearly 550 hate crimes committed in Illinois were reported to the FBI in 1997. Across the nation, activists are pushing for the 10 states without hate crime statutes to adopt them. Last month, President Clinton announced a plan to increase funding for civil rights enforcement. Though many consider Illinois' current law to be one of the toughest in the country, a hate crimes commission appointed by Gov. George Ryan has called for harsher penalties. Critics of the current law, including Schoenberg, contend the statutes are too vague and lenient. Schoenberg's bill would create the new crime of conspiracy against civil rights, which would charge those who incite others to commit an act violating a victim's civil rights with a Class 4 felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison. Further offenses would be Class 2 felonies punishable by up to 7 years in prison. The plan also would give courts the authority to impose extended sentences for those committing a hate crime who are convicted of a previous felony. All of the penalties would require mandatory fines and community service. Also under Schoenberg's bill, committing a hate crime within 1,000 feet of a school, public park, religious center or a cemetery would be a Class 3 felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Opponents of the bill claim it would give authorities the right to charge offenders with a hate crime if the victim belonged to a minority group-- even if that had nothing to do with the offender's motive. The bill would create problems by establishing special classes of victims, they say. "I just have a hard time trying to distinguish in my mind what makes a senseless crime . . . more heinous if the victim is a member of a protected class," said Rep. Bill Black (R-Danville). But Schoenberg disagrees. "It can't be inferred from that that it's a hate crime just because the victim is from one group and the perpetrator is from another group," he said. Schoenberg said his bill tries to hold "people like Matt Hale more directly accountable for their actions." - - - - - Expanded hate-crimes bill finally gets panel's OK AP 7 Mar 00 Despite some opposition, a plan to expand Minnesota's hate-crimes law for the first time in 11 years got the endorsement of the Senate Crime Prevention Committee on Monday. The bill would expand the law to include third-degree arson and riot, interfering with a religious observance, trespass, civil disorder, public nuisance, disorderly conduct, obscene or harassing telephone calls and harassing letters, telegrams and packages. It also would provide for mandatory education and community service for juveniles who have committed a bias-motivated offense. The bill was sent to the Senate floor. Tom Prichard of the Minnesota Family Council opposed the bill, saying bias- crime law further divides society based on membership in certain groups. "I believe this legislation moves us away from the notion of equal justice under the law," Prichard said. The 1989 law covers crimes based on the victim's race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age or national origin. It increases penalties for misdemeanor assault, vandalism, harassment and stalking if bias motivation is proved. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- FINANCIAL DAMAGES FOR MASS MURDER [Victims of] Nazi Groups Argue On Compensation Pauline Jelinek (Associated Press) 7 Mar 00 WASHINGTON D.C. -- Negotiators worked Tuesday to break a stalemate that has created the spectacle of Holocaust victims fighting among themselves over how much compensation they'll get. Representatives of German companies, former Nazi-era laborers and eight governments opened a two-day meeting on how to divide a $5.2 billion German fund for those forced to work in support of Hitler's war machine. Though survivors' representatives agreed in December to that figure, frustration over trying to allocate it has prompted several to complain that the total just isn't enough to divide among what could be up to 2.3 million claims. Going into Tuesday's meeting, the third on allocations, negotiators declined to be identified commenting on the stalemate - and were divided on whether the issue could be resolved this week. But Israel Singer of the World Jewish Congress blamed it on German business and government following the last unsuccessful meeting - held two weeks ago in Germany and said by negotiators to be among the most rancorous since Germans first agreed to establish the fund. "Germany cannot want that two groups of victims fight like hungry dogs over a piece of raw meat in the same room," Israel said. He blamed Germans for the way negotiations have been handled, saying they seemed more interested in getting lawsuits off their backs than in "justice and morality." But the disagreement now is mostly between victims who say 90 percent of the money should go to forced and slave laborers and those who want more to go to other Holocaust-era wrongs. It pits Christians against Jews, forced laborers against slave laborers, those who have received previous compensation against those who have not. German industry and government last year suggested the so-called German Foundation initiative partly as a way to end lawsuits filed against its companies in the United States. In return, it insists the U.S. government discourage U.S. courts from accepting any future suits and let the foundation handle future claims. Because of this, negotiators say, the foundation has become a catchall for other Nazi-related claims and programs. It is meant to provide money for a "future fund" to promote education and remembrance of the Holocaust as well as claims from people on whom medical experiments were done, from Jews whose property was taken by the state, and from people whose insurance policies were unpaid after they were killed in the Holocaust. The states of Poland, the Ukraine, Russian, Czech Republic and Belarus represent the majority of surviving labor victims, officials say - mostly Christians from nations Germany overran early in the war. The nations have received almost nothing from the $60 billion in other compensation programs Germany has set up since World War II - because they were long behind the Iron Curtain, because most programs focused on Jewish persecution and for other reasons, negotiators say. The five nations want 90 percent of the money to go to forced and slave laborers. Representatives other groups want less to go for forced and slave labor and a larger portion towards paying Jewish property claims, the education fund and so on. - - - - - No [Korean] Gun Ri Compensation Talks Sought Pauline Jelinek (Associated Press) 7 Mar 00 WASHINGTON D.C. -- Korean survivors of an alleged mass killing by American soldiers have hired a Holocaust compensation expert to help press their demands for payment and an apology from the U.S. government. In a Washington news conference Monday, survivors and their newly hired American lawyers said they believed the U.S. Army probe into the 1950 killings in the Korean village of No Gun Ri is going too slowly - and that they fear it may whitewash the incident. Lawyer Robert Swift, who has helped negotiate compensation for victims of the Nazi Holocaust called on President Clinton to appoint someone to begin negotiating with survivors and their lawyers to confirm the facts of the case and negotiate compensation and an apology. "This is not a complicated situation," said Swift. "We know who did the shooting, and we known who was killed ... and we also know that these were unarmed civilians," he said, arguing the alleged massacre is as clear-cut a human rights case as Holocaust-era wrongs that the United States has been urging Germany, Switzerland, Austria and others to own up to. "I think it's one thing for the United States to lecture Europeans on how to resolve Holocaust issues and another for it to step up and say it wants to resolve its own problems," said Swift. The Associated Press reported in September that a dozen U.S. veterans said their regiment's 2nd Battalion killed a large number of civilians at No Gun Ri in July 1950, during the early days of the Korean War. Survivors say 400 were killed, including many cowering under a railroad bridge. They had been telling their story for years, but their accounts had been dismissed by officials in Washington and in Seoul. After the AP report, however, both the U.S. and South Korean governments began investigations. The Army said last fall that its investigation could take a year, but officials have said since that they are hoping it might be completed by June, when Seoul and Washington plan special ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War on June 25. "We're moving as fast as we can but don't know if we can be done by June," Army spokesman Maj. Thomas Collins said Monday, adding that the integrity of the investigation "is paramount." The Army was ordered by Secretary of Defense William Cohen to do a "full and comprehensive determination of what happened," Collin said. "This is an extremely complex issue and one that is going to take time," he said. Survivors said they feel that five months after the investigators started, investigators still haven't spent much time collecting their side of the story. "American soldiers committed a cruel massacre in South Korea," Chung Eun- yong said through a translator, recounting how he lost five family members, including a 2-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. He said investigators so far have only spent about 2 hours in two separate meetings with survivors, never giving them "sufficient time to explain all the things we wanted to." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- FTP SUPPLEMENT: DR. LAURA AND HOMOPHOBIC PROPAGANDA The Internet Anti-Fascist: Thursday, 9 March 2000 FTP Supplement #152 (#396): Dr. Laura and Homophobic Propaganda CONTENTS 1) Bridget Byrne (E! Online), "GLAAD, Paramount Taming Dr. Laura? Gay advocacy group attempts to broaden point of view on Dr. Laura Schlessinger's talk show," 16 Feb 00 2) Wired Strategies, "Mrs. Bradley Equates Dr. Laura With 'Hatred Mongering:' Agrees people more accepting of anti-gay versus other prejudice," 21 Feb 00 3) GAYBC Radio, "Ernestine Bradley Criticizes 'Dr. Laura'," 22 Feb 00 4) "stand-up comedienne, Robin Tyler on Dr. Laura Brouhaha," 24 Feb 00 Norman Solomon (FAIR), "Dr. Laura: Radio's Leading Anti-Gay Zealot," 24 Feb 00 5) Liz Langley (Miami Herald), "On Subject of Gays It's Dr. Laura vs. God," 25 Feb 00 6) Donna Ladd (Salon), "StopDrLaura.com: Gay activists go after Paramount, demanding that it cancel plans for a TV show starring the talk-radio moralist," 1 Mar 00 7) press release, "StopDrLaura.com Launches Web Site and Coalition: Battle Against "Dr. Laura" and Paramount Goes Online," 1 Mar 00 <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/tinaf/tinaf396.txt> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- RIGHTWING QUOTE OF THE WEEK: For those who believe that fascism is only a thing of the past Celebrating [Abe Lincoln:] America's first Bolshevik Vin Suprynowicz (Las Vegas Review-Journal) 27 Feb 00 A survey of 58 historians "from across the political spectrum" >released by C-SPAN Feb. 21 ranked the "leadership qualities" of American presidents, placing Lincoln first, followed by Franklin Roosevelt. Needless to say, presidents who avoided warfare, obeyed their oath of office, and concentrated on preserving American liberties did not fare well: Among them, Jefferson ranked highest at seventh. In "America's Two Just Wars: 1775 and 1861" (in which the author argues the just cause in 1861 was that of Southern independence), Murray Rothbard, late of the UNLV Department of Economics, describes the onset of Republicanism under Lincoln: "Lincoln signed no less than 10 tariff-raising bills during his administration. Heavy `sin' taxes were levied on alcohol and tobacco, the income tax was levied for the first time in American history, huge land grants and monetary subsidies were handed out to transcontinental railroads (accompanied by a vast amount of attendant corruption), and the government went off the gold standard and virtually nationalized the banking system to establish a machine for printing new money and to provide cheap credit for the business elite. ... A huge army was conscripted, dissenters and advocates of a negotiated peace with the South were jailed, and the precious Anglo-Saxon right of habeas corpus was abolished for the duration." Slavery? "In every other part of the New World, slavery was peacefully bought out by agreement with the slaveholders," Rothbard asserted in the 1994 talk on which this essay is based. (Actually, Haiti was the other violent exception.) "But in these other countries ... there were no Puritan millennialists to do their bloody work, armed with a gun in one hand and a hymn book in the other. ... The Yankee fanatics were the Bolsheviks of their era." The most thoroughly researched fresh look at Lincoln's War is Jeffrey Rogers Hummel's "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men." Hummel notes: "The Lincoln administration imprisoned at least 14,000 civilians throughout the course of the war. ... The federal government simultaneously monitored and censored both the mails and telegraphs. ... It also suppressed newspapers. Over three hundred, including the Chicago Times, the New York World, and the Philadelphia Evening Journal, had to cease publication for varying periods." Former Democratic Rep. Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio "delivered a speech in May 1863 that accused the president of unnecessarily prolonging the conflict. The Union commander in Ohio rousted Vallandigham from his home at night and jailed him. A military court handed down a sentence of confinement for the war's duration, but public indignation forced Lincoln to commute the sentence to exile behind Confederate lines." Yet C-SPAN's 58 historians assure us Lincoln ranks first in our history when it comes to "pursuing equal justice for all." Slavery? Hummel concludes, "Slavery was doomed politically even if Lincoln had permitted the small Gulf Coast Confederacy" the states that had seceded by the time of his inauguration "to depart in peace. The Republican- controlled Congress would have been able to work toward emancipation within the border states, where slavery was already declining. In due course the Radicals could have repealed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. With chattels fleeing across the border and raising slavery's enforcement costs, the peculiar institution's final destruction within an independent cotton South was inevitable." So the war wasn't even necessary to end slavery hile the "great emancipator" never tired of offering to let the Southerners keep their slaves, if only they'd rejoin his precious union. What Lincoln and his party achieved was to convert this land from a Jeffersonian republic of limited government to a monstrous and ever- growing welfare/police state, taxing and regulating everything in sight, and dreaming up monopoly government licensing schemes for everything from the practice of law and medicine to peaceful travel of the highways. Most insidiously, they created a vast tax-supported bureaucratic cadre to propagandize the nation's youth education being an arena in which no role for government had previously been contemplated -- teaching them precisely that their heroes should be none other than those most successful betrayers of the American Revolution, Lincoln the First and Roosevelt the Second! The messianic "reform" movement which began with the Whig-Republican coalition of the 1860s has never really gone into eclipse. This is the gang that still seeks to use the usurped powers of the central state to ban outright such previously well-accepted forms of commerce as prostitution, gambling, and the traffic in alcohol, medicines, and pain-relieving drugs. The result being that American today has the highest rate of incarceration -- slaves to the state, a whopping plurality of those rotting behind bars being black men who have never committed a violent crime -- ever seen in the history of mankind. Yet we are assured, in the ironic words of Broadway librettists Ragni and Rado: "We's free now, thanks to yo Massa Lincoln, emancipator of the slaves!" * * * * * In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. __________________________________________________________________________ FASCISM: We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget. (No permission required for noncommercial reproduction) - - - - - back issues archived via: <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/tinaf/> _____________________________________________________________ Want to find the best email lists? Check out the Topica 20! http://www.topica.com/topica20
