www.sfbayview.com “They can take my taxes, send me to war, but can’t feed me.” - 2Pac by JR   “I couldn’t see myself taking part in nothing where I would help and aid in any way the shooting and killing of these Asiatic dark Black people who haven’t called me nigger, haven’t lynched me, they haven’t deprived me of freedom, justice and equality, they haven’t assassinated my leaders. I couldn’t see myself shooting little Black babies and Black children who don’t even have food to eat.”

• Muhammad Ali against the Vietnam War, 1964

Just as Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, stated in his speech Saturday at the historic anti-war rally, the Black community has been engaged in war ever since we left the shores of Africa in chains over four centuries ago. So if the country is going to start a true anti-war movement, then this anti-war movement needs to begin by addressing the war that the Ameriklan government and big business via the police are waging on Black communities right here. Then we can span the world.

The Oakland police who identify themselves as the “Riders” terrorizing, beating, killing and falsely imprisoning Black people in Oakland, that’s war! The SFPD beating up Black teenagers in Hunters Point, fondling the bodies of teenage Black girls and beating a 14-year-old boy into a concussion in front of their parents who were being held at gun point last MLK Day, that’s war! The Swat Team, the SFPD and Sheriff’s Department in riot gear running up in Thurgood Marshall High on Oct. 11, 2002, beating up and arresting 11 Black students and a Black teacher and not being held accountable, that’s war! Capt. Puccinelli from the Bayview police station commanding officers in both of these instances of terrorizing Black people still having a job in the Black community and not being brought up on assault and organized crime charges, that’s war!

The San Francisco Police Department forcibly drugging Askari X, that’s war! The Chicago police murdering unarmed 21-year-old Michael Walker on Oct. 27, 2002, in the Cabrini Green projects, that’s war! Aaron Patterson being tortured and forced to “confess” to a crime that he didn’t commit, then having almost two decades stolen from his life in an Illinois concentration camp, that’s war! The almost decade-long political imprisonment and two assassination attempts in three months on the life of Young Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., that’s war! The assassination attempt by uniformed Chicago police of POCC Defense Minister Akbar in Chicago, that’s war!

Banks operating in Black communities, refusing to loan money to Black businesses, that’s war! Amerikkka trying to overthrow the governments of Haiti, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Brazil, that’s war! Amerikkka drilling for oil in Alaskan national parks and offshore, polluting land, air and water for wildlife and future generations, that’s war!

Gov. Gray Davis of California cutting over $2 billion from education and increasing prison funding, that’s war! The nation’s prison system refusing to grant medical treatment to Black Panther prisoners like Seth Hayes because of their righteous political beliefs, that’s war! The United States holding over a million Black people in prison, that’s war! The Ameriklan government violating our human rights, that’s war!

I just had to state that because at Saturday’s rally, many of the speakers were trying to mimic speeches by Dr. King like “I Have a Dream” or some speech at the anti-Vietnam War rallies in the ‘60s, using a lot of colorful rhetoric instead of making real connections as to what our real problem is; the arrogant attitude, policies and decision-making of the United Snakes government from an international all the way down to a local level.

People say it was the biggest protest in the history of San Francisco. The crowd was enormous, estimated to be about 350,000 people rallying in the streets against the Bush regime’s threats against Iraq. People were everywhere.

For most of the people at the rally, it was a day for them to feel like they were adding their voice to the opposition. But the real test comes when the question is asked, what are they ready to do - besides attending a rally to stop the direction in which George Hitler Bush is taking the world.

One organized response planned for the day that the U.S. initiates war on Iraq is a nationwide boycott and strike. So remember, when it starts to go down, don’t buy anything or go to work or to school. That’s how we can screw up the economy and take the profit out of big businesses that think war is profitable. We should also start looking into alternatives like solar energy, and using our car less, so we don’t have to buy stolen oil from the Bush regime.

Some of the better speakers that I heard from the stage Saturday were Miguel Molina from La Onda, a radio show on KPFA, Tony Gonzalez from the International Indian Treaty Council, and Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian activist. Unfortunately, although I heard one rapper, there wasn’t a single speaker who represented the voice of Black youth in the Bay Area, which is a bad start for the anti-war movement in relation to the young Black community and the war that we’re engaged in from hood to hood, nationwide.

Simultaneous anti-war marches were organized in D.C. and 30 other countries throughout the world, including South Africa, Japan, Germany, France, Russia and Egypt, which resulted in millions on the same day worldwide speaking out against Amerikkka’s global oppression. I just hope everybody takes this anti-war attitude back home and speaks out against the way African and other oppressed people are being treated worldwide, from Hunters Point and Port-au-Prince to Soweto, Harare and Cairo, because not enough is being said or done to offer solidarity to our people who are fighting for self-determination on European/European-minded occupied land worldwide.

In gauging the results of Saturday’s rally, as Malcolm used to say, “Only time will tell” if the sleeping oppressed have been awakened into action.

Email JR at fire@sfbayview.com.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 8:06:26 AM By: Priscilla West

Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 23:01:36 -0600 From: Priscilla West priwest@tulsaconnect.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: Response to Dawn Gable

Dear Editor: Settling into bed last night, I got to wondering about Dawn Gable. What sort of person must she be to write such a bizarre response to my letter?

From her letter we know that Dawn Gable is an American, educated in biology, who lived four years here in Oklahoma. While I understand how the Bible-belt conservatism in this part of the US might send some packing, even the most liberal would not readily trade it for a "mud house" in rural, underdeveloped Venezuela. So I mused that she could be involved with mission or charity work.

One thing that made Dawn Gable's letter stick in my mind was the bizarre implication of my own moral decrepitude based, apparently, on a presumed aversion to "mosquitoes [sic.] ... and taking freezing cold showers." Civilization has come a long way in the past century or so, and many people (including myself) do prefer urban life to rural... but something more was bugging me... it just didn't add up.

Chatting on Instant Messenger that evening, a friend had informed me that Dawn Gable published a letter in the Caracas Daily Journal. He speculated that she could be a figment of the Chavez propaganda machine. Hmm ... an interesting possibility, as several cases of fictitious Chavez supporters with American-sounding names have been reported! It would also make sense, considering her effusive praise of Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" and her closing quote by Che Guevara...

Finally I could stand it no longer. I threw back the covers, fired up the computer, and did a Yahoo search for "Dawn Gable biologist." I first found a document written by Dawn Gable about "Bolivarian" education reform, which I won't detail here. (Suffice it to say that her vision for the indoctrination Venezuelan youth is a frightening one)  Next, the search yielded an unexpected result: An Amazon.com ("Listmania") list created by Dawn Gable, entitled "Latin American Revolution... a course."

Provided she does not modify or delete the page, you may view Dawn Gable's recommended reading list here.

In the event that she does remove or change her list, I reproduce most of it (with short excerpts) here:

In the Shadow of the Liberator: The Impact of Hugo Chavez on Venezuela and Latin America (Richard Gott) -- This book opens with a famous quote by Hugo Chavez, "In the name of Cuba and of Venezuela, I appeal for the unity of our two peoples, and of the revolution that we both lead..." and goes on in its first pages to describe Fidel Castro as the "most famous revolutionary hero in Latin America."

Latin America in the Era of the Cuban Revolution (Thomas C. Wright) -- This book serves "to illuminate ... revolution in Cuba and the impact of the Cuban model of insurrection upon the rest of Latin America."

Che: Images of a Revolutionary (Fernando Diego Garcia) -- the book's contents are obvious. Dawn Gable herself posts the comment, "indulge..... fall in love with latin americas greatest 20th century hero."

Socialism and Man in Cuba (Che Guevara, Fidel Castro) -- no excerpt available.

Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile's Road to Socialism (Peter Winn) -- No clear excerpt is available on Amazon.com, but one chapter is titled "The End of the Democratic Road."

Cuba: Talking About Revolution (Juan Antonio Blanco, Medea Benjamin) -- "I had seen a lot of beggars in Havana -- that was a common sight in Cuba before the revolution ... that's when as a young kid I realized that like my parents, I too, was a communist and a revolutionary."

Che Guevara Reader: Writings by Ernesto Che Guevara on Guerrilla Strategy, Politics & Revolution (Che Guevara) -- My carpal tunnel syndrome is kicking in, but by now we all get the picture!

While the more politically savvy Chavez supporter is careful to draw a distinction between "Communism" and "Bolivarianism," the ground-level activist such as Dawn Gable clearly is not. For most readers of the twenty-first century, it is unnecessary to detail Socialism's pitfalls or provide examples of leaders corrupted by absolute power.

I cherish the fact that every American, including Dawn Gable, is entitled to her own opinion. While I will refrain from pronouncing personal judgement, I ask that VHeadline.com readers ... be they rightist, leftist, nudist, etc... simply be aware that Dawn Gable harkens to the seductive call of revolution. Her distinctly anti-capitalism, anti-Democracy, anti-globalization stance is representative of the Chavez regime's. Hugo Chavez has had several years' head start on "posturing" through manipulation of international media. Now that Venezuela has realized its mistake in electing him, it's time for the rest of the world to wake up and smell the Dawn Gables!

Priscilla West priwest@tulsaconnect.com Tulsa OK

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 7:44:36 AM By: Francisco Toro

Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 21:50:47 -0400 From: Francisco Toro franciscotoro@fastmail.fm To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: How to slide into civil war without really trying...

Dear Editor: I think I'm pretty well covered against charges of alarmism on the subject at hand, though it's definitely the most sensitive on the agenda in Venezuela these days. And the reason I think I'm pretty well covered is that over the last year or so I've argued again and again that, in its first four years in office, the most puzzling thing about the Chavez administration was not how much violence it deployed, but how little.

I've made that point repeatedly, both in print and informally, and it sure hasn't made me any friends.

As far as many people in the opposition are concerned, saying anything that might even indirectly reflect favorably on the government at all is close to heresy. And they could always reply with numerous cases of intimidation, harassment, baton beatings, rubber pelleting, tear gassing and even sporadic shooting to try to paint Chavez' as a kind of mobster regime.

• Of course, I don't dispute that that kind of violence took place, and indeed it continues to take place. Some of my friends have been among the targets. But what I meant was that the widespread, indiscriminate, murderous use of violence to achieve political ends remained oddly absent from the mix.

I say "oddly" because everything else we knew about the regime suggested it should have had no compunctions about using violence -- the theatrical militarism, the cult-of-personality, the autocratic intolerance, the use of threats in place of arguments, the endless chatter about revolutionary this and revolutionary that, the demonization of opponents, the entire ideological structure of chavismo seemed like a complex web of justifications for violence. Yet when the rubber hit the road, when the time came to actually act on that ideological combo-pack, Chavistas seemed weirdly bashful.

What's alarming, though, is that little by little they're getting over it.

You can see it happening in Venezuela these days. The process is gradual, yes, and it doesn't happen all at once. But you can actually see it happening in front of your eyes now, on your TV screen. It's unmistakable. And it's spooky as hell.

When Chavistas first turned their guns on opposition protesters, back on April 11th, the country was so uniformly stunned that Chavez was actually toppled for 48 hours there in response. It was just inconceivable to us back then, that one Venezuelan could shoot another over something so fleeting and banal as a political disagreement. These days, it's become almost routine. It barely elicits outrage anymore, just a grim shake of the head and a knot in the pit of your stomach.

And how could we be surprised at this point?

Ever since August 14th, when the Supreme Tribunal ruled that there had been no military rebellion on April 11th, groups of Chavistas have been using guns on us more and more often. The gunmen have been fully identified several times now, by stunningly brave amateur cameramen. The private TV stations -- you know, the ones Chavez wants shut down (I wonder why?) -- play the videos again and again. Yet the government never acts against these people. The only gunman now in detention is Joao de Gouveia, who wound up in jail merely because he broke the 11th commandment of the Chavista shooter: if you're shooting in an opposition-controlled area, then for chrissake don't get caught by a municipal cop.

Yet, even by the standards of this gradual routinization of violence, the shooting spree against the opposition in Charallave was especially troubling ... on several levels. First off, because the opposition wasn't even ambushed ... as on so many other occasions ... by government supporters waiting at the end of their march path. No, this time, the gunmen were literally delivered to the march's starting point, opening fire from the roofs of speeding jeeps as a huge crowd of all ages and genders was getting ready to start marching. (Again, one very gutsy home video enthusiast has the footage to prove it).

So there was no question of "clashing crowds" here, or "policemen trying to keep the groups apart" or any of the standard repertoire of obfuscation and smoke-screening the government usually employs to keep their denials plausible. None of that ... just a large crowd of people "armed only with flags and whistles" as the cliche goes, suddenly and randomly attacked for no reason at all other than being opposed to the autocrat.

When you peel away all of the nonsense and the visceral outrage and you just stare that situation straight in the face, what word comes to your mind to describe it? And I am mindful of the way the term has been abused for political gain over the last 17 months, but when I look at what happened in Charallave, I can think of only one word to describe it: terrorism ... and state terrorism, at that.

It's not just the incredible cowardice of the attack, its openness, its shamelessness. Perhaps even worse is the way the Chavista mayor of Charallave more or less claimed responsibility for the attacks, in a statement that can't be that far off from what Hezbollah issues after shooting up some Israeli settlers. After proudly announcing that Charallave is "Chavista territory," Mayor Marisela Mendoza said she hoped "it won't even occur to the opposition to try to march here again," apparently not fully aware that she was coming perilously close to confessing to being an accessory to murder. Because, oh yes, did I forget to mention that? Among the dozens of wounded there was one guy who never made it out of that march.

But then, in Venezuela, that barely counts as news these days.

The fear, the very widespread fear, is that we're only starting to see the top few inches of the tip of a distant iceberg here. I don't think there's any doubt anymore that the government has armed many, many of its civilian supporters, trained them, and is now working on getting them used to shooting at us when the order comes without thinking twice.

That charming Mayor Mendoza there makes it achingly clear that some of them no longer feel the need to go through the motions of covering up their tracks. It's a fantastically dangerous situation.

It's just a fantastically dangerous situation.

Francisco Toro franciscotoro@fastmail.fm

www.washingtonpost.com Special to washingtonpost.com Thursday, January 23, 2003; 5:09 PM

Like the brilliance of fireworks, U.S.-Mexican relations at the start of the Bush-Fox era flared with promise and hopeful rhetoric. Two years later, all that is left is a mere fizzle.

Jorge Castañeda, the Mexican foreign minister and soul of that brief Pyrotechnic Age, has stepped down. His replacement, economist Luis Ernesto Derbez, made his first visit to the United States this week. By the time he left, it was clear that, certainly in terms of style, things have changed. More substantive revisions seem to be on the horizon, too.

Mexican President Vicente Fox has put in place a new team with the potential to fundamentally change the way Mexico works with Washington. With a host of issues to discuss and enormous potential for mutual assistance, the shuffle seems to open the way for a more down-to-earth relationship. But the stakes are high.

It is understood that internal forces, not external ones, spawned the most recent changes in Fox's Cabinet. Derbez and Fernando Canales, who replaced Derbez as economy secretary, belong to Fox's own National Action Party, the PAN. Castañeda was a leftist loner, a member of no party.

By giving the posts to a pair of the faithful, Fox moved to reconcile his presidency with his party, which had been feeling ignored. That gesture is particularly important in light of legislative elections scheduled for July in which PAN hopes to win more seats in Congress and break the legislative logjam on Fox's reforms.

Their future rides on these elections. Washington has a critical role to play, albeit a delicate and potentially harmful one. With the right moves, President Bush could help revitalize the momentum for democratic reform ignited by Fox's election more than three years ago. But a miscalculation could be el golpe de gracia-the kiss of death-that would condemn Fox to a historical footnote, little more than a six-year interruption in the decades-long reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Fox and the PAN need results somewhere soon.

Immigration is still at the top of Fox's priorities. But expectations have reached a point where his opponents will portray anything short of full amnesty for millions of Mexicans illegally in the United States as a failure.

Some U.S. Republican sources say a plan that would offer temporary work visas is more achievable than amnesty. Democrats here would oppose this as too limited. Fox would need to decide if something is better than nothing, and fight the good fight at home to make it a political gain.

Trade is also at play. Under provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement, nearly all tariffs on agricultural products were eliminated at the beginning of this year, throwing Mexican farmers into direct competition with their heavily subsidized U.S. counterparts. It is an unfair competition, the campesinos contend, without more help from their government.

In the meantime, the two sides are negotiating an exemption for the Mexican poultry industry, most hard-hit by the changes. That would be a win for Fox, but the talks have been stalled by Washington's apparent reluctance to risk setting a worrisome precedent.

Fox needs real progress on the economic front to silence some of his most outspoken critics. With unemployment rising and foreign direct investment falling, Fox's choice of a former World Bank economist to succeed a leftist intellectual as foreign minister was no accident.

U.S. and Mexican officials have been working on a little-known initiative to bring investment to regions in Mexico least benefited by NAFTA and that fuel migration to the United States. The so-called "Partnership for Prosperity" could use the undivided attention of a high-powered Bush official to get the kind of private interest it would require and to demonstrate Fox's sway in Washington.

There is no doubt that Bush also stands to win from helping his friend. Fox's government is becoming an ever more enthusiastic partner in Washington's efforts to strengthen security in the region. Fox's popularity among Hispanics in the United States also adds to Bush's appeal for his reelection bid next year. And perhaps more critically, Fox's attempts to reform the corrupt and inefficient Mexican oil industry, the third-largest U.S. supplier, have gained new urgency here as war in the Persian Gulf looms and Venezuela, the No. 5 U.S. supplier, wrestles with a profound political crisis.

The flash and boom may have gone out of the bilateral relationship. But this time, Mexico needs the steady burn of real progress with Washington.

www.kansas.com Posted on Thu, Jan. 23, 2003 Associated Press

NEW YORK - Crude oil futures fell Thursday, as bearish weekly inventory data and hopes for a full resumption of Venezuelan oil output reassured jittery traders.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, front-month March crude ended down 60 cents at $32.25 a barrel.

"It was a combination of two things," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., referring to Thursday's decline in prices. "No. 1, we didn't set a new all-time low in crude inventories. No. 2, 75 percent to 80 percent of Venezuelan oil workers are back at their jobs."

February heating oil rose 0.34 cent to close at 91.53 cents a gallon, while February gasoline slipped 0.12 cent to settle at 89.81 cents a gallon.

On London's International Petroleum Exchange, March Brent settled with a loss of 62 cents at $29.72 a barrel.

Natural gas for February fell 21.5 cents to settle at $5.458 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Crude futures dipped early in the session after data from the Department of Energy and the American Petroleum Institute showed a surprise build in U.S. crude oil inventories.

In the week ended Jan. 17, crude stocks rose by 1.5 million barrels to 273.8 million barrels last week as refinery utilization declined and imports rose by 256,000 barrels a day to 8.745 million daily barrels, the EIA reported.

The API report largely confirmed those figures, showing a build of 181,000 barrels in crude stocks and a surge of 548,000 barrels a day in imports.

"The key to this whole thing is run cuts," said Bill O'Grady, an analyst at A.G. Edwards in St. Louis. "You've got refinery maintenance clearly under way. That reduces demand for crude oil."

Refiners have also been cutting back on operations in response to a shortage of Venezuelan crude oil, a concern that has helped send crude futures soaring.

While there were no signs that the strike in Venezuela, now in its eighth week, is about to end, news reports suggested that the government of President Hugo Chavez is making modest progress in restoring oil operations.

Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, the state oil monopoly, said Thursday that about 80 percent of its hourly workers and half its administrative staff have returned to work.

The news helped send crude prices sharply lower.

Striking oil workers disputed the claim.

PdVSA's comments come after a first crack appeared in the strike after tanker pilots earlier this week ended their strike at Lake Maracaibo, paving the way for an increase in imports.

Meanwhile, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said the group is trying to "stabilize" the oil market.

"We don't want to see the world with a shortage of oil," al-Attiyah said in Davos, Switzerland.