WLOE E-News, 12 December 2003

The meaning of Miami; Alert; Reports from Jerusalem and Hebron; Afghan women on International Human Rights Day; Dangerous Diets

• FTAA?Trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, Florida in November to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas, “an agreement that would extend the failed NAFTA model of corporate globalization throughout the Western Hemisphere.”
  http://www.unitedforpeace.org/endorse.php
  
  For a report on what happened see Deborah James’: Summary of the Proceedings of the FTAA Trade Negotiating Committee, Vice Ministerial meeting (November 15-19) and Ministerial (Nov 20-21), Miami, 2003.”  4 December 2003
  http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/ftaa/1311.html
  
  
• Starhawk was outside with daily reports and ‘more thoughts on Miami’
  
  Miami: A Dangerous Victory
  By Starhawk
  December 8, 2003
  
  Excerpt from her report:
  … “In spite of the major fear campaign and the negative propaganda being put forth by the police and the media, just about every interaction we had with ordinary Miami folks was positive. Locals were told by police that dangerous anarchists would burn their shops, would shoot them with squirt guns full of urine and feces, would smash their windows, and destroy Miami if not contained. Nevertheless, local people were scared, but interested in what we had to say. The poor and immigrant populations of downtown Miami understand the issues of underlying economic injustice. They could quickly grasp what the FTAA might mean for their jobs. They told us stories of water privatization in their home countries, of 16-hour-a-day workshifts on cruise ships that unions couldn't organize because they are registered in other countries, of their daily struggle to survive on the streets, of the ongoing police brutality faced by the homeless and the poor.
  
  When we were driven back into Overtown, Miami's black ghetto, people smiled and waved, came forward to help us, offered places for hunted activists to hide, sheltered our puppets in their back yards. Other local people came forward to offer housing and shelter, to donate food, plants, and time to the mobilization, to hold vigils at the jail and to provide support after most of the action had left town. It was as if the bulk of the population pressed the mute button on the soundtrack spewed by the media and the police, noticed what their own eyes were telling them, and knew who their true allies were.
  
  That disconnect, that gap between the reality the power structure was attempting to construct and the actual reality of ordinary people, is the fertile political space we need to nurture and explore in order to move forward…”
  
  “Miami was a clear example of the New American Fascism brought home. I don't use the word "fascism" lightly. I use it to mean that combination of brutal state power applied ruthlessly against its critics, backed by surveillance, media distortions, hate propaganda, and lies, allied politically and economically with those who profit from the industries of weaponry, prisons, and war. “
  Read full report at:
  http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/miami_more_thoughts.html
  
  More on FTAA: An important local site, “The Root Cause”
  http://www.therootcause.org
  They also have an excellent set of links for information on the FTAA:
  http://www.therootcause.org/ftaa/index.shtml
  
  Miami Activist Defense (MAD) Legal is requesting donations to fund long-term legal support for participants in the anti-FTAA demonstrations. See
  http://www.stopftaa.org/
  and stop FTAA website:
  http://www.ftaaresistance.org/
  
  
• ALERT!  Theresa Wolfwood, longtime activist from British Columbia, Canada, sends us this appeal for quick action to support Irene Fernandez’s participation at the up-coming World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, January 16-21.
             
  Dear Friends,
  I am working hard to support my friend, Irene Fernandez of Malaysia, who has been sentenced to 1 year in jail for publishing 8 years ago a document about Malaysia's treatment of migrant works. She is director of Tenganita, a human rights organization. Her case has been the subject of much international concern and she has received many awards. I am hoping she can get her passport to go to Mumbai and speak on my panel at the World Social Forum. The organization hopes to get 1 million signatures on this petition.
  www.tenaganita.net  
  Complete information on the case is available on the web page. And if possible add it to your websites.
  
  Please sign it and send this appeal out as widely as possible.
  Theresa Wolfwood, BBCF, Victoria, Canada
  
  For more on the WSF meeting see:
  http://www.wsfindia.org/
  
  
• ISRAEL/PALESTINE
  
  Israeli peace activist Gila Svirsky wrote on December 1 about the Geneva Accord: “I wish I could have been in Geneva today, where hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians gathered to make public their demand for peace.”
  
  Sarah S. reports from Hebron: A Visit to Al Khalil
  
  
• AFGHANISTAN
  
  ”Establishing human rights and democracy is possible only with the destruction of fundamentalism domination” RAWA statement on the International Human Rights Day, Dec.10, 2003:
  ”Two years have elapsed since the US and its allies attacked Afghanistan under the slogan of "defending human rights", punishing their servants of yesterday and toppling their medieval-minded regime. But still we cannot trace any sign of stability, peace and security in the country…”
  http://rawa.fancymarketing.net
  
  See photos of the RAWA demonstration on International Human Rights Day 2003
  http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/dec10-03.htm
  
  More on RAWA:"With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan" by Anne Brodsky. "Here is a testimony to RAWA - Afghanistan's real democrats." - Arundhati Roy.  “Anne Brodsky's book gives us a ring side view of this extraordinary women's movement that is as doggedly committed to the business of democracy as it is to the (vital) business of dreaming of another, better world.” Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues http://afghanwomensmission.org/fundraising/brodsky_book.php
  
  
• DANGEROUS DIETS
  
  Stop “for-profit foods,” starting with high fructose corn syrup:
  
  “… we are (now) facing a new issue with respect to the health of foods in the form of a created sugar called high fructose corn syrup. This sweetener is being used in many products as a substitute for other sugars, including in products which were formerly not sweetened.   This corn syrup has spread through the food supply in the United States and is moving into the food of other countries as well. High fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar beet and sugar cane as the sweetener of choice in large transnational food products…”
  Read the full article by Jean Grossholtz, with list of products and manufacturers involved: 
  http://www.womenandlife.org/WLOE-en/information/ecology/food-sec/fructose.html
  
  "The Meatrix" : This new animated short from Free Range Graphics is funny and serious at the same time, showing the disaster of factory farming:
  http://www.themeatrix.com
  Supporting family farmers is an effective way for us all to protect the environment, our health and animal rights. The Eat Well Guide makes it easy:
  http://www.eatwellguide.org
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