Thursday, June 22, 2006
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Frontline's Show on Cheney's Iraq War
FRONTLINE presents
THE DARK SIDE
Tuesday, June 20, 2006, 9 to 10:30 P.M. ET on PBS
The Frontline Show titled "The Dark Side" showed how Cheney outsmarted the CIA and its former boss George Tenet and prodded Bush and his administration to wage war against Iraq using shoddy evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Former CIA officials who resigned or stayed on under duress spoke on tape about how Tenet knowing there was no strong or convincing evidence that Iraq was involved with Al Quada or that Saddam Husseing had WMD's traded his self respect and integrity for a place at the table in the White House. As one official put it and I am just paraphrasing " Tenet preferred being a player to telling the truth as he saw it to the President".
The show pointed out how power shifted from the CIA to the Pentagon which is under Cheney's command after Tenet's betrayal and the consequent series of resignations that emanated from the CIA after Bush made the decision to go to war with Iraq. CIA official left because they believed Bush should not be in power and that the War against Iraq was wrong. We must be living in strange times when the CIA looks less sinister and off base than those who run the White House. Hope the show run again soon and that the information from" The Dark Side" gets out to the public instead of just the garbage war propaganda we usually hear.
THE DARK SIDE
Tuesday, June 20, 2006, 9 to 10:30 P.M. ET on PBS
The Frontline Show titled "The Dark Side" showed how Cheney outsmarted the CIA and its former boss George Tenet and prodded Bush and his administration to wage war against Iraq using shoddy evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Former CIA officials who resigned or stayed on under duress spoke on tape about how Tenet knowing there was no strong or convincing evidence that Iraq was involved with Al Quada or that Saddam Husseing had WMD's traded his self respect and integrity for a place at the table in the White House. As one official put it and I am just paraphrasing " Tenet preferred being a player to telling the truth as he saw it to the President".
The show pointed out how power shifted from the CIA to the Pentagon which is under Cheney's command after Tenet's betrayal and the consequent series of resignations that emanated from the CIA after Bush made the decision to go to war with Iraq. CIA official left because they believed Bush should not be in power and that the War against Iraq was wrong. We must be living in strange times when the CIA looks less sinister and off base than those who run the White House. Hope the show run again soon and that the information from" The Dark Side" gets out to the public instead of just the garbage war propaganda we usually hear.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Community Gardens Bulldozed
Posted: June 13, 2006 4:16 PM
The Farm is being Bulldozed! Let's not mourn but continue to fight for its life and the livelihood of the South Central Farmers!
Over 50 arrests have been made, a few demonstrators have suffered blows from batons and the bulldozers were sent in to demolish the blooming crops, indigenous plants and 14 years of love that have been put into the farm. We are continuing to stand strong with tears in our eyes. It is not over yet! The community cannot be defeated. Join us to peacefully protest the police attack on our community.
A candlelight vigil will be held tonight at 7:00pm as we have for 21 nights at the Farm. There is police perimeter set up so be respectful of that barrier for your safety and the safety of the rest of the community. We want safety for our families and the land to be returned to the community. We are gathered at the corner of 41st St & Long Beach Ave. Los Angeles, CA.
-please bring candles and supplies such as water or food to share as we have been dispossessed.
A demonstration at the mayor's house is also being organized simultaneously with the vigil at the Farm. Here's the info:
At 7pm tonight we will be gathering at Villaraigosa's
house in protest of the actions taken by the state
against the community today.
Bring banners, instruments, chants and signs.
What: PROTEST/VIGIL AT ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA'S HOUSE
When: 7pm today, Tuesday
Where: the "mayor's mansion"
605 S. Irving St., LA
(In Hancock Park near Wilton and Wilshire)
JOIN US IN EXUBERANT SHOW OF PEOPLE'S POWER AND
OUTRAGE AGAINST THOSE BEHIND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
FARM!
Thank you for all your support and dedication to the struggle of the South Central Farmers.
-South Central Farmers Support Coalition
The Farm is being Bulldozed! Let's not mourn but continue to fight for its life and the livelihood of the South Central Farmers!
Over 50 arrests have been made, a few demonstrators have suffered blows from batons and the bulldozers were sent in to demolish the blooming crops, indigenous plants and 14 years of love that have been put into the farm. We are continuing to stand strong with tears in our eyes. It is not over yet! The community cannot be defeated. Join us to peacefully protest the police attack on our community.
A candlelight vigil will be held tonight at 7:00pm as we have for 21 nights at the Farm. There is police perimeter set up so be respectful of that barrier for your safety and the safety of the rest of the community. We want safety for our families and the land to be returned to the community. We are gathered at the corner of 41st St & Long Beach Ave. Los Angeles, CA.
-please bring candles and supplies such as water or food to share as we have been dispossessed.
A demonstration at the mayor's house is also being organized simultaneously with the vigil at the Farm. Here's the info:
At 7pm tonight we will be gathering at Villaraigosa's
house in protest of the actions taken by the state
against the community today.
Bring banners, instruments, chants and signs.
What: PROTEST/VIGIL AT ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA'S HOUSE
When: 7pm today, Tuesday
Where: the "mayor's mansion"
605 S. Irving St., LA
(In Hancock Park near Wilton and Wilshire)
JOIN US IN EXUBERANT SHOW OF PEOPLE'S POWER AND
OUTRAGE AGAINST THOSE BEHIND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
FARM!
Thank you for all your support and dedication to the struggle of the South Central Farmers.
-South Central Farmers Support Coalition
Why the nation's largest community garden must become a Wal-Mart warehouse
Posted by Tom Philpott at 2:56 PM on 07 Mar 2006
The fate of LA's South Central Community Garden, the largest of its kind in the United States, looks fairly straightforward: It sits on private property, and its owner wants to sell it for development. The 300 or so families who garden there, most of whom by all accounts live under the poverty line, will have to find a new source of food. If the owner/developer, one Ralph Horowitz, has decided to erect a massive Wal-Mart warehouse there, well, that's just the way it goes.
However, an excellent article in Los Angeles CityBeat by Dean Kuipers shines an interesting light on this unhappy deal.
(Note: The gardeners, who recently received an eviction notice, have won a stay until March 13. I assume all L.A. greens -- including movie producers, Baldwin brothers, etc. -- will hop in their hybrids, rush over to the garden, and rally to its defense in the meantime.)
Like most urban community gardens, this one sprang up on land that no one much wanted originally. In the late 1980s, the city seized the land under eminent domain from an investment group led by Horowitz, Kuipers reports. Horowitz's investment company ended up receiving $4.7 million in compensation. The city's plan (alternative-energy fans take note): to build an incinerator to generate electricity by burning trash.
Most people don't like to live amid the stench of garbage, so the neighborhood successfully organized to stop that project. By the time of the Rodney King rebellion in 1992, the lot had become trash-strewn and abandoned. The city agreed to allow a soup kitchen to turn it into a community-garden plot. By all accounts, neighborhood residents rallied around the asset, turning it into a vital source of fresh food in an area with few grocery stores.
Here is how Kuipers describes it today, in an account that jibes with others I've read:
The contrast with community gardens elsewhere in the city is shocking. These aren't tiny weekend projects with a few tomatoes and California poppies. The 330 spaces here are large, 20 X 30 feet, many of them doubled- and tripled-up into larger plots, crammed with a tropical density of native Mesoamerican plants -- full-grown guava trees, avocados, tamarinds, and palms draped in vines bearing huge pumpkins and chayotes, leaf vegetables, corn, seeds like chipilin grown for spice, and rank upon rank of cactus cut for nopales. The families who work these plots are all chosen to receive one because they are impoverished by USDA standards, and use them to augment their household food supply. These are survival gardens.
But the birth of a thriving, productive community garden wasn't the only thing that changed in the area after the King riots. In the 1990s, the city of Los Angeles dropped a cool $2 billion building out the Alameda Corridor, "a modern rail and big-truck super-pipeline from the Port of Los Angeles straight through the warehouses of South L.A. and Vernon," Kuipers writes. And that made the once-depressed warehouse district an important hub for big-box retailers to organize the booming influx of goods from points west, including China. In turn, South Central land suddenly became very valuable.
In his dealings with the city in the 1980s, Horowitz had retained right of first refusal if the city ever decided to sell the land. In 2003, he successfully sued to force the city to sell it back to him for $5 million --a figure many observers find extremely low, given the city had a few years earlier valued it at $13 million. Since then, he's been wrangling to evict the farmers from the land, a goal he looks set to reach on March 13.
Let's think about this. The city of Los Angeles dropped $2 billion to beef up its port infrastructure, a move that brings undeniable benefits to import-minded big-box retailers and the consumers throughout the southwest who buy their gear. The great bulk of the jobs it creates, though, are of the low-wage, unskilled variety.
And what does South Central get? Some low-wage jobs, and the loss of a garden that neighborhood residents cleaned up and turned into a vital place when no one wanted it. In place of a food source, they get a warehouse that will distribute food (among other things) to other localities. Here we have another example of public policy -- and cash -- subsidizing global commerce and smashing local production, under a false "free-market" banner.
If the city has $2 billion to hand over to make things easier for big boxes, why can't it buy out Horowitz and turn the site into a permanent public farm?
Posted by Tom Philpott at 2:56 PM on 07 Mar 2006
The fate of LA's South Central Community Garden, the largest of its kind in the United States, looks fairly straightforward: It sits on private property, and its owner wants to sell it for development. The 300 or so families who garden there, most of whom by all accounts live under the poverty line, will have to find a new source of food. If the owner/developer, one Ralph Horowitz, has decided to erect a massive Wal-Mart warehouse there, well, that's just the way it goes.
However, an excellent article in Los Angeles CityBeat by Dean Kuipers shines an interesting light on this unhappy deal.
(Note: The gardeners, who recently received an eviction notice, have won a stay until March 13. I assume all L.A. greens -- including movie producers, Baldwin brothers, etc. -- will hop in their hybrids, rush over to the garden, and rally to its defense in the meantime.)
Like most urban community gardens, this one sprang up on land that no one much wanted originally. In the late 1980s, the city seized the land under eminent domain from an investment group led by Horowitz, Kuipers reports. Horowitz's investment company ended up receiving $4.7 million in compensation. The city's plan (alternative-energy fans take note): to build an incinerator to generate electricity by burning trash.
Most people don't like to live amid the stench of garbage, so the neighborhood successfully organized to stop that project. By the time of the Rodney King rebellion in 1992, the lot had become trash-strewn and abandoned. The city agreed to allow a soup kitchen to turn it into a community-garden plot. By all accounts, neighborhood residents rallied around the asset, turning it into a vital source of fresh food in an area with few grocery stores.
Here is how Kuipers describes it today, in an account that jibes with others I've read:
The contrast with community gardens elsewhere in the city is shocking. These aren't tiny weekend projects with a few tomatoes and California poppies. The 330 spaces here are large, 20 X 30 feet, many of them doubled- and tripled-up into larger plots, crammed with a tropical density of native Mesoamerican plants -- full-grown guava trees, avocados, tamarinds, and palms draped in vines bearing huge pumpkins and chayotes, leaf vegetables, corn, seeds like chipilin grown for spice, and rank upon rank of cactus cut for nopales. The families who work these plots are all chosen to receive one because they are impoverished by USDA standards, and use them to augment their household food supply. These are survival gardens.
But the birth of a thriving, productive community garden wasn't the only thing that changed in the area after the King riots. In the 1990s, the city of Los Angeles dropped a cool $2 billion building out the Alameda Corridor, "a modern rail and big-truck super-pipeline from the Port of Los Angeles straight through the warehouses of South L.A. and Vernon," Kuipers writes. And that made the once-depressed warehouse district an important hub for big-box retailers to organize the booming influx of goods from points west, including China. In turn, South Central land suddenly became very valuable.
In his dealings with the city in the 1980s, Horowitz had retained right of first refusal if the city ever decided to sell the land. In 2003, he successfully sued to force the city to sell it back to him for $5 million --a figure many observers find extremely low, given the city had a few years earlier valued it at $13 million. Since then, he's been wrangling to evict the farmers from the land, a goal he looks set to reach on March 13.
Let's think about this. The city of Los Angeles dropped $2 billion to beef up its port infrastructure, a move that brings undeniable benefits to import-minded big-box retailers and the consumers throughout the southwest who buy their gear. The great bulk of the jobs it creates, though, are of the low-wage, unskilled variety.
And what does South Central get? Some low-wage jobs, and the loss of a garden that neighborhood residents cleaned up and turned into a vital place when no one wanted it. In place of a food source, they get a warehouse that will distribute food (among other things) to other localities. Here we have another example of public policy -- and cash -- subsidizing global commerce and smashing local production, under a false "free-market" banner.
If the city has $2 billion to hand over to make things easier for big boxes, why can't it buy out Horowitz and turn the site into a permanent public farm?
Monday, May 22, 2006
Darfur and the Jews????!!!!!!!!!!
The article written below by Rabbi Ken Chasen raises a serious issue about genocide and how people, in this case, a taxi driver who recently was living in Darfur declared to be in the midst of a genocide can deny the truth. In this case, the truth denier used the age old device of blaming the Jews which diverts the person in question from facing the tragedy from which he is only slightly removed. So Sad.
Sharon Raphael
Jewish Journal
2006-05-19
First Person - Will You Be at Peace?
by Rabbi Ken Chasen
I always knew that it would be very difficult to stop a genocide. I just never appreciated how difficult it would be merely to demonstrate against a genocide.
I was among a group of nearly 100 Los Angeles Jews who traveled to San Francisco on Sunday, April 30, to participate in the “Day of Conscience for Darfur” rally. In addition to being accompanied by more than 30 of my congregants from Leo Baeck Temple, I was delighted to be joined by a number of colleagues, including Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive director of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, and the board’s bresident, Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of B’nai David-Judea Congregation.
The majority of us flew into Oakland that Sunday morning, and the rally organizers had arranged for us to be transported to the rally by bus — only the bus never arrived. Forced to fend for ourselves, we quickly filled every taxi we could hail, urging the drivers to take us to the Golden Gate Bridge on the double.
As my cab began to depart from the airport, I remember being stunned when the driver indicated that he did not know how to get to the Golden Gate Bridge. There was no time to lose, so I started to fetch directions for him on my mobile phone. But as I focused intently on my job as our cabbie’s navigator, I couldn’t miss the conversation that he was having with my fellow passengers.
The driver identified himself as a recent immigrant from Darfur. Incredible. When he learned we were headed to the rally, he shook his head slowly, asking, “Are you Jews?”
When we confirmed his hunch, he snickered and said, “That explains it.”
We couldn’t resist taking the bait: “What do you mean by that?”
“There is no genocide taking place in Darfur,” he replied. “I know. I lived there. This ‘genocide’ has been concocted by the Jews as a means of diverting the world’s attention from what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.”
As the conversation continued, he peppered his verbal assault with a few disparaging references to the “Israel Lobby,” insisting that the truth would soon come out.
It was a rather surreal circumstance from which to emerge on the Golden Gate Bridge with 5,000 demonstrators determined to save Darfur. The rally was filled with inspirational moments. We heard from impassioned Washington legislators. Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders implored us to stop the murders. Eyewitnesses to the slaughter relayed their heartrending accounts. African musicians filled the air with glorious song. It was an extraordinary day. But the episode in the cab served as a dark reminder of just how much vigilance it will take to stop this genocide before we are left to mourn it.
The 20th century offered repeated incontrovertible proof that launching a campaign against genocide, getting it to permeate the collective consciousness and mobilizing the masses to take action is a difficult challenge.
There are many, like our cabbie, who possess personal and political reasons to deny the atrocities, and their efforts are bolstered by the very banality of genocide. That is to say, genocide is not always especially newsworthy. Nothing new happened today in Darfur that didn’t happen yesterday ... and that won’t happen tomorrow.
This keeps a catastrophe like Darfur’s out of the news, fueling the lies of the deniers and the disinterest of the millions whose righteous indignation will be needed to motivate the world to take action.
With the notable exception of Nicholas Kristof’s venerable work in The New York Times, there is an embarrassing paucity of news about Darfur. Hundreds of thousands have been murdered, and millions have been displaced, but it is largely left to our imaginations to hear the cries of the victims. But if we listen closely enough, they can be heard. There are screams. Screams of women being branded and raped — right now. Screams of children being chased from their homes. Screams of men knowingly taking their final breath.
Just another day in Darfur.
Can we remain silent and live with ourselves?
We have a responsibility because we are neither the deniers nor the disinterested. There may not be enough news about Darfur, but we cannot claim that we are uninformed. Talking about the tragedy is not enough. Weeping about the tragedy is not enough. We must relentlessly urge our legislators to move the world to action. On Capitol Hill and at the White House, they count up our phone calls. That’s how they decide whether this genocide matters to us. That’s how they decide whether we want them to take life-saving action. Knowing this, calling daily isn’t too often.
As Jews, who know the scourge of genocide too well, we should each ask ourselves one question every day: “When this atrocity in Darfur is over, and the final losses are known, will I be at peace with what I did to stop it?”
During the week of the Darfur rallies in Washington and San Francisco, Jews all over the world were studying our famous command from the Holiness Code in the Book of Leviticus: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”
Five-hundred more will perish in Darfur today. When the killing is over, will you be at peace with what you did to stop it?
Ken Chasen is senior rabbi at Leo Baeck Temple in Bel Air.
Sharon Raphael
Jewish Journal
2006-05-19
First Person - Will You Be at Peace?
by Rabbi Ken Chasen
I always knew that it would be very difficult to stop a genocide. I just never appreciated how difficult it would be merely to demonstrate against a genocide.
I was among a group of nearly 100 Los Angeles Jews who traveled to San Francisco on Sunday, April 30, to participate in the “Day of Conscience for Darfur” rally. In addition to being accompanied by more than 30 of my congregants from Leo Baeck Temple, I was delighted to be joined by a number of colleagues, including Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive director of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, and the board’s bresident, Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of B’nai David-Judea Congregation.
The majority of us flew into Oakland that Sunday morning, and the rally organizers had arranged for us to be transported to the rally by bus — only the bus never arrived. Forced to fend for ourselves, we quickly filled every taxi we could hail, urging the drivers to take us to the Golden Gate Bridge on the double.
As my cab began to depart from the airport, I remember being stunned when the driver indicated that he did not know how to get to the Golden Gate Bridge. There was no time to lose, so I started to fetch directions for him on my mobile phone. But as I focused intently on my job as our cabbie’s navigator, I couldn’t miss the conversation that he was having with my fellow passengers.
The driver identified himself as a recent immigrant from Darfur. Incredible. When he learned we were headed to the rally, he shook his head slowly, asking, “Are you Jews?”
When we confirmed his hunch, he snickered and said, “That explains it.”
We couldn’t resist taking the bait: “What do you mean by that?”
“There is no genocide taking place in Darfur,” he replied. “I know. I lived there. This ‘genocide’ has been concocted by the Jews as a means of diverting the world’s attention from what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.”
As the conversation continued, he peppered his verbal assault with a few disparaging references to the “Israel Lobby,” insisting that the truth would soon come out.
It was a rather surreal circumstance from which to emerge on the Golden Gate Bridge with 5,000 demonstrators determined to save Darfur. The rally was filled with inspirational moments. We heard from impassioned Washington legislators. Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders implored us to stop the murders. Eyewitnesses to the slaughter relayed their heartrending accounts. African musicians filled the air with glorious song. It was an extraordinary day. But the episode in the cab served as a dark reminder of just how much vigilance it will take to stop this genocide before we are left to mourn it.
The 20th century offered repeated incontrovertible proof that launching a campaign against genocide, getting it to permeate the collective consciousness and mobilizing the masses to take action is a difficult challenge.
There are many, like our cabbie, who possess personal and political reasons to deny the atrocities, and their efforts are bolstered by the very banality of genocide. That is to say, genocide is not always especially newsworthy. Nothing new happened today in Darfur that didn’t happen yesterday ... and that won’t happen tomorrow.
This keeps a catastrophe like Darfur’s out of the news, fueling the lies of the deniers and the disinterest of the millions whose righteous indignation will be needed to motivate the world to take action.
With the notable exception of Nicholas Kristof’s venerable work in The New York Times, there is an embarrassing paucity of news about Darfur. Hundreds of thousands have been murdered, and millions have been displaced, but it is largely left to our imaginations to hear the cries of the victims. But if we listen closely enough, they can be heard. There are screams. Screams of women being branded and raped — right now. Screams of children being chased from their homes. Screams of men knowingly taking their final breath.
Just another day in Darfur.
Can we remain silent and live with ourselves?
We have a responsibility because we are neither the deniers nor the disinterested. There may not be enough news about Darfur, but we cannot claim that we are uninformed. Talking about the tragedy is not enough. Weeping about the tragedy is not enough. We must relentlessly urge our legislators to move the world to action. On Capitol Hill and at the White House, they count up our phone calls. That’s how they decide whether this genocide matters to us. That’s how they decide whether we want them to take life-saving action. Knowing this, calling daily isn’t too often.
As Jews, who know the scourge of genocide too well, we should each ask ourselves one question every day: “When this atrocity in Darfur is over, and the final losses are known, will I be at peace with what I did to stop it?”
During the week of the Darfur rallies in Washington and San Francisco, Jews all over the world were studying our famous command from the Holiness Code in the Book of Leviticus: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”
Five-hundred more will perish in Darfur today. When the killing is over, will you be at peace with what you did to stop it?
Ken Chasen is senior rabbi at Leo Baeck Temple in Bel Air.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
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