Global

The war in Colombia isn't about drugs. It's about the annihilation of popular uprisings by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla groups, or Indian peasants fending off the ravages of oil companies, cattle barons and mining firms. A good old-fashioned counterinsurgency war, designed to clear the way for American corporations to set up shop in Colombia, with cocaine as the scare tactic.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a national organization looking out for us critters throughout the world. Below is an excerpt from their website about what I believe is an important animal rights issue that many people never considered -- are the animals at the circus happy? Are they actually having fun? Or are they tortured, abused, humiliated and forced to do unnatural acts? There is a growing list of circuses that do not use animals for this very reason. If humans want to dress in sparkly costumes and spin by their teeth high up in air, or wear oversized shoes and noses and squirt water at each other - let them. Leave us out of it!

PETA’s Report

In contrast to the glitter associated with circuses, performing animals’ lives are pretty miserable. Because animals do not naturally ride bicycles, stand on their heads, or jump through rings of fire, whips, electric prods, and other tools are often used to force them to perform. The smaller and poorer the circus, the more limited the animals’ access may be to water, food, and veterinary care.

FREEP HERO

U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords

Not since the Nazi Party ascended to power with only a third of the vote in the early 1930’s has there been such a shameless political power grab as that of George W. Bush. Despite losing the popular vote, and the appearance that family and friends rigged the results in Florida, Bush embarked on a five-month blitzkreig to make the world safe for fossil fuels and global warming. Under his so-called “charm offensive” that comes across as Jethro Bodine on downers, he undermined the U.S. tax system and was well on his way to building an unneeded and brand new missile defense system. He appeared unstoppable. And then Senator Jim Jeffords uprooted the shrub and moved the country back to the center with his bold and beautiful defection from the Republican Party. Jeffords’ action is not only heroic, it’s historic. Too bad he didn’t get to confront Junior and ask him the same question asked Senator Joseph McCarthy: “Have you no shame, sir?”

THE FREE PRESS SALUTES

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeiffer

As difficult as it is for me to admit, I’m getting old. Some say that our social culture repeats itself about every twenty years or so. If that’s the case I now have to realize that I’m experiencing déjà vu for the second time around. Such is the case when I look at our new form of civil disobedience. You see, I remember the sit-ins and the shut ins. I remember the marching and the social justice rebellion of the 60’s, the me generation rebellion of the 80’s and now the hi-tech low risk civil obedient disobedience of the new millennium. From the hippies to the yuppies, buppies and now techies, it has all been some sort of call for a shift in the social paradigm. Though today’s form of civil disobedience is a far cry from the Montgomery boycott, the march on Washington, Woodstock or hostile takeovers (yes hostile takeovers were a form of rebellion), there are still some vague similarities that exist.

Some of those similarities are best characterized by the “what’s in it for me” mentality. Or rather, “how do I protect their rights before they infringe on my rights” thinking.

AUSTIN — What a glorious year for the summer reading list! Enough gems to stock any list — fiction and non-, funny and tragic, sometimes both simultaneously; plus a perfect plethora of peppy public policy books.

But there are two books I especially want to recommend, both by women I admire and know slightly: Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich and Washington by the late Meg Greenfield of The Washington Post. If you read them in conjunction, it more than doubles the strength of each.

Ehrenreich’s book, it seems to me, is the stronger of the two. She did what reporters used to do before they became so unbearably self-important: She reports what the society actually looks like from the bottom. Starting in 1998, she went out and got successive and sometimes simultaneous no-skills, close-to-minimum wage jobs and tried to make it from one month to the next. She couldn’t do it. As she so painfully shows, the joker in the deck for low-wage workers is the cost of housing.

As police fired rubber bullets through tear gas in Quebec City, many reporters echoed the claim that “free trade” promotes democracy. Meanwhile, protesters struggled to shed light on a key fact: The proposed hemispheric trade pact would give large corporations even more power to override laws that have been enacted — democratically — to protect the environment, labor and human rights.

Newsweek responded to the turmoil at the Summit of the Americas with a column by Fareed Zakaria, a favorite policy analyst in elite circles. He declared that “the anti-globalization crowd is antidemocratic ... trying to achieve, through intimidation and scare tactics, what it has not been able to get through legislation.” In recent decades, of course, the same was said about cutting-edge demonstrations for such causes as civil rights, peace in Vietnam and environmental safeguards.

In a five day period in early May, the United States was justifiably slapped around at the United Nations. It’s about time. While the mainstream media encourages U.S. citizens to angerly mutter “Why are they picking on us? We’re so good,” the reality is the U.S. deserved to be voted off the Human Rights Commission on May 3. This is the first time in the history of that body that the U.S. has not had a seat on the Commission. It would be an irony of the highest sort to keep the U.S. on the Commission when our current president routinely executed people as Governor of Texas at a rate higher than the vast majority of nations in the world. The U.S. came in last of the four nominated countries – Sweden, France and Austria. Not only do they all have better records on Human Rights, they all have significantly higher rates of voter turnout. With the recent findings by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission – the fact that for every ten black votes not counted in Florida’s last election, only one white vote was voided – perhaps the first thing the U.N. Human Rights Commission could do would be to investigate the massive human rights violations in the rogue state of Florida.

Beacon Fellowship is a non-profit, Interfaith organization who’s Mission is to unite people to create change in communities. We are not a political group, we are not a church, we are a small community organization working on Social Justice issues that impact all of us.

Our Social Justice focus includes racism, homophobia, violence, poverty, substance abuse and youth issues. Ongoing projects include:

• Beacon Against Violence Initiative (BAVI)

• Quarterly and Monthly publications
• Beacon Against Racism project
• Interfaith Socials and Social Justice Gatherings
• Small group Educational Programs
• Day of Remembrance Interfaith Gatherings, April 20, 2002
• Beacon Against Violence Day, October 12, 2001
• Substance Abuse Education

Cindie Cyrus, Democratic Party regular and progressive activist, passed away this past April. Cindie’s untimely exit from our world has caused tremendous mourning among her friends and admirers.

A large group of Cindie’s friends, family, activists and party regulars got a chance to reminisce at her memorial, presided over by the Rev. Gary Witte, about her dedication to social justice and human rights. There are many who have fond memories of working with Cindie Cyrus, here are some excerpts from her friends’ words:

Cindie had many passions in life. But three loves were greater than others. Cindie dearly loved her mother, daughters and grandson. She read books to him from the time he was born. When he showed an interest in plants and flowers, she encouraged him to create his own garden in the backyard. People just naturally bloomed around Cindie.

For A Better Ohio (FABO), Columbus’ own advocacy group for the reform of cannabis legislation, had several successful acts of hemp activism and agitation this spring in hopes of raising awareness regarding its current efforts to decriminalize personal use. This effort, in the form of an initiative petition utilizing the city’s policy of home rule, would, if successful, make misdemeanor quantities of marijuana the lowest priority misdemeanor in the city. Misdemeanor quantities can safely be defined as quantities that are for personal use and not for distribution.

FABO has been spending this year collecting signatures to put the initiative on the ballot this November. In order to promote the initiative, For A Better Ohio has also staged a “potluck” picnic on OSU’s campus, a march down High Street, and most recently, the annual Hempfest, also held on campus.