This Saturday there will be a huge rally to Demand a Recount! and investigation into the Ohio voting problems. This is not about bush vs kerry, this is about American citizens being given equal access to vote. If we don’t demand Blackwell remove himself from the process and allow a full recount to proceed, then American democracy will be officially dead. You were given a democracy - are you going to let them just take it like this? Do you really think we’ll have a better shot in 2008? Wake up and expose this fraud they call ’the president’!"

Demand a Recount Rally Saturday 1pm at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus

[ Full Story I Rally Details I Citizens’ Alliance for Secure Elections I We Do Not Concede Coalition ]

December 3rd marks the 20th anniversary of one of the world’s worst massacre in Bhopal, India, the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster. A runaway reaction inside a subsidiary’s poorly designed and under-maintained pesticides plant released a 27 ton cocktail of lethal toxic gases into the heart of the teeming old city. Within a few days, more than half a million people were maimed for life. At least 8,000 were killed in agonizing seizures and trampled to death in the rush from the factory. [Read the Confluence article here]

What do Bhopal, India and North St. Louis have in common? Both suffered from large corporations constructing toxic chemical and industrial plants in "poor, unorganized communities where black, brown, red and white people live." A discussion on the 20th anniversity of one of the most tragic chemical disasters took place Wednesday night as part of the Black and Green Night in St. Louis. The Organization for Black Struggle along with the Gateway Green Alliance recognized that "Bhopal is St. Louis and St. Louis is Bhopal."

Jamala Rogers, activist and columnist for the St. Louis American, explained that corporations in North St. Louis and Bhopal have one thing in common - "the racist policies of two irresponsible corporations [that] will affect those communities for a long time." Along with Rogers, the discussion included Nishant Jain, from the Association for India's Development. Jain, who traveled from Austin, Texas, showed a brief documentary on the Bhopal tragedy of 1984 and led the group in discussion about the effects that the chemical leak had on Bhopal and its longer lasting effects on the residents.

[ After 20 Years, Will Bhopal Finally Get Justice? | Environmental and community destruction | STLIMC article on Stericycle Medical Waste Incinerator June 2002 | Aug. 2002 | International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal]

Nancy Rutherford is a licensed vocational nurse who worked dispensing medication to prisoners in the San Jose Main Jail. As she is a naturally empathetic person, she was criticized for not being callous enough with the prisoners. She has said there was little oversight of conditions for prisoners, and that mentally ill prisoners faced extraordinary difficulties in the jail environment. Unable to bear the brutality in the Jail and under pressure from corrections officers, she left her job after two months. She has now become an activist for the rights of the mentally ill. In this exclusive interview, Ms. Rutherford spoke with Indymedia reporter Peter Maiden. Read more

On December 2nd at 11:00am at the Evo A. DeConcini Federal Courthouse, federal prosecutors will formally indict Chuk'shon Earth First! (CEF!) activist Rod Coronado on conspiracy charges related to the local environmental group's interference with the hunt for mountain lions in Sabino Canyon last March. The indictment comes just seven days before Coronado was to stand trial for three lesser misdemeanor charges filed after his arrest in Sabino Canyon on March 26th. The new charge, "Conspiracy to Impede or Injure an Officer" carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison.

Coronado believes the indictment is in response to his continued organizing against AZGFD controversial policies such as the killing and removal of lions from the Coronado National Forest and the trophy hunting of sandhill cranes and desert bighorn sheep in southern Arizona.

Today, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and other Representatives, along with 2004 Presidential candidate David Cobb, held a public forum on voting "irregularities". The forum was the first held in Washington, DC on the massive voter irregularities (more) that occurred on November 2, where potential voters were thwarted across the country by illegal poll challenges, faulty voting machines, and widespread voter fraud.

Residents of Ohio have continued organizing in resistance of Ohio's stolen election [1 | 2]. Following the storming of the Ohio State House on November 5, protests have continued there. A December 4 protest brought over 400 to Columbus, Ohio's capital.

The effort to force a recount in Ohio has been led by the Green Party, which has raised $150,000 in 4 days. Ohio Secretary of State Kennneth Blackwell announced the formal certification of the recount on Monday, November 6. The Ohio Democratic Party has also joined the recount effort, albeit more quietly.

Regular updates can be found at: VoteCobb.org

Photos (at bottom of post).

As reported on portland indymedia and throughout the alternative press, the 2004 pResidential sElection was not "free and fair". Across the nation, voters were illegally disenfranchised before sElection Day, intimidated at the polls, had their registrations lost, or dealt with long lines and faulty equipment. Additionally, evidence has been piling up that hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes were discarded, miscounted, or electronically manipulated. People of color were disproportionally targeted. "Third party" candidates Ralph Nader (independent), David Cobb (Green), and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) have been pursuing legal means to demand recounts in various states, while independent researchers like Bev Harris of Black Box Voting have continued to uncover criminal shenanigans by election officials. Despite this critical mass of energy working toward justice, John Kerry has been nearly silent despite the resources allegedly collected for this very eventuality; either he and the Democratic Party leadership have no backbone (true in any case), or don't intend to win anyway.

Meanwhile, activists have been taking matters into their own hands, staging demonstrations across the nation, and planning to rally on and before Dec. 13, when electors will sit to certify their states' results.

[ Feature from Portland IMC I December 12th, at Noon, Everywhere: 51 Capital March ]

Fred Phelp's Baptist Congregation showed up on Thursday to protest the Fayetteville High School Gay Straight Alliance on Thursday.They numbered a little over ten. Hundreds of students and community members poured onto the lawn of the school to counterprotest, proving that nothing can unite a community like an ignorant bigot. The crowd was very loud and someone from the back of the crowd threw some projectiles at the bigots. One woman reported being hit wiht a rock and a corporate reporter was struck with a plastic bottle. BMONK has compiled an excellent short video of the afternoon.

56Kbs Version: http://arkansas.indymedia.org/media/all/display/1605/index.php?limit_start=12

100Kbs Version: http://arkansas.indymedia.org/media/all/display/1606/index.php?limit_start=12

300Kbs Version: http://arkansas.indymedia.org/media/all/display/1607/index.php?limit_start=12

VCD Version: http://arkansas.indymedia.org/media/all/display/1608/index.php?limit_start=12

12/12/2004: Gary Webb, an investigative journalist, author, and recent legislative staffer, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head Friday in an "apparent suicide" in his suburban Sacramento home. He was 49 years old. He had been a staff writer for the San Jose Mercury News from 1989 to 1997, he exposed freeway retrofitting problems in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and also wrote stories about the Department of Motor Vehicles' computer software fiascos. He had also been a Guest Editor for NarcoNews.

Webb was perhaps best known for sparking a national controversy with a 1996 story that exposed how supporters of a CIA-backed guerrilla army in Nicaragua helped trigger America's crack-cocaine epidemic in the 1980s. The Dark Alliance series in the Mercury News came under fire by other news organizations, and the paper decided that the series did not meet its journalistic standards. Webb resigned a year and a half after the series appeared in the paper. He then published his book, ``Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion".

During the last several years, Webb had worked in the California Assembly Speaker's Office of Member Services and for the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. The committee investigated charges that Oracle received a no-bid contract from Gov. Gray Davis. Most recently, he worked for the weekly Sacramento News and Review.

The Dark Alliance Series | The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations | Read More On Indybay's Drug War Page

Coverage from Portland IMC: Gary Webb, exposer of CIA complicity in cocaine trade, found dead at home

This past weekend the Radical Encuentro Camp was held at MECA in Houston's sixth ward. The Radical Encuentro Camp is something of a radical Texas institution, this being the 7th camp in 4 years. Nearly 200 people from all parts of Texas as well as folks from New York, California and Louisiana showed up to learn and teach skills relating to this year's theme of post-election strategy and moving from resistance to revolutionary consciousness.

The Camp started with a filmscreening about workers control of factories in Argentina, on Friday night at the Rice Media Center. The camp continued at MECA on Saturday and Sunday with 2 days of workshops, on a variety of subjects including Anti-Racism, Bio-Diesel, Creative Action and Gentrification. Houston Indymedia held a well attended workshop on both the history and theory of Indymedia, and then broke into groups to disscuss media production in photo, video, text and audio teams.
What were your favorite workshops?

The weekend ended for some with a radical bike tour of Houston, which treated participating cyclists with some of the rich radical history of our town.

The weekend was made possible by the volunteer efforts of many people, the camp organizers, the workshop presenters, people who helped in the kitchen and with childcare and cleaning up.

Read a report on the camp from North Texas IMC | Check out the last announcements and evaluation from the REC organizers

Today at 6PM, BlackBox Radio's first show will air on WCBN-FM (88.3FM in Ann Arbor). BlackBox Radio came out of the success of the Michigan Independent Media Center's N2 and N3 live radio coverage. BlackBox Radio is produced in the studios of WCBN and can be heard every Tuesday from 6:00-6:30PM. It will also be available for download from the MichiganIMC.

On this week's show: SAFE and divestment from Israel, Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality, the Protest Art Show, and the Men Against Violence Against Women Campaign.

BlackBox Radio is an all-volunteer group comprised of students and non-students from the Ann Arbor area. There are opportunities to get involved in many ways, including research, field recording, interviewing, audio editing, and more.

Listen to the show! [high quality (25.3MB) | lower quality (15.8MB)]

To send feedback or learn more, email mi-radio AT lists.michiganimc.org.

Five Southeastern Michigan area banks (Standard Federal, Bank One, Comerica, National City and Huntington Bank) were listed as "generous sponsors" of "Michigan Friends of the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces]" in a recent full-page ad in the Detroit Jewish News (10/22/04). We have confirmed that each of these banks contributed to “Michigan Friends of the IDF.” They have explained/justified their action as possible “bad judgment” carried out by “minor bank functionaries”. They have refused, however, to repudiate the ad or to take any public corrective measures. While we recognize that some of these banks, especially Comerica, have made contributions to organizations which work to mitigate the suffering in the Middle East, we believe that any donations which lead to supporting the Israeli military are egregious errors which only encourage further abuse of human rights and justice in this volatile part of the world. They must be confronted and cannot be allowed to stand.

Action against five Southeast Michigan banks over their support of Israeli military
TIME: Friday, December 17, 2004, 3:30-5:00 PM
PLACE: Main Street, between Huron and Washington, downtown Ann Arbor, MI
CONTACT PERSON: William Thomson (734) 668-8479, wthomson (nospam) umich.edu

Recent coverage: ADC protests IDF sponsorship by Michigan banks | Palestine is still the issue in Ann Arbor

November 17, 2004 will be remembered as another sad day for the Earth Liberation front and the radical activist community. On trial for the ELF action of torching SUVs in Southern California, William 'Billy' Cottrell took the witness stand in his defense.

Accused of more than $2.3 million dollars of property damage, I can imagine the fear Billy felt facing decades in prison. Many activists, past and present, remember that feeling all too well. For some it was our finest moment, if also most painful, as we stood before the state proud and unwavering.

Perhaps, the truest test of our warrior spirit can be found in the courtroom. Undoubtedly, our movement's defining moment will be how steadfast we stand when facing the full repression of the state.

Wisconsin native and journalist Kelly Bornshlegel is currently being held in the Hadera Detention Centre in Israel, awaiting probable deportation. Kelly was arrested on Tuesday while filming a peaceful demonstration outside Ramallah in the Palestinian territories. WORT reporter Chris Hartley spoke with her by phone from prison on Thursday, Dec. 16th.

Click here for the audio.

Kelly Bornshlegel Awaits Deportation 19 Dec 2004

An update on the case of Kelly Bornshlegel, a journalist from Madison,who is currently being held in an Israeli detention center. This story ran on WORT's feminist news program, Her Turn, heard on Sundays from 11 to 11:30 AM.

Click here for the audio.

DEARBORN - The Arab American community was outraged after seeing an ad in the Detroit Jewish News last month in which five major Southeastern Michigan area banks, including Standard Federal, Bank One, Comerica, National City and Huntington Bank, were listed as "generous supporters" of the Michigan Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces. Comerica was listed at a "Prime Minister Sponsorship level, Standard Federal, Bank One and National City were listed at a "Chief of Staff Sponsorship" level and Huntington National Bank was listed at a "Colonel Sponsorship" level.

Every Wednesday from Noon to 1pm People are gathering at 112 East 11th (in front of the State Capitol) to protest acts of violence around the world. This is a part of worldwide protests and all people are encouraged to come support the vigil.

At least a dozen Women in Black show up each week in front of the holiday tree. There are constant signs of support from passers-by as 'Amazing Grace' and other songs are played on the bagpipes. These vigils have been maintained in Austin since September 2001 to denounce all forms of violence and began worldwide after Israeli women gathered in Jerusalem to protest the treatment of Palestinians in the Israeli-Occupied Territories. Women wear black to mourn the victims of violence everywhere.

Pictures: here
For more info see www.austinwomeninblack.org and for worldwide info see www.womeninblack.org.

Also a weekly vigil is held in front of the capitol every Friday at 5pm. [Read More]

NYC IMC Alleges Pattern of Harassment.

The New York City Independent Media Center filed a response December 14 in United States District Court to a subpoena from the New York City Law Department.

The subpoena, part of a civil suit in which New York City is a defendant, demands voluminous information, including all of the Independent Media Center's news reporting, emails, internal documents, and web pages relating to the World Economic Forum.

As the NYC IMC detailed in its response, the request violates reporter's privilege by seeking information that is available through other sources and that is not highly relevant to the claim.

"Why doesn't the City ask the New York Times for all of their articles and emails relating to the World Economic Forum?" Arun Gupta, an editor of the NYC IMC newspaper, The Indypendent, said.

The subpoena is the fourth time since August 2004 that US law enforcement has taken legal action against the Independent Media Center. Three of the four subpoenas have been issued in New York City.

"Four legal actions in as many months is a lot for any organization, but especially a news outlet. This is a pattern of harassment," said Joshua Breitbart, Director of Allied Media Projects, which is advising the NYC IMC.

Contact
Full Record of NYC IMC Subpoenas and Responses
Donate to the NYC IMC

We are contacting you as an important member of the independent media community to ask you to participate in, support or promote independent media coverage of the upcoming presidential inauguration in January. From Jan. 10 through Jan. 24, independent media makers will converge in the nation’s capital to provide continuous coverage of the inauguration through video, photography, radio, print, and web postings.

We are a group of independent media makers in Washington, DC that has formed to help facilitate and coordinate coverage of the inauguration. For more information, please visit our website at www.inaugurationmedia.org. A list of our needs follows at the end of this letter, along with information on how to join out listserves. Information about specific media projects during the inauguration will be available on our website in the coming weeks.

See Also >> Counter-Inaugural.org Holds Press Conference 12/22/04

On January 6th, 2005 there will be a "Block Bush Insurrection Rally" at the DC Capitol. That day is when the electoral votes, which will have been sealed and sent to the President of the U.S. Senate, are to be read aloud to both Houses of Congress. The No Stolen Elections campaign says that if one member of the House and one member of the Senate object to the certification of the vote, then all members of Congress will finally discuss these issues so they are urging people to call their Congresspeople and Senators. Locally and nationwide, voters are concerned about voter suppression and disenfranchisement, especially in African-American and Hispanic communities. Folks Don't Get It: On African-American voter disenfranchisement in the 2004 election | Against the House: It's a Rigged Game

US Voting Integrity Project | 51 Capital March.com | Contest the Vote | Voter Bill of Rights from Code Pink's website

A new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition has found that the cost of rental housing in the United States is out of reach for the majority of low wage earners, including elderly and disabled people with public income benefits. The report states that a third of the nation has difficulty affording rent and most often choose between paying rent and other expenses such as food. In 2004, the cost of rent continued to grow faster than wages and there is not a single jurisdiction in the country where a person working full-time at minimum-wage can afford a two bedroom rental home.

Here in Michigan, a person earning the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour must work 105 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the Fair Market Rent rate of $706 per month.

See also: Taking over the take over

There was a press release sent out announcing a press conference and Rogue IMC volunteers showed up to cover the story. We made a video which we invite you to take a look at.

Pacific Retirement Services EVICTS Crest Imperial Mobile Home folks

The three Salinas Public Libraries will close for an indefinite period of time soon after January 1, 2005. According to the website for the Salinas Public Libraries, these closures are part of the 9.2 million dollars in the service reductions incurred by the City of Salinas due to loss of revenues from the State of California, higher fees imposed by Monterey County, slower than expected economic recovery, and increased costs of employee health insurance and retirement benefits. Exact dates and details are to be determined. The Salinas Public Libraries may close in July, 2005 according to an interview on KCRW with Anna Caballero, Mayor of Salinas.

Reduced Hours Effective January 11, 2005

Audio: Salinas City Concil Votes to Shutter Libraries

[ Salinas Public Library I Friends of the Salinas Public Library ]