F A C I N G S O U T H A progressive Southern news report
July 3, 2003 * Issue 54 Published by the Institute for Southern Studies and Southern Exposure magazine. Visit www.southernstudies.org/support.asp to join today! _____ IN THIS ISSUE OF FACING SOUTH: > INSTITUTE INDEX * Credibility problems > DATELINE: THE SOUTH * News Around the Region > PERSPECTIVE: DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE (quotes) > PERSPECTIVE: FREDRICK DOUGLASS: The Meaning of July 4 for the Negro (excerpt) _____ INSTITUTE INDEX * Credibility problems Percent in U.S. who think Bush "stretched the truth" or made "false" statements about Iraq weapons: 62 Percent who say they don't trust corporations to give them honest information: 57 Number of U.S. troops that have died since the Iraq war "ended" on May 1: 63 Number this averages to a day: 1 Amount that Bush budget would cut monthly pay to families of soldiers in combat: $300 Amount of tax breaks in Bush's budget for those making $1 million or more a year: $88,300 Cost of U.S. occupation of Iraq each month, in billions: $3 Amount of Southern taxpayer money this year that will go towards military budget, in billions: $86 Sources on file at the Institute for Southern Studies. _____ DATELINE: THE SOUTH * News Around the Region ADVOCATES LAUNCH "DECLARATION OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCE" Two broad coalitions of environmental, labor and consumer advocacy organizations -- the Apollo Project and the Energy Future Coalition -- have launched campaigns to slash America's dependence on oil by a third in 25 years, and create a million new jobs in sustainable energy. (Grist Magazine, 6/30/03) http://www.gristmagazine.com/powers/powers063003.asp DISSENT IS PATRIOTIC Activists in North Carolina and around the country are honoring American liberty by organizing Bill of Rights Defense Committees that challenge the U.S. Patriot Act through city council resolutions, and encouraging local law enforcement to not comply with unconstitutional invasions of privacy. (Independent Weekly, 7/2) http://www.indyweek.com/durham/current/cover.html N. VIRGINIA MUSLIMS RAISING A VOICE IN AREA POLITICS Muslim activists in Northern Virginia have launched a political action committee to help elect officials who will halt what they call rights abuses associated with the nation's war on terror. (Washington Post, 6/16) http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62875-2003Jun15?language=printer THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HALLIBURTON Since 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney's old Texas energy firm Halliburton and its subsidiaries have raked in over $2.2 billion in defense-related business. Here's where all that money's going. (Mother Jones, 7/1) http://motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/28/we_455_01.html BUSH AXES JOB INJURY REPORTING RULES The Bush administration on Monday repealed a requirement that employers report repetitive stress injuries. Labor unions had fought for the requirement, claiming that tracking repetitive strain injuries, also known as ergonomic injuries, would help provide a better understanding of injury rates and trends. (Associated Press, 6/30) http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6205913.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp U.S. CIVIL WAR PRISON CAMPS CLAIMED THOUSANDS Although precise figures may never be known, new historical research finds that an estimated 56,000 men perished in Civil War prisons, a casualty rate comparable to that of any battle during the war's bloody tenure. (National Geographic, 7/1) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0701_030701_civilwarprisons.html FORMER GA SENATOR BLASTS STATE OF U.S. POLITICS Former Georgia Senator and decorated Vietnam War veteran Max Cleland, who lost his 2002 re-election bid after his challenger called him soft on Osama bin Laden, is now decrying the nasty state of politics. Although he authorized war against Iraq, he now thinks Bush "bamboozled" America into a needless battle. (Washington Post, 7/3) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1464-2003Jul2.html?nav=hptop_tb _____ PERSPECTIVE: DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE (quotes) "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." - Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776 "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin "I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." - Thomas Jefferson "All men having power should be distrusted to a certain degree." - James Madison _____ PERSPECTIVE: FREDERICK DOUGLASS - The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro (excerpt) Speech to Rochester's Corinthian Hall July 5, 1852 What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. For the full text: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html
