AGITPROP NEWS: 7.5.3

Sat Jul 5 20:14:22 MDT 2003

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LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
AGITPROP NEWS: 7.5.3

In this issue:

1.  Visions of Solidarity
2.  Revenge of the Constitution
3.  Tough Guy
4.  Thoughts on Tough Guy
5.  Tough Guy Is Messenger of God
6.  Life Imitates Art
7.  Mural Vandalized
8.  Rachel Corrie Presente
9.  Dog Bites Man
10.  John Ashcroft Goes to School
11.  The Coat of Fear
12.  The Blessings of Capital
13.  Let Bygones Be Bygones
14.  War Criminals I
15.  War Criminals II
16.  Tools for Peace
17.  A Man Walks Into a Pet Store
18.  The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
19.  The Pastry  Intifada
20.  LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT

_____________________________

1.  Visions of Solidarity

The LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT (LaMP) and Monthly Review Press will sponsor a west coast tour to promote 'Visions of Solidarity.'

Mike Alewitz, LaMP Artistic Director, will open an exhibit at LaborFest, the country's premier labor-culture festival, and speak at venues in San Francisco and Los Angeles.  The tour will promote the creation of murals in Israel and the Occupied Territories, and an international labor and artists delegation to the Mideast from August 10 -22.

Tour Schedule:

LaborFest 10th Anniversary Celebration/ "A War On All Fronts"

LaborFest 2003 Schedule/ Too extensive to list - Go To www.laborfest net

July 14  Monday    5:00 PM 

Opening:    INSURGENT IMAGES: Recent and Selected Agitprop Art of Mike Alewitz

				SomArts Cultural Center 
				934 Brannan Street/ San Francisco, CA

				Also with Richard Bermack's photo essay exhibit "The Heroes Of Social Work & John Robinson's photographs on the building of the new Al Zampa bridge in Crockett, California &  Cartoons by Khalil Bendib. Sponsor: Laborfest 2003

July 15  Tuesday    7:00 PM    

				Book Signing and Slide Show: Modern Times Bookstore/ San Francisco
				Mike Alewitz  co-author of  "Insurgent Images"

July 16, 2003  Wednesday 7:00 PM  

Resist The Walls Of Apartheid With Murals Of International Solidarity

Forum with Mike Alewitz and Susan Greene of Break the Silence Mural Project

				Fellowship Of Humanity 
				390 27th St/ Broadway Oakland

				Benefit for the Visins of Solidarity mural project. 
				Sponsored by Middle East Radio Project & LaborFest

July 19  Saturday  2 PM

				Reception/ Book Signing: 
				Southern California Library for Social Studies & Research
				6120 S. Vermont Avenue/ Los Angeles

_____________________________

2.  Revenge of the Constitution

PHILADELPHIA, July 4 (AP) - The opening of the National Constitution 
Center, a museum devoted to the United States Constitution, was 
marred today when a huge wood and steel frame collapsed, injuring 
several people and narrowly missing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

The frame, which was at least 15 feet high, slowly toppled as the 
guests of honor at the ceremony pulled red, white and blue streamers 
that were supposed to trigger the drop of a screen at the museum's 
front entrance on Independence Mall.

Instead, the streamers pulled down the frame, which fell on Mayor 
John F. Street of Philadelphia, Senator Arlen Specter and other 
officials.

The crowd of 4,000 gasped as the frame came down around Justice 
O'Connor, who had counted down from three to start the ceremony.

Mr. Street and Mr. Specter were struck on the arms as they tried to 
fend off the falling structure. Joseph Torsella, president of the 
National Constitution Center, was hit in the head and knocked to his 
knees.

Mr. Torsella was woozy, but walked to an ambulance. He was treated at 
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and released. Mayor Street and a 
government worker were also treated for minor injuries....

Organizers said that when the guests pulled on the ribbons, a screen 
bearing a reproduction of the signing of the Constitution was to have 
dropped, revealing a newer painting underneath, with some of the 
celebrity guests standing in the places of the founding fathers.

A Constitution Center spokeswoman said officials were trying to 
determine what went wrong.

New York Times   July 5, 2003

_____________________________

3.  Tough Guy

"There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation."

					- George Bush - who advocated war, then ran away and hid during Vietnam 

_____________________________

4.  Thoughts on Tough Guy

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a 
moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 
'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my 
mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd 
been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial 
invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a 
newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew 
last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of 
Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or 
twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is 
wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying 
harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, 
and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten 
with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt 
is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at 
midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an 
appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like 
preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and 
he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight 
through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others' 
nerves. The rumors of 'going-home, not-going-home' are keeping him on an 
emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, 
confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him 
and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people--as 
well as for official narratives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed 
in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from 
a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.

Excerpt from STAN GOFF
Former Special Forces Soldier
Counterpunch, July 3, 2003

_____________________________

5.  Tough Guy Is Messenger of God

"God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and
then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did,
and now I am determined to solve the problem in the
Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the
elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

		-Quoted by Israeli Newspaper Haaretz

_____________________________

6.  Life Imitates Art

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops psyched up on a bizarre musical reprise from Vietnam war film "Apocalypse Now" before crashing into Iraqi homes to hunt gunmen on Saturday, as Shi'ite Muslims rallied against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

With Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" still ringing in their ears and the clatter of helicopters overhead, soldiers rammed vehicles into metal gates and hundreds of troops raided houses in the western city of Ramadi after sunrise as part of a drive to quell a spate of attacks on U.S. forces.

					-lastmarx1 at worldnet.att.net

_____________________________

7.  Mural Vandalized

As many of you know I am restoring a mural that I painted 20 years ago on 23rd street, between Mission and Capp in SF.  It is called "La Lucha Continua" and along with repainting the original portraits, I am adding new faces including Rachel Corey and Mumia Abu Jamal.  Below is a press release about the violent attack on the mural last week that left several large holes in the wall where Rachel Corey and Mumia Abu Jamal's portraits once were.  

Peace,
Susan Greene

Sections of a Mission mural called La Lucha Continua (The Struggle Continues) that has faces symbolizing freedom, self-determination and justice in Palestine were vandalized in the early morning hours of Thursday June 19. The vandal chiseled a 12² hole that completely destroyed the paintings of Rachel Corey, an American murdered by an Israeli-driven bulldozer and Mumia Abu-Jamal, award-winning journalist, innocent death row inmate and active supporter of Palestinian rights.  Additionally, all four tires were slashed of nearby car parked that had ³Free Palestine² and ³No War on Iraq² bumper stickers.

The vandalism that hit La Lucha Continua mural located on 23rd street between Mission and Capp is part of a rash of hate incidents in the Mission that target any object representing Palestine and Iraq, according to the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, San Francisco (ADC-SF).  Since November 2002, about 25 cases of anti-Arab vandalism have been reported in the Mission district alone, like: bus shelters, city streets, private residences, Arab-owned businesses, buildings housing social justice organizations and various Mission murals, including the landmark ³MaestraPeace² mural at the Women¹s Building, and ³Our Roots are Still Alive / Palestine Will Be Free,² which was defaced more than 30 times since it¹s creation in 1990 and is now covered with plywood for protection.

³These are not isolated incidents.  These acts reflect a widespread mentality of hatred toward Arabs, and towards anyone that speaks out for freedom and justice in Palestine or Iraq,² said Senan Khairie one of the ADC-SF hotline managers.  ³The incidents occurring locally in the Mission are a microcosm of the overall dehumanization of Arabs propagated by the media, lack of cultural understanding, and US / Israel¹s efforts to colonize the Middle East.²

Artist Susan Greene is currently restoring the 1985 mural, called ³La Lucha Continua,² which features portraits of Malcolm X, Madame Dinh, Maurice Bishop, Nelson Mandela, Leila Khaled, and Che Guevara.  The mural's portraits are being re-painted and new faces added in an effort to retain the mural's original message of diversity in action and acknowledge that it is now 20 years later. As Green was continuing her work on the mural, many people stopped to express their dismay and outrage at the destruction caused by the vandal.

susangreene at mindspring.com

_____________________________

8.  Rachel Corrie Presente

 http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

tonybook at att.net

_____________________________

9.  Dog Bites Man

NY Times, June 26, 2003
Very Richest's Share of Income Grew Even Bigger, Data Show

The 400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all 
the income in the United States in the year 2000, more than double their 
share just eight years earlier, according to new data from the Internal 
Revenue Service. But their tax burden plummeted over the period.

The data, in a report that the I.R.S. released last night, shows that 
the average income of the 400 wealthiest taxpayers was almost $174 
million in 2000. That was nearly quadruple the $46.8 million average in 
1992. The minimum income to qualify for the list was $86.8 million in 
2000, more than triple the minimum income of $24.4 million of the 400 
wealthiest taxpayers in 1992.

<lnp3 at panix.com>

_____________________________

10.  John Ashcroft Goes to School

Attorney General John Ashcroft is visiting an
elementary school. After the typical civics
presentation he says, "Alright, boys and girls, 
you can ask me questions now."

A young boy named Bobby raises his hand and says, "I
have two questions:

"1. How did Bush win the election with fewer votes
than Gore? and

"2. Why are you using the USA Patriot Act to limit
Americans' civil liberties?"

Just then the bell sounds and all the kids run out to
the playground.

Fifteen minutes later, the kids come back to class and
Ashcroft says, "I'm sorry we were interrupted by the
bell. Now, you can all ask me questions."

A young girl raises her hand and says, "I have four
questions:

"1. How did Bush win the election with fewer votes
than Gore?

"2. Why are you using the USA Patriot Act to limit
Americans' civil liberties?

"3. Why did the bell go off 20 minutes early? and

"4. Where's Bobby?"

<pgoselin at yahoo.com>

_____________________________

11.  The Coat of Fear

The Coat of Fear

Welcome to the coat of fear
Many undocumented workers linger here
No jobs to take
Less money to make
Who they are is even fake
Five hundred undocumented workers very low-paid
Under the rubble, in sleep, they've laid
Thousands more lost their work
Bartenders and waiters and many a clerk
Forty percent of New York's population
Now consists of people not born in this nation
Many of these workers are now being paid 
To clean up the rubble where lost ones are laid

by Chibu Ndibe
11 yrs

fafunwas at ccsu.edu

_____________________________

12.  The Blessings of Capital

Afghanistan regains its title as world's biggest heroin dealer

Afghanistan is still the source of almost all of the heroin sold in
London, even though Britain has poured millions into trying to stamp out
the war-wrecked country's resurgent drugs production business.

Opium poppies are springing up from the plains to the mountains of
Afghanistan in far higher quantities than in the final year of the
Taliban, which the US and Britain overthrew, while vowing to end the
region's narcotics trade. Opium - from which heroin is extracted - is
produced on farms only a few dozen miles from the capital city of Kabul,
headquarters to the international effort to end the heroin trade and
rebuild the country.

Local Afghans say that bags of heroin are used in lieu of currency in some
parts of the lawless countryside where - more than two years after the
Taliban was toppled - the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai has
failed to establish control.

After the war, Britain assumed responsibility for co-ordinating the
international effort to crush Afghanistan's opium trade.  It is spending
£70m over three years on a project to eradicate poppy production by
providing Afghan farmers with another livelihood and by training the
fledgling and badly under-manned police force. But this bleak picture
suggests that its efforts have so far failed to turn the tide.

HM Customs and Excise, which is running a programme in Kabul, has admitted
that 95 per cent of the heroin sold on London's streets is still of Afghan
origin. This has prompted George Osborne, a Tory MP who sits on the Public
Accounts Committee, to call for an investigation into what has been
happening to the money.

Mr Osborne, who fears that much of it may have been pocketed by regional
warlords, wants an investigation by the National Audit Office, which
supervises public spending.

Figures released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime show
Afghanistan now grows more than nine times as many opium poppies as during
the final year of the Taliban. The roaring opium trade runs counter to one
of the main aims declared by Britain for joining the US in the war on
Afghanistan.

Independent (London) 22 June 2003

papadop at peak.org

_____________________________

13.  Let Bygones Be Bygones

US turns to the Taliban 

KARACHI - Such is the deteriorating security situation
in Afghanistan, compounded by the return to the country
of a large number of former Afghan communist refugees,
that United States and Pakistani intelligence officials
have met with Taliban leaders in an effort to devise a
political solution to prevent the country from being
further ripped apart.

According to a Pakistani jihadi leader who played a
role in setting up the communication, the meeting took
place recently between representatives of Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation and Taliban leaders at the
Pakistan Air Force base of Samungli, near Quetta.

The source told Asia Times Online that four conditions
were put to the Taliban before any form of
reconciliation can take place that could potentially
lead to them having a role in the Kabul government,
whose present authority is in essence limited to the
capital:

Mullah Omar must be removed as supreme leader of the
Taliban. All Pakistani, Arab and other foreign fighters
currently engaged in operations against international
troops in Afghanistan must be thrown out of the
country. Any US or allied soldiers held captive must be
released. Afghans currently living abroad, notably in
the United States and England, must be given a part in
the government - through being allowed to contest
elections - even though many do not even speak their
mother tongue, such as Dari or Pashtu.

Apparently, the Taliban refused the first condition
point blank, but showed some flexibility on the other
terms. As such, this first preliminary contact made
little headway. It is not known whether there will be
further meetings, but given the fact that the reason
for staging the talks in the first place remains
unchanged, more contact can be expected.

Asia Times
June 13, 2003

_____________________________

14.  War Criminals I

Tony Blair and his cabinet were branded "war criminals" yesterday as an
organisation that gave birth to the Labour party faced expulsion in an
historic split with the government.

The RMT rail union voted to support the far left Scottish Socialists,
Plaid Cymru, Greens, Ken Livingstone in London and even suspended Labour
MP George Galloway in direct defiance of the Labour leadership. It also
halved its annual affiliation fees from 25,000 to 12,500. A year ago it
paid more than 100,000.

Bob Crow, hard left general secretary of the RMT, predicted the union
would disaffiliate from Labour after he accused the prime minister of
"putting the boot" into workers in Britain and abroad, including the
invasion of Iraq.

Wednesday July 2, 2003
The Guardian

_____________________________

15.  War Criminals II

BRUSSELS (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair have been accused of
war crimes in Iraq under a fiercely contested Belgian
law, the government here said.

But the justice ministry said the Belgian cabinet had
referred the cases against Bush, Blair and six other
high-ranking officials to the US and British
governments, making any trials highly unlikely.

Nevertheless the lawsuits, brought under Belgium's
"universal competence law", could well deepen tensions
between Washington and Brussels, which bitterly
opposed the war in Iraq. 

The 10-year-old law gives Belgium's courts the right
to judge anyone accused of war crimes, crimes against
humanity or genocide, regardless of where the crime
took place.

Apart from Bush and Blair, the officials named in the
suits were US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld's deputy Paul
Wolfowitz, Attorney General John Ashcroft, national
security adviser Condoleezza Rice and General Tommy
Franks, who led US forces in Iraq.

_____________________________

16.  Tools for Peace

Which Path to a Safer World?

TOOLS FOR PEACE/  TOOLS FOR WAR

$4,000
	1 rocket launcher or
Enroll 2 children in Head Start

$14,000
	1 cluster bomb or
2 home health aides for disabled elderly

$40,000
	1 Hellfire missile or
Associate Degree training for 29 RNs

$145,600
	1 Bunker-buster guided bomb or
Rent subsidies for 1,000 families

$586,000
	1,000 M-16 Rifles or
Annual salary/benefits for 15 RNs

$763,000
	1 minute war on Iraq or
Improve, repair, modernize 20 schools

$46 million 
	1 hour war on Iraq or
WIC program nutrition for 200,000 families

$130 million
	7 unmanned Predator drones or
Eradicate polio worldwide

$275 million
	3 tests of missile defense system or
Best vaccinations for 10 million children worldwide

$350 million
	6 Trident II missiles or
Childcare for 68,000 needy children

$413 million
	Amphibious Warfare Landing Ship Program or
7,000 units of affordable housing

$494 million
	1 year military aid to Colombia or
Prevent cuts to education programs (FY2003)

$1.1 billion
	1 day of war on Iraq or
Minimum support to save Amtrak train service

$1.2 billion
	2 months U.S. war force in Afghanistan or
Annual salary/benefits for 38,000 elementary teachers

$2.1 billion
	1 Stealth bomber or
Double federal funding for mass transit

$12 billion
	1 year cost of war in Afghanistan (2001/2002) or
Healthcare coverage for 7 million children

$16 billion
	1 year nuclear weapons program or
Save 11 million lives worldwide fighting infectious diseases

$38 billion is 1 month U.S. current military spending

wrl at warresisters.org

_____________________________

17.  A Man Walks Into a Pet Store

A man goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner
points to three identical looking parrots on a perch and
says, "the parrot on the left costs $500."

"Why does the parrot cost so much?" asks the man. The shop
owner says, "well, the parrot knows how to use a computer."

The man then asks about the next parrot to be told that this
one costs $1,000 because it can do everything the other
parrot can do plus it knows how to use the Linux operating
system.

Naturally, the increasingly startled man asks about the
third parrot to be told that it costs $2,000. Needless to
say this provokes the question, "What can it do?"

To which the shop owner replies, "to be honest I have never
seen it do a thing, but the other two call him boss!"

kolodzey at pobox.upenn.edu

_____________________________

18.  The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

The TUC Library Collections at London Metropolitan University launch 
the second phase of their website today - the full original 
manuscript of the novel 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' by 
Robert Tressell.  

Voted one of the nation's 100 best-loved books in the BBC's recent 
Big Read event, 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' is an 
influential classic of working class literature. This unique 
resource, numbering 1,700 fragile pages, has previously only been 
accessible to researchers who had to make the trip to London. Now, 
thanks to a grant from the New Opportunities Fund, readers around the 
world can access the manuscript online and read the book as the 
author intended, both with and without the publishers' amendments.  

Accompanying the online manuscript are photographs, documents and 
other ephemera from the Tressell family archive.  

You can view the manuscript of 'The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists' at :

http://www.unionhistory.info/ragged/ragged.php

From: Christine Coates <c.coates at londonmet.ac.uk>

_____________________________

19.  The Pastry  Intifada

Note: this is the second time Phelps' cult has been attacked with pies,
the first incident happened in San Francisco in a joint effort between
Act Up SF and the BBB known as Operation: Second Phelping. Details at:
http://bioticbakingbrigade.org/communique032699.html

Communiqué from the [Anti Authoritarian Ed.] Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) - Des Moines, IA Cell
May 31, 2003

We, the recently spawned cell of Des Moines Biotic Baking Brigade claim all
responsibility for the pie attack launched in the faces of the Fred Phelps
goon squad.  Our "pie-rect action" is an expression of our disgust with the
social-fascist tendencies of the "God Hates Fags" mob squad and their petty
"Westboro Baptist Church."   We believe that there are no possibilities for
collaboration between us and them and that all attempts and resources for
resolution have been exhausted, which is why we put ourselves on the front
lines of this new pastry intifada.

The fascist tendencies of the Phelps cult include a wide array of disturbing
and cruel tactics targeted at homosexuals nationwide.  Particularly, the
picketing of Mathew Shepard's funeral, the 21 year-old University of Wyoming
student who was brutally beaten, tied down to a split-rail fence and left to
die, all because he was a homosexual.  Today, Phelps and his homophobic
goonies attempted to wage their foul war against an innocent gay high school
graduate receiving the Mathew Shepard scholarship award.  Fred Phelps
describes why he opposes the young graduate in his official press release
for his protest, "God hates Des Moines Public Schools & Lincoln Public High
where the administrators & faculty are Satan's Pied Pipers leading kids to
fag sin, death & Hell."  But, we know now that the only "Pied" pipers today
are Fred Phelps and company.

In solidarity we stand with Gays, Lesbians, Bi-Sexuals and Transsexuals
everywhere.  With our heads held high and our baked goods in hand, we are
the cream topping on the pie tin of gay liberation and we unite under the
motto, "There will be no peace, as long as there is pie and there will be
pie as long as there are fascists." Fascist gay-bashers everywhere be
warned... the pies are in the oven.

Signed,
DSM-BBB Infantry Division No. 515 (The Angry Marmalades)
Press Department

bbb at bioticbakingbrigade.org

_______________________________

20.  LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT

Help LaMP use art as a weapon in support of international working-class struggles for social and economic justice.  Become a the LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT sponsor! 

> ___ I/ My organization would like to become a Labor Art & Mural Project sponsor.
> 
> ___ I/ We can pledge $________ per month.  
> 
> 
> Name: __________________________________
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> Email: __________________________________
> 
> Address: ________________________________
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> Phone: _________________________________ 
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> Organization:_____________________________
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Additional comments:

Reply to alewitzm at ccsu.edu

> LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
> c/o Department of Art
> Central Connecticut State University
> 1615 Stanley Street
> New Britain, Connecticut 06050
> 
> Phone: 860.832.2359
> 
________________________________________

MIKE ALEWITZ

Department of Art
Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley Street
New Britain, Connecticut 06050

Office: 860.832.2359/ Mobile: 860.518.4046

________________________________________