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Seems the other thread is borked for most of us.
Now.. where were we?
September 12, 2001
On September 12, 2001, the day after two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, killing over 3,000 people, an event took place at Snow Park, in Oakland, California, organized by Van Jones, the founder of the Ella Baker Center For Human Rights, along with STORM/Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, a group of which he was a member.
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Source : Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-11-01
People Of Color Groups Gather to Stand In Solidarity With Arab Americans and to Mourn the East Coast Dead
(OAKLAND) Community-based organizations led by people of color will hold a "Solidarity Gathering" and candle light vigil on Wednesday night to support the Arab American community, which is suffering from a tidal wave of bigotry in the wake of Tuesday's bombings in New York City and Washington, D.C.
The "Solidarity Gathering" will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, September 12, 2001. The location will be Snow Park, at 19th and Harrison, in downtown Oakland. Snow Park is about three blocks from the 17th Street BART Station, near the lake.
The purpose of the gathering will be to give leaders from communities of color an opportunity to speak out in support of the Arab community, while condemning the attacks and mourning the dead.
Among the organizations endorsing this gathering are: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Let's Get Free, Youth Force Coalition, JustAct, Bay Area PoliceWatch, Underground Railroad and STORM/Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement.
"Anti-Arab hostility is already reaching a fever pitch as pundits and common people alike rush to judgment that an Arab group is responsible for this tragedy," said Van Jones, national executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. "We fear that an atmosphere is being created that will result in official and street violence against Arab men, women and children."
"No matter who ultimately is to blame for these bombings, we cannot tolerate stereotypes and blanket attacks against any ethnic group," said Raquel of STORM. "And we especially don't want Asian-American, African-American, Latino or Native American communities getting pulled into a frenzy of hatred toward our sisters and brothers. We must stand together."
Though people of color in particular will be invited to speak at the gathering, but everyone is welcome.
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This statement represents the postion of STORM/Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement.
9-11 ATTACKS: STORM's FOUR MAIN POINTS IN RESPONSE TO THE BOMBINGS OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER & THE U.S. PENTAGON
1. Oppose terrorism, and build people's power: We mourn the loss of life and the great pain endured by those who have suffered as a result of these attacks. Those of us who desire a world free from exploitation and oppression must rely on the consciousness, capacity and confidence of working class and oppressed people to carry out our own liberation. There are no shortcuts in this process. Acts of terrorism against civilian targets do not advance this process, but retard it. We oppose the use of terror tactics - especially such tactics against civilian populations as destructive to the
fundamental aims of the liberation movement. We must organize our people to liberate themselves with the clarity of their own minds, the courage of their own hearts and the work of their own hands.
2. Oppose the narrowing or elimination of the people's democratic rights: The U.S. government must stop using the suffering of the victims of these attacks as an excuse to narrow and eliminate the people's democratic rights. We oppose any and all efforts to increase the funding and authority of U.S. police and intelligence agencies as a "solution" to this crisis. We express our disgust at the present attempts by the U.S. security and surveillance establishment to turn this tragedy into a cash-cow bonanza - or to use it to mask a cynical power grab. We oppose any efforts to wipe out the people's fragile and precious privacy rights; we oppose any efforts to curtail the
people's basic First Amendment rights to assemble, speak, publish, protest and organize free from government harassment and surveillance. We must now be extraordinarily vigilant against threats directed against the people - not from underground cells, but from the highest levels of government.
3. Rely on global justice to deter future attacks:
The system, in the United States and worldwide, has continually denied peaceful, "legitimate" attempts by those seeking justice and freedom. Through its own reckless, violent and oppressive actions against poor people and people of color, the United States government has fueled frustration, grief and outrage here and around the world. Suffering under the boot of poverty, people around the world are becoming more and more desperate. Neither police repression at home nor U.S. bombs abroad will ease this fundamental despair; instead, they will only continue this vicious cycle of frustration and violence. Ordinary people in the United States can best deter future attacks by insisting that the U.S. government abandon its oppressive role of keeping down workers and dominating poor nations around the world. Increasingly, safety at home will require justice abroad. Intensified police crackdowns at home and military savagery abroad are not the answer; the answer is justice. We must not allow the United States to respond with bombs for Third World people and continued support for repressive dictatorships and rapacious corporations. Instead, we demand that the US respond to this crisis with efforts to meet the legitimate demands of the majority of the human family.
4. Oppose racist, anti-Arab bigotry: The media is already feeding the frenzy of anti-Arab hysteria. All people and especially African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinas/os and Native Americans must stand in solidarity with our Arab and Muslim
sisters and brothers.
Jinbonet Base21 http://base21.jinbo.net/new/show/show.php?p_cd=0&p_dv=0&p_docnbr=17775
Thanks Doc, I knew about that. I used "The last refuge of a scoundrel TODAY..." What I failed to do is use the word "falsely", as in, "The last refuge of a scoundrel today is to falsely call someone a racist." That was the meaning that I intended to convey, and completely missed by omitting that word.
Beck isn't talking about how you can't trust the government in these programs; he's providing a background to President Obama's associates and appointments. Calling the government "Lucifer..the devil" isn't terribly amazing; I'm sure that you've used some equivalent many times in the past.
NO
Some of us are quite capable of doing our own research; he's a source, and a useful one at that. Those people are saying that some high government officials deliberately allowed the hijackers to carry out their plan. That's hilarious. You're giving me the distinct impression that you take that seriously.
In the press release I see nothing objectionable. In light of the beatings, hate graffiti and Masjid fires that occurred after 9/11, the press release was prescient. LINK.
As for the second,
I wouldn't agree with the "any and all" but would say, "illegal and unconstitutional" instead as there are unconstitutional elements in the "Patriot Act". Even with the expanded provisions (and erosion of our privacy...like eavesdropping on soldiers conversations with their families back home) the former administration refused to request warrants (as required by law) and performed illegal wiretapping. As Ben Franklin wrote, "Those who trade freedom for security have neither for long", and the former administration illustrated the fear mongering aspect in order to grab more dictatorial powers, as well as manipulate secuity threat levels to defeat John Kerry in the election. Please don't deny it. It is fact and shameful fact at that.
As for 3. in the statement, I dislike the generalities a good deal. Yes, we haven't always acted well, but certainly don't deserve the blanket condemnation approach. That irritates me.
As for 4. I absolutely agree. I believe that there are wrong doers in every race/religion/ethnic/national...whatever group. Those individuals should be caught and punished. We should also try to learn why they enter terrorist groups in order to prevent problems in the future, if possible.
i love how willistuder is preaching to us on how we should believe things should be done in america when he's in canada and has universal health care. maybe he should start a thread on how he's either happy or unhappy with the canadian government. it seems watching beck on a constant basis has made him, along with many americans, stupid.
my ex sister-in-law, who i still adore, watches beck and hannity daily and believes EVERYTHING they say. poor denise. i love her but she's not the brightest bulb in the package.
I'll say this again: That does not mean the viewpoint of someone who is not (an American citizen) is valued less than that of someone who is.
you're right! maybe that SHOULD tell me something. that something being he's a fool? the fact he's constantly quoting and referring to beck tells me a lot.
Now now John, buddy, 
we all know calling someone a fool is a sin and after your nice apology earlier....
I have 7 relatives living in the states....some by choice, some married to Americans (also by choice 
), one has now obtained dual Oz/US citizenship.
Being a resident of the US means they no longer qualify for free Medicare back in Australia. They have the same issues with healthcare that all the rest of you have....
Being a world power....what happens in the US affects the rest of us....your financial decisions...whatever wars you start, seems we have to follow.....so...yes...it's your country...but to knock observers and long term residents for having opinions....is pretty parochial....
Off by one day, but you did make the call.
I see that racism has been brought up and I feel that I must add something.
Being proud of ones race, culture, and heritage is not a bad thing and everyone should take pride in theirs, as it defines who you are.
The thing is, humanity as a whole needs to learn that no one race is better than the other. Once we stop the hate and bigotry that racism brings, we will all be better off.
Food for thought...
It's interesting to know that even Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed the slaves, was by definition a racist and a white supremest.
Here's a lesson that has been left out of your history books.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858
In 1858 Lincoln was nominated by the newly-formed Republican Party to challenge Steven Douglas, a Democrat, for his Illinois seat in the US Senate. During the campaign, "Little Giant" Douglas focused on the emotion-charged issue of race relations. He accused Lincoln, and Republicans in general, of advocating the political and social equality of the white and black races, and of thereby promoting racial amalgamation. Lincoln responded by strenuously denying the charge, and by arguing that because slavery was the chief cause of miscegenation in the United States, restricting its further spread into the western territories and new states would, in fact, reduce the possibility of race mixing. Lincoln thus came close to urging support for his party because it best represented white people's interests.
Between late August and mid-October, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas traveled together around the state to confront each other in seven historic debates. On August 21, before a crowd of 10,000 at Ottawa, Lincoln declared:
I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and in as much as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.
(Created Equal?: The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 117)
Many people accepted the rumors spread by Douglas supporters that Lincoln favored social equality of the races. Before the start of the September 18 debate at Charleston, Illinois, an elderly man approached Lincoln in a hotel and asked him if the stories were true. Recounting the encounter later before a crowd of 15,000, Lincoln declared:
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.
I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
(Created Equal?: The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 235)
I highly recommend the book 'Abraham Lincoln' - a compilation of (amplified) C-SPAN interviews done during the runup to the 200th anniversary of his birth - by Brian Lamb and Susan Swain.
It's all there, the bad with the good. And very enlightening. I believe that by the end of the war, Lincoln was a fully converted abolitionist, that he truly believed slavery to be inconsistent with the ideals espoused in our Declaration of Independence, allowing for the fact that an abolitionist was not exactly the polar opposite of a racist. The Emancipation Proclamation was not pretty. What a difference martyrdom can make.
Doc, the whole thing was a perfect illustration of boorishness and tastelessness, typical of Van Jones throughout his illustrious carreer. This is a man who has had a policy of baiting the police, breaking through police barricades, and attacked them, and betrayed his friends and associates when convenient. When he turned "green" ( the watermelon effect; green on the outside, red on the inside), he muscled himself ahead of veterans of the environmental movement to get his hands on funding instead of them, "
But Jones also attracted a number of critics. During the conference, many environmental-justice groups were irritated by what they saw as Jones' attempt to appoint himself the leader of a movement in which he'd never before played a role.
In the aftermath of the event, seven of these groups wrote a letter to Jones expressing their concerns about the perceived glory-hogging of the Ella Baker Center team
. Henry Clark, the longtime executive director of the West County Toxics Coalition, and one of the signers, complained that Jones excluded the true leaders of the Bay Area movement. "They jumped out front to put themselves in the lead, to make contact with these funders, in more of an opportunistic way," he said.
Another incident involved the co-founders of the Appollo Alliance, who invited him to join:
Around that same time, the Apollo Alliance was launched in Washington, DC, with a catchy slogan: good jobs, clean energy. Modeled after President Kennedy's famous challenge to America to put a man on the Moon, the alliance is an effort to inspire the country into a frenzy of environmentally friendly inventiveness. But Jones approached the Apollo organizers because he believed that their original formulation of environmentalists plus labor unions wasn't ambitious enough. "I wanted to enrich their framework, which I thought started out with too little racial-justice understanding," he said. He was already working on the Ella Baker Center's own environmental program, but saw the Apollo Alliance as a useful partner, with a national platform. "I was met with absolutely open arms," he said.But while Jones continues to advance the ideas he developed along with the Apollo Alliance, the organization's cofounders Shellenberger and Nordhaus were both forced to remove themselves from the national board because of the controversy they stirred up.
Jones, with his message of effectiveness through solidarity, has come to embody the reaction against the two heretics.
It's been a little more than a year since two of Jones' fellow travelers dropped a bomb on the environmental movement in the form of a paper provocatively titled "The Death of Environmentalism.
Although the paper was primarily an assault upon the strategies of the left, Shellenberger and Nordhaus praised a few people and projects. One was Van Jones....
Jones and the authors met in 2005 and became close allies who brainstormed ideas for the new shape of the environmental movement.
Yet last spring, Jones spoke out against "The Death of Environmentalism...
He thereafter repeated his criticisms in stronger terms, and now calls the paper an "immoral attack."The authors complain that Jones didn't begin critiquing their paper until he was surrounded by its detractors at the Apollo Alliance, a group whose strong ties to the Sierra Club guaranteed that it would take a stance against the two upstarts. Shellenberger said he saw Jones twice in the immediate aftermath of the shakeup. The first time, shortly after the paper was distributed, he said, "Van congratulated us; he praised the essay. He was very positive to us, privately." The next time, at a meeting of the California Apollo Alliance, Shellenberger remembers Jones saying, "Wow, a lot of people are really angry about this," before repeating his praise of the paper. But in the months after Jones joined the board, Shellenberger said, he began to criticize the paper and its authors.
Holding this event was like crashing a funeral; that's his style, or lack thereof.
I checked out your link, and based on that and my own personal observations, there was no outbreak whatsoever in anti-Muslim hysteria. Do you remember President Bush coming out with his statement in support of Muslims?
Look at the statistics in the article:
The most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.
But, look at this:
After African Americans, the most victimized groups included Jews (1,196 victims)
Considering the circumstances, it's a testament to the basic decency of the American people that there wasn't a severe backlash.
Your statement that the Bush administration "the former administration refused to request warrants (as required by law)" is incorrect; they pursued warrants in numerous cases, and there is a class of wiretapping that does not require a warrant. Spying on soldiers, or anybody that may be performing treasonous acts, as some soldiers in fact did, is standard operating procedure around the world; the degree of it may be arguable, but the practise isn't.
This, from you, " (the) former administration illustrated the fear mongering aspect in order to grab more dictatorial powers" is unintentionally amusing. Those of us not inspired by the new president, have a lot more to fear in this regard from him and his associates, considering their backgrounds. Mr. Bush was a pathetic failure if it was his intent to be dictatorial.
We should also try to learn why they enter terrorist groups in order to prevent problems in the future, if possible.
They enter these groups because they want to kill non-believers. Learning why will not prevent problems in the future.
Hey, Nakamichi guy. I'm glad to hear that you love how I'm preaching to you.
I never heard of Beck until recently, and haven't seen too many of his shows; however, I like the vast quantities of information on the people Obama associates with. When you watch a speech by Van Jones, or the man President Obama will use to silence Beck, Mark Lloyd, the new FCC Chief Diversity Officer, those aren't lies.
I have yet to quote Beck, and I haven't often referred to him. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to quote or refer to him; it's just that I haven't.
I've been reading newspapers, books, and watching the news, among other things, for decades. I've arrived at my conclusions and viewpoints as a result of my own investigations.
One thing I've noticed is that you call him a racist. I've seen no evidence of that; do you have any?
I wonder what Denise thinks.
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