green and peaceful times?

ISSUE NUMBER FOURTEEN
FEB 24, 1992
FREE IN SPIRIT AS WELL AS PRICE


Global Feminist Conspiracy To Outlaw
Sex! Gays And Lesbians Have Their Eyes
On Your Children!
Study Reveals: Ozone Hole A Myth!
JFK Seen With Elvis Working On SLC
Street Crews!
Hell, that ought to increase our
readers.

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THE WAR IS NEVER OVER
  Even  as the evil empire is releasing
the last of their political prisoners,
we in the U.S. are still adding to our
collection. More than seventy soldiers
who filed for Conscientious Objector
status and spoke out against the Gulf
War have been imprisoned. Of these,
twenty nine have been adopted by Amnesty
International as prisoners of
conscience.
  The Pentagon has been highly selective
in their persecution of Gulf War
resisters, attacking only those who
publicly condemned U.S. foreign policy.
Thousands  of  reservists  who failed to
show up a year ago have not been charged
with desertion or minor offenses; most
have been quietly discharged. The Army
Reserve announced in its newsletter that
soldiers who had disappeared could
report for duty
as late as June with no penalty.
  Selective harassment is most obvious
in cases like that of Yolanda Huet
Vaughn, who invoked the Nuremberg
principles when she abandoned her post
on Dec 31, 1990, rather than "be an
accomplice in what I consider an
immoral, inhumane, and unconstitutional
act." The Army refused to allow Huet
Vaughn to bring expert witnesses to
testify on the Nuremberg principles at
her court-martial. Prosecuting Officer
David Harney urged that she be sent to
prison not for deserting but for
"repeatedly saying that she was opposed
to the war and would not take part in
it."
  Erik Larsen, another G.I. adopted by
Amnesty International, was denied legal
counsel in the beginning stages of his
indictment. During his courtmartial,
Larsen's superior officers based their
decisions on statements he had made at
an antiwar rally, statements the FBI had
dutifully reported to them. Other
soldiers have been subjected to more
than jail time. Many suffered physical
abuse, public humiliation, and
exhausting assignments. Upon turning
himself in, George Ward was held down
and attacked by a half dozen razor
wielding marines in what his commanding
officer called a "regulation haircut."
Sgt. James Summers was kept in chains
and solitary confinement for five days.
Others were assigned double night
watches that allow for only four hour
sleep a night or ordered to march in the
rain while the rest of the troops were
driven.
  When filing for C.O. status, many
found it to be a special classification
reserved only for the "intellectual,
white and well to do." Tahan Jones, an
African American with little formal
education was denied C.O. status on the
basis that he was "of marginal
intelligence." Keri Sanders Huish was
told that she could not be a
conscientious objector without first
being a Christian.
  Despite U.N. mandates calling for
expedited processing of C.O. claims, the
Pentagon moved at a snail's pace in
processing the 2,500 claims filed in the
weeks leading up to Desert Storm. Many
applications were not looked at until
they were nine months old. Soldiers left
in desperation when they realized the
military had no intention of reviewing
their files soon enough for them to
avoid combat. Some made the mistake of
exercising their right to freedom of
speech.
  While the true heroes of Desert Storm
are being put behind bars in this
country, the true victims are still
suffering in the Middle East. According
to Elisabeth Benjamin, a public health
specialist who traveled to Iraq with a
Harvard medical study team, more than
100,000 children under the age of five
died in Iraq during 1991 as a direct
result of the U.S. War, and many more
are still dying. "I was astounded by the
sight of children dying from cholera,
typhoid, and hepatitis. Many suffered
from gastroenteritis, an affliction that
causes slow death by dehydration. The
suffering is compounded by the
malnutrition, evidenced by sunken eyes,
wrinkled skin, and abnormally low birth
weight, that is now found in at least a
third of the children."
  The bombing was not, as we were told,
limited to military establishments. The
entire infrastructure of Iraq stands
decimated today. This, coupled with the
U.S. military blockade has kept the
Iraqi people from obtaining food, milk,
clean water, and medical supplies. The
result has been widespread starvation,
disease and death. UNICEF officials have
reported seeing, for the first time in
the Middle East, the pot bellies and
bony faces that mark the kind of hunger
found in drought stricken Africa.
  The United States and Iraq are the
only two countries that have refused to
sign an international children's treaty
that would require a country, while at
war, to go to great lengths to protect
the lives and health of the children
living in the enemy country, and that
the finish of any armed conflict the
victors would immediately do anything
necessary to save the lives of the
children.
  "Without electricity," the Harvard
study concluded, "water cannot be
purified, sewage
cannot be treated, water borne diseases
flourish, and hospitals cannot cure
treatable illness." Children drink water
from bomb craters. They play in knee
deep sewage. They go to bed hungry night
after night. And the American public
cares little and knows less about the
rivers of blood now dirtying their
pretty yellow ribbons.
  "Today I had a patient die. For two
months she didn't get any milk. She was
only four months old."Dr Guilar, Kirkuk
Pediatric Hospital.

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THE HIGH COST OF FREE TRADE
  Flint, Michigan, is the birthplace of
General Motors. At one time the town was
home to more autoworkers than any other
place on Earth. Virtually everyone in
Flint worked for GM. The town is also
the birthplace of the United Auto
Workers, created after the Great Flint
Sit Down Strike of 1937, when workers
took over the plant and held it from the
National Guard for forty four days.
  In the late eighties GM started laying
off employees in Flint by the thousands.
Over a two year period the town lost
more than 30,000 jobs and became the
nation's capitol in unemployment and
violent crime. Money magazine named it
the single worst place to live in the
entire country.
  General Motors Chairman Roger Smith
closed eleven plants in Michigan and
opened eleven more in Mexico where cheap
labor and relaxed environmental
regulations meant bigger profits, and
gave himself a $2 million raise in the
meantime. Grand Met-Pillsbury-Green
giant, which also owns Burger King and
Haagen Dazs is also shifting production
to Mexico, where they pay starvation
wages of $4.25 a day and dump untreated
waste into the local water supply. The
company has just laid off hundreds in
Watsonville, California, mostly middle
aged women who had worked at the plant
for an average of fourteen years.
  For the Mexican people, free trade has
meant a U.S. takeover of agriculture.
Before 1989, the country was almost
entirely self sufficient in produce. By
1990, five million tons of corn were
coming from the U.S. and 80 percent of
Mexican tomato production was controlled
by U.S. capital. Imports rose to ten
times the value of exports and tens of
thousands of campesinos left the
countryside to work in the U.S. owned
factories along the border.
  Two thousand of these "maquiladora"
factories sit along the U.S. Mexican
border, where they enjoy the special
advantage of tax free imports.
Approximately 86 percent of them use
toxic chemicals and less than a third
live up to Mexico's extremely inadequate
environmental regulations. In 1988, a GM
plant was discovered dumping hundreds of
barrels of toxic waste into the nearby
desert. In 1989, El Paso health
officials found almost two hundred
leaking barrels of PCBs that had been
left in an inner city neighborhood two
blocks from the border. Twelve million
gallons of raw sewage flow into the
Tijuana River every year and nearly
twice as much is spewed into the Rio
Grande. Fish from the Rio Grande have
high levels of copper, selenium and
mercury in their tissue. The groundwater
used by the town of Nogales is
contaminated by industrial solvents. And
in Brownsville, Texas, an alarming
outbreak of stillborns and babies born
with misshaped brains who live only a
day or two is believed to have been
caused by industrial pollution.
The White House has expressed an
interest in creating Free Trade
agreements throughout the Western
Hemisphere, an effective recolonization.
Top trade representatives from 100
nations have now begun drafting the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
to erase existing barriers to free
trade. Under GATT an obscure panel of
scientists known as Codex Alimentarius
will be trusted to review environmental,
health and labor regulations in an
effort to eliminate "unfair trade
practices." Both GATT and Codex are
heavily lobbied by multibillion
international corporations and powerful
governments but are inaccessible to
citizens and community groups.
  Under GATT's rulings the hard sought
ban on tuna caught in methods that kill
large numbers of dolphins would be
struck down as an "unfair trade
practice." A bill restricting out of
state toxic waste incineration in Utah
would also be impossible. States like
Minnesota and Wisconsin would be forced
to lift a ban on the use of Bovine
Growth Hormone, a cattle hormone known
to cause adverse effects in humans. DDT
residues on fruits and vegetables would
be permitted at levels up to fifty times
current U.S. standards. Local
initiatives and bans on nonrecyclable
containers could also be overruled.
  We are being asked to sacrifice our
planet, our wages, our jobs and our
health for the sake of corporate
profits, destruction and greed.

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A CALL TO ACTION

Feb 26  The War Is Not Over. 11:30 a.m.
Demonstration on the federal building
plaza. Music and speakers all day and
Candlelight Vigil, 7:00, at Memory
Grove. Release Prisoners of Conscience.
Lift the Military Blockade. UAN, UPT,
SFSP.
for more information 534-3322, 328-4318

Feb 26  Candlelight Vigil on the steps
of the capitol building protesting
Utah's deadly abortion law, 7:00. Utah
NOW.
for more information 483-5188

Feb 29   7:00 p.m. Slide show and
speakers on the current situation in
Nicaragua at the YWCA. CASC. for more
information 364-6067

Feb 29  7:30 p.m. The Revolutionary
Legacy of Malcolm X. Militant Labor
Forum. 147 E 900 S more info 355-1124

March 6  3:30-4:30 p.m. Vigil at
Hercules main gate protesting
construction of the Trident nuclear
missiles. UPT 328-4318

March 13   5:30 p.m. Walk from capitol
to federal building protesting nuclear
testing. UPT 328-4318

March 14   The REAL Utah Women's
Conference.
Utah NOW 483-5188

March 20  3:30-4:30 p.m. Vigil at
Hercules main gate protesting
construction of the Trident nuclear m
issile UPT 328-4318

March 28   Benefit concert for Utah
Activist Network and green and peaceful
times? Liberty Park from noon til dark.

April 1   Revolution! Meet at the
Governor's mansion for Norm's sunrise
execution. From there we will
march up the hill and take the captiol
building. Bring firebombs, automatic
weapons and a friend!

!@#$

Coming Up:
April Hempfest
100th Monkey
Mother's Peace Day
Summer Solstice Smoke In

if you have an action you would like
listed in this column call Jonathon Hurd
at xxxxxxxx.
>306E Edith ave
>SLC UT 84111
>or email
>msbenefi@cadehp0.eng.utah.edu
>and your message will be forwarded

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