From edubrule at sbcglobal.net Wed Feb 2 19:44:35 2005 From: edubrule at sbcglobal.net (edubrule) Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 19:44:35 -0500 Subject: {news} minutes of Jan 25, 2005 SCC meeting Message-ID: <012b01c5098d$ca7633b0$8534f704@edgn2b574u14bi> Minutes--January 25, 2005 SCC meeting (quorum-less), Portland Public Library, 7:15-8:45pm Attendees: 1. Central Connecticut chapter: Vic Lancia, Vincent Maruffi 2. Hamden chapter: Aaron Gustafson, Kelly McCarthy(NV), Francis Braunlich 3. Hartford chapter: Ed DuBrule(NV), Mike DeRosa 4. New Haven chapter: David Eliscu (facilitator) 5. New London chapter: Andy Derr, Chris Nelson 6. Northeast chapter: Jean de Smet A quorum was not reached. A. PRELIMINARIES. The groundrules were adopted by consensus. By consensus a proposal from the internal elections committee was added to the agenda, and Kelly McCarthy will speak in the "guest slot". Treasurer's report (read by Ed). "Over the last month we had receipts of $612.40 and expenses of $964.07. Currently we have a balance of $857.84. "So far our net gain from our fall fund raiser is $174.52 giving us close to a 20% return above our expenses. "We are up to 24 in the 100 for 100 program. "Receipts: fall fundraiser $325.00 monthly contributions 180.00 other contribution 100.00 in-kind 7.40 "Total Receipts $612.40 "Expenses: Fall fund raiser payment -$452.50 Credit card processing - 35.00 Hartford Office - 392.52 Reimbursements - 74.24 Toll Free Number - 2.41 Stamps - 7.40 "Total Expenses -$964.07 "As most of you know 30% of contributions are allocated for the chapter from which the contribution comes from. Currently the balance owed to all CT Green Party chapters is $3,883.86. Obviously the state has over spent it's portion of the contributions. With our current state balance of $857.84 we would need an additional $3,025.92 to pay off the balances. (as well as collecting money from chapters that are in negative balance.) "As always please consider being involved in the Fundraising and Budget Committees. "For more information on the CT Green Party Finances you can call me at 860 379-0632, email me at green at spazmo.com or look at this webpage: http://www.kirajoy.com/CTGP/CTGP_Treasurer.html "Bob Eaton "CT Green Party Treasurer" Ed said that by "fall fund raiser" Bob was referring to the fundraising mailing sent out in December 2004, and that by "reimbursements" Bob was referring to the monthly payment to Chris Reilly. Ed wondered about the amount $392.52 for the Hartford office--Mike said that the Hartford chapter had paid its share of $250 towards the office rent, and that he had received a check for $250 from Bob, and noted that utilities must be paid, but couldn't explain the exact figure. Kelly wondered if Bob could provide us with an up-to-date list of the chapter balances. Jean wondered if chapters might agree to cancel their chapter balances. Guest slot. Kelly spoke, expressing concerns about the CTGP financial situation, the continued funding by the CTGP of the Hartford office, and "the debt" (apparently referring to the large negative Hartford chapter balance). These issues need to be addressed soon. Kelly said that she was speaking for herself, but that some of her concerns are shared by members of the Hamden chapter. Kelly had been told very different things by Justine and Mike with regards to the matter of whether the CTGP insurance policy covers events. We have been told that we need to have an office to have insurance, but other organizations without offices have insurance. Months have passed and we still don't see large amounts of money being raised to cover the office. Not a lot of state-level meetings and functions occur at the Hartford office. Mike said that he would get information to Kelly from the insurance agent to clarify the issue of events coverage. Attendees spoke of the concept that the CTGP would no longer provide funding for the office if, by a certain date, the Hartford chapter wasn't providing its half of the rent and utilities and/or the Hartford chapter hadn't paid off its chapter balance. Had the SCC recently already agreed to that concept? Ed said that his minutes show these ideas being discussed in recent SCC meetings but that no agreement had been reached on them. Ed said that the Office Committee had never met. Attendees wondered if Kelly and/or the Hamden chapter could look into the facts concerning the insurance. Could a proposal regarding the office be written? Kelly agreed to convene a meeting of the Office Committee. B. OLD BUSINESS AND PROPOSALS. Jean and Ed presented the proposal from the internal elections committee (Appendix 1). Jean pointed out that implementing this proposal would mean raising hundreds of dollars (the proposal's estimate is $1,366; the treasurer's report indicates a balance in the CTGP checking account of $857). Mike said that last year Connecticut Greens contributed $800 specifically so that the mailing could be done, and pointed out that last year's internal elections mailing brought in contributions (Mike estimated these at $1000). Jean said she thought these figures were roughly correct. Mike said that soliciting funds from Greens is most successful when the funds sought are to be used for a specific stated project. Could the mailing request that people provide their e-mail addresses, so that the IT committee (or others) could do e-mailing of CTGP newsletters and be able to set up projects like voting partially on-line? Because there was no quorum, no decision on appropriating $1,366 could be made. See also report from internal elections committee, below. C. REPORTS 1. Internal Elections Committee. See also OLD BUSINESS AND PROPOSALS, above. At tonight's meeting, Mike announced his candidacy for co-chair. Jean said that as of tonight there are no other declared candidates for co-chair, treasurer, secretary, or US Green Party reps/alternate. Ed said that he is not a candidate for secretary. He pointed out that he plans to do work over the next year on the CTGP membership lists, which might take some of the workload off next year's secretary. He said that SCC meeting minutes need not be as lengthy as he typically has written them. The deadline for announcing candidacies had been announced as tonight. Jean suggested sending e-mails asking for candidates again and extending the deadline for 1 week. She suggested forming a committee to seek candidates (ask people to run personally); no one offered to join such a committee. Mike suggested that we all make phone calls for this. Jean said that the February SCC meeting should address the question of how long the current officers should serve if internal elections are delayed. 2. Chapter reports **Hartford--having event with Nader sometime in February; Mike said he hopes the Hartford chapter can pay off its negative chapter balance starting with this event . Needs donation of television to continue its progressive movie nights. Working with New Britain man who wants to form Green Party chapter (has 20 people working with him), plans to run for mayor, already has treasurer and campaign manager. **Central Connecticut--Vic and others, as individuals rather than as chapter members, are planning a salon (to discuss many topics) the second Monday of every month at the Buttonwood Tree restaurant. **Hamden--next chapter meeting Thursday 1/27/05. **Northeast--continues planning for cable TV video(s). **New London--has cable TV show; trying to convert the tapes to DVD format. **New Haven--had Working Families Party member speak to chapter meeting regarding electoral and legislative strategies; helped get resolutions on nuclear disarmament and withdrawal of US troops from Iraq through New Haven City Council. 3. Executive Committee--Mike reviewed this committee's work, as published in the minutes of the 1/13/05 meeting. 4. VOTER (Mike)--25 people met with Senator Hanley regarding the paper trail bill; meetings also held with legislators Caruso and DeFronzo. Common Cause and CCAG support the paper trail. Work on bill mandating audits of ballots even if recount not required. Work on bill for permanent ballot access for minor parties. 5. Legislative report (Mike). Two single payer healthcare bills have been submitted to the legislature; one committee may hold hearings. Mike suggests holding a rally the day the committee holds hearings. CCAG is also working on healthcare issues. D. NEW BUSINESS 1. Select replacement on Process Committee for Rachel Goodkind, who has moved from Connecticut. Her replacment must be female (Appendix 2). Ed said that it might be best to select Rachel's replacement before another complaint is brought to the Process Committee. Ed said Charlie Pillsbury, and (apparently) David Adams (both members of the Process Committee) do not feel that Rachel's replacement must be from a different chapter than Charlie and David. SCC reps should ask their chapters for nominations. E. ANNOUNCEMENTS **March 19 antiwar mobilization: Mike read the following from an e-mail: "The March 19 antiwar mobilization will be a legal, permitted march through the streets of Hartford that will conclude with a rally in Barnard Park [secretary's note: Bushnell Park?]. The mobilization was put forward as a resolution by CT United for Peace at its November 20 state anti-war conference, 'Where Do We Go From Here?'. A plenary of 200 antiwar activists from around the state voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution, which contained the following demands: 'Bring the Troops Home Now!', 'End the War in Iraq', 'End the Occupation of Palestine' ". A planning committee meets every Tuesday at 7:30pm at the Hartford office. **Francis urged that we get involved with the Not In Our Name movement (www.nion.us), which ran an ad opposing the domestic and international agenda of the Bush administration in the New York Times on January 23 and is raising funds to run the ad in more newspapers. Since tonight's meeting did not have a quorum, the idea was raised of the Executive Committee endorsing the March 19 mobilization and the Not in Our Name ad. No one objected to this idea. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix 1 Proposal from internal elections committee. Green Party Meeting Proposal Form PRESENTER : internal elections committee CONTACT: Jean de Smet, 39 Davis St. Willimantic CT 06226, 860-456-2188, JeandeSmet at galaxyinternet.net SUBJECT: funding appropriation for 2005 internal elections/annual meeting BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE : annually the CTGP holds internal elections and an annual meeting PROPOSAL: (1) A full ballot package will be sent to those Greens who voted in the 2004 internal elections, either by mail or at the annual meeting, including those whose ballots were received too late to be counted. This totals 177 people. (2) Other CTGP members may be sent a full ballot, depending on funds available. Pledges will be solicited to send full ballots to as many people as possible. Full ballot mailings will sent in the following order, as funds permit: Greens who registered within the past year; then to all registered Greens; then to all other members. The deadline for fundraising is February 6th. All other CTGP members will be sent a postcard. (3) The full ballot package will contain up to 12 sides (6 pages) (may vary depending on the number of candidates) and (optionally) a return envelope. Side 1: ballot (printed in green ink) Side 2: page inviting people to the annual meeting and explaining the voting process (on the back of the ballot) Sides 3-8: candidate statements (last year this was 6 single-sided pages) Side 9: information about CTGP/donation request Side 10: donation form Side 11: contact information about CTGP (one side) Side 12: description of Annual Meeting (one side) (4) The postcard will contain: **phone number and e-mail address for obtaining a ballot package by mail **date/time/place of annual meeting and candidate forum(s) **additional information on the CTGP as space allows (5) Cost estimates: One estimate (based on figures provided by Gulemo Printing, Willimantic) is: $357 Printing/addressing 2800 small (5 1/2" x 4 1/4") postcards 300 Printing/stuffing/addressing 200 full ballot packages 560 Postage for 2800 postcards ($0.20 x 2800 postcards) 74 Postage for 200 full ballot packages ($0.37 x 200) (two hundred may not be enough for bulk mail) 75 Room rental (possibly Greater New Haven Labor Council, 267 Chapel St.) -------------------- $1,366 total ----------------------------------------------------- E-mail from Gulemo Printing: Hi Jean, I will be assuming the 12 sides look the same as last time. First let me tell you that we can not be sure about the postage, That depends on the address list. Our best guess is about 20 cents per postcard & about 22 cents per letter. 200 letters (option 1) might not work to bulk mail. They might have to go first class. Postcards come in different sizes. I will give you 2 samples. Prices are including printing, stuffing addressing & mailing. Postage is NOT included. Option 1 2800 Postcards size 8 ?" x 5 ?" = $501.00, size 5 ?" x 4 ?" = $357.00 200 Full mailings = $300.00 Option 2 2000 postcards size 8 ?"x 5 ?" = $381.00, size 5 ?" x 4 ?" = $272.00 1000 full mailings = $1000.00 Option 3 3000 full mailings = $2600.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix 2 Excerpt from Conflict Resolution Process, revised after 1 year's experience. [NOTE: explanatory notes between brackets and in italics were not approved by the SCC and are not part of the Resolution Process, but reflect comments made at the April 2003 SCC meeting when the Resolution Process was adopted; recommended additions are in bold print; recommended deletions are in bold print between brackets.] RESOLUTION PROCESS STRUCTURE. The Resolution Process is a two-step process involving a standing (elected) Process Committee and ad hoc Resolution Committees appointed to dispose of each complaint. The Resolution Process functions are in order of importance: 1) fact-finding, 2) education, 3) mediation and reconciliation, and 4) corrective action. The Process Committee (PC) [prosecutor/grand jury function] consists of three people from different chapters who were nominated and elected by the SCC immediately after the SCC approved the Resolution Process. [The three people nominated and elected unanimously were David Adams, Rachel Goodkind and Lynah Linwood] These three people will serve until the SCC has reviewed, ratified or amended the Resolution Process, as described in the final paragraph below, in approximately one year. Upon ratification or amendment of the Process, three people will be elected immediately to serve for one year, two years and three years, respectively. After these initial terms, PC members will be elected to serve three-year terms, and no person may serve on the PC for more than six years under any circumstances. In nominating people to serve on the PC, the SCC will consider the Party's respect for diversity. At no time may all three members of the PC be of the same gender. [Key Values 7 & 8] The Resolution Committee (RC) ... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From edubrule at sbcglobal.net Fri Feb 4 20:49:20 2005 From: edubrule at sbcglobal.net (edubrule) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 20:49:20 -0500 Subject: {news} Lobby Day for Marriage bill (committee hearing) at CT state capitol Monday Feb. 7 (info from Love Makes a Family) Message-ID: <002301c50b25$05421700$91c2f504@edgn2b574u14bi> ----- Original Message ----- From: Kasha Ho [of the American Friends Service Committee] To: Kasha Ho Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 4:42 PM Friends, Love Makes a Family is calling for support at this Monday's Judiciary Committee hearing for the Marriage bill. We mobilized a great turnout last week for the Death Penalty Abolition hearing - Please come in support of equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Here are the details from http://www.lmfct.org/: ? We have just learned that the Judiciary Committee Chairs have scheduled the hearing on a Marriage bill for Monday, February 7th. We have ONE WEEK to show the Connecticut Legislature that denying committed, loving same-sex couples access to marriage is discriminatory and harms families. And we need your help to do that! HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO: 1. Join us on February 7th for a historic day for Marriage Equality at our State Capitol. We need to have a huge turnout, so if you can be there for the entire day, please make the time. We can't think of a better use of a Vacation or Personal Day! (Directions and parking information below.) 2. We will be holding a Lobby Day from 10am to 12noon. This is rewarding and easy to do. Our lobbyists will provide a brief training and then you'll have an opportunity to speak with your legislators about why you support allowing same-sex couples to marry. No experience necessary! 3. The Public Hearing on the Marriage bill before the Judiciary Committee will begin at 1pm and run until 7pm. We would like to have hundreds of supporters present, all wearing our yellow EQUALITY stickers. 4. If you are interested in testifying at the public hearing, please call the LMF office at 860-525-7777. 5. PLEASE take some time today to write a letter to your legislators explaining "Why Marriage is Important to You." Click on http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=BGLMF and you can submit your story online. It will automatically go to your two legislators and the Governor. LMF will get a copy as well that we will use as a foundation of our lobbying efforts this session. Speak from the heart. It is personal stories--much more than facts and figures--that will make legislators understand this issue. Valentine's Day is coming early this year! February 7th is Marriage Equality Day in Connecticut. Join us at the Legislative Office Building on Monday February 7th and be a part of civil rights history. Directions to the Legislative Office Building (The Legislative Office Building is located at 300 Capitol Avenue, Hartford.) Traveling on I-84 East - Take Exit 48, Capitol Avenue, get into the right lane of the exit ramp. At the end of the exit ramp turn right onto Capitol Avenue. Take the first right past the Legislative Office Building, proceed to the back of the garage and take a right to enter the garage using the left hand lane. Traveling on I-84 West - Take Exit 48, towards Asylum Street, go straight onto Spring Street. Turn right onto Asylum Avenue, stay straight onto Farmington Avenue. Turn left at the YWCA (will be diagonally to your left in front of you) onto Broad Street, proceed through two stop lights, immediately after the Armory building take the first left into the driveway and then another left at the end of the driveway. Follow this road around the garage to the back and take a right to enter the garage using the left hand lane. Traveling on I-91 North or South - Take Exit 29A, Capitol Ave., stay over to the far left. You will come to Pulaski Circle, travel halfway around and take a right onto Elm St. Go to the end of Elm St., you are now facing the Capitol Building. Take a left onto Trinity St. At the first traffic light take a right onto Capitol Ave. Go past the Capitol building and the I-84 entrance ramp, all on your right. Take the first right past the Legislative Office Building, proceed to the back of the garage and take a right to enter the garage using the left hand lane. Parking Instructions - Limited public parking is available on level one of the Legislative Office Building. If you park here, take the elevator to the third floor or walk to the top of the stairs (3 flights) and there will be an enclosed foot bridge that will take you into the third floor of the Legislative Office Building. To get a spot in the garage, you need to be there by 8:00 am. Additional Parking Options - a.) There is also parking available on the street next to the parking garage, beginning at 10:00 am. (to get these spots, park you car here at 9:40, and wait in your car until 9:55 so that you don't get a ticket from the Capitol police). b.) Across the street from the Legislative Office Building, and across Capitol Ave. is Hungerford Street. There is street parking in this entire neighborhood, free of charge. c.) When all else fails, on Oak Street (diagonally across to the left from the Legislative Office Building) off of Capitol Ave., there is a public parking garage in the CT Education Association Building (CEA building - across from CT Supreme Court Library). This garage costs money, but will save you the time and aggravation of having to park. ... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From embrancato at netzero.com Sun Feb 6 21:06:21 2005 From: embrancato at netzero.com (Elizabeth M. Brancato) Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 21:06:21 -0500 Subject: {news} Women's Caucus meeting Message-ID: <4206CD1D.8050305@netzero.com> There will be a meeting of the Green Party of CT Women's Caucus, Saturday, February 12, 2005, at 11:00 a.m. Directions to the meeting will be sent to the GP of CT Women's Caucus list serve. Any other woman who wishes to attend can email Kelly McCarthy at kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu for directions. From embrancato at netzero.com Mon Feb 7 19:33:15 2005 From: embrancato at netzero.com (Elizabeth M. Brancato) Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 19:33:15 -0500 Subject: {news} FYI Message-ID: <420808CB.1060003@netzero.com> SPECIAL EVENT ** *Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice* is organizing a one-day workshop on *GI RIGHTS Counseling/Advocacy* **Tuesday, Mar 1, 2005, ****9:30 am to 3:30 pm ****at Charter Oak Cultural Center, 21 Charter Oak Ave, ****Hartford****, ****CT. ****Anticipated cost: $25 (including lunch)** Details of time and cost still to be worked out. **To Register or receive further information: ****aperry7247 at aol.com ****or 203/865-6575** **If you know people who need immediate assistance, please refer them to the Hotline: ****800-394-9544** The primary focus for this training is CT clergy, but the workshop is open to all. The goal is to create a publicly visible network of people in CT to whom military personnel can turn if they are questioning the morality and legality of the war in Iraq and/or are considering conscientious objection. This workshop will provide basic information about legal rights and options available to military personnel. It will also connect you with a network of people who are ready and able to assist with problems/situations you don't know how to address. From capeconn at comcast.net Sun Feb 13 17:00:10 2005 From: capeconn at comcast.net (Tom Sevigny) Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:00:10 -0500 Subject: {news} Strategy meeting Message-ID: <00de01c51217$63683a50$dd8f0218@sevigny8wcbjrd> The continuation of our strategy meeting will be held next Saturday, February 19th, at the New Haven Free Library located at 133 Elm St in New Haven (203-946-8130). The meeting will begin at 12:15pm in the Children's Program room. Please pass the word. We need as many people as possible to attend. Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From edubrule at sbcglobal.net Sun Feb 13 15:31:30 2005 From: edubrule at sbcglobal.net (edubrule) Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 15:31:30 -0500 Subject: {news} Jeff Halper of Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions coming to New England Message-ID: <006801c5120b$68220f50$2c30f704@edgn2b574u14bi> ----- Original Message ----- From: robert vogel To: ctgp at lists.riseup.net Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 3:11 PM Subject: [ctgp] Jeff Halper Jeff Halper, coordinator of ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions) was featured in Justice First Foundation's 30-second and 15-second TV spots. Dr. Halper is also a professor of anthropology and the author of several books. He will be in New England early in March. During his visit, hosted by Dr. Hassan Fouda of Groton, CT, Jeff will give several talks. Here is a tentative schedule: Saturday March 5, 7 PM, Hartford, CT Sponsored by WE REFUSE TO BE ENEMIES, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition and other groups Sunday March 6, 9 AM, First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, CT Sunday March 6, 4 - 7 PM, Fundraising reception at Hassan's house in Groton Long Point, CT Monday March 7 in the afternoon, Salve Regina University class room, Newport, RI Monday March 7, 7 PM Newport (RI) Public Library Tuesday March 8 in the afternoon, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT Tuesday March in the evening, Church presentation, not yet confirmed. Wednesday March 9, 4 PM Wheaton College, Norton, MA Wednesday March 9, 7:30 PM, Brown University, Providence, RI March 10- ?, possibly other appearances in Massachusetts. Thanks to all our friends who have worked to organize this schedule. Jeff also wants to meet with groups of activists and others for brainstorming and fund raising for home rebuilding. He writes: "Among the bases I'm interested in touching are the activist community, churches (and the Jewish community, if possible), students and the media. I would welcome oportunities to meet activist groups for purposes of up-dating on the Israel/Palestine situation, strategizing, etc. I would also appreciate any fund-raising opportunities (home or public gatherings where I could present, or where I could at least pass the hat where appropriate). I promise you an informational and provocative experience." In addition to opposing home demolitions and working to rebuild when homes are demolished, ICAHD has taken a position in favor of divestment. Here is the opening paragraph from ICAHD's statement on the subject: "After years of diplomatic and political efforts aimed at inducing Israel to end its Occupation, while watching it grow ever stronger and more permanent, ICAHD supports a multi-tiered campaign of strategic, selective sanctions against Israel until the Occupation ends; i.e. a campaign targeting Israel's Occupation rather than Israel per se. We believe that in most cases merely enforcing existing laws, international as well as domestic, would render the Occupation untenable and would pull Israel back into compliance with human rights covenants. We also favor selective divestment and boycott as tools of moral and economic pressure." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dbedellgreen at hotmail.com Thu Feb 17 00:41:25 2005 From: dbedellgreen at hotmail.com (David Bedell) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 05:41:25 +0000 Subject: {news} Municipal Elections heads-up Message-ID: Seats for Mayor, Selectperson, Town Council, Board of Education, Constable, etc. will be contested this year. Here are some key dates and info for anyone thinking of running. I believe 2 towns, Weston and Roxbury, will elect their Registrars of Voters (most towns do this in the even-numbered years). A few towns hold their elections in the Spring: Feb 1, 2005 (PAST): deadline for submission of nominating petitions to town clerk or Secy. of the State, to reserve a ballot line in the May municipal elections. March 8, 2005: deadline for minor party to submit nominations, and Statement of Endorsement of petitioning candidates, for May 2 elections. (Written notice of date, time, location and purpose of nominating meeting for municipal office must be filed with municipal clerk, not later than five days before meeting.) May 2, 2005: Municipal General Elections in Andover, Bantam/Litchfield, Bethany, Bolton, Danielson/Killingly, Fenwick/Old Saybrook, Groton, Jewett City/Griswold, Litchfield, Naugatuck, Newtown, Stonington, Union, Woodbridge, Woodmont/Milford. (Since we do not have ballot access in any of these towns, and I assume no one submitted petitions by Feb. 1, the only remaining opportunity is to file as a write-in candidate.) --------------------------------- All other towns in the Fall: Aug 10, 2005: deadline for submission of nominating petitions to town clerk or Secy. of the State, to reserve a ballot line in the Nov. municipal elections. Sept 14, 2005: deadline for minor party to submit nominations, and Statement of Endorsement of petitioning candidates, for Nov 8 elections. (Written notice of date, time, location and purpose of nominating meeting for municipal office must be filed with municipal clerk, not later than five days before meeting.) Nov 8, 2005: Municipal General Elections in all other towns. Election Calendars and forms (Application for Nominating Petitions, Registration of Write-In Candidacy, etc.) are available at http://www.sots.state.ct.us/ElectionsDivision/Elecform.html CT Sec'y of the State, Election Administration homepage: http://www.sots.state.ct.us/ElectionsDivision/Electionindex.html From kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu Thu Feb 17 20:48:28 2005 From: kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu (Kelly McCarthy) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 20:48:28 -0500 Subject: {news} Office Committee Meeting Saturday Message-ID: <200502180148.j1I1mWG29924@easy-designs.net> Anyone interested in attending the Office Committee Meeting, we will be meeting in front of the New Haven Free Public Library on Elm St. (across from the Green) at 10.30 am Saturday, February 19th. We will conclude before the CTGP Stragtegy Meeting begins at 12.15. If you have questions, feel free to call me. Cheers, Kelly McCarthy 203.230.9726 kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chapillsbury at igc.org Fri Feb 18 21:55:21 2005 From: chapillsbury at igc.org (Charlie Pillsbury) Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 21:55:21 -0500 Subject: {news} "a bum move on the part of Ferrucci" Message-ID: <001501c5162e$7405efe0$841efea9@S0031616584> Ken: thanks for your thoughts. I will share them with the listserv and with Ralph, as they are my sentiments exactly. Charlie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kenneth Humphrey" To: "Charlie Pillsbury" Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 6:05 PM Subject: Re: [ctgp] Ralph's Next Campaign > 'Working within the Dem party to change it'. > Seems like a repeat of an old story. I tried this > approach for fifty-five years as many Greens and > fed-up Greens did. I guess I have to reflect I'm not > impressed with this approach. It seems invariably that > third party and independent candidates get coopted by > the two major parties. By doing this no way will a > viable third party ever get a foothold and get > anywhere. Sorry, this seems like a bum move on the > part of Ferrucci. > Ken Humphrey > --- Charlie Pillsbury wrote: >> 02/18/2005 >> Ferrucci becoming Democrat to seek mayoral nod >> Andy Bromage , Register Staff >> >> NEW HAVEN - Ralph Ferrucci says he's joining >> the city's Democratic >> Party to change it. >> Today, he'll announce he's running for mayor >> as a registered Democrat, >> which probably means he will have to force a primary >> in September against >> longtime incumbent John DeStefano Jr. >> >> >> Ferrucci said he will work inside the party to >> convince them he is the >> right choice for mayor. >> >> "To affect real change, I have to go inside >> (the party)," Ferrucci >> said Thursday. "There are many more people to sway >> inside the tent than >> outside the tent." >> >> Ferrucci, 33, a trucker and visual artist, >> will formally announce his >> candidacy at 7 tonight at Rudy's Bar, 372 Elm St. >> >> "This is actually going to be a very serious >> campaign," Ferrucci said. >> "We'll raise as much money as we can and run a >> high-budget campaign." >> >> DeStefano, who is seeking his party's >> nomination to run for governor >> in 2006, has said he welcomes challengers. >> >> Ferrucci mounted a spirited, but cash-strapped >> campaign for Congress >> with the Green Party last fall against U.S. Rep. >> Rosa DeLauro, D-3. He won >> two percent of the vote. >> >> In 2003, he ran for mayor on the Guilty Party >> ticket. >> >> Ferrucci said his platform will center on >> lowering taxes and pushing >> new environmental initiatives. >> >> "There just seems to be more taxes any time >> the mayor needs something >> done," he said. "We should be looking at other >> options, not taxes." >> >> Ferrucci is the third person to announce his >> candidacy for mayor. >> >> Two others are mulling a run. >> >> "The more candidates running against DeStefano >> the more likely he'll >> win," said Thomas Holahan, 64, a former alderman >> running as an independent. >> "They split up the anti-DeStefano vote." >> >> By tackling the environment, Ferrucci will >> challenge DeStefano on >> issues many consider to be the mayor's strong suit. >> >> DeStefano, a six-term incumbent, has >> championed clean air and energy >> initiatives, retrofitted school buses to run cleaner >> and ditched his >> gas-guzzling SUV for a hybrid car. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> City Editor David McClendon contributed to >> this report. Andy Bromage >> can be reached at abromage at nhregister.com or >> 789-5714. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From edubrule at sbcglobal.net Sat Feb 19 00:52:20 2005 From: edubrule at sbcglobal.net (edubrule) Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 00:52:20 -0500 Subject: {news} Feb 22,2005 SCC agenda Message-ID: <006901c51648$76ae7bd0$318cf504@edgn2b574u14bi> Agenda--Feb 22, 2005 SCC meeting Time: 7-9pm Location: Wesleyan University, Middletown CT, Fisk Hall Room 302. Take Rt. 9 to Exit 15 onto Rt. 66 West (Washington Street). Proceed uphill on Rt. 66 (Washington Street) for about 1/2 mile to the 4th traffic light and turn left onto High St. Fisk Hall is located at 262 High Street, 2 blocks down on the left at the 2nd traffic light (corner of High & College Streets). Go to www.wesleyan.edu for a campus map. On the homepage click on "About Wesleyan", then click on "campus map". Select Fisk Hall in the drop-down list and Fisk Hall turns orange on the map. Parking: From High Street turn left onto College Street and turn left again into the parking lot located in back of the Fisk Hall. No parking permit is needed. Facilitator: Aaron Gustafson Special note to chapter reps: to make SCC meetings as productive as possible, please make every effort to come prepared to vote on each issue in the agenda. Members of the Executive Committee are more than willing to answer questions--as they have knowledge--about agenda items, or the committees, chapters, or groups of 5-or-more Greens that proposed agenda items can be contacted. A. PRELIMINARIES 1. (2 minutes) Introductions/identify chapter reps, recruit stacker and timekeeper 2. (1 minute) Identify people present who are NOT voting reps (information needed by secretary) 3. (1 minute) Adopt groundrules (last page of this agenda) 4. (2 minutes) Approval of tonight's proposed agenda/additions and deletions 5. (2 minutes) Comments/approval of November, January 4, and January 25 (Jan 25 quorumless) SCC minutes 6. (5 minutes) Treasurer's report --Problem of mailing bureau bill for December fundraising letter exceeding $955 (Appendix 1) 7. (10 minutes) Guest slot (if a guest is present, he/she will speak here). B. OLD BUSINESS AND PROPOSALS 1. (15 minutes) Proposal from internal elections committee (Appendix 2) 2. (20 minutes) Proposal from Office Committee (Appendix 3) C. REPORTS 1. Chapter reports (1 minute each) 2. (20 minutes) Internal Elections Committee ----including a discussion of how long current officers are to serve 3. (10 minutes) Elections Committee 4. (2 minutes) Women's Caucus 5. (5 minutes) Report from US Green Party representatives 6. (5 minutes) Legislative report (Mike) 7. (2 minutes) VOTER (Mike) D. NEW BUSINESS 1. (5 minutes) Select replacement on Process Committee for Rachel Goodkind, who has moved from Connecticut --must be female (Appendix 4) E. ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix 1 Proposal from Executive Committee on fundraising letter, passed by October 2004 SCC meeting Green Party Meeting Proposal Form PRESENTER: Executive Committee CONTACT: Elizabeth M. Brancato, 19 Smith Street, Torrington, CT 06790, embrancato at netzero.com SUBJECT: Fund-raising Letter BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The Green Party of Connecticut is in need of funds. In the past, most of the operating funds of the Party have come from Fund-raising mailings. In the past they have raised about $3,000. to $6,000. Mike DeRosa has obtained the following quote for a mailing of 2,000 letters from American Mailing Services, New Milford, CT: 1. Download our database and setup format and printer. CASS certify the database. Insert pieces into #10 envelopes (one page, 8-1/2X11, folded). Direct address pieces, sort, tray/bag, tag and deliver to Post Office- $235.00 2. Postage - $420.00 3. Copy the 1-page letter and insert a small return envelope. - $200.00-$300.00 TOTAL - $855.00 - $955.00. The postage amount would be paid before the mailing went out, and the balance could be paid within thirty days. PROPOSAL (200 words or less): We propose that the SCC approve this expenditure, and that the mailing takes place the second week of November, 2004. ---------------------------------------------------------- Appendix 2. Internal elections proposal. Green Party Meeting Proposal Form PRESENTER : internal elections committee CONTACT: Jean de Smet, 39 Davis St. Willimantic CT 06226, 860-456-2188, JeandeSmet at galaxyinternet.net SUBJECT: funding appropriation for 2005 internal elections/annual meeting BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE : annually the CTGP holds internal elections and an annual meeting PROPOSAL: (1) A full ballot package will be sent to those Greens who voted in the 2004 internal elections, either by mail or at the annual meeting, including those whose ballots were received too late to be counted. This totals 177 people. (2) Other CTGP members may be sent a full ballot, depending on funds available. Pledges will be solicited to send full ballots to as many people as possible. Full ballot mailings will sent in the following order, as funds permit: Greens who registered within the past year; then to all registered Greens; then to all other members. The deadline for fundraising is February 6th. All other CTGP members will be sent a postcard. (3) The full ballot package will contain up to 12 sides (6 pages) (may vary depending on the number of candidates) and (optionally) a return envelope. Side 1: ballot (printed in green ink) Side 2: page inviting people to the annual meeting and explaining the voting process (on the back of the ballot) Sides 3-8: candidate statements (last year this was 6 single-sided pages) Side 9: information about CTGP/donation request Side 10: donation form Side 11: contact information about CTGP (one side) Side 12: description of Annual Meeting (one side) (4) The postcard will contain: **phone number and e-mail address for obtaining a ballot package by mail **date/time/place of annual meeting and candidate forum(s) **additional information on the CTGP as space allows (5) Cost estimates: One estimate (based on figures provided by Gulemo Printing, Willimantic) is: $357 Printing/addressing 2800 small (5 1/2" x 4 1/4") postcards 300 Printing/stuffing/addressing 200 full ballot packages 560 Postage for 2800 postcards ($0.20 x 2800 postcards) 74 Postage for 200 full ballot packages ($0.37 x 200) (two hundred may not be enough for bulk mail) 75 Room rental (possibly Greater New Haven Labor Council, 267 Chapel St.) -------------------- $1,366 total ----------------------------------------------------- E-mail from Gulemo Printing: Hi Jean, I will be assuming the 12 sides look the same as last time. First let me tell you that we can not be sure about the postage, That depends on the address list. Our best guess is about 20 cents per postcard & about 22 cents per letter. 200 letters (option 1) might not work to bulk mail. They might have to go first class. Postcards come in different sizes. I will give you 2 samples. Prices are including printing, stuffing addressing & mailing. Postage is NOT included. Option 1 2800 Postcards size 8 ?" x 5 ?" = $501.00, size 5 ?" x 4 ?" = $357.00 200 Full mailings = $300.00 (Totals $801.00 and $657.00, respectively) Option 2 2000 postcards size 8 ?"x 5 ?" = $381.00, size 5 ?" x 4 ?" = $272.00 1000 full mailings = $1000.00 (Totals $1,381.00 and $1,272.00, respectively) Option 3 3000 full mailings = $2600.00 Additional information received from mailing bureau: Note that these options do not include postage. ------------------------------------------------------- Appendix 3. Office Committee Proposal. CONNECTICUT GREEN PARTY PROPOSAL FORM: PRESENTER: Office Committee CONTACT: Kelly McCarthy, 83 Treadwell St., Hamden, CT 06517, 203-230-9726, kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu SUBJECT : Vote of SCC's Chapter/Caucus Reps on the Office Committee's Feasibility Report BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The Office Committee, charged with examining and reporting on the feasibility of continuing to support the office space in Hartford and the associated insurance issues, will have completed their report to the SCC. PROPOSAL: We propose that the SCC vote on the recommendations presented in the Office Committee's Feasibility Report. ------------------------------------------------------- Appendix 4 Excerpt from Conflict Resolution Process, revised after 1 year's experience. [NOTE: explanatory notes between brackets and in italics were not approved by the SCC and are not part of the Resolution Process, but reflect comments made at the April 2003 SCC meeting when the Resolution Process was adopted; recommended additions are in bold print; recommended deletions are in bold print between brackets.] RESOLUTION PROCESS STRUCTURE. The Resolution Process is a two-step process involving a standing (elected) Process Committee and ad hoc Resolution Committees appointed to dispose of each complaint. The Resolution Process functions are in order of importance: 1) fact-finding, 2) education, 3) mediation and reconciliation, and 4) corrective action. The Process Committee (PC) [prosecutor/grand jury function] consists of three people from different chapters who were nominated and elected by the SCC immediately after the SCC approved the Resolution Process. [The three people nominated and elected unanimously were David Adams, Rachel Goodkind and Lynah Linwood] These three people will serve until the SCC has reviewed, ratified or amended the Resolution Process, as described in the final paragraph below, in approximately one year. Upon ratification or amendment of the Process, three people will be elected immediately to serve for one year, two years and three years, respectively. After these initial terms, PC members will be elected to serve three-year terms, and no person may serve on the PC for more than six years under any circumstances. In nominating people to serve on the PC, the SCC will consider the Party's respect for diversity. At no time may all three members of the PC be of the same gender. [Key Values 7 & 8] The Resolution Committee (RC) ... ------------------------------------------------------------------- ground rules as last page -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu Mon Feb 14 18:39:32 2005 From: kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu (Kelly McCarthy) Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:39:32 -0500 Subject: {news} CTGP SCC Office Committee Meeting Message-ID: <200502142339.j1ENded10509@easy-designs.net> CT Green Party SCC - Office Committee I. Original Proposal from Fairfield chapter on setting up Office Committee (Appendix 5) Eddie Friend presented the proposal. Echoing the language in the proposal, Eddie said that people from chapters that favor state funding of an office could come to a meeting of this committee and bring ideas for fundraising. People from chapters that don't favor state funding of an office could come with insurance information. Tim, Lynah, Mike, and Eddie wish to serve on this committee; SCC DECISION: the proposal was passed by consensus. ---------------------------------------------- Appendix 5 CONNECTICUT GREEN PARTY PROPOSAL FORM PRESENTER (committee, chapter(s),or group of individuals): Fairfield County Greens CONTACT (name, address, phone number, email): Eddie Friend, P.O. Box 1747 Darien, CT 06820, 203-854-5900, Route12eddie at aol.com SUBJECT (10 words or less): Creation of Office Committee BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE (100 words or less; including relationship, reasons, and/or justification to the State Central Committee) The office space rented in Hartford has become a contentious issue which has disrupted the SCC. This committee would be charged with formulating a plan that would consider the feasibility of continuing to support the office space and the associated insurance issues PROPOSAL: (200 words or less) We propose that the Office Committee be formed to prepare a report to the SCC concerning the future of the office space in Hartford. The committee would have two main considerations. If the office is to remain open, how would it be funded? If the office were to be shut, how would the state party maintain the liability insurance that is necessary for chapters to hold events? This committee would recognize the need for a timely report and recommendation to be made to the SCC in order to resolve this issue. II. January 25, 2005- Requested by SCC to convene before next meeting III. Draft of Specific Questions to Address in Office Committee Report: (Prepared by Kelly McCarthy, Hamden Chapter) Office Use- 1. % of meetings/events held there by the State Party in 2001-2004 2. % of meetings/events held there by individual Chapters (other than Hartford) in 2004 3. Examine feasibility of maintaining an office space for the State Party given history of use and projected use in 2005 Funds- 1. Total % of all State funds (expenses and earnings) spent on office (not including insurance costs) in 2004 2. Amount necessary to keep office running (State's monthly portion) 3. Amount available @ present in State funds for office 4. Amount earned by State @ office events/for operations (total 2004) 5. % of State debt accrued from office operation (including debts owed to State from Hartford Chapter) 6. Balance of debt/credit for all Chapters; % of total debt 7. Fundraising plan (provided by supporters of office; should address current/fixed expenses as well as previous debts) 8. Examine feasibility of fundraising plan given current debt/income ratio Insurance- 1. Cost for office insurance (yearly/monthly) 2. Total cost for additional event riders (not covered by office policy in 2004) 3. Insurance plan (cost estimate from 2 additional insurers for same coverage & number/type of events without maintaining insurance for office; cost per event vs. general liability coverage) 4. Examine feasibility of insurance options w/out office given current debt/income ratio The report of the Office Committee will be accompanied by a Proposal calling for a vote by the SCC to resolve this issue. IV. Meeting of Office Committee: Saturday, February 19th (before next planning session), in New Haven/Location TBA, 10.30-Noon All Greens interested in providing information regarding fundraising plans and/or insurance coverage are welcome to attend. This is a fact-finding Committee, not a debate over the merits of the office. If you feel other questions need to be addressed by this Committee, please reply to this email. Any materials provided must be substantiated in order to be considered by the Committee for its Report to the SCC. The Office Committee will present all findings to the SCC in order to facilitate the voting Reps in making an informed decision. If you are unable to attend, or simply would prefer not to, you can send your information re: fundraising and/or insurance to Kelly McCarthy (kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu; phone 203-230-9726) or Tim McKee (timmckee at sbcglobal.net), and it will be distributed and considered by the Office Committee. Cheers, Kelly McCarthy Treasurer, Hamden Green Party 203.230.9726 kelly.mccarthy at aya.yale.edu "Well-behaved women seldom make history" --Laurel Thatcher Ulrich -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From demac at galaxyinternet.net Fri Feb 18 09:29:26 2005 From: demac at galaxyinternet.net (Jean de Smet) Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:29:26 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: HELP on picket line Sat am Message-ID: <007101c515c6$9aef2940$dbb9f504@jeansmet> Please read the following message, and help if you can? Fletcher is an IBEW member who works statewide on Labor issues. He was responsible to a large degree for exposing the egregious construction labor violations at UConn. He's a great friend and supporter. If anyone is going to the game, pls help on the picket line. And send this to anyone you know who has tickets, too? Thanks, Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fletcher Fischer" Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 7:35 AM Subject: HELP > Dear Friends: > I am making a last minute appeal to those of you whose picket lines, demonstrations and rallies I've been at to return the favor for a very important picket line tomorrow, yes that's right Saturday February 19th. I represent the workers at WVIT NBC30 who are fighting back against NBC/GE who are trying to force their photographers and live truck operators to do both jobs simultaneously. This is extremely unsafe and they have implemented these conditions for the last year. We have had accidents and too many close calls but they insist on this new combination of jobs We are at the bargaining table now and they won't budge on the issue. We have filed grievances and are waiting for an arbitration date. > > Sorry for the late notice but the bargaining talks seemed to be going nowhere this week and we could not pass up this opportunity to hit the public. > > This is the second time the workers have hit the sidewalks in the last three weeks and that is a huge achievement in this bargaining unit. Please come and spend a little time with us at the Hartford Civic center just before the UCONN women's game (11:30am - 2:00pm) bring a sign in support or let me know you are coming and I'll make one for you. > > Please pas this on to anyone you think would like to come as well. If you are going to the game leave a little early and join us for our pregame show. > > please visit our website www.NBC30unfair.com > > Thanks, > > Fletcher Fischer > From demac at galaxyinternet.net Fri Feb 18 09:32:47 2005 From: demac at galaxyinternet.net (Jean de Smet) Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:32:47 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: HELP on picket line Sat am Message-ID: <007801c515c6$bf806da0$dbb9f504@jeansmet> Please read the following message, and help if you can? Fletcher is an IBEW member who works statewide on Labor issues. He was responsible to a large degree for exposing the egregious construction labor violations at UConn. He's a great friend and supporter. If anyone is going to the game, pls help on the picket line. And send this to anyone you know who has tickets, too? Thanks, Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fletcher Fischer" Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 7:35 AM Subject: HELP > Dear Friends: > I am making a last minute appeal to those of you whose picket lines, demonstrations and rallies I've been at to return the favor for a very important picket line tomorrow, yes that's right Saturday February 19th. I represent the workers at WVIT NBC30 who are fighting back against NBC/GE who are trying to force their photographers and live truck operators to do both jobs simultaneously. This is extremely unsafe and they have implemented these conditions for the last year. We have had accidents and too many close calls but they insist on this new combination of jobs We are at the bargaining table now and they won't budge on the issue. We have filed grievances and are waiting for an arbitration date. > > Sorry for the late notice but the bargaining talks seemed to be going nowhere this week and we could not pass up this opportunity to hit the public. > > This is the second time the workers have hit the sidewalks in the last three weeks and that is a huge achievement in this bargaining unit. Please come and spend a little time with us at the Hartford Civic center just before the UCONN women's game (11:30am - 2:00pm) bring a sign in support or let me know you are coming and I'll make one for you. > > Please pas this on to anyone you think would like to come as well. If you are going to the game leave a little early and join us for our pregame show. > > please visit our website www.NBC30unfair.com > > Thanks, > > Fletcher Fischer > From demac at galaxyinternet.net Fri Feb 18 09:32:54 2005 From: demac at galaxyinternet.net (Jean de Smet) Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:32:54 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: HELP on picket line Sat am Message-ID: <007901c515c6$c83d5de0$dbb9f504@jeansmet> Please read the following message, and help if you can? Fletcher is an IBEW member who works statewide on Labor issues. He was responsible to a large degree for exposing the egregious construction labor violations at UConn. He's a great friend and supporter. If anyone is going to the game, pls help on the picket line. And send this to anyone you know who has tickets, too? Thanks, Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fletcher Fischer" Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 7:35 AM Subject: HELP > Dear Friends: > I am making a last minute appeal to those of you whose picket lines, demonstrations and rallies I've been at to return the favor for a very important picket line tomorrow, yes that's right Saturday February 19th. I represent the workers at WVIT NBC30 who are fighting back against NBC/GE who are trying to force their photographers and live truck operators to do both jobs simultaneously. This is extremely unsafe and they have implemented these conditions for the last year. We have had accidents and too many close calls but they insist on this new combination of jobs We are at the bargaining table now and they won't budge on the issue. We have filed grievances and are waiting for an arbitration date. > > Sorry for the late notice but the bargaining talks seemed to be going nowhere this week and we could not pass up this opportunity to hit the public. > > This is the second time the workers have hit the sidewalks in the last three weeks and that is a huge achievement in this bargaining unit. Please come and spend a little time with us at the Hartford Civic center just before the UCONN women's game (11:30am - 2:00pm) bring a sign in support or let me know you are coming and I'll make one for you. > > Please pas this on to anyone you think would like to come as well. If you are going to the game leave a little early and join us for our pregame show. > > please visit our website www.NBC30unfair.com > > Thanks, > > Fletcher Fischer > From demac at galaxyinternet.net Fri Feb 18 09:33:26 2005 From: demac at galaxyinternet.net (Jean de Smet) Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 09:33:26 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: HELP on picket line Sat am Message-ID: <007e01c515c6$d6e88e00$dbb9f504@jeansmet> Please read the following message, and help if you can? Fletcher is an IBEW member who works statewide on Labor issues. He was responsible to a large degree for exposing the egregious construction labor violations at UConn. He's a great friend and supporter. If anyone is going to the game, pls help on the picket line. And send this to anyone you know who has tickets, too? Thanks, Jean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fletcher Fischer" Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 7:35 AM Subject: HELP > Dear Friends: > I am making a last minute appeal to those of you whose picket lines, demonstrations and rallies I've been at to return the favor for a very important picket line tomorrow, yes that's right Saturday February 19th. I represent the workers at WVIT NBC30 who are fighting back against NBC/GE who are trying to force their photographers and live truck operators to do both jobs simultaneously. This is extremely unsafe and they have implemented these conditions for the last year. We have had accidents and too many close calls but they insist on this new combination of jobs We are at the bargaining table now and they won't budge on the issue. We have filed grievances and are waiting for an arbitration date. > > Sorry for the late notice but the bargaining talks seemed to be going nowhere this week and we could not pass up this opportunity to hit the public. > > This is the second time the workers have hit the sidewalks in the last three weeks and that is a huge achievement in this bargaining unit. Please come and spend a little time with us at the Hartford Civic center just before the UCONN women's game (11:30am - 2:00pm) bring a sign in support or let me know you are coming and I'll make one for you. > > Please pas this on to anyone you think would like to come as well. If you are going to the game leave a little early and join us for our pregame show. > > please visit our website www.NBC30unfair.com > > Thanks, > > Fletcher Fischer > From demac at galaxyinternet.net Sat Feb 19 11:36:29 2005 From: demac at galaxyinternet.net (Jean de Smet) Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 11:36:29 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: [nievesformayor] Hello Members Message-ID: <005601c516a1$2b804720$12eff504@jeansmet> ----- Original Message ----- From: Miguel Angel Nieves To: nievesformayor at yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 8:47 AM Subject: [nievesformayor] Hello Members I have a few topics that I need to share wih you. 1)What do you think about Police Brutality? 2)Do you find that New Britain have a need to correct this? 3)What do you think about the State taking over education cost 100%? Our next meeting in New Britain will be on February 20th, 2005. We are meeting at El Pegaito Cafe located on 50 West Main Street, New Britain and meeting start at 2:30pm. Come to our "Dinner Fund-raising to aid Nieves For Mayor Campaign" The Nieves For Mayor Committee will host a seat down dinner event at Armanis Restaurant, 516 Main Street New Britain. We will be having a special guest speaker. The public in general is invited and the cost is $15.00 per person. The dinner will be from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. Be aware that the Nieves For Mayor Committee will be interview on WXCT Super Max 990 AM. On February 21, 2005. The time of this interview will be from 12 to 12:30 noon time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links a.. To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nievesformayor/ b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: nievesformayor-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From justinemccabe at earthlink.net Mon Feb 21 22:00:11 2005 From: justinemccabe at earthlink.net (Justine McCabe) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 22:00:11 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: USGP-INT European Constitution Referendum Message-ID: <001c01c5188a$a7c4e760$0402a8c0@JUSTINE> FYI, Justine McCabe ----- Original Message ----- From: Tamara Muruetagoiena To: usgp-int Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 9:30 PM Subject: USGP-INT European Constitution Referendum Dear all, Spain was yesterday the first country in the Eurpean Union to vote on the wrongly named European Constitution (it's not really a new Constitution but a new Treaty). The turnout was very low 42% and the results were as follows: YES 76% NO 17% BLANC (none of the above) 6% The green parties were divided during the campaing, Los Verdes (Spanish Greens) campaigned for the YES and ICV-Els Verds (Catalan Greens) for the NO. Interstingly the Basque Contry had the highest turnout of negative votes of all regions, and there are no Basque greens. If any one wants mote detailed information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Best regards Tamara -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From edubrule at sbcglobal.net Wed Feb 23 22:37:12 2005 From: edubrule at sbcglobal.net (edubrule) Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:37:12 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: AFSC CT Calendar of Upcoming Events Message-ID: <075101c51a31$54c6c6c0$32a4f504@edgn2b574u14bi> ----- Original Message ----- From: Kasha Ho To: Kasha Ho Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 7:16 PM Subject: AFSC CT Calendar of Upcoming Events Friends, In the interest of not overloading your email inboxes, I have put together an AFSC Calendar of upcoming Peace and Social Justice events for the next few weeks. This list is by no means complete, so if you have an event that you would like folks to know about please send me an email and I will include it on the next calendar I send out. Please note especially our preparations for a statewide Anti-War Demonstration in Hartford on March 19th. To download fliers in English and Spanish please visit: http://www.tariffville.org/ccpj. Keep up the good work. Events are listed in chronological order: Every Saturday until March 19th Person to Person Outreach for March 19 Demonstration Also in New Haven - contact AFSC 860.523.1534 for info. 10:00am- 12:00noon La Paloma Sabanera coffeehouse, 405 Capitol Avenue in Hartford. We have had fabulous results with this effort - I highly encourage you to participate. After a brief training, we'll walk in pairs through the neighborhoods, with maps and literature, knocking on doors and asking people to march with us. The more people on the doors, the more people coming to the march. If you are planning on coming, please contact Caitlynne Palmieri at 860-547-0122 or caitlynnep at hotmail.com Every Tuesday until March 19th Organizing Meeting for March 19 Anti-War Demonstration 7:30 p.m. CT Green Party HQ, 418A New Britain Ave. Hartford Contact: AFSC 860.523.1534 Thursday, February 24 Mubarak Awad, "Nonviolence and the Palestinian Struggle." 7 PM in Harry Jack Gray Center Room D, University of Hartford. Awad is Founder and Director of Nonviolence International and the Founder and Director in Exile of the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence in Jerusalem. The Center provides educational materials on nonviolent resistance and coordination and support for direct nonviolent resistant actions of people living under occupation. The work of the Center includes a family reunification project and the publication and translation of writings on the theory and practice of nonviolence into Arabic. Awad has worked for nonviolent solutions to the Palestinian and Israeli conflict by speaking to organizations in the United States and abroad advocating human rights, children's rights, and the implementation of governmental policies that will improve the lives of young people and their families. Contact Tim Black: tblack at hartford.edu Friday, February 25 Hope Out Loud Coffeehouse 7:00pm to 9:30 PM. Art Space Gallery - 555 Asylum Avenue, Hartford (free parking in rear - be sure to get a parking pass when you arrive) The February HOL Coffeehouse will be a special benefit to support the March 19th March and Rally to End the War in Iraq. Support the March and Rally while enjoying good music, good company and a commitment to End the War in Iraq. Children bring your parents. Saturday, February 26 AFSC Material Assistance Tag Sale To benefit Men of Color Initiative and Tsunami Relief Saturday, February 26th from 9:30 AM until 2:00 PM at the Hartford Friends Meeting House, 144 S. Quaker Lane, West Hartford, CT. Please plan to stop by and visit if you can! There will be bargain prices on donated items such as clothing, jewelry, games, artwork, household items and other miscellaneous TREASURES! If you would like a SNEAK PREVIEW or to donate items for the sale, you may stop by the Meeting House on Friday evening from 5:00 PM until 8:00 PM. We will be setting up and pricing items at that time. If you would like to volunteer to help set up, price and cleanup, please contact Marcia Morris 617.876.5312; mmorris at afsc.org Saturday, February 26 No Sweat CT Student Summit 12:30 - 5pm Marcus White Living Room, Central CT State University The CT legislature is currently considering a bill to ensure that all uniforms (and possibly other items) purchased by the state would be produced in factories and washed in laundries where workers earn a living wage and their rights are respected. Please come join students throughout the state at this important gathering of students from throughout CT. This will not be a typical lecture-centered workshop, but rather an opportunity for students to interact and discuss the ways in which students can play a key role in fighting for the most progressive anti-sweatshop law in the nation. There will be refreshments. Please invite any and all CT students you know who might be interested. Contact: Kath Golub (860) 349-6925 Saturday, February 26 Counter Recruitment Training Workshop Pope Park Recreation Center 1:00 - 4:00pm We have a stellar group of folks currently advising High School students about alternatives to military recruitment. They have been active and successful at area high schools and are providing a training workshop for others interested in joining this effort. People in communities around the country are engaged in Counter Recruitment efforts. Please spread the word about this training, and contact us if you're interested in attending. Contact: Marela Zacarias (860) 538-3921; marela_lamp at yahoo.com or Ana Lachelier (860) 232-0248; alachelier at aol.com Tuesday, March 1 GI RIGHTS Counseling/Advocacy 9:30 am to 4:00 pm (gathering at 9:00) Charter Oak Cultural Center, 21 Charter Oak Ave, Hartford, CT Cost: $25 (including lunch) or $15 (without lunch) This fee covers the cost of handouts, but supplemental materials (including the comprehensive manual referenced below) will be available for purchase at additional cost. REGISTRATION REQUIRED Space limited to 25 participants, so please register early. NOTE: If you are interested in this workshop, but the date does not work for you, please let us know because we hope to organize additional sessions in the coming months. Trainers: Robert Dove and Sam Diener regional staff for American Friends Service Committee To REGISTER or request further information: aperry7247 at aol.com or 203/865-6575 Wednesday, March 2 Mayors for Peace Statewide Organizing Meeting 6:30pm Church of the Holy Trinity, 381 Main Street, Middletown, CT Join and report back on the progress of the Connecticut effort to abolish nuclear weapons through grassroots organizing in our own communities. Contact AFSC to get involved: 860.523.1534 Saturday, March 5 Professor Jeff Halper Coordinating Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions 7:00 p.m. Charter Oak Cultural Center 21 Charter Oak Ave, Hartford CT 06106 Co-Sponsored by: Palestine Right To Return Coalition (www.al-awda.org) American Friends Service Committee (www.afsc.org) Council for National Interest (www.cnionline.org) Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (www.ICAHD.org) If Americans Knew(www.ifamericansknew.org) Connecticut United for Peace (CTUP) Middle East Crisis Committee Driving directions: www.charteroakcenter.org/contactus.htm Sunday, March 6 Professor Jeff Halper "In Search of Peace and Justice in Palestine/Israel" 9:00am First Congregational Church, Old Lyme, CT Wednesday, March 9 Chris Doucot, "When Never Again Happens Again: Genocide in Sudan," 7:00pm Harry Jack Gray Center, Room D, University of Hartford. Chris is a founding member of the Hartford Catholic Worker, and will present a power-point slide presentation on his recent trip to Sudan. He will be returning to the refugee camps in the Darfur area in April. Contact Tim Black: tblack at hartford.edu Saturday, March 12 Women Working in Maquilas 2:00pm Webster Hall, West Hartford Public Library 20 South Main Street, West Hartford Nicaraguans Jaquelene Sevilla Gaitan and Maria Dolores Roblero will speak from their own experience about the dismal working conditions at sweatshops in "free trade" zones, and the threats workers face when they stand up for their rights. Together they will share stories of hope and resistance. Katherine Stecher, representing the Nicaragua Network, a national Nicaragua solidarity organization, and Campaign for Labor Rights, a grass-roots anti-sweatshop group, will speak on supporting workers' struggles around the world. SweatFree Communities organizer Liana Foxvog will present on how to get involved in the current campaign for a State of Connecticut "sweatshop-free" purchasing policy, and how it is part of an international movement strategy. Katherine will translate. Contact Liana Foxvog: liana at sweatfree.org WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16 Connecticut's Next Voting Machines 7 - 9 P.M. WEST HARTFORD TOWN HALL Panel discussion, contact Rich Sivel: 860.231.7428 TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2005 Nuclear Proliferation with Jonathan Schell 7 - 9 P.M. WEST HARTFORD TOWN HALL Will be mobilizing for May 1st rally in NYC in preparation of the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Looking for sponsors and cosponsors now. Contact Joe Wasserman: 860.561.1897 or Mims Butterworth: 860.521.9506 Save The Date: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20 Amy Goodman Time TBA Conard High School Auditorium, 110 Beechwood Road West Hartford Talk and book signing, cosponsors needed. Contact Kathy Hucks: 860.561.8401 Kasha Ho'okili Ho American Friends Service Committee Hartford, Connecticut phone: 860.523.1534 fax: 860.523.1705 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chapillsbury at igc.org Thu Feb 24 10:06:29 2005 From: chapillsbury at igc.org (Charlie Pillsbury) Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 10:06:29 -0500 Subject: {news} DU Action at West Haven VA medical center Fri. 4:30 p.m. Message-ID: <002501c51a82$6b637d00$6901a8c0@EXDIR04> PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY Pro-veteran protest set at VA hospital Marissa Yaremich , Register Staff, 02/24/2005 WEST HAVEN - Inspired by a New Haven soldier's compelling argument at the state Capitol two weeks ago, several pro-veteran groups, including the New Haven Green Party, plan to fight for soldiers' rights outside the Veteran Affairs medical center Friday. Demonstrators plan to gather at 4:30 p.m. near the VA's front wall to oppose the U.S.-led war in Iraq and slashed medical benefits for veterans, as well as to advocate for a bill to safeguard the health of the state's military. The proposal would require all soldiers from Connecticut serving in Iraq or Afghanistan to "be independently screened for exposure to depleted uranium upon return to the state." Stanley Heller, a member of West Haven Speaks Out, said the citizens group was formed in part after Persian Gulf War veteran Melissa Sterry recounted to lawmakers Feb. 10 the numerous chronic medical problems she has suffered since her contact with depleted-uranium ammunition and armor. Sterry, who served in Kuwait during the Gulf War, is locking horns with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs over her medical coverage. Sterry has suffered a variety of health problems. Depleted uranium is used to reinforce military vehicles or munitions in order to penetrate armor plate. In October, the Department of Defense released a study that found that inhaling airborne particles produces "very low" health risks. A Defense-sponsored five-year study by an independent research institute said that even "in extreme cases, exposure to 'aerosolized' depleted uranium did not pose a health risk." The World Health Organization's Web site says depleted uranium exposes people to radioactivity 60 percent of that of natural uranium. An April 2001 report by the WHO stated that touching or ingesting depleted uranium causes the body to absorb it, potentially causing kidney and lung damage. Sterry reported headaches, muscle spasms, chronic pneumonia and three heart attacks since her exposure to the metal in 1991-92. "We urge Connecticut residents to contact their (General Assembly) representatives this week," said Heller, who is not a veteran. http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14024009&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=517514&rfi=6 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From timmckee at sbcglobal.net Thu Feb 24 14:19:44 2005 From: timmckee at sbcglobal.net (Tim McKee) Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:19:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: {news} Nader announces "Democracy Rising" STOP THE WAR CAMPAIGN Message-ID: <20050224191944.82761.qmail@web81105.mail.yahoo.com> Nader Announces Democracy Rising 'Stop the War' Campaign --------------------------------- News Advisory: -- Nader Announces Democracy Rising 'Stop the War' Campaign -- Highlights "Institutionalization of Corruption and Secrecy"; Calls for End to Bush Family War Profiteering and Urges Iraq Commission to Open Its' Findings WHAT: Press Conference announcing: Democracy Rising 'Stop the War' Campaign Two Reports: Bush Family War Profiteering; The Institutionalization of Corruption WHERE: National Press Club, Zenger Room, 529 14th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. WHEN: Noon, Thursday, Feb. 24 DETAILS: In announcing the 'Stop the War' Campaign of Democracy Rising, Ralph Nader today urged more public and Congressional focus on the "institutionalization of corruption and secrecy that is taking hold in Washington, D.C., particularly in the military budget and its corporate contractors, as a result of the Iraq War." Nader made this point at the announcement of a new project the 'Stop the War' campaign being conducted by Democracy Rising. ( See http://www.DemocracyRising.US. ) Kevin Zeese, who is directing the project, said: "The goal of our campaign is the responsible withdrawal of U.S. troops and corporate interests from Iraq. We want to bring the troops home safely, as soon as possible." The website includes their three point plan for a responsible withdrawal from Iraq. Nader pointed to the insider deals that are profiting Bush family members and their long-term political allies. Nader urged the media and Congress to "investigate what may be the biggest war profiteering First Family in history." A report on Bush family members and their close associates unethically profiting from the war and occupation of Iraq will be provided at the event. Nader also pointed to the Iraq Commission criticizing its secrecy. This Commission was created by President Bush in response to David Kay's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Kay reported to Congress the failure of his 1,500 person inspection team to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and flatly asserted "we got it wrong," in response President Bush created an independent commission to study Iraq intelligence failures. Thus far, the Commission which includes Sen. McCain of 'plain talk express' fame has said its' report will not be made public. "The institutionalization of secrecy is damaging to a democratic society already depleted by Bush secrecy and Bush assaults. How can the public officially know how and when its' leaders misled the nation into war -- the most important decision a president can make -- when the Commission appointed to examine the matter has operated in complete secrecy and will be reporting in complete secrecy," said Nader. "The American people deserve to know how and when intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was manipulated or distorted by the President and his top advisors in order to plunge the nation into war." Presidential commissions in the past have made their reports public -- that has been their raison d'etre -- to inform the American people on matters of public importance. Regarding the institutionalization of corruption, the 'Stop the War' Campaign Web site documents the widespread corruption related to the Iraq War and occupation in "Iraq War Facts" a compilation of key facts, reports and statistics on the Iraq War. Included with the press materials will be: "The Institutionalization of Corruption: A Hidden Cost of the Iraq War and Occupation." # /? 2005 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Ehscouts at aol.com Sun Feb 20 19:02:49 2005 From: Ehscouts at aol.com (Ehscouts at aol.com) Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 19:02:49 EST Subject: {news} Very Important Message-ID: <97.599c284c.2f4a7f29@aol.com> I need to raise $800.00 dollars right away. I have the perfect location for our Green Party and Nieves for Mayor Campaign office and it cost $800.00 per month. It is perfect because we have room to make our daily operation that concern the campaign and we can even hold different type of events. I just need your help to get started the rest it will pay by it self. Please help me and send your contribution today to Nieves For Mayor Campaign 55 Brittany Farms Road #314, New Britain CT. 06053 Thank You Miguel Angel Nieves -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Ehscouts at aol.com Mon Feb 21 10:03:58 2005 From: Ehscouts at aol.com (Ehscouts at aol.com) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 10:03:58 EST Subject: {news} Congratulations Message-ID: <1a7.31f763da.2f4b525e@aol.com> Please help me in giving a great welcome to Jean De Smet to the Nieves For Mayor Campaign team. Jean will be doing the work of Campaign Web Site Manager from now on. So, If you want to put an article in our web site newsletter or if you want to start receiving our web site newsletter then write to electnieves at yahoo.com attention Jean and I will foward your request to her. Regards Miguel Angel Nieves New Britain Mayoral Candidate -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Ehscouts at aol.com Wed Feb 23 21:39:49 2005 From: Ehscouts at aol.com (Ehscouts at aol.com) Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:39:49 EST Subject: {news} It is time to vote Message-ID: Go to the following link and vote now http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nievesformayor/surveys?id=1671361 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Ehscouts at aol.com Fri Feb 25 06:53:31 2005 From: Ehscouts at aol.com (Ehscouts at aol.com) Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 06:53:31 EST Subject: {news} Get involve and Pass it on Message-ID: News Release From Co-Chairman Miguel Angel Nieves ________________________________________________________________ New Britain City Green Party ________________________________________________________________ 55 Brittany Farms Road #314 Contact New Britain, Connecticut 06053 (860) 832-8141 Bush's proposal is to allow voluntary private investments for a portion of Social Security. Nieves for Mayor Campaign say privatizing the Depression-era program is risky, would require massive borrowing and would result in cuts in government-guaranteed benefits. Bush said the program will be in trouble starting in 2018 and will be bankrupt by 2042, owing to the government paying out more in benefits than what it collects in revenue. The Bush administration floated a proposal to cut benefits to future retirees by changing the way those benefits are calculated. And these cuts are guaranteed -- whether you opt in to the Bush plan or not. Here's what the Bush plan will mean for your retirement: ? If you retire in 2022, Bush will cut your benefits by almost 10 percent. ? If you retire in 2042, Bush will cut your benefits by more than 25 percent. ? In 2075, our children and grandchildren will face a staggering cut of 46 percent to their benefits. And this is just the first step of the Republican Party's plan to dismantle the entire Social Security system that has kept generations of America's seniors out of poverty. Soon Bush will launch a $40 million TV ad blitz to convince Americans that our grandkids will be left out in the cold if Social Security is not privatized. Miguel Angel Nieves will not stand by and allow that to happen in the City of New Britain. Help us take our first step today, become part of our rally in favor of Social Security. On March 10th, people who believe that it's time to do something about the Social Security issue now are taking it to the streets in New Britain. Folks from all around the City will meet in front of the Social Security Administration on Arch Street where there will be a rally and speeches by community members and leaders about our efforts. You can print flyers, send emails, and write letters all you want-but the best way to get people who are fed up with this war to rally with you is to ask them. The more people knocking on the doors, the more people coming to the rally. You can be proud of your contribution to the rally when you see people that you have invited. This is important- please try and work your scheduling around it. If you are planning on coming, please contact New Britain Green Party at (860) 832-8141. You can receive more information by going to our web site www.nieves.politicalgateway.com Sincerely yours, Miguel Angel Nieves Mayoral Candidate NB Green Co-Chairman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From justinemccabe at earthlink.net Fri Feb 25 12:24:15 2005 From: justinemccabe at earthlink.net (Justine McCabe) Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:24:15 -0500 Subject: {news} Fw: LRB, "What I Heard about Iraq" Message-ID: <043801c51b5e$d4f1f670$0402a8c0@JUSTINE> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n03/wein01_.html LRB | Vol. 27 No. 3 dated 3 February 2005 | Eliot Weinberger What I Heard about Iraq Eliot Weinberger In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get 'bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq'. I heard him say: 'The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.' In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein 'has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.' That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: 'We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programmes.' In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: 'We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.' On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to 'hit' Iraq. I heard that he said: 'Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.' I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: 'How do you capitalise on these opportunities?' I heard that on 17 September the president signed a document marked top secret that directed the Pentagon to begin planning for the invasion and that, some months later, he secretly and illegally diverted $700 million approved by Congress for operations in Afghanistan into preparing for the new battle front. In February 2002, I heard that an unnamed 'senior military commander' said: 'We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq.' I heard the president say that Iraq is 'a threat of unique urgency', and that there is 'no doubt the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised'. I heard the vice president say: 'Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.' I heard the president tell Congress: 'The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.' I heard him say: 'The dangers we face will only worsen from month to month and from year to year. To ignore these threats is to encourage them. Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX nerve gas or, some day, a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally.' I heard the president, in the State of the Union address, say that Iraq was hiding materials sufficient to produce 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin, and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and nerve gas. I heard the president say that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium - later specified as 'yellowcake' uranium oxide from Niger - and thousands of aluminium tubes 'suitable for nuclear weapons production'. I heard the vice president say: 'We know that he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.' I heard the president say: 'Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent. I would not be so certain.' I heard the president say: 'America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.' I heard Condoleezza Rice say: 'We don't want the "smoking gun" to be a mushroom cloud.' I heard the American ambassador to the European Union tell the Europeans: 'You had Hitler in Europe and no one really did anything about him. The same type of person is in Baghdad.' I heard Colin Powell at the United Nations say: 'They can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard gas, 30,000 empty munitions, and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan.' I heard him say: 'Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.' I heard the president say: 'Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.' I heard him say that Iraq 'could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given'. I heard Tony Blair say: 'We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.' I heard the president say: 'We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraq regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.' I heard the vice president say: 'There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al-Qaida and the Iraqi government. I am very confident there was an established relationship there.' I heard Colin Powell say: 'Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not credible.' I heard Condoleezza Rice say: 'There clearly are contacts between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein that can be documented.' I heard the president say: 'You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'Imagine a September 11th with weapons of mass destruction. It's not three thousand - it's tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children.' I heard Colin Powell tell the Senate that 'a moment of truth is coming': 'This is not just an academic exercise or the United States being in a fit of pique. We're talking about real weapons. We're talking about anthrax. We're talking about botulinum toxin. We're talking about nuclear weapons programmes.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people.' I heard the president, 'bristling with irritation', say: 'This business about more time, how much time do we need to see clearly that he's not disarming? He is delaying. He is deceiving. He is asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing is for certain: he's not disarming. Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past. This looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I'm not interested in watching it.' I heard that, a few days before authorising the invasion of Iraq, the Senate was told in a classified briefing by the Pentagon that Iraq could launch anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons against the eastern seaboard of the United States using unmanned aerial 'drones'. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say he would present no specific evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction because it might jeopardise the military mission by revealing to Baghdad what the United States knows. * I heard the Pentagon spokesman call the military plan 'A-Day', or 'Shock and Awe'. Three or four hundred cruise missiles launched every day, until 'there will not be a safe place in Baghdad,' until 'you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes.' I heard the spokesman say: 'You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and thirty of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.' I heard him say: 'The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never contemplated.' I heard Major-General Charles Swannack promise that his troops were going to 'use a sledgehammer to smash a walnut'. I heard the Pentagon spokesman say: 'This is not going to be your father's Persian Gulf War.' I heard that Saddam's strategy against the American invasion would be to blow up dams, bridges and oilfields, and to cut off food supplies to the south so that the Americans would suddenly have to feed millions of desperate civilians. I heard that Baghdad would be encircled by two rings of the elite Republican Guard, in fighting positions already stocked with weapons and supplies, and equipped with chemical protective gear against the poison gas or germ weapons they would be using against the American troops. I heard Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby tell Congress that Saddam would 'employ a "scorched earth" strategy, destroying food, transportation, energy and other infrastructure, attempting to create a humanitarian disaster', and that he would blame it all on the Americans. I heard that Iraq would fire its long-range Scud missiles - equipped with chemical or biological warheads - at Israel, to 'portray the war as a battle with an American-Israeli coalition and build support in the Arab world'. I heard that Saddam had elaborate and labyrinthine underground bunkers for his protection, and that it might be necessary to employ B61 Mod 11 nuclear 'bunker-buster' bombs to destroy them. I heard the vice president say that the war would be over in 'weeks rather than months'. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say there was 'no question' that American troops would be 'welcomed': 'Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and al-Qaida would not let them do.' I heard the vice president say: 'The Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation the streets in Basra and Baghdad are "sure to erupt in joy". Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced.' I heard the vice president say: 'I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.' I heard Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister, say: 'American soldiers will not be received by flowers. They will be received by bullets.' I heard that the president said to the television evangelist Pat Robertson: 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.' I heard the president say that he had not consulted his father about the coming war: 'You know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to.' I heard the prime minister of the Solomon Islands express surprise that his was one of the nations enlisted in the 'coalition of the willing': 'I was completely unaware of it.' I heard the president tell the Iraqi people, on the night before the invasion began: 'If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror. And we will help you build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbours, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.' I heard him tell the Iraqi people: 'We will not relent until your country is free.' * I heard the vice president say: 'By any standard of even the most dazzling charges in military history, the Germans in the Ardennes in the spring of 1940 or Patton's romp in July of 1944, the present race to Baghdad is unprecedented in its speed and daring and in the lightness of casualties.' I heard Colonel David Hackworth say: 'Hey diddle diddle, it's straight up the middle!' I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that 95 per cent of the Iraqi casualties were 'military-age males'. I heard an official from the Red Crescent say: 'On one stretch of highway alone, there were more than fifty civilian cars, each with four or five people incinerated inside, that sat in the sun for ten or fifteen days before they were buried nearby by volunteers. That is what there will be for their relatives to come and find. War is bad, but its remnants are worse.' I heard the director of a hospital in Baghdad say: 'The whole hospital is an emergency room. The nature of the injuries is so severe - one body without a head, someone else with their abdomen ripped open.' I heard an American soldier say: 'There's a picture of the World Trade Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think: "They hit us at home and now it's our turn."' I heard about Hashim, a fat, 'painfully shy' 15-year-old, who liked to sit for hours by the river with his birdcage, and who was shot by the 4th Infantry Division in a raid on his village. Asked about the details of the boy's death, the division commander said: 'That person was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.' I heard an American soldier say: 'We get rocks thrown at us by kids. You wanna turn around and shoot one of the little fuckers, but you know you can't do that.' I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that the US did not count civilian casualties: 'Our efforts focus on destroying the enemy's capabilities, so we never target civilians and have no reason to try to count such unintended deaths.' I heard him say that, in any event, it would be impossible, because the Iraqi paramilitaries were fighting in civilian clothes, the military was using civilian human shields, and many of the civilian deaths were the result of Iraqi 'unaimed anti-aircraft fire falling back to earth'. I heard an American soldier say: 'The worst thing is to shoot one of them, then go help him,' as regulations require. 'Shit, I didn't help any of them. I wouldn't help the fuckers. There were some you let die. And there were some you double-tapped. Once you'd reached the objective, and once you'd shot them and you're moving through, anything there, you shoot again. You didn't want any prisoners of war.' I heard Anmar Uday, the doctor who had cared for Private Jessica Lynch, say: 'We heard the helicopters. We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military. There were no soldiers in the hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. They cried "Go, go, go," with guns and flares and the sound of explosions. They made a show: an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors. All the time with cameras rolling.' I heard Private Jessica Lynch say: 'They used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff. It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about.' Of the stories that she had bravely fought off her captors, and suffered bullet and stab wounds, I heard her say: 'I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do.' Of her dramatic 'rescue', I heard her say: 'I don't think it happened quite like that.' I heard the Red Cross say that casualties in Baghdad were so high that the hospitals had stopped counting. I heard an old man say, after 11 members of his family - children and grandchildren - were killed when a tank blew up their minivan: 'Our home is an empty place. We who are left are like wild animals. All we can do is cry out.' As the riots and looting broke out, I heard a man in the Baghdad market say: 'Saddam Hussein's greatest crime is that he brought the American army to Iraq.' As the riots and looting broke out, I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'It's untidy, and freedom's untidy.' And when the National Museum was emptied and the National Library burned down, I heard him say: 'The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think: "My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?"' I heard that 10,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. * I heard Colin Powell say: 'I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it now.' I heard the president say: 'We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, south and north, somewhat.' I heard the US was building 14 'enduring bases', capable of housing 110,000 soldiers, and I heard Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt call them 'a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East'. I heard that the US was building what would be its largest embassy anywhere in the world. I heard that it would only be a matter of months before Starbucks and McDonald's opened branches in Baghdad. I heard that HSBC would have cash machines all over the country. I heard about the trade fairs run by New Bridges Strategies, a consulting firm that promised access to the Iraqi market. I heard one of its partners say: 'Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble would be a gold mine. One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out 30 Iraqi stores. A Wal-Mart could take over the country.' On 1 May 2003, I heard the president, dressed up as a pilot, under a banner that read 'Mission Accomplished', declare that combat operations were over: 'The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on 11 September 2001.' I heard him say: 'The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offence. We have not forgotten the victims of 11 September: the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.' On 1 May 2003, I heard that 140 American soldiers had died in combat in Iraq. I heard Richard Perle tell Americans to 'relax and celebrate victory'. I heard him say: 'The predictions of those who opposed this war can be discarded like spent cartridges.' I heard Lieutenant-General Jay Garner say: 'We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: "Damn, we're Americans."' And later I heard that I could buy a 12-inch 'Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush' action figure: 'Exacting in detail and fully equipped with authentic gear, this limited-edition action figure is a meticulous 1:6 scale re-creation of the commander-in-chief's appearance during his historic aircraft carrier landing. This fully poseable figure features a realistic head sculpt, fully detailed cloth flight suit, helmet with oxygen mask, survival vest, G-pants, parachute harness and much more.' I heard that Pentagon planners had predicted that US troop levels would fall to 30,000 by the end of the summer. * I heard that Paul Bremer's first act as director of the Coalition Provisional Authority was to fire all senior members of the Baath Party, including 30,000 civil servants, policemen, teachers and doctors, and to dismiss all 400,000 soldiers of the Iraqi army without pay or pensions. Two million people were dependent on that income. Since America supports private gun ownership, the soldiers were allowed to keep their weapons. I heard that hundreds were being kidnapped and raped in Baghdad alone; that schools, hospitals, shops and factories were being looted; that it was impossible to restore the electricity because all the copper wire was being stolen from the power plants. I heard Paul Bremer say, 'Most of the country is, in fact, orderly,' and that all the problems were coming from 'several hundred hard-core terrorists' from al-Qaida and affiliated groups. As attacks on American troops increased, I heard the generals disagree about who was fighting: Islamic fundamentalists or remnants of the Baath Party or Iraqi mercenaries or foreign mercenaries or ordinary citizens taking revenge for the loss of loved ones. I heard the president and the vice president and the politicians and the television reporters simply call them 'terrorists'. I heard the president say: 'There are some who feel that conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: bring them on! We have the force necessary to deal with the situation.' I heard that 25,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard Arnold Schwarzenegger, then campaigning for governor, in Baghdad for a special showing to the troops of Terminator 3, say: 'It is really wild driving round here, I mean the poverty, and you see there is no money, it is disastrous financially and there is the leadership vacuum, pretty much like California.' I heard that the army was wrapping entire villages in barbed wire, with signs that read: 'This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot.' In one of those villages, I heard a man named Tariq say: 'I see no difference between us and the Palestinians.' I heard Captain Todd Brown say: 'You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force - force, pride and saving face.' I heard that the US, as a gift from the American people to the Iraqi people, had committed $18.4 billion to the reconstruction of basic infrastructure, but that future Iraqi governments would have no say in how the money was spent. I heard that the economy had been opened to foreign ownership, and that this could not be changed. I heard that the Iraqi army would be under the command of the US, and that this could not be changed. I heard, however, that 'full authority' for health and hospitals had been turned over to the Iraqis, and that senior American health advisers had been withdrawn. I heard Tommy Thompson, secretary of health and human services, say that Iraq's hospitals would be fine if the Iraqis 'just washed their hands and cleaned the crap off the walls'. I heard Colonel Nathan Sassaman say: 'With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them.' I heard Richard Perle say: 'Next year at about this time, I expect there will be a really thriving trade in the region, and we will see rapid economic development. And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad named after President Bush.' * I heard about Operation Ivy Cyclone. I heard about Operation Vigilant Resolve. I heard about Operation Plymouth Rock. I heard about Operation Iron Hammer, its name taken from Eisenhammer, the Nazi plan to destroy Soviet generating plants. I heard that air force regulations require that any airstrike likely to result in the deaths of more than 30 civilians be personally approved by the secretary of defense, and I heard that Donald Rumsfeld approved every proposal. I heard the marine colonel say: 'We napalmed those bridges. Unfortunately, there were people there. It's no great way to die.' I heard the Pentagon deny they were using napalm, saying their incendiary bombs were made of something called Mark 77, and I heard the experts say that Mark 77 was another name for napalm. I heard a marine describe 'dead-checking': 'They teach us to do dead-checking when we're clearing rooms. You put two bullets into the guy's chest and one in the brain. But when you enter a room where guys are wounded, you might not know if they're alive or dead. So they teach us to dead-check them by pressing them in the eye with your boot, because generally a person, even if he's faking being dead, will flinch if you poke him there. If he moves, you put a bullet in the brain. You do this to keep the momentum going when you're flowing through a building. You don't want a guy popping up behind you and shooting you.' I heard the president say: 'We're rolling back the terrorist threat, not on the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its power.' When the death toll of American soldiers reached 500, I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt say: 'I don't think the soldiers are looking at arbitrary figures such as casualty counts as the barometer of their morale. They know they have a nation that stands behind them.' I heard an American soldier, standing next to his Humvee, say: 'We liberated Iraq. Now the people here don't want us here, and guess what? We don't want to be here either. So why are we still here? Why don't they bring us home?' I heard Colin Powell say: 'We did not expect it would be quite this intense this long.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'We're facing a test of will.' I heard the president say: 'We found biological laboratories. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.' I heard Tony Blair say: 'The remains of 400,000 human beings have been found in mass graves.' And I saw his words repeated in a US government pamphlet, Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves, and on a US government website which said this represented 'a crime against humanity surpassed only by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields in the 1970s and the Nazi Holocaust of World War Two'. * I heard the president say: 'Today, on bended knee, I thank the Good Lord for protecting those of our troops overseas, and our Coalition troops and innocent Iraqis who suffer at the hands of some of these senseless killings by people who are trying to shake our will.' I heard that this was the first American president in wartime who had never attended a funeral for a dead soldier. I heard that photographs of the flag-draped coffins returning home were banned. I heard that the Pentagon had renamed body bags 'transfer tubes'. I heard a tearful George Bush Sr, speaking at the annual convention of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, say that it was 'deeply offensive and contemptible' the way 'elites and intellectuals' were dismissing 'the sowing of the seeds of basic human freedom in that troubled part of the world'. I heard him say: 'It hurts an awful lot more when it's your son that is being criticised.' I heard the president's mother say: 'Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?' I heard that 7 per cent of all American military deaths in Iraq were suicides, that 10 per cent of the soldiers evacuated to the army hospital in Landstuhl, Germany had been sent for 'psychiatric or behavioural health issues', and that 20 per cent of the military was expected to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt deny that civilians were being killed: 'We run extremely precise operations focused on people we have intelligence on for crimes of violence against the Coalition and against the Iraqi people.' And later I heard him say that marines were being fired on from crowds containing women and children, and that the marines had fired back only in self-defence. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say that the fighting was the work of 'thugs, gangs and terrorists'. I heard General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say: 'It's not a Shiite uprising. Muqtada al-Sadr has a very small following.' I heard that an unnamed 'intelligence official' had said: 'Hatred of the American occupation has spread rapidly among Shia, and is now so large that Mr Sadr and his forces represent just one element. Destroying his Mehdi Army might be possible only by destroying Sadr City.' Sadr City is the most populated part of Baghdad. I heard that, among the Sunnis, former Baath Party leaders and Saddam loyalists had been joined by Sunni tribal chiefs. I heard that there were now thirty separate militias in the country. I heard the television news reporters routinely refer to them as 'anti-Iraqi forces'. I heard that Paul Bremer had closed down a popular newspaper, Al Hawza, because of 'inaccurate reporting'. As Shias in Sadr City lined up to donate blood for Sunnis in Fallujah, I heard a man say: 'We should thank Paul Bremer. He has finally united Iraq - against him.' I heard the president say: 'I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either.' * I heard Tony Blair say: 'Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.' I heard General Myers say: 'Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction.' I heard the president say: 'Prisoners are being taken, and intelligence is being gathered. Our decisive actions will continue until these enemies of democracy are dealt with.' I heard a soldier describe what they called 'bitch in a box': 'That was the normal procedure for them when they wanted to soften up a prisoner: stuff them in the trunk for a while and drive them around. The hoods I can understand, and to have them cuffed with the plastic things - that I could see. But the trunk episode - I thought it was kind of unusual. It was like a sweatbox, let's face it. In Iraq, in August, it's hitting 120 degrees, and you can imagine what it was like in the trunk of a black Mercedes.' I heard a National Guardsman from Florida say: 'We had a sledgehammer that we would bang against the wall, and that would create an echo that sounds like an explosion that scared the hell out of them. If that didn't work we would load a 9mm pistol, and pretend to be charging it near their head and make them think we were going to shoot them. Once you did that they did whatever you wanted them to do basically. The way we treated these men was hard even for the soldiers, especially after realising that many of these "combatants" were no more than shepherds.' I heard a marine at Camp Whitehorse say: 'The 50/10 technique was used to break down EPWs and make it easier for the HET member to get information from them.' The 50/10 technique was to make prisoners stand for 50 minutes of the hour for ten hours with a hood over their heads in the heat. EPWs were 'enemy prisoners of war'. HETs were 'human exploitation teams'. I heard Captain Donald Reese, a prison warden, say: 'It was not uncommon to see people without clothing. I was told the "whole nudity thing" was an interrogation procedure used by military intelligence, and never thought much about it.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'I have not seen anything thus far that says that the people abused were abused in the process of interrogating them or for interrogation purposes.' I heard Private Lynndie England, who was photographed in Abu Ghraib holding a prisoner on a leash, say: 'I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there, hold this leash, look at the camera, and they took pictures for PsyOps. I didn't really, I mean, want to be in any pictures. I thought it was kind of weird.' Detainees 27, 30 and 31 were stripped of their clothing, handcuffed together nude, placed on the ground, and forced to lie on each other and simulate sex while photographs were taken. Detainee 8 had his food thrown in the toilet and was then ordered to eat it. Detainee 7 was ordered to bark like a dog while MPs spat and urinated on him; he was sodomised with a police stick while two female MPs watched. Detainee 3 was sodomised with a broom by a female soldier. Detainee 15 was photographed standing on a box with a hood on his head and simulated electrical wires were attached to his hands and penis. Detainees 1, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24 and 26 were placed in a pile and forced to masturbate while photographs were taken. An unidentified detainee was photographed covered in faeces with a banana inserted in his anus. Detainee 5 watched Civilian 1 rape an unidentified 15-year-old male detainee while a female soldier took photographs. Detainees 5 and 7 were stripped of their clothing and forced to wear women's underwear on their heads. Detainee 28, handcuffed with his hands behind his back in a shower stall, was declared dead when an MP removed the sandbag from his head and checked his pulse. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'If you are in Washington DC, you can't know what's going on in the midnight shift in one of those many prisons around the world.' * I heard that the Red Cross had to close its offices because it was too dangerous. I heard that General Electric and the Siemens Corporation had to close their offices. I heard that M?decins sans Fronti?res had to withdraw, and that journalists rarely left their hotels. I heard that, after their headquarters were bombed, most of the United Nations staff had gone. I heard that the cost of life insurance policies for the few remaining Western businessmen was $10,000 a week. I heard Tom Foley, director of Iraq Private Sector Development, say: 'The security risks are not as bad as they appear on TV. Western civilians are not the targets themselves. These are acceptable risks.' I heard the spokesman for Paul Bremer say: 'We have isolated pockets where we are encountering problems.' I heard that, no longer able to rely on the military for help, private security firms had banded together to form the largest private army in the world, with its own rescue teams and intelligence. I heard that there were 20,000 mercenary soldiers, now called 'private contractors', in Iraq, earning as much as $2000 a day, and not subject to Iraqi or US military law. I heard that 50,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard that, on a day when a car bomb killed three Americans, Paul Bremer's last act as director of the Coalition Provisional Authority was to issue laws making it illegal to drive with only one hand on the steering wheel or to honk a horn when there was no emergency. I heard that the unemployment rate was now 70 per cent, that less than 1 per cent of the workforce was engaged in reconstruction, and that the US had spent only 2 per cent of the $18.4 billion approved by Congress for reconstruction. I heard that an official audit could not account for $8.8 billion of Iraqi oil money given to Iraqi ministries by the Coalition Provisional Authority. I heard the president say: 'Our Coalition is standing with responsible Iraqi leaders as they establish growing authority in their country.' I heard that, a few days before he became prime minister, Iyad Allawi visited a Baghdad police station where six suspected insurgents, blindfolded and handcuffed, were lined up against a wall. I heard that, as four Americans and a dozen Iraqi policemen watched, Allawi pulled out a pistol and shot each prisoner in the head. I heard that he said that this is how we must deal with insurgents. On 28 June 2004, with the establishment of an interim government, I heard the vice president say: 'After decades of rule by a brutal dictator, Iraq has been returned to its rightful owners, the people of Iraq.' This was the military summary for an ordinary day, 22 July 2004, a day that produced no headlines: 'Two roadside bombs exploded next to a van and a Mercedes in separate areas of Baghdad, killing four civilians. A gunman in a Toyota opened fire on a police checkpoint and escaped. Police wounded three gunmen at a checkpoint and arrested four men suspected of attempted murder. Seven more roadside bombs exploded in Baghdad and gunmen twice attacked US troops. Police dismantled a car bomb in Mosul and gunmen attacked the Western driver of a gravel truck at Tell Afar. There were three roadside bombings and a rocket attack on US troops in Mosul and another gun attack on US forces near Tell Afar. At Taji, a civilian vehicle collided with a US military vehicle, killing six civilians and injuring seven others. At Bayji, a US vehicle hit a landmine. Gunmen murdered a dentist at the Ad Dwar hospital. There were 17 roadside bomb explosions against US forces in Taji, Baquba, Baqua, Jalula, Tikrit, Paliwoda, Balad, Samarra and Duluiyeh, with attacks by gunmen on US troops in Tikrit and Balad. A headless body in an orange jumpsuit was found in the Tigris; believed to be Bulgarian hostage Ivalyo Kepov. Kirkuk air base attacked. Five roadside bombs on US forces in Rutbah, Kalso and Ramadi. Gunmen attacked Americans in Fallujah and Ramadi. The police chief of Najaf was abducted. Two civilian contractors were attacked by gunmen at Haswah. A roadside bomb exploded near Kerbala and Hillah. International forces were attacked by gunmen at al-Qurnah.' * I heard the president say: 'You can embolden an enemy by sending a mixed message. You can dispirit the Iraqi people by sending mixed messages. That's why I will continue to lead with clarity and in a resolute way.' I heard the president say: 'Today, because the world acted with courage and moral clarity, Iraqi athletes are competing in the Olympic Games.' Iraq had sent teams to the previous Olympics. And when the president ran a campaign advertisement with the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan and the words 'at this Olympics there will be two more free nations - and two fewer terrorist regimes,' I heard the Iraqi coach say: 'Iraq as a team does not want Mr Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself.' I heard their star midfielder say that if he weren't playing soccer he'd be fighting for the resistance in Fallujah: 'Bush has committed so many crimes. How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?' I heard an unnamed 'senior British army officer' invoke the Nazis to describe what he saw: 'My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as Untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life. As far as they are concerned, Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them. It is trite, but American troops do shoot first and ask questions later.' I heard Makki al-Nazzal, who was managing a clinic in Fallujah, say, in unaccented English: 'I have been a fool for 47 years. I used to believe in European and American civilisation.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction.' I heard Condoleezza Rice say: 'We never expected we were going to open garages and find them.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.' I heard Richard Perle say: 'We don't know where to look for them and we never did know where to look for them. I hope this will take less than two hundred years.' * I heard the president say: 'I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war.' I heard the president say: 'I'm a war president.' I heard that 1000 American soldiers were dead and 7000 wounded in combat. I heard that there was now an average of 87 attacks on US troops a day. I heard Condoleezza Rice say: 'Not everything has gone as we would have liked it to.' I heard Colin Powell say: 'We did miscalculate the difficulty.' I heard an unnamed 'senior US diplomat in Baghdad' say: 'We're dealing with a population that hovers between bare tolerance and outright hostility. This idea of a functioning democracy is crazy. We thought there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose.' I heard Major Thomas Neemeyer say: 'The only way to stomp out the insurgency of the mind would be to kill the entire population.' I heard the CNN reporter near the tomb of Ali in Najaf say: 'Everything outside of the mosque seems to be totalled.' I heard Khudeir Salman, who sold ice from a donkey cart in Najaf, say he was giving up after marine snipers had killed his friend, another ice-seller: 'I found him this morning. The sniper shot his donkey too. Even the ambulance drivers are too scared to get the body.' I heard the vice president say: 'Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed. And that is the business at hand.' I heard a 'senior American commander' say: 'We need to make a decision on when the cancer of Fallujah needs to be cut out.' I heard Major-General John Batiste, outside Samarra, say: 'It'll be a quick fight and the enemy is going to die fast. The message for the people of Samarra is: peacefully or not, this is going to be solved.' I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt say: 'Our patience is not eternal.' I heard the president say: 'America will never be run out of Iraq by a bunch of thugs and killers.' I heard about the wedding party that was attacked by American planes, killing 45 people, and the wedding photographer who videotaped the festivities until he himself was killed. And though the tape was shown on television, I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt say: 'There was no evidence of a wedding. There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too.' I heard an Iraqi man say: 'I swear I saw dogs eating the body of a woman.' I heard an Iraqi man say: 'We have at least 700 dead. So many of them are children and women. The stench from the dead bodies in parts of the city is unbearable.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.' * On the occasion of Iyad Allawi's visit to the United States, I heard the president say: 'What's important for the American people to hear is reality. And the reality is right here in the form of the prime minister.' Asked about ethnic tensions, I heard Iyad Allawi say: 'There are no problems between Shia and Sunnis and Kurds and Arabs and Turkmen. Usually we have no problems of an ethnic or religious nature in Iraq.' I heard him say: 'There is nothing, no problem, except in a small pocket in Fallujah.' I heard Colonel Jerry Durrant say, after a meeting with Ramadi tribal sheikhs: 'A lot of these guys have read history, and they said to me the government in Baghdad is like the Vichy government in France during World War Two.' I heard a journalist say: 'I am housebound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike up a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in anything but a full armoured car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say "I'm an American," can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'It's a tough part of the world. We had something like 200 or 300 or 400 people killed in many of the major cities of America last year. What's the difference? We just didn't see each homicide in every major city in the United States on television every night.' I heard that 80,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard that the war had already cost $225 billion and was continuing at the rate of $40 billion a month. I heard there was now an average of 130 attacks on US troops a day. I heard Captain John Mountford say: 'I just wonder what would have happened if we had worked a little more with the locals.' I heard that, in the last year alone, the US had fired 127 tons of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in Iraq, the radioactive equivalent of approximately ten thousand Nagasaki bombs. I heard that the widespread use of DU in the first Gulf War was believed to be the primary cause of the health problems suffered by its 580,400 veterans, of whom 467 were wounded during the war itself. Ten years later, 11,000 were dead and 325,000 on medical disability. DU carried in semen led to high rates of endometriosis in their wives and girlfriends, often requiring hysterectomies. Of soldiers who had healthy babies before the war, 67 per cent of their postwar babies were born with severe defects, including missing legs, arms, organs or eyes. I heard that 380 tons of HMX (high melting point explosive) and RDX (rapid detonation explosive) were missing from al-Qaqaa, one of Iraq's 'most sensitive military installations', which had not been guarded since the invasion. I heard that one pound of these explosives was enough to blow up a 747 jet, and that this cache could be used to make a million roadside bombs, which were the cause of half the casualties among US troops. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say, when asked why the troops were being kept in the war much longer than their normal tours of duty: 'Oh, come on. People are fungible. You can have them here or there.' * I heard Colonel Gary Brandl say: 'The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Fallujah and we're going to destroy him.' I heard a marine commander tell his men: 'You will be held accountable for the facts not as they are in hindsight but as they appeared to you at the time. If, in your mind, you fire to protect yourself or your men, you are doing the right thing. It doesn't matter if later on we find out you wiped out a family of unarmed civilians.' I heard Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Smith say: 'We're going out where the bad guys live, and we're going to slay them in their zip code.' I heard that 15,000 US troops invaded Fallujah while planes dropped 500-pound bombs on 'insurgent targets'. I heard they destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city, killing 20 doctors. I heard they occupied Fallujah General Hospital, which the military had called a 'centre of propaganda' for reporting civilian casualties. I heard that they confiscated all mobile phones and refused to allow doctors and ambulances to go out and help the wounded. I heard they bombed the power plant to black out the city, and that the water was shut off. I heard that every house and shop had a large red X spray-painted on the door to indicate that it had been searched. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble. There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by US forces.' I heard that, in a city of 150 mosques, there were no longer any calls to prayer. I heard Muhammad Abboud tell how, unable to leave his house to go to a hospital, he had watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death, and how, unable to leave his house to go to a cemetery, he had buried his son in the garden. I heard Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor, say: 'There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands.' I heard an American soldier say: 'We will win the hearts and minds of Fallujah by ridding the city of insurgents. We're doing that by patrolling the streets and killing the enemy.' I heard an American soldier, a Bradley gunner, say: 'I was basically looking for any clean walls, you know, without any holes in them. And then we were putting holes in them.' I heard Farhan Salih say: 'My kids are hysterical with fear. They are traumatised by the sound but there is nowhere to take them.' I heard that the US troops allowed women and children to leave the city, but that all 'military age males', men from 15 to 60, were required to stay. I heard that no food or medicine was allowed into the city. I heard the Red Cross say that at least 800 civilians had died. I heard Iyad Allawi say there were no civilian casualties in Fallujah. I heard a man named Abu Sabah say: 'They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.' I heard him say that pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burned the skin even when water was thrown on it. I heard Kassem Muhammad Ahmed say: 'I watched them roll over wounded people in the streets with tanks.' I heard a man named Khalil say: 'They shot women and old men in the streets. Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies.' I heard Nihida Kadhim, a housewife, say that when she was finally allowed to return to her home, she found a message written with lipstick on her living-room mirror: FUCK IRAQ AND EVERY IRAQI IN IT. I heard General John Sattler say that the destruction of Fallujah had 'broken the back of the insurgency'. I heard that three-quarters of Fallujah had been shelled into rubble. I heard an American soldier say: 'It's kind of bad we destroyed everything, but at least we gave them a chance for a new start.' I heard that only five roads into Fallujah would remain open. The rest would be sealed with 'sand berms', mountains of earth. At the entry points, everyone would be photographed, fingerprinted and have iris scans taken before being issued identification cards. All citizens would be required to wear identification cards in plain sight at all times. No private automobiles would be allowed in the city. All males would be organised into 'work brigades' rebuilding the city. They would be paid, but participation would be compulsory. I heard Muhammad Kubaissy, a shopkeeper, say: 'I am still searching for what they have been calling democracy.' I heard a soldier say that he had talked to his priest about killing Iraqis, and that his priest had told him it was all right to kill for his government as long as he did not enjoy it. After he had killed at least four men, I heard the soldier say that he had begun to have doubts: 'Where the fuck did Jesus say it's OK to kill people for your government?' * I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'The Coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light, through the prism of our experience on 9/11.' I heard a reporter say to Donald Rumsfeld: 'Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said they would welcome us with open arms.' And I heard Rumsfeld interrupt him: 'Never said that. Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said.' I heard Ahmed Chalabi, who had supplied most of the information about the weapons of mass destruction, shrug and say: 'We are heroes in error . . . What was said before is not important.' I heard Paul Wolfowitz say: 'For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, as justification for invading Iraq, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.' I heard Condoleezza Rice continue to insist: 'It's not as if anybody believes that Saddam Hussein was without weapons of mass destruction.' I heard that the Niger 'yellowcake' uranium was a hoax legitimised by British intelligence, that the aluminium tubes could not be used for nuclear weapons, that the mobile biological laboratories produced hydrogen for weather balloons, that the fleet of unmanned aerial drones was a single broken-down oversized model airplane, that Saddam had no elaborate underground bunkers, that Colin Powell's primary source, his 'solid information' for the evidence he presented at the United Nations, was a paper written ten years before by a graduate student. I heard that, of the 400,000 bodies buried in mass graves, only 5000 had been found. I heard Lieutenant-General James Conway say: 'It was a surprise to me then, and it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons. It's not from lack of trying.' I heard a reporter ask Donald Rumsfeld: 'If they did not have WMDs, why did they pose an immediate threat to this country?' I heard Rumsfeld answer: 'You and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase "immediate threat". It's become a kind of folklore that that's what happened. If you have any citations, I'd like to see them.' And I heard the reporter read: 'No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people.' Rumsfeld replied: 'It - my view of - of the situation was that he - he had - we - we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that - that we believed and we still do not know - we will know.' I heard Saadoon al-Zubaydi, an interpreter who lived in the presidential palace, say: 'For at least three years Saddam Hussein had been tired of the day-to-day management of his regime. He could not stand it any more: meetings, commissions, dispatches, telephone calls. So he withdrew . . . Alone, isolated, out of it. He preferred shutting himself up in his office, writing novels.' * I heard the president say that Iraq is a 'catastrophic success'. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'They haven't won a single battle the entire time since the end of major combat operations.' I heard that hundreds of schools had been completely destroyed and thousands looted, and that most people thought it too dangerous to send their children to school. I heard there was no system of banks. I heard that in the cities there were only ten hours of electricity a day and that only 60 per cent of the population had access to drinkable water. I heard that the malnutrition of children was now far worse than in Uganda or Haiti. I heard that none of the 270,000 babies born after the start of the war had received immunisations. I heard that 5 per cent of eligible voters had registered for the coming elections. I heard General John Abizaid say: 'I don't think Iraq will have a perfect election. And, if I recall, looking back at our own election four years ago, it wasn't perfect either.' I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But some places you couldn't because the violence is too great. Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life.' I heard an Iraqi engineer say: 'Go and vote and risk being blown to pieces or followed by insurgents and murdered for co-operating with the Americans? For what? To practise democracy? Are you joking?' I heard General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, the chief of Iraqi intelligence, say that there were now 200,000 active fighters in the insurgency. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'I don't believe it's our job to reconstruct that country. The Iraqi people are going to have to reconstruct that country over a period of time.' I heard him say that, in any event, 'the infrastructure of that country was not terribly damaged by the war at all.' I heard that the American ambassador, John Negroponte, had requested that $3.37 billion intended for water, sewage and electricity projects be transferred to security and oil output. I heard that the reporters from the al-Jazeera network were indefinitely banned. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: 'What al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.' I heard that Spain left the 'coalition of the willing'. Hungary left; the Dominican Republic left; Nicaragua left; Honduras left. I heard that the Philippines had left early, after a Filipino truck driver was kidnapped and executed. Norway left. Poland and the Netherlands said they were leaving. Thailand said it was leaving. Bulgaria was reducing its few hundred troops. Moldova cut its force from 42 to 12. I heard that the president had once said: 'Two years from now, only the Brits may be with us. At some point, we may be the only ones left. That's OK with me. We are America.' I heard a reporter ask Lieutenant-General Jay Garner how long the troops would remain in Iraq, and I heard him reply: 'I hope they're there a long time.' I heard General Tommy Franks say: 'One has to think about the numbers. I think we will be engaged with our military in Iraq for perhaps three, five, perhaps ten years.' I heard that the Pentagon was now exploring what it called the 'Salvador option', modelled on the death squads in El Salvador in the 1980s, when John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras and when Elliott Abrams, now White House adviser on the Middle East, called the massacre at El Mozote 'nothing but Communist propaganda'. Under the plan, the US would advise, train and support paramilitaries in assassination and kidnapping, including secret raids across the Syrian border. In the vice presidential debate, I heard the vice president say: 'Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had a guerrilla insurgency that controlled roughly a third of the country . . . And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better.' I heard that 100,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard that there was now an average of 150 attacks on US troops a day. I heard that in Baghdad 700 people were being killed every month in 'non-war-related' criminal activities. I heard that 1400 American soldiers had been killed and that the true casualty figure was approximately 25,000. I heard that Donald Rumsfeld had a machine sign his letters of condolence to the families of soldiers who had been killed. When this caused a small scandal, I heard him say: 'I have directed that in the future I sign each letter.' I heard the president say: 'The credibility of this country is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful, and the world is now more peaceful.' I heard the president say: 'I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.' I heard Attorney General John Ashcroft say, on the day of his resignation: 'The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.' I heard the president say: 'For a while we were marching to war. Now we're marching to peace.' I heard that the US military had purchased 1,500,000,000 bullets for use in the coming year. That is 58 bullets for every Iraqi adult and child. I heard that Saddam Hussein, in solitary confinement, was spending his time writing poetry, reading the Koran, eating cookies and muffins, and taking care of some bushes and shrubs. I heard that he had placed a circle of white stones around a small plum tree. 11 January Eliot Weinberger's 9/12 is published by Prickly Paradigm. He lives in New York. >From the LRB letters page: [ 17 February 2005 ] Judith Crosher. copyright ? LRB Ltd, 1997-2004 HOME | SUBSCRIBE | LOGIN | CONTACTS | SEARCH | SITE MAP 21 February 2005 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: lrb_logo_mini.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1201 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: spacer.gif Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available URL: From embrancato at netzero.com Sat Feb 26 10:13:51 2005 From: embrancato at netzero.com (Elizabeth M. Brancato) Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 10:13:51 -0500 Subject: {news} [Fwd: Executive Committee Endorsement of event] Message-ID: <4220922F.2080206@netzero.com> The GP of CT Executive Committee has approved endorsing this event. Three of the four members of the E.C. agreed and one did not respond. Announcement of this action will also take place at the next SCC meeting, March 29, 2005 when the Executive Committee makes it's report. Elizabeth Brancato *************************************************************************************** Contacts: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Liz Aaronsohn 860-229-0705 22 February 2005 Lucy Rosenblatt 860-236-9992 Hassan Fouda 860-536-4640 Israeli Professor to speak in Hartford Dr. Jeff Halper, the coordinating director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), will be the featured speaker of a program called ``In Search of Peace and Justice in Palestine/Israel: Realities on the Ground; Where to Go from Here." The program will take place on Saturday, March 5, at 7 p.m. at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, 21 Charter Oak Avenue, Hartford, CT 06106. The event is free and open to the public. Halper has forged through ICAHD a new mode of Israeli peace activity based on nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to the Israeli Occupation. ICAHD's main direct action began through resistance to the demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories, and rebuilding demolished homes as acts of political solidarity. Believing that civil society and governmental forces must be mobilized if a just peace is to emerge in Israel/Palestine, Halper also directs ICAHD's extensive program of international advocacy. He is the author of Between Redemption and Revival: The Jewish Yishuv in Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century, published in 1991. His recent popular book Obstacles to Peace is to be followed by a forthcoming work from Pluto Press, called An Israeli in Palestine: Reframing the Israel-Palestine Conflict. . Halper is a professor of anthropology who has taught at Haifa and Ben Gurion universities. He moved to Israel from America in 1973. He and his wife have three children. ~ ~ ~ This event is co-sponsored by We Refuse to Be Enemies (Jews, Muslims and Christians in Coalition for Peace); The Palestine Right To Return Coalition (www.al-awda.org), The American Friends Service (www.afsc.org), and Council for National Interest (www.cnionline.org). From embrancato at netzero.com Sat Feb 26 10:33:51 2005 From: embrancato at netzero.com (Elizabeth M. Brancato) Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 10:33:51 -0500 Subject: {news} Nation GP Peace Committee Message-ID: <422096DF.70401@netzero.com> Connecticut Greens, The National Party is forming a Peace Action Committee. I've pasted it's statement of purpose, as posted on the national website, at the end of this email (in Italics). Justine McCabe and I would like to represent Connecticut Greens on this Committee. There are three slots for Connecticut available on the Committee. Is anyone interested in filling these slots? Justine and I have sought the approval of the Executive Committee, but there is some question as to whether or not the approval must come from the full SCC. If the Executive Committee isn't able to do this approval, it will be on the agenda of the next SCC meeting, to be held 3/29/05. In that case, please be prepared to vote. In the meantime, I will be doing whatever I can to work on the Committee, unofficially. If the EC and/or the SCC selects someone else to join the Committee, I'll step aside. Please contact me, and/or any member of the Executive Committee if you're interested in joining this Committee as a representative of the Green Party of Connecticut. Elizabeth Brancato / / /*Committee Co-Chairs: *Co-Chair Aimee Smith (MA) aimee at green-rainbow.org Co-Chair (Open position)/ /*Listerv Administrator:* Steve Loranz (IL) sloranz at king.net Listserv: peace at lists.gp-us.org (requires approval from your State Party)/ /*Description:* The Peace Action Committee (PAX) of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) exists to facilitate the planning and achievement of peace and justice action proposals adopted by GPUS, and to support and promote the Party's Anti-War candidates and agenda. The Peace Action Committee is a (proposed) standing committee of the GPUS and is governed by section 3 of the bylaws of the GPUS. The Peace Action Committee is made up of up to 3 volunteers from each of the various state Green parties. Each state party, when requesting that a member be added to the roles of the Peace Action Committee, send a note to the co-chairs of the Peace Action Committee informing the Peace Action Committee of its new members. The Peace Action Committee shall maintain a GP Listerv for the communication of committee business and to use in formal decision making." / ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From dbedellgreen at hotmail.com Sun Feb 27 18:05:19 2005 From: dbedellgreen at hotmail.com (David Bedell) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 23:05:19 +0000 Subject: {news} animal rights bills this Friday Message-ID: Here are 3 important CT bills to prevent cruelty to animals. David Bedell ----Original Message Follows---- From: AACT Reply-To: AnimalAdvocacyConnecticut-owner at yahoogroups.com To: AnimalAdvocacyConnecticut at yahoogroups.com Subject: This Friday WOW public hearing Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 16:41:19 -0500 Public hearing on 3 extraordinary bills PLEASE COME TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT Environment Committee, Friday, March 4, 11:00 am Room 2E, Legislative Office Building, Hartford 1) H.B. No. 5010 AN ACT PROHIBITING THE SALE OF PUPPIES BY PET SHOPS 2) H.B. No. 5586 AN ACT CONCERNING THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CUSTOM SLAUGHTER PERMITS Requires "custom" and "farmer-operated"slaughter houses that do not hold USDA permits to obtain a permit from the CT Department of Agriculture. This could be a huge step forward. 3) H.B. No. 6413 AN ACT PROHIBITING THE USE OF ELEPHANTS FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENTERTAINMENT BY TRAVELING SHOWS, THEATRICAL EXHIBITIONS AND CIRCUSES The fact that the new chairs of the Environment Committee are granting public hearings does not mean they will shepherd these bills through to enactment. We must show strong public support. If you have individual, first-hand knowledge or experience in Connecticut that supports any of these bills, please contact me, Julie Lewin jlewin at igc.org. Many other bills will be heard. Especially come if you are a constitent of a member of the Environment Committee, whose names are below. REMAINING PRIORITY PUBLIC HEARING AACT's animal shelter bill has yet to be heard by the Judiciary Committee. The Connecticut Humane Society's animal trust bill also remains to be heard in the Judiciary Committee. Very sincerely, Julie Lewin, AACT President & Lobbyist ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE Sen.Andrea Stillman, Senate Chair stillman at senatedems.ct.gov Sen. Cathy Cook Catherine.W.Cook at cga.ct.gov Sen. Jonathan Harris Jonathan.Harris at cga.ct.gov Sen. John McKinney John.McKinney at cga.ct.gov Sen. Christopher Murphy murphy at senatedems.ct.gov; Rep. Mike Alberts mike.alberts at housegop.state.ct.us Rep. Terry Backer Terry.Backer at cga.ct.gov Rep. Clark Chapin clark.chapin at housegop.state.ct.us Rep. Paul Davis Paul.Davis at cga.ct.gov Rep. Len Greene len.greene at housegop.state.ct.us Rep. Marilyn Guiliano marilyn.giuliano at housegop.state.ct.us Rep. John Hennessy john.hennessy at cga.ct.gov Rep. Steve Jarmoc Steve.Jarmoc at cga.ct.gov Rep. Ed Jutila Ed.Jutila at cga.ct.gov Rep. Raymond Kalinowski raymond.kalinowski at housegop.state.ct.us Rep. Robert Megna Robert.Megna at cga.ct.gov Rep. Joe Mioli joe.mioli at cga.ct.gov Rep. Edward Moukawsher Edward.Moukawsher at cga.ct.gov Rep. Mary Mushinsky mary.mushinski at cga.ct.gov Rep. Jim O'Rourke Jim.O'Rourke at cga.ct.gov; Rep. Chris Perone Chris.Perone at cga.ct.gov Rep. John Piscopo john.piscopo at housegop.state.ct.us Rep. Richard Roy, House Chair Richard.Roy at cga.ct.gov Rep. James Spallone James.Spallone at cga.ct.gov; Rep. Diana Urban Diana.Urban at housegop.state.ct.us Rep.George Wilber George.Wilber at cga.ct.gov; Rep. Roberta Willis Roberta.Willis at cga.ct.gov From aaron at easy-designs.net Sun Feb 27 21:41:33 2005 From: aaron at easy-designs.net (Aaron Gustafson) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 21:41:33 -0500 Subject: {news} Count Every Vote Act of 2005 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200502280241.j1S2fdd19835@easy-designs.net> Just wanted to give you all a heads up on the Count Every Vote Act of 2005, proposed by Sens. Barbra Boxer & Hillary Clinton & Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. You can read the full press release here: http://www.boxer.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=232372, but here are a few high points of the bill: * Voter-verified paper trail * Ballot will be official ballot for recount * Computer source code open to the public * Election Day = Federal Holiday * early voting in each state * restricts the ability of chief state election officials as well as owners and senior managers of voting machine manufacturers to engage in certain kinds of political activity * makes it a federal crime to commit deceptive practices, punishable by up to a year of imprisonment Looks great even though it will likely be gutted in committee. We need to gang up on our congresspersons in support of this bill. We could stir up some really bad PR around anyone who is against the bill. After all, it's un-American to not want every vote counted, right? Cheers, Aaron Gustafson Webmaster CT Green Party webmaster at ctgreens.org From aol_an at yahoo.com Mon Feb 28 15:31:32 2005 From: aol_an at yahoo.com (The Pen) Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:31:32 -0800 Subject: {news} Should Congress investigate the integrity of presidential press conferences Message-ID: How is it that a phony journalist was promoted to ask propaganda questions at White House press conferences? The issue is not whether Mr. Guckert (Jeff Gannon) might have moonlighted as a prostitute. The real question is whether the press itself, in the exercise of its professionalism should have more control over the process. Is it time for Congress to get involved to make sure the tough questions are allowed to be asked? What do you think we should do? Here is a one click page that sends your personal message to all your members of Congress at once. http://www.usalone.org/press.htm And remember we will set up a custom action page for any issue of your own you like for no charge, and you get a snazzy drop-in dynamic menu for your own web page to help promote it at http://www.usalone.org/action_center.html Please forward this message and post this link everywhere you can to everyone you know. Or if you want to get off the list, just email back indicating same. NEVER SEND SPAM. IT IS BAD.