WLOE E-NEWSLETTER 22 May 2003:

Reports of women’s voices and actions for peace, ecological and global justice: Women Stop GATS! Report from the international conference in Cologne; Code Pink on Mother’s Day actions; Bush's Harvest of Shame: one Million Black Children in Extreme Poverty; Starhawk’s report on Passover in Palestine; Arundhati Roy’s speech in NYC

• Women Stop GATS! Report from the international conference on GATS, privatisation and its consequences for women, organised by Attac Women’s group, Cologne, Germany, 9-11 May 2003
  "This international congress was called by the organisers (Attac Women' Group, Germany) "the first women social forum" because, even to their surprise, there were more than four hundred participants, and amongst them many young women (including student translators). Maria Mies and Christa Wichterich from Germany, Vandana Shiva from India, and Maude Barlow from Canada were the first keynote speakers for a vibrant alert: Gats is already with us in the shape of privatisations, but if the agreements are ratified there will be no turn back. Therefore NOW is the time to RESIST. Women must take charge of the resistance. They, both as users and workers, are the first and the most affected by the disintegration of public services. AND IF WOMEN ARE CONCERNED, EVERYONE IS CONCERNED."
  Read the full report by Alice Hodgson at http://www.eurosur.org/wide/Globalisation/gats.htm
  Photos of the conference are on-line (with a long down-load time):
  http://www.arbeiterfotografie.com/galerie/reportage-2003/index-2003-05-11-koeln-gats-kongress.html
  
  
• From CODE PINK, on reclaiming Mother’s Day:
  Before Mother’s Day, May 11, the women’s initiative for peace Code Pink asked: "Did you know Mother's Day began as a call by women to end war in 1870? Following tremendous losses of the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe sent out a proclamation, declaring: "Arise, then women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience." After Mother’s Day we got this report: "It has been an amazing week.  CODEPINK events around the United States raised awareness that Mother's Day was a call for peace. (Paul Kibbey photo) CODEPINK was very visible at the FCC hearings this week in an effort to stop a new rule that threatens local and diverse voices in the media, and Michael Powell, Colin's Powell's son and Chairman of the FCC, was delivered a Pink Slip.
  We already knew Bush's new choice to run Iraq, Jerry Bremer, was bad news. Stunned, last week we heard him say, "shoot first ask questions later" about the looters in Baghdad. This week we have a witty and provocative treat for you from the Ruckus Society: a deck of cards exposing War Profiteers, the real looters in their endless war of terror." http://www.codepink4peace.org/
  
  
• Bush's Harvest of Shame: one Million Black Children in Extreme Poverty

The Black Commentator, cover story "An American kind of Hell is quickly descending on the poorest Black children, nearly one million of whom now live in "extreme poverty," according to a study by the Children's Defense Fund (http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/0430-03.htm). Most disturbingly, desperate poverty among African Americans under 18 years of age has increased 50 percent since 1999. Newly reviewed census data show 932,000 Black kids live in households with after-tax earnings less than half the official poverty level - $7,064 a year for a family of three. The figures are the highest since the government began compiling such data in 1979. The extreme poverty rate for Black kids is 8 percent, double the average for the general population. All told, 3.4 million Black children live in poverty, a proportion that had been shrinking until the beginning of the current recession, in 2000. "When the Nineties bubble burst, the children tumbled, this time without a net." http://www.blackcommentator.com/41/41_cover_pr.html The Black Commentator:Commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans. Next year in Mas'Ha (A report from eco-feminist writer and activist Starhawk) "On the eve of Passover, after a month I spent in the occupied territories of Palestine working with the International Solidarity movement, a month that saw one of our people deliberately run over by a bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier, and two young men deliberately shot, one in the face, one in the head, I found myself unable to face the prospect of a Seder, even with my friends in the Israeli peace movement. I couldn't sit and bewail our ancient slavery or celebrate our journey to the promised land. I was afraid that I might spew bitterness and salt all over any Seder table I graced, and smash something. So I went to the peace encampment at Mas'Ha. Mas'Ha needed people, and the moon was full, and I thought I could just lay down on the land under the moonlight and let some of the bitterness drain away..."For full article and links to Starhawk’s site, see:
http://www.womenandlife.org/WLOE-en/information/peace/starhawk.html 

• Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free)
  A speech by Indian writer-activist Arundhati Roy, presented in New York City at The Riverside ChurchMay 13, 2003, Sponsored by the Center for Economic and Social Rights"In these times, when we have to race to keep abreast of the speed at which our freedoms are being snatched from us, and when few can afford the luxury of retreating from the streets for a while in order to return with an exquisite, fully formed political thesis replete with footnotes and references, what profound gift can I offer you tonight? … Some uncomfortable thoughts about money, war, empire, racism, and democracy. Some worries that flit around my brain like a family of persistent moths that keep me awake at night…"
  Read full text at: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0518-01.htm  
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