People Of The Dome

People Of The Dome
Questions Of Neglect Remain For Hurricane Katrina Victims

by Mitchel Cohen, Green Party of New York State

Attempting to starve civilians into leaving an area is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

As Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf States, many organizations kicked into high gear to send relief to local groups in Mississippi and Louisiana, with no help from the government or formal relief agencies. Tons of donated supplies were trucked to Jackson Missis sippi, where they were distributed through community-based efforts. But the story Greens in New Orleans, such as Malik Rahim and Les Evenchick, tell is shocking: U.S. and local government officials ordered the local drinking water turned off and refused to allow water or food relief into New Orleans. Hundreds of people died unnecessarily as a result.

There was no shortage of water or food being sent; it was just not allowed into the City! When Green Party activists tried to donate a large amount of water for the people in the Super Dome a few days after the levees broke, armed soldiers pointed rifles at them and prevented them from delivering supplies. Even three Wal-mart trucks loaded with drinking water were denied entry and turned away. No water was allowed into New Orleans. Evenchick said, “This was a brazen attempt to starve people out.”

There was no health reason to turn off the drinking water at the time, as the water is drawn into a separate system from the Mississippi River, not the polluted lake, and filtered through self-powered purification plants separate from the main electric grid. If necessary, people could have boiled their water. Strangely, the municipal natural gas used in stoves was still functioning properly as of Thursday night of that first week!

A commanding officer of a police squad complained that his 120 cops were provided with only 70 small bottles of water. Hospitals were supplied with nothing. Could the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Homeland Security and local officials have forgotten to store bottles of drinking water in the Superdome, Convention Center and hospitals?

The only FEMA official on the scene in the early stages, Marty Bahamonde, has testified to Congress that he begged FEMA director Michael Brown for water, food, toilet paper and oxygen, saying, “many will die within hours.” Brown’s press secretary, Sharon Worthy, responded that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening.

Green activist and former Black Panther Malik Rahim points out that the government could have and should have provided water and food to residents of New Orleans but did not do so intentionally, to force people to evacuate by starving them out. This is a crime of the gravest sort.

French Quarter resident Mike Howell adds that the capability had been there from the start to drive water and food right up to the convention center, as those roads were clear. “It’s how the National Guard drove into the city,” he said. The evidence is overwhelming that the government intentionally did not allow food or water into New Orleans.

Many disturbing unanswered questions remain surrounding this nightmare scenario:

Attempting to starve civilians into leaving an area is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Who gave the order to block water and food from entering New Orleans and to turn off the drinking water inside the city?

Why did the military “convince” the volunteer boat rescuers at gunpoint to “cease and desist” when desperate people had been welcoming them with open arms?

Two U.S. military helicopters spent a few days plucking 110 people from the roofs of their flooded houses. The commanding officers of the rescuers reprimanded them and removed them from helicopter duty for “violating orders.” Who gave the order not to rescue people?

For more than two weeks, hundreds of volunteer doctors and fire personnel — including a squad from New York City — were denied entry to New Orleans. Who gave the order not to allow rescue workers into New Orleans?

Mayor Ray Nagin complained vociferously that Louisiana National Guard Black hawk helicopters were being stopped from dropping sandbags to plug the levees soon after the breech. No repairs were allowed until long after the poor areas of New Orleans were totally flooded. Who gave the order not to allow National Guard helicopters to drop sandbags to plug the levees soon after the breech?

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s president, Fidel Castro offered millions of dollars and hundreds of doctors to help save lives in New Orleans. They were turned down. Who gave the order to turn down the aid offered from Venezuela and Cuba?

Millions of concerned citizens wanted to send assistance. FEMA recommended that they send contributions to “Operation Blessing,” a front group for rightwing evangelist Pat Robertson. Who gave the order to divert tens of millions of dollars in contributions sent to help the people of New Orleans by outraged American citizens, to rightwing Christian zealots?

From day one, huge war profiteering corporations such as Halliburton, Bechtel and other private contractors began descending on the region, their pockets stuffed with billions of dollars in government handouts. Thousands of poor homeowners and rental tenants have been evicted. The phony “reconstruction” of New Orleans began with the land grab and with Mayor Nagin proposing gambling casinos to “rescue” the city, while destroying the remaining wetlands. Many people are resisting this blatant confiscation of their lands and homes. As the resistance grows, New Orleans may soon become known as the first battle of the new American Revolution.
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Mitchel Cohen is co-editor of “G”, the newspaper of the NY State Greens, and the coordinator of the No Spray Coalition www.nospray.org. To read a much longer version of this article, write to Mitchel directly at mitchelcohen@mindspring.com.

If you’d like to donate funds for Hurricane Katrina relief go to: CommonGroundRelief.org

 

The Drug War Is Meant To Be Waged, Not Won

The Drug War Is Meant To Be Waged, Not Won

Clifford Thornton, Green Party of Connecticut

Because of the drug war and the collateral damage that ensues, the black and Latino communities are in a devolutionary state. Minorities have been continually singled out even though whites out number blacks and Latinos as sellers or users.

The real problem is not drug usage, but the drug policies. We as a people, and as a country have to be thoroughly educated on this issue called the “war on drugs.”

If you do not understand racism, classism, white privilege, terrorism, and the war on drugs — what these terms mean, how these concepts work — then everything else you do understand will only confuse you.

Many see the drug war as being supported by three major phenomena, all of which result in unequal treatment based, either directly or indirectly, on race, class or white privilege. This is how it works, not only in America, but also all over the world:

1. Greed — Drug markets are a dandy source of “black’ money, which ends up being recycled (laundered) through our banks and other financial institutions. This money is then made available for all sorts of scams, including political contributions, which guarantee that politicians remain “tough on drugs.” The drug war effectively exempts most well to do adolescents from any severe punishment, while it guarantees the poor and unconnected are hit the hardest.

In terms of participants, the upper level dealers and financiers are seldom even identified; but the mid and lower level workers (often “minorities”) are far more visible and at risk of arrest. The job security provided to police and the prison industry is also a big motivator in continuing the war on drugs.

The benefits of the war on drugs to the pharmaceutical, alcohol and tobacco industries do not need to be spelled out. If cannabis were legal, they would all take a big hit. As it is, illegal cannabis already reduces their sales significantly. Also understand that cannabis is not the real prize; it is HEMP. Hemp would immediately revolutionize the clothing, paper, and food industry — a no-no in this country.

2. Overt racism — The malignant racism, which justified slavery, is definitely not dead. It survived under Jim Crow (segregation) and continues to survive under the drug war. There is abundant evidence that blacks and browns actually have fewer drug problems than whites, but you’d never know it from our media. As editor past and present of many Drug News Week lies for years, I had continuous evidence that the war on drugs is incredibly racist in all its applications. Most whites accept that unfairness; at the very least, they don’t feel any great need to protest.

3. Fear and the intellectual dishonesty that fear promotes in medicine and the “treatment” disciplines psychology and sociology. This is a very complex issue. There’s no doubt that the drug war survives partly because medicine has been so thoroughly co-opted. The whole system of classification of mental “disorders” has also been corrupted by the war on drugs. We literally have no defensible objective standards for the labels we apply; labels demanded by “treatment.” Our official take on abnormal behavior also promotes continued marginalization of dissent, especially by minorities. The truth is that blacks are condemned to the worst schools and if they make any trouble at all, the so-called solution is to banish them administratively from the system ASAP. I also see this in New Zealand and all other countries where there is a significant minority population.

America has been a racist society ever since its constitution was drafted in 1787. We, as a nation, have never repudiated our “sainted” founders’ embrace of slavery. Until we do, I suspect we’ll remain an intensely racist society. The cruel treatment of slaves was justified by a spurious doctrine of racial “supremacy;” but I suspect it was mostly motivated by (the now) seldom-discussed fear of a “servile rebellion.”

Our white forebears thus saddled all Americans of color especially blacks, with the bitter legacies of their own guilt and fear. Until that is recognized and repudiated, I see no real improvement. The drug war has been substituted for slavery and segregation and most people can’t see it or don’t want to see it.

I am not promoting drug use. I am promoting a sound logical approach to this problem. Marijuana should be regulated and controlled like cigarettes and alcohol. Heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and meth am phetamine should be medicalized and come under the supervision of medical personnel. All the rest of the illegal drugs should be decriminalized for future debate, and true and honest medicinal study. Taxes derived from the sale of cannabis and hemp will go back into the communities as reparations to rebuild the infrastructure such as public education and health care for those that have been ravished by drug war maladies.

Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non-profit organization founded in 1997.
For more info:
www.Efficacy-online.org or contact at:
efficacy@msn.com

 

10 Key Values - Future Focus/Sustainability

10 Key Values
Future Focus/Sustainability

By Dorothy H. Engel, North Carolina Green Party

“Ask yourself what you can do to contribute to the future of our planet.”

The tenth key value is Future Focus with the spotlight on Sustainability While this is a broad and very important topic, the focus here is specifically on sustainable agriculture. The word “sustain” comes from the Latin word “sustinere” — to keep in existence or maintain. It implies long-term support. With respect to agriculture, sustainable describes farming systems, which are able to maintain productivity and social usefulness indefinitely. Such systems must be resource conserving, commercially competitive and environmentally sound. [For a more comprehensive discussion of the above, please see “Sustainability’s Promise,” Richard Duesterhaus, Ed., Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (Jan. Feb. 1990) 45(1): p. 4.]

As defined in the 1990 Congressional Farm Bill, sustainable agriculture is an integrated system of plant and animal production, which will, over the long term: satisfy human food and fiber needs; enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends; make the most efficient use of non-renewable resources and on-farm resources; integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls; sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.

Water: Great strides have taken place in developing systems of irrigation in arid climates and in conserving water re sources. Less attention has been paid to the quality of water, which affects the viability and nutritional value of produce. Pesticides, herbicides and nitrates leach into the soil, into the plants, which are being produced, and ultimately into the ground water. Organic farmers utilize biological controls to eliminate pests, and plantings that attract beneficial insects to consume the unwanted pests. Healthy soil insures healthy water supplies.

Energy: Alternative sources of energy for farming must be considered. Presently, farmers rely heavily on gasoline-powered engines to plow, till and mow. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if John Deere would produce a hybrid tractor! Alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power need to be harnessed and used in lieu of standard energy sources such as electricity and gasoline wherever possible.

Air: this most basic resource is important to farming health and human health. Agricultural pollutants include smoke from agricultural burning, dust from tilling, pesticide drift from spraying, and nitrous oxide fumes from the use of nitrogen fertilizers. Plowing under crop residue where feasible, and planting cover crops and perennial grasses to reduce dust can im prove air quality. Farmers using crop dust ers can be persuaded to look at organic methods rather than polluting the air with chemicals.

Soil: The use of organic fertilizers to enrich the soil as opposed to chemical fertilizers will result in stronger, more disease resistant crops. Organic enrichment from compost or manure builds healthy soil from year to year, while chemical fertilizers are temporary, and do nothing to improve soil quality. Crop rotation helps solve problems of soil resource depletion, since different crops require differing amounts of nutrients. Crop rotation also helps in controlling pest populations.

Educating farmers about organic farming practices, utilization of organic pesticides and herbicides, composting, crop rotation, and planting to attract beneficial insects along garden borders, will help to insure the future of sustainable agriculture. Shifting from chemical to organic practices is probably more easily done in small increments. Most farmers have developed their entire system based on long term experiences and may probably resist change. If they can be persuaded to make small changes over time, eventually they will find (as most do) that organic methods are most cost effective in the long run, with a bigger pay-off at the market. To ward this end there is a wonderful Organic Growers School in western North Caro lina at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock. Each spring prior to planting season, the school sponsors a two-day conference focusing exclusively on organic farming methods.

Ask yourself what you can do to contribute to the future of our planet. You may not be a farmer or a gardener, but you could work with many of the groups committed to improving the quality of our air, soil and water. Composting can be done even in cities, and organic produce is widely available. Many city dwellers contribute and work organic community gardens — a wonderful way for all to benefit from healthy food. This is especially beneficial for children to learn about plants and food sources in an urban setting. By educating them, we are generating hope for the future. Our focus for the future must be to improve the quality of our natural resources, air, soil and water, as well as to improve the quality of our food sources. My own experience has been that there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the garden grow in richness each year through organic additives, yielding tempting, disease and pest resistant produce.

 

The Power of Green

The Power of Green

By Naomi Canaan, Green Party of New York State

State Delegates of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) were joined by Greens from Canada, Brazil, New Zealand and Europe at the GP-US Annual Meeting held this past July in Reading, Pa.

From Brazil, Green delegates heard about the damaging neo-conservatives’ blueprint for bio-diesel production. The plan strips generations-old farmland used for a variety of food production and turns these family and village farms into sugar cane fields.

The corporate and government plunge into the lucrative bio-diesel industry by using giant agribusiness sugarcane production is destabilizing towns in Brazil. It is systematically deforesting the land up to and including the Amazon. It is also promoting cheap abusive labor practices, all under a protective government umbrella woven by global corporate agreements and practices.

Canadian Greens spoke about the threat posed by the Security and Prosperity Part nership of North America, which could turn North America into one gigantic shopping mall supplied by giant super highway corridors. This highway would include six lanes to be designated exclusively for trucks and would crisscross North America. The project would all be run by supernational entities using cheap non-union labor. These supernational entities function and operate outside governments, and apparently hide behind laws they themselves have helped to write.

Reporting from America, Green committee members from finance/fundraising to strategic planning/organization to media, brought into focus past accomplishments and future challenges. What became clear from in-depth committee reports and workshops, such as the one on “undoing racism,” augmented by discussions amongst the delegates themselves, is that the Green Party is the only political entity standing against the destructive impact created by the Demo cratic/Republican duopoly.

Furthermore, the Green Party is setting the agenda for the twenty-first century, from anti-war activism against the illegal war in Iraq and the pending one in Iran, to global warming and national health care. Green Party values are now in the conscious flow of the everyday vernacular; so that now global warming is a catchword used by every politician seeking election. Impeachment is now on the lips of the majority of American voters – thanks in part to diligent Greens.

The Green Party has grown in the United States to the point that its influence and agenda can be heard in the words of newscasters and can be seen printed in local comic strips.

In Reading ten prospective candidates for the presidency of the United States and one prospective candidate for the office of Vice President came to speak to Green delegates asking for the Green Party nomination. This is the first time so many people came forward so soon and so determined in the race, seeking the Green Party nomination. Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney also spoke at the meeting although they did not say they were candidates at that point. Politicians, the press and members of the Green Party itself are viewing the Green Party as a political powerhouse capable of determining policy — a national political party with clout, impact and purpose.

It would take 40 million votes to get a Green into the White House in 2008. With the commitment GPUS made at GP Nation al Meeting in Reading, to attain ballot access in all 50 states and D.C., the Green Party is going into the Quad rennial Presidential Nominating Convention next year ready to take on its biggest battle yet, a Green choice for president across the entire country in 2008.