1. war is failure by Arny Stieber - submitted by Dennis Serdel psychstu@voyager.net
words: 121
2. Peace, Whatever That Is - by Jim Emerick submitted by Dennis Serdel psychstu@voyager.net
words: 109
3.
4.
Dog Tag (rewrite) by Dennis Serdel psychstu@voyager.net
words: 258
PSYCHEDELIC BLUES - by Dennis Serdel VFP # 50 psychstu@voyager.net
words
154
5.
For the Encouragement and Strengthening of the Arts…… - by Maurice Greenia, Jr. greeniam@udmercy.edu words: 2856
6.
The Anitwar Movement Isn’t Where You Think It Is – by Dave Stratman newdem@aol.com
words: 1119
7.
8.
9.
Chinaman in Brooklyn - by YK Hong yk@freedomtrainers.org
words: 1486
Other – by Maymanah Farat sccheeto@yahoo.com
words: 1248
Silencing Palestine Protests: The Larger Picture by Henry Herskovitz hersko@umich.edu
words: 2262
10. Honoring the Dead on the Transgender Day of Rememberance – submitted by Michelle michelle@usol.com
words: 1483
11.
You Can’t Eat a Soccer Ball - submitted by Michelle michelle@usol.com
words: 1706
12. Didactic Review of Beyond Chutzpah by Michelle michelle@usol.com
words: 1246
13. Why Lie? – by Adam at the Planet planetlists@yahoo.com
words: 2037
14. Review of
Working Towards Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White
By
David R. Roediger – by Ari Paul ari.paul@gmail.com
words: 1708
15. Good Clean Fun by Rose White old_weird@yahoo.com
words 840
16. No Home for the Holidays - By Bill Quigley. Quigley@loyno.edu
words 1343
1. war is failure - by Arny Stieber washtenaw VFP VVAW, published in nyt 1-13-2005, submitted by Dennis Serdel psychstu@voyager.net
I wrote a letter to the editor of the new york times. to the editor
I am a vietnam veteran,
I recently woke up to the reality of being a pawn. war is not glorious if it were the children of our leaders would be there. war does not bring peace, if it did after all these thousands of years we would live in a peaceful world.

at best, war is the failure of the leaders to solve problems. at worst, war is a vast money-generating machine that has no regard for life. the military does what it is told to do by politicians. the only protection it has is we the people. let's protect our troops, our politicians have failed.
2. Peace, Whatever That Is - by Jim Emerick Korea Recon VFP # 50 submitted by Dennis
Serdel psychstu@voyager.net
Funny thing about anti-war, the people who never were there are the extreme patriots.
Of course, we, those that did the killing and the nightmares don't want it the most.
It's only the nights that are bad,
I can do the days.
It does seem to be getting worst, some nights are only 3-4 hours that the panic takes hold.
I do wonder if I'm going to finish up in a hospital.
Maybe that is what keeps me

a bit stable.
Hell of a thing that young patriotism !
I suppose it didn't help much about being good at what I did.
I was a very good killing machine.
3 Dog
Tag
Dennis Serdel psychstu@voyager.net
Frank watched through his kitchen window
at the fresh grave where he had just buried his old dog and placed a small flat stone, not a Wall,
nameless on top of the black dirt.
He never had a wife, children and nothing again now.
The sparrows were dancing around the fresh earth and pecking at the bugs and worms of the new grave and talking to Frank,
telling him everything is alright and Frank bowed his head like a prayer.
Then a big bright bluejay landed on top of the bird feeder
and addressed
Frank, it's only a dog,
it's not like the mother and innocent
Vietnamese child you killed.
Two doves flew by like silver F-16 jets.
A blackbird with all the runny colors of an oil spot on a rainy day landed in the back yard like a chinook helicopter.
A blood red cardinal said, it was at night, you know.
It was the spring and a new life when all the birds had children, putting bugs and worms in their mouths.
A rare orange and black oriole stopped by long enough to tell Frank to buy
another dog. A robin

trying to mind her own business, finally chirped, yeah Frank,
and buy the Vietnamese another mother and child.
Frank now heard the explosions
which were honks of the
Canadian geese flying overhead in V like B-52 bomber formations.
He felt the emptiness of his world, his home, his kitchen,
and felt like killing himself again, but the sparrows said No.
A redwing blackbird went airborne.
4. PSYCHEDELIC BLUES - by Dennis Serdel VFP # 50 psychstu@voyager.net
Where are you now all my children my colorful hippies peace signs long hair you were there when we came "home" came back from Vietnam
Chocolate Watch Band
Strawberry Alarm Clock
Where are you now my students you fought for peace like hell
Are you still the same or is all that remains is smoking pot and the Lollipop Shoppe
Counter culture remains
HP Lovecraft
Freak Scene or are you watching Fox TV with a W on your SUV
We have seen hypocrites old doves turn into chickenhawks with age
Twin Towers fell crashed the Pentagon too yes, the same one teargas and Electric Prunes the Paisleys made all the children cry

Iron Butterfly
Come on all my children this is another war that is wrong
Tiffany Shade
Stone Circus bring our troops home on a Jefferson Airplane let them have their civil war at least it will be a war of their own.
5. “For the Encouragement and Strengthening of the Arts……” by Maurice Greenia, Jr. greeniam@udmercy.edu
Two Dreams:
1. Detroit (this city, this area) could be the “launching site” for a newly energized and exciting approach to art. I take our old name seriously: the “Renaissance City” (or “Renaissance
Center).” Could the spark of revival and “rebirth” of the arts emerge and flower?
Can something very special happen here, in Detroit? Can works and doings in this city attract attention and “turn the nation’s eyes toward us?” The talent and the perseverance (never say die) seem to be here. How can we “connect the dots” and spark a real surge in quality? I don’t think
I’m the only one who believes that this is possible (in this place, in this time).
On the other hand…..
2. For a long time, I’ve had this strong sense that if only the artist were allowed to play their true and proper part in this world ---universally--- then things would be very different.
I’ve taken this idea to another “extreme.” Are the artists to blame? Is it partly our fault that things are going from bad to worse? If we did what we should be doing, would life change?
Would the world change? How can we struggle to play this “ideal part” when it’s made so difficult to do so? What does playing this part entail? What do we need to do?
In 1992, I wrote a manifesto (in my Dreamers Versus Dangers series) called “The Failures of
Art.” Around the same time, I did a flyer (encouraging Detroit artists) called RENAISSANCE
NOW! In this statement, the two will meet and mingle, get specific and “talk it out.”
“I believe firmly in the possibility of an immense renaissance of art. Whoever believes in this new art will have the tropics for a home.” Vincent Van Gogh

If both the “fine arts” and the “popular arts” were able to produce powerful, magical, thoughtprovoking and true art, it could have a real effect on people. It could even inspire them, transform them or (at least) change their minds. In art, works and moments of magic, surprise and transcendence are always a possibility.
The idea that art can enliven and awaken us is not new. It can even be taken further than this.
Art can change things by giving people off-center, surprising and expansive insights into what it really means to be a human being in this world.
Maybe, if more people were exposed to authentic art , they would behave differently and look at life differently. Even “people in power” could find themselves changed by art’s mysterious forces.
Art isn’t always a “cure-all.” But it’s been ages (if ever) that it was truly given a fair chance.
We ask “Faith in art?” and answer “Yes. Every faith!”
Some of us do still believe. Art can heal. Art can be a force for truly positive change.
If one is absolutely committed to the artist’s life, one can become part of the medicine.
Yet, in ways, the more one believes, the easier it is to get hurt or get in trouble. The “illtreatment” (even discrimination) that the artist can suffer is a milder form. Others get hit far harder. It does add to the total burden though (more obstacles, more weight).
Some artists never even feel these blues (or if they do, they don’t recognize them for what they are). To be an authentic artist (prepared to follow your path through to the very end) is often a haunted, painful thing.
Yet if we do so, soon we’re spinning these blues into gold. Not merely the “fool’s gold” of financial success but the gold of pure art (solid yet fluid, magical yet rooted in the deepest sort of reality).
Most of us will never reach these strange “heights.” Yet, in a Renaissance, more artists would be informed by these possibilities. There would sometimes be a taste of them, at least. Quality can be a fugitive thing—yet ever we strive, the attempts are made.
DISCLAIMER: This Autumn Manifesto will not be concerned with finance. We’ll leave that path to other voices. Sure, it’s good to sell a painting or book or have a good crowd at your performance. These words follow other paths, other directions. At the idea of money: it’s not uncommon to shrug my shoulders, scratch my head or shed a tear. We need to survive.
The Environment
The Sky :
Look up. To rise above (literally, our “better natures” realized, at least in part) that is
“the path.” In other words (clouds) dreams, imagination, love and thought (simmer or stew).
Then, through hands or body’s sweat, various art arrives. Creativity is enacted. Art is made concrete. Life is lived creatively. From the sky we get sunlight yet also rain, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, rainbows, fog, mist….
The Earth : Grounded, sometimes with roots (or at least in love with earth, soil, rock, muck and all their relations). For humans, some lead simple lives. Some are simple and joyous. Others
“simple” yet full of poverty, hunger, pain and sorrow. For many of us things get more complex, stretched too thin.

Some are swamped by work alone. Yet many of us also find ourselves swamped by work (and by combinations of) love, all life, dreams, adventure, suffering, mediocrity. This is a saturation point .
The Ocean : A wet watery wash (a splash) whereby the lakes, rivers and seas connect with the water that is us or in us. Though tied to water and to humanity, we’re all separate and alone
(some more than others). This gives way to the ruse and unavoidable ego.
We go on both alone and in conflict. Sometimes this gives way to interactive works, collaborative. “Me, me, me” and
“mine, mine, mine” are both good and bad. As unavoidable as moisture, ego will not be denied.
Sometimes it is forgotten or transcended.
Portrait of the Saturation Point : distractions from being young, distractions from being old or growing older (i.e. surviving awhile). Then there’s the circle (family, friends, peers, colleagues, relationships and so on). Then housework --dishes, laundry, sweeping, mopping, shopping
(essential and non-essential). Then transportation---our daily travels, either on foot or by bus or car. Then work, the “full time job” (for some, our daily travails). Besides transports and fatigue, work can overflow in other ways. You take more of your work home with you then you really want to. Then things like raising a family (and/or being a serious artist) can be like a second full time job. The effort in trying to be aware can take up time. We study the “news” in search of truth.
Some of us try to help out through “charity.” Some try to help through political-social involvement and action. Some work at ignoring or forgetting. The list goes on and on.
One can find oneself living in a whirl (dizzy), on thin ice or caught in an endless impossible balancing act. There’s this idea of just so much stuff (things, events, jobs, duties) and then too people . Even the recluse and the hermit have to deal with others.
I’ve told myself that if I’m worried I’m “stretching myself too thin” well then just “stretch myself thinner.” I’m a pretty typical case. I work full time and bus and walk to work. I’m a serious visual artist and writer. I play and sing in two musical groups. Then, for the straw that broke the camel’s back, I help run a grassroots-artist run art gallery. Quiet spaces and “quality time” are always found
--yet at a price.
I’m sure other artists, arts writers-critics and members of the audience all find themselves in a similar space (sometimes or all the time). You push too hard, yet the effort is often invisible to others. They only see some of its fruit. Life overflows.
The Failures of Art
If artists are solely to blame for the failures of art, well so be it. What can art do but that which artists can do? Yet some would share the blame for these failures with the public, our
“audience” and with our chroniclers, the arts writers and critics. Then too, some galleries and art spaces are more supportive and encouraging than others.

Our audience includes our peers, our fellows. Our fellow artists and art gallery staffs are generally supportive. Yet some stick to their own gallery and circle and rarely get out to see what the others are doing.
Too often, the basic audience attends only the opening (with free entertainment, a lively social scene and/or refreshments). For the rest of the exhibit’s stand, few to zero attend. It ends up somehow deserted.
As for the “press” it would seem that you usually have to be doing something extraordinary
(and/or persevere for years) in order to get noticed. I’m reminded of the Daffy Duck cartoon where he does this elaborate routine and finishes by blowing himself up! He’s a huge hit but at the requests for an encore he says “It’s a great trick but I can only do it once!”
Or as Franz Kafka said “People beg to give themselves away. But who can give one’s self away in a world that no longer knows how to receive?”
Then there’s the syndrome wherein one gets a big “article” and in the days that follow --no one comes --or very few. You can see where this points back to. If you have a great show and it’s not neglected by the media and few attend: the problem is not with the artwork, the gallery or the
“media.” The problem is often with the audience.
They too have their “saturation points.” The distractions of “entertainment” and unfamiliarity with painting, drawing, sculpture etc. play a big part.
You can go full circle and put all the “blame” onto the artist. Yet there’s the old saw that great art needs a great audience (and great art criticism). Then too, great art (and enough truly good art) should help encourage better audiences and better criticism. Can we all play our parts better than we have been? Can art help set loose a spirit of contagious health?
Renaissance Now!
Art can be a distraction or a mere “pain killer.” It can be relief from real suffering. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this.
It can retain elements of this effect yet go beyond them. Art can be a window or door opening to more awareness. There’s a connection between be aware and beware . It can also be a healing path. It can be a strong force toward a better world (a less bitter world).
Here’s a preliminary prescription (specific).
Artists, keep working. Try to do the best work you can. Whether schooled or self-taught, never stop learning and working. Read and go to museums and galleries. Talk to other artists and the
“public” about art. Try to keep growing. If you draw enough and keep your eyes open, things may happen.

Galleries and museums, try to support the artists around you. It’s fine to show art from other cities or countries. Yet you also need to encourage the local scene. Search out new and unknown artists as well as the “tried and true.” It’s good to have standards, have a vision. If you have faith in the work, then the audience should respond to it. Keep your space neat, organized and clean. Hang your exhibits well.
The galleries need to come together and support each other. If we don’t, it just ends up hurting everybody. It’s good to have special events where many galleries are open at the same time and encourage the public to visit. On the other hand, it’s better to avoid having ten openings the same night (and nothing the next week). The special character of the opening or closing events versus “regular hours” should be considered.
Critics and arts writers, try to get out and see as many shows as you can.
Time and time again, I’ve seen an art exhibit that blew me away, that I loved. Then this same show meets with total silence from all Detroit’s media and press. These include shows that I had nothing to do with myself (except being there to see them).
It’s very difficult to cover every show. Yet even brief capsule reviews (a paragraph or two) would be better than nothing. All most artists (and galleries) want is some “fair attention.”
Then, whether you pan the show, praise it, or give it a middling review --we’re glad you took the time to see it and put forth a response. We appreciate your efforts in these regards.
Most artists are also interested in: opinions on what art is and is not, the national and international scene, art-historical remembrances and so on.
If critics and galleries seem to let us down sometimes, do we let them down too? How strong, amazing, solid, moving, ugly or beautiful does our artwork need to be? Who won’t let us down?
We try not to let ourselves down. The world seems to let us down yet we struggle to “rise above it.”
Audience, we thank you. We know that the “public” is the most important piece of the puzzle.
I found this quotation from the estimable T-Bone Slim: “A man is only great as a writer if his readers are great. Never was, is, or will be a writer greater than his readers.” If the relationship with the artist and their audience improves, so will that with galleries, museums and critics.
We hope for the audience, the “people at large” to come see our work.
It’s good to give us some feedback (talk to us, your true responses). If you like what you see, please support it. Give us some encouragement. Tell others about our exhibits and/or come back yourself. Understand that it’s discouraging for the artists to use their precious time “gallery sitting” only to have no one show up. Then yes, despite my “disclaimer,” if galleries rarely or never sell art, they will end up closing (gone for good).
Word of mouth does wonders. Art isn’t really that difficult. It’s natural, as easy as water or air.
If more people would take the visual arts seriously and

give artists real support, the strength of the artwork should increase. The percentage of good work (as compared to bad, mediocre or indifferent work) should rise. Renaissance Now!
This is For the Encouragement and Strengthening of the Arts :
October 20 started/ November 12 finished (finis) 2005
From Maurice Greenia, Jr. (Maugre) Thank you for reading this.
Aftermath:
How can we transcend the general trend toward the “marginalization” of the plastic arts?
Despite all my “positive statements” above, I know that (in many ways) the truth is very ugly, pretty rough.
To me, it seems obvious that in “the arts,” the visual artist is something of an “outcast.”
We’re the “lowest of the low” (all downtrodden and beset upon). Our compatriots get it just as bad. These include people in any art form who try to “push the envelope” or try something new
(certain poets, experimental film, theatre, music or “literature” etc.)
Yet in those arts which we see (hang on a wall or place on a pedestal) it seems nearly everyone gets a raw deal. The exceptions (stars??) are doing well not always due to the quality of their work. As for the rest of us, the good, the great and the largely mediocre all get swept up by the same wave.
Some artists spend thousands of hours reading, studying, sketching and painting. The training period can be nearly as intense as a doctor or lawyer---yet without the “better times ahead.” Yet many of us continue on both determined and full of life.
Then there’s the “double edged sword.” The money behind the “popular arts” makes them much more powerful. T.V., pop music and movies take away much of our potential audience.
When the work is of quality, it’s pretty easy to take. We check it out ourselves. Yet much of it is just so horrible (new ways to waste your life, the “time killers.”) A steady diet of sugar candy steers one away from a better balanced “diet.”
On the other hand, the current system of galleries, museums and mass media seems to hurt us as well as help us. Most of the problems have already been mentioned. We hope to make changes here, to improve things. Yet it might not be as easy as it should be.
There’s a sense of “elitism” partially tied in with $$$$. There’s a tradition where if you can’t get “real money” out to look at your work, no one takes you seriously. The work isn’t looked at for the quality of the work. The attempt is made to transform all art into “product” yet this is disguised and veiled.
Real change in this world often arrives from unexpected sources. It starts at a “low point” and spreads. We can transcend the special problems inherent in the visual arts and in this city,
Detroit. There could be a sort of partnership between artists, the media, the venues and the audience. This would be to the benefit of us all. It would be a start.
6. The Antiwar Movement Isn’t Where You Think It Is
By Dave Stratman newdem@aol.com
On October 29 of this year there was an antiwar rally on Boston Common. My wife and I and our daughter and two young granddaughters took part. After a few speakers one of the rally organizers announced to loud cheers that a contingent of antiwar demonstrators had gone to join

gay activists who had been demonstrating since 8 a.m. two blocks away outside the Tremont
Temple Baptist Church. Later many other antiwar demonstrators plus the rally sound truck reportedly joined the gay activists outside the Temple, screaming and chanting their anger at what was going on within. The focus of their rage? A conference entitled “Love Won Out,” organized by Focus on the Family, on recovering from homosexuality.
Whatever else they did that day, the antiwar rally organizers certainly made clear who is welcome in their antiwar movement, and it doesn’t include anyone who is unenthusiastic about homosexuality or gay marriage.
The curse of the real antiwar movement is that it is largely invisible. It may show glimpses of itself in polls or in heartfelt letters from military families or interviews with bereaved mothers like Cindy Sheehan. But for the most part the profound antiwar sentiment of the majority of
Americans is more likely to register only as a few words exchanged between friends at a local bakery or dry cleaner or a conversation over coffee at a diner. The real antiwar movement is not on the radar screen of the corporate media and appears to be just as invisible to the official Leftwing antiwar movement–the one that organizes periodic demonstrations in Washington, DC and which organized the demonstration on Boston Common–and also to its Libertarian Right-wing counterpart on the Internet.
The invisibility of the real antiwar movement to those involved in the visible ones struck me once again when reading a new article by John Walsh, “A Fractured Antiwar Movement,” posted on Counterpunch and Antiwar.com. Walsh proposes that the Left and Right wings of the antiwar movement unite. It seems to me, however, that he has completely missed the real problem of the visible wings of the antiwar movement and has thereby come up with a strategy that has no chance of working.
The American people are overwhelmingly opposed to the war in Iraq and want an immediate end to it, and yet these millions of ordinary people remain invisible and unwelcome to the Left wing of the antiwar movement, represented by such organizations as United for Peace and Justice
(UFPJ) and Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R). Whatever their conflicting views of the Democratic Party and the timing of withdrawal, the Left organizations are united in their contempt for people who do not pass the Left’s litmus tests of civic virtue: support for gay marriage, gun control, affirmative action, and unlimited abortion rights. The Left wing of the antiwar movement remains united in the conscious exclusion from its movement of the great majority of Americans who oppose the war.
Unfortunately ordinary Americans are also absent from Walsh’s article. While Walsh acknowledges the overwhelming antiwar sentiment among Americans, he doesn’t propose that the Left overcome its contemptuous and exclusionary approach to ordinary people. Instead he proposes that two self-isolated groups come together: the gay-marriage-loving Left should unite with the unfettered-capitalism-loving, Social-Security-and-Medicare-hating Libertarian Right.
Surely that will solve the problem.
Walsh apparently believes a powerful antiwar movement can be built by wrenching the war free from its social context, thereby allowing Left and Right to bury their disagreements–as if these

two puny groups have the power to overcome the Great American War-Making Machine without engaging and effectively mobilizing the majority of Americans against it. This is sheer fantasy.
The war in Iraq is part of the class war being waged not only against Iraqis but also against
American working people and workers everywhere, and it can be successfully opposed only on this basis. The war in Iraq and the war on terror are meant to frighten us and drive us into the arms of our leaders while they steal our pensions, cut our wages, out-source our jobs, test our children into despair at school, and construct a police state around us. As Steve Lopez wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “There’s a dirty secret [behind this war] no one has told you, and here it is: This war is not about changing Iraq, it’s about changing America....The whole idea is to train you to expect less and to feel patriotic about it.”
Ordinary American workers–the people who build our cars, teach our children, nurse our sick, build our houses, harvest our crops, keep our offices and hospitals and airlines running–are under attack as never before. They are opposed to this war–it is, after all, their sons and daughters who are being “poverty-drafted” or “stop-lossed” to fight it–but the sheer ferocity of the assault on them at work and their children at school and their elderly parents in their homes is distracting and debilitating. People are under assault from so many different directions that they find it hard just to keep running in place.
The only strategy to oppose the war-makers that can succeed is one that makes the connections between the many-sided corporate and government assaults on people’s lives and the savage assault of the war-makers on the people of Iraq. Our analysis of the war and our strategy for mobilizing against it must be firmly rooted in the class war. The strategy must have as its goal not merely to stop this war or even to dismantle the war-making machine. The strategy must have as its goal the overthrow of the class of war-makers and exploiters here and abroad–the capitalist (and, in China, communist) ruling elite, the Wall Street financiers, the masters of great wealth–and the rebuilding of society on a new and democratic basis.
The only people who can accomplish these things are working people who, for the most part, fail the litmus tests of Left and Right. They largely oppose gay marriage and gun control, and they support Social Security and Medicare and reject any attempt to dismantle them. And yet they are deeply opposed to the war.
What needs to be done is not to join marginal Left and Right groups together in splendid isolation but to organize the movement on a new and revolutionary basis, rooted in the lives and decency of ordinary working Americans. This movement should reach out to the silent majority of people who oppose the war and help them find their voice. It should have as its goal to win the class war.
Dave Stratman is author of We CAN Change the World: The Real Meaning of Everyday Life , and edits NewDemocracyWorld.org. He can be reached at newdem@aol.com
.
7. Chinaman in Brooklyn by YK Hong yk@freedomtrainers.org
October 2005

Dedicated to all of those who walk down the streets and experience emotional, physical and sexual violence every day.
Over the past few years I have been living in Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown
Heights in Brooklyn, New York. These are two neighborhoods that I have truly grown to love and struggle in.
As someone who has organized in communities around gentrification, I have always examined my own space and role in it. I am a thirty-something Korean living and surviving in a predominantly black neighborhood, with folks from a rich diversity of African descent. These neighborhoods get gentrified and re-gentrified, both by people of color and white people, by people of
African descent and those not, by young families and new professionals. When I walk down the street in Brooklyn, I feel a sense of understanding that this community has undergone many generations of transformation to come to its current moment.
I have made many friends along the way--some who were born and raised here, and others who are newly relocated. This is my community that I have found and that has been found for me. Amongst queer, trans and intersex people of color, in particular, I have talked with individuals around the country and world who have been ostracized from their families, alienated, or perhaps simply cannot keep as close to them as they would like. This is when one’s community is even more critical and community truly becomes family and home.
It makes sense that the composition of those who have brought violence against me are from the neighborhood, hence predominantly black. Some believe I am a bit overly optimistic and hopeful of building with a community I am obviously not a part of originally. Friends and family have encouraged me to move to different neighborhoods, different cities, even. My entire life I have moved around the country and around the world and at this moment, I feel that my home is here in Brooklyn.
I would not say that violence here is anymore extraordinary than other places
I have lived. Violence comes in so many forms, but is often only documented

when it is physical. I have been punched, slapped, mugged, hit with a pipe/rocks/bricks, verbally harassed, stabbed, grabbed, fondled, touched and sexually violated. Even so, I can honestly say that I do not feel more oppressed here than I do anywhere else. Cuts on my body heal quicker by far than injury to my passion.
The reasons for this violence seem to range from questions of my sexual identity, gender identity, from being Asian, to general ambiguity. I am told very clearly what they see me as: “Hey, Chinaman,” “faggot,” batty boy,”
“chinky,” “dyke,” so many things. Though I do not identify as any of these, sometimes how one is perceived is an entirely intrinsic part of one’s being, that it must also be embraced critically.
I actually have tried to have conversations, sometimes successfully, usually not, perhaps at not even in the most strategic of moments, with those who initially come to me with violence. The times I have had successful conversations, people have listened, with curiosity, confusion, genuine thirst, and I have been able to defuse what could have been a violent interaction. It is at these rare opportunities I have been able to communicate with the very people that have expressed their violence through me. We typically have discussions that I have had hundreds of times; people want to know who I am, what I am, and what I’m doing here. These passing conversations serve a multitude of purposes: they may save my life, I am able to build personally with individuals, and take down some inhibitions that exist historically between Asian and black communities.
The most I have done legally, in response to the violent incidents is have conversations with other community organizers and organizations, make one report to the police to report a stolen wallet, and make sure I have people with me when I walk home late at night. I haven’t made reports to the police for this violence primarily because I do not want the police going after my community. In addition to this reason, from past experience I have found that
I am often the one interrogated when I come into contact with the authorities.
Who am I, what am I, and what was I doing there? Even though these are the same questions my neighbors ask me, when I am asked by the authorities it does not seem to yield potential for building in the same way.
There was a time, after a particularly tough rash of getting roughed up, that
I was afraid to walk alone. After a couple of weeks of refocusing, I talked myself through this fear and exercised my confidence to understand that I

needed to be who I am and still be able to survive. So I overcame that fear and took a long stroll down the street, and I fell in love with this city again.
There is something that happens to many of us, that I call “one in ten days,” where 9 days out of 10, I can handle the violence without a problem, without me thinking it is affecting me. But on that tenth day, I know it has been building because that is the day, regardless of how big or small the violence,
I am deeply wounded and saddened.
If one could capture the expression on my face in slow motion when a fist is coming at me in these situations, it might portray what I feel accurately.
My face reflects the utter sadness I feel, with tears in my eyes, my body probably stands with awareness of the world being fucked up and certain events having to happen, but asks why at the same time.
As long as I have been talking to thousands and thousands of people around the country about internalized oppression, anti-oppression and oppression in general, I still feel the hurt when I see it as strongly as I did the first time I remember being called a chink as a small kid. I am physically fit, have extensive martial arts defense experience and am quick on my feet. But I am not at war with my people and unless it is life threatening, I do not strike back.
I feel a sadness that people I am trying to build with are feeling so much pain that it manifests in violence. Sadness that what people don’t know creates fear, which creates violence. Sadness that our internalized oppression is so deep, that we have been carrying a fear of the unfamiliar with us from the days of colonization. Destroying that which we are unfamiliar with is the historical basis for the founding of the U.S.
For many years there have been community programs, neighborhood block association initiatives and community organizing efforts to curb violence within our communities. When we hurt we hurt each other. I think of this violence, as many of us do, in the larger context of how everyday survival to us often leads to acting out our anger. It seems the most basic and elementary

of reactions, acting out on others when we are angry, but it is so fundamentally a part of our conditioning.
Of course violence increases when gentrification happens. Families that have been struggling to hold onto their abodes for years are pushed out in days.
Of course there is tension between Asian business owners and the mostly black folks who make up this community. This hostility and violence is what we are taught to have internally and externally. We are taught to destroy our bodies, to be unhealthy. This leads to addictive, abusive, hurtful behavior to those in our own families and communities. We know all of this. And this is where we need to stop killing ourselves.
My entire life’s work is based on the knowledge that we, as oppressed beings are working towards something much larger than us. This is simply the way that
I personally have been venturing through these challenges. I am, with many beside me, working to radically change the world and how things work. I truly believe in revolution and work to have that vision everyday. I struggle with keeping sight of this vision and larger picture, with keeping myself afloat, and with building with a community that needs one another to survive. This is the street I walk down everyday, these are the people that may feel the need to fight me today, but that will fight beside me another day soon.
YK Hong is a queer genderqueer Korean. YK founded and is the lead trainer for
Freedom Trainers, a collective dedicated to working on anti-oppression through training with a foundation in community organizing. YK is also involved in sexual liberation work through the industry and outside of it. Please visit www.relativist.org for more information.
8. OTHER
By Maymanah Farhat sccheeto@yahoo.com
“The mission of OTHER is to create a supportive organization that provides a collaborative environment for aspiring artists of Arab heritage. We envision for our collective a vibrant, community-engaged, multi-faceted arts and media organization that promotes self-
representation of artists by inspiring and supporting social movement and youthful creativity.”--
OTHER: Arab Artists Collective

Since its inception in 2004, OTHER Arab Artists Collective has exemplified the ability of art to inspire dialogue among communities whose voices remain suppressed. With the blatant political polarization of ethnicity, culture, and religion after September 11 th , the need for such sociopolitical art has never been greater.
Based in Detroit and the surrounding area, OTHER was conceived within a multicultural environment that is home to the country’s largest demographic of Arab and Arab-Americans.
The founding members of OTHER include multimedia artist Radfan Alqirsh, painter/digital artist
Mohamad Bazzi, Film/video/digital artist Imad Hassan, multimedia artist Joe Namy, filmmaker
Rola Nashef and metalsmith Lana Rahme. Together these artists established a collective art studio in Detroit’s Russell Industrial Center. The studio has now become a nucleus of inspiration for creative discourse, stimulating intellectual, political and artistic activity among numerous artists from the Detroit area.
Within the context of cultures converging into hybridist identities, the collective’s existence speaks volumes of the experiences of immigrants and their descendants. Faced with the difficulties of establishing one’s identity in a society that demands assimilation, OTHER strives to transcend the supposed “cultural boundaries” that often alienate ethnic communities in the
U.S. The collective’s involvement and engagement within their Detroit community has lead to several successful public art projects.
In 2005, OTHER was asked to create an installation piece as part of the Arab American National
Museum’s permanent exhibition, Living in America , which educates the public about the experiences and lives of Arab Americans. The collective created, Facing Identity , a multimedia installation work that consists of five wall murals and a video projection outlet. Facing Identity juxtaposes stereotypical media portrayals of Arabs with images of Arabs and Arab Americans in their daily lives. One wall mural displays a collage of what appears to be an assortment of family photographs, while another exhibits images from pre 9/11 popular culture, depicting Arabs through the ever-present Orientalist lens.
Upon entering the installation space, the viewer is surrounded by the semiotic dialogue of two contrasting visual cultures. Blatantly racist images of Arabs in popular culture and post 9/11 media are exposed within the installation as perpetrators of a visual assault that afflicts the Arab
American community’s right to affirm its identity in the American sociopolitical landscape. The video projection titled, The Arab World: as seen on T.V.
, further impacts the viewer with the scope of the perpetuation of such stereotypes by displaying a three-minute montage of
Americans summarizing the countless negative portrayals shown on television. Images of Arab
American families then negate such stereotypical images on two adjacent murals. The positive images function as a direct response to the negative portrayals and, “call upon Arabs to reclaim their identity.”
The remaining mural shows faceless figures executed in gray and black abstractions. Aggressive lines adorn the bodies of each figure, as they appear to be emerging from multiple planes within the composition. The incorporation of such a mural raises the question of the future of a population whose identity has remained in the shadows of institutionalized xenophobia for far too long.

In recent months, major American newspapers have reviewed the work in articles critiquing the
Arab American National Museum. Unfortunately some reviews have been nothing more than prime examples of the perpetuation of media stereotypes that plagues the political discourse concerning Arab and Muslim Americans. One such review dismissed the photographs of Arab
American families as “Hallmark greeting-card portrayals.” 1 Another questioned the validity of
OTHER’s exposing of discrimination in the media and the collective’s use of images of smiling
Arab children by stating, “Islamic-motivated terror has compelled a rethinking of everything from airport design to foreign policy; smiling families have not.” 2
Such critiques propagate the dehumanization of the “other” through the rejection of Arabs as anything but terrorists. The message of OTHER’s installation is consequently missed. Negative images remain accepted as the norm while positive images are seen as imprudent or illusory, furthering the exact narrow-minded ideology, which the collective aims to combat.
OTHER’s subsequent public art project, Journeys and Distances, 2005, reaffirmed the collective’s dedication to art that transcends “cultural boundaries” with the creation of a monumental mural that explores the universal experience of immigration through an Arab
American narrative. The mural was part of a multimedia art exhibition at the Padzieski art gallery in Dearborn, Michigan, which included the work of other Detroit artists inspired by various aspects of immigrant experiences. Christina Dennaoul, Adnan Charara, Hassan Algassid
Sarah Khazem, Michael Mansour, and Jackie Salloum joined OTHER in the exhibition that incorporated traditional, digital, audio and visual media.
The conception of the mural began in the gallery space at the opening of the exhibition on
September 15, 2005 with the unveiling of a large sketch of the work, which the artists then continuously painted live for the next three months. The artists of the collective alternated painting shifts while the mural was displayed, often inviting groups of school children to witness their work.
Journeys and Distances reads from right to left, with a procession that travels from a homeland comprised of ancient seeming trees, fertile agricultural fields and dignified faces of ancestral figures. The gnarled roots and branches of the trees frame the stone like faces of the figures, while diagonal lines from each face direct the viewer’s gaze towards the central focal point of the mural. Within the middle of the composition lies a sea of immigrants. Each immigrant carries the signifier of his/her labor towards the unknown world of the new country.
Above the immigrants is a maternal figure that watches over their journey, her garb flowing directly into the succession of migration, as she remains central to the surrounding landscape through which the immigrants travel. The migration ends in what appear to be buildings, jagged lines form abstractions that escalate into the upper portion of the mural. The final destination for the mural’s subjects is one that appears vastly different from the fluidity of gnarled roots and flowing lines of fertile fields. At the end of the procession, the immigrants are shown in their
1 Barrett, Paul M., “Arab Americans Tell Their Own Story,” Wall Street Journal (May 5, 2005)
2 Rothstein, Edward, “Museum Review; A Mosaic of Arab Culture at Home in America,” New York Times (October
24, 2005)

final state, as part of the abstract cityscape that is their final destination. Just as their ancestors were an integral part of the beginning landscape, they too become part of the world that lies ahead.
Journeys and Distances speaks of the collective experience of a people traveling between two worlds in search of regeneration. Throughout the migration, the subjects are clearly defined, from their ancestral roots to the symbols of skill and labor they carry into the new world. What remains to be unidentified is their final transformation once integrated into the new land. Will these subjects redefine themselves as components of the abstract cityscape? Will the gnarled roots of their ancestral land remain part of their being? The answers are left to the determination of the viewer. Through changing landscapes and transformations, the Arab narrative becomes that of all people.
Each artist of OTHER actively contributes to the Contemporary art scene through his/her individual work, which is then proliferated into an aesthetic language that ignites the creative discourse of the collective. As a collective their work pushes the boundaries of political activism and committed art. For more information visit www.otherart.org
.
9. Silencing Palestine Protests: The Larger Picture by Henry Herskovitz hersko@umich.edu
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends (JWPF) have been conducting peaceful synagogue vigils for over two years to raise awareness of Israel’s occupation and brutal treatment of the
Palestinian people. On November 5 th , we received a letter from Ann Arbor’s Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ) signed by Council President Joe Summers, asking us to terminate our vigils. Asked by the Ann Arbor News what our reaction to this letter was, writer Catherine
O’Donnell was informed that the letter needed to been seen in the larger context of Ann Arbor’s
Jewish Community once again flexing their considerable power to hold sway over various political groups in this city. As of this writing, no article mentioning this larger context has appeared in the Ann Arbor News.
In October 2004, Rabbi Robert Levy of Ann Arbor’s Jewish reform synagogue Temple Beth
Emeth made a request of ICPJ at their monthly Steering Committee meeting. He asked members of this interfaith peace and justice group to help “deal with” the synagogue vigils in front of the conservative Beth Israel Congregation, then into our 14 th
month of existence. Members of JWPF were excited about the possibility that the Interfaith Council would set up a committee that would adjudicate a process by which the concerns of Beth Israel and Jewish Witnesses would be heard. Issues of Israel’s atrocities, and the support Israel receives from the religious/political
Jewish community would be aired. If the issues that we raised were incorrect, the synagogue would have ample time and space to have their side of the story told.
But of course, this was not to be. Like other political bodies in Ann Arbor, the Interfaith Council chose not to be a player in the balance equation of political freedom vs. privacy, and instead merely complied with the powers that be, and took the easy way out by asking us to terminate the vigils.

Once again, a group was coerced by the powerful Jewish Zionist community to help squelch our right to freedom of expression, and to silence the voice of the Palestinians. Consider Ann
Arbor’s City Council: On August 23, 2004 a powerful player – Dr. Barry Gross of Beth Israel – wrote a Tony Soprano-esque letter to Mayor John Hieftje and City Council “…watching closely for [their] response”. See sidebar. The result was an official resolution from Council
“condemning” our vigils which was issued 53 days after receipt of Gross’ letter.
Also consider the action of [outgoing] Police Chief Dan Oates. A topic of his 2004 annual
Police-clergy meeting was the legality of our peaceful vigils. At a personal meeting with this writer and George Lambrides, head of the Interfaith Round Table, Jewish Witnesses leadership was specifically asked not to attend the Police-clergy conference.
And the Ann Arbor News itself is not above the political might of the organized Jewish
Community: An opinion piece written on September 12, 2004 was entitled: “Synagogue pickets a cynical exercise; Demonstrations smack of harassment”. The timing of this piece was coincidental to their printing an Other Voices article supportive of our vigils.
There have been other instances of silencing the voices of the Palestinians in this city: police calls, meetings with City youth disrupted, appointments to present abruptly and inexplicably cancelled, etc.
Seen in this context, the capitulation of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice is just another “success” of an ideological group intent on keeping public debate and political awareness of Israel’s atrocities off the political agenda.
What follows is the text of their request, and JWPF’s response to it. There has been no further correspondence from ICPJ to date.
[October 27, 2005]
Dear Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends,
Up until this time the ICPJ has not taken a stand for or against your vigils at Beth Israel.
However, seeing the impact the vigils are having on our work and our attempt to build a movement against the occupation we are now asking you to stop the vigils.
If the purpose of the vigils was to make the synagogue and the broader community more aware of the terrible costs of Israel's occupation of Palestine the vigils achieved their purpose. At this time, however, the vigils are proving to be both hurtful and counterproductive in the following ways:
For almost two years, the vigil has protested at Beth Israel's only time for regular communal worship. This has come to be experienced as harassment by almost everyone at the synagogue, including those who oppose the occupation. We know of no active member of any synagogue in our community who supports the vigils (including a number who did initially). This testifies to a strategy that is fatally flawed. A strategy that seemed originally designed to promote awareness

of the occupation is now working against that as everyone is focused on the vigils rather than the occupation.
At a time when in many parts of the country we are seeing the emergence of a unified movement against the occupation, we in Ann Arbor seem polarized almost to the point of paralysis because of conflict over the vigils. Many people and groups who support justice for
Palestinians and peace are now hesitant to speak out because they don't want to be associated with the vigil. Many will no longer work with ICPJ because they see ICPJ as connected to the vigils.
Beth Israel Congregation is a diverse group. Many members of the congregation actively speak out and work for a just peace that respects the rights of Palestinians. Indeed, Rabbi
Dobrusin has publicly called for an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Targeting these advocates for peace is a form of collateral damage that erodes the ability to create a diverse coalition that can effectively oppose Israel's attempting to consolidate its occupation of large parts of the West bank.
A core ICPJ value is that we invite religious communities to work with us for justice; we do not coerce them to support our programs. From our point of view the vigils have come to the place where they currently violate this value.
In this atmosphere, it seems almost impossible for us to organize the unorganized---those who don't yet realize that their core values should lead them to oppose the occupation. The polarization around the vigils has meant that different groups within ICPJ, let alone the broader community, are no longer willing to work together. It means that at last some of the churches whose denomination bodies have called for economic sanctions may no longer be willing to work locally on justice and peace for Palestine and Israel.
While we have no expectation that a majority of the religious Jewish community, or any religious community for that matter, will at this point support our work against the occupation--we want whatever strong disagreements we have to be about issues related to the occupation -- not the vigils. For all these reasons we are asking you to end the vigils now.
#
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends
404 Mark Hannah Pl.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
November 9, 2005
Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice
730 Tappan
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Dear Steering Committee Members:

Thank you for your recent letter concerning our vigils at the Beth Israel Congregation. Your request to us is premised upon a number of claims that we are unable to substantiate. Therefore, in order that we may give your argument its due consideration we would ask for some clarification. Additionally, we have other questions bearing more generally upon your understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict and its solution. Hopefully, you will recognize the sincerity with which we approach this matter.
In your letter you claim your "attempt[s] to build a movement against the occupation" have been thwarted by the vigils. Would you please provide us with evidence of such efforts and describe how they were thwarted by our vigils?
Would you please provide us with evidence that "Many people and groups who support justice for Palestinians and peace are now hesitant to speak out because" of the vigils?
You assert that, "Many will no longer work with ICPJ because they see ICPJ as connected to the vigils." Do you agree that this constitutes guilt-by-association and, if so, how have you responded it?
When and where did Rabbi Dobrusin "publicly [call] for an end to the occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip"? We note that in 2003, the Rabbi delivered a "Sermon For Kol Nidre
5764" and in that sermon he called upon his congregants to "rally behind [Israel] to insure her survival as a Jewish state." We are aware of two ways to ensure the survival of Israel as a Jewish state; they are practiced hand-in-hand. One is to continue to deny non-Jewish citizens of Israel full equality with Jews. The second is to continue to deny the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194. Do you support the survival of Israel as a Jewish ethno-religious supremacist state on these terms?
You claim that "Targeting these [Beth Israel] advocates for peace ... erodes the ability to create a diverse coalition that can effectively oppose Israel's attempting to consolidate its occupation of large parts of the West Bank." The vigils are only two years old; the Israeli occupation of the
West Bank is thirty-eights years old. In all that time, has the ICPJ ever before created an effective, "diverse coalition" to oppose Israeli occupation? If so, please describe that coalition. If not, why should we now have any confidence that you can or will create one if the vigils stop?
On July 9th of this year in an unprecedented show of unity, "representatives of Palestinian civil society, call[ed] upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." Will you endorse, publicize, and promote the
Palestinian call "for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with
International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights"?
Finally, the vigils have been an important and regular part of our social justice work. If we stop the vigils then what specific opportunities do you offer us for social justice work and leadership within ICPJ?
We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Henry Herskovitz
On behalf of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends
Sidebar:
August 23, 2004
My name is Barry Gross. I am a physician, and I have been a faculty member in the University of Michigan Medical School for most of the years since 1982. I have lived in Ann Arbor for 30 of the past 35 years, the last 22 consecutively.
Picketers at my synagogue, Ann Arbor's own Beth Israel Congregation, have impeded my free religious expression for nearly one year. I do not write seeking statutory relief. I am aware that, bizarre as it seems, the picketers' first amendment right to free speech trumps my first amendment right to free religious expression. However, a line has been crossed here. Targeting the religious expression of Americans of faith is anathema to our most cherished beliefs. When the Americans of faith under siege are a small minority of the population, the behavior is even more reprehensible. This is the type of uncivil behavior that no American of conscience can ignore. Even so, I am not primarily concerned with the actions of these misguided wrongdoers.
What is far worse is the lack of public outcry. The silence on this topic from religious leaders in the community is deafening. Worse yet, when our elected authorities fail to address behavior that is totally antithetical to America's role as the bastion of freedom of religion, it serves as a signal to bullies and bigots that they are free to discriminate against religious minorities with impunity.
In your role as our elected municipal representatives you are responsible for the maintenance of a civil environment, free of ethnic and religious intimidation. The time when your silence was acceptable is long past. The 470 family units in our congregation virtually all live in Ann Arbor.
We are avid voters. We are watching closely for your response
#
Resolution from City Council:
RESOLUTION AFFIRMING FREEDOM TO WORSHIP WITHOUT INTERFERENCE
AND CONDEMNING THE PICKETING OF HOUSES OF WORSHIP
Whereas, All people with all viewpoints have a right to freedom of speech where it does not infringe on others' constitutional rights;
Whereas, Democracy and the freedoms it engenders cannot exist without civil discourse that

shows tolerance for all beliefs;
Whereas, Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are both paramount values at the heart of
American democracy;
Whereas, Worship is often central to religious expression;
Whereas, Freedom to worship in peace, without obstruction or interference is the right of all people;
Whereas, State of Michigan laws prohibit interference with religious services;
Whereas, The City of Ann Arbor is home to many cultures and denominations of worship;
Whereas, In the City of Ann Arbor, at least one house of worship has been subjected to weekly picketers who confront worshipers and ask passersby to honk their horns and cause a disturbance to worship services;
RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council affirms the right of people in the City of Ann
Arbor to attend services at houses of worship without interference or obstruction; and
RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council condemns the picketing of houses of worship during the hours when congregants are attending worship services.
Date: October 18, 2004
Sponsored by: Councilmembers Reid, Greden, Easthope, Lowenstein, Higgins, Carlberg, Teall,
Woods; Mayor Hieftje
10.
Honoring the Dead on the Transgender Day of Remembrance
– submitted by Michelle michelle@usol.com
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!
--Mother Jones
Below are the twenty-eight brief biographies read in Ann Arbor at this year's annual
Transgender Day of Remembrance even on November 20th.
My name is unknown but I was around 22-years-old and I was a transgender woman living in
Surco, Peru. On the night of November 26th, 2004, four people dumped my body from a car and then set it on fire.
My name was Luana, and I was a Brazilian-born sex worker living in Migliarino, Italy. I was shot in the back of the head by my killer on December 3rd.
I'm Penny Port, from Sheffield, England. Prior to my transition I worked as a construction worker then later as a part-time boxing coach. On December 19th, I was found lying in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds. I died shortly after being taken to the hospital.

My name was C. Hernández. On December 20th, in Mendoza, Argentina, I was stabbed multiple times including twice in the throat. Neighbors heard me shouting for help and called police but they did not arrive in time to save me. I was found facedown in the patio, my blood was spattered in the kitchen and garage, too. My alleged killer, Pablo Corvalán, took his own life rather than face jail.
I'm Robert Binenfeld, and I practiced medicine for 26 years. On the 21st of December, Jason
Bardsley showed up at my home in Monroe, NewYork. Bardsley has pled guilty to strangling me, citing a "transgender panic"-style defense, and was given only 20 years in prison.
My name was Felicia Moreno, and I was from Hollywood, California. On December 26th, an active-duty U.S. Marine lance corporal named Patrick Edward Vallor shot me several times.
Vallor, a military policeman stationed out of Twenty-Nine Palms, California, was shot and killed after a standoff with police. I was 25-years-old.
My name was Ryan Shey Hoskie, and I was a sex worker in Albuquerque, New Mexico. On the morning of December 27th, my partially undressed body was discovered in an alley. I had suffered upper body trauma that led to my death.
My name is also unknown. I was 32-years-old, and from Paraná, Argentina. I was shot to death around 2:00 a.m. on January 12th, 2005. Some have questioned if my murder was committed by local police officers.
I was Ronnie Paris, and I was only three-years-old. I lived in Tampa, Florida. My father did not want to "raise a sissy" and didn't see me as being very masculine. He slapped my head numerous times until I went into a coma. I died on January 28th, from swelling on both sides of my brain.
I'm Karlien Carstens, and I ran a small truck stop out of my home in Okahandja, Namibia. When my brother found my body on February 16th, I was tied up with cords cut from my electrical appliances. I was strangled with one cord tied tightly around my neck.
My name is also unknown and I was living in Neuquen, Argentina. On February 22nd, police were called to my apartment by neighbors reporting shouting--I had struggled with my murderer.
The police found me inside beaten to death.
My name was Michelle Lee, a 42-year-old from Daly City, California. On March 1st, a telephone repairman found my body near a hillside just a short distance from my home. I had been stabbed to death.
I was Phool Chand Yadav, from Lucknow, India. I was living as a male and was part of a drama company. On March 17th, I took a walk with two other guys. These men discovered that I was biologically female by removing a false mustache I wore and forcing me to disrobe. I was raped and murdered. Afterwards, my killers replaced the false mustache.

I'm Mylène, a 38-year-old transsexual born in Ecuador and living in France. On March 26th, my body was discovered in a hotel room near the center of Marseilles. My throat was cut as were my genitals.
My name was Alejandra Galicio, and I was an active member of the Action Center on AIDS and
Civil Rights in Bahia Blanca, Argentina. When police discovered me on April 12th, I was semiconscious and blood-spattered. I had suffered severe head and facial injuries. I later died in intensive care.
My name was Ashley Nickson and I was a 30-year-old transwoman from Dothan, Alabama.
Folks knew me as a nice person, no troublemaker, and someone who was very open about my life. 19-year-old Steven Antonio Kyles got into an argument with me, then left and returned with a gun. He shot me to death and wounded a male friend who was sitting next to me.
I'm Amancio Corrales, but I also went by Delilah. I was living in Yuma, Arizona, but I often did drag shows over in Phoenix, Arizona. On the night of May 5th, I hit some of the local bars in
Yuma. My body was discovered the next day submerged in shallow water about 500 feet west of
Paradise Cove. Police have not given many other details, except listing the cause of my death as
"violent trauma." Rumors in the local community have said that I was brutally beaten to death, possibly even mutilated. I was 23-years-old.
My name was Noleen Jansen, and I was 18-years-old, intersexed, and living in Namibia. On May
6th, I was stoned to death, allegedly by a 17-year-old, near the Luederitz soccer stadium. There was also evidence of a rape or attempted rape.
I was Julio Argueta. I moved to the United States from El Salvador so I could live life as a woman. To make ends meet, I delivered a local newspaper by night and sold clothing out of my home in Miami, Florida during the day. On May 16th, I was stabbed 12 times. When rescue workers arrived they found me in a pool of blood begging for help. I died at the hospital nearly an hour later.
I'm Timothy Blair, Jr., and I was a 19-year-old crossdresser living in Louisville, Kentucky. I was shot multiple times on May 22nd, possibly by someone I met in an Internet chat room.
I was Marisa, and I was a 55-year-old transsexual living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I underwent sexual reassignment surgery more than three decades ago. On May 28th, I was stabbed 15 times with two different knives. My body was discovered on blood-soaked mattress.
I'm Kasha Blue though some of my friends also knew me as Sydney. I was a hairstylist in
Chicago where I lived my life as a woman. On June 18th, after work and three days before my
27th birthday, Michael Major stabbed me through the heart. Major allegedly yelled, "I got faggot blood on me!" before he was arrested.
My name is Irene. I was a 44-year-old transsexual, originally from Thailand, but living in
Amsterdam, Holland. My body was discovered in July at my home where I had been stabbed several times and bled to death. A 20-year-old man has admitted to killing me.

My name was Lisa D. and I was a 42-year-old woman from Dorchester, Massachusetts. I was shot to death on September 17th, and my body was found near a local Stop n' Shop.
I'm Christina Smith, a 20-year-old from New Orleans. That is, I was from New Orleans but I had to evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina and ended up in Houston, Texas. On October 12th, I was found, slumped against a gate at the apartment complex I had moved into, with a bullet in the back of my head. Concerning my death, a homicide investigator told a reporter, "There's no next-of-kin ... there's no one to tell."
My name is Kaaseem Adalla Juanda and I was a 60-year-old, post-operative transsexual woman living in Kansas City, Kansas. On October 17, 2005, following an anonymous tip, police found my body at a rest stop on Interstate 29 in Iowa, three hours away from my home. I died from a gunshot to the head.
My name is also unknown, but I was Chinese or East Malaysian and living in Kuala Lumpur. On the 11th of November, my body was found head down in a garbage bin. According to police, there was a single slash wound on my neck and numerous bruises on my body.
My name is Donathyn Rodgers, I was 19-years-old and I identified as a male to female transsexual. I was a sex worker in Cleveland, Ohio. In the early morning hours of November
15th, 2005, two men approached me and one of them shot me in the head. I ran but they shot me six more times.
For more information on the Transgender Day of Remembrance, go to rememberingourdead.org.
In Washtenaw County, to help fight locally for the living, please contact
TransgenderAdvocacyProject-owner@yahoogroups.com
11. You Can't Eat A Soccer Ball
– submitted by Michelle michelle@usol.com
From: Soldier X
To: GI Special
Sent: April 25, 2005
Subject: You Can't Eat A Soccer Ball
In the autumn of 2004 in Baquabah, Iraq we made a lot of effort after the razing of Fallujah to win back some support of the Iraqi people.
A general distrust grew among the local nationals and it was important to not lead into the elections with negative backlash. There was a surge of insurgent recruiting due to the injustice of destroying Fallujah and we wanted to take the wind out of it.
One of the officer think tanks perched high above real action in Iraq, and high above any common sense, decided it would be a great idea to hand out free soccer balls to the towns in the area.

I thought it was a strange idea from the start.
When we arrived in Iraq we were never greeted with flower baring women and showered with thanks. What we encountered when we confronted the Iraqi people were beggars and peddlers.
The kids would approach us with offers on knives, old Iraqi money, whiskey, hashish, bootleg porn, and even prostitution.
Most would beg. First for money. They could buy anything they wanted with an American dollar. Then they would beg for food. It was obvious they were starving for something more nutritious than what their diet allowed.
Then they would beg for clothes, shoes, and school supplies.
I even asked to look in one child’s backpack to cure a curiosity on what the school supplies he owned and what the schools were teaching him.
He explained that his father burned the books because it was getting cold outside. Coal is expensive and the Iraqi desert is not in abundance with wood.
After these questions were exhausted they would settle for anything they could see and ask for.
All day it was "Mister, mister, gimmie mister" and "for you one dollar mister". Never once was I begged for a soccer ball.
Alas here we were with an entire train car full of soccer balls, however the one missing ingredient was a pump to inflate them.
Thousands of deflated soccer balls.
You would think that someone would raise a stink about it and get some way to inflate the balls, but not in this army.
This army is commanded by fear.
No one was willing to explain to higher that shit was all fucked up. That would mean it was either their fault or the person they are complaining to. And since the person they complain to is of higher rank, it means that the person complaining is responsible.
But an order is an order and "You will hand out those fucking balls!"
So here we are, a group of sixteen soldiers with deflated soccer balls piled up so high in the humvees we couldn’t get to our ammunition.
We drove through the canal crossed Iraqi villages handing out useless sagging plastic to a bunch of hungry children. At first they were grateful. Then some confusion set in. Some tried to play with them by kicking them around and into the sky. They threw them like Frisbees and wore

them like hats. We shrugged and moved on to the next town away from the pleas "Mister, fooood mister"
As we completed our trip and ran out of balls we had to drive through the same towns on the way back.
Deflated soccer balls littered the ground; some were thrown onto houses and in palm trees.
The children at first were not to be seen. But around one corner we were welcomed by the grateful Iraqi children with a rain of rocks.
Many of the soldiers get upset and angry at the kids. They point weapons at them and some even fire off warning shots to scare them.
I just shrink into my turret and let the stones fall about my helmet and weapon shield.
I never blamed them.
Maybe we will be greeted with flowers when we stop handing out destruction, death, fear and deflated waste.
Soldier X
From: Soldier, Iraq
To: GI Special
Sent: January 18, 2005 1:47 AM
Subject: Bad news bad news good news
There has been another boy killed in our battalion. It was a very sad accident that occurred while one of our tank sections was up in [X].
An NCO accidentally discharged a 50cal machine gun mounted on a tank while the kid was standing in front of it. The 50 cal round is about as fat as a saltshaker. It split the kid apart.
The worst part is that the Army is lying to protect the NCO. They are saying that it was the dead kids fault so the man doesn’t go to prison.
I think it is all so horrible. The kid’s family will be grieving a lie and the man that is responsible will never be able to get over the guilt if he is never punished for what he did.
The first Abu Ghraib guy was sent away to prison. I guess that is some irony. It is too bad his superiors aren’t being prosecuted.
Everyone involved in that scandal needs to be put on trial, but only the lowest ranking soldiers are going to pay.
People say they were just following orders. I don’t think I could live with myself obeying an

order like that. I could live with myself going to prison for disobeying orders.
The whole situation at Abu Ghraib has cost the lives of so many American soldiers. The Geneva
Conventions were set up to protect the lives of combatants.
In the first war so many Iraqis gave up because they knew that they would be treated fairly. Now
Iraqis fight to the death because they fear disappearing to some American Gulag to be humiliated and killed.
Sounds like we will be at war with Iran soon.
I hope I can get out of the Army in time and Inactive Reserve doesn’t look my way. I am not going to another war. My sanity and health cannot take this again. I doubt I will live through another year like this one.
So the good new is that by March I will be out of Iraq and by June I should be a civilian again. If all goes well.

From: Soldier, Iraq
To: GI Special
Sent: December 15, 2004
Subject: The Effects Of Censorship:
The US Army is trying to quiet bloggers and whistle blowers, because their fear that the outspoken few are a minority of disgruntled service men with subversive goals.
In the long run the censorship will hurt the military more then the content of the expressive soldier. Censorship blinds society to critical problems that need to be addressed.
Any form of expression is a chance for two parts of society to communicate. Any person that restricts free speech is damaging our nation by not allowing solutions to growing problems.
I have been under pressure for months now to stop writing about my experiences and opinions on the war in Iraq.
However, I feel that I am more patriotic than the majority of proud soldiers in the US Army.
Because I don't blindly follow orders makes me appear a traitor, but if George Washington obeyed commands we might still be governed by the British.
A patriot is a person that does the right thing despite what his superiors demand. Jullian
Goodrum; the Tennessee Guardsman that backed Rummy in a Kuwaiti corner; the transport soldiers that refused a suicide mission are all patriots in my book.
It takes more courage to stand up for what is right in a military world backed with intense peer pressure and an unforgiving Uniformed Code Of Military Justice.
The fear of punishment keeps most soldiers marching in step to their death. Those soldiers are afraid of the consequences of disobedience more then Iraqi bullets. So I can quickly dismiss claims of outspoken men being labeled cowards. The truth is, these men that speak out are people of rare courage.
Many soldiers feel the same, but fail to express themselves because they lack the confidence, skill or bravery.
It is not some small numbered bad seeds, but a growing number of awakened soldiers that hold the American values to heart rather than abuse them to manipulate our military into a bullshit war.
If we listen to these progressive soldiers we can get a glimpse into a world that needs repair.
If we allow the system to sweep all of societies problems under the rug they will grow until it becomes unmanageable, just as explicit lyrics in today's music is an expression of real issues that plague the world. To ignore these sores can cause them to become infected.
Artists express their lives to communicate with other subcultures that live unaware in their safety

bubbles. To be offended by the content is natural, but the real offense is the fact that the issues are real and nothing is being done to remedy the situation.
When men speak out against the defected parts of the military it is a chance to revamp the system to make it more efficient and true to its purpose. A purpose that I thought was to defend America with the most effective means while upholding our honor and high morals by fighting in ways that preserve our soldiers lives as safely as we can. We shouldn't view a single US soldier as expendable. And, we shouldn't sacrifice our allegiance to honest ideals and decency over unlawful orders.
Every time that we ignore a soldier’s judgment on current events we miss an opportunity to right the shortcomings of the military and the Iraq war.
To silence a soldiers expression is to deny the nation of its patriotic duty to do what is fair and just. Once we learn to communicate openly and present information from all sources we will make the necessary steps towards a progressive future.
Heretic
12. Beyond Chutzpah : A Brief, 'Didactic' Review by Michelle J. Kinnucan
– by Michelle michelle@usol.com
Reviewed: Norman G. Finkelstein. Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the
Abuse of History . Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Beyond Chutzpah is the much-awaited latest book by Norman G. Finkelstein. In his
Introduction, Finkelstein tells us:
The purpose of Beyond Chutzpah is to lift the veil of contrived controversy shrouding the Israel-Palestine conflict. I am convinced that anyone confronting the undistorted record will recognize the injustice Palestinians have suffered. I hope this book will also provide impetus for readers to act on the basis of truth so that, together, we can achieve a just and lasting peace in Israel and Palestine.
In the first part of the book—"The Not-So-New 'New Anti-Semitism' "—Finkelstein reveals how deserved criticism of Israel is periodically stymied by an outbreak of "new anti-
Semitism" which just so happens to coincide "with renewed international pressures on Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab territories in exchange for recognition from neighboring Arab states." Among the current round of fear mongers he identifies are Abraham Foxman ( Never
Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism (2003)) and Phyllis Chesler (T he New Anti-
Semitism (2003)). Finkelstein demonstrates that, "What's currently called the new anti-Semitism actually incorporates three main components: (1) exaggeration and fabrication, (2) mislabeling legitimate criticism of Israeli policy, and (3) the unjustified yet predictable spillover from criticism of Israel to Jews generally."
In the category of exaggeration and fabrication, Finkelstein notes that the reception of his earlier book, The Holocaust Industry, was cited out as evidence of anti-Semitism. In its 2000-
2001 survey, Antisemitism Worldwide , the Israeli Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary

Anti-Semitism and Racism ominously observed: "Finkelstein's book ... [was] enthusiastically welcomed, especially in Germany." Apparently, unobserved by the Roth Institute, is that, among others, the dean of Holocaust studies, Raul Hilberg, praised The Holocaust Industry as an important "breakthrough"--"carefully" researched and with "trustworthy" conclusions.
Echoing similar remarks from The Holocaust Industry , Finkelstein closes the first part of
Beyond Chutzpah with a potent charge that, perhaps, only the son of Holocaust survivors would dare make:
As already noted, Jewish elites in the United States have enjoyed enormous prosperity. From this combination of economic and political power has sprung, unsurprisingly, a mindset of Jewish superiority. Wrapping themselves in the mantle of The Holocaust ["an ideological representation of the [actual] Nazi holocaust"], these Jewish elites pretend—and, in their own solipsistic universe, perhaps imagine themselves—to be victims, dismissing any and all criticism as manifestations of "anti-Semitism." And, from this lethal brew of formidable power, chauvinistic arrogance, feigned (or imagined) victimhood, and Holocaustimmunity to criticism has sprung a terrifying recklessness and ruthlessness on the part of American Jewish elites. Alongside Israel, they are the main fomenters of anti-Semitism in the world today.
In the second, larger part of Beyond Chutzpah
—"The Greatest Tale Ever Sold"—
Finkelstein rebuts, in considerable detail, numerous claims made by Harvard law professor Alan
Dershowitz in his best-selling book, The Case for Israel . Finkelstein exposes Dershowitz's reliance upon misinterpreted, non-existent, and discredited sources.
For instance, Dershowitz, citing a September 6, 1999, decision, claims, "the Israeli
Supreme Court outlawed the use of all physical pressure in eliciting information from potential terrorists." Yet, as Finkelstein points out, a year before the publication of Case , Dershowitz,
"referring to the same court decision ... acknowledged that it did not absolutely prohibit torture."
After quoting the contradictory passage from Dershowitz, Finkelstein also quotes the opinion of the plaintiffs in the case—the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI)—regarding the 1999 decision: "The Court avoided the position of international law that rejects torture ... and creat[ed] an opening both for the existence of torture in practice, and lending legal and ethical legitimacy to this deplorable crime." The title of PCATI's 2003 followup report speaks for itself:
BACK TO A ROUTINE OF TORTURE Torture and Ill-treatment of Palestinian Detainees during
Arrest, Detention and Interrogation September 2001–April 2003.
In 1948, Zionist paramilitary fighters from the Irgun and LEHI murdered over 100 unarmed Arab men, women, and children in the village of Deir Yassin. Later that year, in the
New York Times prominent American Jews, including Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein, cited the Deir Yassin massacre in a letter protesting the US visit of former Irgun commander and future Israeli Prime Minster Menachem Begin as evidence of his and his party's—the Freedom
( Herut ) party (forerunner to the Likud party)—"fascist" and "terrorist" politics and actions.
In Case , Dershowitz claims that "Deir Yassin stands out in the history of Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine precisely because it was so unusual and so out of character for the Jews." He calls the massacre an "isolated although tragic and inexcusable blemish on Israeli paramilitary actions." Against this, Finkelstein quotes multiple passages from the noted Israeli historian and
Zionist apologist Benny Morris—whom Dershowitz also quotes—to the effect that " 'Jewish atrocities' were 'far more widespread than the old histories have let on' " and " 'Jewish atrocities against Arabs ... were generally unconnected to or lacked any previous direct, Arab provocation.'

"Of course, Palestinians have long known about Zionist-perpetrated massacres and other atrocities—if we'd only listen.
Perhaps the best-known part of Finkelstein's attack on Case is Dershowitz's reliance upon and plagiarism of Joan Peters' now discredited book, From Time Immemorial . Not long after its publication in 1984, Peters' book received a scathing review in the New York Review of Books from Yehoshua Porath, professor of Middle East History at Hebrew University. Concluding, he wrote:
I am reluctant to bore the reader and myself with further examples of Mrs. Peters's highly tendentious use—or neglect—of the available source material. Much more important is her misunderstanding of basic historical processes ... Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky's
Revisionist party ... would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters's book. I had mistakenly thought them long forgotten. It is a pity that they have been given new life.
In any event, the book—endorsed on the dust jacket by a number of Jewish 'luminaries'— was generally well received in the U.S. and went to become a national bestseller. In his doctoral dissertation on Zionism, Finkelstein cut his scholarly teeth by exposing Peters' "colossal hoax"— a verdict later upheld by "Baruch Kimmerling (of the Hebrew University) and Joel S. Migdal, in their authoritative study, Palestinians: The Making of a People ."
In a detailed appendix, including tables and facsimiles of the advance uncorrected proofs of Case , Finkelstein shows how Dershowitz "appropriates large swaths" from Peters' book. One interesting example, albeit minor in comparison to the others Finkelstein documents, was exposed on a nationally broadcast debate between the two antagonists. In two places in Case ,
Dershowitz uses the term "turnspeak," attributing it in the book solely to George Orwell's 1984 .
Yet, Orwell never used the clunky term, which was in fact coined by none other than Joan Peters.
It is the charge of plagiarism that prompted Dershowitz's campaign to suppress the publication and promotion of Finkelstein's book. Dershowitz claims he has been libeled; yet, the famous trial lawyer refuses to file suit against Finkelstein. Ostensibly, he does not want to give Finkelstein undeserved attention.
All in all, Finkelstein's book is a powerful refutation of The Case for Israel and a powerful corrective to the distorted record of the Israel-Palestine conflict. People who've never known or believed anything but the dominant Zionist narrative would do well to read Beyond
Chutzpah and then, as the author hopes, "act on the basis of truth."
13. Why Lie?
When the case for policy is based upon lies, it proves the other side correct.
By Adam at the Planet planetlists@yahoo.com
By now it's been totally proven that the claims made for an invasion of Iraq were deliberately-told lies.
The "Dodgy Dossier" was the beginning of it. Tony Blair cited a report that made claims which by now should sound familiar:

"The Iraqi security organisations work together to conceal documents, equipment, and materials. The Regime has intensified efforts to hide documents in places where they are unlikely to be found, such as private homes of low-level officials and universities. There are prohibited materials and documents being relocated to agricultural areas and private homes or hidden beneath hospitals and even mosques."
But its credibility soon collapsed when it was discovered that much of it had been plagiarized from a student thesis paper that was 12 years old.
Then there was the Downing Street Memo, which clearly stated that intelligence reports were to be "fixed" around the goal of labeling Iraq as a threat to America.
More recently, and more relevantly, is the Plame Affair.
Bush parroted claims of "yellowcake uranium being imported by Iraq from Niger." Not only were these claims shown to be false, but because it was U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson who blew the whistle, the Administration somehow deemed it fit to leak that his wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative.
The outing of Plame greatly compromised our security, because Plame was working with a group monitoring Russian nukes being sold or dismantled, and the outing forced the entire operation to shut down.
And as Wilson details in his book, the move was nothing but retribution for exposing a key White House lie that was asserted at a U.N. address.
The details of Plamegate are beyond the scope of this report
(Googling "Plamegate" will fill you in), but the essence is basic: the Bush administration lied to start a war.
The Plame scandal has been a major liability the Bush regime, but a big question has been overlooked: If you're trying to start a war, why would take the risk of using a false pretext, if a true reason is available?

If the White House had an authentic reason to attack Iraq, they would have used it. Instead, they used lies.
Which means, there was no genuine reason for the attack.
This logic can and should be applied to many other cases where there is proof of deception.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative is a clear example of deception. That group is presently fighting BAMN (By Any
Means Necessary) for a ballot initiative to ban affirmative action from all state institutions (primarily college admissions). However, the ballot question is worded in such a way that supporters of affirmative action believe they are voting FOR affirmative action on an initiative that would ban it.
It does this by avoiding the term "affirmative action" and stating that the bill will will ban "discrimination." But its concern is discrimination against white people!
That the MCRI is ignoring the fact that minorities are discriminated against discreetly, in issues like school districts, job districts, and personal prejudice is not the issue here. The issue is that their ballot initative--and indeed, all of their literature--is worded in such a way that people who support affirmative action are being tricked into voting against it.
If the MCRI cause was legitimate, they would not need to use deceptive language, and they would not risk being exposed for being manipulative.
The pattern is clear. Deception indicates guilt.
A more stunning example concerns something I wouldn't have even thought to bring up: the Holocaust.
Ernst Zundel doesn't deny that Jews were treated cruelly by the Nazis, but he does question that the Nazis really gassed 6 million of them to death, because apparently he has done research that concludes that much of the story was exaggerated.
I had dismissed Zundel as a nutcase. I vowed to never even

raise the subject of Zundel, because talking about a
Holocaust denier is political suicide. And I really thought he was nuts. How could it be possible for historians to get the Holocaust story wrong? They've produced tons of witnesses of the gas chambers.
Then some strange things began happening. Zundel was somehow arrested in the U.S.A. by Canadian authorities, and then shipped off to Germany for a trial for the crime of
Holocaust denial. The politics in the courtroom were shocking.
Wrote a witness:
"The Judge began by setting out his motion and supporting arguments to have, for various reasons, all of Ernst's lawyers either downgraded or removed from the case. His reasons: Horst Malher was no longer able to practice law because of his political views and his criticism of the system. He may have had his licence revoked at one time (of this I am not sure). Mahler refused to leave but the Judge threatened him with forcible removal and a one day jail sentence so he moved on his own accord to the spectators section. The Judge's complaints against Rieger were that
Rieger was too political and too allied with his client's views. He would not be removed but could not be the
"mandatory" lawyer (ie lead lawyer). Sylvia Stolz was also
"too biased" and as well not qualified enough to be the
"mandatory" lawyer... The "mandatory lawyer" must be one the Court approves of and apparantly, they do not approve of anyone that is there now.
"What may happen is that the Court will appoint a lawyer who would be lead "mandatory" lawyer and he could then fire the lawyers of choice under him."
Now, for all I know, Zundel and his legal team are nothing but a bunch of Neo-Nazi scum. But even if that is the case, the factual evidence should come out at the trial.
Whether or not Zundel is a "nut," he should be entitled to a legal team of his choice, shouldn't he?
Then there is the case of David Irving. He is a pro-Nazi, apparently. As the reputable paper the London Guadian writes, "The pro-Nazi author David Irving was yesterday

declared bankrupt after failing to pay £150,000 in costs after his disastrous libel action against charges that he was a Holocaust denier."
OK, fine. But is he pro-Nazi, and is he a Holocaust denier?
Well, not exactly. Irving admits that Jews were the subject of racial targeting, imprisonment, and murder. He questions the "6 million" figure. He puts the figure at 1.5 million.
Irving is definitely opposed the behavior of the state of
Israel. But that is entirely different from being a
Neo-Nazi. There is an extensive record of legitimate complaints against Israel for human rights violations, from the U.N., from BT'Selem, and even from the Red Cross. This is not a matter of racial hatred, it is a matter of factual accounts of state-sponsored violence. Many Jewish people and organizations--Neturei Karta, Noam Chomsky, Jared
Israel, Israel Shamir, to name a few--have spoken against
Israel's human rights record. However, Israel being the
"Jewish State," it is easy to see how the issue could be confused.
In any event, Irving's libel trial is long over but he is now imprisoned in Austria for asserting that the count of
Jewish deaths during the Holocaust is closer to one million than six.
A genocide of one million people versus six is not morally significant. If you disagree, you must agree that it's obscenely unjust that the number of Vietnamese casualties in our war with them is an unknown number between three million and six.
The real question is why this is even an issue at all. As
Michael Rivero notes:
"Nobody locks up people who claim to see Bigfoot, or who think Elvis is alive. People with such loony notions are simply allowed their freedom of speech, then ridiculed, then ignored. If Zundel, Irving, Rudolph and Verbeke are totally crazy, why the intense pressure to steal them from their homes and ship them to Germany for the crime of

simply not agreeing with a particular spin of the history of WW2?
"Truth needs no laws to support it. Throughout history, from
Galileo to Zundel, only lies and liars have resorted to the courts to enforce adherence to dogma. More than anything else, it is the extreme tactics employed by the defenders of the orthodoxy that calls into doubt the accuracy of the history they proclaim to the world. "
So now, I am forced to reconsider the Holocaust. Not because Zundel or Irving questioned the official story of it, but because they've been persecuted for asserting their opinion of it.
I read this from the Guardian, in the "News" section (as opposed to "Analysis" or "Opinion" section):
"Irving unsuccessfully appealed against the judgment by Mr
Justice Charles Gray which stripped the author of the last shreds of credibility."
A family member of mine was recently convicted of federal felonies that he did not commit. Many volumes have detailed many instances of injustice in American courts. In the case quoted above it was a British court, but the fact remains that justice isn't perfect.
For a major publication to assert that a judgement
"stripped the author of the last shreds of credibility" suggests that the paper has predisposed bias. And the Guardian is an excellent publication, better than any major American newspaper, so this is a very shocking "oversight" of spin being told as fact. Nowhere in any of the Guardian's coverage did they have any hard evidence that Irving was really a Nazi supporter. They simply assumed it because he questioned the official story about the Holocaust.
The lies that led our nation to invade Iraq prove that "the official story" can be totally false. If the official history is wrong about that, it could be wrong about anything, potentially.
I could not imagine that the Holocaust was an exaggeration.

Hitler's regime was pure evil. The story of the Holocaust is backed by countless stories. It is unquestionable that the Third Reich mass-murdered innocent.
But when people who question history are unjustly persecuted, it suggests that the persecutors have something to hide.
In fact the Auschwitz Museum revised the total number of dead at the camps from 4 million to 1.5 million. The prisoners at these camps weren't all Jews; they were also immigrants, dissenters, gays, political opponents, communists, and generic "suspects." Yet nobody is prosecuting the Auschwitz Museum for their stated numbers,
So what if the number of Jewish victims was one million instead of six? A genocide is a genocide regardless of the body count.
But because people who question the official count are thrown in jail, it leaves me compelled to wonder why.
Why did Bush use lies to lead us to war with Iraq?
Why does the MCRI use deception to pass their agenda?
Why are Holocaust skeptics thrown in jail for questioning official numbers?
Why was Mumia's trial presided over so unfairly, if he really was as guilty as he was found to be?
Why wasn't Irwin Schiff (who's shown that the 18th Amendment was never ratified) allowed to call expert witnesses who could have established his innocence?
Many have concluded from the available evidence that the story of a hiacked 757 hitting the Pentagon is doubtful
(because most major parts of the plane, such as the tailfin and engines, were never found). Why isn't the public permitted to see any of the government's footage film of the plane hitting the Pentagon on 911, save four time-lapsed frames that prove nothing?
Somebody help me here. I have yet to find one instance wher cover-ups and deceptions were followed by exoneration of the people doing the covering-up and deceiving.
Until then, I feel safe believing that all cover-ups point to guilt. It is a well-established pattern with no known exceptions.

Please, prove me wrong, because I don't enjoy entertaing the possibility that the systematic murder of Jewish people during WWII is being exploited for the benefit of Israeli objectives. Especially being 1/4 Jewish myself.
These shocking tales of false-flag operations and public manipulations have turned me into some kind of "conspiracy nut."
And a "conspiracy nut" is the last thing I ever wanted to be. But one can only take so much evidence of conspiracy
(particularly surrounding 9/11) before jumping into the deep end.
14. 635 Riverside Drive, Apt. 1F, New York, NY 10031 United States
917-595-9928, ari.paul@gmail.com
Review of
Working Towards Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White
By David R.
Roediger
Basic Books
By: Ari Paul
In the history of the United States, the best name ever of a major American political party has to be the Know-Nothings. The secretive, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant group was the political incarnation of nineteenth-century Nativism, a movement among Anglo-Americans deeply hostile to waves of European immigrants in the mid and late 1800s. These days, the
Nativist movement’s targets—Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans, the Irish, and Greeks—are all a part of the white American social fabric, even though Nativist rancor threw them in the lower caste lot with African Americans when they first arrived. The process these so-called secondclass “white ethnics” have undergone to become “white,” first class citizens in the twenty-first century is a long and byzantine tale.
Thankfully, David Roediger, a professor of American history at the University of Illinois, has crafted an absorbing narrative of this grand assimilation, a “gradual series of changes in urban race relations, housing, and state policies causing new immigrant communities to want to win a firmly white identity.” 1
Meticulously grounding his study in literature, contemporary newspaper accounts, and memoirs, Roediger shows that it could never be stated these new immigrants and their offspring were ever trapped into the same social prison that holds African
Americans in urban ghettos, Native Americans on reservations, or Mexican migrant laborers in the iron cycle of seasonal harvest. Rather, the recurring theme in Roediger's history is new immigrants' state of "inbetweeness," a social state of ambiguity.
2
For example, certain white ethnics could pass into the Caucasian caste at a certain place or time whereas an African
American definitely could not. Or the vox populi of certain era may have described white ethnics by the same terms as Africans Americans or Asians, but the local law might have stated otherwise.

That doesn’t mean that these white ethnic groups didn’t get their fair share of abuse, which came from all sides. For instance, Italians and Jews were the victims of lynchings in the
Deep South because they were considered whites’ racial enemies. Roediger writes of one lynching of Italian Americans in Louisiana: “The press justified the atrocity by pointing to southern Italian biology and habits.” 3
And those who like to think the far left carries the torch for all manner of progressive thinking will be chagrined to learn that even Eugene Debs, the famous socialist labor leader, observed in 1891 that “the Italian ‘fattens on garbage’ and lives ‘far more like a wild beast than the Chinese.’” 4
American labor leader Samuel Gompers called these new immigrants the “beaten men of beaten races.” 5
In tracing the development of the labor movement, Roediger shows that many white unionists realized that the only way for their unions to succeed was by biting the bullet and consolidating resources with the masses of ethnic workers. At the time, workplaces in industrial
America were often segregated, and the labor movement generally was a showcase for immense institutional racism. Still, leaders in the labor movement came to realize that white ethnics could help build their base. And slowly but surely, as the new immigrants gained acceptance into mainstream unionism, perceptions of their racial status changed as well.
According to Roediger, when new immigrants advanced in America’s racial hierarchy, more often than not they chose their direction based on self-interest, even when this meant leaving other ethnic groups behind. He writes, “For [European] immigrants, caught in a world of dog-eat-dog competition, the lesson would likely have been that African Americans were decidedly among the eaten, and thus to be avoided.” 6
He shows, for example, that when Greek miners gained union acceptance, they did not show any solidarity in demanding the same for their Japanese-American comrades.
The New Deal also helped propel white ethnics up the caste latter. Yes, President
Franklin Roosevelt’s social programs sought to provide America with an economic welfare apparatus, but with Jim Crow raging in the South and the systematic ghettoizing of Northern cities, Roediger demonstrates there was a lopsided distribution of New Deal benefits with whites, including white ethnics, on the winning side.
Many ethnic groups in America considered themselves enemies of each other due to differences and conflicts that existed back in Europe. But if there was one point that could unite these new immigrants, still fighting persecution and holding on to old nationalist sentiments, it was homeownership. Roediger aims the spotlight on this aspect of history, showing that whatever solidarity new immigrants and the African Americans in the working class could have shared was erased during the development of suburbia. Rapidly taking hold was the practice of redlining, whereby banks denied mortgages based on race. The new housing market in the North meant that one’s home would be devalued if a black person moved into the neighborhood.
American historians have shown that owning a home means two profound things. For most American families, it is the most precious financial investment in their lives. It is also a part of the American dream. So for white ethnics, if the entrance of African Americans into their neighborhoods interfered with that investment and that dream, it was a matter of some predictability how white ethnics would react.
In a journalist’s description that predates the suburban boom of the 1950s, Roediger recalls a meeting at the Hyde Park-Kenwood Property Owners Association in Chicago where
“Jews attended, taking time out from charitable efforts to aid pogrom victims; Irishmen came straight from Free Ireland events, Italians left the ‘murder zone’ in which they lived to victimize blacks.” 7
Roediger details how the promise homeownership offered to white ethnics and the

racial segregation enforced by redlining, predatory lending, and the expansion of Soviet style public housing projects mobilized once-oppressed minorities to lead some of the most infamous white backlashes to integration programs in places like Cicero, Illinois, Charlestown,
Massachusetts, and the Carnasie neighborhood in Brooklyn. These backlashes—often led by
Americans of Irish, Italian, Slavic, and Jewish extraction—were as violent and as venomously bigoted as Ku Klux Klan terrorism in the South.
Roediger’s narrative enforces the chilly impression that in spite of the Civil Rights movement, affirmative action, and corporate minority empowerment programs, racial culture in the United States is still characterized by a rigid hierarchy. We can see how this hemisphere’s role as the primary destination for slaves molded attitudes about race in places like the United
States, the Caribbean, and Brazil early on. While racial politics dominated American politics since the first slave ships hit the shores, Europe’s conflicts from the colonial period until World
War Two had more to do with tensions between warring states and empires.
But why didn’t the mass immigration from Europe change the American paradigm? One explanation is that even though European immigrants can bring their ethnic tensions over the
Atlantic, because the boundaries that separate nationalities don’t exist in the United States, those tensions can ease. For example, when I worked at a steel distribution plant in Michigan, one of the Serbian truckers, in reference to a Croatian worker quipped, “I should hate him. But here, everyone thinks we are the same.” Alienated from people of color by segregation and racism within the labor movement, immigrant workers realized that overcoming oppression wouldn’t come from trying to subvert the existing social system, but from de-rooting themselves from
Europe. In short, they can assimilate.
This, in turn, begs the question: How can people of color, then, fully attain equal status?
Often, to gain acceptance in the American middle class, some African Americans and Latinos have learned to “act white.” Many Latinos, whose political influence is strong in California,
Florida, and an increasing number of states, also see themselves as white. One might say they are following the footsteps of the Irish and Italians.
The situation for African-Americans is more sensitive, and this continues to affect the popular discourse. In the 2002 film, Barbershop
, set in Chicago’s south side, one employee is ridiculed by his co-workers for pompously acting white and abandoning his African American roots. He defends himself with his ambition to move up in the world. In another telling cultural moment, comedian Chris Rock lampooned the fact white America considered Colin Powell as a presidential candidate, because, in Rock’s words, “he speaks so well.” 8 Rock joked that audiences were prepared to hear Powell say, “I’m gonna drop me a bomb today.” 9
A similar phenomenon can be glimpsed in contemporary American politics. For example, what separates Senator Barack Obama of Illinois from Representative Maxine Waters of
California? They are both black, progressive Democrats from solidly blue states, yet Obama, the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, gains considerable praise from his political enemies while Waters is frequently castigated even within her party for not articulating mainstream ideas. Could it be because, with all due respect to both lawmakers, Obama walks and talks like a civilized, urbane white man while Waters seems to typify an angry black woman representing the angry black population? Obama, of course, is a special case because his mother is a white woman from Kansas—but that only proves the point that whiteness, both biological and behavioral, is a winning trait in American minority politics.
Roediger does not deal with where African Americans and Latinos currently stand, but his findings allow us to speculate. Perhaps the same achievements white ethnics made can work

for populations of color. With reform in educational and economic policy, perhaps more African
American and Latino families would have the ability to own a home or earn incomes comparable to those of the white middle class. But we also see from the days of European immigrants to the present that adapting to whiteness has always been essential for upward mobility in this country.
Roediger chronicles a history in which assimilation eventually trumps any number of ethnic identities in America, but that assimilation is not even, and it is not consistently distributed.
Looking at Roediger’s book another way, the story of white assimilation in America explains the painful truth about the American racial caste system.
Citations
1.
Roediger, 8.
2.
Ibid, 8, 50-54, 57-59, 61, 67, 69, 71-78, 81, 82, 85, 88, 92, 94, 116, 119-130, 144.
3.
Ibid, 52.
4.
Ibid, 80.
5.
Ibid, 81.
6.
Ibid, 109.
7.
Ibid, 171.
8.
Rock, Chris. “Colin Powell,”
Bring the Pain . Dreamworks. 1996, 2002 (re-released).
15.
GOOD CLEAN FUN by Rose White old_weird@yahoo.com
(313) 842 6262
I met him at a Chinese restaurant outside Pontiac. The guy was tall and scrawny, with a skinny neck that looked too long for his body and a worn, streetwise face. He is wearing a large, puffy coat. It's July.
He's already left a message on my machine that disturbed my roommate:
“This is Antonio calling about the kidnapping job. Give me a call back if you want to do an interview."
"So why did you start doing this?" I ask, as we choose a booth to sit in.
"Basically, I do it to finance my music," he says. "I'm a rapper."
He pauses to receive a huge plate of ribs. I order the egg drop soup. "Dig in," he says, motioning towards the ribs.
"I'm all right," I say.
"So, I'm going to tell you what I do," he says. "Damn, these ribs look good, they're hot as fuck, though. Basically, a couple of years ago, I saw what was happening with extreme sports going mainstream, and I saw a market for what I'm doing now."

What he’ "doing now" is running a kidnapping business. People, usually white suburban businessmen, pay a good chunk of money to be kidnapped off the street (in a pre-arranged block of time or place), thrown into a car, tied up, taken for a joyride, harassed and intimidated, and then... it's over, and the "girls' team" that kidnapped him (or, if you choose, an all-male team of
"thugs") takes the victim out to a strip club, and they all celebrate.
Celebrate what? Paying to live vicariously? I don't care -- I'm in this situation for the material, and the fifteen dollars an hour.
"I have two warehouses that I use. One's in Warren. It's part of what they pay for in the kidnapping package, to be taken to a warehouse for a couple hours. Nothing much goes on there.
You basically try to scare people.
“It really worked, a little too well, when we were doing this with all guys. They would wear ski masks, and... man, having guys do the kidnapping was not always a good idea. We got into some really heavy pyschological shit with that, you know, we ended up really scaring some of the victims way too much, and ourselves.
"Things just got really weird and heavy with that. That's why I started doing these kidnappings with girls. They're lighter, more fun, and they don't freak people out as much.
"You basic econo-kidnapping---that's what I call it---is four hours long and costs the victim about five hundred dollars. So it wouldn't be much of a time committment for you. Of course, there are longer sessions that people can choose that cost more money, sessions that last overnight. That's when you can really freak people out. I even had a guy call from out of state the other day who wants to be kidnapped for, like, a couple days. That's fine. That'll set him back a couple grand. I'm happy to do it.
"I have a rotating cast of girls. You don't have to go on every job. If you don't feel comfortable wearing, say, a certain type of costume that the victim has requested, for example, you don't have to go on that job. My only rule is, you can't turn down three jobs in a row. Then you're fired.
"It's light adult entertainment," he adds. "Light, very light. No touching. Fully clothed. Maybe I'll ask the girls' team to wear, say, a uniform if we're doing a flight atttendant theme or a spy theme or something like that. And definitely high heels. Maybe you can tie the guy to a chair if he's into it. But that's it ."
This appeals to the sadistic side of me, the angry side that hates businessmen, and I give him my full attention.
"This is all just good, clean fun. Yell at him, scream at him, swear, try to scare him."
"Of course, there's a training period. Not long. We basically just train you how to grab someone and throw them into a car without hurting them. By the way, there's always a slight problem with that, because it's done in public, and a lot of bystanders get scared and call the cops. I've thought about having our name airbrused onto the side of the getaway car, but... that would probably ruin the element of surprise, wouldn't it?"

As our conversation comes to an end, women begin enter the restaurant, one by one, and approach our table. They are wearing pancake makeup with low-cut tops, blonde hair.
"The other girls are here for their interviews," he explains. The ‘girls’ look to be in their midthirties, but I don't argue over semantics. "I'll be ready for you in a minute," he instructs them.
"Have a seat someplace else and wait."
I didn’t get the job, of course. A part of me knew that I would have been a bad kidnapper, and I think Antonio sensed that. Last I heard, though, the business is doing better than ever.
16. No Home for the Holidays: Stop Evictions of Katrina
Evacuees
By Bill Quigley. Bill is a professor at Loyola
University New Orleans School of Law and can be reached at Quigley@loyno.edu
Sabrina Robinson lived her whole life in New Orleans.
When Katrina and the floodwaters hit her house, she and her three children swam to a dry bridge where they lived for 2 days. “We watched people die,” said Ms.
Robinson. Now her family and 52 other families from
New Orleans face eviction from the Houston apartment complex where they lived for the last month. Tens of thousands of other Katrina evacuees also face holiday evictions.
After a bus took the Robinson family to Houston, they slept on the floor for a month. On October 2, the family received federal housing vouchers from the
Disaster Relief Center in Houston. Quail Chase apartments in Houston agreed to accept the vouchers.
Ms. Robinson and 52 other families from New Orleans moved in to Quail Chase. After the families lived there for several weeks, Quail Chase changed their mind and refused to accept vouchers. Quail Chase has now given eviction notices to all 53 families. Now they face the streets again. “There is nothing else available,” Ms. Robinson said. “All the decent housing is taken.”
In the same spirit, FEMA announced November 15 it would quit paying for housing for most of the nearly
60,000 homeless Katrina families who are residing in government paid hotel and motel rooms.

In Texas, where 54,000 people are living in 18,000 rooms, Republican Governor Rick Perry said these evictions will “fuel the cycle of evacuees moving from one temporary housing situation to another – if they can secure housing at all.”
The story is being repeated across the nation. In New
York, 487 Katrina victims, including 115 kids, have been told their hotel rooms will no longer be paid.
In the Carolinas, between 400 and 600 Katrina families in hotels face eviction even as local homeless shelters are already full.
Back home in New Orleans, legal aid lawyers estimate there will be 10,000 evictions filed in November against Katrina evacuees – more in one month than are usually filed in an entire year.
At this holiday time, resolve to stand in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of people victimized by
Katrina and the floods that followed. Katrina evacuees in your community need your support. Stop the evictions in your community.
Nationally, 54 members of Congress, including all the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have co-sponsored HR 4197, the Hurricane Katrina Recovery
Act. Ask your representative to co-sponsor this bill and to take action to force FEMA to assist those still left behind.
There are also many other great grassroots, regional and national efforts underway to provide solidarity with Katrina evacuees. Many are listed at www.justiceforneworleans.org
People displaced by Katrina do not want charity. What is needed at this holiday time is solidarity. Resolve to stand with the victims of Katrina as they search for justice.