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Re: Rundown 5-9-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Cop takes midnight photos of pacifist teacher’s classroom,
then Rush Limbaugh posts them on his website
President Bush may invoke executive privilege to keep 911
documents away from Congressional investigators: We’ll
talk to a man who lost his wife in the attacks and is preparing
to sue the White House.
Wounded Knee II, 30 years later: American Indian Movement
ended its occupation of the village of Wounded Knee in May,
1973; U.S. government land grabs continue today
President Bush’s daughters are again in the news for
their alleged drug use, but its mostly people of color who
go to jail for drugs: as the Rockefeller drug laws turn 30,
celebrities and activists vow to overturn them
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One-minute music break
8:07-8:20 COP TAKES MIDNIGHT PHOTOS OF PACIFIST TEACHER’S
CLASSROOM, THEN RUSH LIMBAUGH POSTS THEM ON HIS WEBSITE
The time was 1:30 in the morning. It was in a small town
in Vermont. A local police officer was snapping photographs.
Collecting evidence. This hardly makes for an interesting
story.
Except the uniformed officer was in room 211 of Spaulding
High School in Barre, Vermont. The officer, who was on duty,
wasn’t investigating a crime. He was trying to document
what was going on in the classroom of a pacifist history teacher.
Well today we are joined by the teacher, Tom Treece, whose
classroom was targeted by Officer John Mott. We tried to reach
Officer Mott, but he did not return our calls. He recently
explained his actions to the Barre Montpelier Times Argus:
“I wanted everybody to see what was in that room.”
He added, “Having spent 30 years in uniform, I was insulted…
I’m just taking a stand on what happens in that classroom
as a resident and a voter and taxpayer of this community.”
8:20-8:21 One-minute music break
8:21-30 PRESIDENT BUSH MAY INVOKE EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE TO
KEEP 911 DOCUMENTS AWAY FROM CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATORS
Newsweek is reporting President Bush may try to invoke executive
privilege to keep key documents relating to the September
11 attacks out of the hands of investigators with the independent
panel created by Congress to probe all aspects of 9-11.
Last week, we spoke with Newsweek investigative reporter
Michael Isikoff, who said that administration officials are
waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure
of an 800-page secret report prepared by a joint congressional
inquiry. The report details intelligence and law-enforcement
failures that preceded the September 11 attacks, including
warnings given to President Bush and his top advisors during
the summer of 2001.
This week, Isikoff and Mark Hosenball are reporting chief
that White House council Alberto Gonzales privately told the
chair of the 9-11 panel Thomas Kean that the White House may
seek to invoke executive privilege over documents sought by
the commission. (Thomas Kean is the former Republican governor
of New Jersey who Bush named to chair the panel.)
Among the most sensitive documents the commission is interested
in reviewing are internal National Security Council minutes
from the spring and summer of 2001. That is when the CIA and
other intelligence agencies were warning that an attack by
Al Qaeda could well be imminent.
The panel is also expected to seek interviews with key players
in the Bush administration such as national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice. And the panel will likely request to review
debriefings of key Al Qaeda suspects who have been arrested.
8:35-8:45 WOUNDED KNEE II, 30 YEARS LATER: AMERICAN INDIAN
MOVEMENT ENDED ITS OCCUPATION OF THE VILLAGE OF WOUNDED KNEE
IN MAY, 1973
Thirty years ago this week, the American Indian Movement
ended its occupation of the village of Wounded Knee on the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The siege lasted 71 days, and drew international attention
to the plight of Indigenous people within the borders of the
US. The US government responded to the occupation with a full
military siege that included armored personnel carriers, F-4
Phantom jets, US Marshals, FBI, State and local law enforcement,
and the development of a corrupt vigilante group of Pine Ridge
Reservation natives called the Guardians of the Oglala Nation,
or GOONs.
Two activist occupiers were killed by sniper fire. About
a dozen solidarity activists disappeared when they attempted
to run supplies in by foot overnight.
The settlement is known as Wounded Knee II.
The occupation of Wounded Knee is considered the beginning
of what Oglala people refer to as the Reign of Terror, from
1973-76. Over 60 residents were killed in this period, their
murders went uninvestigated by the FBI, which had jurisdiction.
The period culminated in the June 26th shootout for which
Leonard Peltier is still imprisoned.
Today, government intrusion and land grabs continue to strip
the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota of their traditional land. An encampment
has just gone up along the Missouri River to stop the construction
of a landfill and state park on a site where the remains of
Indigenous people have been discovered.
- Madonna Thunder Hawk, member of the Lakota-Dakota-Nakota
Nation, who participated in the occupation. (The U.S. government
refers to her Nation as the Sioux.) Thunderhawk is a veteran
of most every modern Native American struggle, from the
occupation of Alcatraz to the siege of Wounded Knee. She
is a long-time community organizer with experience in Indian
rights protection, cultural preservation, economic development
and environmental justice. Thunder Hawk was a co-founder
and spokesperson for the Black Hills Alliance, which blocked
Union Carbide from mining uranium on sacred Lakota land.
She co-founded Women of All Nations and the Black Hills
Protection Committee (later the HeSapa Institute).
- Faith Spotted Eagle, who is organizing against the construction
of a waster dump and fish cleaning area for campers at a
Native American burial ground near Pine Ridge
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:45-8:58 BUSH DAUGHTERS AGAIN IN THE NEWS FOR ALLEGED DRUG
USE, BUT ITS MOSTLY PEOPLE OF COLOR WHO GO TO JAIL FOR DRUGS:
AS THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS TURN 30, ACTIVISTS VOW TO OVERTURN
THEM
The Bush daughters have once again found themselves in the
press this week for their alleged drug use.
Actor Ashton Kutcher told Rolling Stone magazine how a year
and a half ago he saw Jenna and Barbara smoking marijuana.
He said one night “I go upstairs to see another friend
and I can smell the green wafting out under his door. I open
the door and there he is, smoking out the Bush twins on his
hookah."
If the Bush daughters were caught doing this in New York,
they could land serious jail time.
This week is the 30th anniversary of the Rockefeller drug
laws. In 1973, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller pushed
through State legislature the first laws in the nation that
require minimum sentences for first-time drug users.
The Rockefeller drug laws mandate a minimum of 15 years for
first-time, nonviolent drug users who are caught with small
amounts of drugs.
Dozens of other states and the federal government rushed
to adopt their own versions of the Rockefeller drug laws when
New York State set the precedent.
But people like Barbara and Jenna Bush don’t need to
be too afraid. Most the people imprisoned by these laws are
poor, and most of them are people of color.
Yesterday in New York, a coalition of politicians, celebrities,
and mothers of prisoners rallied outside Governor George Pataki’s
office to demand the repeal of the drug laws. Hip-hop promoter
and producer Russell Simmons, former New York Housing and
Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Actors Susan Sarandon
and Tim Robbins, and New York Reverend Al Shartpon were among
those who spoke.
- Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Records, one of the
most successful recording executives, producers, and promoters
in the hip hop world, and co-founder of the Hip-Hop Summit
Action Network
- Jason Flom, president and CEO of LAVA records
- Reverend Al Sharpton, civil rights leader
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
Is it to protect mothers, or undermine Roe v. Wade? As Mother’s
Day approaches, we’ll hear about one of the latest bills
Republicans have introduced
Mothers in Prison: 2 million children in the US have a parent
in jail; we’ll hear children reading their Mother’s
Day Cards to their moms in prison
Mothers As Activists: Women organize Mother’s Day rallies,
actions and celebrations around the country
9:01-9:06 Headlines
9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break
9:07-9:20 IS IT TO PROTECT MOTHERS, OR UNDERMINE ROE V. WADE?
AS MOTHER’S DAY APPROAHCES, WE’LL HEAR ABOUT ONE
OF THE LATESTS BILL REPUBLICANS HAVE INTRODUCED
Sunday is Mother’s Day.
Most people don’t know this, but the holiday is ancient,
dating back millennia.
The earliest Mother's Day celebrations in Western History
can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece
in honor of the Rhea, the Mother of the Gods.
In 17th century England, many of England's poor worked as
servants for the rich and lived in houses of their employers.
On “Mothering Sunday,” servants were allowed to
take the day off and return home to spend the day with their
moms.
In the United States, the earliest version of Mother’s
Day was Mothers' Work Day, and it was initiated in 1858 in
West Virginia. During the Civil War, local teacher Anna Reeves
Jarvis extended the purpose of Mothers' Work Days to press
for better sanitary conditions for both sides in the conflict.
In 1872, Julia Ward Howe suggested holding an annual Mother's
Day. Howe is well known as the author of the words to ‘the
Battle Hymn of the Republic’. But she was horrified
by the carnage of the Civil War, and proposed establishing
Mother’s Day as a day dedicated to peace. A year later,
women in 18 cities celebrated a Mother's Day for Peace, and
some continued to celebrate it for the next thirty years.
It was Anna Jarvis, daughter of Anna Reeves Jarvis, who was
the power behind the official establishment of Mother's Day.
She swore at her mother's gravesite in 1905 to dedicate her
life to her mom’s project, and establish a day to honor
mothers, living and dead. She wrote to politicians, clergy
members, business leaders, and women's clubs.
The US congress passed a Mother’s Day resolution in
1914. But the bill emphasized women's role in the family,
not as activists in the public arena, as Howe’s Mother’s
Day had been.
Well Congress is still interested in the issue of mothers,
pregnancy, and women’s role in the family
On Wednesday, Congressional Republicans introduced a bill
that would make it a crime to kill or injure a fetus.
The "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" is sponsored
by the staunchly anti-abortion Republican Senator Mike DeWine
of Ohio and by Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Rick Santorum
is the same senator who made headlines last week when he equated
gay sex with incest. He said, "If the Supreme Court says
that you have the right to consensual sex within your home,
then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy,
you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.
You have the right to anything.”
Pro-choice activists say the legislation will undermine Roe
v. Wade, and supporters of the bill agree. Republican Senator
Orrin Hatch of Utah told CNN, "They say it undermines
abortion rights. It does.”
But Hatch and other supporters say the undermining of Roe
v. Wade is irrelevant. They say the law is important because
it would protect pregnant women whose unborn babies are harmed
or killed in a federal crime.
The legislation has passed the House twice before but has
languished in the Senate. However, anti-abortion activists
are more hopeful this year because of a larger Republican
majority in the Senate, and public outrage over a highly publicized
case in which a pregnant woman, Laci Peterson, was killed.
Peterson had planned on naming her son Conner. The bill is
now known as "Laci and Conner's Law."
Currently, 26 states have already enacted laws that make
it a crime to kill or injure a fetus.
President Bush has indicated recently that he strongly supports
the proposed legislation.
9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break
9:21-9:45 MOTHERS IN PRISON: 2 MILLION CHILDREN IN THE US
HAVE A PARENT IN JAIL; WE’LL HEAR CHILDREN READING THEIR
MOTHER’S DAY CARDS TO THEIR MOMS IN PRISON
Last month, 30-year-old Saundra Kelly of Brooklyn New York
gave birth to a baby girl. She named her Sinaia. The birth
took place at the Nassau University Medical Center. But just
days later Saundra had to hand over her daughter to a friend.
That’s because Saundra is in jail awaiting trial on
assault charges.
Until six months ago the prison, the East Meadow jail in
Nassau, ran a nursery for new mothers. But today Saundra,
who was recently profiled in an article by Newsday, had no
choice but to give up her newborn daughter.
And unfortunately stories such as Saundra’s are not
rare. It is estimated that 2 million children across the country
have a parent in jail. African American children are nearly
nine times more likely to have a parent in prison than white
children. Hispanic children are three times as likely as white
children to have a parent who is in jail. As part of our Mother’s
Day special we are going to look at the plight of incarcerated
mothers and what happens to their children.
- Julie Kowitz, Director of the Women in Prison Project
In New York City, is an attorney with a background in women’s
rights and civil rights advocacy. Prior to joining the Correctional
Association, she represented plaintiffs in police brutality,
employment discrimination, reproductive rights, and other
civil rights matters.
Link: www.correctionalassociation.org/women_proj.html
- Lisa Turner, former prisoner and mother. Lisa Turner
spent two and a half years in the New York State prison
system. Lisa is from the Bronx and she is a mother of two
children. She recently graduated from Project Greenhope
(an Alternative to Incarceration program) and is involved
with ReConnect, a leadership institute with the Women in
Prison Project. Lisa has also now begun an HIV/AIDS peer
education program. She aspires to be a substance abuse counselor.
- Tanya Krupat, Director of the Children of Incarcerated
Parents Program (CHIPPS) of the Administration for Children’s
Services in New York City.
Link: www.nyc.gov/html/acs/home.html
9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break
9:41-9:58 Mothers As Activists: Women organize Mother’s
Day rallies, actions and celebrations around the country
In 1870, author, abolitionist, peace activist and suffragist
Julia Ward Howe attempted to get recognition for a national
Mother's Day holiday as a“worldwide protest of women
against the cruelties of war."
Howe called for women to rise up in protest on Mother's Day.
She declared,"Arise then, women of this day! Arise, all
women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or
of tears, say firmly: 'We will not have questions answered
by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands will not come to us,
reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons
shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been
able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the
women of one country, will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
In that spirit, a series of rallies, protests and celebrations
are being held in an attempt to return the holiday to Howe's
original vision: as a day of activism, resistance and women's
solidarity.
Well yesterday Democracy Now! producer Angie Karran spoke
to several mothers to find out how they are planning to spend
their Mother’s Day.
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press
with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo
is our music maestro and engineer. Thanks also to Uri Galed,
Angela Alston, Emily Kunstler, Orlando Richards, Simba Rousseau,
Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Karen
Ranucci, Fatima Mojadiddy, Denis Moynihan and Jenny Filipazzo.
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