News

ESPN Zone Workers Raise Legal Issues Against Closure By: Ron Kipling Williams

creidy — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:34:46 -0400

Workers at the ESPN Zone gathered in front of their former employer at a press conference on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 to express their outrage and to raise legal issues regarding their termination and treatment.

The Disney Corporation announced on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 they would be shutting down the following week – Tuesday, June 15, 2010 – its ESPN Zone locations in Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, Washington, and Baltimore, keeping its Los Angeles and Anaheim locations open.

However, according to workers, they were not supposed to know about the shut down before Tuesday.

Workers had to undergo the humiliation of learning about the restaurant establishment’s closure and their subsequent termination from local news.

After being an anchor in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for 12 years, workers were to arrive at ESPN Zone with its doors closed.

To add insult to injury, the severance agreement package that each of the 150 workers received did not compensate them for the amount of time they worked; only for the last six months from January to June – the slowest period of the year, particularly in lieu of February’s blizzard. This meant workers received compensation from their lowest paychecks.

The severance agreement also stipulated workers could not file for unemployment compensation until 60 days after ESPN Zone’s closure on June 15.

All direct deposit pay checks were halted, causing delays in payments to child care, rent and mortgage payments, utilities and others. Many were forced immediately to seek work. Others had to drop out of school.

Backed by the United Workers, a human rights organization of low-wage workers, ESPN Workers revealed during the press conference that their former employer is in legal violation of their rights, and demanded that the corporation come under compliance.

In a letter addressed to Disney and ESPN dated June 30,2010, J. Peter Sabonis and Nathaniel Norton, attorneys for United Workers ESPN Zone Human Rights Committee cited the WARN Act, a federal law that requires employers to give workers 60 days notice prior to shut down.

Because the restaurant chain failed to do so, the attorneys are demanding that ESPN workers receive 60 days ‘at a regular rate of pay which is the higher of our last pay check or our average pay over the last three years – and that includes overtime.’

This reporter attempted to contact Disney for comment, but no one responded.

ESPN Workers and the United Workers both hold the Cordish Co. responsible as well, who control the building in which ESPN Zone operated.

“I know it wasn’t Cordish that personally treated ESPN workers the way they did, but they knew about it,” said Shawn Green, a 9-year ESPN worker. “Whoever they’ve got in their building, they should make sure they are going to treat their employees fairly. They’ve got to be held to that standard too.”

Workers gave Disney owned ESPN a seven day deadline to meet with them regarding their demands.

“They were just there to make money off us,” said Leonard Gray, a cook at ESPN of over six years. “We were the backbone. We made the ESPN how it is and how they got rid of us is real bad and I know they know that. Don’t try to sugarcoat it. We are human beings. How are we going to live now?”

Iraq Veteran Undergoes Second Surgery After 2008 Police Attack - By Ryan Harvey

john — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:06:50 -0400

Originally published at Even If Your Voice Shakes

An Iraq war veteran has undergone a second surgery to treat wounds received when a police horse crushed his face during an anti-war demonstration outside of the 2008 Presidential Debates in New York.

Nick Morgan, a former Sergeant who served in Iraq from 2004-2005 with the 1st Cavalry Division, was standing on a sidewalk across from Long Island’s Hofstra University with a group of uniformed veterans when they were attacked by police.

The veterans had been demanding a voice inside the debates concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the treatment of returning veterans. “We wanted to ask a question at the Presidential debate that was relevant to us”, Nick said in an interview Saturday. “The sad fact is that they wanted to keep the presidential debate closed… they didn’t want anyone directly effected by these issues to actually speak their mind.”

Veterans organized through Iraq Veterans Against the War gathered outside of the debates to follow large marches they had organized in Denver and St. Paul outside of the political conventions in the summer of 2008. They intended to keep pressure on both parties.

They were assembled outside Hofstra to demand entrance to the debates, which they said they had a right to do as veterans directly affected by the wars. After police denied them access, several veterans non-violently submitted to arrest. The police then turned violent, pushing the crowd of approximately 200 to 300 onto a sidewalk across the street from the University. At that point, police used batons and horses to push the crowd further, knocking Morgan and several others over.

It was then that the flashes of cameras illuminated a horrifying scene; a police horse which witnesses say had been wildly thrashing around throughout the night leaped in the air, landing it’s hind legs directly on Nick Morgan’s face. Luckily, a crushed cheekbone and orbital (the bone around his right eye), a concussion, severley bruised ribs, and a broken nose were the extent of Nick’s injuries. It could has been worse.

“A lot of people thought I was dead on the spot.” Nick recalls. A uniformed soldier lay unconscious on the sidewalk, his blood-stained hat by his side. It was a scene more reminiscent of the wars than of a small demonstration on Long Island.

I was one of the first witnesses to arrive at the scene along with a few of Nick’s fellow Iraq veterans. As we knelt down to check on his vital signs and protect him from the hoofs around his face, we were pushed away by police who proceeded to drag him across the intersection, ignoring our calls for an ambulance.

Nick was thrown into a police van where he was denied medical attention. “I was told that I had declined medical treatment”, he said. “My friends (fellow veterans and civilian allies) pleaded for medical attention, and I was eventually handcuffed to a gurney and brought to a hospital. I was handcuffed to a gurney the whole time I was in the hospital”.

After receiving limited initial treatment, Nick was placed back in jail where he and 14 others were charged with Disorderly Conduct. The incident left Nick feeling “betrayed in the fact that I would expect more from officials of the state in regards to their treatment of military veterans who simply wanted to redress their grievances and be part of a legitimate dialogue in the mainstream on veteran issues.”

A week later, Nick underwent surgery to keep his eye from sliding into his sinus cavity, and to hold the shattered bones in his face together. Absorbable plates were inserted around his eyes to keeps his orbital bones together and a titanium plate remains screwed across his cheekbone. He coughed up blood and suffered bloody noses for two months after the attack, and his vision was impeded up until now by scar tissue in his eyelid, a complication from the first surgery.

On June 10, after a 7-month stay on a VA waiting list, a specialized surgeon seared Nick’s original wound open to snip off the scar tissue. “There was a burning puff of flesh going across my face,” Nick says, explaining how he was awake during the procedure, “a smell I’m unfortunately familiar with.”

The successful surgery took 30 minutes and Nick is recovering well. But he will continue to deal with the effects of the attack, and he does not know if we will ever be able to sleep on the right side of his face again. “I also can’t take pressure underwater very well,” he says, “I wanted to be somewhat of a scuba diver before this.”

LAWSUIT AND HEALING

Months after the arrests, all charges were dropped against the “Hempstead 15″, but Nick and his team of allies would not let the story end here. They filed a lawsuit in September 2009 against the Nassua county police and several power-holders in the town of Hempstead. “The lawsuit is very lengthy,” he explained. ” it includes violations of my 1st, 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments rights, as well as local civil rights and statutory laws.

The lawsuit centers around gross negligence, a charge that pales in comparison to the fact that he could have easily been killed had the horse’s hooves landed a few centimeters in one direction or the other.

“Nassau county police responded to the lawsuit in November with a motion to dismiss the case against me”, Nick told me, explaining that this was an attempt to silence him and shut the case. “In turn, we sent an amended claim, added another person to it, and fine-tuned the language of it.”

Currently Nick and his team are waiting for a Judge to move the case forward to open a discoveries period. “I can’t imagine any reason why the Judge would deny the case,” he says. “There’s overwhelming video footage, photos, and eye-witness accounts to the attacks.”

On December 15^th, with the case against the Nassua County Police taking root, the case against Nick and the other “Hempstead 15″ were dropped.

On the other side of Nick’s shattered bones there’s emotional scars and trauma from the attack, which compound with his 70 percent Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder rating after his combat tour in Iraq.

Nick was in the Army Reserve was he got his orders to Iraq; “On Veteran’s Day 2003 I got a phone call saying pack your shit, we’re going.” This abrupt change would be the first in a series of hard experiences that would lead Nick to oppose the war. “I had to report two days later, withdraw from school, say my goodbyes… I had a day to pack up my life and go to war”. Two years after returning from Iraq, Nick found Iraq Veterans Against the War and became an active-member.

But the police attack at Hofstra forced Nick to step back from the work while he healed, and caused him to lose faith in the police. He told me that this loss of faith also “extends to our political process, which tends to make piss poor leadership decisions in this country, which as we can see, hasn’t gotten us in a very good place.”

Nick took a job with Veterans Green Jobs in Colorado, where he helped other veterans get on their feet with job placement and through environmental stewardship. More recently, he got re-involved again in Iraq Veterans Against the War, and in the newly formed UXO Tour, a music tour to help support veterans and active-duty military personnel who oppose the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Getting back involved and re-building connections helped Nick through the process, he told me. “Reintegrating into a community where I feel supported and nurtured really goes a long way in healing those mental wounds. I feel like I’ve come a long way in healing mentally from this.”

More information of Iraq Veterans Against the War can be found at www.ivaw.org. For more on the UXO Tour, see www.uxotour.com.

The People's Journey, The 2640 Space

creidy — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:24:14 -0400

We're honored and excited to work with the Civilian-Soldier Alliance and Iraq Veterans Against the War to welcome to 2640 The People's Journey Tour.

In an effort to raise further awareness about the cost of war, Josh Stieber, a conscientous observer and one of those who worked to reveal the now infamous wikileaks video, has decided to take his message on the road. Together with five other witnesses to war, including a former Marine who was in Fallujah, and an Iraqi refugee, Stieberâs tour will educate audiences nationwide about the realities of war and what can be done to avoid it. Students from Afghanistan will also share their perspectives through skype calls.

BACKGROUND ON SPEAKERS

JOSH STIEBER: Branch of service: Army, Infantry (B. Co 2-16). Place of Deployment: New Baghdad.

CONOR CURRAN: Branch of service: Marine Corps, Combat Engineer. PLaces of Deployment: Fallujah, Ramadi

SALAM TALIB: Journalist and computer engineer from Iraq and has also been active in designing databases for numerous NGOs which work with disabled Iraqis.

SALMA SHAWA: 13-year-old student in Gaza. On Jan. 2, 2009, an Israeli air strike destroyed most of her school. Salma was among the students interviewed by the international media that flooded the Strip following the strike.

LAILA SAMHADANA: 12, attended the American International School with Salma until Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2006 and her family fled to Cairo.

PAM BAILEY: Volunteer who has been living in Gaza recently and will be chaperoning Salma and Laila

OUR JOURNEY TO SMILE: A group of Afghan students who were denied visas to physically be on the tour, will be there virtually, through skype calls.

Official website: http://www.thepeoplesjourney.org/

From www.thepeoplesjourney.org:

What is The People's Journey Tour (Part I):

Two Iraq War vets and an Iraqi refugee will begin The Peopleâs Journey on June 2, 2010 from San Francisco. They will speak to groups about their experiences each day as they travel across the US and will be joined by three women from Palestine two weeks later in Washington DC. The group of six then travel to all speak in New York City, then in Detroit at the US Social Forum, reaching the Pacific Northwest by the fourth of July. Their messages is positive about the possibility of peace, and does not point a finger at a set of âwrong-doers.â

Josh Stieber, Conor Curran, and Salam Talib, two Iraq War veterans and their Iraqi refugee friend respectively, have joined forces to spread a message of peace. For them âThe Peopleâs Journey,â forms a continuation of a trek Stieber completed last year which he called the âContagious Love Experiment.â Stieber and Curran, who joined Josh in the middle of that first cross-country trip, met Talib during their final stop, in the San Francisco Bay area where they became friends.

The Peopleâs Journey was conceived by an inspiring group of youth from Afghanistan as a result of their conversations with Josh and other young people in Afghanistan, the US, Israel/Palestine and Iraq. It became very clear that when people truly listen to one another that they want to hear more and soon get to know each other. This direct communication â hearing each others voices, their stories of life during war, and everyoneâs yearning for peace â led to a level of caring, or love, that will no longer allow for harm. The Peopleâs Journey to a Peace Beyond Dismissal is posted here and is available to all who attend the tour presentations.

Twenty-Four Anti-Torture Activists Acquitted in Trial for Protest at the US Capitol Calling for Guantanamo's Closure

john — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:32:08 -0400

For Immediate Release, June 15, 2010

Contact: Jeremy Varon: M: 732-979-3119 jvaron@aol.com
Helen Schietinger: M: 202-344-5762 h.schietinger@verizon.net

WASHINGTON, D.C. - On Monday, June 14, twenty-four activists with Witness Against Torture were acquitted in Washington, D.C. Superior Court of charges of “unlawful entry with disorderly conduct.” The charges stemmed from demonstrations at the US Capitol on January 21,2010 - the date by which President Obama had promised the closure of the Guantanamo detention camp.

“With his decision, the judge validated the effort of the demonstrators to condemn the ongoing crime of indefinite detention at Guantanamo,”says Bill Quigley, legal adviser to the defendants and the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

“Our acquittal is a victory for free speech and for the right of Americans to stand up for those falsely imprisoned and abused at Guantanamo,” says Ellen Graves, one of the defendants. “We tried to shine a light on the unconstitutional policies of the Bush and now the Obama administrations. That light shone brightly today.”

“We will use our freedom to continue to work for the day when Guantanamo is closed and those who designed and carried out torture policies are held to account,” says defendant Paul Thorson.

On January 21, activists dressed as Guantanamo prisoners were arrested on the steps of the Capitol holding banners reading “Broken Promises,Broken Laws, Broken Lives.” Inside the Capitol Rotunda, at the location where deceased presidents lie in state, fourteen activists were arrested performing a memorial service for three men who died at Guantanamo in 2006. Initially reported as suicides, the deaths may have been - as recent evidence suggests - the result of the men being tortured to death (see Scott Horton, “Murders at Guantanamo, March2010, Harpers).

***********
Witness Against Torture formed in December 2005 when twenty-five activists walked to Guantanamo to visit the prisoners and condemn torture policies. Since then, it has engaged in public education,community outreach, and non-violent civil disobedience. To learn more visit http://www.witnesstorture.org

An Island Under a Bridge - Umar Farooq

gadfly — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 21:41:11 -0400

People driving past the Island bring him things: food, furniture, and appliances. For the last few weeks JT's space, on the median under the Franklin St. overpass, has looked like a typical bachelor's living room.

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Update: Since the publication of this article, JT has received a Section-8 voucher for housing assistance, which he had been on a waiting list for for about six years. The Island is gone, but he can still be found selling water there on most afternoons.

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"You see that Social Security building over there, with the walkway? I used to live there with my grandma," JT says, pointing to the immense building straddling both sides of Mulberry St. near Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, “Mulberry and Pearle.”

In the afternoon heat, he swigs every now and then from the bottle inside the plastic bag in his hands. Nearby, an older friend of JT's is selling copies of the Sun to people driving by.

“You must have been real little”, he says, and mentions that he used to live nearby as well. An old woman in a wheelchair periodically gets up to walk over to take the change being offered by drivers.

“How long have you been at the ...the Island?” I ask, pointing towards the overpass nearby. JT says, “six years.” I don't remember seeing anything that caught my eye there more than a few months ago, and he explains that his belongings have been removed by the City 13 times. “They come and take it, but I just get more.”

There's a couch, a love seat, and a couple of swivel office chairs. A broom is standing in one corner, and street signs warn trespassers and cars from his doorstep. Shirts hang from a nearby tree that serves as a closet. A box fan sits on top of a plastic crate, and an old television sits on another. “Folks trip when they see the fan – like now, when the wind hits it." The fan spins, but it's not plugged in.

A young man sets up nearby; he has a cooler with water bottles he begins selling to the drivers.

A deflated air mattress is spread out near the love seat, and a square of cardboard acts as a rug between the television and the couch. “People drive by, see me cleanin' up. They stop and talk."

JT mentions a few of his friends that live in the area, and gives a shout out to a handful that happen to pass by. He lives here alone.

“Im a God fearin' man. I wake up every morning thankful for making it through,” he says.

There's plenty of space in the grass between the side of the road and the cement pillar of the overpass, but he prefers to stay out in the open. People driving past take pictures of him, putting them on Facebook, he says. During afternoon rush hours one can find JT catching up with friends that drive by The Island, calling out greetings across lanes of traffic waiting for the light to change to green.

A man walks past us up MLK, and I mention I have seen him panhandling often near the corner of N. Howard Street.

“Sometimes people take my things, or just knock stuff over. Like I'll go to the store to get something, and come back to find something gone,” JT mentions. He sometimes shares food with the handful of people that spend their time on the busy corridor.

During the blizzard, he says, “I got me a bucket and put some bleach in it, used it for a bathroom, put up some tarp and slept under 42 blankets for two days.”

I ask him how he ended up on the street, and he vaguely answers that he left his home because of some trouble, but can go back if he wants to. Every so often his mother, who lives in Baltimore, stops by with some food.

"As soon as I get done with you, I'm gonna go get some ice and water,” he explains. $2 for a bag of ice, a few more for a case of water bottles, and JT can usually raise enough these days to get something to eat, sometimes from the Silver Moon cafe on W. Baltimore St, or the handful of Chinese places nearby. “People buy a bottle, give me a $5, $10, $20, tell me to keep the rest," he explains.

"Do you have any trouble sleeping at night because of the busy street?” I ask.

“Nope, I have no trouble falling asleep,” he says. Many nights he is asleep well before midnight, a solitary figure on a bed in an apartment without walls.

For memorial day, in memory of all who have died as a result of wars worldwide, for peace and justice - Ryan Harvey

ericimhof — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:40:11 -0400

I don’t blame the ones who built the bomb, I blame the ones who built the war.

---

Austin Koth grew up on my street and taught me some of the basics of life, like the word “Fuck”. He also taught me how to dive, how to play hide and seek, and how to take risks. We once took inner tubes down the creek nearby after a huge snow storm melted, ending up miles away and walking home. My parents were not too pleased.

But he was still allowed to babysit me, and probably saw a lot more of my growing moments than I did of his. But I did see some of his, and I recall his decision to enter the Navy, after which I did not see as much of him.

Stin was the kind of guy that everyone in the neighborhood knew and remembered. During a truth-or-dare game, he would end up in a speedo, sneaking into a neighbors pool in the middle of the night and doing laps. He was known to sneak into the local public swimming pool in the middle of the night, or do crazy shit off home-made jumps on a snowboard, down otherwise boring backyard hills.

When it became known that he was deploying to Iraq for a 6-month tour, I was a bit numb. A guy from my highschool had been killed in Iraq and another was heading there. I didn’t want to think of Austin filling a local hole because of some bullshit mission to find nonexistent weapons at the behest of George Bush. The war I had stood against with all of my being had become a very real thing in my personal life.

The last time I saw him was Christmas, 2005. I told him right before he deployed to be careful, and he could tell from my glance I really meant; “Don’t fucking die in this bullshit”. I had been protesting since 9/11 against a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. He knew I was an instrumental part of the walkouts the day the war started, when I, along with 300 others, shut down Towson, Maryland in the freezing rain for the whole day.

He also knew that George Bush was an asshole, but this asshole was his Commander in Chief, and he wanted to be part of the story all his fellow service-members were part of. He knew the justification behind the war was full of lies and deceit, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that hundreds of thousands of his buddies were going over there and so was he.

Stin was the last person to back down from a dare. So it was no surprise when he was deployed in early 2006 with a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, to identify and diffuse or detonate roadside bombs (IEDs). These units, made famous recently with the award-winning film “The Hurt Locker”, suffer the highest casualty rates throughout the Iraq-occupation.
I spent months waking up to open the newspaper, waiting to see his name. Every day I had the same horrible feeling in my stomach as I read through the names of the dead, sometimes a dozen U.S. troops a day. 822 U.S. troops died that year.

That summer I was put in touch with a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who wanted to be part of an anti-war tour I was organizing, mixing music and organizing. The Veterans were all members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, which was just starting to really take off as a group. I moved back east from California to organize the tour, staying at my parent’s house and doing non-stop phone calls and emails. Occasionally I ventured to other states to play shows.

On a short tour I played a show in New York at Bluestockings Books, a radical activist coffee shop in the Lower East Side. That night, for some reason I didn’t play the song I had written about Austin’s deployment, I played it at every show in that time period, it’s a song called “In The Blink of an Eye”. That night for some reason it didn’t feel right. Maybe I didn’t want to think about it. Maybe some more powerful force kept it from my hands and lips;

They’ve got bombs on the road / You’ve got bombs in the sky / So many dying / For a flag to fly / Everything could change / In the blink of an eye / So we hope you make it home alive

After the show, I got my phone out of my guitar case and saw several missed calls, all from family members. I knew someone had died, but who? My mother? A friend? I started shaking as I called my brother.

Brett answered in a flat, low voice. “Do you have somewhere to sit down”. “Who died? Who died?”

“Stin. Stin’s dead.”

That was all I needed. Motherfucker. God damnit. This fucking war. Austin fucking Koth. What the fuck?

Austin had been blown to shit by an IED at Camp Victory, planted by members of the Iraqi military moonlighting as insurgents. But I didn’t blame them.

And how would you react / If soldiers occupied our streets? / Would you fight in the name of your country / Like Muhammed and Khalid?

I blamed the politicians who sent Austin and a million others from my generation into Iraq to walk around in circles to defend the interests of a mob of U.S. corporations and Pentagon brass with something to prove to (and take from) the world.

We took this nation’s world / And everybody knows what for / I don’t blame the ones who built the bomb / I blame the ones who built the war

I blamed George Bush and his cabinet’s violent, possessive fantasies.

After getting the news I hung up with my brother. My anger nearly surpassed my grief, but both flowed together. I took some time to myself hunched over in a corner before making a few more calls. A group of friends who were nearby took me to the East river and my friends Jay and Rosie got me the most important 40 oz. of my life. I let the river, alcohol, and compassion of friends keep me safe.

Then I traveled home to face the reality of the situation.

A closed casket served as a grim introduction to Austin’s injuries. His shoulder had been ripped off his body, completely blown apart. His face and chest were probably gone. At least he was killed instantly.

And I knew some fresh-faced sailor somewhere was training to fill his bloody boots.
Stepping away from the coffin, I found myself looking at his picture book, mostly memories of good days past. I was fine until I came to the photo of his unit standing with his Field Memorial. It was his helmet, his rifle, his boots. I lost it. That image is burned in my mind. That’s my friend, a fucking gun and a helmet. That’s it.

As the viewing ended, I realized there were metal pins people had on with a Field Memorial insignia on them. I looked in the basket but they were all gone, I was gonna flip out; “Can I get a fucking pin”, I thought. “For my friend?!” As I walked away a man I did not know came up to me with a pin, it was his personal one, but he gave it to me without a word. His look told me he was former military, and he understood that I needed it more than him. Whoever he was, I think about him often. At least some glimpse of positive humanity lingers in my mind when I look at that pin, which sits on the mirror in my truck to give me a daily reminder of the human costs of war and the beauty of good friends.

I made my final peace with Austin over his coffin, in a graveyard that sits right across from the high school I had dropped out of 6 years earlier. I vowed to continue my efforts to end war. I vowed on his life to exit my comfort zone if it meant being effective, to take risks, to throw myself into the work and dedicate a portion of my life to confronting and overcoming future conflicts.

When the rifles were fired in his honor, I felt the violence of war. I understood the cracking of those bullets to signify the horrible way in which millions and millions of people in this world have met an early and disgusting death. I will never forget the intensity of that moment and the weight that it carries.

The funeral ended with Stin’s mother getting the flag that covered his coffin, which I wanted to destroy. “Fucking flag, they replaced him with this flag. They did this to him for this flag. What does that flag have to do with us?” I didn’t see it. Others did, and I respected that, but the idea of replacing a mother’s love for her son with a flag will never make any sense to me.

“Thanks for your son, Ma’am, here’s a flag we got at the Walmart.”

Stin - the dude who would run down the street and leap over the biggest bush, or free hand climb up the dangerous rocky slope behind the mall- dead in Iraq. Dead in a war that generations in the future will look back on in anger and sadness, wondering just what the hell we were thinking.

Those of us from my generation will look back on these years and remember the friends and family members we lost, and reflect on the lives that were taken in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stin’s real memorial, the one that means the most to those of us who grew up with his charismatic and life-loving energy, is a bench behind my childhood home. We all used to pass time there doing mostly illegal but also legal things. We talked philosophy, politics, bullshit, and more. We developed funny mythology about our neighborhood, naming trees, reflecting on funny things from the past.

The original bench was sawed in multiple pieces one night and littered with Christian pamphlets. We think one of our friends had a wild religious episode and decided this was the site of sin. So after Stin’s death some of his closest friends got a new bench, with a gold plaque for him on it. It reads:

Edward Austin Koth -  Born June 27, 1976 – Towson, MD. Died July 26, 2006 – Baghdad, Iraq.

Hopefully I will sit on this when I’m an old man and reflect on the life of this great dude.
For my part, I continue to uphold the oath I took over his coffin. I also carry on his legacy in a funnier way; whenever I stand at a cold body of water which one would have to a be a nut to get in, I harness his energy and I dare myself in his honor to throw myself in the way he would. I don’t always do it with the speed and willingness that he would, but eventually I pull it off!

That’s his spirit, and that’s how I keep a little piece of him alive inside of me.

United Workers and Allies Celebrate Our Harbor Day (RON KIPLING WILLIAMS)

john — Fri, 07 May 2010 10:40:33 -0400

Every year around the world countries celebrate International Workers Day or Labor Day on May 1 – commonly known as May Day.

For the youngest republic in the industrialized world it also marks the anniversary of the 1886 Haymarket massacre – a three-day strike for an 8-hour work day that took place in Chicago, Ill, which turned violent when police fired on demonstrators, killing several as well as fellow officers.

On a sunny first day of May in 2010, the United Workers and its coalition of workers organized and played out a day long celebration that stretched from Charles Village to downtown to Federal Hill and Fells Point.

They gathered at 11:00am for breakfast at Red Emmas at 2640, St. Johns Church, to rally the troops and rehearse for the day’s activities. The church was electric as organizers from around the country spoke about their particular struggles, and reaffirmed the need to build relationships and continue the centuries’ long movement for workers’ rights and human dignity nationwide.

“We are not individuals overcome with cynicism,” said Bill Moyer, head of the Seattle, WA-based Backbone campaign. “We are communities – we are united human beings.”

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), The International Workers of the World (IWW), The Poverty Initiative of NYC, the Baltimore Algebra Project, Media Mobilizing Project, and Backbone Campaign were among the organizations represented.

IVAW member Chantelle Bateman spent six months in the Marine Corps reserve, seven months of which were spent in Iraq. She experienced daily discrimination as a Black Muslim woman. When she left the corps she found herself homeless and unemployed. “Our struggles are connected,” said Bateman.

The United Workers – a human rights organization led by low-wage stadium workers composed across racial and cultural lines – was founded in 2002 at the Eutaw Street shelter – an abandoned firehouse turned shelter – by homeless day laborers. In 2007 they secured Maryland’s living wage and other workers rights, after a four-year campaign levied against the Maryland Stadium Authority (MSA). MSA, established by the Maryland General Assembly in 1986, manages Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium.

A year later on October 25, 2008 the United Workers extended their human rights campaign into the Downtown Inner Harbor, where developers General Growth Properties and Cordish companies own a majority of the commercial space. The United Workers declared the Inner Harbor a “Human Rights Zone” demanding work with dignity, education, and health care. Although the Harbor is Baltimore’s tourism hub, workers receive minimum wage and suffer under poor working conditions such as sexual harassment, being terminated due to pregnancy, stolen tips and unpaid wages, and working sick or injured.

Dominique Washington was employed at Five Guys, a small burger and fries chain. He recounted his experiences at the chain, including one instance where he was refused medical treatment and instead told to apply ointment on a burn he received while cooking. Washington shared his story on Morgan State University Radio’s The Marc Steiner show, and as result an investigation has been launched into Five Guys’ practices.

Stories and proclamations continued, articulated in both Spanish and English. Raquel Rojas worked at the Cheesecake Factory. She said she believed because it was such a popular restaurant, the workers would be treated fairly. Rojas had to miss work as a result of being ill, but because she lacked health insurance, she was forced to go to a community hospital. As a result of her illness, her employer systematically reduced her hours, forcing her eventually to quit. “That’s why I joined [The United Workers], for dignity and respect,” said Rojas.

The workers’ testimonies illustrated what the United Workers assert as the “Poverty Zone”, a tier system where the developers are at the top, vendors are in the middle, and workers are at the bottom. “This is about maintaining a system of power, where the poor are kept poor, and the rich get richer,” said United Workers organizer Luis Larin.

To overturn this dynamic, the United Workers and its allies are demanding that Cordish and GGP enter into a legally binding Economic Human Rights Agreement which outlines their three aforementioned items. “We’re not asking for it, we’re demanding it,” said Larin. “Before every worker, there is a human being that deserves human rights.”

United Workers organizer Carl Johnson led the movement in chants and song before they began preparing for their theatrical demonstrations called Neighborhood plays. School buses rolled downtown, stopping at Lexington Market, Fells Point and Federal Hill where activists staged three Neighborhood plays – Work, Earth and Education.

For an entire year, the United Workers and its allies planned for May Day. They rented a large studio and art space, engaged in a four-day Artful Activism Summit with the Backbone Campaign. Inner Harbor workers drove to Immokalee, FL in December 2009 where they met with farmworkers, and learned how to incorporate street plays, puppets, music and neighborhood parades for drawing attention and building community support for worker justice. Workers also participated in a day-long conference on Justice Theater held on the Saturday of Martin Luther King Day. The workshops were conducted by Theater Action Group and Nommo Theater, two artist/activist collectives who create theater for social change, using various models such as Brazilian theater director Augusto Boal’s internationally famous Theater of the Oppressed.

After the acts concluded, all three groups converged on City Hall, where a final Neighborhood play on workers’ struggles correlating with the Underground Railroad was presented, with a huge puppet of Harriet Tubman as the centerpiece. Another solidarity cry was sounded, as the movement marched toward the Inner Harbor.

One year ago, the closest the United Workers and their allies were allowed to the Inner Harbor grounds by Baltimore City Police was a median lot separated by a major thoroughfare. For the first time, they were able to enter into the Harbor grounds, entering on the south end, concluding at the pavilion adjacent to the Maryland Science Center.

Tourist onlookers had mixed reactions, much of it positive according to allies who were handing out the yellow Our Harbor Day pamphlets.

The workers’ delegation donned black and yellow signs that read “human rights”, “solidarity” and others.A small marching band core provided a ceremonial flair, as demonstrators chanted slogans like, “Who’s Harbor? Our Harbor!”

The intention of the workers is to grow in numbers and strength, making them a force to be reckoned with at the publicly subsidized, yet privately owned Downtown Inner Harbor.

United Workers ally and former leadership organizer Tom Kertes said, “Without time and work and community there will be no justice.” They hope the next time they demonstrate it will be at the front end of the Harbor where most tourists congregate, and in the process influence violators such as Five Guys, the Cheesecake Factory and Phillips Seafood to come to the bargaining table so that Inner Harbor workers can achieve their demands.“Our involvement makes history,” said Kertes. “Our solidarity is our power.”

Photographs and Video from May Day 2010: United Workers Our Harbor Day

john — Sat, 01 May 2010 18:40:23 -0400

On May 1st the United Workers marched for living wages and work with dignity, targeting the developers behind the Inner Harbor. "Our Harbor Day" mobilized three separate political theater performances and street marches (on "earth", "education", and "work") from the greater Baltimore social justice community, which converged on City Hall for a concluding performance followed by a march to and through the Inner Harbor itself.

Video: Click here for video from the morning convergence at 2640, the Education play on Federal Hill and subsequent march to the Inner Harbor, the main and final political theater piece performed in front of City Hall, and the concluding boisterous march to the Inner Harbor itself!

PhotosThe slideshow below documents the morning's convergence at 2640, the outdoor play and march for education justice led by activists from the Baltimore Algebra Project, and the big convergence downtown. Video and a wrapup coming soon...

Lessons from "Collateral Murder" by Josh Stieber

john — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:57:28 -0400

Reposted from www.contagiousloveexperiment.wordpress.com

If you watch "Collateral Murder" and are shocked, this is a perfectly natural reaction. How the discussion about it is framed however, makes a world of difference.

Speaking as a former soldier who was in the company on the ground in the video, who would have been in this video had I not angered my leaders and was left out of this mission, I am disappointed that this video has been used by some to cast such stronger moral indignation on the soldiers shown without looking at the deeper implications. It is easy to wash our hands of this blood; it is challenging but transformational to ask what we can do to provide alternatives. There is strong evidence that the decisions made were not an illustration simply of demented murders rather than soldiers doing as they were trained to do; this is not a moral statement, it's an observation based on:

1.David Finkel, a Washington Post reporter who was embedded with my unit, (again, the one shown on the ground in the video), wrote a detailed account of what took place during this mission shown on this video, almost describing it word for word in his popular book, The Good Soldiers. Despite the book's success, the outrage we are seeing came over this event only when it was seen visually and out of context rather than described in words.

2.In 2008, over 200 veterans and eye-witnesses came together to testify about many of the troubling events they witnessed in the Winter Soldier Testimonies, using many personal accounts of stories like "Collateral Murder" and worse; the mainstream media and general public took little, if any notice.

3.Discussion boards of predominantly military personal, are full of military members defending the actions of the soldier's decisions in this video.

My aim in writing about this is to create a conversation where we can address some very serious issues; but the way that discussion has been framed probably will not change anything. For those who have been harsh towards the soldiers involved, if moral indignation is your goal, you will not accomplish much. Those who agree with you still will and those who don't aren't going to want to learn from your perspective.

I personally grew up learning from most of society that war was an acceptable way to solve problems. The few anti-war voices that I heard came across as shrill and arrogant, giving me little incentive to want to learn from them. Since that time I have met many inspiring people working for peace with many important ideas, inspiring me to now devote much of my time towards peacemaking. But from the anti-war voices I heard before my military experience, I had no interest in listening to people talk about peace who seemed so arrogant and self-righteous.

Another important thing to note is that when I left the army a year ago I spent six months walking and biking across the country to speak about how I came to be a conscientious objector, promote the critical thinking that our common culture largely lacks, and attempt to find common ground with people of all persuasions to work towards creative ways of solving problems non-violently.

I spoke to dozens of audiences, beginning my talks by asking people to stand up if they cared about their families and friends. Then I told them that when I had asked myself the same question in high school, I was told many things would be in my best interest to do and say. I'd then tell them to repeat one of the things I was told and lead the audience in the following cadence that was sung regularly in my army experience:

I went down to the market/where all the women shop
I pulled out my machete/and I began to chop
I went down to the park/where all the children play
I pulled out my machine gun/and I began to spray

I could get audiences of even the most extreme peace activists would typically repeat this. My goal was to show how easy it can be to say and do horrible things when pressured by a leader telling them they were doing it in the interest of those they care about and by the pressure of those around them also standing and repeating. I am not morally justifying these cadences, but I am saying that this is how the system is and this is how it slowly eats away the consciences of idealistic young people and if we want to change this system, we must first understand it.

I am not morally justifying what happened in "Collateral Murder," but I do want to explain that based on military training, what was done is to be expected; it indicates larger issues and from there, we can decide how to respond. If we instantly cast a judgment, I would argue that you are hurting your own cause.

That said, the context that the video doesn't describe (but again, is detailed in The Good Soldiers) is that several companies were patrolling the streets. As they were searching houses, the helicopters were assigned to protect them from above. Some people have pointed out that nobody pointed a weapon at the helicopters, hence they were unprovoked. But all other debate aside, imagine for a second that you're assigned to keep watch over a group that is busy doing something else and you see something that you think is a threat; you'll begin to fear for their safety and for the burden it would be if you failed to protect those you were assigned to watch over.

Another contextual aspect of this is that the longer video even shows that weapons were recovered from those shot. My apologies for not posting the longer version in my first post on this; here it is:

We were heavily trained with this fear-creating mindset. One part of training was having several of my leaders ask myself and other young soldiers how we would respond if somebody were to pull a weapon out in a marketplace full of civilians. If we did not say that we would fire back, despite the civilians, we got chastised for not living up to our duties as soldiers.

And this is exactly the point; the soldiers in the helicopter were acting on everything we had been heavily drilled with from the early days of basic training. If you want to keep things like this from happening, stop screaming at soldiers who are fighting in a war that most Americans advocated to begin with and instead spend your energy exposing the training that soldiers are put through and demand political and military leaders to reexamine the system that creates the callousness displayed in this video or the huge amount of our national budget that we pay for this thriving military system.

Because, again, from examples like the cadence I mention above, this callousness is both rampant and intentional.

I personally refused a number of orders and eventually chose to go through the process of conscientious objection and was fortunate enough to have a lot of support from family and friends during that challenging process of leaving the military early. I was also fortunate enough to read books by Gandhi and Tolstoy while in Iraq.

But for the many soldiers who don't have that support from those around them or haven't read books articulating peace, calling them baby-killers for acting how they were trained to is not going to make them any more likely to seek help from those claiming that war is not the answer. If you want to do something truly revolutionary, try reaching out to a soldier in compassion and show him/her that there is a better way to solve problems, real or perceived.

And that's where this video can be helpful. It shows the huge contradiction of what our government says we are doing--spreading freedom and democracy--and how we are seeking to accomplish this. For those who want to defend the soldier's decisions in terms of self-defense, we still have to ask the serious question that even if these actions legitimately so, (I'm definitely not saying they were) are we not still creating far more enemies in the process?

This video is, as the saying goes, "the nature of the beast." Staring only at the fangs of the beast prevent us from the much needed conversation of whether or not we should be using this beast at all.

Then we need to be prepared to answer what will stand in it's place. Shock from seeing this video is natural, but please don't miss this opportunity to use this video to talk about the much deeper implications of the nature of warfare and what it means to work for peace.

Are the Navy and US Attorney’s Office too embarrassed to bring charges after security breach? BY SUSAN CRANE

john — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:42:03 -0400

Susan Crane, at Jonah House in Baltimore, reflects on Disarm Now Plowshares witness. (reprinted from Plowshares Blog)

On November 2, 2009, five activists ranging in age from 60 to 83 cut through the fence and entered the vast Naval Base Kitsap/Bangor, Washington. They walked the base for 4 hours that night, passing in full view of military personnel engaged in the early morning shift change. Then, cutting through two high security fences, they entered the Strategic Weapons Facility where nuclear weapons are stored. There, they were stopped by the Marines.

Today, four months later, the five wonder if Navy authorities are so embarrassed at the unprecedented security breach that they want it to go away and be totally forgotten. The government initially filed misdemeanor charges, but then abruptly withdrew them, and has not yet brought new charges. They clearly do not want the Plowshare action to get any more exposure.

A more optimistic view would be that the navy and US Federal District court took their message to heart, and agree with the International Court of Justice that the Trident D-5 nuclear weapons can not be used or threatened to be used, and also believe, like the Plowshares, that the nuclear warheads are immoral according to the tenets of their faith (or conscience).

The US Constitution, which members of the military have sworn to protect, states that treaties ratified by Congress become the supreme law of the land, to be upheld in every court by every judge. These treaties include the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, and Nuremberg Principles. These documents make clear that weapons used to indiscriminately kill civilians and poison the earth for generations are illegal.

Since the first strike Trident D-5 missiles are illegal, the Plowshares activists went on the base where these weapons are held. They were there to bring attention to an ongoing crime. They were on the base to say: “Look, here are illegal weapons! They are right here! We need to disarm them!”

On Jan 6, 2010, the five had an arraignment date in the US Federal District court in Tacoma, Washington. However, the week before, the five were told by the Assistant US Attorney that the misdemeanor charges were dropped and that felony charges were being considered.

On March 3, 2010, one of the five Plowshares activists, Lynne Greenwald, goes to trial in Federal District court for merely stepping over a blue line in front of the base on August 6, 2009. Lynne faces up to 6 months in prison for walking across the blue line during a protest against the nuclear weapons that are held on the base, and on the Trident subs.

There have been other times when security has been breached and the government has been so embarrassed that it has not brought charges against nonviolent activists

One example occurred in 1990, before the beginning of the first Gulf War when eleven people scaled the White House fence and poured red dye in the fountain and blood around it.

The night before their trial in US Federal court, the “Leap of Faith” activists received a videotape of the action in the mail which had been taken by some onlookers. It covered the action in its entirety, from approach, through fence climbing, to pouring dye and blood, and their arrest. People were clearly identifiable.

The activists said they would use the video, and offered a copy to the prosecutor at the beginning of the trial. The trial began, preliminary matters were dealt with, and during the lunch break the Prosecutor viewed the video of the action. The Prosecutor said that there were grounds for additional felony indictments. Then an emissary from the US Attorney’s office came, with instructions that current charges be dismissed, and new felony charges would be brought.

The activists never heard from the US attorney again. Were the agents of the Secret Service who guard the White House embarrassed that 11 people got over the fence, including long time activists Maurice McCrackin, who was 85 and Ernest Bromley, who was 78 and legally blind?

Then in 2000, there was the Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares in Colorado Springs, where five Roman Catholic Sisters hammered on an F-18 and a Milstar receiver during an open house on the base. We will never know why charges were not brought against the five nuns, but one could imagine that there was some embarrassment about the ability of the nuns to get close to the military items and assets.

And what about the Aegis Plowshares, who entered Bath Iron works in Maine on Easter Sunday in 1991, and hammered on warmaking parts of an Aegis Destroyer. They were released without signing citations, and never brought to trial. Philip Berrigan remarked, “What we did drops out of sight. So does the work of BIW, and its production of ships that could turn a continent into cinder and ash with nuclear firepower. So does the nuclear belligerence of the US Navy, and its 42% corner on our nuclear arsenal. So does the foreign policy of our imperial government, and its mad reliance on nuclear and interventionary force.” Philip continued, “A few points worth mentioning: BIW left a multi-billion dollar ship literally unguarded. So much for military ’security’.”

The military claims that nuclear weapons are safe and well guarded. Nuclear weapon security has increased since 9/11, and on various government websites (for example, National Nuclear Security Administration) we can hear how well guarded and secure the US nuclear materials and weapons are purported to be. Yet the action of the Disarm Now Plowshares showed clearly that the security of these weapons cannot be assumed, and over 100 plowshares actions give evidence that there is no security for these hellish weapons.

At the same time, there is no safe way to contain and store radioactive waste, and the chain from mining the uranium, processing the ore, building weapons and using them contaminates the earth and poisons people, and causes deformities in unborn children. The new 14 million dollar fence that the Navy is planning to build at the Naval Base will not protect the people of Bremerton, Tacoma, Seattle and other Puget Sound cities from radioactive emissions, nor will it protect the earth, water or air from contaminants if there were ever an accident with the nuclear weapons.

The proposed 14 million dollars could be better used to hire teachers, clean up the environment, help people with food or housing, green energy research, or build up the infrastructure of our nation.

As the Navy seeks to increase the security of its nuclear weapons we would all do well to consider just what kind of security our nuclear weapons afford. Each nuclear warhead can cause the incineration of hundreds of thousands of human beings, the slow and painful deaths of the remaining victims, and the long-term radiation effects on survivors and subsequent generations. Besides the disastrous consequences, we need to consider the underlying, systemic violence that dictates the continued reliance on these omnicidal weapons. We need to imagine a new way that does not involve constant preparation for the end of life as we know it. We need to choose life, not death.

For thirty years people in the Plowshares movement have dedicated themselves to risking their freedom to bring to light the deep, dark, and violent secrets that our government would rather people not see – the nuclear warheads in their bunkers, the ICBM’s in their underground silos, and the Tridents silently lurking deep in the oceans – so that they may continue business as usual (and it is BIG business). But we can no longer afford (nor could we ever really afford) business as usual. It is bankrupting us both morally and financially, and is perpetuating the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Let us listen carefully to the voices of the Plowshares activists who faithfully call out to each of us to work diligently towards the day (to paraphrase the words of the prophet Isaiah) when nation will not lift up arms against other nations, and turn our swords into plowshares. May it be so.