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February 3, 2006
Dispatches From New York City
by Brian Yanity, insurgent49


     [Editor's note: Insurgent49 staff writer Brian Yanity will be residing in, and reporting from, New York City until May. Be sure to mark this page, and return often for Brian's dispatches from 'The Capital of the World'.]



A Report from the NYC Grassroots Media Conference
(filed February 13th, 2006)

     On February 11, a diverse group of hundreds of activists and media workers converged at Manhattan’s New School University for the third annual New York City Grassroots Media Conference. The all-day conference, organized by the NYC Grassroots Media Coalition (www.nycgrassrootsmedia.org), featured about forty different workshop-type sessions, a grassroots media film festival, an art exhibition, and a ‘Youth Lounge’ only for folks 21 and under.

     The conference’s workshop sessions covered a wide range, covering such themes as “The Role of Ethnic Press in Times of War and Natural Disaster”, “Media Policy, Why It’s Important for Everyone”,  “Models for Independent Media and Political Organizing” to “Silk-screening 101”.

     The huge variety of workshops was truly awe-inspiring. Culturally-oriented sessions included “NYC Feminist Independent Media”, “Creative Politics: The Art of Freestyling” and “Using Hip-Hop for Social Change”, hosted by the Hip-Hop Association [H2A] (www.h2ed.net). The “Voices de Nuestra Tierra: A Community Sister-Radio Project Between WBAI and Radio Payumat of Cauca, Colombia” workshop detailed how indigenous communities in Colombia are using non-profit radio as a valuable organizing tool.

     These communities are also using independent media as part of a process of struggle against repression by the Colombian state and such U.S.-backed policies as the Free Trade Area of the Americas and Plan Colombia. Also discussed were the inspiring examples from other parts of Latin America: Mexico’s independent media collectives such as the Chiapas Media Project (promedios.org/eng/index.html), the ‘video-in-the-villages’ movement in Brazil and Bolivia.

    The more ‘technical’ and hands-on sessions included several video-production workshops, a special session on archiving grassroots media, and the youth-oriented training sessions ‘Get Your Questions Answered: Interviewing 101” and “Journalism for Youth: Writing, Editing, and Publicizing”.

     The Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project (www.prometheusradio.org) hosted the fascinating “Microradio: a Tactical Overview and Operations” session. Prometheus volunteers also showed participants how to build own ‘cantenna’, a do-it-yourself radio antenna made out of used coffee cans.  Internet-themed workshops included the “NYC Blogging Caucus”, “Podcasting 101”, “Get it Online with Harlem Live!”, and “How to Build Your Own Website.”

     However, ‘independent’ and ‘do-it-yourself’ forms of media were not the only kind discussed at the conference. The progressive media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) (www.fair.org) held the informative session “Reading Between the Headlines, a Fair Reading of the News” about how to detect bias in the mainstream media, and how media activists should take action in response to it.

     Particularly useful was the workshop “Talking to the Mainstream Media: Independent Media Isn’t Always Enough”, which gave important guidelines on how social movement activists should talk to the mainstream media. Whatever one feels about the integrity of corporate media outlets, social activists must understand how they operate not only to minimize ‘bad press’, but also to exploit the inherent weaknesses of the dominant media system.

     Overall, the NYC Grassroots Media Conference was a valuable and inspiring event, generating momentum and enthusiasm by connecting so many people with so many great ideas. The effects of the skill-sharing exchanges, dialogue, debate, and strategizing held on this one dreary Saturday will be strong and lasting.

     Knowledge is power, and building a movement to democratize media is essential for the survival of democracy itself.

     More useful grassroots media links:

www.altpress.org
www.ippn.ws
www.alliancecm.org
www.mediachannel.org
www.freespeech.org
www.papertiger.org/index.php
indypendent.typepad.com


A Report from the Bush Crimes Commission
(filed February 3, 2006)

NEW YORK- On the weekend of January 20-22, 2006, over a thousand people gathered in New York City for a special event organized by the group Not in Our Name (www.nion.us). Officially named the “2005-2006 International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration of the United States”, the commission is commonly referred to simply as the Bush Crimes Commission (www.bushcommission.org).

     It is a jury of conscience, which considers evidence with purely moral authority. The World Tribunal on Iraq, which happened earlier this year, was a similar event modeled on the ‘peoples tribunals’ held during the Vietnam War. The central question of the entire event was “whether George W. Bush and his administration have committed crimes against humanity”.

     The commission hearings were carried out in a ‘peoples court’ trial format, with various witnesses testifying before a panel of judges. The ‘judges’ were Adjoa Aiyetoro, professor of law at the University of Arkansas; Dennis Brutus, South African poet, political activist and professor at the University of Pittsburgh; Abdeen Jabara, former president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Ajamu Sankofa, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-New York; and Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel. Bush Administration officials were invited to provide a defense, but did not respond to the invitation.

     The first session of the commission was held in October, and the formal presentation of the verdicts was released the morning of Thursday, February 2nd in Washington, DC at the National Press Club. The first two days of the commission’s final hearings were held in New York City’s famous Riverside Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his death.

     Friday night (January 20) started off the event with the “Wars of Aggression” prosecution. After welcoming remarks from the event organizers and musician-activist Harry Belafonte, Dr. Alan Berkman, of Columbia University’s medical school began the session by describing how the global health crisis (particularly AIDS) has been aggravated by Bush Administration policies.

     Next up was Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector, who testified that official U.S./U.K. policy on Iraq since 1991 was regime change, not disarmament. In other words, both the Bush Administration and its British counterpart created a system to maintain public perception of Iraqi non-compliance, as a disarmed Iraq was not useful for their propaganda purposes. Following Mr. Ritter was David Swanson, creator of the webpage www.afterdowningstreet.org, who talked about the implications of the Downing Street memo, and stated that we all raise hell for the mainstream media, holding them accountable for complicity in the government’s war plans.

     Independent journalist and former Anchorage resident Dahr Jamail, who has reported extensively from Iraq since 2003, was next to testify. Jamail stated that the media’s job during wartime (or in the lead-up to a war), is not to incite the public to violence, and thus corporate media such as Fox News, CNN, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Thomas Freidman and Judith Miller (of the New York Times) are guilty of war crimes.



     He then talked about how white phosphorous (a chemical weapon) was extensively used in the assault on Falluja, and is still used by U.S. forces throughout Iraq. Jamail also described how the Bush administration has defied the Geneva conventions with the deliberate targeting of civilians, ambulances, and medical facilities. The audience then watched footage of F-16 bombing Iraqi civilians during April 2004, in which a 32-second decision by a U.S. commander killed at least thirty civilians.

     After Jamail came Jeremy Scahill, journalist with Democracy Now! and the Nation magazine who has reported from Iraq, told of the “extraordinary price paid by media workers in telling the truth”.  About 60 journalists so far have been killed in Iraq, 12 of whom by U.S. forces. At the same time, embedded journalism has had drastic effects on any kind of U.S. media objectivity. Scahill said that “journalists should always be on the side of people being burned”. Also speaking was Lindsey German, convener of the UK Stop the War Coalition (www.stopwar.org.uk). The Friday evening session was closed by Anthony Alessandrini, of the World Tribunal on Iraq (www.newyork.worldtribunal.org), who told the audience to work for justice globally, beyond the lines of nation-states.

     The next morning (January 21), the “Destruction of the Global Environment” prosecution was introduced by Ted Glick of the Climate Crisis Coalition (www.climatecrisiscoalition.org). Glick said that the environmental crimes against humanity of the current U.S. administration result from a deliberate, willful course of action to 1) denial and distortion of international scientific consensus, and 2) obstruction of international action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

     Daphne Wysham of the Institute for Policy Studies told the commission that “we live in an ‘oligarchy’ more than a democracy”, and that climate science is some of the most damning, and most credible, information about the Bush administration’s crimes against humanity. Wysham then gave the illuminating example of how the release of Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report was intentionally delayed until after the 2004 U.S. elections.

     She also detailed how the United Nations estimates that there are already 160,000 deaths per year worldwide resulting from climate change, and 95% of deaths from global warming in the years ahead are projected to happen in the global South, formerly known as the Third World. All of this comes on top of revelations that the U.S. government is undermining international efforts to slow climate change, including a gag rule on federal employees talking about climate change to the media.

     Next to testify was Chris Fox, chairman of the Department of Environmental Science & Technology at the Community College of Baltimore County, on the world scientific community's consensus on global warming. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IGPCC) issued its third assessment report in 2001, which took three years to produce.

     The report boldly stated that there is “new and stronger evidence” that runaway climate change is the result of human carbon emissions. The leading U.S. scientific organizations have all released formal reports and statements urging governmental action on carbon emissions, including the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Geophysical Union (AGU), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Fox cited many disturbing items of scientific proof such as the fact that intensity of Atlantic Ocean hurricanes has increased 70% in the past 30 years, and that there has been record sea ice loss in the Arctic Ocean.

     Following Fox was Josh Tulkin, an environmental political organizer and creator of the “Katrina No More” website (www.katrinanomore.com), who testified on the relationship between Katrina and global warming, and reminded the audience that the U.S. alone is responsible for 25% of all global carbon emissions, more than any other nation. The environmental session concluded with Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network (www.ienearth.org), who talked about the human rights implications of toxic waste and global warming on indigenous communities. Goldtooth discussed at length the example of permafrost thaw and erosion effects on Alaska Native villages, and how the Inuit Circumpolar Conference has sent a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urging action on global warming.

     On Saturday afternoon, the “Torture, Detention and Rendition” prosecution was held. The star witnesses included Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, former commander of Abu Ghraib prison (who testified on the Bush Administration’s responsibility in prisoner abuse) , and Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan. Also speaking were Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Marjorie Cohn, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild; Barbara Olshansky, Center for Constitutional Rights and lawyer for Guantanamo prisoners; and Eric Lerner and New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee.

     The Sunday (January 22) sessions of the commission were held at the Columbia University School of Law. The morning prosecution was entitled “Attacks on Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights” which featured testimony from William Smith of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States; Professor Ida Susser, of Columbia University’s School of Public Health, on the impact on women of Bush Administration's policies; and Dr. Thomas Fasy, associate professor of pathology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

     The final session of the weekend was the “Hurricane Katrina” prosecution on Sunday afternoon. First to testify was Chokwe Lumumba, a lawyer and human rights activist discussed the Army Corps budget cuts in southern Louisiana prior to the disaster: “Peter was robbing Paul”.

     Larry McBride, who was left to drown in a New Orleans jail when Katrina struck, provided moving testimony about the beating of inmates by the jail guards, who then left before the storm hit, leaving inmates trapped with no food or water for three or four days. He said that the inmates were not trying to escape, but just trying to avoid drowning by getting to higher ground. McBride was in jail after being charged with public drunkenness the Friday before the storm struck. This is a misdemeanor that normally results in a jail sentence of a few days, but McBride ended up incarcerated for three months! He concluded that the blame should not placed upon Hurricane Katrina itself, but society’s ‘protection system’.

     Emma Lofton Woods, a resident of Westchester County in New York, then spoke of volunteering with Red Cross, but then quitting due to disillusionment. She said that the “disaster became the Red Cross”. Speaking of the military (and mercenary) presence in New Orleans, Woods stated that she had “never seen on our own soil our own citizens so de-humanized”. Next to speak was Aaron Guyton, a volunteer with Common Ground Collective (www.commongroundrelief.org) in New Orleans. Following Guyton was Beverly Wright, a sociology professor at Dillard University and founder of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Xavier University (www.xula.edu/dscej).

     The event’s convener, C. Clark Kissinger, closed the final session of the Commission of Inquiry’s hearings with a goal. He told us all to take it out into society, and build a grassroots political movement to bring down Bush: “We are going to raise a debate in this country about this regime’s crimes against humanity”. 








Brian Yanity is a graduate student at UAA, where he is president of the Palestine Club and the Sustainable Energy Society. Brian resides in an undisclosed location in Southcentral Alaska. He can be reached at byanity@insurgent49.com.
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