[A-List] help

[Elizabeth Brown]

On 8/31/07, a-list-request at lists.econ.utah.edu <
a-list-request at lists.econ.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> Send A-List mailing list submissions to
>         a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>         http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/a-list
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>         a-list-request at lists.econ.utah.edu
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>         a-list-owner at lists.econ.utah.edu
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of A-List digest..."
>
>
> The A-List Digest
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Fw: [Border01] 8/28 US-Mexico Border: The Border?s Summer of
>       Discontent (Nicaragua Solidarity and Fair Trade Resource)
>    2. Ccawrdiscussion] Quigley: 10 Lessons of Katrina
>       (Nicaragua Solidarity and Fair Trade Resource)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:20:09 -0500
> From: "Nicaragua Solidarity and Fair Trade Resource"
>         <nscchicago at igc.org>
> Subject: [A-List] Fw: [Border01] 8/28 US-Mexico Border: The Border?s
>         Summer of Discontent
> To: "NSC WORKERS COOP" <nscchicago at igc.org>
> Message-ID: <002801c7eb32$7239a0e0$0b0110ac at youro0kwkw9jwc>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> From: SIUHIN at aol.com
> Subject: [Border01] 8/28 US-Mexico Border: The Border?s Summer of
> Discontent
>
>
>
> The Border?s Summer of Discontent
>
> August 28, 2007
>
> Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
> Center for Latin American and Border Studies
> New Mexico State University
> Las Cruces, New Mexico
>
>
> It's as if all the contradictions of the US War on Terror, immigration
> reform, US-Mexico relations, free trade, and sagging economies on both
> sides of the border have burst at the seams, and at the same time. As the
> record hot summer of 2007 crawls to a close, the political barometer on
> the US-Mexico border is tipping red. Barely a day goes by without hunger
> strikes, human chains, border crossing demonstrations, marches, and calls
> for economic boycotts.
>
> In a press conference this week, Carlos Marentes, director of the El
> Paso-based Border Agricultural Workers Project, said "neo-liberal"
> economic policies exemplified by the North American Free Trade Agreement
> (Nafta) are sparking a growing crisis in the borderlands and beyond. He
> contended that US immigration laws and policies are shrouded in a veil of
> "hypocrisy" which views immigrant workers as an indispensable, cheap labor
> pool but then turns them into convenient political scapegoats. "We want to
> stop them, but we also need them," Marentes said.
>
> While border protests are hardly new, what's striking about the latest
> manifestations of discontent is how they are cutting across the political
> spectrum and even incorporating centrist and conservative forces that are
> increasingly frustrated by a status quo dictated in Washington and Mexico
> City.
>
> In the wake of the US Congress' failure to pass comprehensive immigration
> reform legislation this year, several developments are rekindling citizen
> activism. Among the most important are the construction of new border
> walls, long waits at border crossings, the Immigration and Customs
> Enforcement (ICE) crackdown on undocumented workers, the deaths of
> detained immigrants while in US custody, Border Patrol shootings, and the
> August 19 deportation of activist Elvira Arellano.
>
> The August 8 shooting of Jose Alejandro Ortiz by the US Border Patrol in
> El Paso, Texas, unleashed a wave of indignation on the border and in
> Mexico. Ortiz, who reportedly had a criminal record in both the US and
> Mexico, was allegedly involved in an attempt to smuggle immigrants when he
> was fatally shot.
>
> According to the Border Patrol's account, Ortiz threatened to throw a rock
> at a still-unidentified agent, who was forced to fire in self-defense at
> the young man. At least one witness contradicted the official version, and
> the local US attorney's office is investigating the killing. Since Ortiz
> supposedly died south of the border, Mexico's Office of the Federal
> Attorney General has also opened an investigation. The Ortiz shooting was
> the fifth time El Paso Border Patrol agents have shot an undocumented
> person this year, but the first fatal incident of 2007.
>
> Ortiz's killing was condemned in strong language by Ciudad Juarez Bishop
> Renato Ascensio Leon, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza, Chihuahua State
> Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez and members of the federal Mexican
> Congress. On Saturday, August 25, several federal congressmen from
> President Calderon's center-right National Action Party leafleted
> motorists crossing the Bridge of Americas between Ciudad Juarez and El
> Paso. Two days earlier, Ortiz family members and supporters burned a
> Border Patrol pinata at another bridge linking the two cities.
>
> El Paso Democratic Congressman Silvestre Reyes, who headed the
> El Paso Border Patrol office during the 1990s, said an investigation of
> the Ortiz killing was necessary but challenged critics he said downplayed
> the seriousness of rock-throwing against agents. "Anybody who thinks you
> can't get killed by a rock is a fool," Congressman Reyes said at an El
> Paso border security conference.
>
> The construction of new US border walls is another issue stoking anger in
> the region. While proponents of physical barriers insist the walls will
> guard against terrorists, deter illegal immigrants and curb drug
> traffickers, opponents, including most Texas border city mayors, contend
> the million-dollar structures will divide sister cities, intrude on
> private lands, create flood hazards, threaten ecosystems and wildlife like
> rare jaguars, and funnel undocumented immigrants to deadlier, isolated
> desert crossings.
>
> Isabel Garcia of the Tucson-based Human Rights Coalition, said more than
> 200 migrants have died trying to cross the border in the Arizona-Sonora
> corridor alone since October of last year. The Arizona-Sonora border is
> "the epicenter of the war on immigrants," Garcia charged.
>
> In opposition to border walls, a Texas-based group called Border
> Ambassadors kicked off a 16-day campaign August 25 in El Paso. Led by Jay
> J. Johnson-Castro, the group organized a small human chain across the
> Santa Fe Bridge between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.
>
> The demonstration was supported by the League for United Latin American
> Citizens, Miss Latina Texas beauty contest queens and the mayors of El
> Paso and Ciudad Juarez. El Paso Mayor Cook said that people outside the
> region don't understand the "symbiotic relationship" between border
> communities dependent on mutual economic, academic and social exchanges.
> Border Ambassadors plans human chains in the coming days in other
> Texas-Mexico border cities.
>
> A separate anti-wall mobilization is planned for October 11-13. Endorsed
> by 37 Western Hemisphere non-governmental groups, the action grows out of
> last year's Border Social Forum held in Ciudad Juarez. Protest organizers
> include San Antonio's Southwest Workers Union, the Border Agricultural
> Workers Union, Southwest Organizing Project, and many others.
>
> Economic grievances remain are the core of many border-area protests.
> Former Bracero Program guestworkers, for instance, are renewing demands
> that the Mexican government compensate all the eligible braceros who had
> money deducted from their paychecks decades ago for savings accounts that
> never materialized.
>
> On Monday, August 27, nine women initiated a week-long hunger strike in El
> Paso against the North American Free Trade Agreement, the conditions of
> women workers and treatment of immigrants in the US. Organized by La Mujer
> Obrera, a longtime group of former garment industry workers, the hunger
> strikers demand investment in women-centered economic development
> enterprises.
>
> In Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, thousands of teachers are
> expected to hold a border demonstration August 31 to protest the Mexican
> government's passage of a new social security law that lengthens
> retirement age eligibility requirements and sets the stage for the
> privatization of pension accounts.
>
> Building on a trend that's developed over the past few years, the latest
> round of border activism is connected to issues affecting communities
> across North America. In Prince William County, Virginia, the Sin
> Fronteras organization launched an economic boycott this week to protest a
> new county law that gives local police immigration law enforcement
> responsibilities.
>
> In an August 27 telephone press conference, representatives of several
> US-based human rights and Latino and Asian community organizations
> criticized the expansion of law enforcement measures once confined to the
> border region to the interior of the United States. Activist leaders
> condemned house-to-house ICE raids, alleged detention center abuses,
> employer verification letters, the use of local police forces to enforce
> immigration laws, and the appearance of high-tech aircraft monitoring
> communities far from the border.
>
> Immigrant communities are in a "state of siege," charged Christian Ramirez
> of the American Friends Service Committee. Activists are "now calling for
> our communities to come together and say enough to these governmental
> initiatives," Ramirez added.
>
> Veronica Carmona, an organizer for the New Mexico-based Colonias
> Development Council, told Frontera NorteSur that pro-immigrant groups are
> backing a national day of action for September 12. Carmona said the
> character of the protest is still being debated.
>
> If cross-border activism needed a media face, Elvira Arellano certainly
> provided it. The undocumented Mexican worker's long fight to remain with
> her child, a US citizen, was abruptly interrupted when ICE agents arrested
> Arellano as she was leaving a Los Angeles press conference this month.
> Arellano's rapid deportation to Mexico drew the protest of the Mexican
> government.
>
> Arellano's arrest injected new life into the immigrant rights movement,
> and thousands of people streamed into the streets of Los Angeles on August
> 25 chanting "We are all Elvira," a slogan evocative of the 1994 cry in
> Mexico, "We are all Marcos," in allusion to the Zapatista subcomandante.
> The Arellano case received ample coverage and touched off sharp commentary
> in the Mexican media, with some outlets proclaiming the young woman as the
> ?symbol? of the Mexican immigrant in the US.
>
>
> Additional sources: Univison, August 18 and 27, 2008. El Universal, August
> 26, 2007. Article by Julieta Martinez.  El Sur, August 26, 2007. Norte,
> August 14, 16, 25 and 26, 2007. Articles by Ricardo Espinoza, Antonio
> Flores Schroeder, Pablo Hernandez Batista, Jorge Chairez Daniel and Carlos
> Huerta. La Jornada, August 11, 21 and 26, 2007. Articles by Ruben
> Villalpando, the Notimex news agency and editorial staff. El Paso Times,
> August 21, 24, 25 and 26, 2007. Articles by Daniel Borunda, Louie Gilot
> and Adriana M. Chavez.  Lapolaka.com, August 9, 14, 25, 26, 27, 2007. El
> Diario de Juarez, August 9, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 2007.
>
>
> Link to the Article:
> http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=0944
>
>
> National Immigrant Solidarity Network
> webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
> e-mail: info at ImmigrantSolidarity.org
>
> Please join the immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv, send
> e-mail to: isn-subscribe at lists.riseup.net or visit:
> http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn
>
> US-Mexico Border Information: No Militarization of Borders! Support
> Immigrant Rights!
> send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
> or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/
>
>
>
>
>
> =================================================================
> National Immigrant Solidarity Network
> No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
> webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
> e-mail: info at ImmigrantSolidarity.org
> New York: (212)330-8172
> Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
> Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990
>
> Please consider making a donation to the important work of National
> Immigrant Solidarity Network
>
> Send check pay to:
> National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ
>
> Send check to:
> ActionLA / The Peace Center
> 8124 West 3rd Street, Suite 104
> Los Angeles, California 90048
> (All donations are tax deductible)
>
> *to join the immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv, send e-mail
> to: isn-subscribe at lists.riseup.net
> or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn
>
> *a monthly ISN monthly Action Alert! listserv, go to webpage
> http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn-digest
>
> =============================================
> The web page has been design by Activist Design Studio
> Please visit: http://www.ActivistDesign.net
> Toll-Free: (888)635-3307
> =============================================
>
> **Please join our following listservs:
>
> Asian American Labor Activism Alert!
> send-e-mail to: api-la-subscribe at lists.riseup.net
> or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/api-la
>
> New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas immigrant workers information
> and alerts
> send e-mail to: nyc-immigrantalert-subscribe at lists.riseup.net
> or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/nyc-immigrantalert
>
> US-Mexico Border Information: No Militarization of Borders! Support
> Immigrant Rights!
> send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
> or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/
>
> Virginia state-wide immigrant organizing E-mail list, send- e-mail to:
> va-immigrantrights-subscribe at lists.riseup.net or visit:
> https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/va-immigrantrights
>
> Immigrant Deportation and Detention Alert!
> send e-mail to: isn-deportees-subscribe at lists.riseup.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
> __._,_.___
>
>
> Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
> Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
> Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to
> Fully Featured
> Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
>
>
> __,_._,___
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: not available
> Type: text/html
> Size: 19779 bytes
> Desc: not available
> Url :
> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20070830/e29f8ff3/attachment.txt
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:32:44 -0500
> From: "Nicaragua Solidarity and Fair Trade Resource"
>         <nscchicago at igc.org>
> Subject: [A-List] Ccawrdiscussion] Quigley: 10 Lessons of Katrina
> To: "NSC WORKERS COOP" <nscchicago at igc.org>
> Message-ID: <005701c7eb34$2eddc0e0$0b0110ac at youro0kwkw9jwc>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> From: K. Ryann Moran
> Subject: [Ccawrdiscussion] Quigley: 10 Lessons of Katrina
>
>
> >From Counterpunch.org
>
> 10 Important Lessons Katrina, Two Years Later
> By BILL QUIGLEY
>
> One. Build and rebuild community.
>
> When disaster hits and life is wrecked, you immediately seem to be on your
> own. Isolation after a disaster is a recipe for powerlessness and
> depression. Family, community, church, work associations are all important
> --get them up and working as fast as possible. People will stand up and
> fight, but we need communities to do it. Prize women --they are the first
> line of community builders. Guys will talk and fight and often grab the
> spotlight, but women will help everyone and do whatever it takes to protect
> families and communities.
>
> Powerful forces mobilize immediately after a disaster. People and
> politicians and organizations have their own agendas and it helps them if
> our communities are fragmented. Setting one group against another, saying
> one group is more important than another is not helpful. Stress and distress
> is high for everyone, but community support will multiply the resources of
> individuals. Build bridges. People together are much stronger than people
> alone.
>
> Two. Self-reliance.
>
> Your community must be ready to re-settle your property as soon as
> possible and care for those most in need. Prioritize help for the elderly,
> the sick, children and women, especially the poor. The prime cure for
> helplessness is taking control over your own life and joining others to
> fight for justice.
>
> Groups and people will want to treat you like a victim --say you are
> traumatized and incapable of making basic decisions about yourself. They
> will tell you they know best and act like they know best. Tell them to get
> lost.
>
> Three. Tell your own story.
>
> Sharing our stories, successes and failures, is a way to connect and
> educate ourselves. Connecting with others nationally and internationally who
> have been through disasters is the very best thing that you can do.
> Disasters and the corporations that cause them and profit from them do not
> respect national boundaries. Look for global justice connections. Learn from
> those who have been through this before. They will tell you - do not let
> anyone say who you are or what is best for your community --say it yourself.
>
> Those in power will blame circumstances outside their control for what
> happened and inevitably they will blame the victims of the disaster. Those
> in power will tell the people's story in ways that makes the powerful look
> good. If others do not tell the truth --you do it and get your stories out.
> Real allies help lift up the voices of the people.
>
> Four. Value every single human life equally.
>
> Every religion and human rights recognizes that every single person is
> entitled to human dignity. There are no forms to fill out, no criteria to
> meet. Every single person no matter their race or gender or economic
> situation has equal value. Every person has the right to participate in the
> response to the disaster equally. Every single person and family has the
> right to repair and rebuild and participate in the decisions being made.
>
> The exact opposite occurs after a disaster. The people with economic and
> political power get together and decide what has to happen. They also decide
> which people are "worthy" of getting help first. They consider poor working
> people disposable and movable. Since this is an emergency, they say there is
> not time to allow regular people to participate in the decisions. If every
> single person is not treated equally before the disaster hits, they
> certainly should not expect to be treated fairly after.
>
> Five. Don't wait for a leader --become one.
>
> Resist the tendency to think someone else is going to come save you. There
> is no leader out there. We must each become leaders and followers in order
> to bring about the change that is needed. Each of us is challenged to get
> beyond our pre-disaster comfort zone. New leadership is essential to avoid
> just repeating the mistakes that contributed to the disaster.
>
> Those who work for human development instead of real estate development
> will be repeatedly criticized as "obstructionist" by those who do not value
> every life equally. Be prepared for these criticisms. That is what they said
> about Mandela, Gandhi, ML King. Good company.
>
> Six. Prepare for a Love-Hate Relationship with the Government.
>
> After disaster, only the government has the resources to help fix major
> problems for the social good. We must hold them accountable and demand that
> the public sector mobilize and assist in an equitable way.
>
> At the same time, we cannot wait for the government. Nor can we
> necessarily listen to the government. After a disaster, the government will
> immediately be manipulated by those in power. We must both critique the
> government and build our own alternative community supports.
>
> Seven. Government will help businesses first and second and third, and if
> there is anything left, maybe fourth.
>
> Who is in charge of government before the disaster? Governments will look
> to privatize the public sector --housing, health, education, transportation,
> every system after a disaster. That was what they wanted before the
> disaster, so the disaster offers them an opportunity to move their plans
> into action.
>
> Corporations see disasters as opportunities. They look for valuable land
> that poor people were living on before the disaster. They decide that there
> is a better economic use for that land. Then they will push the government
> to come up with some excuse to take the land for other uses.
>
> You will quickly see that those with power and money before the disaster
> end up with more power and more money after the disaster. You will see that
> 98% of the money distributed in a disaster ends up enriching corporations.
> Our most colorful example is the blue tarps that the government put on the
> roofs of houses after Katrina. The main contractor, Shaw Group, got $175 a
> square to put on the tarps. The subcontracted the work out to another
> corporation for $75 a square. The second corporation subcontracted the work
> out to a third corporation for $30 a square. Who in turn subcontracted it
> out again to guys who did the work for $2 a square. Two dollars a square for
> the actual worker is less than 2 percent of what the government paid out
> --guess who got the money.
>
> Wonder why the Gulf Coast is not fixed up yet? This is not an accident. It
> is not that the system isn't working. It is working for the benefit of those
> who create and fund and manipulate it. Read Naomi Klein's THE SHOCK
> DOCTRINE: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. It spells it out in detail.
>
> If government works primarily for corporations before the disaster, after
> the disaster it will be a hyper corporate-friendly environment.
>
> Eight. Disasters reveal the structural injustices in our communities in
> race, gender and class and are thus learning and action opportunities.
>
> Wonder about the role of race, class and gender in society? Watch what
> happens when disaster strikes. Who is left behind during the disaster? Who
> is left behind in the repair and rebuilding and planning and
> decision-making? Disasters illuminate injustices.
>
> There is tremendous educational opportunity to look at what really matters
> in our society after a disaster. The curtains are pulled back. The bandages
> are ripped off. Our histories of injustice are laid bare for all to see.
> International human rights create great opportunities to reframe the justice
> discussion.
>
> But just looking is insufficient. Join in solidarity with the same folks
> who are left out. If a disaster can be an opportunity for those interested
> in unjust economic advantage, why cannot we change the pattern and make it
> an opportunity to redistribute justice in our communities and right the
> wrongs that created what all can now see?
>
> Nine. A justice-based reconstruction will not be funded.
>
> Money will flow. Charities, churches and governments will send money for
> charitable help. If your community is trying to create a more just community
> than the one destroyed by the disaster, there will not be funding for that.
> If you are trying to make the community fairer for and with the poor, the
> elderly, and those who lived in unjust circumstances before the disaster
> --get ready to raise your own funds for your organization. Funding for
> charity will come, but funding for justice will not.
>
> We must insist on some transparency and accountability from the
> non-profits and foundations and others who have raised and spent billions in
> the names of those in distress. They cannot be allowed to operate like
> multi-national corporations --they must open their books and involve people
> in their decision-making.
>
> Solidarity not charity is one of the great demands to come out of Katrina
> from the Common Ground collective. Another is "Nothing about us without us
> is for us" from Peoples Hurricane Relief.
>
> After Katrina, it again became clear that decades of oil development has
> literally destroyed the natural protections around the gulf coast. Yet the
> disaster actually enriched the oil companies who helped cause it, creating
> their biggest year of profit in some time. Yet, do you hear the voices of
> those calling out for the oil corporations to be held accountable for what
> they have caused? Those voices are small and unfunded. But they, like so
> many others calling for justice, are out there and will one day be hear.
>
> Ten. Love is the answer --justice work is a commitment for the long haul.
>
> When disaster hits, there is a natural urge to work around the clock to
> try to set things right. After a few weeks or months, it will become clear
> that is not sustainable. Working 24 hours a day is going to make you as
> crazy as the government. No one likes a crank --even if they are working for
> justice.
>
> Building communities of resistance and working for human development is
> long-term work. Love is a tremendous source of energy. But we have to love
> ourselves as well so we can keep living this resistance with others. We have
> and will continue to make mistakes. We have to get back up, dust ourselves
> off, forgive ourselves and others, and get back to working in community to
> create a more just world.
>
> It is important to laugh too. Remember that last job held by the guy in
> charge of disasters for the entire US government was as head of an
> association of dancing horses! We can't make this stuff up.
>
> We have to love and laugh along with our tears and rage and keep learning
> new lessons.
>
> Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola
> University New Orleans. You can reach him at Quigley at loyno.edu
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ccawrdiscussion mailing list
> Ccawrdiscussion at ccawr.org
> http://lists.ccawr.org/mailman/listinfo/ccawrdiscussion
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: not available
> Type: text/html
> Size: 13278 bytes
> Desc: not available
> Url :
> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20070830/5ea6fa90/attachment.txt
>
> End of A-List Digest, Vol 47, Issue 45
> **************************************
>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/html
Size: 30354 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/attachments/20070831/edb4b596/attachment.txt>