(Mario Savio on the steps of Sproul Hall, probably 1965)




















The Renewed Chill on Political Liberty

The following story from the San Francisco Chronicle tells a familiar but nonetheless sad story about political surveillance during the George W. Bush presidency.

San Francisco 19 July 2006

Terror database tracks UC protests

U.S. agent reported on '05 rallies
against military recruitment

by Demian Bulwa

A federal Department of Homeland Security agent passed along
information about student protests against military recruiters at UC
Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, landing the demonstrations on a database
tracking foreign terrorism, according to government documents
released Tuesday.

The documents were released by the American Civil Liberties Union,
which filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of student
groups that protested against recruiters who visited their campuses
in April 2005.

The students were angry when they turned up in the database of a
Pentagon program called Threat and Local Observation Notice, or
TALON, which the government started in 2003 as a way to collect data
that could help stop terrorist attacks. Officials have acknowledged
that the reports on protests should not have been included. …..

* * * *

What? U.C. students being watched by federal agents? The monitoring of political dissidents is an old story in our “free society”. (See Frank Donner’s Age of Surveillance for an account of several decades of political repression, the Palmer raids, McCarthy era hysteria, and the like.)

During my days as a student in Berkeley it was widely known that and meetings and marches were closely monitored. At noon rallies outside the Sproul Hall administration building, speakers would sometimes ask that we turn and wave to the FBI photographers perched on the roof of the student union. G-men assigned to follow leaders in the student movement would knock on the doors of activists’ homes and introduce themselves, a way of intimidating people. An insidious consequence of this infringement on our liberties was to undermine the ability of peace groups and other political organizations to operate without fear of agent provocateurs their midst. During the late 1960s these fears developed into full blown paranoia. The investigations of FBI and CIA abuses Senator Church and others during the mid-1970s exposed these vile practices to the light of day. Alas, the selection of Bush and Cheney picked up the rock under which these vermin had been hiding and put them back to work.

“What are those traitorous students and Quakers up to?”
“We’ll get right on it, boss.”

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Here's a statement of the long forgotten significance of this day, now more relevant than ever.


Mother's Day Proclamation 1870

Arise then…women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated

Earth a voice goes up with

Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor,

Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil

At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace…

Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,

But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask

That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,

May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient

And the earliest period consistent with its objects,

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,

The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.


~ Julia Ward Howe

WE'RE NUMBER 28 !!
WE'RE NUMBER 28 !!
WE'RE NUMBER 28 !!
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

This has long been evident, but an international survey now documents the sad truth. From the New York Times:

United States Ranks 28th on Environment, a New Study Says
By FELICITY BARRINGER

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - A pilot nation-by-nation study of environmental performance shows that just six nations - led by New Zealand, followed by five from Northern Europe - have achieved 85 percent or better success in meeting a set of critical environmental goals ranging from clean drinking water and low ozone levels to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse gas emissions.

The study, jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities, ranked the United States 28th over all, behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica and Chile, but ahead of Russia and South Korea. ....

The pilot study, called the 2006 Environmental Performance Index, has been reviewed by specialists both in the United States and internationally.

Using a new variant of the methodology the two universities have applied in their Environmental Sustainability Index, produced in four previous years, the study was intended to focus more attention on how various governments have played the environmental hands they have been dealt, said Daniel C. Esty, the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and an author of the report.

The earlier sustainability measurements "tell you something about long-term trajectories," Mr. Esty said. "We think this tool has a much greater application in the policy context."

For instance, Britain ranked 65th in last year's sustainability index, but 5th in the latest study, among the 133 nations measured. Among the reasons for the earlier low ranking, Mr. Esty said, was that "they cut down almost all their trees 500 years ago and before," something that modern British governments could not control.

The 16 indicators used in the latest study, the report says, provide "a powerful tool for evaluating environmental investments and improving policy results."