Ending Corporate Governance & co-globalizing gaia's children Archive of noteworthy events This is an archive of past events and news pertaining to ending corporate governance and co-globalizing our single human family.

2005

• Dec 2-4: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Portland, Oregon - contact: David Delk, daviddelk-afd [at] peoplepc [dot] com, (503) 232 5495, (503) 242 4200
  
  
  
  
• Nov 4-6: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA - contact: Stacey Schmader, info[at]celdf[dot]org, 717-709-0457
  
  
  
  
• Oct 21-23: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Boston College, Brookline, MA, Website: Massachusetts Democracy School - contact: Adam Sacks, adam [at] constitution411 [dot] org, 781-674-2339
  
  
  
  
• Oct 10-12: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Anchorage, Alaska, Website: Alaska Democracy School - contact: Mark Masteller, m.masteller [at] acat [dot] org, (907) 373-0909
  
  
  
  
• Oct 1-8: International Keep Space for Peace Week - Stop the Militarization of Space

  Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space The people of Hiroshima, Japan understand the impact modern warfare can have. Sixty years ago the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on their city. The A-bomb dome is a reminder to all that creating a new arms race in space will have catastrophic consequences on earth. Honor the memory of those who perished in the past by helping to prevent the next arms race. Please join our week of local actions.

  
  
  
  
• Sep 30-Oct 2: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Montrose, Colorado, Colorado Democracy School - contact: Kevin Williams, montrose [at] worc [dot] org, (970) 323-6849
  
  
  
  
• Sep 24-26: School of Living - Anniversary Gathering
  Heathcote Community, Freeland, Maryland
  The School of Living is an educational organization dedicated to learning and teaching the philosophy, practices and principles of living that are self-empowering for individuals within the general aim of establishing decentralized, ecologically-sound, self-governed and humane communities. SoL's area of study touches on every aspect of people and society. Historically we have played a pivotal role in movements supporting: organic agriculture, consumer rights, cooperatives and worker owned businesses, tax abolition, geonomics, appropriate technology, neighborhood and community rights and control. Today SoL is actively engaged in: community land trust, intentional community support, permaculture, ecological use of resources, human scale and local self reliance, appropriate technology, alternative education, consensus decision making, non-exploitive banking, and alternative currency. In June, The School of Living will be celebrating its long involvement in these diverse areas of sustainability and healthy living with a gathering that will feature workshops that address many topics including:

  Hands-On	Historical/Intellectual	Creative
  Green Building Tour Natural Building Weed Walk with Grace Cooking with Wild Foods Sweat Lodge Ceremony Cranial Sacral Therapy Canning Vegetables Organic Gardening & Tour Sustainability, Fire & Cogeneration	Community Land Trust Alternative Education Georgist Movement Alternative Currency History of the School of Living Introduction to Permaculture SOL Land Trust slide show History of a CSA History of the Institute for Community Economics	Dance Deep Ecology and Art Self-Portraits Mandalas Making Poems World Drumming and Percussion Circle World Music Group Sing/Dances of the Universe

  
  
  
  
• William Blum's Speaking Engagements
  Author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (1995),
  Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (2000),
  West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Political Memoir (2002)
  • September 22-24: Paris, France
    International Conference on Humanitarian Law
  • October: Ottawa, Canada
  
  
  
  
• Sep 16-18: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Flagstaff, Arizona, Northern Arizona University Democracy School - contact: Sandra Lubarsky, Sandra.Lubarsky [at] NAU [dot] EDU, (928) 523-2382
  
  
  
  
• Sep 2-4: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA - contact: Stacey Schmader, info[at]celdf[dot]org, 717-709-0457
  
  
  
  
• Aug 15-21: Think Outside the Bomb, National Youth Conference on Nuclear Issues
  University of California, Santa Barbara
  Young organizers who work either directly or indirectly on nuclear issues are invited to participate in the gathering. Prospective applicants include, but are not limited to, young activists who are: resisting increasing militarism in their schools; opposing the storage of nuclear waste in their neighborhoods; and/or implementing sustainable energy practices in their homes, churches/mosques/synagogues, and/or universities. It is our goal for participants to leave the gathering with a deepened understanding of nuclear issues; inspiration to continue their activism; expanded social and professional networks; an approach to fundraising based upon compassion; and a supply of organizing resources.
            Participants will be asked to develop and present an action plan during the gathering. Facilitators will support participants in conceptualizing and writing their plans. Similarly, facilitators will help participants implement their plans immediately following the gathering. Examples of such support include: mentorship; skills training; internship and fellowship positions; regional gatherings; conference calls; and funding prospects.
  
  
  
  
• Aug 7-15: 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, Venezuela, 2005
  For Peace and Solidarity, We Struggle Against Imperialism and War
  The official Homepage of the Festival is: www.caracas2005.info
  The World Festival of Youth and Students is an international gathering of young people from every region of the world who come together in the spirit of peace and international solidarity. The festival movement started after the events of World War II when young people swore to never again allow fascism to take hold and spread. The first festival was held in Prague in 1947 and since then it has become an important event for radical and progressive youth featuring cultural exhibitions, performances, workshops, panel discussions, intramural sports events, parties, demonstrations, marches and much more. The festival offers a chance to learn about the struggles and cultures of young people from around the world. One exciting feature of the festival is the clubhouse, which is organized by region and offers each delegation an opportunity to display information, materials and artwork from their country to share with other delegations. The festival also offers a space for dialogue and exchange between delegates; both in formal settings like workshops and panels and in informal settings like over a meal or at a party.
            The 16th World Festival of Youth and Students will be held in Caracas, Venezuela in August of 2005. It is expected that over 10,000 youth from over 100 countries around the world will travel to Caracas to participate in the festival. This year, given the current state of the world and the particularly destructive and illegal behavior of the US government towards not only Iraq but towards countries around the world, the theme of For Peace and Solidarity, We Struggle Against Imperialism and War is of particular importance. This festival will allow us a chance to show that young people in the U.S. do not agree with George Bush and his policies and that we too believe in and struggle for a more just, peaceful world.
            While the focus of the festival is the building of friendship and international solidarity among the worlds youth, each festival offers the opportunity to highlight the struggles and experiences of the host country and region. Throughout Latin America, popular struggles for social and economic justice have grown increasingly strong and militant and the festival will give us an opportunity to learn more about the movements for change that are spreading all across the region. As you probably know, Venezuela has been a hotbed of resistance and popular organizing against US imperialism and intervention. The political process in Venezuela, known as the Bolivarian Revolution, was born out of a popular, mass movement of workers, indigenous peoples, women and youth to fight for social and economic justice for the people of Venezuela. Throughout the organizing process for the festival, and in Caracas, we will have a chance to learn more about the history of this struggle in Venezuela and some of the advances of the Bolivarian Revolution including literacy campaigns, social programs, and economic reforms to benefit poor and working class Venezuelans.
  
  
  
  
• Aug 6-9: No More Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis! National Days of Remembrance and Action 1945-2005
  
  August 6 and 9, 2005 mark the 60th anniversaries of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Join with people at four central US nuclear weapons sites in major actions calling for an end to the development and production of nuclear warheads. Activities will recognize the devastation caused by nuclear weapons and memorialize the many victims of bomb production at every step – from uranium mining to design, to production, to testing and use. Join the global majority to say NO! to militarism, war and oppression, and YES! to nonviolence, justice and a more secure world for all.
            In Japanese culture, the 60th birthday holds a particular cultural significance in celebrating long life. In this 60th year since the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the greatest gift to the hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombings) and to the world would be to reaffirm life by immediately initiating negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Here is what you can do:

  1. Attend a major action on August 6 at one of the core nuclear weapons sites in California, Nevada, New Mexico and Tennessee (see specific site info below). Be sure to share the information and bring others with you!
  2. Organize or participate in a candlelight vigil at the City Hall in your community on August 9.
  3. Download, copy and distribute the August 6 and 9 National Days of Remembrance and Action flyer to your friends, family, networks and/or members of your organization and encourage them to get involved!
  4. Print the August 6 and 9 National Days of Remembrance and Action Postcard to distribute to members of your organization or at events. For more information, please contact Carah Ong at cong@napf.org or (202) 543-4100, ext. 105.

  August 6 and 9 National Days of Remembrance and Action are coordinated by: Abolition Now!, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Nevada Desert Experience, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Pax Christi New Mexico, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Tri-Valley CAREs, United for Peace and Justice, and Western States Legal Foundation.
  Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, California
  "Seeds of Change" ─ celebrate the vision of a nuclear free world with music, a dinner rally and candlelight march.
  Where: William Payne Park, 5800 Patterson Pass Rd. Livermore, CA
  When: Saturday, August 6, 2005, 5 pm
  Initial co-sponsors include: American Friends Service Committee, California Peace Action, Green Party California, Livermore Conversion Project, the Northern California Communist Party, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Peace and Freedom Party, Peace Fresno, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), Veterans for Peace San Francisco Chapter 69, Western States Legal Foundation, Women"s International League for Peace and Freedom and Women for Peace.
  Contact: Tara Dorabji, Tri-Valley CAREs, tara@trivalleycares.org, (925) 443-7148, www.trivalleycares.org.
  Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab, New Mexico
  "Hiroshima, 60 Years: It Started Here -- Let's Stop It Here!" – teach-in, sunflower pageant, workshops, music, candle ritual, meditation, and more.
  Where: Ashley Pond Park in Los Alamos, NM
  When: Saturday, August 6, 2005, 8:30 am to 10:00 pm
  Initial endorsing organizations include: Albuquerque Peace and Justice Center, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Los Alamos Study Group, Pax Christi New Mexico, Upaya Zen Center and the local chapter of Veterans for Peace.
  Contact: Los Alamos Study Group, (505) 265-1200, www.lasg.org; Pax Christi New Mexico, (505) 870-2275, www.paxchristinewmexico.org; and Upaya Zen Center, Joan Halifax, (505) 986-8182, www.upaya.org.
  Nevada Test Site, Nevada
  "Many Stories, One Vision for a Nuclear Free World" ─ conference, speakers and public witness including storytelling, nonviolence trainings, liturgy, music, performance, workshops and nonviolent direct action.
  Where: University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Nevada (Nuclear) Test Site
  When: August 4-7, 2005
  Sponsored by: Nevada Desert Experience and Pax Christi USA; Co-sponsored by: Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Citizen Alert, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, Physicians for Social Responsibility (L.A.) and Western States Legal Foundation. Western Shoshone are supporting the action.
  Contact: Nevada Desert Experience, (702) 646-4814, nde_youth@peacenet.org, www.nevadadesertexperience.org and www.paxchristiusa.org.
  Y-12 Nuclear Facility, Tennessee
  "Stop the Bombs!" ─ remembrance/names ceremony; peace march, rally and direct action; and peace lantern ceremony.
  When: Saturday, August 6, 2005, all day
  Where: Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, TN
  Contact: Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, orep@earthlink.net, (865) 483-8202, www.stopthebombs.org.
  Initial Co-Sponsors Include: Cumberland Center for Justice and Peace; Footprints for Peace; Justice, Peace, Integrity of Creation—Diocese of East Tennessee; Nipponzan Myohoji—Atlanta Dojo; Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance; Pax Christi—Memphis; Pax Christi—Michigan; Presentation Sisters; Sisters of Charity, Cincinnati; Sisters of the Precious Blood, Dayton; and Women"s Action for New Directions, Michigan.
  August 9, 2005: Remember the Bombing of Nagasaki
  We are calling for candlelight vigils to be held at City Halls in communities across the country. In addition, we encourage people to organize readings, lantern lighting ceremonies, shadow projects and more. In support of the Mayors for Peace, we are calling on local groups to invite their Mayors to participate in the vigils and read out proclamations.
  Contact: Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, wslf@earthlink.net, (510) 839-5877, www.wslfweb.org
  
  
  
  
• Aug 5-7: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Austin, Texas, Website: Austin Democracy School - contact: Sheril Smith, sherilsmith [at] ev1 [dot] net, (512) 468-2131 (cell)
  
  
  
  
• Jul 29-31: Community Organizing for Deep Democracy Retreat
  Presented by the California Center for Community Democracy (CCCD) & Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (DUHC)
  This full weekend workshop will help participants effectively organize in their own communities to reclaim citizen sovereignty and will offer tangible strategies for actions that we can collectively take to get our democracy back from corporations. This three-day event will challenge the deep assumptions that we all hold about what it means to live in a democracy and what the proper role of the corporation is. We will draw on history as well as current events to illustrate the changing role of the corporation over time and how seriously our past people's struggles have taken the concept of democracy. The event will be tailored to meet the needs of the participants based on pre-event feedback. This event is open to participants from all over the country.
  
  
  
  
• Jul 15-17: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Spokane, Washington, Spokane Democracy School - contact: Kate Koch, katekoch [at] excite [dot] com, (509) 835-5211
  
  
  
  
• Jun 24-26: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA, - contact: Stacey Schmader, info [at] celdf [dot] org, (717) 709-0457
  
  
  
  
• Jun 21: Watching Big Brother Watch Us: Immigrants and Citizens Together
  Renee Saucedo and Riva Enteen, SF Gray Panther General Meeting
  Unitarian-Universalist Center, Fireside Room, 1187 Franklin St (betw. Geary & O' Farrell)
  This is a crucial time for civil liberties and human rights. Immigrants are being threatened by:

  • Minutemen, armed border vigilantes whom the US Congress has feted (see Comments from CIRC Members on Minutemen, 4/27/05 & Report from the Immigration Reform Caucus Urges Troops Sent to Border, 5/23/05) and Schwarzenegger has invited to California (Border stance inflames Capitol, 4/30/05), and is already planning action in California (Border vigil planned for California, 5/19/05).
  • The 71 member US Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus issued at widely-publicized 33 page report praising the Minutemen and calling for the governors of Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico to get federal funding to deploy 36,000 National Guard Troops along the US-Mexico border (Put the Guard on the border and stop illegal immigration, 6/2/05 & Report urges troops sent to border, 5/23/05).
  • The Real ID Act, making it virtually impossible for states to issue drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants, and moving the US closer to a national ID card (Coming Soon: National ID Cards? Recently passed Real ID Act undermines civil rights, critics charge, 5/31/05 & Big Brother Police State one step closer, 6/1/05 & Senate approves electronic ID card bill, 5/10/05)
  • New laws making political asylum extremely difficult (REAL ID Endangers People Fleeing Persecution)
  • Federal laws discouraging immigrants from using using health facilities, and
  • State laws barring undocumented immigrants from receiving health or any other state services, and criminalizing state employees who fail to report undocumented immigrants.

  Citizens are being threatened by:

  • Administration moves to sneak through the perpetuation of provisions of the USA Patriot act that are due to expire at the end of this year (Senate Gives FBI More Patriot Act Power, 6/8/05), and even expand it Open door on Patriot Act, 6/3/05),
  • Government exercises in integrating its police, security, and intelligence forces to achieve massive roundups, such as the recent Operation Falcon, where over 10,000 were arrested nationwide over a short period of time (US Marshals, local police stage nationwide mass arrests, 4/16/05 & Operation FALCON, & Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Announces Arrests of More Than 10,000 Fugitives Through Operation Falcon, 4/14/05), including over 145 in Northern California (SAN FRANCISCO - 146 area fugitives caught in dragnet, 4/15/05) over half in San Francisco (National sweep nets 10,000 fugitives, 4/15/05)
  • Reports of renewed grand jury subpoenas of political activists nationally and in the Bay Area (Federal Investigators and Your Rights - How can grand juries make people go to jail?, SF: Emergency Grand Jury Teach-In, 5/31/05 & Emergency Grand Jury Teach-in, 5/31/05 & Just say NO to grand jury attack on the anti-war movement - Don't Talk!, 2/9/04). Under provisions of the Patriot Act not due to sunset, information obtained from grand juries can be given to the CIA. (Civil Liberties in a Time of Crisis)

  Our speakers will talk about the implications of these threats, what we can do to fight them, and give examples of how people are already organizing against them. See story, pics and video of recent SF demonstration for immigrant rights. Read more about the Patriot Act, and provisions due to expire this year.
  
  
  
  
• May 21: Please join us for Peace
  Kathy Kelly speaks at Vandenberg Space Command, 1pm at main gate
  Guest speakers Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness and Bill Sultzman of Citizens for Peace in Space. Sponsored by the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and endorsed by California Peace Action, Code Pink Women for Peace and War Resister's League.
            
  
  
  
  
• May 1-4: Mayors for Peace: the Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons
  
  1 May: March and Public Rally for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Future
  Many US and international anti-nuclear-weapon and anti-war organizations are sponsoring this great public demonstration. The President of Mayors for Peace will address the rally. Mayors will join the line of march to Central Park which starts in the UN area.
  2 May: Official Opening of the 2005 NPT Review Conference and President's Reception
  Foreign Ministers will speak in the General Debate of the opening session of the Review Conference. Mayors who have registered with the Mayors for Peace delegation will be able to attend as observers. Mayors for Peace will arrange consultations with Ministers. That evening, the President of the Review Conference will host a reception.
  3 May: Mayors Conference at the United Nations and Gala Reception
  The Mayors Conference is an all-day event. The UN Secretary General, the IAEA Director General, and Foreign Ministers have been invited to address the luncheon session. Sister Cities International is co-organizing the morning session; the Abolition Now! Campaign is co-organizing the afternoon session. That evening, the "Back to the Garden Arts Initiative" will be launched at a reception for mayors and diplomats also attended by some of the major performing artists who will participate in the July 25th rock concert at Madison Square Garden and visual artists who will contribute to the 2005-2010 world-tour fine art exhibition.
  May 4: Meeting with Parliamentarians and NGO Presentation to Review Conference
  A luncheon meeting co-organized by the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament and Mayors for Peace will explore the potential for collaborative efforts. The Review Conference will hold a plenary session to hear from Non-Governmental Organizations. Several members of Mayors for Peace will be among the presenters. Other mayors may wish to express solidarity by attending this session as well. (Since the Governments have not yet agreed upon the Conference's agenda, it is still not known whether this NGO session will be held in the morning or afternoon.)
  
  
  
  
• May 1: National disarmament demonstration in support of Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference
            The May 1st demonstration will precede a month-long meeting of world governments at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City to discuss the fate of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a treaty in which nuclear weapons states -- United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France -- agreed to eliminate their nuclear weapons arsenals. The Bush regime continues to manipulate the treaty by vehemently demanding disarmament from other countries, while expanding US production and development of nuclear weapons. The United States used nuclear weapons as an excuse for war in Iraq. Will North Korea and Iran be next?
            United in our opposition to the growing threat of nuclear war, and the use of nuclear weapons as a pretext for war, we must mobilize now and demand the full and rapid implementation of the promise for nuclear disarmament. We'll be joined by a delegation of mayors from around the world, as they deliver the call for nuclear disarmament, on behalf of millions of people, to the United Nations. Mayors will lead marches to the rally site on May 1st. Join a mayor from your region in a march on May 1st.
  Global Disarmament Starts at Home - It's Time to Disarm America
  The continued possession of thousands of nuclear weapons by the existing nuclear weapons states, together with the US policy of preventive war and its push to modernize its nuclear arsenal, provide arguments for other countries to develop nuclear weapons of their own.
  Nuclear Weapons Threaten Everyone's Security
  Nuclear weapons remain the most dangerous of all weapons, the only ones that can destroy civilization in a day. We need to redefine security in human and ecological terms, rather than military ones: food, shelter, clean air and water, jobs, healthcare and education. This kind of security is universal.
  
  
  
  
• Apr 29-30: Full Spectrum Resistance - an International Space Organizing Conference
  New York City, Global Network 13th Annual International Conference
  Keynote speaker: Dr. Michio Kaku (Henry Semat Professorship in Theoretical Physics at the City University of New York. His most popular and best selling books include Hyperspace and Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century.) This event will be held at the Musicians Union Hall Local #802 (322 W. 48th St) in New York City and will run from 1-9 pm. Advance registration will be necessary. The GN conference is being co-sponsored by Abolition 2000 Network.
            On Sunday, May 1 there will an international disarmament rally planned by Abolition 2000 and United for Peace & Justice in Central Park calling for the rapid implementation of the promise of nuclear disarmament.
  
  
  
  
  
• Apr 22-24: Hiroshima/Nagasaki2005: Memories & Visions
  Tufts University, Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts
  This conference includes the Global Hibakusha Film Festival. Speakers include former World Court Vice President Christopher Weeramantry (wrote one of the most important decisions in the World Court ruling on the use and threatened use of nuclear weapons), Hiroshima and Nagasaki Hibakusha (A-bomb witnesses/survivors), and others.
  
  
  
  
• Apr 18-22: Building Democracy, Participation and Peace by Peaceful Means: Strategies and Actions for Social Transformation and Nonviolent Struggle - Learning from and Building Local and Global Movements
  Transcend - A Peace and Development Organisation for Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means
  Romanian Peace Institute, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  An Invitation to democracy struggles, social justice movements, women's organisations, students, unions, human rights workers, peace activists, and people's movements from across the world!
            In the aftermath of Madrid, September 11th, the war on Afghanistan, the war on Iraq, and the wars of terrorism, non-violent transformations in Ukraine, Georgia and Bolivia, and people's struggles for social justice, democracy, and humanrights in their communities and world-wide, Building Democracy, Participation and Peace by Peaceful Means is a practical, concrete course exploring the dynamics and methods of nonviolent mobilisation and conflict transformation.
            Building Democracy, Participation and Peace by Peaceful Means is intended as a meeting point and in-depth, intensive training programme for those engaged in nonviolent movements and social struggles for people's and community rights, democratisation, peace, and social justice, drawing upon the inspiration and lessons learned from people's movements and struggles around the world over the past 50 years. From the People's Power movement in the Philippines to the non-violent revolutions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and the overthrow of political apartheid in South Africa to the Living Democracy Movement in India, the Assembly of the Poor in Thailand, the Landless Movement in Brazil, struggles for democracy in Georgia and Ukraine, and the World Social Forum, Building Democracy will draw the lessons and experiences from the history of nonviolence in practice.
            Ideal for community workers and people working for human rights and struggling against violence in all its forms, Building Democracy will bring together social justice and human rights activists, social workers and organisers, and peace organisations and movements from around the world creating a space for sharing of experiences and training in skills and methods for practice - for local and global struggles - learning from the legacy of non-violent movements from all continents, and weaving together and strengthening a global network of committed social activists and non-violent practitioners.
            For individuals, communities, and organisations working to actively engage to develop constructive programmes to overcome violence and injustice in our communities and globally Building Democracy is part of the broader movement to show another world is possible, if we work to build it.
            Across the world communities are mobilising to address the issues and challenges facing them - from domestic violence and rape to social injustice, exploitation of the environment, repression and denial of human rights, exploitation of labour, and violent conflict - searching for ways to overcome violence in all its forms. From social justice movements to democratic struggles against political, economic, and military authoritarianism and interventions, people's power - the power of communities to resist violence and to actively unite together to transform our social, political and economic systems - is growing. Networks, linking people within and across communities world-wide, are being formed, linking theory and practice, action and reflection, and a commitment to be the change we want to see.
            Building Democracy is a practical hands-on training which will address the concrete challenges and issues facing movements, drawing upon experiences and practice around the world in how we develop our strategies, visions and actions, mobilise to engage people, and work in our communities and together. The programme will be devoted to developing methods and strategies for empowerment, mobilisation, transformation, nonviolence, strategy and building of movements. In addition to helping to intensively train and support participants in gaining experience which will be practical and useful for them in their daily work and communities, the programme will weave together a network of practitioners across continents.
            Throughout the 20th century non-violence was used as an effective tool for strengthening democratic movements and overthrowing violent, dictatorial and colonial regimes. The focus of this training programme will be on the large scale use of non-violent means to transform and overcome direct and structural violence in conflicts within our countries and globally. Drawing upon experiences from around the world, Building Democracy will help practitioners, organisations, movements and scholars to weave together a cohesive view and understanding of the methods, strategies, tools, legacy and contributions of non-violent struggles in the 20th, and 21st centuries, challenges facing us in the world today, and means to work for non-violence and conflict transformation by peaceful means, building social, economic, political and civil democracy and people's power in our own communities and internationally.
            Throughout the five-day workshop and training will be an intensive, participatory and dynamic experience, helping to develop further concrete skills, tools and knowledge for committed social activists, community workers, peace and nonviolence workers and practitioners.
  
  
  
  
• Apr 8-10: Music for Peace Project 2005
  New York and Worlwide
  The Music for Peace Project is an unprecedented global effort to fill the world with music as a call for peace. Through the simultaneous performance of a vast number of concerts worldwide bringing popular and media attention to international peace efforts while building a global community of active, socially conscious artists.
  
  
  
  
• April 8-9: Hope & Hard Work: Another America is Possible-Peace & Justice Conference Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachussetts
  
  Keynote speaker: Phyllis Bennis,
  Featured Speakers: Bob Borosage, Nancy Murray, Ken Oye, and Jessica Walker-Beaumont. More than 20 workshops will be held.
            This will be the fourth New England-wide peace and justice conference organized by the American Friends Service Committee since the September 11 attacks provided the Bush Administration with the opening to pursue its wars and the remaking of the U.S. to impose its "Arrangement for the 21st Century." The conference is being organized to provide essential background information and to encourage organizing to challenge Bush Administration priorities: the war in Iraq and expanding the empire; privatization focusing on Social Security and national budget priorities; trade - especially the Central America Free Trade Agreement; and its assault on our civil liberties and constitutionally guaranteed rights. Registration is $30, $20 for students and people with limited incomes. For more information, call AFSC at 617-661-6130.
  
  
  
  
• Mar 22: Great Decisions 2005: The U.S. and Global Poverty - Alternatives to Globalization
  John Cavanagh, World Affairs Council, 11:30 check-in, 12 noon program
  2 Sutter Street, 2nd Floor Reception Room, San Francisco, California
  John Cavanagh is President of the International Forum on Globalization and Director of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. He is co-editor (with Jerry Mander) of the recent IFG book, Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible.
            United States foreign economic policy plays a pivotal role in global poverty, with key decisions being made in 2005 that could help or harm efforts to address the crisis in poor nations. As the Washington Consensus is loudly rejected in places like Latin America; Brazil is uniting with India, China, South Africa and others to challenge U.S. proposals to promote economic development. At the World Trade Organization (WTO), the U.S. is clashing with poor nations over new rules for agriculture trade, which will impact millions of the poorest people who survive by farming. Also on the table are new rules for outsourcing, migrant workers, access to essential medicines, food security, and the very right of poor nations to determine their own path of economic development. As global civil society steps up its efforts to influence these decisions, the IFG's new book is being discussed in key capitals around the world as a basis to advance alternatives to today's global economic regime. John Cavanagh, co-editor of the IFG's, Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible (published by Berrett-Koehler), will outline the significant decisions the U.S. faces in 2005 to confront global poverty, and the alternative policies that will provide an equitable and sustainable future for people and the planet.
  
  To reserve tickets: 415-293-4600, e-mail: registration[at]wacsf[dot]org, www.itsyourworld.org
  
  
  
  
• Mar 19-20: Local/national demonstrations and activities on the second anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.
  
  United for Peace and American Friends Service Committee
  
  
  
  
• Mar 13-May 2: International Peace Walk-In Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima
  Oak Ridge, Tennessee - New York
  An international group will walk to the United Nations remembering Hiroshima, Maralinga, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, uranium mines, waste sites, depleted uranium weaponry, and the urgent danger we face with increased nuclear proliferation. This walk will visit the mayors of the cities along their route. They will ask these cities to join the Program to Promote the Solidarity of Cities toward the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons which was proposed by the mayor of Hiroshima then in 1982. The cities that join this effort will join the ranks of the European parliament and the U.S. Conference of Mayors both of which have passed resolutions supporting efforts to abolish nuclear weapons. The walk is sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, FootPrints for Peace, International Peace Pilgrimage, Nipponzan Myohoji and the Mayors for Peace Campaign.
            For schedule and other information, contact Jim Toren at 513-403-6698 or footprintsforpeace[at]fuse[dot]net

2004

• Oct 16: National Million Worker March
  Washington D.C.
  The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10, recently passed a resolution proposing a million worker march on Washington in 2004. This mobilization is being proposed in response to the attacks upon working families in America and the millions of jobs lost during the Bush administration and with the complicity of Congress. The working class has not suffered such hardships since the Great Depression.
            We are encouraging everyone to have the attached resolution adopted by your membership or organization. We are also asking that your organization start a Million Workers March Committee to mobilize organized/unorganized labor and our community and religious allies in your area, ultimately merging with a National Committee to be formed at a later date.
            The Bush Administration and Congress's focus of placing the acquisition of capital and the quest for profits above the needs of working people is undermining the economic security of working people and the nation as a whole.
            Now is the time for organized/unorganized labor, the interfaith and community organizations to show solidarity and demand that all elected officials address the needs of working people. As working class people, we know more than any others the difficulties and limitations we face both in our communities and workplaces. We shall therefore be representing ourselves during this march, independent from all politicians, while putting forward to the entire country, our program for the betterment of America's majority working population.
  
  
  
  
• Oct 14-17: Alternatives to Globalization: a Better World is Possible.
  Northwest Social Forum and International Forum on Globalization
  Seattle, Washington
             Please Join the International Forum on Globalization as we host the opening event of the Northwest Social Forum in Seattle, Washington and launch the new edition of our book, Alternatives to Globalization: a Better World is Possible. The Northwest Social Forum will convene to unite social movements and discuss alternatives to corporate globalization which we can all implement today.
            The Forum also marks the five-year anniversary of the "Battle of Seattle" and turns our attention to the better world that we all know is possible.
            The IFG panel event will include: Maude Barlow (Council of Canadians, Canada), Walden Bello (Focus on the Global South, Thailand), John Cavanagh (Institute for Policy Studies, U.S.), Tony Clarke (Polaris Institute, Canada), Martin Khor (Third World Network, Malaysia), Jerry Mander (International Forum on Globalization, U.S.), Vandana Shiva (Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, India), Lori Wallach (Public Citizen, U.S.) and others.
  
  
  
  
• Oct 14-17: Global Women's Gathering
  Indigenous and Western Women Align Their Wisdom
  Menla Mountain Retreat & Conference Center, Phoenicia, New York
            In these times of unprecedented change and challenge, when the Earth herself is endangered, who can we turn to for guidance and healing? It is our women elders who keep the wisdom that can heal us, our communities and our planet. Our indigenous women elders hold the wisdom born of their own lives lived close to the Earth and the wisdom that has been passed down through generations by the women who came before them. They know about such times as these, times of dramatic Earth changes and governmental upheavals, and they know the Earth-based ways that can sustain us through them. Through their lives they show us how to face chaos with faith. Through their ways they teach us how to stay in balance while the whole world is shaking.
            The Global Women's Gathering will bring indigenous women elders from around the world together with western women elders who have challenged the limitations of our social system and helped to deepen our relationship with the feminine. These rich and varied sources of wisdom will join together for three days of conversation and sharing about healing, sustainability, and sovereignty for all people. They will address the critical question of how to forge a unified alliance between all the Earth's peoples in the interests of life and peace.
            Our Bwiti elder, Bernadette Rebienot, has said that the women in Gabon regularly gather together in the forest to share their visions and to pray for world peace and the well being of their people. In Gabon, "When the grandmothers speak, the President listens."
            It is our intention that through this Gathering we can gather all the individual expressions of all these women into one voice, and begin to raise this voice, a voice that is both grounded in the wisdom of our original people and fueled by the inspiration and action of our western women leaders. Surely such a voice must be heard.
            The gathering will begin on Thursday evening with an opening talk from Wilma Mankiller. At that time we will meet the indigenous women from around the world who will be participating in our program during the next three days. Friday our indigenous Grandmothers will share more about their roles in their communities which will include a discussion of traditional ways and their importance in our culture. Saturday's morning program will be modeled on a traditional town hall meeting. The event will highlight the indigenous women as well as noted women from Western culture including; Carol Mosley Braun,Teresa Hale, Tenzin Palmo, Gloria Steinem, Louisah Teish and Alice Walker. This session will focus on women's roles and responsibilities in helping sustain the planet, and how we can best make our voices heard. The session also will invite questions and comments from the audience.
            The program Saturday afternoon will include seven breakout sessions on:

  1. Oppression: The Damage and the Healing
  2. Sacred Relations: Maintaining the Earth's Balance
  3. Women's Wisdom
  4. Traditional Health Systems and Knowledge
  5. Creating the Bridge between Traditional and Modern Medicine
  6. Aging: Honoring Our Elders
  7. Preserving and Regenerating Original Culture: The Return to Sustainable Community

            Each session will be facilitated by a collaboration of the indigenous grandmothers and western women elders. Sunday each group will present a summary of the discussions from the breakout sessions and a proclamation for action, which will be discussed with the entire audience. Sunday afternoon the Global Women's Gathering will close.
            This gathering is open to men as well as women.
  
  
  
  
• Oct 11: Unplug America - give Mother Earth a rest
  One People - One Earth invites you on a pilgrimage to Onondaga Lake
  Onondaga Lake Park Liverpool, New York, USA
  Peace Pilgrims from The Four Directions will meet on the shore of Onondaga Lake where Peace was made on Earth. Onondaga is a Sacred Lake where The Peacemaker planted The Tree of Peace and taught The Great Law of Peace.

  • 8am - walk for peace
    People for Peace Parade
    international - interfaith - interspecies - interdependence led by walkers from Four Directions featuring all our relations - flags of all nations - people of all ages - hearts and hands for peace - in traditional costumes - sustainable technology for sensible living: solar power - wind power - biodiesel - ecofriendly vehicles - permaculture - community forestry - ecological literacy
  • 1pm - Interfaith Ceremony at Onondaga Lake Park
    Drums for Peace, Thanksgiving, Water Ceremony, Fire Ceremony, Interfaith Prayer, Wisdom from an Elder, Peacemaker Awards
  • 3pm - The Path of Peace - artistic performance at Long Branch Park
    Rituals to Renew the Earth - Building Green Communities
  • 5pm - Cultural Festival along the northwest shore
    Food - Music - Dance - Games - Storytelling - Speakers - Exhibits - featuring "Chattin' with The Mother"

  sponsored by partners in peace - Children of the Sun www.onepeopleoneearth.org, The Earth Renewal & Restoration Alliance championtrees[at]msn[dot]com, 518-477-6100
  The Sacred Circle - First Organizing Meeting - Sunday, March 21, 2004 - Liverpool, New York
  
  
  
  
  
• Oct 1-3: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Boston College, Boston, MA

  Dates and Locations of upcoming Democracy Schools

  Focusing on a systemic historical and legal analysis of corporate power and democracy, this three-day experience is designed to help activists more effectively and fundamentally challenge corporate power, rather than simply organize corporation by corporation and harm by harm. The School is dedicated to the memory of Daniel Pennock, a 17 year old Berks County, Pennsylvania boy who died in 1995 after being exposed to land applied sewage sludge. His parents, Antoinette and Russell Pennock, travel the state seeking an end to that practice of sludge disposal -- from which waste management corporations reap massive profits from hauling and spreading sludge on farmland. This program is conceived, designed, and run by The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy.
  Friday

  • Arrival of Attendees
  • Dinner
  • Introductions of Attendees
  • Discussion:
    • "What is Our Concept of Democracy?"
    • "What is Our History of Regulatory Activism?"
    • "Does Our Work Vindicate Our Concept of Democracy?"
  • How We Got Here: A Brief Overview of the School and the Evolution of POCLAD/CELDF
  Saturday
  • The Historical Role and Nature of Corporations in the United States
    • The Role of Corporate Charters
    • The Conferral of Corporate Constitutional Rights
  • A History of Peoples' Movements in the United States
    • The American Revolution
    • The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution
    • The Anti-Federalists
    • The Populists
    • The Abolitionists and the Fourteenth Amendment
    • Womens' Rights and the Nineteenth Amendment
    • The Labor Movement
  • What Have We Learned from These Movements?
    • Common Theories, Strategies, and Actions
      • Theory of the Constitution
      • Theory of the Corporation
      • Theory of Democracy
    • Building on the Lessons of Prior Movements
  • Building New Models of Organizing
    • The "Single Issue: Model: From Reframing to Winning
      • Driving into Local Governing Arenas
        • Challenging and Contesting Corporations
        • Contesting Government Actions Empowering Corporations to Usurp Community Control From Reframing to Drawing the Corporate Response To Building New Constituencies To Winning
    • Altering the Odds: Directly Challenging Corporate Rights
      • The Porter and Licking Township, Clarion County Experience: Using Law to Eliminate Legal Privileges Claimed by Corporations
  Sunday
  • Building the Connections Amongst All Single Issues
    • Our History of Collaterally Challenging Illegitimate Corporate Authority
  • Breakout: Reframing Single Issues by Rethinking Several Issues
    • An Exploration of Jurisdictions and Arenas
    • Other Constituencies
    • Critical Mass: Doing it Together and Building a Movement
  • This is the Work: Groups Across the United States Applying New Models
  • Discussion: How Do We Make Real the Promises of Democracy?
  
  
  
  
• William Blum's Speaking Engagements
  Author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (1995),
  Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (2000),
  West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Political Memoir (2002)
  • September 7, 2004: Washington University, St. Louis
    A forum/debate about US foreign policy, 4:45 to 6:45 pm
  • October 1, 2004: Syracuse University, New York
    Grant Auditorium in the Law Building, 7pm
    Further information: Carrie Grogan, 315-443-2718
  • October 4, 2004: Elon College, North Carolina
    Whitley Auditorium, 7:30pm
    Further information: Ginger Bulla, 336-278-5565
  
  
  
  
• Sep 23: Screening and Panel Discussion of In the Light of Reverence
  2-5pm, the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington D.C.
  An afternoon screening of In the Light of Reverence and a panel discussion with Native American leaders will be presented during the week of the opening of Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington D.C., in association with Spirit: The Seventh Fire, a theatrical celebration of American Indian history and identity. The screening and panel discussion will be held from 2 to 5:00 PM on Thursday, September 23, 2004 in the tent stage of Spirit: The Seventh Fire, on the Mall in the 14th Street Center Panel near the Washington Monument. Admission is free. The event is co-sponsored by American University's Center for Social Media.
            The documentary portrays the struggles of three Native American communities to protect their sacred sites at Devils Tower, Wyoming, Mt. Shasta in California, and the Four Corners area of the Southwest. The panel will include Anishinaabeg author/activist Winona LaDuke, Professor Henrietta Mann, Southern Cheyenne, Endowed Chair, Center for Native American Studies, Montana State University at Bozeman, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the new Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Oren Lyons, Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy and Professor of American Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Caleen Sisk-Franco, Keeper of the Ceremonies for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, of Redding, California. The panel will be moderated by Christopher McLeod, Director of the Sacred Land Film Project and Director/Producer of In the Light of Reverence.
            The event will precede the evening performance of Spirit: The Seventh Fire, which is produced by the musician and artist Peter Buffett. For performance times and ticket information for Spirit: The Seventh Fire, please visit www.spirit7thfire.com. For information about In the Light of Reverence please visit www.sacredland.org.
  
  
  
  
• Jul 11-16: XV International AIDS Conference
  Bangkok Thailand
  In keeping with the Conference Theme Access for All, portions of the Conference will be available for viewing on the Internet at no cost and with no registration. Extensive coverage of Conference news and events will also be available through the Conference website.
  
  
  
  
• Jul 9-10 + Jul 23-24: Polyface Farm Intensive Discovery Seminars
  The 2004 Acres U.S.A. Conference
  Swoope, Virginia (just south of Staunton in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley)
  Acres U.S.A. works with industry leaders and pioneers of sustainable agriculture. Learn from these pros how you can turn your farm into a healthy, profitable enterprise.
            Join the Salatin family and a select group of innovative farmers for two days of intensive learning, great food, and hands-on discovery. World-renowned for agricultural models that offer profit, productivity, and pleasure, Joel Salatin, the rest of the family, and apprentices immerse themselves in the people and problems coming to this unique learning experience. Limited to 30 attendees per session. Cost $500. Articles by Joel Salatin:

  • Family Friendly Farming - Creating a Farm Life Your Children Will Treasure, June 2000
  • Balance Sheet Switcheroo, November 2002
  • Balance: Stability for Your Life & Farm, April 2002
  • Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal, September 2003
  • Industry vs. Biology - Taking on the Ethics of Industrial Agriculture, November 1999
  • `Sound Science' Is Killing Us, April 2004
  • The State of the Eco-Union, May 2003
  • ... and a Reader Toolbox goldmine of other articles
  
  
  
  
• Jul 4: Energy Independence Day
  Energy Independence Day Campaign
  
  The Energy Independence Day Campaign is open to all tribes and local governments willing to commit to producing or promoting the purchase of utility scale renewable energy for sale into the national transmission grid. Local Governments and Tribes can participate through endorsement of the Declaration of Energy Independence, educational and promotional outreach, conservation and energy efficiency, and/or green energy purchases. "By encouraging local businesses and households to purchase tribally-generated renewable energy and/or `green tags', participating local governments can achieve some or all of their emission reduction goals consistent with their communities' global warming reduction strategy" according to Susan Ode, Outreach Director for the U.S. Cities for Climate Protection, program of the ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, US office in Berkeley, California.
  
  
  
  
• Jun 26-27: Common Society Gathering
  The Pathfinder Partnership invites you to Experience the Experiment
  
  CATALYST LEADERS:

  • Sharif Abdullah, Director of The Commonway Institute, "Creating a World that Works for All"
    
  • James O'Dea, President of The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) "Science, Healing and Spiritual Activism"
  • The Pathfinding Partnership Invites You To "Experience the Experiment" We invite you to join us in a great undertaking.

  In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson dispatched a group of explorers on a quest for the Northwest Passage to the Pacific. This June, exactly 200 years later, a group of Pathfinders will set off on a quest for a "pacific future," A World that Truly Works for ALL. The journey now as then begins in St. Louis.
            Four years ago we held the first Pathfinding Conference here in the "mound city". Sharif Abdullah invited over 150 participants from over half the states in this country and several foreign countries to begin to Create a World that Works for All. This year we will give you a personal experience of the Commons that makes CSM St. Louis a diverse and unique cultural incubator for the explorers of the 21st Century.

  THE COMMONS: An Experiment in Human Ecology

  "There are plenty of excuses to be in the Commons, from the coffee to the books to the movies. I may bring my knives to be sharpened, my laundry to be cleaned, my muscles to be exercised, my brain to be stimulated, my heart to be uplifted. I may have come to attend a meeting, spend time at the crafts center, work in one of the many micro enterprises& or go to the Commons Bank, to exchange dollars for Commons Credits . . . the Commons is the place where community develops itself. The Commons is the means by which capital (physical, economic, social, and spiritual) is fed into the community. We don't exactly know where we are going, but we know that the Commons will help us get there..."

  from the book Creating a World That Works For All by Sharif Abdullah

            We are not waiting for our future to happen -- we are inventing it as we go along!! Come learn about our efforts in changing the way we think about consciousness, economics and politics. Come learn with us how to:

  • Fund community activities by pooling community resources
  • Support local activities by diverting the money that flows to global corporations
  • Develop governance structures (local politics) that support personal and community empowerment
  • Generate energy at the local level, and create local distribution networks to get "off the Grid"
  • Reduce our dependence -- on everything!

  We don't have all the answers. We do, however, have some tantalizing questions and enticing experiments. A Common Society is a practical movement to a realistic future. "We are about to do what has never been done in human history! We are creating a global human society . . . based on our deepest wisdom traditions and our highest vision for the future . . . A COMMON SOCIETY . . . an idea whose time has come."
  
  
  
  
• Jun 25-27: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat and Conference Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico

  weekends held at Wilson College, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
  June 25-27 (deadline for registration is June 1)
  September 3-5 (deadline for registration is August 20)
  November 5-7 (deadline for registration is October 20)

  Focusing on a systemic historical and legal analysis of corporate power and democracy, this three-day experience is designed to help activists more effectively and fundamentally challenge corporate power, rather than simply organize corporation by corporation and harm by harm. The School is dedicated to the memory of Daniel Pennock, a 17 year old Berks County, Pennsylvania boy who died in 1995 after being exposed to land applied sewage sludge. His parents, Antoinette and Russell Pennock, travel the state seeking an end to that practice of sludge disposal -- from which waste management corporations reap massive profits from hauling and spreading sludge on farmland. This program is conceived, designed, and run by The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy.
  Friday

  • Arrival of Attendees
  • Dinner
  • Introductions of Attendees
  • Discussion:
    • "What is Our Concept of Democracy?"
    • "What is Our History of Regulatory Activism?"
    • "Does Our Work Vindicate Our Concept of Democracy?"
  • How We Got Here: A Brief Overview of the School and the Evolution of POCLAD/CELDF
  Saturday
  • The Historical Role and Nature of Corporations in the United States
    • The Role of Corporate Charters
    • The Conferral of Corporate Constitutional Rights
  • A History of Peoples' Movements in the United States
    • The American Revolution
    • The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution
    • The Anti-Federalists
    • The Populists
    • The Abolitionists and the Fourteenth Amendment
    • Womens' Rights and the Nineteenth Amendment
    • The Labor Movement
  • What Have We Learned from These Movements?
    • Common Theories, Strategies, and Actions
      • Theory of the Constitution
      • Theory of the Corporation
      • Theory of Democracy
    • Building on the Lessons of Prior Movements
  • Building New Models of Organizing
    • The "Single Issue: Model: From Reframing to Winning
      • Driving into Local Governing Arenas
        • Challenging and Contesting Corporations
        • Contesting Government Actions Empowering Corporations to Usurp Community Control From Reframing to Drawing the Corporate Response To Building New Constituencies To Winning
    • Altering the Odds: Directly Challenging Corporate Rights
      • The Porter and Licking Township, Clarion County Experience: Using Law to Eliminate Legal Privileges Claimed by Corporations
  Sunday
  • Building the Connections Amongst All Single Issues
    • Our History of Collaterally Challenging Illegitimate Corporate Authority
  • Breakout: Reframing Single Issues by Rethinking Several Issues
    • An Exploration of Jurisdictions and Arenas
    • Other Constituencies
    • Critical Mass: Doing it Together and Building a Movement
  • This is the Work: Groups Across the United States Applying New Models
  • Discussion: How Do We Make Real the Promises of Democracy?
  
  
  
  
• Jun 25-27: Stopping War Where It Begins - Strengthening the Movement Opposing the Militarization of Youth
  The National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)
  is sponsoring a gathering of counter-recruitment activists in Philadelphia
  The gathering, open to all who work against the militarization of young people, will focus on strengthening the network that was formed at the "Stopping War Where It Begins: Organizing Against Militarism in Our Schools" conference that took place in June 2003. Time will be devoted to:

  • Discussing the status of the network, briefing new members, and electing a steering committee;
  • Strategizing about how to improve the effectiveness of U.S. counter-recruitment work, locally and nationally;
  • Making an inventory of existing counter-recruitment resources and identifying other resources that are needed.
  • "Training-the-trainer" sessions for experienced counter-recruitment activists;
  • Caucus and regional discussions;
  • An evening devoted to issues of LGBTQ people and the military.

  For more information, to get involved in planning and publicity for the conference, or to learn how your organization can endorse NNOMY, please contact the following. Registration details forthcoming.

  National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth
  c/o American Friends Service Committee
  1501 Cherry Street
  Philadelphia, PA 19102
  Email: NNOMY[at]afsc[dot]org
  Phone: 215-241-7176
  Web: www.youthandthemilitary.org
  
  
  
  
• Jun 25-27: Local Currencies in the 21st Century
  Understanding Money, Building Local Economies, Renewing Community
  International Conference organized & presented by the E.F. Schumacher Society
  Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
  Co-sponsors include The Nation, Acres USA, Resurgence, Orion, Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, E Magazine, In Business, and Dollars & Sense. In addition, a host of prestigious and pioneering organizations are supporting the conference including Co-op America, BALLE, Investor's Circle, Chelsea Green Publishing, Institute for Local Self Reliance, NOFA Mass, Center for Community Futures, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, New Economics Foundation, and theHawthorne Valley Association, the ACCESS Foundation, Community Information Resource Center, Ithaca HOURS, Maine Time Dollar Network, and the Time Dollar Institute.
            In addition to a stellar cast of keynote speakers, the conference will feature workshop presenters from all over the world. Confirmed presenters include Bernard Lietaer, Margrit Kennedy, David Boyle, Edgar Cahn, Richard Douthwaite, Thomas Greco, Michael Linton, Mary-Beth Raddon, Michael Shuman, Dwarko Sundrani, and Susan Witt.
            Renowned folk singer, Pete Seeger will be performing Sunday evening at the Local Food Fest, a closing cookout with festivities to celebrate and honor local and family farmers.
  
  
  
  
• Jun 8-10: The Other Economic Summit (TOES) Savannah '04 Program
  The Progressive Club, Savannah Georgia
  
  TOES (The OTHER Economic Summit) is an international forum for the presentation, discussion and advocacy of the economic ideas and practices upon which a more just and sustainable society can be built -- "an economics as if people mattered," as E.F. Schumacher put it. TOES is a truly voluntary movement without paid staff or infrastructure (except what it can beg, borrow or steal from established institutions with which those most active in TOES are associated). TOES reconstitutes itself every seven years in response to the G8 Summit. We invite everyone to participate, to make a presentation on any topic that is important to them -- so long as they focus on the economics of it. Your presentation can be a paper, panel, roundtable discussion, workshop, musical interlude or other creative contributions to the conference program. Please send a short abstract (no-more than 100 words) to Trent Schroyer tschroye[at]warwick[dot]net and Susan Hunt hunt[at]ee[dot]upenn[dot]edu indicating in the subject line "TOES Program Abstract". The following is a list of confirmed participants arranged by topic in a hypothetical program structure. We invite additions to the program.
  GLOBALIZATION AND EMPIRE

  • Dr. Walter Wink, Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, author of Engaging the Powers.
  • John W. Spellman, Professor of Asian Studies, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada.
  • Frederique Apffel Marglin, Dept. of Anthropology, Smith College. PRATEC video, alternative ways of being in the world, critiques of modernity, critique of science and the hegemony of its worldview.
  • Jurgen Brauer (invited), Augusta State University in Georgia, and Board Member of ECAAR - Economists Allied for Arms Reduction.
  • Shulamith Koenig, PDHRE, People's Movement for Human Rights Education.

  REVITALIZING THE GLOBAL COMMONS: CULTURE, POLITICS, ECONOMICS, ENVIRONMENT

  • Trent Schroyer, Director, Institute for Environmental Studies, Ramapo College of New Jersey.
  • Ward Morehouse, CIPA, POCLAD.
  • CULTURE: Carolyn Oppenheim (invited), working with Pete Seeger.
  • ENVIRONMENT: Susan Hunt: Poster session on "Sustainable Mali."
  • SMITH, Jeffery J. and the GEORGISTS.
  • Stephen Zarlenga, American Monetary Institute.
  • Margy Betz and colleagues, SCAD. "What Savannah Means to Us."

  CORPORATIONS, LAW AND DEMOCRACY

  • Kim Brooks, Queen's University Faculty of Law, Kingston, Ontario This presentation examines whether the allegations of a corporate tax race to the bottom have any foundations, and if they do, whether there's anything governments can do to preserve the corporate tax.
  • Ward Morehouse, Co-founder POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy)
  • Jim Price, POCLAD and Sierra club, based in Birmingham.

  LABOR RIGHTS

  • Christoph H. Stefes, Ph.D, Comparative European & Post-Soviet Studies, University of Colorado at Denver. European labor unions' responses to the European Union and to the emergence of the Single Market.
  • Jean L. Pyle, Ph.D., Senior Associate, Center for Women & Work Globalization has contributed to increases in types of work (sex work, domestic service, and low-wage production) that are gendered, span the globe, and increasingly involve the migration or trafficking of women. Examining these work categories simultaneously reveals
    that they have grown substantially as a result of the processes of globalization and major changes in the structure of power internationally.
  • Dan Everett, Computer Science Dept, University of Georgia. The global labor market in services: to what extent is 'offshoring' jobs like computer programming a real crisis [it looks like one to a lot of people working in the field]. An overview of proposals to regulate labor markets to stop the race to the bottom in labor costs.
  • Eric A. Schutz, Professor & Chair, Economics Department, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL. The living-wage movement (especially here in the "right to work" southeast U.S., the successes and failures of the movement, its meaning and implications in the context of the "anti-globalization" movement, etc., etc.).

  BREAKING THE CHAINS OF THIRD WORLD DEBT

  • Facilitated by Jubilee USA Network. Contacts: Marie Clarke Brill, National Coordinator, Jubilee USA, and Neil Watkins, Jubilee USA:
  • Debt Basics: Breaking the Chains of International Debt.
    Countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are paying more in service on old debts than they receive in new loans, aid or investment. Come learn about the origins of the debt crisis, the impact of the debt on the most impoverished people of the world, the programs associated with debt relief and restructuring, and the role of the G8 and the latest in the global work for debt cancellation.
  • Don't Owe! Odious and Illegitimate Debt.
    Learn how people in countries like Iraq, South Africa, Congo, Argentina and the Philippines are paying the bill for their own oppression and what you can do to support legislative initiatives to change these policies.
  • Putting Faith in Practice: Jubilee Congregations.
    Learn how to take the work for debt cancellation and economic justice to your congregation. This workshop will describe the simple and profound Jubilee Congregations program and will provide tools and training to help you engage your congregation in effective learning and action. One of the issues addressed will be how to link the local priorities of your congregation to international issues of globalization.
  
  
  
  
• Jun 8-10: International Festival for Peace and Civil Liberties
  G8 2004: Savannah, Georgia USA
  Sponsored by the National Coalition to Repeal the USA Patriot Act
  
  From June 8-10, 2004 the G8 Summit will be held on Sea Island, Georgia. Journalists and others will be on the mainland in Savannah, Georgia. We are inviting people to participate in a `Peace & Civil Liberties' Festival and Concert on Tuesday night, June 8, 2004. This rally will demand an end to the illegal occupation of Iraq, Repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act, Homeland Security Act and Executive Orders that violate civil liberties. We will have a concert with many artists. We wish to include you in the planning of this event. If you can help, please contact me at:
            National Coalition to Repeal the USA Patriot Act
            Kellie Gasink
            912.238.4489
            www.repealnow.com
  
  
  
  
• Jun 4-6: RadFest 2004 Midwest Social Forum, 20th Anniversary
  Aurora University, George Williams Lake Geneva Camupus, Wisconsin
  The Havens Center seeks to promote progressive social and political change through engagement with the activist community in Madison and beyond. The principal vehicle for this effort is RadFest, an annual conference for progressive activists and academics held the weekend after Memorial Day. The central goal of the conference is to provide an opportunity for progressive activists and academics to come together to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern, strengthen networks, and devise strategies for progressive social, economic, and political change. In recent years, the
            The conference program is primarily devoted to workshops and panels addressing a wide array of social, economic, and political topics. At RadFest 2003, for example, there were nearly forty workshops and panels, covering such topics as The Anti-War Movement, The State of Black Politics, Media Reform, Palestine/Israel, Race and Education, The Assault on Civil Liberties, USA Patriot Art, New Movements in Communities of Color, Health Care Reform, Community Organizing, Participatory Democracy, Race and Incarceration, Electoral Reform, High School Student Activism, Government and Corporate Propaganda, Labor Rights, Latin American Social Movements, Sister Cities, Tax Reform, Urban Energy Cooperative Development, A Future for Socialism?, Stopping the U.S. War on the Poor, Lessons of the Sixties for Today, and more than a dozen others.
  
  
  
  
• May 14: Lobby Day Against the Military Draft
  Lobbying for Conscience Sake organized in conjunction with Center on Conscience & War, National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, Veterans for Peace, Mennonite Central Committee - Washington Office, Church of the Brethren, United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, and Pax Christi USA
  Washington, D.C.
  
  
  This lobby day is an opportunity for people of conscience to make their voices heard on Capitol Hill. Come to Washington, DC to meet with congressional staff or meet locally at your representative's district office. The day will be focused on educating Congress about conscientious objection and how any military draft is not a viable option. During this time when the United States military is stretched thin across the globe in various military campaigns, there are talks about the administration considering a draft. Now is the time to make our voices heard, to let Congress know that WE DO NOT WANT A DRAFT.
            See Also: Military Draft: A Sleeping Giant Stirs, February 2004
  
  
  
  
• May 6: POCLAD/CIPA 50/10 Anniversary Celebration
  6:00 PM, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, New York
  This is What Democracy Sounds Like - 50/10 Anniversary Celebration:
  the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) at 10 and
  the Council for International and Public Affairs (CIPA) at 50.
            Anniversary Celebration Concert Starring Work 'o the Weavers With Special Guest Pete Seeger and Introducing the Project on Folk Music and the Public Domain.
            Today, we live in a new era of repression of ideas challenging corporate rule and the right to self-governance. To experience a musical message of democratic values, come hear Work 'o the Weavers - four talented musicians who tell the Weavers' story with the same songs that made the Weavers so popular four decades ago, connecting that message to our present day struggles. Explore a musical moment in the never-ending struggle for free expression when the folk music group, The Weavers, were blacklisted in the 1950's for their political views. However, Pete Seeger and the other Weavers were not so easily silenced. As television and radio cut the Weavers off from commercial audiences, they sought and found new audiences on college campuses and concert halls. In a dramatic evening in the early 60s, they filled Carnegie Hall with their immensely popular ballads celebrating dissent and political freedom. The 50/10 Anniversary Concert is a once in a life time opportunity to support POCLAD and CIPA!
            In one short decade, POCLAD has contributed more than any other voice in this country to increasing awareness of the connections between corporate power, never intended corporate constitutional "rights", the increasing difficulty of we the people to govern ourselves, and the steps required to achieve authentic democratic self-governance.
            Through speaking engagements, conferences, books, pamphlets, hundreds of "Rethinking the Corporation, Rethinking Democracy" workshops, and the POCLAD newsletter, By What Authority, we've changed the conversation, the way people think, and the way they examine their work. Ten years ago, no one was talking about the ill-gotten property rights of corporations or the problem of "corporate personhood." Now these are known among many activists and even within segments of the media.
            Over the last half century, CIPA, the fiscal agent for POCLAD, has been similarly engaged in challenging conventional thinking on a wide range of human rights and other public issues and building links with popular movements around the world seeking to resist corporate rule and strengthen democratic values. A major vehicle in increasing public understanding has been the Council's publishing arm, The Apex Press.
            Over the next 10 years, both organizations plan more strategically to translate our ideas and knowledge into practice by working with groups to assert the rights human beings should have to be in charge of our lives. That's what democracy should be like! Please be a part of our gala celebration.
            In solidarity,
            Ward Morehouse, Judi Rizzi, Virginia Rasmussen, Jim Price, Mike Ferner, Greg Coleridge
  CIPA/ POCLAD 50/10 Anniversary Organizing Committee
  
  
  
  
• May 6: Drug War Crimes - The Consequences of Prohibition
  Co-sponsored by The Independent Institute and the Drug Policy Alliance
  Reception: 6:30 pm | Program: 7:00 pm
  The Independent Institute Conference Center
  100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA
  Regular Admission: $15.00 per person; Members, $10.00. Contact: Ushma Multani. RSVP: 510-632-1366 X119
            Jeffrey A. Miron - Boston University Professor of Economics and author of the new book, Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition. His articles on Drug Policy have appeared in Social Research, Boston Globe and the London Observer. He received his Ph. D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
            Joseph D. McNamara - Research Fellow, Hoover Institution. Former Chief of Police, San Jose, CA and Kansas City, MO. He has published articles in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and other publications. He has been a commentator for NPR and has appeared on Meet the Press, Good Morning America, Sixty Minutes, and other programs.
            Each year, the U.S. government spends over $30 billion on the drug war and arrests more than 1.5 million people on drug-related charges. Currently more than 318,000 people are behind bars in the U.S. for drug violations -- more than the number of people incarcerated for all crimes in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain combined. Have current drug laws deterred drug abuse and reduced crime? What are the real costs of this country's war on drugs? Is there a link between the homicide rate and the amount of resources given to drug prohibition? Please join us as Boston University economist Jeffrey Miron and former San Jose police chief, Joseph McNamara, examine these questions and explore real alternatives to America's "War on Drugs."
  
  
  
  
• William Blum's Speaking Engagements
  Author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (1995),
  Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (2000),
  West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Political Memoir (2002)
  • Mar 24: Georgetown University, 7pm
    Washington, DC
  • Mar 30: Wilmington, Delaware, 7:30pm
  • Apr 15: Plymouth State College, 7 pm
    Plymouth, New Hampshire
  • April 23: IMO Hall (International Muslim Organization)
    65 Rexdale Blvd., Toronto, Canada
    6:45 pm - documentary: "Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War"
    8 pm - break for prayer and/or coffee
    8:30 pm - I speak for about 40-45 minutes, followed by Q&A
    Books will be sold and signed
    Contact: Tariq Nasim, 416-803-2600
  
  
  
  
• Mar 27-28: The Atomic Film Festival
  Cinemareno, A Year-Round Festival of Films, Nevada Museum of Art
  CINEMARENO is a non-profit film society founded for the purpose of promoting the art of motion pictures in Northern Nevada. Screenings throughout the year showcase new independent films and videos, along with a selection of obscure films and classic movies. CINEMARENO proudly offers an alternative to current Hollywood fare, bringing to Reno films that you are unlikely to see anywhere else.
  
  

  Saturday 11:30 am	PLUTONIUM CIRCUS (1995) - This hilarious documentary looks at the PanTex nuclear weapons factory near Amarillo, Texas and the zany folks that live and work in and around it. Directed by George Ratliff, 73 mins.
  Saturday 1:00 pm	THE DAY AFTER TRINITY (1980) - Oscar-nominated documentary provides a haunting journey through the dawn of the nuclear age. An incisive history of the Manhattan Project and the man behind it, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Directed by Jon Else, 89 mins.
  Saturday 3:00 pm	ATOMIC CAFE (1982) - At once funny, sobering and shocking, this brilliant compilation of propaganda films, atomic test films and newsreel footage provides an entertaining overview of the atomic age and the pervasive anxiety it created in cold-war America. 88 mins.
  Saturday 5:00 pm	ON THE BEACH (1959) - 45th Anniversary screening. Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins and Fred Astaire star in Stanley Kramer's powerful and haunting adaptation of Nevil Shute's best-selling novel about Australians living out their remaining days after the rest of the world has destroyed itself from nuclear war. In wide-screen CinemaScope format, 134 mins.
  Sunday 11:30 am	MELTDOWN AT THREE MILE ISLAND (1999) (Free) - A riveting documentary that details the events of March 28, 1979 when the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history occurred at a power plant in Pennsylvania. 60 mins. Full-festival pass holders get priority seating.
  Sunday 1:00 pm	THE CHINA SYNDROME (1979) - 25th Anniversary screening. Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas star in this suspenseful story of a nuclear power plant accident. Eerily, it accurately foreshadowed the events at Three Mile Island, which occurred only 12 days after the film premiered in March 1979. In wide-screen format, 121 mins.
  Sunday 3:30 pm	PANIC IN YEAR ZERO (1962) - Ray Milland directed and starred in this rare 1962 cult classic. An apocalyptic tale of survival about a family escaping a nuclear attack on Los Angeles. With Jean Hagen and Frankie Avalon. In wide-screen CinemaScope format, 92 mins.
  Sunday 5:30 pm	DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) - 40th Anniversary screening. Arguably the greatest black comedy ever made, Stanley Kubrick's cold-war classic is the ultimate satire of the nuclear age, a perfect spoof of political and military insanity that gets funnier with each viewing. With Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden and George C. Scott. In wide-screen format, 93 mins.

  
  
  
  
• Mar 28: Shays Rides Again: Ending Corporate Rule
  7pm, The Unitarian Universalist Society of Northampton and Florence, 220 Main Street, Northampton
  Four speakers from the national steering of Committee of Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy, (POCLAD) will explore how the growing "rights" of corporations undermine our Constitutional rights and democracy, and how we can fight back together, shaping all of our diverse issues as activists and citizens.
            A community dialog will follow. This event is sponsored by Western Mass Committee on Corporations & Democracy, a new grassroots organization promoting a just and sustainable future through education and peaceful action (and the social justice committee of the U-U society, the Western Mass AFSC, Media Education Foundation and Arise for Social Justice.)
            For more information, call 413 - 585 - 8173. To join our ongoing dialogue send an email with your name to fedup203[at]yahoo[dot]com and put "subscribe" in the subject line.
  
  About us: The Western Mass Committee on Corporations & Democracy is a grassroots organization dedicated to stripping corporations of the rights of citizens (that they have usurped in the law) through education and peaceful action. We are part of a growing nation-wide movement to build real democracy in America.
            The four POCLAD speakers include: Greg Coleridge, Karen Coulter, Jane Anne Morris, and Ward Morehouse, who has recently moved to the Pioneer Valley. For background, see "Taking On the System - How Corporate Personhood Threatens Democracy".
            Shays Rebellion, 1786-87, was the first populist uprising after the American Revolution, when WESTERN MASS poor people and farmers revolted against the looming corporate interests in the new country taking their land for debt.
            Corporations today still derail democracy and ravage the planet in quest of shareholder value. They are in the water we drink, and the air we breathe. They have used their massive wealth to block democratic change in agriculture, energy, transportation, health care, manufacturing and social spending for far too long. They bankroll our elections, write our laws and set our agendas at home and abroad. Their worldview saturates our media, our schools and children's dreams. It doesn't have to be this way. Come join us to explore how we can fight back.
            It's 218 years later, but the spirit of Shays Rebellion has never been more important to revive than now. Please join us for an evening planned to get your revolutionary juices flowing.
            In the days of Shays, as now, corporate interests used their power against ordinary citizens. Daniel Shays, from Pelham, organized poor farmers from the Connecticut Valley to shut down the courts that were sending them to debtors prison on behalf of big Boston banks. Many of the farmers were veterans who had trudged home from the Revolution "with not a single month's pay" in their pockets, but only worthless government certificates.
            Just a few years after Shays Rebellion, the Constitution was adopted to protect bankers, landowners & merchants. We've been living with big government protecting those business interests ever since.
  
  
  
  
• Mar 27-30: Shut Down the School of Assassins
  Come to Washington to tell Congress Not in Our Name, Not With Our Tax Dollars
  Mobilize to Shut Down the SOA/WHISC
  The Pentagon lobbies hard to keep SOA money flowing. At taxpayers' expense, the Army operates a huge PR campaign that is directed at Congress. We are countering their attempts with grassroots power.
            A vote on the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation is comming up in the U.S. Congress in the summer of 2004! It is our job to make sure that enough Representatives will be on board to vote against the school. Hold your Representative accountable.
            The SOA Watch Spring Mobilization will also include trainings, skill-shares, street theatre, social and educational events. Check back soon for more information.
            Spread the word! Download the Spring Mobilization Flier. Make plans to come to Washington, DC from March 27-30, 2004 and organize others to join you.
  
  
  
  
• Mar 26-28: International Inquiry into 9-11, Phase One
  San Francisco, California
  We, who question the official narrative of September 11, 2001, and question the path the U.S. government has chosen in its wake, believe a public inquiry -- asking who, what, how, when and why -- into those events is vitally necessary. Evidence suggests that September 11, 2001 was a special operation designed to terrorize Americans into silent conformity, to legitimize the crushing of dissent throughout the world, and to gain public support for imperial wars. Our hope is to disempower "the war game" once and for all, by exposing the criminal actions of those in power who committed crimes against humanity to advance that power.
  
  
  
• Mar 20: The World Still Says No to War
  Global Day of Action on 1-yr anniversary of Iraq War
  Momentum is building around the world for the Global Day of Action against War and Occupation on March 20, the one-year anniversary of the U.S. bombing and invasion of Iraq. People on every continent will take to the streets to say YES to peace and NO to pre-emptive war and occupation. Joining with growing numbers of military families and soldiers, we will call for an end to the occupation of Iraq and Bush's militaristic foreign policies, and highlight the linkages between the occupations of Iraq and Palestine. March 20 will be the first time the world's "other superpower," as The New York Times described us, will take center stage since February 15, when more than 15 million people across the globe expressed their opposition to Bush's looming war on Iraq.
            In the United States, there will be a massive protest in New York City plus dozens of local and regional demonstrations across the country.
            Politically, the U.S. protests will also take on the domestic impact of Bush's foreign policies -- what some people call "the war at home." We will express the growing opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act, which has authorized political arrests, indefinite detentions, domestic spying, and religious and racial profiling. We will call for an end to the mass detentions and deportations of innocent immigrants in the name of fighting terrorism. We will say no to massive military spending amidst vast cuts in vital domestic social and economic programs.
  
  
  
  
• Mar 19-21: The Money Crunch - Complementary Currency Solutions
  Naropa University, Boulder Colorado
  Co-sponsored by The ACCESS Foundation by The ACCESS Foundation (Alliance of Complementary Currencies Enabling Sustainable Societies), with Randy Petersen, Bernard Lietaer, Stephan Brunnhuber, Thomas Greco, Luca Fantacci, Sergio Lub, Edgar Cahn, Octavia Allis, Greg Berry, Arthur Brock, Christine Gray, Victor Grey, Anita Halcyon, Joel Hodroff, Christian Isquierdo, and Dr. Alec Tsoucatos.
            In times of growing economic uncertainty when budgets are being cut for vital social services, there are now new monetary innovations working in over 5,000 communities around the globe that are resolving a diverse array of social and economic issues such as education, elderly care, unemployment and ecological sustainability.
            Complementary currencies do not replace, but rather complement the national monetary system and facilitate exchange within communities. They connect unmet needs with unused resources and serve to strengthen relationships among community members.
            This workshop will explore this diverse and emerging field with presentations on existing complementary systems both for communities and businesses; examining of the psychological and spiritual framework of money, along with providing practical tools, technological innovations and information on how to get a currency started.
  
  
  
  
• Jan 30 - Feb 1: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield
  Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat and Conference Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico

  weekends held at Wilson College, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
  February 20-22 (deadline for registration is February 10)
  April 23-25 (deadline for registration is April 10)
  June 25-27 (deadline for registration is June 1)
  September 3-5 (deadline for registration is August 20)
  November 5-7 (deadline for registration is October 20)

  Focusing on a systemic historical and legal analysis of corporate power and democracy, this three-day experience is designed to help activists more effectively and fundamentally challenge corporate power, rather than simply organize corporation by corporation and harm by harm. The School is dedicated to the memory of Daniel Pennock, a 17 year old Berks County, Pennsylvania boy who died in 1995 after being exposed to land applied sewage sludge. His parents, Antoinette and Russell Pennock, travel the state seeking an end to that practice of sludge disposal -- from which waste management corporations reap massive profits from hauling and spreading sludge on farmland. This program is conceived, designed, and run by The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy.

  Friday

  • Arrival of Attendees
  • Dinner
  • Introductions of Attendees
  • Discussion:
    • "What is Our Concept of Democracy?"
    • "What is Our History of Regulatory Activism?"
    • "Does Our Work Vindicate Our Concept of Democracy?"
  • How We Got Here: A Brief Overview of the School and the Evolution of POCLAD/CELDF

  Saturday

  • The Historical Role and Nature of Corporations in the United States
    • The Role of Corporate Charters
    • The Conferral of Corporate Constitutional Rights
  • A History of Peoples' Movements in the United States
    • The American Revolution
    • The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution
    • The Anti-Federalists
    • The Populists
    • The Abolitionists and the Fourteenth Amendment
    • Womens' Rights and the Nineteenth Amendment
    • The Labor Movement
  • What Have We Learned from These Movements?
    • Common Theories, Strategies, and Actions
      • Theory of the Constitution
      • Theory of the Corporation
      • Theory of Democracy
    • Building on the Lessons of Prior Movements
  • Building New Models of Organizing
    • The "Single Issue: Model: From Reframing to Winning
      • Driving into Local Governing Arenas
        • Challenging and Contesting Corporations
        • Contesting Government Actions Empowering Corporations to Usurp Community Control From Reframing to Drawing the Corporate Response To Building New Constituencies To Winning
    • Altering the Odds: Directly Challenging Corporate Rights
      • The Porter and Licking Township, Clarion County Experience: Using Law to Eliminate Legal Privileges Claimed by Corporations

  Sunday

  • Building the Connections Amongst All Single Issues
    • Our History of Collaterally Challenging Illegitimate Corporate Authority
  • Breakout: Reframing Single Issues by Rethinking Several Issues
    • An Exploration of Jurisdictions and Arenas
    • Other Constituencies
    • Critical Mass: Doing it Together and Building a Movement
  • This is the Work: Groups Across the United States Applying New Models
  • Discussion: How Do We Make Real the Promises of Democracy?
  
  
  
  
• Jan 25-27: Three Minutes to Midnight
  NPRI Symposium on the Impending Threat of Nuclear War
  Washington DC at the Omni Shoreham Hotel
  
  
  The Cold War is Over.
  The Nuclear Threat is Not.
  
  Twelve years after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia each maintain 2500 nuclear bombs on tenuous hair trigger alert. This chilling reality and other critical nuclear issues will be examined in-depth at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute's groundbreaking symposium. Join scientists, policy-makers, military and medical experts from around the world for three days of analysis, insight and strategy.

  Topics:

  • The risk of accidental nuclear exchange by United States and Russia,
  • The risk of terrorist intrusion into U.S. or Russian early warning systems
  • Proliferation to Pakistan, India, Israel, Iran, North Korea and other nations,
  • The "Second Manhattan Project" -- "Stockpile Stewardship Program"
  • Science, business and the military roles in the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

2003

• Nov 23-29: International Anti-Food Irradiation Week
  Milford Square, Pennsylvania
  
  
  A major assault on our Mother Earth is taking place in our Lenape homelands of eastern Pennsylvania. This is a call for action on the part of everyone who is able. This is a call to ceremony. In Milford Township, just west of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, CFC Logistics (Clemens Family Corp.), is attempting to operate a nuclear irradiation plant. This facility would irradiate meat and other foods that would then go out to stores, schools and restaurants, etc. This has been done mostly in secret. This is your special invitation and request for support in protecting this sacred land. A time to stand as one people, one voice, for our Mother Earth. If we stand for nothing we will fall for anything!
  
  
  
  
• Nov 22-23: Vigil and Nonviolent Civil Resistance at School of the Americas
  Fort Benning, Georgia
  
  
  Join thousands from across the Americas from November 22-23, 2003 at the gates of the U.S. military base Fort Benning in Georgia to stand in Solidarity with the victims of the School of Assassins and to speak out against terror and violence. Engage in nonviolent direct action to make your voice heard, to close the SOA/WHISC, and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy. Fort Benning is home of the notorious School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), where the US trains the military muscle that enforces the corporate agenda throughout Latin America.
  
  U.S. policy in Latin America has but one purpose: to supress dissent and to consolidate wealth and power for the corporate elite. The purpose of the School of the Americas/WHISC has been and continues to be the development, training, and support of military brutality--including torture, murder, assassination, and terrorism--to enforce that policy. SOA graduates are linked to almost every major human rights violation in Latin America since the school's inception over 50 years ago. SOA graduates continue to cause suffering throughout Latin America.
  
  There can be no healing and reconciliation without truth, an apology and reparations to the thousands who suffered from SOA violence and oppressive U.S. foreign policy. We will gather at the gates of Fort Benning and demand justice for the martyrs and for the thousands who continue to suffer the brutal consequences of the combat training at the SOA/WHISC. More and more people throughout the hemisphere are standing up to demand justice: no more murder in our name! The SOA/WHISC has to close its doors for good and oppressive U.S. foreign policy must be transformed into an agenda that honors and supports life, including humans, everywhere on the globe.
  
  
  
  
• Nov 21-23: Four Decades Of Deceit; JFK-MLK-RFK - Why?
  COPA 2003 Annual Regional Meeting, Dallas, TX, November 21-23
  The Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA, founded in 1994) will be holding a regional meeting in Dallas from November 21-23 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the 35th year after the murders of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  
  Speakers will include Senator Arlen Specter, Jim Lesar, Mark Lane, Joan Mellen, Robert Tannenbaum, Bruce Feinman, Judge John Tunheim, Tom Samoluk on videoconference from simultaneous conference at the Wecht Institute of Forensic Law and Science at Duquesne University. Dallas speakers will include: Howard Jones, author of The Death of a Generation; Dick Russell, author of The Man Who Knew Too Much; Paris Flammonde, author of The Kennedy Conspiracy; Jim Koepke, author of Chasing Ghosts; Joe Biel, expert on Jim Garrison's case; John Johnston, author of Flight from Dallas; Bill Kelly, on a new JFK Grand Jury; Dave Starks, expert on Gerald Posner and counter-critics; John Judge - the JFK Assassination Records Act and release of records; former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Dick Gregory, author of Callus on my Soul, T. Carter, eyewitness.
  
  
  
  
• PDF: Nov 20-23: Solving the Great American Murder Mystery
  A National Symposium on the 40th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination
  Co-Sponsors: Allegheny County Coroner's Office, Allegheny General Hospital, Coalition on Political Assassinations, Pittsburgh Institute of Legal Medicine, The Last Hurrah Bookshop
  The Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law
  Duquesne University School of Law, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  Forty years ago this November, the 35th president of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy, was murdered as he rode in a motorcade during a reelection campaign swing through Dallas. While the horrific images of this event are etched into the minds of countless Americans, including many who had not yet even been born at the time, the facts of the case are far less clear.
  
  Although the Warren Commission unequivocally concluded in 1964 that an apparent loner and disgruntled Communist named Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president, subsequent investigations have had far murkier results,and according to a CBS News poll conducted in 1998 on the 35th anniversary of the assassination, more than three-quarters of Americans believe President Kennedy's murder was the result of a conspiracy, with only 10 percent believing that Oswald acted on his own.
  
  This November,on the 40th anniversary of what has truly become "The Great American Murder Mystery," The Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law and the Duquesne University School of Law will be convening many of the case's top investigators and independent researchers from the fields of law, medicine, forensic science, government and academia in an effort to clarify and advance our collective understanding of just what happened during those fateful seconds in Dealey Plaza four decades ago, as well as what we've learned in the ensuing years.
  
  In addition, the symposium will bring together some of the world's premier forensic scientific and legal experts to explore what might still be learned about President Kennedy's murder based upon modern-day forensic scientific techniques and legal and investigative opportunities.

  
  
  
  
• Nov 19-21: STOP the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
  Indy Media Center on FTAA
  Miami, Florida

  The FTAA is coming to Miami where ministers will be meeting from November 20-21. START NOW TO STOP THE FTAA! Come to Florida for the week to Fight for Fair Trade.
  
  Four years ago in February of 1999 in Seattle, a network of 80 activists first came together to plan for the civil society mobilization against the WTO. In January, a similarly historic meeting convened in Miami to begin planning a civil society welcome for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) ministerial scheduled for November 17th - 21st in downtown Miami.
  
  Be a part of this mobilization against corporate-controlled globalization -- and help Stop the FTAA! There is already talk of: Teach-ins and seminars, reality tours, alternative ministerials, concerts and forums, rallies and marches, and many more ways to get our message out! Folks from Florida and around the country will be joined by activists from around the world linking the local issues to the global fights and building solidarity and alternatives.
  
  All over the hemisphere, folks are learning about "NAFTA on Steroids" and fighting corporate rule. The FTAA is an expansion of NAFTA, a Proven Disaster

  • it's being negotiated without citizen input
  • the FTAA will undermine labor rights, push down wages and cause job Loss
  • it will hasten environmental degradation
  • the FTAA will hurt family farmers
  • it will lead to privatization and extreme deregulation of essential services
  • corporations will be given outrageous rights to sue governments
  • the FTAA will jeopardize consumer safeguards
  • it will spread the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
  • it will deny access to lifesaving medicines for millions of people
  • the FTAA will make the rich richer and increase poverty throughout the hemisphere
  
  
  
  
• Nov. 13: Patriot Acts I & II--The New Assault on Liberty?
  7pm at The Independent Institute Conference Center, 100 Swan Way, Oakland, Califorinia
  (Near the Oakland Airport, off Hegenberger Road at Pardee Road and Swan Way).

  Addressing nationwide concerns about the state of American civil liberties, the Independent Institute of Oakland has assembled a panel of distinguished experts to address the question, "PATRIOT Acts I & II - The New Assault on Liberty?" at a public forum with David Cole, Margaret Russell and James Bovard. For ticekts, call 510-632-1366, or fax 510-568-6040, e-mail info@independent.org. Admission is $15; Institute members is $10
  
  David Cole is professor of Law, Georgetown University, and author of Enemy Aliens and Terrorism and The Constitution; Margaret Russell is a member of the ACLU's National Board, past chair, ACLU of Northern California, and professor of Law, Santa Clara University; and, James Bovard is a journalist, policy analyst and author of Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil.
  
  The Independent Institute is a non-partisan, public policy research organization that sponsors comprehensive studies of critical social and economic issues. For more information, contact Bill Selover at 510-632-1366 x150.

   

• Nov. 7-26: Devinder Sharma Lecture Tour
  speaking on Globalization, Food Security, Patents, and Genetic Engineering
  Devinder Sharma is a noted Indian journalist and outspoken critic of industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, globalization and free trade.

  	photo: Nic Paget-Clarke

  Examples of Devinder's Writing          Biographical Details
  
  

  • 6 November through 9 November - Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
    "Another Food System is Possible: Sovereignty, Sustainability and Security" (by invitation only)
  • 10 November - Institute for Social Ecology
    1118 Maple Hill Road, Plainfield, VT 4 pm
    For all information contact: Vermont Genetic Engineering Action Network at (802) 272-9536
    biotech@social-ecology.org
  • 11 November - Green Mt. Global Forum
    Waitsfield, VT Tues. at 7 pm
    For information contact: Vermont Genetic Engineering Action Network at (802) 272-9536
    biotech@social-ecology.org
                -OR-
    Debbie Van Dyke, dvandyke@madriver.com, Tel: 802-496-7556
    A cable TV network that will be filming the event
  • 12 November - Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
    (101 Fairchild) at 3:00pm - Fairchild Hall is on the right side of the main campus green. The Kresge Science Library is in the same building.
    Contact: Christopher.Sneddon@dartmouth.edu, Dartmouth visitor information at Dartmouth website
    University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
    301 Williams Science Hall, at 7:00 p.m
    For all information contact: Tel: (802) 454-7138, Jennifer Rock jenrockaloha@yahoo.com
                -OR-
    Vermont Genetic Engineering Action Network at (802) 272-9536, biotech@social-ecology.org
  • 13 November through 16 November - University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
    (Details/Contact)
  • 17 November through 19 November - University of Texas, Austin, TX
    (Details/Contact)
  • 21 November - KPFA FM Radio "The Morning Show"
    Co-hosts Andrea Lewis & Philip Maldari interview Devinder from 8:30-9:00am
    http://www.kpfa.org
    The Academy, Berkeley, CA (10:30am sharp)
    Speaking to school children of grades 6 and above.
    Open to the public.
    Please see Details/Contact information before attending. The lecture will take place on the grounds of the school, dress appropriately. Please verify location has not changed a few days before.
    
  • California Institute of Integral Studies
    Room 311 (3rd floor) at 6:30 PM
    For information contact: Ms. Pei Wu, Social and Cultural Anthropology Program, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, Tel: 1-415-575-6100 x119, pwu@ciis.edu. Directions: http://www.ciis.edu/welcome/contact.html
  • 22 November - The Food Chain radio show
    9-10am Pacific Time.
    Listeners are invited to call the program with questions and comments at 800-624-2665, or log them to the discussion page at www.metrofarm.com.
    Stations broadcasting the show:
    • KSCO 1080 AM (Santa Cruz/Salinas/Monterey, CA)
    • GET 970 AM (Bakersfield, CA)
    • KOMY-AM 1340 (Watsonville, CA)
    • MPH 860 AM (Fresno, CA)
    • GOE 1480 AM (Eureka, CA)
    • NTK 102.3 FM (Yreka, CA)
    • FRM (Clay Center, KS)
    • RUTH RADIO
  • 24 November through 27 November - "Trade, Biotechnology and Hunger", McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada
    R2045 Raymond Building on Macdonald Campus 16:00 h (4:00pm)
    This event is free and open to the public
    Student Roundtable Discussions at McGill School of the Environment
    For information regarding events at McGill contact: Dr. Donald L. Smith, Plant Science Department, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore Road, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Québec, Canada H9X 3V9, Tel: 514-398-7851 ex 7866, Fax: 514 398 7897, Donald.Smith@McGill.Ca, http://www.mcgill.ca/plant/faculty/smith
  
  
  
  
• Oct 31 - Nov 2: The Daniel Pennock Democracy School
  "Why Democratic Self-Government is Impossible When Corporations Wield Constitutional Rights Against Communities to Deny The Rights of People"
  Wilson College, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

  Focusing on a systemic historical and legal analysis of corporate power and democracy, this three-day experience is designed to help activists more effectively and fundamentally challenge corporate power, rather than simply organize corporation by corporation and harm by harm. The School is dedicated to the memory of Daniel Pennock, a 17 year old Berks County, Pennsylvania boy who died in 1995 after being exposed to land applied sewage sludge. His parents, Antoinette and Russell Pennock, travel the state seeking an end to that practice of sludge disposal -- from which waste management corporations reap massive profits from hauling and spreading sludge on farmland. This program is conceived, designed, and run by The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy.
  Friday

  • Arrival of Attendees
  • Dinner
  • Introductions of Attendees
  • Discussion:
    • "What is Our Concept of Democracy?"
    • "What is Our History of Regulatory Activism?"
    • "Does Our Work Vindicate Our Concept of Democracy?"
  • How We Got Here: A Brief Overview of the School and the Evolution of POCLAD/CELDF
  • A Case History: Traditional Organizing and Corporate Power
  Saturday
  • The Historical Role and Nature of Corporations in the United States
    • The Role of Corporate Charters
    • The Conferral of Corporate Constitutional Rights
  • A History of Peoples' Movements in the United States
    • The American Revolution
    • The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution
    • The Anti-Federalists
    • The Populists
    • The Abolitionists and the Fourteenth Amendment
    • Womens' Rights and the Nineteenth Amendment
    • The Labor Movement
  • What Have We Learned from These Movements?
    • Common Theories, Strategies, and Actions
      • Theory of the Constitution
      • Theory of the Corporation
      • Theory of Democracy
    • Building on the Lessons of Prior Movements
  • Building New Models of Organizing (The Pennsylvania Model)
    • The "Single Issue: Model: From Reframing to Winning
      • Driving into Local Governing Arenas
        • Challenging and Contesting Corporations
        • Contesting Government Actions Empowering Corporations to Usurp Community Control From Reframing to Drawing the Corporate Response To Building New Constituencies To Winning
    • Altering the Odds: Directly Challenging Corporate Rights
      • The Porter and Licking Township, Clarion County Experience: Using Law to Eliminate Legal Privileges Claimed by Corporations
  Sunday
  • Building the Connections Amongst All Single Issues
    • Our History of Collaterally Challenging Illegitimate Corporate Authority
  • Breakout: Reframing Single Issues by Rethinking Several Issues
    • An Exploration of Jurisdictions and Arenas
    • Other Constituencies
    • Critical Mass: Doing it Together and Building a Movement
  • This is the Work: Groups Across the United States Applying New Models
  • Discussion: How Do We Make Real the Promises of Democracy?
  
  

   

• Oct 16-19: Depleted Uranium and other Uranium Weapons
  Trojan Horse of a Nuclear War
  World Uranium Weapons Conference 2003
  an International Educational/Organizing Conference
  University of Hamburg, Germany
  
  
  We are preparing a World Uranium Weapons Conference to do work on a new and in some ways more prevalent and immediate nuclear threat: the issue of organizing an international campaign seeking the official ban of uranium weapons and their classification as weapons of mass destruction.
  
  For some years activists have faced the problem that the U.S. and British government are producing and upgrading their weapon systems containing uranium. With these also-radioactive weapons the boundaries between conventional and nuclear weapons becomes completely obscured. Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States writes,
  
  "DU weapons are not conventional weapons. They are highly toxic, radioactive weapons. All international law on warfare has attempted to limit violence to combatants and to prevent the use of cruel unfocussed weapons. . . . Consequently, DU weapons violate international law because of their inherent cruelty and unconfined death dealing effect. They threaten civilian populations now and for generations to come."
  
  Under pressure from activist groups the military itself was reluctantly forced to admit that huge amounts of uranium weapons (320 t DU) got used for the first time in southern Iraq in 1991, 3 t in Bosnia and 10 t in Serbia and Kosovo. Credible independent researchers believe that some 1000 t uranium was used in the bombing in Afghanistan, and at least that the same amount is expected in the recent war in Iraq. Experts from all allied NATO countries are observing an increase of the so-called Gulf and Balkan War Syndrome amongst veterans, which some link to the use of uranium ammunitions. Leading international independent researchers believe that exposure to DU during the 1991 Gulf War are responsible for the majority of the current, ongoing medical problems reported by over 260,000 returning veterans (one-third of all the troops participating in that war!), a rate with dire implications for future wars and conflicts where these weapons were recently and further intended to be used.
  
  The uranium isotope used in DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. DU and other uranium weapons are weapons with indiscriminate effects, causing genetic damage and by this endangering over generations the human race as a whole. Articles 35 and 56 of the Geneva Convention clearly prohibit weapons which are this indiscriminate and catastrophic in their effects on civilian populations, suggesting that their use could legally constitute war crimes.
  
  The governments using DU ammunition deny the link of these weapons with the illnesses and are lobbying hard to make a large, scientifically credible inquiry in Iraq impossible. They even try to hide the information of which kinds of weapons contain uranium today.
  
  Cancer rates in Iraq have increased dramatically over the rates noted before the Gulf War of 1991. A planned study supposed to be done by the UN was turned down in December 2001 under the pressure of the U.S. government. Also scientific magazines infrequently publish the results of smaller independent studies. This whole situation brought quite some irritation inside the scientific circle and inside the peace activist movement. For example the results of two recent studies [1] which have already calculated the cumulative dose effects to both Iraqi civilians and Allied and Iraqi troops during the Gulf War if 1991 are not well known among the larger international medical, health and scientific communities; while at the same time, reports by government bodies who use DU ammunitions are well publicised, distributed and give the impression that no or little effect exists.
  
  We believe a World Uranium Weapons Conference is needed to bring together the scientific experts with their independent studies and the peace, veterans, and anti-nuclear movements to get updated and have the results of their studies and their work combined. The Conference will also include extra time for the conference members to combine existing information, and to discuss the need for creating, conducting and funding their own additional independent, peer-reviewed, international study on the health hazards caused by the use of uranium weapons worldwide. Specifically, attention must be given to Iraq before the data is lost or corrupted by the occupation. Because many governments have the stated agenda of perpetuating uranium weapons, their conclusions about uranium weapons effects are not reliable or acceptable. Therefore, the independent international non-governmental movements will have to be responsible for the huge costs of this kind of study, which cannot be done by a single country or organisation.
  
  Ideally such a study should be conducted or co-ordinated by WHOWHO´s operations are potentially compromised by its constitutional obligations to the IAEA with its strong obligations tothe nuclear lobby. The WHO is not allowed to publish results without the consensus of the IAEA. The results of any study done by WHO on DU or other uranium weapons issues therefore should be highly suspect in its credibility. It therefore becomes the additional responsibility of our movements to constantly review and publicly critique all governmental claims on these issues.
  
  Full-scale independent peer review of existing data, continued independent study, and a unified plan of action will lead to the evidence needed to get uranium weapons officially banned by the international community.
  
  Thank you for your consideration of this project. We welcome your future interest and involvement.
  
  For peace,
  Marion Kuepker
  Co-Coordinator, GAAA
  
  World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference
  www.uraniumweaponsconference.de - www.uranwaffenkonferenz.de
  Co-Coordinator Marion Kuepker, Germany, ph. +49 40 4307332, marion@motherearth.org
  
  Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen, www.gaaa.org
  [The Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen - GAAA - is a German non-governmental organisation dedicated to the total abolition of nuclear weapons. GAAA observes and pressures the nuclear weapon states to fulfil their obligation under international law and treaties to start to abolish their nuclear weapons. The U.S. government has deployed B-61 nuclear bombs in seven different European countries and has also stationed Thunderbolt warplanes with depleted uranium ammunition in Germany, Italy and elsewhere. We organise actions on civil disobedience at these military bases in Germany, and conduct public hearings to inform the German population. Besides this we do lobby work and network with affiliated groups in Europe and throughout the world.]
  

  
  
  
  1. Dr. Souad N. Al-Azzawi, Environmental Damages Resulting from Using Depleted Uranium Weaponry against Iraq During 1991 Aggression by USA and its Allies; also, Prof. Asaf Durakovic, M.D., Urinary Excretion of Uranium Isotopes in the Gulf War Veterans After Inhalation Exposure to Depleted Uranium, Eleventh International Congress of Radiation Research, Dublin, Ireland, July 18-23, 1999; Urinary Excretion of Uranium Isotopes in British, Canadian and United States Gulf War Veterans, European Association of Nuclear Medicine, Paris, September 2-6, 2000. www.URMC.net
  
  
  
  
• Jul 25/Sep 6+27: Thanksgiving for the WATERS, Blessings for a Gift of the Mother
  Onondaga Lake, New York and anywhere you are

  The United Nations has declared 2003 The International Year of Water. This is an international celebration led by Dr. Masaru Emoto and Toronto Dowsers Water Project. People will gather all over Earth to express their appreciation to the waters. Bring four things: (1) a container of pure water, (2) a prayer, song or blessing about water, (3) positive intention to cleanse the waters, (4) family, lover, friend. If you can't travel to Onondaga Lake, please gather at a water body closer to your home. According to Dr. Emoto, the exact time for the ceremony is 7:25pm on 7/25/03. All you need to do is simply express your thanks for the gifts of water, focus your love on the water, and give a blessing to the water. Water is the most unique feature of our Earth.
  
  Three-quarters of Earth is covered by water. Three-quarters of your body is water. Every living cell is a tiny bubble of liquid crystal water. Every body is a water body. Life was born in Earth's ancient ocean. We are born from a bag of water in our mother's uterus. Water is the Gift of the Mother: it springs from the Earth. Water is life. Water is the solution of life. Water is very sensitive to energy. Water is fluid, its molecules in constant motion. Wind whips water into waves and undersea streams. With salt, water is an electrolyte to conduct electric current. With metal and acid, water is a battery to store electric charge. Today, water is increasingly endangered and polluted. Despite laws and legislation, we drink expensive bottled water. Pure, unpolluted fresh water is more and more scarce. And the life is going out of the waters. Dr. Masaru Emoto has shown that water has memory, and that it responds to human intention by building internal structures.
  
  
  
  

• Jul/Aug/Sep: Deceptions+Cover-Ups: Fragments From the War On Terror
  free film series co-sponsored by Berkeley Peace Walk & Vigil and Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace. All films begin at 6:30pm, in the Main Meeting Room of the Berkeley Central Public Library, 2019 Kittredge @ Shattuck, near downtown Berkeley BART.

  In Shifting Sands, (2002, 92 min)
  July 29th -- Scott Ritter, UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector, UNSCOM and the disarming of Iraq. More information at: http://www.seaswap.org/2003/ritter/ and http://store.globalexchange.org/shiftingsands.html
  Metal of Dishonor, (50 min)
  August 7th -- Depleted Uranium Education Project, Expose on the Pentagon's use of depleted uranium weapons. More information at: http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm and http://sftimes.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$61
  Civilian Casualties, (2002, 60 min)
  August 26th -- September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, American who lost loved ones on 9/11 travel to Afghanistan to share their grief and offer condolences to Afghan victims of the U.S. bombing.
  More information at: www.civiliancasualties.com and http://www.peacefultomorrows.org/civiliancasualties/cc.html
  Aftermath: Unanswered Questions From 911, (2002, 35 min)
  September 9th -- Guerilla News Network, Interviews with Mary Schiavo (aviation disaster attorney), Peter Dale Scott (UC professor emeritus), Riva Enteen (National Lawyers Guild), and others. More information at: http://www.guerrillanews.com/after_math/ and www.unansweredquestions.org

  
  
  
  
• Sep 20 - Oct 4: Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride

  Immigrant workers, living and paying taxes in the United States, deserve the rights to legalize their status, to have a clear road to citizenship, to reunify their families, to have a voice on the job without regard to legal status, and to enjoy full protection of their civil rights and civil liberties, rights denied by their undocumented status and outdated laws. The road to citizenship needs a new map. The goal of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride is to help draw that map.
  
  Inspired by the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement, immigrant workers and allies will set out from eight major U.S. cities and cross the country in buses in late September 2003, converging on Washington, DC, to meet with members of Congress and then traveling to New York City for a mass rally on October 4, 2003. Endorse the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride.

  
  
  
  
• Sept 10-14: 5th WTO Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico
  
  • Call for Mobilization toward the WTO Meeting in Cancun 2003
    includes Proposals and a bilingual (Spanish/English) list-serve.
  • From Brussels to Cancun: European civil society groups
    launch campaign on global trade and investment talks, Friends of the Earth, Europe, 9/13/02
  • Laying the Groundwork For Cancun: Another Doha `Success'?
    by Aileen Kwa, Focus on the Global South, 9/25/02
  • The Mobilization Towards the Cancun Ministerial by ourworldisnotforsale.org
    includes data a contact-person about the Ad-Hoc Mexican Organization Committee.
  • Organic Consumers Association: Travel Package and Info on WTO Protests in Cancun (Sep 4-11)
  
  
  
  
• Sep 13: The World Says No To The WTO
  Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War
  Kicking off a Fall Campaign of Action for Peace and Justice
  
  
  From September 10 to 14, the World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold its Fifth Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Pushed by multinational corporations, the United States, the European Union, and other developed countries are seeking to launch a new round of "free trade" negotiations and expand corporate globalization -- further eroding human rights, workers' rights, environmental protections, and democracy -- in the interest of corporate control.
            Popular movements in Mexico and their international allies will mark these meetings with massive demonstrations to demand a world that puts democracy and human dignity ahead of corporate profits. Solidarity actions around the world will focus on September 13 as a Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War.
            We call on people throughout the United States to join this global uprising for peace and justice by organizing events in your community throughout the week leading up to the WTO Ministerial and on September 13. Resist the WTO and the failed model of corporate globalization, and highlight the links between militarism and "free trade," through a wide variety of creative means: teach-ins, vigils, protests, direct action, street theater, festivals of resistance, cultural events, meetings with elected officials, public forums, and so on.
            These September actions to derail the WTO will kick off a powerful autumn campaign of action for peace and justice, involving major mobilizations for immigrant rights, against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and against militarism and occupation.
  
  Whose Trade Organization?
  
  The WTO is designed and managed for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of most of the world's population and the environment. The neoliberal agenda of "free trade," deregulation, privatization and special corporate protections enshrined in the WTO leads to greater poverty, inequity, gender inequality and indebtedness, while concentrating the world's wealth in the hands of a few. The corporate agenda implemented by the WTO pits worker against worker and nation against nation in a race to the bottom.
            The last time the WTO met in North America, in late 1999, tens of thousands of people converged on Seattle to expose the real agenda behind "free trade" devastating the environment and eroding basic rights, protections, and services for the vast majority of the world's population.
            Four years after the historic showdown at the 3rd WTO Ministerial in Seattle, we live in a changed and even more dangerous world. Using the horrible terrorist attacks against the U.S. of 2001 as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration is on a reckless quest for empire, combining the global might of the United States military with the global reach of massive corporations. The Bush doctrine of preemptive strike and permanent warfare goes hand-in-hand with a program of economic domination through "free trade," and, not coincidentally, masks the woeful U.S. economic situation.
  
  The "Watchtower State"
  
  Under the rules of the WTO and proposed agreements like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the government's role in regulating the market place to promote fair labor conditions, access to basic services, safe products and a clean environment is strictly constrained. WTO rules provide a "security exception" that protects and fosters weapons manufacture and the arms trade. Under agreements being negotiated now, virtually all other governmental services -- including schools, health care, public transit, water supply and other public utilities -- could be subject to corporate takeover. Basic worker and consumer rights and environmental protections could be jettisoned as "unfair barriers to trade." The vision of government enshrined in the WTO and the FTAA is a "watchtower state" -- a fortress security state on a permanent war footing.
  
  The Assault on Immigrant Rights
  
  Corporate globalization has destroyed the lives and livelihood of millions of workers and farmers throughout the world. Many are forced to leave their homes, their land, and often their countries in search of increasingly scarce jobs. Yet trade agreements that protect the flow of money and goods across borders don't allow the free movement of people. Borders are militarized and immigrants are criminalized -- even as millions of people are dislocated by "free trade."
            More than nine million undocumented workers who live in the United States today lack basic legal protections and human rights, living in constant fear of round-ups, detentions, and deportation. The WTO and FTAA would create new injustices for immigrants by giving corporations the right to import people to work in industrialized countries like the United States, while maintaining the low wages and minimal worker protections of their home countries, creating a system of legalized sweatshops.
  
  Another World is Possible
  
  We have before us a choice: the world of militarism and corporate globalization, or a world built on global solidarity, rooted in a foundation of democracy, dignity, sustainability, and cooperation. This fall we have an opportunity to bring our vision to life, through a series of actions and campaigns that will build toward a better world.
  
  List of Endorsing Organizations:

  • ACERCA
  • Aztlan Media Kollective, East Los Angeles
  • Coalition of Immokalee Workers
  • Corazon Cultural Commission
  • Global Exchange
  • International ANSWER Coalition
  • Ithaca Fair Trade Coalition
  • Hitec Aztec Communications Network
  • Human Bean Company
  • Latin American Solidarity Committee of Western New York Peace Center
  • Marin Interfaith Task Force on the Americas
  • Mexico Solidarity Network
  • Nicaragua Center for Community Action (NICCA)
  • The Nicaragua Network
  • Public Citizen
  • United for Peace and Justice
  • The United Peoples
  • Wisconsin Fair Trade Campaign
  
  
  
  
• Sep 11: 9/11 Investigative Film Exhibition and Panel
  Riverside Church, 6-10:30pm, Harlem, New York City
  South Hall--enter at 91 Claremont Ave.
  Featuring Short Documentaries:

  • Aftermath: Unanswered Questions From 911 by the Sundance Award winning Guerrilla News Network
  • The Great Deception by Barry Zwicker
  • Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death, by Scottish journalist Jamie Doran and Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi
  • The Making of Spike Lees We Are Family by Emmy Award winning Danny Schechter
  • September 10, 2001, Uno Nunca Muere La Vispera by Monika Bravo

  followed by panelists:

  • Cynthia McKinney - Former Congresswoman - GA
  • Ray McGovern - retired CIA analyst
  • Dr. Faiz Khan - 9/11 triage doctor
  • John Judge - Co-founder, 9/11 CitizensWatch
  • Micheal Ruppert - From the Wilderness Publications

  $5 suggested donation. Sponsored by Guerrilla News Network, 9-11 CitizensWatch, WBAI 99.5FM, Pacifica Radio and Aint That Good News
  
  
  
  
• Sep 12,13,14: Reframing 9/11: alternatives to endless war
  Riverside Church, Harlem, New York City
  Join us for a three day public forum challenging the Bush administration's use of 9/11 as justification for its previously established agenda of endless war, international conquest, relentless environmental devastation, corporate welfare and dismantling of the United States Constitution. Panelists include: Vandana Shiva, Cynthia McKinney, Greg Palast, Medea Benjamin, Steve Staples, Rania Masri, Wayne Madsen, Catherine Austin Fitts, William Rivers Pitt, and many more. For the program and details please visit WBAI/Ain't That Good News Forum
  Program outline:

  • Sep12, 6-10:30 pm: 9-11: Unleashing the New American Century of Endless War on the World; Response of The Peace Movement (framing the problem, how pre-9-11 policy became post 9-11 policy; how 9-11 hemorrhaged into the perfect defense for illegal, "preventive"-"pre-emptive" war on the world)
  • Sep13, 10am-10pm. 9-11 "War On Terror" or Corporate Globalization; Mobilizing Strategies to Build Democratic Economics. (examining the moorings of empire in corporate mass media and the military-industrial-information-cultural complex and how to unravel corporate power and build an alternative political economy):
  • Sep14, 10am-9pm: 9-11: Unleashing The Patriot Act, Waging Homeland Insecurity; Building Resistance and Winning (examining the mal-effects of anti-terror legislation at home and abroad, the attack on civil rights, labor and immigrants, the growing resistance to such attacks and how we must work domestically and internationally to reinforce democracy and the rule of just law).
  
  
  
  
• Aug 29: The World Says No to Bush
  Mass Worldwide Protest During the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City
  In the last three years, George W. Bush has presided over a radical right-wing takeover of the U.S. government, the ramifications of which have been felt all over the world. Not only has he waged two wars, killing thousands of innocent people, during his short time in office, but he has also implemented a policy of pre-emptive war that violates international law and threatens global security. On the home front, unemployment soars, the federal budget deficit swells into the billions, and states prepare to slash funding for everything from healthcare to education. Yet, Bush responds with two huge tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy rather than the people who are most in need.
  
  On every issue -- from environmental regulations and international treaty participation to workers' rights, civil rights and civil liberties -- George W. Bush has pushed for unprecedented and destructive changes in U.S. foreign and domestic policy that even more sharply favor corporations and the wealthy, especially Bush Administration supporters, at the expense of the people of the world and our environment.
  
  Meanwhile, the Bush Administration shamelessly uses the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, to justify its aggressive and militaristic policies. In its most recent attempt to exploit the grief and fear that were provoked by September 11, the Republican Party pushed back its 2004 convention to August 28 through September 2, 2004, and will hold it in New York City, not far from Ground Zero.
  
  On February 15, 2003, millions of people all over the world took to the streets in protest with the message, The World Says No to War. On August 29, 2004, we will come together in New York City and in cities throughout the world to declare, The World Says No to Bush!
  
  We are also organizing a protest for Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004, the day of Bush's official selection as the presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Initiated by United for Peace and Justice, a U.S. anti-war coalition with more than 600 member groups. UFPJ looks forward to working with many other organizations on these days of protest, so please contact us at info@unitedforpeace.org if your group wants to work collaboratively on these actions and also to let us know about other actions being planned to coincide with the Republican Convention.
  
  
  
  
• August 2-30: Poor People's March for Economic Human Rights
  Marks Mississippi to Washington, DC
  Commemorating the 35th anniversary of Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign, we will be marching through the South. We will retrace the steps planned by King in his last days.
  

  • Start in Marks Missippi, starting point of King's Poor People's March
  • Arrive in Washington DC August 23rd
  • Establish week-long tent city in Washington, DC with educationals and protest.

  
  [It is critical to understand how the original Poor People's march on Washington that Martin King planned to bring to the nation's capitol in the spring of 1968 was intended to force the United States government to abolish poverty. Dr. William F. Pepper was the King Family's lawyer-investigator in the 1999 Circuit Court trial in Memphis, Tennessee, King Family versus Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirator. Pepper spent 25 years on this case that took the jury just under 1 hour to rule that Loyd Jowers participated in a conspiracy to do harm to Martin Luther King and "that others, "including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy." See The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Was An Act of State and accompanying references for more on this censored history of our country. --ratitor]
  
  
  
  
• Aug 15-17: CodePink Women's Activist Training Camp
  Anthony Chabot Regional Park, Oakland, California
  
  
  Join women of all ages and backgrounds for a weekend of activist training sessions and outdoor fun brought to you by CodePink: Women for Peace.
  
  CodePink began as a movement to stop the war on Iraq, and in a short time has become a vibrant presence in the peace and social justice community. It continues to organize actions in creative -- and sometimes outrageous ways -- addressing a multitude of issues from the missing weapons of mass destruction to the corporate takeover of our airwaves, all the while bringing into play the sensibilities of respect, compassion and interconnectedness.
  
  CodePink has gained a reputation for being where the issues are and calling it like it is. Its unique call to action has captured the imagination of women and like-minded men throughout the country. We want to continue this great momentum and share it with you in an activist training camp.
  
  Location of Training Camp: Anthony Chabot Regional Park, only 20 minutes from downtown Oakland. The Park's beautiful lake and miles of hiking and riding trails make it one of the best camping spots in the East Bay.
  
  Presentations/Training Sessions:
  Possible training sessions include translating the news into creative actions; outreach; facilitating meetings; incorporating art and culture into your activism; how to get the media's attention; campaign strategy; anti-racist organizing; using the Internet and WWW; youth and student organizing; and lobbying.
  
  Possible presentations include an update on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine; making the connection between the peace movement and anti-corporate globalization movement; understanding the PATRIOT Act and civil liberties; electoral politics and the 2004 elections.
  
  There will also be plenty of music, interactive games so people get to know each other, and other outdoor fun! This is a tentative list of sessions. A final list including names of trainers will be available soon.
  
  partial list of Trainers:

  • Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
  • Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Professor, Activist and Author
  • Riva Enteen, National Lawyers Guild
  • Jodie Evans, CodePink: Women for Peace
  • Samina Faheem, American Muslim Voice
  • Estelle Freidman, author of No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women
  • Rebecca Kaplan, Progressive Communications
  • Betita Martinez, Institute for Multiracial Justice
  • Leila Salazar, Amazon Watch
  • Karen Stevenson, Core Communications

  
  Cost: $20 ­ 50 sliding scale. (Please pay $50 if you can afford to subsidize the camp for another activist.) The cost pays for the campsite, the trainings, and dinner on Friday and Saturday night. You will have to provide your own tent and bedding. (Call us if you have extra camping equipment or space in your tent OR if you need camping equipment, so we can hook you up with someone else.) You will also need to bring food for your breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday.
  
  Register: Registration is first-come, first-served and space is limited to 100 participants, so sign up soon! Please call Vanessa, Marissa or Kate at Global Exchange, 415-575-5555 or email peace@globalexchange.org. More Info: soon at www.codepinkbayarea.org. For general information about CodePink, see www.codepinkalert.org.
  
  
  
  
• Aug 10: Hands Around the Lab--A Nonviolent Rally and March
  Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab--Rally: 1:30pm, March 3:00pm
  William Payne Park, 5800 Patterson Pass Rd (at Vasco), Livermore, CA
  Above URL provides more info or call Anna at 510-655-6169 x309

  Twenty years ago, thousands of people joined hands and encircled Livermore nuclear weapons lab to protest the nuclear arms buildup during the Reagan administration. Today, as we once again face the threat of nuclear war, we must renew our nonviolent resistance. We hold the belief that it is possible to move from a climate of fear to a new world of hope as we say "No" to the testing, design, development, and use of all nuclear weapons.
  
  Please join Buddhist Peace Fellowship and 72 other progressive organizations on August 10, in observance of the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as we join hands around Livermore Lab as a call for peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons everywhere.

  
  
  
  
• Jul 31/Aug 1: Seattle Demographic Analysis Workshop
  Smartgirl Tehcnologies, Portland Oregon
  Held at Allied Business Systems, 10604 NE 38th Place, Suite 118 Kirkland, WA
  
  
  The Local Demographic Analysis Workshop (LDAW) was developed in early 2002 and has been taught in repeatedly in 25 cities, educating thousands of students. It was designed for human service providers, neighborhood activists, grant writers, planners or anyone who would like to easily look up and analyze basic demographic characteristics. Each workshop focuses on analysis for the particular city in which it is taught, however, all techniques and methodologies are directly transferable to any other geography.
  
  
  This is a basic, technical workshop that will teach you how to access, analyze, and present 2000/1990 Census (short and long form), 2001 American Community Survey (ACS) and 2001 Census Supplemental data. Participants will:

  • Learn the most efficient process to extract, query, download and manipulate data from the American Factfinder website;
  • Construct a Local Community Change Profile for the city and Census tract within that city. The Profile is comprised of 20 key demographic variables and five bonus questions;
  • Learn commonly used analytical, demographic analysis techniques including commonly used mathematical formulas to transform raw data into compelling information and things you should know so as not be a dangerous analyst;
  • Learn the strengths and weaknesses of the Census, ACS and Census Supplemental Surveys;
  • Learn about the wide variety of variables available focusing on race and ethnicity, poverty, income, nationality, age, housing and population analysis;
  • Learn about Census geography including:
    • What to do when your target area boundaries don't fit Census boundaries;
    • Figuring out if your tract boundaries have changed between 1990 and 2000 and if so, what to do about it;
    • Demonstration of ArcExplorer, a free map browser produced by ESRI;
  • Learn some techniques to present data in clear, compelling ways in terms of tabular and graphical data.

  MATERIALS - Each participant will receive:

  • An extensive work book with a copy of the LDAW presentation,
  • Demographic Data Resource CD that includes:
    • ArcExplorer, a free map browser produced by ESRI
    • Computerized map files (shapefiles) that can be read by ArcExplorer that include:
      • Census tracts (2000 & 1990) for all US counties
      • County boundaries for all US counties
      • City boundaries for all US cities
      • Water boundaries for all US areas
      • School District boundaries for all US counties
  • Receive Information Activist?, a free quarterly e-letter highlighting new data rich websites and interesting social research
  
  
  
  
• July 19 - 22: US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation - Building the National Movement
  Gallaudet University, Kellogg Conference Center, Washington, DC

  Do you share the goals and piciples of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation? Do they reflect the goals of your work for peace with justice in the Middle East? The Palestine Center will be managing the registration for this conference. For more information contact Mr. Tareq Bremer at 202-338-1290, ext. 10 or email at Tbremer@palestinecenter.org.
  
  
  

• July 3: National Public Hearings to Repeal the Patriot Act
  Contact: Kellie Gasink, National Coalition to Repeal the USA Patriot Act, kelliegasink2002@lycos.com, 912-238-4489

  On July 3, cities across the country will hold independant Public Hearings to Repeal the Patriot Act. These public hearings will be a means of collecting information and testimony in regards to the USA Patriot Act, passed by the US Congress on October 26, 2001. The hearings will cover issues of the Patriot Act, civil liberties and the Bill of Rights, police brutality and racial profiling. All members of the public are requested to offer testimony and present their point of view. The record of testimony will be presented to the U.S. Congress. with the demand for the complete and immediate REPEAL of the USA Patriot Act. It will also be conveyed to local governments. In respect to city, county and state legislatures, the record of testimony will coincide with the demand that these bodies pass binding law in support of the Bill of Rights and the immediate and complete REPEAL of the USA Patriot Act.
  
  The USA Patriot Act effectively eliminates:

  • Freedom of Association: Government may monitor religious labor, and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.
  • Freedom of Information: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.
  • Freedom of Speech: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
  • Right to Legal Representation: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
  • Freedom from Unreasonable Searches: Government may search and seize Americans' personal records, business documents and telephone/internet activity records without probable cause to assist alleged terror investigations.
  • Right to a Speedy and Public Trial: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
  • Right to Liberty: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront the witnesses against them.
  
  The USA Patriot Act is a violation of the US Constitution.
  
  Read collected analysis about the USA PATRIOT Act and its proposed "progeny", the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 aka Patriot II.
  
  
  
• June 27-29: Stopping War Where it Begins - Organizing Against Militarism in Our Schools
  Friends Center, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia.

  The rising tide of US militarism is threatening to inundate our nation's public schools. Waves of soldiers are gaining access to the once hallowed halls of education with the proliferation of JROTC units in high schools and other military activities that are spreading throughout k-12 schools. For more information and how to register for this conference call 215-241-7176, visit www.youthandthemilitary.org, or write to ocastro@afsc.org
  
  
  

• June 23: Agriculture, Hunger and Biotechnology: What Role Do Genetically Engineered Crops Have in Developing Countries?
  7pm, The Crest Theater, 1013 K Street, Sacramento, CA

  Presented by Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy and Pesticide Action Network. Hear diverse viewpoints on the international controversy over GE crops and food. Speakers will include scientists, policy makers, activists, and industry representatives. Chair: Mark Hertsgaard, author, The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, Professor, University of California at Berkeley School of Journalism. Speakers: David Hegwood, Special Counsel to the Secretary of State for Agriculture, Amadou Cheikh Kanoute, Consumers International Regional Director for Africa (CI-ROAF), Anuradha Mittal, Co-Director of Food First/ Institute for Food and Development Policy, Martina Newell-McGloughlin, Director, UC Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program, Silvia Ribeiro, Researcher and program manager with ETC group, Mexico, Christian Verschueren, Director General, CropLife International (tbc).
  
  
  

• June 20 - July 5: ActionLA Peace & Social Justice Convergence
  2 Weeks Festival of Peace, Dialogue, Community Organizing and Resistance
  Los Angeles, California

  Building a stronger movement through networking and cooperative collaboration, linking issues of war and peace to the issues of the community, building a day-by-day strategy which allows for instant contact between diverse groups and communities and consolidating the often isolated communities into a closer working relationship with others. ActionLA invites your active participation in the planning. Our coalition in Los Angeles has decided to call for a major 2-week long Peace and Social Justice Convergence in Los Angeles to focus on how to link global struggles to the community issues, and demand "Take Back the World, Take Back Our Community!"
  
  
  

• June 19: Voices from the South - The Third World Debunks Corporate Myths on Genetically Engineered Crops
  6pm, New College, 777 Valencia Street, San Francisco

  Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy and Pesticide Action Network invite you to the launch of their new report. The report is a collection of views and comments by the leading voices of southern opposition to genetically engineered crops. Join us for an evening of discussion and celebration. Speakers include: Timothy Byakola PAN East Africa, Uganda, Silvia Ribeiro ETC Group, Mexico/Uruguay, Anuradha Mittal Food First, India/U.S., Ellen Hickey PAN North America, U.S. Contact Information: PAN/Food First 415-981-1771 or 510-654-4400.
  
  
  

• June 6-8: PlanNetwork Conference - Networking a Sustainable Future
  The Golden Gate Club in the San Francisco Presidio

  Join innovators from the world of information technology, environmental visionaries, peace and social justice activists, independent media pioneers, and many others to explore how social networks, information technologies and the Internet can play a key role in accelerating positive global change. Come participate in the second international Planetwork Conference: expand your networks, forge new models, share resources and help implement the creative solutions we need to build a peaceful and sustainable future.
  
  Featuring over eighty presenters, with Plenary presentations by: World renowned authority on Sustainability Hazel Henderson, MoveOn Cofounder Joan Blades, and a special Friday evening session honoring Douglas Engelbart -- inventor of the mouse, hypertext, and windows, and father of modern computing, for his lifelong dedication to evolving intelligent technology to address the real needs of the Planet, and a performance Saturday evening by renowned singer songwriter peace activist, Stephan Smith.

  Panel Topics include:

  1. Digital Identity - as Global Citizens
  2. LinkTank Whitepaper on Social Network Tools
  3. Sustainable Media Networks: Why not now?
  4. Direct Philanthropy: Disintermediating Giving
  5. Mobilizing Global Youth: Networking the Future
  6. Creating Community - Online & Off
  7. Digital Earth: 3D Geobrowsers
  8. Cross Platform Media Strategies for Global Change
  9. Complementary Currencies on the Net
  10. GIS Networks: Conservation & Open Source
  11. Big Networks: Online Communities Come of Age
  12. Social Entrepreneurs: Incubating Social Change
  13. Global Scenarios: Modeling the Future
  14. What Works: Non-profit needs for tech tools
  15. Internet Based Barter
  16. Messaging Equity
  17. Mobilizing on a Dime
  18. Open Source Dollars
  19. Blogs Blogs Blogs
  
  
  
  
• June 5-8: Challenging Corporate Power and Demanding Accountability
  2003 Empowering Democracy Conference, Fayetteville, Arkansas

  Empowering Democracy is an annual skills training by and for corporate campaigners with the intent of sharing the skills necessary to conduct effective corporate accountability campaigns. Exchange ideas with folks working on the same issue, corporation or area, access the experience and knowledge of long time corporate campaigners. Learn about racism and corporate power, shareholder activism, media strategy, legal and legislative tools, new strategies and much more. Together we can learn about and take the next steps needed to restore integrity to our democracy and curb corporate power. We hope you can join us. If interested please fill out the 2003 application. Applications are due no later than May 25th, 2003. We are also accepting nominations for our coordinating committee. If you have any question or comments, contact Amita Lonial at amita@seedcoalition.org or at 512-479-7744.
  
  
  
  

• June 5-8: 35th year following the murder of Robert F. Kennedy
  Radisson Hotel, 3515 Wilshire Blvd (near Alexandria), Los Angeles, CA

  Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) is co-sponsoring this event with Citizens For Truth About the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA). Confirmed speakers include Lawrence Teeter, Esq. (attorney for Sirhan Sirhan), Philip Melanson, PhD, William Turner, Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease. We are also approaching former LAPD member Mike Ruppert, and witnesses to the event to speak.
  
  On June 5 we will hold a press conference in the early afternoon, since that day marks the actual anniversary date of the assassination. We are hoping to hold that in a portion of the Ambassador Hotel, 3400 Wilshire Blvd. On Friday night, we will have a keynote speech at 7:00 pm, followed by videotapes. All day Saturday we will have presentations of evidence by researchers and witnesses. On Saturday night, we can get a group rate for "Sleeping With the Ambassador," a dance performance that leads through portions of the Ambassador Hotel, open to the public for the first time in 14 years. (We will not get into the actual pantry or ballroom areas, though). On Sunday, we will meet until checkout time about COPA and CTKA programs and future work.
  
  Discount rate at the Radisson is $73 single/double up to May 26. Mention COPA when you call to make reservations at 213-381-7411 or 800-333-3333. Parking for local participants is $6 daily and $13 for overnight guests. Registration is $20/day and will be paid at the gate.
  
  A group rate of $20 is possible for attending the "Sleeping With the Ambassador" dance performance by mentioning COPA when you bill it through their website at www.collagedancetheatre.org. Just go to the PayPal link, and in the "Optional" comments box near the end of your transaction note that you qualify for a COPA group discount and specify that you want the ticket for the 8:00 pm performance on Saturday, June 7th, 2003. Book soon, they may sell out. Entrance & Free Parking on 8th Street, east of Mariposa.
  
  
  

• May 30 - June 8: End the Occupation!
  global

  The Israeli occupation began in June 1967 and has persisted for the past 36 years, with unremitting harm to Palestinians and Israelis alike. For the sake of both peoples, the time has come to end it. The Coalition of Women for Peace will be launching 10 days of events to end the occupation, beginning May 30th with a mass Women (and Men) in Black Vigil in Tel Aviv, Israel. We invite people of good will throughout the world to hold solidarity actions at any time during this period -- actions that call for an end to the Israeli occupation. Send us a photo of your action that we can post on our website. For more information, write to mail@coalitionofwomen4peace.org.
  
  
  
  

• May30-Jun1: RadFest 2003 Midwest Social Forum, 20th Anniversary
  Aurora University, George Williams Lake Geneva Camupus, Wisconsin

  RadFest is an annual weekend conference for progressive activists and academics organized by the A. E. Havens Center for the Study of Social Structure and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The central goal of the conference is to provide an opportunity for progressive activists, organizers, and intellectuals to come together to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern, strengthen networks, and devise strategies for progressive social, economic, and political change. RadFest has grown significantly in recent years, becoming an important annual gathering for progressives. Last year, for example, approximately 300 people from throughout the upper Midwest and beyond attended. This year, which will be the 20th anniversary of the conference, we expect a considerably larger turnout.
  
  The opening event of the program will be a plenary panel on Friday evening, titled "The Iraq War and the Anti-War Movement." The panel will be composed of Max Elbaum (author of Revolution in the Air), Betita Martínez (Institute for Multiracial Justice), Rania Masri (Iraq Action Coalition), and Jeremy Scahill (Democracy Now). On Saturday evening, there will be a second plenary panel, titled "The State of Black Politics." The panelists will be Linda Burnham (Women of Color Resource Center), Teresa El-Amin (Southern Anti-Racism Network, Solidarity), Bill Fletcher (TransAfrica Forum), and Salim Muwakkil (Chicago Tribune, In These Times). The remainder of the program will be primarily devoted to over thirty workshops and panels addressing a wide array of social, political, and economic topics on Saturday and Sunday.
  
  
  
  

• May 2-4: Resisting "Empire," Affirming Our Vision
  Conference presented by CUNY Graduate Center & the New York Open Center
  Call 212-817-8215, or email continuinged@gc.cuny.edu

  Where is America Going?
  We stand in the shadow of permanent war -- for oil, for security, for global dominance. American ideals -- civil liberties, balance of powers, environmental protection, cultural diversity, equal economic opportunity, spritual freedom -- are being severely challenged by our overwhelming geopolitical power and the doctrines of unilateralism and empire. The conference will focus on reaffirming values such as human rights, sustainability, renewable energies, diversity, ecological consciousness, media and participatory democracy, and on further extending life-serving, sustainable alternatives that are in harmony with a healthy, multicultural, and socially positive world view. The event will feature panel discussions, strategy sessions, and resource materials from many organizations. Among the many speakers are Nina Utne, Don Hazen, Jee Kim, Don Rojas, Carl Anthony, Sarah Ruth Van Gelder, Ralph Nader, Jerry Mander, Charlene Spretnak, Rigoberta Menchu, Peggy Shepard, Satish Kumar, John Mohawk, Baldemar Velasquez, Kirkpatrick Sale and Stanley Aronowitz.
  
  
  
  

• April 4: The April 4th Foundation 3rd Annual Commemorative Awards & Gala
  Reconciliation, Reaffirmation, Renewal -- Tell The Story . . . Pass It On
  Religious Leaders Unite Against Inequality And Racism

  Our mission is to provide an organized platform for the encouragement, creation and support of commemorative historical and educational programs on the anniversary of the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4th, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. The Foundation will also facilitate and encourage community and national development of programs and events that serve to celebrate and reaffirm the Foundation's collective belief in economic justice and equality for all.
  
  In looking at and evaluating the state of Memphis and its heritage, and looking even further to evaluate the state of the nation, a group of citizens committed to maintaining and promoting Dr. King's Dream have established The April 4th Foundation, Inc. The Foundation is committed to the on-going effort of providing an organized platform for the encouragement, creation and support of commemorative historical and educational programs, as well as facilitating and encouraging community and national development of programs and events that continue to focus efforts that bridge the gaps created by racial and economic injustice, poverty, lack of education and opportunity.
  
  The Foundation also believes that by developing programs and activities using April 4th as the benchmark, we are able to look ahead and move forward toward achieving Dr. King's Dream, as well as look back to determine how much we have or have not accomplished and how far we still have to go.
  
  By hosting, co-hosting and partnering with local and national organizations, The April 4th Foundation, Inc. wants to create opportunities for everyone to participate in preserving Dr. Martin Luther King's, Jr. dream of unity.

  
  
  
  
• Mar 8 2003: Stand Up for Peace and Justice on International Women's Day!
  Washinton D.C., 11am
  Join thousands of women and men from all walks of life for this amazing women-led peace convergence.
  11am Rally
  Gather at Malcolm X Park located at 16th St. between W Streets and Euclid, NW.
  1pm March to Encircle the White House
  The march will leave at 1:00 p.m. from Malcolm X park to encircle the White House.
  Program Highlights
  Speakers Include:
  Alice Walker, Vandana Shiva, Amy Goodman, Janeane Garofalo, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Granny D, Barbara Ehrenreich, Rania Masri, Michelle Shocked, Hyun Kyung, Jody Williams, Cheri Honkala, Maxine Hong Kingston, Susan Griffin, Inga Muscio, Terry Tempest Williams, Starhawk, Zainab Salbi, Medea Benjamin
  For More Information
  Call The Women's Peace Vigil at 202-393-5016 or e-mail womens.vigil@verizon.net
  
  
  
  
• Mar 3-9 2003: CodePINK - Women's Pre-emptive Strike for Peace
  Washinton D.C.
  
  
  We call on women around the world to rise up and oppose the war in Iraq. We call on mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters, on workers, students, teachers, healers, artists, writers, singers, poets, and every ordinary outraged woman willing to be outrageous for peace.
          Women have been the guardians of life-not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war. Because of our responsibility to the next generation, because of our own love for our families and communities and this country that we are a part of, we understand the love of a mother in Iraq for her children, and the driving desire of that child for life.
          Our leaders tell us we that we can easily afford hundreds of billions of dollars for this war. But in the United States of America, many of our elders who have worked hard all their lives now must choose whether to buy their prescription drugs, or food. Our children's education is eroded. The air they breathe and the water they drink are polluted. Vast numbers of women and children live in poverty.
          If we cannot afford health care, quality education and quality of life, how can we afford to squander our resources in attacking a country that is no proven immediate threat to us? We face real threats every day: the illness or ordinary accident that could plunge us into poverty, the violence on our own streets, the corporate corruption that can result in the loss of our jobs, our pensions, and our security.
          In Iraq today, a child with cancer cannot get pain relief or medication because of sanctions. Childhood diarrhea has again become a major killer. 500,000 children have already died from inadequate health care, water and food supplies due to sanctions. How many more will die if bombs fall on Baghdad, or a ground war begins?
          We cannot morally consent to war while paths of peace and negotiation have not been pursued to their fullest. We who cherish children will not consent to their murder. Nor do we consent to the murder of their mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers, or to the deaths of our own sons and daughters in a war for oil.
          We love our country, but we will never wrap ourselves in red, white and blue. Instead, we announce a Code Pink alert: signifying extreme danger to all the values of nurturing, caring, and compassion that women and loving men have held. We choose pink, the color of roses, the beauty that like bread is food for life, the color of the dawn of a new era when cooperation and negotiation prevail over force.
          We call on all outraged women to join us in taking a stand, now. And we call upon our brothers to join with us and support us. These actions will be initiated by women, but not limited to women. Stand in the streets and marketplaces of your towns with banners and signs of dissent, and talk to your neighbors. Stand before your elected representatives: and if they will not listen, sit in their offices, refusing to leave until they do. Withdraw consent from the warmongers. Engage in outrageous acts of dissent. We encourage all actions, from public education and free speech to nonviolent civil disobedience that can disrupt the progress toward war.
  
  
  
  
• If a war starts... www.actagainstwar.org - S.F. Direct Action to Stop the War
  
  
  Emergency Mass Non-Violent Direct Action & Protest
  Morning of the next Business Day 7:00 a.m.
  Market and Main, Embarcadero BART, San Francisco
  Transform our city from Profit and War into Life and
  Resistance! - Shut down the Corporate Warmakers! - download 2-page flyer
  
  National Call to Action
  Direct Action to Stop the War (San Francisco Bay Area) call on other cities to organize widespread noncooperation; Instead of going to work or school, we call on everyone to resist this war by particpating in or supporting mass nonviolent direct action, particularly focussed on the corporations, financial districts and other institutions involved in the war.
  
  
  
  
• Mar 5 2003: National One-Day Student Strike
  
  Student Strike for Books Not Bombs!
  The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC) calls upon students on campuses across the United States to join us in a one-day student strike on March 5th, 2003.
• www.moratoriumtostopwar.org - No School, No Work, No Business as Usual
  
  The Bush regime is intent on plunging America into an illegitimate and pre-emptive war in Iraq that will only increase danger for Americans and the world. At the same time education, healthcare, and the economy are being neglected. Its time for youth and students to take a stand for America's future! A US attack on Iraq will inevitably:

  • Endanger the lives of US servicemen and women
  • Increase the suffering of the Iraqi people while slaughtering thousands of innocent people
  • Encourage terror attacks against the US around the world and at home
  • Be used as an excuse to erode civil liberties
  • Divert resources from education and social services
  • Subvert historical precedent and international law

  Join us in a student strike March 5th to demand:
  US Government:

  • End the drive for military action and sanctions that target the people of Iraq
  • Fund education to ensure that everyone in the US has access to higher education
  • Re-allocate military funds to eliminating poverty and building peace and home and abroad
  • Repeal the provision of the "No Child Left Behind" Act that requires schools to give out student information to military recruiters

  Campus Administrators:

  • Declare opposition to the war
  • Disclose and eliminate military research contracts
  • Freeze or lower tuition and fees
  • Stop sending student information to military recruiters without consent from parents and students

  The Bush Administration's war on Iraq is a venture for control of the region and its oil supplies, not national security, democracy, or human rights. Our campuses provide implicit support for this through military research, recruiting, and ROTC programs. As students who value freedom, democracy, and our education we say: THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE! The best way to improve our national security is to halt drives for illegal and immoral wars and redirect public funds from the military and arms trade to education and social services at home and humanitarian aid abroad. Take a stand with students across the nation on March 5th to build toward this collective vision.

  
  
  
  

• January 22-28, 2003: World Social Forum
  Porto Alegre, Brazil
  

  The World Social Forum will bring together a number of representatives of NGOs, community organizations, popular movements and other civil society organizations. The event will be a chance to come together for five days of celebration, debate, and discussion of concrete strategies and alternatives to current social and economic policies. This year's Forum will highlight 5 main themes:

  • Democratic, Sustainable Development
  • Principle and Values, Human Rights and Diversity
  • Media, Culture and Counter-Hegemony
  • Political Power, Civil Society and Democracy
  • Democratic World Order and Peace
  
  
  

• Jan 18 2003: March on Washington to Reclaim Dr. Martin Luther King's Vision
  Martin Luther King Jr. spent the last year before his assassination linking the mass movements for civil rights and freedom at home with the growing opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. This courageous stand constituted a major political threat to the war makers. Dr. King had reached the conclusion that the "greatest purveyor of violence on the planet is my own government."
  
  There is no better way than to truly remember the spirit and legacy of Dr. King than to organize a bold, visible protest against war and racism in Washington DC on the anniversary of his birthday. We will not allow the war makers in the Bush administration and on Wall Street to turn Dr. King into a harmless icon, rather than an inspiration for struggle.

2002

• Nov.29: Prayers for Peace and the Restoration of Onondaga Lake
  Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York
  Peacemaking Sanctuary, northwest lakeshore, south of Long Branch Park, 3 to 5pm, Friday, November 29 the day after Thanksgiving.
  
  Onondaga is Jerusalem in the New World. Not a holy mountain, but a sacred lake. Onondaga Lake is a sacred lake-birthplace of democracy in the New World-home of "the-fire-that-never-dies" -- where The Peacemaker imparted The Great Law of Peace, an instruction on how humans can live together in peace. Given the violence around the world, war rhetoric in Washington, and the senseless killing and shooting that grips central New York, it's hard to imagine how there can ever be peace.
  
  But a peace was born at Onondaga Lake -- a peace that lasted centuries. This peace was brought by The Peacemaker, who -- with Hiawatha -- taught people to "bury the hatchet" and unite the Five Nations in a Confederacy, and gave them The Great Law of Peace. As symbol of this peace, The Peacemaker planted a white pine tree at Onondaga Lake as The Tree of Peace, and on top perched an eagle. This instruction became an inspiration to influence the founding and design of the United States government.
  
  Today human beings are offered clear and critical choices to begin to live in peace, to begin the restoration of Nature to repair our planet's damaged life support systems. Our commitment to peace and the restoration of Nature can be manifested by the cleanup and revival of Onondaga Lake, and this work begins with a simple healing ceremony. On the northwest shore of Onondaga Lake, we will create a sacred space, and fill it with our prayers for peace and healing. We will focus our good will into water, and thereby pour our life energy into the waters of Onondaga Lake. Help fill The Sanctuary with our intention and dedication to peace, and the restoration of Onondaga Lake.
  
  Bring the positive energy of your Good Mind to the balance and harmony of life on Earth. For five minutes or five hours, join a meditation ceremony for the healing of Humanity and the Earth. Anyone for any length of time of any religious affiliation -- or none -- is welcome to join this event, and contribute their positive intention for peace and healing. For more information on The Peacemaker, the influence of The Great Law of Peace, why Onondaga Lake is sacred, and to keep updated on this event, go to: www.jubileeinitiative.org/Sacred.htm and www.championtrees.org/PrayersforPeace/
  
  

  Madis Senner Jubilee Initiative 315-463-5369 Madis@twcny.rr.com

  David Yarrow TERRA 518-477-6100 championtrees@msn.com www.championtrees.org

  
  
  

• Nov.23-24: Peaceful Transformation of Complex Conflicts
  Manassas, Virginia
  A Workshop with Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and Director, TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network, and Hamid Mowlana, Professor of International Relations at the School of International Service, The American University.
  
  
  

• Nov.22-24: 11/22 to 9/11 - A Search for the Truth
  Coalition on Political Assassinations 2002 Regional Meeting
  Speakers: Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Walt Brown, Ph.D., Dr. Gary Aguilar, Bill Turner, Dick Gregory, Jim DiEugenio, Lisa Pease, Ralph Schoenmann, Philip Melanson, Ph.D., Andy Kiel, William Davy, Joe Biel, Bob Groden, T Carter, Bill Kelly, Lyndon Barsten, John Judge, and others.
  
  
  

• Nov. 4-13: Stop the World, Start the Revolution!
  Speaking Tour: Building Unity between Indigenous and oppressed people
  and all who can be united
  
  There are 3.2 billion Women, 3.5 billion Asians, 1 billion Africans, 700+ million Native/Raza, 187 million Middle Eastern, and one red, white, and blue Pimp. We are the majority of the world. Why can't we get Sam off our back?
  
  The net worth of 10 billionaires, ten human beings, is greater than the combined national income of the forty-eight poorest countries combined. The so-called War on Terrorism, Prison Industrial Complex, Political Prisoners, Police Brutality, economic exploitation, destruction of the environment, and theft of Land are all connected and affect us all. Revolution is a human right. Stop the World, Start the Revolution!
  
  Speakers include:

  • Ahjamu Umi, All African People's Revolutionary Party
  • Amanda Watson, People's United Front
  • Andrew Johnson, Santa Cruz Coalition to Free Political Prisoners
  • Beki Light, C.O.R.E., People's United Front
  • Cesar Cruz, 4 Winds Student Movement, Carson 10 Defense Committee
  • Chrystos, Well known Native Poet
  • James Cosner, People's United Front, CORE
  • Jessica Vasquez, MEXA UC Berkeley
  • Kawal Ulanday, The Committee for Human Rights the Philippines
  • Kiilu Nyasha, former Black Panther
  • Mel Mason, former Black Panther
  • Richard Aoki, founding member of Black Panthers
  • Shaka At-Thinnin, former Political Prisoner
  • Warrior Woman, Native Freedom Fighter
  • Yuri Kochiyama, Long-time Human Rights Political Activist
  • Yusef Endure, C.O.R.E., People's United Front
  
  Tour Dates
  • Mon., Nov. 4, 7 PM, Sacramento State, University Union, 6000 J Street, Ballroom #2
  • Tues., Nov. 5, 7 PM UC Davis, Wellman Building, Room 202
  • Thurs., Nov. 7, 6:30 PM New College San Francisco, The Cultural Center, 766 Valencia St.
  • Fri., Nov. 8, 3 PM City College San Francisco
  • Mon., Nov. 11, 7 PM Oakland, Humanist Hall, 390 27th St.
  • Tues., Nov, 12, 7 PM Santa Cruz, the Vets Hall, 846 Front St., Rm 23
  • Wed., Nov. 13, 12 Noon UC Berkeley, Upper Sproul Plaza
  • Wed., Nov. 13, 7 PM, CSUMB Monterey, University Center Bld. 29, 6th Ave.
  
  Other dates at San Jose State, Mills College, City College San Francisco to be announced! Join the People's United Front and C.O.R.E.!
  For more information call at (510) 836-4321, (415) 789-8298 or (831) 419-3895.
  
  
  

• Oct.26-Nov.2: Supermarket Campaign - The End of Frankenfoods!
  Tell Your Supermarket to Stop Using Untested, Unlabeled Genetically Engineered Foods! The Organic Consumers Association and the GE Free Markets Coalition are calling on Safeway, Shaw's and other national supermarket chains to remove GE ingredients from their store brand products.
  
  
  

• Oct.26: Stop The War On Iraq Before It Starts
  National March on Washington, Rally @ 11am, Constitution Gardens adjacent to the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial 21st St. & Constitution Ave. NW
  March to the White House
  Joint Action in San Francisco - 11 am at Justin Herman Plaza
  
  World public opinion and almost every government opposes Bush's planned war of aggression. But it will take a mass peoples' movement--in the streets, workplaces, communities, campuses and high schools--to stop the coming war.
  
  On Saturday, October 26, 2002 -- the first anniversary of the signing of the so-called Patriot Act -- anti-war, civil rights, labor, student and other forces are joining together to launch a massive international mobilization in opposition to a new war against the people of Iraq. Mass marches and rallies will be held in Washington DC and San Francisco in the U.S., and in many other countries.
  
  As the Bush administration violates international law it has been systematically engaged in a campaign of division and repression in the United States including a wholesale assault on the Bill of Rights, institutionalization of racial profiling, and aggregation of near dictatorial powers to the Executive branch.
  
  In articulating the so-called doctrine of preemptive war, the Bush administration is preparing to violate all existing international law and the UN charter which forbids countries to carry out war except in the case of self-defense. Preemption is merely a slogan to justify a foreign policy of armed aggression and military adventure.
  
  Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and company are planning to send tens of thousands of young GIs to kill and be killed in another war for Big Oil. Simultaneously, the Bush Administration is diverting billions of dollars to feed military conquest and away from jobs, education, healthcare, childcare and housing.
  
  The so-called debate that is opening now to public view from within the political establishment presents a necessity for all anti-war forces to become a major factor in generating an authentic opposition to U.S. war plans in the Middle East. The October 26 National March in Washington DC and joint action in San Francisco come just one week before midterm Congressional elections.
  
  There won't be a real national debate on a planned invasion of Iraq until the people are in the streets. We can't leave it to the military establishment to decide when and how they will go to war and to define the debate. We must tell Bush and his corporate and Big Oil patrons that we will not allow this to happen.
  
  This war can be stopped. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and company can be stopped. But the essential element must be the mobilization of a massive new anti-war movement in the streets. We call for civilians and soldiers alike to exercise their political right to speak out against an illegal war. On October 26, there will be a National March in Washington DC, a West Coast march in San Francisco, and protests around the world.
  
  ONLY THE PEOPLE CAN STOP THE WAR!
  JOIN US ON OCTOBER 26, 2002!
  
  
• Summer 2002: 5 Peace Courses
  
  

  Here are announcements for 5 courses on peace journalism, conflict transformation, peacebuilding, development, and global change, in

  • Fredrikstad, Norway (20-22 June),
  • Wienacht, Switzerland (1-13 July),
  • Cluj, Romania (24-28 June and 8-26 July) and
  • New York (19-23 August 2002).
  Information about 10 online courses offered by the TRANSCEND Peace University this fall, and how to order Johan Galtung's collected essays in Peace Research, is listed at the end.
  
  
  
• Jun 26: Revolutionary Knitting Circle - Call to Action: Global Knit-In
  Globally AND at the 2002 G8 Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada
  • Wildcanada.net and the Alberta Wilderness Association: www.kananaskisg8.net
            (Aug 2001: Conservation groups launch web site about Kananaskis G8 meeting)
  • G8 Summit - Kananaskis Country - Government of Alberta: www2.gov.ab.ca/home/g8/
  
  

  	Frequently Asked Questions
  	Are you folks serious?
  	Absolutely, 100%. While we do make use of humour in our efforts, and occasionally boisterous language, we are fully committed to the actions outlined here.
  	Why knitting?
  	Knitting is full of great symbolism. It's something an individual can do, but it's also practiced in groups. It can be both productive and creative. It's traditionally associated with the female gender - so, by having all genders take it up together, traditional gender roles are challenged. It also has a strong image as a very peaceful activity.

  The G8 claims to be a gathering of democratic leaders. The Revolutionary Knitting Circle proclaims that they are anything but. The G8 is a meeting of the wealthiest of the world to decide the fates of the vast majority of the world who are in no way represented by these 'leaders'. We call upon activists throughout the world to join together in a Global Knit-In to challenge the G8 and the global corporatism it stands for.
          Our primary day of action will be Wednesday, June 26, 2002. On that day, we ask you to organize a group of knitters and learners to knit (or some other subsistence-related productive activity) at one of the seats of corporate power in your communities. Transform those spaces through knitting. Create `soft' barriers of knitted yarn to reclaim spaces from the elite to the common good. As the community is knitted together, corporate commerce is slowed or halted and the community can prosper.
          We will also be doing a mass knitting action at a location outside the G8 meeting (specific location to be determined based on the development of security and access at the meetings, but we will not be going into any environmentally sensitive areas). We will show the G8 what we want through our people- and community-driven production. We will knit and quilt clothing, blankets and other delightful creations. We will share the skills of production with each other. We will engage people of diverse ages, genders, classes and other identities in this peaceful reclaiming of our own subsistence.
          On the subsequent days of the G8 meeting (June 27-28) we will join with other activist protests, marches, conferences, etc. - but always with our knitting in hand! As with all mass events, we look to this as an opportunity to connect people and educate -- but the real work of challenging corporatism must go on every day of the year. We encourage you to take the lessons that will be learned through these actions and expand on them in the months and years that follow.

  
  
  
• Jun 4-11: The Alchemy of Peacebuilding
  Dubrovnik, Croatia

  In the past decade, we have witnessed war and bloodshed on every continent on the earth. We have experienced terrorism, bio-terrorism, imperialism, coups, bombings, and civil wars. The events of the twentieth century, which spawned the United Nations, thousands of peace organizations, and a wave of "inner work" -- including the human potential movement, a myriad of spiritual awakenings, and international meditations for peace -- also brought us the bloodiest century of war in recorded history! What are we not seeing?
  
  Today, more than ever, we are challenged to change the course of history. We come together to pose the relevant questions of our time and to seek imaginative solutions to the cycles of war and terrorism.
  
  The Purpose of the 2002 Dubrovnik Conference is to provide an environment for deep inquiry, whole systems analysis, and creative problem solving. "The Alchemy of Peacebuilding" is a 7-day journey into the depths of our souls -- both personally and collectively. We will examine the process by which we create and project "the shadow," those aspects of ourselves that we scapegoat onto "the other." We will also devote one whole day to learning and developing essential practices of peace and have daily meditation and yoga sessions. We will focus on personal, social, and political transformation.
  
  The conference program will provide a balance between inquiry, practice, and reflection. In addition to an extraordinary program, the 2002 Dubrovnik Conference provides a magnificent space and the gift of time. In the seven days of our meeting, we will begin an alchemical journey that will impact the rest of our lives. Lest one think this is all work and no play, please note our location -- a sub-tropical paradise! We will have long lunch breaks and one whole Free Day for excursions, relaxation, and synthesis.
  
  Commenting on wars of the 20th century, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara writes: "In retrospect, we can now understand these catastrophes for what they were: essentially the products of a failure of imagination..."

  CONFERENCE GOALS

  • Develop a manifesto for a "Practice of Peace"
  • Define a "New Activism" that links spiritual consciousness with responsible citizenship
  • Explore war and peace in the contexts of historical cycles, culture, gender, race, economics, beliefs, spirituality, propaganda, and scapegoating
  • Examine dominator and partnership models of social organization
  • Integrate the lessons of history in a whole systems context
  • Acquire tools for personal and social transformation
  • Build relationships and networks across cultures
  • Form international study/research groups that focus on transformative change
  • Enjoy the beauty and healing environment of our spectacular location.

  Questions and Ideas to be explored at the Dubrovnik Conference 2002

  • Why do the cycles of war, greed and domination persist? What lessons are we not learning from history?
  • What are the most likely sources of systemic transformation?
  • Beliefs, cultural myths, and heroes: How do they influence our values and actions?
  • What is the role of gender in cultural transformation?
  • What would a "Practice of Peace" look like? What are the ingredients?
  • Differentiate between imagination/vision and wishful thinking/denial

  Discernment and compromise: Do we put a human face on models that will perpetuate the old dominator paradigm, or do we empower ourselves to move into positions of leadership and create an alternative to the old paradigm? What would the alternative look like? How do we develop it? What is the empowerment process?

  
  
  
• May 10-12: No Star Wars: International Space Organizing Conference & Protest
  University of California, Berkeley, USA

  Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
  
  PURPOSE
  2002 marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Network. Join with activists from around the world who will gather in Berkeley, California (University of California) on May 10-12 to share information about Bush's space agenda, plan activities for 2002, and strengthen our commitment to preventing the nuclearization and weaponization of space.
  
  On Friday, May 10 a protest will be held at Lockheed Martin (Sunnyvale) where work is underway on the space-based laser, airborne laser, Theater Missile Defense (TMD), and new satellites for space war fighting. In Fiscal Year 2002 the U.S. Congress gave George W. Bush his entire request of $8.3 billion for Star Wars research & development (R & D). R & D funding must become a key issue in 2002 and beyond if we hope to prevent a new arms race in space.
  
  The U.S. Space Command predicts that because of "corporate globalization" the gap between "haves" and "have nots" will widen worldwide in coming years. With space "control and domination" in place, the Space Command will become the military arm for the multi-national corporations enabling the U.S. to suppress those who protest U.S. global dominance. We must resist the Bush war on the world that will be coordinated from space!
  
  Cutbacks can be expected in human needs programs like education, health care, child care, and social security in order to cover the enormous cost of Star Wars. Help us build this movement to keep space for peace.
  
  This event is being hosted by Nevada Desert Experience, a Global Network affiliate. Radio for Peace International, based in Costa Rica, will send two reporters and will broadcast parts of the conference live on their network to 120 countries.
  
  
  

• Apr 19-21: Seattle 2002: Reframing Globalization
  Amnesty International USA's Annual General Meeting
  Renaissance Madison Hotel, Seattle, Washington

  Globalization" has come to be the accepted terminology for rapid economic change, the transfer of technology, trade and its impact on the nation-state. Such characterization typically shortchanges the social justice component essential to globalization and the advancement of the human rights of all individuals as a measure of global progress. Amnesty International (AI) is positioned to play a key role in bringing social justice into the common notion of globalization. As a global grassroots movement working in solidarity for the protection of human dignity, we stand in a unique position to "reframe" the meaning of globalization and secure human rights in the central vision for global progress.
  
  The focus for our conference in Seattle will address the expanding concerns of the international AI movement. The recent decisions of the 2001 International Council Meeting (ICM) in Dakar, Senegal will enable AI to work not only against torture or for prisoners of conscience but against all forms of discrimination, whether they affect political and civil rights or economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. The AGM will be an opportunity for us to determine how the movement should address ESC rights and consider the effectiveness of our human rights strategies in today's context of rapid change.
  
  Human rights is a global movement, with Amnesty International playing a historic and defining role that has inspired millions of individuals to assert their dignity and demand change. At the 2002 AGM, you will confront the issues of a globalized world, their effect on human rights, and how they challenge our movement in issues like trade, the environment, corporate power, and social and economic consequences of rapid change.

  
  
  
• Apr 19-22: Nonviolent Direct Action Against School Of Assassins,
  War At Home And Abroad, and US Intervention In Colombia
  School of the Americas Watch (soaw.org)
  April Mobilization Schedule from National Mobilization on Columbia
  

  Working in coalition with Witness for Peace, Colombia Support Network and other solidarity, labor, student, environmental, anti-globalization and human rights groups, SOA Watch calls for a National Mobilization to end U.S. support of the war in Colombia. This event offers us the opportunity to reach many new, diverse constituencies with our message that the SOA must close, while amplifying our cry for a just U.S. policy towards Colombia.
  
  Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the SOA, is the school's largest customer. Not surprisingly, Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in all of Latin America, currently averaging a massacre per day. 2,000,000 people have been killed or displaced by civilian-targeted warfare carried out by graduates of the SOA. General Mario Montoya Uribe, an SOA graduate with a history of ties to paramilitary violence, commands the Joint Task Force South, which includes the 24th Brigade. The 24th brigade is ineligible for U.S. military aid due to its complicity in paramilitary violence. A leading Colombian newspaper identifies Gen. Montoya as "the military official responsible for Plan Colombia."
  
  U.S. Military aid under Plan Colombia has been sold to the U.S. public as part of the war on drugs. In actuality, the forces under Montoya's command are engaged in a counter-insurgency war against leftist guerillas. The aid is directed to troops taking offensive action against guerillas in areas targeted for coca fumigation. Evidence shows that these offensives often happen in conjunction with paramilitary attacks. Robert Zoellick, a top foreign policy advisor to President Bush, was recently quoted as saying, "We cannot continue to make a false distinction between counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics."

  
  
  
• Mar. 14-20: Permanent International Camp for Social Justice and the Dignity of the Peoples
  

  The Permanent International Camp for Social Justice and the Dignity of the Peoples ... is a space of civil resistance that seeks to articulate a wide array of persons, organizations and movements that together reject Plan Colombia, the FTAA and the neoliberal globalization in all of their manifestations. We are going to come together in the first week of March 2002, in order to share direct actions, exchange experiences of resistance and to construct alternatives. But this call to mobilization is not limited to a determined place and time: our struggle and our engagement are permanent. We believe that another world is indeed possible. Defeating the plans of war we can achieve, with our dedication and hope, the world that we have dreamed since the beginning of our history.
  
  No More War! Our Cry Will Be Heard!
  
  The sovereignty of the peoples of Latin America is being violated, the political decisions have a clear direction of exclusion of the majorities, the capitalist economic project does not bring about prosperity, they are selling us war as a viable alternative. It is time to articulate our resistances.
  
  Quito, Ecuador, July, 2001.

  
  
  
• Mar. 7-9: 2nd National Conf. on Impact of Race & Ethnicity On The Justice System
  American Bar Association Council on Racial & Ethnic Justice
  Wyndham Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD

  This Conference is designed as an interactive, action-oriented forum between high school, college and law students and members of the legal profession and the justice system. The primary focus of the Conference will be geared toward showcasing concrete solutions and practical steps to eliminate racial and ethnic bias in the justice system. Participants will address some of the more urgent issues facing this country today from an intergenerational perspective.

  Our Keynote speakers include:
  • Judge Nathaniel Jones, U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, Cincinnati, OH,
  • Dean Jeffrey Lehman, University of Mich. School of Law, Ann Arbor, MI,
  • Elaine Jones, Executive Director, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.,
  • Jamienne Studley, President, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and
  • Kemba Smith, Student, Virginia Union University, Mechanicsville, VA

  Four panels will feature diverse, influential and dynamic judges, mayors, voting rights experts and students. A number of crucial issues from an intergenerational perspective will be discussed:

  1. Careers in the Judiciary and Access to Justice- Judges Panel;
  2. Race in the Cities: Mayors Perspectives;
  3. Voting Disenfranchisement: Impact of Technology and Access; and
  4. Issues that Affect Students in the New Millennium- Student Panel.

  This is a Conference that is compelling for individuals that are interested in playing an important role in shaping the future of the justice system. Make plans to join us for one of the most progressive and significant events on the subject of racial and ethnic bias in the justice system.
  
  Registration fee is $125.00. If you are interested in attending, please immediately contact Rachel Patrick, at the ABA Council on Racial & Ethnic Justice, 750 N. Lakeshore Dr., Chicago, IL 60611, 312/988-5408, patrickr@staff.abanet.org. Additional information at www.abanet.org/r&ejustice/.

  
  
  
• Feb.23-Mar.2: Starbucks Global Week of Action
  
  Leaflet Starbucks in your city
  • for refusing to guarantee that their products do not contain rBGH and other genetically engineered ingredients.
  • for not brewing and seriously promoting Fair Trade coffee.
  • for allowing low wages and unjust labor practices on the coffee plantations of their suppliers.

  Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir
  hosts the
  The New York Theater Festival Inside Starbucks

  In cooperation with Global Exchange, FairTrade.Org and Organic Consumers Association, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping/Bombing will host a rally on the first day of the national boycott against the "Enron of the Bean."The boycott coincides with the annual stockholders’ meeting of the Starbucks Corporation, scheduled for February 26^th in Seattle.
  
  COME TO THE BOYCOTT KICK-OFF RALLY!
  Where: Astor Place, in front of the largest Starbucks in New York City
  When: Saturday, February 23rd, 2 PM, lasts about an hour
  Dates of the Starbucks National Boycott: February 23rd through March 1st

  New York Theater Festival Inside Starbucks:
  During boycott week hundreds of performances will be staged in Starbucks throughout the city. Create your own play or download one of our six comic sketches available this week on revbilly.com... At the Saturday rally deacons of The Church of Stop Shopping will be handing out the scripts, each dramatizing a Starbucks issue. The six issues are:

  1. Use of prison labor during peak sales periods
  2. Failure to market Fair Trade coffee which rewards original coffee growers
  3. Use of genetically altered dairy products in desserts and milk drinks
  4. Aggressive real estate tactics that oust longtime neighborhood independent businesses
  5. Unionbusting and use of plantation labor practices outside the US
  6. Encouragement of monoculture coffee farms drenched with pesticides

  This initiates a new kind of political resistance. Rather than demonstrating, risking arrest and misrepresentation by conservative media, these Starbucks actions cannot be distinguished from customers getting a bit dramatic. Actors in the short plays are undercover in plain sight and their antics are minutes long. At the conclusion of each play information sheets are distributed throughout the host café. Festival participants are encouraged to videotape their performances. Click here for a sample script. Church officials will award "Fabulous Sainthood" to the best performances in several categories, including "Most Flabbergasting in a Dumbfounding Drama," and "Most Revealing of the Mermaid's Evil," etc. Festival prizes are still being gathered and we welcome donations. Contact Revbilly.com, or organicconsumers.org for more information on the Starbucks National Boycott.

  
  
  
• Feb. 21: Mike Ruppert presents "Truth and Lies About 9/11"
  Golden Gate Room, Bldg. A, Fort Mason, San Francisco, 7pm
  Contact: Judith Iam, (707) 824-9933, judeiam@cwnet.com

  Mike Ruppert, investigator of CIA/Wall St./White House interconnections reveals documented evidence of the context and fore-knowledge of Sep. 11. Darryl Cherney opens with original songs and update on Earth First! vs. FBI case. Mike begins at 7:30, followed by Q&A and discussion. Mike Ruppert will also be presenting at the Crest Theater, 1013 K St., Sacramento, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 7pm. Contact: Robert Gibson (530) 677-1913 rlgips@innercite.com

  Mike Ruppert is Publisher/Editor of From the Wilderness, newsletter read by more than 2,200 subscribers in 27 countries including 20 members of the US Congress, professors at 12 universities, many authors and journalists. Through the newsletter and his website at www.copvcia.com, Mike has pioneered innovative analysis and groundbreaking stories on the impact of $500-600 billion per year in drug money moving through the US economy and the illegal covert operations which maintain control of that cash flow for US economic interests.
  
  An Honors graduate of UCLA in Political Science (1973), Mike is a former LAPD narcotics investigator who discovered CIA trafficking in drugs in 1977. After attempting to expose this he was forced out of LAPD in 1978 while earning the highest rating reports possible. In 1996, after 18 years of struggle, he finally achieved one of his deepest wishes in a face to face public encounter with then CIA Director John Deutch on national television. Washington sources later told Mike that Deutch's mishandling of the encounter cost him a guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense.
  
  Mike's stories, which now include economic analysis and detailed expose of the CIA and the American political system, have been reprinted in 12 countries. A popular lecturer on the college circuit, he is also a regular guest on talk radio shows at major stations throughout the country.
  
  In the wake of the September 11th attacks Mike was among the first to be publicly critical of a number of transparent flaws in the official story presented by the US government. In more than twenty stories since 9/11 he has followed his tested strategy of using only government documents, official statements or verifiable press reports as the basis for his work. As a result he has been openly received by several members of Congress and maintains open lines of communication with congressional and committee staffs.
  
  On November 28, 2001 Mike gave his first post 9/11 lecture at Portland State University, which was attended by more than 1,000 and resulted in a standing ovation. Mike and FTW will be releasing a professionally produced videotape, "Truth and Lies About 9-11," on February 1. Special exclusive interviews with Representatives Ron Paul (R-TX), Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Professor Peter Dale Scott, (UC, Berkeley), Professor John Metzger (Michigan State) and Catherine Austin Fitts, and (former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Managing Director) Dillon Read have already resulted in extensive pre-publicity and advance sales.
  
  Mike has offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who can disprove the authenticity of any of his source material. No one has yet presented a claim.
  
  Among the more glaring holes in the official story about 9/11 are confirmed reports of massive deployments of military forces in the region before the attacks; well documented insider trading on United Airlines and American Airlines that could only have been a result of foreknowledge of the WTC attacks, including UAL "put" options placed through a firm once headed by a current CIA executive; glaring inconsistencies with official FAA and USAF established policy for the "scrambling" of fighter jets, and a four-year-old book by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, Verso Books, 1997) that predicted today's war as a necessity for securing control of massive Central Asian oil reserves. In addition, Mike stresses -- using respected press reports -- the economic imperative for the CIA to secure control of the massive opium/heroin trade for the purpose of directing its cash flows into Wall Street.
  
  "There are so many holes in the official story that I have to choose, as in a triage mode, which ones to present in my lectures," said Ruppert. "The point is not that there is a lack of evidence. There is more than enough. But once presented with it we see more than half the people willing to accept it and the rest living in a state of illogical, almost psychopatholgic denial."

  
  
  
• Feb. 16-18: Democracy Symposium
  Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
  

  A pivotal event in an evolutionary process to enact a National Initiative for Democracy which will create a Legislature of the People.

  You Are Invited ... to join distinguished scholars in an extraordinary discussion to resolve issues associated with the National Initiative for Democracy, the first constitutional amendment and federal statute ever to be enacted directly by the People of the United States of America. The National Initiative will create a "Legislature of the People," bringing the People into the operation of government as lawmakers in a partnership with their elected representatives.

  The National Initiative includes:

  • The Democracy Amendment to the United States Constitution, which asserts and institutionalizes First Principles, i.e., the People's authority to exercise their inherent legislative power to create and alter governments, constitutions and laws; and

  • The Democracy Act, a federal statute that establishes procedures through which citizens can legislate, using the ballot initiative and an administrative agency, the Electoral Trust, to implement those procedures in every government jurisdiction of the United States.

  The National Initiative resolves a problem faced by the Framers when they drafted the Constitution in 1787. At that time, the Framers had no alternative but to design a representative structure for our government since the technology of the day did not allow for the assembly, in person or otherwise, of the American people. Of course, that is no longer the case. Recent advances in communication technology now permit the people to exercise First Principles, which were last used to ratify the Constitution but have now, through lack of use, become long forgotten.
  
  
  

• Jan.31-Feb.5: World Social Forum
  Porto Alegre, Brazil
  

  Held while the World Economic Forum is being held (usually in Switzerland, but this year it will be in NYC), this forum is open to the diverse social movements from around the world working for systemic change. "Another World is Possible" is the theme. To join the US organizing committee or learn more about logistics, participating from the U.S. please contact Carol Brouillet at cbrouillet@igc.org.
  
  
  

• Jan.31-Feb.4: Call to Action: Protest the World Economic Forum in NYC
  New York City
  

  The World Economic Forum is an annual gathering of the world's richest and most powerful CEO's and politicians. This year it is meeting in New York City. In its mission statement, the WEF claims that it is committed to "improving the state of the world" In reality, they have come to make their plans to increase mass layoffs, to slash education and health services, to reduce wages and working conditions, to degrade the environment, to wage war on civilians and to assault the civil rights of all who dare to oppose them.
          This year the WEF says their meeting will focus on finding ways to "reverse the global economic downturn, eradicate poverty, promote security and enhance cultural understanding." Translation: They'll be looking to rescue failing corporate giants, exploit working people, clamp down on dissent, and puree the diverse communities of our world into a single, American-style consumer culture.
          It is obscene that Pataki and Giuliani are shelling out millions of dollars for the WEF at the same time they plan drastic cutbacks to public services. It's an insult to the community solidarity New Yorkers showed in the wake of Sept.11.
          The WEF is in for a surprise: The movement for global justice is alive and well and growing, and ready to stand in the way of their five-day corporate cocktail party! We call on anti-globalization, student, immigrant, community and union organizations and all working people to join with us to protest the World Economic Forum and to pose our positive alternative to their destructive plans. WE DEMAND:

  • Dump the Debt -- Wipe out the debt that is strangling the world economy. Cancel international, municipal and personal debt. Human needs come first.
  • Rebuild New York, Rebuild the World --Take the money that now goes to pay the debt, fuel the military and bloat the rich, and use it to fund democratically-controlled projects to build the housing, schools, hospitals and transportation needed in New York and in every nation of the world. This will create tens of millions of jobs and wipe out unemployment.
  • Stop Destroying the Earth - Corporate greed is destroying species, deforesting whole nations and wasting resources at a pace unseen in human history. In their place we get growing deserts, pollution, new strains of disease, and Frankenfoods. Restore the environment!
  • Stop Fueling Terrorism, Stop the War Machine -- Terror networks like al-Qaeda were built by the US government and its allies. US terrorist training camps like the School of the Americas are in full operation and they continue to create new networks of terror. Stop all arms production and supplies, stop all military aid and action. Stop the cycle of terror.
  • No Apartheid for Immigrants! Hands Off Our Civil Rights! -- An attack on the civil rights of immigrants is an attack on the civil rights of us all. No Military Tribunals! No racial profiling! Free all the detainees! General amnesty for all immigrants! We need our rights if we are to fight for a new world free from the tyranny of corporate greed.
          We're calling for five days of mass rallies, of creative, passionate, and diverse actions against the WEF. Join us in building a coalition that's as diverse as New York City itself. ALL are welcome as we tell the "Masters of the Universe" that they don't have the answers to our problems. Join us in the streets as we visualize solutions that build a better world where the people are in control. Your ideas, your bodies, and your creative energy are all needed!
  Join us for mass protests against the World Economic Forum!
  Another World is Possible coalition
  WEF Corporate Member Profiles
  The purpose of WEF protests?
  Anti Capitalist Convergence
  Columbia Students for Global Justice
  
  
  
• Jan. 25-27: 5th Annual National Conference on Organized Resistance
  American University, Washington, D.C.
  

  Last year over 1000 people converged on the American University campus in Washington, DC to discuss, share and learn some of the many faces of resistance. This year NCOR will be celebrating its 5th consecutive year and is sure to be one of the best yet!!! NCOR strives to be a thought-provoking forum for discussion on tactics, strategies and case studies within various movements.
          Speakers from as far away as Chile and as near as our own DC community will discuss topics ranging from, `State of the Left; Post September 11th' to `Hip Hop Activism', `Feminist Direct Action' to the EcoVillage in Southern California. New York City organizers will be here to talk about the upcoming actions against the World Economic Forum scheduled for January 31 - February 4.
          Mark your calendars for January 25-27 for an inspiring and full weekend of teach-ins, lectures, workshops, sharing, panels, food, community and so much more. Check http://www.organizedresistance.org/ for housing and transportation options and a full schedule of events. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged and table space is going fast--so book now. Childcare and lunch will be provided and an on-site IMC workspace and video screening room will be open for all to use.

2001

• Dec. 2-11: World Assembly
  Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World
  Lille, France
  

  Invited by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation (FPH), 400 people from every walk of life and every part of the world, messengers from myriad groups and movements, will meet for one week. They will seek to formulate perspectives for the 21st century, translated in the Dossiers of Proposals, and a Charter. They will symbolize the chance for another type of globalization, one with a human face and a new form of world governance based on dialogue between all the players composing society and different cultures. This world assembly will join together all the initiatives and considerations generated in recent years in the framework of the Alliance and in association with it.
  
  
  

• Nov 22-25: COPA 2001 Annual Regional Meeting
  Dallas, Texas

  Themes of this Coalition on Political Assassinations Annual Meeting are Reopening the JFK Investigation and Releasing ALL the files on JFK and MLK.
  
  Speakers: Gary Aguilar, William Turner, Peter Dale Scott, Walt Brown, Dr. Charles Crenshaw, Philip Melanson, Jim DiEugenio, Dick Russell, Bill Kelly, T Carter, John Johnston, Robert Groden, Lyndon Barsten, R. Andrew Kiel, John Judge, and others to be announced.
  
  The Dallas Regional Meeting will host a series of presentations and workshops with a variety of excellent researchers and authors into the various political assassinations and their aftermath. Our theme this year is "JFK, MLK, RFK: Truth and Justice", and the main topics will be Congressional oversight on the ARRB and full release of files, release of the MLK files, and petition for a federal Grand Jury in the JFK murder, as well as updated developments in each of the cases.
  
  
  

• Nov. 16-18: School of the Americas Watch: Ft. Benning Vigil
  Columbus, Georgia
  

  We will not be moved -- we have been to Mexico, we have been to Colombia . . . we have heard their stories, seen their faces, and carry with us the spirits of thousands who have suffered at the hands of SOA graduates. Bring the name and spirit of one of the martyrs of Latin America to carry with you as you act on Sunday. Bring your friends, families, affinity groups, banners, symbols, puppets and come together with thousands from across the hemisphere at the gates of Ft. Benning in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Latin America.
          Now is the time to demonstrate that mass arrests and the theat of imprisonment will not deter this movement. We will keep on moving forward until the School of Assassins is shut down forever!
  
  
  

• Nov. 9-10: WTO in Qatar - Listings Of Actions Around The World:

  ATTAC - QATAR - Mobilisations 9/10Nov The World is not for sale - With ATTAC, in 12 countries, 110 events N 9-13 2001 Days of GLOBAL ACTION against WTO InterContinental & Continental Calls Regional & Local Calls - List of Actions

  
  
  

• Nov 8-10:

  Strategy Summit to Coordinate a USA Plan of Action Targeting USA Corporate Power

  New York City

  Attention All Anti-Corporate Economic Globalization, Pro-Democracy Activists! In response to the global call for actions at major international financial centers to protest the Fourth WTO Ministerial meetings, Nov 9-13th in Qatar, a broad-based coalition of student, grass-roots, labor and activist organizations is planning a week of events in New York City with direct actions focused on Wall Street.
  
  A critical part of our actions is this call for a USA Strategy Summit. We believe the time is now, to create a strategic vision to help us conclusively terminate corporate dominion over our politics, economics, media and consciousness right here in the USA. We must undertake this both in self-defense against the Fortune 2000's attacks on our own democracy, communities and environment, and in solidarity with people's movements throughout the globe that are fighting the plunder and pillage corporate power perpetrates everywhere.
  
  
  

• Oct. 6-7: Nuclear Free Great Basin Gathering
  Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, Utah

  Join with hundreds of people concerned about nuclear contamination for a special weekend of camping, education, ceremony, celebration and action, as we RESIST attempts by the nuclear industry to bring the nations nuclear waste, containing the most toxic substances ever created, to our beautiful, fragile western deserts.
          The Great Basin bio-region stretches through five states and is home to strong indigenous people and cultures, high mountainous alpine lakes and forests, deep winding canyons and rivers, as well as many endangered and threatened plants and wildlife. Sadly, this land and her people have already experienced the deadly effects of nuclear weapons testing as well as the disposal of radioactive and toxic wastes in leaking dumps threatening precious land, air and water.
          Together we can:

  • Learn from native and environmental experts and leaders about nuclear issues around the country and in the Great Basin.
  • Learn how nuclear issues are intertwined with cultural and land rights issues of Native Americans and low-income communities.
  • Learn about sane and sustainable alternatives to nuclear energy and nuclear waste dumping.
  • Celebrate our strength and diversity.
  • Raise an inspired and united voice of resistance and opposition the nuclear industry's plan
  • Demand immediate clean up and containment of current leaking nuclear facilities.
  
  
  

• Sept. 28-Oct.4: IMF & World Bank Joint Annual General Meetings
  Washington, DC

  An organizing listserve for the coordination and networking for counter actions has been established. To subscribe, send a blank message to: DestroyIMF-subscribe@topica.com
          The IMF and the World Bank are the primary architects of neo-liberal corporate globalization. Their meetings in Washington are the most significant gathering of the proponents of corporate-led globalization in the U.S. in 2001. It is imperative that supporters of global economic justice send a clear message: the movement for global justice continues to grow, and will not stand for continuing efforts by these institutions and the G-7 governments to structure the world for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy and to deny basic justice to the majority of the world's people.

  Sept. 29: Int'l Day Of Action Against US Military & Economic Intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean

  Join tens of thousands in Washington, DC on Saturday, September 29 to say:

  NO to Plan Colombia
  NO to the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas)
  U.S. Bases out of Vieques and all of Latin America & the Caribbean
  Close the School of the Americas / WHISC
  Stop the Direct Assault Against People of Color and the Poor in the Americas through the Phony War on Drugs

  The U.S. government is continuing its legacy of intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean by imposing pro-corporate, anti-people economic policies, by providing military aid and training to repressive governments, and attempting to crush any movements that support alternative models. We must stop these policies and stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers throughout the Americas. They are at the forefront of opposition to these policies, and are creating alternatives that place human need above corporate greed.

  
  
  
• Aug. 31 - Sept 7: World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
  Durban, South Africa

  In spite of all efforts to overcome racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, we are far from the goal of eradicating these evils. We need to multiply our efforts towards equality among people. The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, will be another landmark in this struggle.
  
  
  

• Sept. 1: Peoples' Global Action
  Cochabamba, Bolivia

  From the 23rd to the 25th of February 1998, movements from all continents met in Geneva and launched a worldwide co-ordination of resistance against the global market, a new alliance of struggle and mutual support called the Peoples' Global Action against "Free" Trade and the World Trade Organisation (PGA). This new platform will serve as a global instrument for communication and co-ordination for all those fighting against the destruction of humanity and the planet by the global market, building up local alternatives. The defining documents of the PGA are its five hallmarks, its organisational principles and its manifesto. At the conference in Bangalore, India in August 1999 the hallmarks and the organisational principles were amended to reflect discussions about clarifying differences to right-wing anti-globalizers. A new second hallmark was added.

  HALLMARKS:

  1. A very clear rejection of the WTO and other trade liberalisation agreements (like APEC, the EU, NAFTA, etc.) as active promoters of a socially and environmentally destructive globalisation;

  2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.

  3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker;

  4. A call to non-violent civil disobedience and the construction of local alternatives by local people, as answers to the action of governments and corporations;

  5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.

  
  
  
  
• Aug. 18-24: Int'l Conference for a Sustainable Future
  Chicago, Illinois

  Confronting Nuclear Power with People Power
  The third annual Nuclear Free Great Lakes Camp carries on the nonviolent grass-roots citizen campaign to shut down the dozens of costly, polluting, and dangerous nuclear power reactors in the Great Lakes basin. This week-long international gathering will focus on activist and organizer skills building, energy issues training, networking, and a nonviolent public demonstration to work toward a sustainable non-nuclear energy future.
  
  
  

• August 10-12: Prison Industrial Complex -- STOP the ACA
  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  

  The people who profit from prisons have names and addresses. This August, that address will be Philadelphia. In mid-August, the American Correctional Association will be meeting and exhibiting prison industry products in Philadelphia. The ACA members are making enormous profits as they simultaneously support policy and politicians that ensure the continued growth of the prison industrial complex. StopTheACA.org provides updates on the protest.
  
  
  

• August 10-12: Hempfest 2001
  Ophir Ontario
  

  Hempfest 2001 is a celebration of the Cannabis Plant with the main theme this year being The Medical Usage of Marijuana. As 93% of Canadians agree and support the right to use marijuana as medicine. The cannabis plant, also known as Marijuana, has hundreds of demonstrated medical and therapeutic uses. It is used to treat rare congenital illnesses, as well as common health problems, from simple headaches, to AIDS, and cancer. More is known about the therapeutic uses of Marijuana than about most prescription drugs.
  
  
  

• July 21-22: Resist GE Tree Industry - Keep Our Forests Free of Genetic Pollution
  Portland, Oregon
  The Global Alliance Against GE Trees (GAAGET)

  GAAGET is an international network of NGOs and individuals working to prevent the release of genetically engineered trees into the environment. The Alliance focuses on networking and information exchange between these groups. Please join with us in voicing and organizing our opposition to the development of transgenic trees on July 21 and 22. Over the last few years many companies and universities have field-tested genetically engineered trees and they are planning to release them into the wild on a commercial scale soon. Genetically Engineered Trees not only carry new genes they also carry unpredictable effects and dangers to the environment. Whether we are campaigning on genetic engineering, logging, environmental justice, wilderness, patents on life, loss of biodiversity and indigenous culture or globalization, genetic engineering of trees affects all of these issues.
          Trees are the oldest and largest organisms on the planet. Some of them have genomes 8 times larger than the human genome. We cannot and should not alter their genomes that have developed and adapted to the environment over millions of years. Already we have seen t! hat experiments with transgenic treeshave gone wrong, creating serious negative impacts on the environment. Let us not wait until GE trees are grown commercially all over the world. We have to let the public, the industry and the universities know that we will not sit and watch until genetic pollution from transgenic trees covers our forests. Once the trees are released they will contaminate surrounding forests and downstream ecosystems, and upset the ecological balance of forest communities and cannot be recalled. Read more on the dangers of ge trees on this website.
  
  
  

• July 20-22: International Encounter in Solidarity & for Peace in Colombia
  San Salvador, El Salvador (Español)
  
  Join hundreds of activists from Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America in building an international anti-intervention and solidarity movement with the people of Colombia.

  Plan Colombia is the latest in a long line of direct US military intervention in Latin America which includes the destruction of the Salvador Allende government in Chile, continuous aggression against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, direct participation in the wars in Central America, and the continued hostility against Cuba. This intervention constitutes a flagrant violation of international law. It also violates self-determination and threatens peace and stability in the region. Plan Colombia is directed primarily against the civilian population and has the objective of destroying or neutralizing the widespread resistance to the neoliberal restructuring of the economies of Colombia and all of Latin America.
          During El Salvador's civil war in the 1980's, international solidarity played a critical role in opposing US intervention and in supporting the Salvadoran people's struggle for social and economic justice. Now, the people of El Salvador are extending their solidarity to the people of Colombia and call on people of conscience around the world to join them in saying, "No to Plan Colombia!"
  
  
  

• Summit Hopping, Europe 2001: Summer of Resistance
  includes (but not limited to) Days of Action and Camps:
  • June 14-16 -- European Union (EU) -- Summit, Gothenburg, Sweden
  • June 25-27 -- Anti-Capitalism Convergence, Barcelona, Spain
  • July 1-3 -- World Economic Forum (WEF) -- Summit, Salzburg, Austria
  • July 16-27 -- Climate -- Summit, Bonn, Germany
  • July 20-22 -- G8 -- Summit, Genoa, Italy
  
  
  
  
• July 5-8: Water for People and Nature: A Forum on Conservation and Human Rights
  University of British Columbia Campus, Vancouver, British Columbia

  Water resources around the world are under pressure. Pollution, depletion and privatization are putting more and more of this shared and precious resource in jeopardy. Water for People and Nature: An International Forum on Conservation and Human Rights will produce a platform to ensure that water conservation and every person's fundamental right to clean, safe water become the focus of strategies for water in this century.
          The conference will bring together water experts, activists and municipal leaders from around the world for three days of discussion and debate. Workshops will allow participants the opportunity to discuss the central issues facing water today and contribute to a final report towards a plan to achieve environmental and social justice.
          To facilitate this process, simultaneous interpretation will be available in English, French, and Spanish for both the plenaries and workshops.
  
  
  

• June 2001: Month of Action for Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier

  Necessary Dissent, a grassroots organization based out of Houston, TX, is launching a world wide "month of action" for Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier. This "month of action" is being planned in May, but will actually take place during the month of June. Necessary Dissent will be working with many organizations and individuals in order to not only raise awareness about Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal, but to also get at least 10,000 signatures on petitions demanding Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal be released from prison.
          Necessary Dissent and the organizations/individuals they are working with plan on canvassing neighborhoods door-to-door, college/university campuses, and public events/meetings. Necessary Dissent believes that quality is more important than quantity, but they also believe that the more quality work done, the better. If you would like to help Necessary Dissent during the "month of action" please e-mail info@necessarydissent.org. They will be able to provide you with information, people/organizations in your area, information on how to participate and help. You can also sign the on-line petitions for Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal at www.necessarydissent.org and also view more information about this "month of action" in June and also find out more information about Necessary Dissent. Please help during this "month of action" so that Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier can be set free.
  
  
  

• June 20-24: SOA Watch Training Summer Training Institute for November
  School of the Americas (SOA) Watch
  Skills for Organizers, Nonviolence Training for Trainers and Direct Action at Monsanto Headquarters
  St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO

  Gain the skills you need to best prepare your community for the next November Vigil and Civil Disobedience. Learn more about nonviolence training, affinity group formation, action preparation, street theatre, music for activists, media, legal, solidarity tactics, puppet-making, and more. The Institute is in two parts, one focused on local organizing and one focused on nonviolence training. You are invited to attend either or both!
  
  
  

• June 22-27: Biodevastation 2001
  San Diego, California

  The 5th grassroots gathering to celebrate and biodiversity and question genetic engineering. From June 24th to 27th in San Diego, CA, leaders of multinational biotech & pharmaceutical corporations, industry scientists, and lawyers, bureaucrats and marketers will meet at the Biotechnology Industry Organization Conference (BIO). The corporate colonization of life itself is the newest, most insidious form of "corporate globalization." Thousands of People will converge on San Diego from June 22nd through the 27th to learn about the threats of biotechnology and create a festival of resistance to genetic engineering. We will push for a just and sustainable food system. We will reclaim our biology and our communities. Nonviolent direct action, street theatre, and arts preparation will take place in San Diego the week leading up the BIO meeting.
  
  
  

• June 21: The Great International Voluntary Rolling Blackout
  7-10 p.m., all 24 global time zones

  As an alternative to George W. Bush's energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary rolling blackout on the first day of summer, June 21, from 7 p.m. -- 10 p.m. It doesn't matter what time zone you, what state, what country. If we all turn out the lights at 7 p.m. regardless of where we live, the "blackout" will roll across the planet!
          It's a simple protest and a symbolic act. Turn out your lights, televisions, radios and more from 7 p.m. -- 10 p.m. on June 21. If it plugs in, turn it off! Light a candle to read by, kiss your lover in the moonlight, take a stroll in the dark, tell your children ghost stories, or make up a new and innovative activity that requires no electricity. All you have to do is have fun in the dark.
  
  
  

• June 14: Rally Against Concentration of Corporate Media
  Times Square, New York City

  We strongly feel that it would be in the American citizens' best interest to have the mass media give in depth commercial free coverage of citizen based public debate. If we live in a free society, it would be a given that our mass media system would give close commercial free coverage to the following DEBATE ISSUES. If the mass media companies refuse to cover these in-depth commercial-free debates, they'll need to publicly state why these topics are not considered important enough to deem such evaluation. Unless an acceptable response is delivered, the companies that refuse to air these debates will be boycotted, and we, the public, will seek CHARTERS in the name that the company is not serving a public good!
  
  
  

• June 10-12: Call for National Mobilization
  Tell Bush, Congress and their Corporate Sponsors:

  Stop Star Wars and the Militarization of Space!
  Abolish Nuclear Weapons Now!

  June 10-11: Leadership Conference

  organized by 20/20 Vision to teach networking, lobbying, and other activist skills.

  June 10-12: Mobilization to Stop Star Wars

  coordinated by Project Abolition with large rally followed by a day of lobbying.

  See Also: www.dontblowit.org
  President Bush and his chief Star Warrior, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have made clear their determination to deploy "National Missile Defense." It's dangerous madness that must be stopped!

  • Star Wars will initiate the militarization of outer space. "National Missile Defense" is only the beginning. U.S. Space Command plans to deploy a widening range of space weapons. From the "mission statement": "US Space Command -- dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict." See text+graphic excerpts.
  • Star Wars is corporate welfare. Weapons contractors have spent over $40 million on campaign contributions and lobbying the last two years to milk the government and create for themselves a job for life.
  • Star Wars will start a new arms race. The CIA acknowledges Russia and China will beef up their offensive nuclear arsenals to counter Star Wars system. The arms race would then likely spread to India and Pakistan. The ABM treaty and all other arms treaties would be scuttled. Nuclear anarchy would result.
  • American taxpayers have spent over $120 billion on missile defense schemes ($60 billion since Reagan proposed Star Wars in 1983) with absolutely nothing to show for it. The cost of a "layered" land-, sea- and space-based Star Wars system, as Bush favors, could cost over $200 billion on top of what's already been spent. That's our tax money that won't go for education, health care, affordable housing or the environment.

  We must stop them. In the 1980's, millions of concerned citizens raised their voices against Star Wars and Ronald Reagan's nuclear arms buildup. Once again, concerned, peace-mongering people are called upon to mobilize to stop the revival of Star Wars and a new nuclear arms race.
        There will be gatherings at the White House and in the halls of Congress to oppose Star Wars and the militarization of outer space, and to call for the only realistic solution to the scourge of nuclear weapons: their complete, global elimination. Bring a busload of your friends, family, and neighbors!
  
  
  
  

• June 10-11: And We Are All Mortal, Memorial, Conference, Lobby Day
  American University, Washington, DC

  The Coalition on Political Assassination is sponsoring what may be the first of several events marking the 38th anniversary of the famous speech given at American University on June 10, 1963, calling for an end to the arms race and the Cold War because "we are all mortal". Many believe this speech reflected the primary differences that JFK had with the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned of, and that led to his assassination.
  
  
  

• June 3: Whirl-Mart Anti-Shopping Call to !ART/ACTION?

  This is a call for Whirl-Mart anti-shopping to take place on Sunday June 3 at your local Wal-Marts (or other superstores) around the country and/or world. In the Albany-Troy region, this month's event will go down at the Wal-Mart on Troy-Scenectady Road @ 12 noon.
  What is Whirl-mart?
  Whirl-Mart is an anti-shopping spectacle during which a local breathingplanet troupe gathers, forms a single-file parade, and silently pushes empty shopping carts through the aisles of a local superstore.
  see press release from april 1 event:
  http://www.breathingplanet.net/press.html
  story and comments from participants:
  http://nycap.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=347&group=webcast
  Why Whirl-Mart?
  Whirl-Mart was conceived as a way to poetically and peacefully state our collective disrespect for the capitalist world order and to display our opposition to the values of competition, domination, and exploitation imposed upon us by consumer culture.
  pictures and video:
  http://www.breathingplanet.net/whirl.html
  Why Wal-Mart?
  This art/action is not meant to be an attack specifically on the Wal-Mart Corporation.  Rather, breathingplanet.net has chosen the superstore because it is symbolic both of the religious faith modern humans invest in material consumption, and of the seemingly inescapable corporate superstucture in which we live.
  Religion?
  Unlike most protests, Whirl-Mart is silent and ritualistic.  It may not even be perceived as a protest at all.  In the religion of consumerism, the superstore is the cathedral, the shoppers are the congregation, and the products are icons of desire.  Our anti-shopping ceremony is intended to emphasize this reality.
  People are needed to organize breathingplanet/Whirl-Mart troupes everywhere!! go to: http://www.breathingplanet.net/future.html to find an easy activation kit and more information.
  
  
  

• May 19: End Corporate War on Armed Forces Day, 2001
  Vandenberg Air Force Base, Santa Barbara County, California

  Activists Call on US Military to End Corporate War on Armed Forces Day, 2001

  Lompoc, CA -- On Armed Forces Day, May 19, 2001 hundreds of activists will descend upon the largest United States Space Command facility in the world at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Protesting US Military policies all over the world, activists will gather at the Main Gate for a rally. Some will engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the main gate. Others will participate in a mass nonviolent security zone occupation of the base's remote backcountry terrain. Organizers for the action are calling it the largest anti-militarism demonstration at Vandenberg in more than a decade.
            The action is designed to call attention to the links between the United States Armed Forces and the process of economic globalization which has ignited mass protests all over the world and most recently last month at the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Quebec. Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) has been targeted for the protest on the basis of its leading role in military policies which have negatively impacted marginalized groups and indigenous communities all over the world. According to event organizers with the Direct Action Network (DAN) in Santa Cruz, California, space-age technologies, such as the surveillance and targeting satellites which are launched and monitored from Vandenberg, are responsible for guiding aggressive military groups and gunships from Colombia to Indonesia. Such groups are often fighting counter-insurgency wars against indigenous people defending their traditional way of life.
            "The imposition of free market and pro-corporation reforms in the third world has resulted in mass poverty and cultural destruction. Such policies often spark resistance by marginalized indigenous groups fighting for their basic way of life," Santa Cruz DAN organizer, Sophia Santiago pointed out. "Such local resistance is frequently met with corporate/military death squads and helicopter gunships controlled and commanded from right here at Vandenberg Air Force Base."
            VAFB has been a focal point for anti-militarism activists for a greater part of the last half century. In the 1980's a nonviolent indigenous uprising on Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific challenged US Military testing on the island. Kwajalein, the Earth's largest coral atoll, serves as Vandenberg's South Pacific target for long-range ballistic and nuclear missile testing. The people of Kwajalein have been forcefully removed from their homes and kept in concentration camps on a neighboring island. The Kwajalein uprising was matched by a series of intensive civil resistance actions in Vandenberg's security zone during the 1980's.
            Recently, the base has come to the attention of the world as the principle launch sight for the controversial new National Missile Defense System (NMD). Critics of NMD say the policy has already begun a new arms race. In July, 2000 a backcountry action at Vandenberg aimed to disrupt a critical NMD flight test, triggering a base-wide security alert. Furthermore, on October 7, dozens were arrested at the VAFB front gate in a civil disobedience action as part of the Worldwide Day of Action Against Weapons in Space.
            Although, the National Missile Defense System is a concern, organizers say the May action is focused more on exposing the aspects of counter-insurgency war which make up most of VAFB's daily operations.
            "Whether or not you believe the United States has a right to use any means necessary to defend its national borders is not the issue," says Jacob Pace of the Resource Center for Nonviolence, in Santa Cruz. "The fact is that a vast majority of the work which goes on at Vandenberg is focused on extending the economic control of American corporations all over the world. It is nothing less than blatant imperialism."
            As proof of this matter, Pace points to a US Space Command Planning Document -- Vision for 2020. The document reads: "The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between the 'haves' and 'have-nots'. . . military forces have evolved to protect national interests, both military and economic. During the rise of sea commerce nations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests. During the westward expansion of the United States, military outposts and the calvary emerged. . . The emergence of space power follows both these models."
            Organizers for the action are calling on people all over the United States to come to Vandenberg on May 19. They have arranged a resistance camp for activists to meet and coordinate from May 18-23 and the action will also feature a rally in Lompoc, California, with music and speakers from Kwajalein and Columbia as well as anti-militarism activists and intellectuals. Event planners encourage interested people to log onto their website at www.geocities.com/vafb_m19/ for more information on VAFB and the Armed Forces Day action.

  Contact info:

  Peter Lumsdaine -- Vandenberg Action Coalition, Resource Center for Nonviolence, and the Santa Cruz Direct Action Network, Santa Cruz, CA. (831)423-1626 (x104) Tracy DeAngelis -- Vandenberg Action Coalition and the Santa Cruz Direct Action Network, Santa Cruz, CA. (831)421-9794, pnut119@hotmail.com Jacob Pace -- Santa Cruz Direct Action Network and the Resource Center for Nonviolence, Santa Cruz, CA. (831)471-9797, deathtocapitalism@hotmail.com

  We hope members of the press will be interested in attending the action. There will be a rally with lots of great photo ops (such as a 50 ft mock rocket) and we are expecting lots of arrests. There will be plenty of chances for interviews with prominent members of the Peace Movement at the Resistance Camp. If you are interested in attending please let us know and we can provide more information and a press-liason. Also, members of the press are encouraged to come backcountry, to see what is really going on inside Vandenberg.
  
  
  

• April 20: Stop The Summit Of The Americas, Quebec City

  From April 20-22, Quebec City has the dubious honor of hosting the Summit of the Americas, which brings together all the so-called leaders of North, Central and South America (except Cuba). For a few days, Quebec will be turned into a militarized zone as these heads of state, and their big business pals, gather for a series of meetings, photo-ops and posh dinners.
          The stated purpose of Summit meeting is to put the final touches on the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement (FTAA) which aims to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the entire hemisphere. The FTAA is supposed to be adopted no later than 2005.
          Like the WTO, IMF, WB, APEC and the rest of the insidious alphabet soup, the FTAA is another engine -- in the form of a "free" trade accord -- which drives capitalist globalization.
          In the spirit of Seattle, and the anti-IMF/WB demonstrations in Washington on A16/17, we've started to organize to make sure the Summit is effectively short-circuited. We want to go beyond symbolic protest or reformism to making sure the Summit of the Americas is shut down.
          In Quebec City, local activists have spent months and months planning their activities to confront the Summit of Americas.
          On the initiative of activists in Toronto, a shutdown of the upcoming Organization of American States (OAS) meeting in Windsor, Ontario (across the river from Detroit) is being planned for early June of this year. As well, Toronto will be hosting the Finance ministers of the Americas in March 2001, one month before the leader's meeting in Quebec City.
          In Montreal, an "anti-capitalist convergence" is in the process of forming. Our preliminary basis of unity is a clear anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-FTAA position which rejects all forms of domination and oppression. We are still determining the exact framework of our network or coalition, but we'd like to encompass as many groups and individuals as possible, representing and respecting a variety of tactics, while stressing decentralization, autonomy and affinity as organizing principles. We wish to creatively, effectively and militantly oppose the FTAA, as opposed to engaging in lobbying or reformist strategies. The shut down is envisioned as part of a larger campaign of awareness raising, popular education and skill sharing which complements existing organizing efforts.

  See Also: Impacts of Corporate Globalization on Living Communities in co-globalizing gaia's children
  
  
  

• March 16-18: National Space Organizing Conference & Protest, Huntsville, Alabama
  

  Come to the home of the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command where space weapons and the nuclear rocket are being developed.

  
  
  
  

• March 8-11: The People's Summit on Globalization, Boulder, Colorado, USA
  This conference aims to bring speakers, panelists, community members, students, workers, educators, and other global citizens to learn about the effects of globalization and to change the power structures that affect our world. More than just a "conference" in the traditional sense, we will be training, planning and networking with each other to better organize and mobilize ourselves for future action. In the spirit of democracy, the planners and the participants of the conference echo the cries of our forefathers in their attempt to escape the imperialist grip of England: No Globalization Without Representation!
  
  
  

• March 2-4: Global Justice Tour 2001 Conference:
  Citigroup, the FTAA and Global Forest Destruction, University of Chicago
  About the FTAA
  Initiated in 1994 by the 34 countries of North and South America (excluding Cuba), the Free Trade Area of the Americas, an expansion of the North America Free Trade Agreement, would create the world's largest free market zone - affecting 650 million people and $9 trillion in capital. Governmental FTAA talks have been accompanied by the corporate sector every step of the way, and their discussions have been held behind closed doors, under a veil of secrecy. The Free Trade Area of the Americas will deepen the negative effects of NAFTA we've seen in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. over the past seven years and expand NAFTA's damage to the other 31 countries involved. The dire results of NAFTA prove that the FTAA will provide only disastrous results for the exploited peoples of the American continents. (courtesy of www.stopftaa.org)
  About Call to Action!
  Call To Action (CtA), is a collective of young, inspiring activist organizers who have worked with the Rainforest Action Network, Ruckus Society, Earth First!, Greenpeace, the Student Alliance to Reform Corporations (STARC), the War Resisters League, and Inner City Press/Community on the Move, as well as many community groups. They will be leading the Global Justice Tour 2001 conference here in Chicago, a Midwest gathering for their caravan across the northern US, as they make stops at campuses en route to Quebec City for the April meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. CtA is giving grassroots issue and skills training to activists and organizers nationwide, and is devoted to:

  • building a new generation of environmental and social justice activists with the skills and vision necessary to create fundamental social change;

  • fostering networks between traditionally isolated movements including the environmental, human rights, social justice, globalization and labor movements, by including activists from a wide range of backgrounds;

  • highlighting local connections by giving Chicago-based organizations a space to talk about their own campaigns and actions; and

  • focusing on Citigroup as one of many multinational beneficiaries of FTAA talks, to increase awareness about its policies of red-lining and predatory lending; private prison construction and strike breaking; environmental destruction and forced relocation; as well as its influences in international trade policy and third world debt, through grassroots campaigning, media campaigns, and non-violent civil disobedience.

  
  
  
  

• February 24-25 2001: Technology and Globalization, Hunter College, New York City
  A Teach-In presented by The International Forum on Globalization, New York Open Center, The International Center for Technology Assessment, The Turning Point Project, Lapis Magazine, and the Nation Institute.
  40 Speakers + 25 Workshops.

  MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN OR HELL?
  ASSOCIATED PRESS	skin graft shaped as a human ear on the back of a mouse

  Our society places all its bets on technology as the panacea for our ills. But it may be time to reconsider. Far from Paradise-on-Earth, we are rolling toward ecological collapse: rapid climate change and rising seas; ozone holes; loss of species and habitat; accelerated cancer rates; terminal forms of air, water, and soil pollution, as well as unprecedented levels of social, political, and personal alienation and despair. All are rooted in the excesses of technology.
          Now a terrifying new generation of technologies -- from biotechnology to eugenics to robotics to nanotechnology -- are raising the stakes and bringing unprecedented new threats to the planet. Meanwhile the new telecommunications technologies that we had hoped would bring democracy and empowerment may be producing the opposite: rampant commercialization, global corporate concentration and mergers, and centralization rather than decentralization.
          In the era of economic globalization, the problems are magnified a millionfold. All-powerful global bureaucracies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and others are preventing the ability of communities or nation-states to slow the rate at which giant global corporations freely exploit the planet, dominate social systems, destroy local economies, and deploy the most powerful and dangerous technologies in history.
          This dynamic interaction between new technology, economic globalization, and centralized global power is arguably the most important condition of the New Millennium, but it's rarely publicly debated or exposed to democratic processes.
          This landmark event at Hunter College, February 24 and 25, 2001, hopes to launch that debate.
  Who should control the evolution of technology?
  What are the intrinsic consequences of certain technologies in terms of health, the environment, social justice and democracy, religion, and how we view ourselves and the cosmos? Has science failed? Why have there been no referenda on the most dangerous technological trends: nuclear, biotechnology, transport, the globalization of industrial agriculture, corporate power, and global media concentration? Do the new telecommunications serve democracy or the opposite? How can we change paths? How can we create more viable, local democratic systems that serve different values?
          These are a few of the questions to be discussed in two days of plenaries and workshops, led by some of the world's greatest thinkers on technology, globalization, and democracy. Please join us.
  
  
  

• Mushroom clouds over Nevada: 50 years later, the tragedy of nuclear tests
  The Downwinders Organization is planning a commemoration of the Golden Anniversary of the day, 50 years ago, when the Nevada Test site went into operation on January 27 at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City, Utah. Native miners, downwinders, government officials, and atomic veteranss have been invited. If you're in the area, consider attending this gathering.
  
  
  

• January 25-30 2001: World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil
  The World Social Forum will be a new international arena for the creation and exchange of social and economic projects that promote human rights, social justice and sustainable development. It will take place every year in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, during the same period as the World Economic Forum, which happens in Davos, Switzerland, at the end of January. Since 1971, The World Economic Forum has played a key role in formulating economic policies throughout the world. It's sponsored by a Swiss organization that serves as a consultant to the United Nations and it's financed by more than one thousand corporations.
            The World Social Forum will provide a space for building economic alternatives, for exchanging experiences and for strengthening South-North alliances between NGOs, unions and social movements. It will also be an opportunity for developing concrete projects, to educate the public, and to mobilize civil society internationally. The World Social Forum developed as a consequence of a growing international movement that advocates for greater participation of civil societies in international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). For decades, these institutions have been making decisions that affect the lives of people all over the world, without a clear system for accountability and democratic participation.
            Brazil is one of the countries that have been greatly affected by global economic policies. At the same time, different sectors of Brazilian society are crating economic alternatives in rural and urban areas, in shantytowns, factories, churches, schools, etc. The richness of Brazilian grassroots organizations represents a source of inspiration for the development of the World Social Forum. The Brazilian Organizing Committee is building alliances with organizations in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe to develop the World Social Forum.
            This will be a broad coalition of organizations working on issues such as human rights, sustainable development, education, and environmental protection. The World Social Forum will discuss topics such as:

  • building economic policies that promote human development;
  • creating international strategies for grassroots organizing;
  • building proposals to democratize international institutions, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank;
  • the influence of multinational corporations in local communities;
  • creating sustainable development proposals to eradicate poverty and hunger, and to protect the environment;
  • organizing against gender and racial discrimination;
  • the protection and preservation of indigenous land and culture.
  
  
  

• January 20 2001: Stop the Death Machine! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Washingto D.C.

2000

• December 20: Leonard Peltier Rally and Walk for Truth and Reconciliation, New York City

• Nov 16-18: N16 -- Cincinnati Direct Action Collective
  focusing attention on the meeting of the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD home page), OMNI Netherlands Hotel, downtown Cincinnati, Ohio.
  Read More (locally on ratical)
  See Also: CHE 2000 (http://www.che-2000.org/)

• November 12-16: Pacific Rim Biotechnology Conference, Vancouver, Canada

• November 10: Canadian Alert on Genetic Engineering, Vancouver, Canada

  BIG MONEY -- BAD SCIENCE
  A Citizen's Response to Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering
  • 10:00-11:00 Frankenfood
    Richard Bocking, Brewster Kneen, Katharine Barrett
  • 11:00-12:00 The Patenting of Life
    Debra Harry, Paul Reynolds, Beth Burrows
  • 12:00-1:00 For Whose Benefit? Biomedical research
    Arthur Teuscher, Gregor Wolbring, Marcy Darnovsky
  • 1:30-2:30 Science and the Public Interest
    Doreen Stabinsky, Warren Bell
  • 2:30-3:30 Tricks of the Trade: the biotech corporations
    Donald Gutstein, Tony Clarke, Anuradha Mittal
  • 3:30-4:30 Genetically Engineering Democracy
    Jennifer Story, Michele Brill Edwards, Phil Bereano
  • 4:30-5:30 Sowing Seeds of Empowerment
    Denny Henke, Cathleen Kneen
  • 7:30-9:30 Genetically Engineer This
    Maude Barlow, Ann Clark, Mae-Wan Ho
  Registration $5 to $20
  Call 604-688-8846
  Fax 604-688-5756
  711 - 207 West Hasting Street
  Vancouver BC V6B 1H7

• Nov 9-11: National Community Land Trust Conference 2000,
  Hosted by Sawmill Community Land Trust, Presented by Institute for Community Economics (See [1] & [2] for background), iceconomic@aol.com. Telephone Julie Orvis at 413-746-8660 ext. 118 for more information.

• October 28: The Twentieth Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures featuring David C. Korten, Andrew Kimbrell, and Marie Cirillo held in Salisbury, Connecticut.

• October 24-25: G20 Meeting in Montreal (official G-20 website)

• Oct 20: KoPA, Korean People's Action Against Investment Treaties & the WTO

• Oct. 20-22: Bioneers -- Visionary Solutions for Restoring the Earth, San Rafael, California

• October 12-15: Festival of the Globalphobics: Cry of the Excluded Ones, Tijuana, Mexico/San Diego, California, USA. A festival in celebration of international solidarity and opposition to corporate globalization on the U.S.-Mexican border between California and Baja California Norte.
  To join us contact: Festival de los Globalifobicos in Tijuana, Adriana O'Sullivan, 011-526-686-2851, globalifobicos@yahoo.com; Or: Global Exchange, Dan La Botz, 415-558-9486 or 415-558-8682, ext. 229, dan@globalexchange.org

• Sept 25 - Oct 5: Transcending Boundaries: Positive Visions of the Future organized by Renaissance Universal and conducted on the Internet.

• Sept 26: S26: Join the Campaign Against IMF/WB in Prague -- Global Day of Action

• Sept 11-13: Beyond S11 (shutdown the W.E.F), Crown Casino, Melbourne, Australia

  • Global History
    What Do Australian Historians and Intellectuals Have to Say about Globalisation?
    Is globalisation a hollow term? Is the large civic movement misguided or is it a progressive social movement, similar to other periods of great change in the past? What is unique about our present time in history in terms of globalising forces and what can we all learn from a greater historical contextualisation?

    Some of our historical thinkers, community leaders and intellectuals respond.

    What is globalisation? At the start of the 21st Century, this is the question on everybody's lips. Is it American cultural homogenisation and corporate greed, is it the Internet and the rise of the much hyped information society? Globalisation is a term that is as large as the world in which we live and is often interpreted through a monomaniac discourse that absorbs and explains everything from declining sea turtle numbers to third world poverty. How can historians and other intellectuals contribute to the greater understanding of our present time? What contextual historical frameworks can we convey to our public to help explain this international civic unrest? Topics could include subjects such as labour relations, the free trade movement, international relations, community history, the notion of nation-state decline, prosperity and inequality and the impact of technology.

• Aug 17-22: The World Congress on Managing and Measuring Sustainable Development, Kananaskis Village, Canadian Rockies, Canada
  Global Community Action-Global Dialogue on the management of global changes of environment, people, economic development, and availability of resources. Contact: Germain Dufour, Chairman or Virginie Dufour, Secretary General, gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com

• Sept. 6: Global People's Assembly UN Millennium Assembly and Summit, NYC

• Sept 11-13: S11: Shutdown the World Economic Forum in Melbourne Australia

• June-August: Globalization or Earth Wisdom? Creating Just and Sustainable Communities, The Institute for Deep Ecology

• August 15-17: International Association for Feminist Economics 2000 Conference, Istanbul

• August 10-13: The People's Convention, Los Angeles, California

• Aug 8-11: AWAKE 2000, Quantum Consciousness In the New Millennium, conf on consciousness and business, Nelson, BC, Canada

• July 30-Aug 5: The Millennium Connection Shaping Profound Societal Change, Denver, Colorado

• July 30: UNITY 2000 -- Protest Corporate Politics, Philadelphia

• July 16-22: World Congress of the Systems Sciences, Toronto, Canada

• July 14-16: Active-fest -- Celebrating empowerment thru wisdom & creativity, Mendocino fairgrounds, Boonville, California

• July 5-8: People and Nature: Operationalising Ecological Economics, Canberra, Australia

• June 29-July 1: Second Annual Festival of Community Economics, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada

• June 19-Oct 19: Expo 2000, the World Exposition, Global Internet Dialogue, Hanover, Germany The Global Dialogue themes include:
  
  1. Jun 19-21: Natural Resources: The Sustainability Challenge
  2. Jul 01-03: Responsible Governance in a Global Society
  3. Jul 11-13: Science and Technology -- Thinking the Future
  4. Jul 25-27: Fighting Poverty: Social Innovations and New Coalitions
  5. Aug 15-17: The Role of the Village in the 21st Century: Crops, Jobs and Livelihood
  6. Aug 29-31: Health -- The Key to Human Development
  7. Sep 06-08: Building Learning Societies -- Knowledge, Information and Human Development
  8. Sep 19-21: Culture on the Move
  9. Oct 03-05: Future Works -- Labour, Sustainable Business, and Social Responsibility
  10. Oct 17-19: Shaping a Future of Global Partnership

• June 13-15: The Quest for the Futures: A Methodology Seminar in Futures Studies, Turku, Finland

• June 9-11: Time Dollar 2000 Congress, Time Dollar Institute, St. Louis, MO

• June 4-10: Peace Building in the 21st Century, Dubrovnik, Croatia

• May 1-31: Globalization, Development and Poverty public electronic conf by Panos Institute London and World Bank Institute

• May 22-26: Millennium Forum, United Nations/NYC

• May 18-20: Re-imagining Politics & Society at the Millennium, Creating a Caring, Ethical & Sustainable World, Riverside Church, NYC

• May 12-14: Planetwork -- Global Ecology and Information Technology, a Conference at The Presidio in San Francisco

• May 9-12: Biology As If The World Mattered, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Canada

• May Day 2000: A Global Day of Action -- may our resistance be as transnational as capital

• April 14-17: Keep Space for Peace -- No Ballistic Missile Defense, No Star Wars

• April 9-17: Mobilization for Global Justice - Protest at the week-long IMF & World Bank meeting in Wash D.C.

• April 2-8: First Global Millennium People's Assembly to Make Peace Stop Wars, Samoa, Apia

• March 24-30: Biodevastation 2000 Conference & Actions, Boston, MA

• March 3-20: Are Corporate Bodies Really Alive? - illuminating on-line conference

1999 . . .

• June 18, 1999: An International day of action, protest and carnival aimed at the heart of the global economy.

• May 21-23, 1999: 2nd Annual Regional Conference to End Corporate Dominance Over Ecosystems and Communities sponsored by the End Corporate Dominance Alliance

• May 29-31, 1998:   Western Regional Conference to End Corporate Dominance over Ecosystems and Communities by the End Corporate Dominance Alliance

• March 12-15, 1998:   GLOBAL VILLAGE OR GLOBAL PILLAGE? Winnipeg MAI Conference

• March 1-7, 1998:   Democracy Teach-In

• Feb. 7, 1998: Creating Democracy ... Opposing Corporate Rule Gathering

• Oct. '97:   End Corporate Dominance month

• 11/24/96:   inauguration on rat haus of The Six Nations subtree
  -- oldest living PARTICIPATORY democracy on Earth

• UNPLUG AMERICA -- GIVE MOTHER EARTH A REST DAY, October 13th

• Corporations And Democracy Teach-in, October, 13-19, 1996

• Earth First! End Corporate Dominance, Int'l Day of Action, October, 29, 1996

• POCLAD letter to Ralph Nader, 29 February 1996

• POCLAD article on Corporate Power in the '96 Presidential Campaign,
  with more details about the 9 seminars on corporations and the law.

• POCLAD January '96 letter re:
  1996 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference.