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The Case for Socialism

2007-09-04T02:41:41Z

This Thursday, the Austin branch of the International Socialist Organization will host a public talk entitled "Why You Should be a Socialist." It begins at 7pm and will take place in Parlin Hall 101 on UT's campus.

Below is an excellent article from our weekly newspaper by Todd Chretien that makes the case for a socialist society.

In a world ruined by war, poverty and oppression
Why socialism makes sense

August 31, 2007 | Pages 8 and 9

TODD CHRETIEN is a member of the International Socialist Organization and the Green Party’s 2006 candidate for the U.S. Senate in California. Here, he makes the case for socialism--and explains why you should be a part of the struggle for a different kind of society.

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IF YOU’RE reading this, chances are you have decided that the world is messed up.

You can’t believe that George Bush is the president and you might have even bought one of those calendars that counts down the days until he’s gone (511 days, 510 days, 509 days...).

You’re crossing your fingers that he’s not dumb enough to attack Iran, but you’ve learned not to bet any money against Bush doing stupid things. The first word that pops into your head whenever you see a picture of Bush rhymes with sucker.

You’re pretty sure that whoever becomes president after Bush couldn’t possible be worse, but you’ve got a sinking feeling in your stomach that the fundamentally screwed-up priorities of the system won’t change much.

You probably have trouble ranking the world’s biggest problems, but all of the following are on your list: the occupation of Iraq, global warming, 2 million people in U.S. prisons, women treated as less than men, the raids against immigrant families, 47 million people without health care, and corporate power run amok.

What else to read

For a book that give an introduction to socialism and the socialist tradition, read The Case for Socialism, by Socialist Worker editor Alan Maass.

Paul D’Amato’s The Meaning of Marxism is a new book that provides a lively and accessible account of the ideas of Karl Marx, using historical and contemporary examples.

The best introduction to Marxism remains The Communist Manifesto, written 160 years ago by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. A new edition of the Manifesto, edited by Phil Gasper, provides full annotation, clear historical references and explanation, additional related text and a full glossary.

The worst thing is that you feel like you should be doing something to change it, but the disaster seems so big that it’s hard to imagine having any success.

Well, you’re not alone. Millions of people feel exactly the same way.

The good news is that Bush and his pals are way up the creek without a paddle, and the Republican tide that came in after September 11 is finally receding. Every major poll shows tens of millions of Americans have left-wing opinions about Iraq, health care, abortion rights, saving the environment and union rights. Besides membership in the Bush cabinet, being a CEO is about the lousiest thing going.

The bad news is that the rich and powerful still run the media, dominate American democracy with big money, and have built enormous armies of police, prisons and spies to trample on civil liberties.

The question is: what can we do about it? Here are some ideas to start with.

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Capitalism is not natural.

For most of human beings’ time on earth, people lived in small, peaceful communities where cooperation and mutual reliance were the basis for survival. That remained true for well over 100,000 years.

It’s only in the last 5,000 years or so that developments in technology (first in domesticating animals and farming, then in industry, now in computers) allowed people to create more food and other products than they could use immediately. That “surplus” allowed a small minority of people to begin living off the labor of others.

In order to defend their privilege of not working and enjoying the wealth that others created, they began to build up police forces of one kind or another. From Greek and Roman slaves to Aztec peons to European serfs to modern wage workers, since the rise of the first class societies, there haven’t just been rich and poor--there have been rich because there are poor.

Capitalism, which began in some small parts of Europe a few hundred years ago and has only just recently all but wiped out the last forms of local, indigenous cooperative societies, is no different than the Roman Empire--in that those who work are poor, and those who do not work are rich. Caesar would feel right at home in the U.S. Senate.

However, capitalism is different--in that ruthless and continual competition between the rich has driven technological development to heights undreamed of in earlier times. Today, a single Fortune 500 company controls more wealth than the richest Egyptian pharaoh or Chinese emperor.

In fact, capitalism has created so much wealth that there is no longer any reason for anyone on earth to go without proper food, shelter, education, health care and a fulfilling life.

This wasn’t true even a hundred years ago. Before this, there were famines and plagues, because agriculture was unable to produce enough food if conditions were bad for a year or two, and medicine wasn’t advanced enough to cure diseases.

Today, there are famines and plagues because the agro-business giants and the U.S. government hoard food, or pay farmers not to plant crops in order to keep prices high and profitable. Incredibly, tens of billions of our tax dollars are spent every year in order to keep the price of milk high--even as 20 percent of American children live in poverty.

The same is true with pharmaceutical companies. For instance, anti-AIDS drugs are not yet perfected, but they can radically improve the lives of those infected with HIV, and they can help prevent the virus’ spread. However, the big American drug companies insist on charging patients thousands of dollars per year for these life-saving drugs.

Why? Profit.

The Brazilian government has shown that the same drugs can be produced for about 10 percent of the price that the American companies charge, but the American companies use international laws about “private property” and “copyright infringement” to keep those cheap drugs off the world market.

Every year, the United Nations reports that roughly 6 million children under the age of five die due to malnourishment and/or easily preventable diseases, mostly spread by dirty drinking water. In other words, every year, capitalism carries out a children’s Holocaust through neglect and greed.

And it is all perfectly legal. George Bush may be thick as a brick, but generally speaking, the people who run Corporate America have developed ingenious ways to protect their position.

Racism, sexism, homophobia and anti-immigrant scapegoating are just a few of the means they have at their disposal. The corporate media and the mainstream political parties push these ideas for all they’re worth.

For instance, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, most Americans opposed the war. In order to start the war, Bush and his Republican gang, as well as the majority of leading Democrats, along with Fox News and even the New York Times, had to create and then repeat bald-faced lies over and over and over again: weapons of mass destruction, Saddam and al-Qaeda, Muslims are irrational, etc. Just like in George Orwell’s 1984, they turn the truth into its opposite.

Just look at how the mainstream media is treating Michael Moore’s new movie Sicko. CNN actually broadcast a whole report attacking Moore’s movie as “propaganda,” even while it accepts millions of dollars in advertising money from the same HMOs criticized in the film! So much for “objective journalism.”

They use similar strategies for whipping up sexism, homophobia and racism. Unfortunately, all too often, they are successful in--as the great African American abolitionist Fredrick Douglas put it--“dividing both to conquer each.”

In other words, the powers that be convince people to hate members of other racial or ethnic groups, or degrade women, or blame immigrants for the lack of good jobs--so they don’t finger at the real culprits who exploit and oppress all of us.

Basically, capitalism is an unfair system that puts profits before people. You’d be surprised how many people are perfectly aware of this--which is why the elite have to spend so much time and effort keeping our minds off it.

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Is change possible?

Okay, you say. I already agreed, the system sucks. But can it really be changed?

From before the time of Jesus, since we have written records, we know that people don’t like to be treated like dirt. They tolerate it for longer or shorter periods of time, but eventually, inequality gives rise to struggle.

Spartacus led a slave revolt against Rome; millions of desperately poor French peasants overthrew their king; 100,000 ex-slaves joined the Union Army to help defeat the slave South; women all over the world fought for and won the right to vote; Jews from the Warsaw ghetto rose up against the Nazis; and the Palestinian people refuse to accept occupation.

Like every country in the world, American history is the history of struggle against the rich and powerful for a better society. Often, those struggles are defeated, but any progress we celebrate today “towards a more perfect union” owes itself to the fact that some of those struggles won important, if partial or temporary, victories.

For example, as bad as racism is today, the only reason that slavery was abolished at all was because of the Civil War.

As pathetically low as it is today, the only reason we have a minimum wage is because millions of workers joined unions and fought against corporate greed.

As disgusting as sexism remains, the only reason that abortion remains legal (if just barely) and millions of women go to college and work in every type of job is because women (and men) stood up to demand equality.

And the only reason George Bush hasn’t already invaded Iran (and probably Venezuela and several other countries) is because the people of Iraq have risen to defend their national sovereignty, U.S. soldiers are beginning to speak out, and millions of Americans have taken to the streets to hold him back.

But there’s a funny thing about how the fight for reforms in the U.S. are explained to us in history class. Even though it was almost always the case that radicals were at the heart of organizing for social justice, and only mass actions won any gains, we’re taught that liberal politicians deserve the credit--and, in fact, that radical ideas and organizations only alienated people.

For example, today, we learn that the media and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party eventually turned against the Vietnam War in 1968, and that’s why Nixon decided to start withdrawing troops in 1972. It’s common today to hear that the antiwar movement in the 1960s was “too radical” and scared people away.

The reality is that socialists, revolutionary Black nationalists and radicals of all sorts were at the core of the mass movements of the 1960s, including the antiwar movement. They insisted that, as Muhammad Ali put it, “I have no quarrel with the Vietnamese” and that the real enemy was at home, and they built a powerful movement that scared the politicians into taking action.

At the end of the day, the real problem wasn’t that the movement was too radical, but that it wasn’t radical and powerful enough. It ended the war, but it left the system that caused the war intact. Now, 30 years later, as the saying goes, Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam.

Today, millions of people oppose the war in Iraq. Even if the Democrats in Congress won’t act to end the war, we have to figure out how to get those people into the streets. We have to publicize the growing resistance in the U.S. military, and we have to make it plain--as Ali did about Vietnam--that we have no right to occupy Iraq.

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What do socialists have to offer?

Adopting the socialist understanding that the root cause of the problems we face is the division of the world by capitalism into rich and poor doesn’t automatically solve any of those problems.

However, it does give you a general framework to understand who is to blame. It points you away from strategies that rely on the good intentions of the wealthy and the powerful for solutions. And it points you toward organizing strategies that stress the potential for ordinary people to stand up and fight for themselves.

Karl Marx once defined socialism as the self-emancipation of the working class. What he meant was that genuine radical change can only come from mass struggle.

This is necessary because the ruling elite will never voluntarily give up their power. And because only direct participation in their own liberation will give millions of people the opportunity to learn how to overcome the racist, sexism, homophobic and nationalist divisions that capitalism places among them.

No politician or bureaucrat or great leader can substitute for the working class fighting for itself.

Of course, having this long-term view in mind doesn’t for a moment mean that socialists sit around waiting for the revolution. In fact, most of what we do is to work alongside people who don’t believe that socialism is possible or even desirable, but who nonetheless want to fight for concrete reforms in the here and now.

We do this for two reasons. First, we want to unite with everyone who wants to fight for a better world in the here and now--be it ending the war, bringing solidarity to strikes, stopping executions and so on. Socialists believe that unity in action is the best way to win these concrete reforms.

At the same time, we want to try to convince people we work alongside that the only way to win lasting social and economic justice and to end war and racism for good is to get rid of capitalism and replace it with a socialist system based on workers’ democracy. We need to put people before profits.

The last thing to say about socialist ideas is they aren’t worth a nickel unless they are put into practice.

Given that we’re not holding our breath for Bill Gates to make huge donations to our movement, the only thing we have going for us is organization. It’s a simple fact that combining our efforts helps to amplify the voice for radical change.

While we believe that only mass actions can challenge the power of the system, we also know that most movements in history have started with a committed minority of organizers. The point isn’t to form an organization separate from the movement, but rather to pool our resources, experience and energy to involve as many other people as we can, and to challenge the political influence of the mass media and mainstream politicians.

We have a long fight ahead of us.

Despite the horror in Iraq, Bush might well attack Iran and spread the war. The economy looks like it’s headed for a recession that will mean terrible suffering. Racism and sexism poisons our society.

It feels like things are starting to change, but nothing happens automatically. Every person who decides to dedicate themselves to fighting for peace and justice--especially in a time when all too few people have taken that step--can make a big difference.

So as you look forward to Bush’s village recovering its idiot, consider coming to ISO meetings, reading our publications, talking to our activists, or joining us in the streets.

Video footage and press release from yesterday's great Austin rally for Kenneth Foster!!!

2007-08-22T17:48:08Z

Excellent video coverage of this important event has been posted online by KVUE and KXAN.

August 21, 2007

Governor Perry Unwilling to Face Family of Death Row Inmate Kenneth Foster

About 200 members of Kenneth Foster’s family, friends, and supporters rallied today in Austin to demand that Governor Rick Perry hear the Foster family’s pleas for clemency. At the south Capitol gate at 5 p.m., Bryan McCann, a leader in the Austin-based Save Kenneth Foster Campaign, reminded the gathered crowd, “Every judge in Texas, every prosecutor, every politician, and even Governor Perry all agree on one thing: Kenneth Foster killed no one.”

Then McCann read from a letter from Kenneth Foster. In the letter, Foster vowed that he and Joe Amador (whose execution is scheduled for August 29) would engage in “passive non-participation” in the preparations for his execution, including a hunger strike to begin August 22.

Foster wrote, “Texas will surpass 400 murders this year. If we are to be unjustly taken then we do not want to go silently. We will not walk to our executions and we will not eat last meals. We will not give this process a humane face.”

It was in this spirit that Foster’s supporters marched from the Capitol to the Governor’s Mansion, where Nydesha Foster (Kenneth’s daughter), Tasha Foster (Kenneth’s wife), and Lawrence Foster (Kenneth’s grandfather) presented the assembly with three personal letters they had written to the Governor.

In her remarks, Nydesha Foster said she was asking the Governor to spare her father “because I love him very much.” She also called attention to the injustice of the Law of Parties and called on the Governor to give the family justice.

In a dramatic turn, six activists sat down to block the gates of the Governor’s mansion in a physical demonstration of solidarity with Foster’s non-cooperation with the criminal justice system. In June 2000, a dozen activists were arrested during a similar protest of the execution of Gary Graham (a.k.a. Shaka Sankofa).

On Tuesday, however, the police held back as protesters chanted, “Governor Perry, take these letters!” Repeated ringing of the doorbell on the gates went unheeded. Demonstrators chanted, “Save Kenneth Foster!” and “It’s Not Justice, It’s a Lie! Kenneth Foster Must Not Die!”

In the face of the State’s unwillingness to engage the Foster family and other supporters, the crowd spread out across the street, blocking traffic for forty-five minutes. Tasha Foster, Nydesha Foster, and other activists took turns on the bullhorn, calling on Perry and his representatives to respond.

They did not. Then the activists sitting across the Governor’s mansion’s driveway addressed the crowd. “It is clear that the Governor has no interest in being accountable to the people and that he does not care that an innocent man awaits his execution,” said Katie Feyh, who had been among those sitting in.

McCann, who also had been obstructing the driveway, stood and called on those present to continue to make themselves heard all the way up to the time of Foster’s scheduled execution. Noting the growing public pressure and extensive media coverage of the case, McCann said, “We’ve given Perry every reason to do the right thing. We will not be silent until he does.”

Kenneth Foster, Jr. has been on Texas’ death row since 1997 for the shooting death of Michael LaHood, Jr. Foster did not shoot the gun that ended LaHood’s life, but was driving the car carrying the actual triggerman, Mauriceo Brown. Foster was convicted and sentenced to death under the Law of Parties, which allows the state to seek convictions for those present at the scene of a crime as if they committed it. Since Foster’s original trial, the other men in the car that night have testified that Foster had no idea LaHood would be shot. Since Foster received his August 30 execution date, a coalition of family, friends, and other supporters have organized to save his life. The August 21 event follows news that the Court of Criminal Appeals denied Foster relief. At present, the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign, along with Foster’s legal team and thousands of people around the world, are petitioning the Governor and Board of Pardons and Paroles for clemency. The case has received considerable local, regional, and national media attention and public support for Foster has been pronounced.

The Save Kenneth Foster Campaign was established on May 30, 2007 to organize a campaign to halt the execution of Kenneth Foster, Jr. It meets weekly in Austin, Texas, next on August 22 at 7 p.m. at the Carver Library.

Online: http://www.savekenneth.blogspot.com. More information on the Kenneth Foster case is available at http://www.freekenneth.com.

REMINDER: All Out for Kenneth Foster on Tuesday!!!!

2007-08-19T20:07:09Z

August 21, 2007 at 5pm
11th and Congress, Austin, TX

Supporters and family of Kenneth Foster, Jr., who faces an August 30 execution
date, will gather in front of the Capitol and march to the Governor's Mansion
to make our voices heard! Kenneth sits on Texas' death row because he was
present when Mauriceo Brown shot Michael LaHood in 1996. He killed no one.
Even Texas will admit this. Join the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign as we raise
our voices to demand that Governor Perry stay this execution! For more
information, visit http://www.freekenneth.com.

Night of Solidarity for Kenneth Foster TONIGHT!!!

2007-08-18T14:31:14Z

Important San Antonio Event for Kenneth Foster

2007-08-16T23:59:34Z

A Night In Solidarity with Kenneth Foster

Hosted By:
Thou Shalt Not Kill

When:
Saturday Aug 18, 2007
at 5:00 PM

Where:
Carver
Cultural Community Center
226 N Hackberry
San Antonio, TX 78201
United States

Musical Performance, Spoken Word, Speaker Mario Africa of MOVE and AWOL Magazine...

THOU SHALL NOT KILL: A Night of Solidarity with Kenneth
Foster Jr
August 18. 2007
Carver Cultural Community Center
doors open at 5pm
$5 admission at the door
all-ages

The
Save Kenneth Foster Campaign will be hosting a night in solidarity with
Kenneth Foster. This will be an evening of spoken word and musical
performance in support of Kenneth and his family. It will also be an
opportunity for the people of San Antonio to learn about our state's
criminal justice system and the impact it has on our community.

Our speaker for the evening will be Mario Africa of MOVE and AWOL Magazine.

Musical
performers will include San Antonio's own Get Money Click, Throwedville
Entertainment, SLYKAT, poet and lyricist Sincere, Do It
Big
Entertainment, DJ Boys and Crew. In addition, all the way from the
Netherlands, Dutch hip-hop artist Jav'lin will be performing her song
for Kenneth "Walk with Me" featuring Kenneth's daughter Nydesha Foster.

More to come so stay
tuned.

Admission is $5 and will benefit the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign.

Come
join us for a night of pure entertainment and knowledge in solidarity
with Kenneth. Don't forget to visit www.freekenneth.com for more about
Kenneth's case and what you can do to save his life.

DEATH FOR DRIVING A CAR?!!- SAVE KENNETH FOSTER!
www.freekenneth.com

Really important event tonight

2007-08-14T17:36:02Z

Hi all,

Things are getting down to the wire in the Kenneth Foster case, and the events over the next couple weeks are incredibly important. High turnout will continue to boost our credibility as a movement, which will make Kenneth's case more visible, and, in turn, increase our odds of saving his life.

I'm always very careful about not exploiting my emotional attachment to the anti-death penalty work I do. However, my investment in this case is strong. Kenneth is my friend. His family is like family to me. While I oppose this execution for all the political reasons I oppose them all, I also simply don't want to see someone I care about die. I'm not saying this to sound like a good person, but to communicate how a barbaric practice that is carried-out behind close doors has very real impacts on people's lives.

That said, if you live in Austin or nearby, please come and support these upcoming events. It would mean a lot to me. We can still win this.

TONIGHT

CAMPAIGN TO END THE DEATH PENALTY

FAMILY MEMBERS SPEAK OUT!

Tuesday, August 14th, 6:30pm

Carver Library, Rosewood & Angelina Streets, Austin.

A roundtable discussion with family members affected by the TX death penalty on the fight to save Kenneth Foster. Speakers include Tasha Foster (Kenneth's wife), Nydesha Foster (Kenneth's daughter), Kenneth Foster, Sr. (Kenneth's father), Beverly Fisher (Kenneth's cousin); Sandra Reed (mother of Rodney Reed, innocent on TX Death Row); Delia Perez-Meyer (sister of TX Death Row inmate Louis Castro Perez); and Jeannine Scott (wife of Michael Scott, wrongfully convicted in the Austin Yogurt Shop case).

Kenneth has been given an execution date of Aug. 30, 2007. If you would like to get involved in the fight to save Kenneth's life, please contact us at:

kenneth.foster.jr@hotmail.com

http://www.freekenneth.com

http://www.myspace.com/freekennethfoster999232

SATURDAY

"Thou Shalt Not Kill": A Night of Solidarity with Kenneth Foster, Jr.

August 18. 2007
Carver Cultural Community Center
1165 Angelina St, Austin, TX
doors open at 5pm

The Save Kenneth Foster Campaign will be hosting a night in solidarity with
Kenneth Foster. Kenneth is facing an August 30 execution date solely for his
presence during the murder of Michael LaHood, Jr. Texas will be the first to
admit he killed no one. This will be an evening of spoken word and musical
performance in support of Kenneth and his family. It will also be an
opportunity for the people of San Antonio to learn about our state's criminal
justice system and the impact it has on our community. Our speaker for the
evening will be Mario Africa of MOVE and AWOL Magazine. Musical performers
will include San Antonio's own Get Money Click, Throwedville Entertainment,
SLYKAT, poet and lyricist Sincere, Do It Big Entertainment, DJ Boys and Crew.
In addition, all the way from the Netherlands, Dutch hip-hop artist Jav'lin
will be performing her song for Kenneth "Walk with Me" featuring Kenneth's
daughter Nydesha Foster. Admission is $5 and will benefit the Save Kenneth
Foster Campaign. For more information, visit http://www.freekenneth.com.

AUGUST 21

Emergency Rally for Kenneth Foster, Jr.

August 21, 2007 at 5pm
11th and Congress, Austin, TX

Supporters and family of Kenneth Foster, Jr., who faces an August 30 execution
date, will gather in front of the Capitol and march to the Governor's Mansion
to make our voices heard! Kenneth sits on Texas' death row because he was
present when Mauriceo Brown shot Michael LaHood in 1996. He killed no one.
Even Texas will admit this. Join the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign as we raise
our voices to demand that Governor Perry stay this execution! For more
information, visit http://www.freekenneth.com.

8/18: THOU SHALL NOT KILL: A Night for Kenneth Foster Jr

2007-08-12T18:06:52Z

August 18. 2007
Carver Cultural Community Center
doors open at 5pm

The Save Kenneth Foster Campaign will be hosting a night in solidarity with Kenneth Foster. This will be an evening of spoken word and musical performance in support of Kenneth and his family. It will also be an opportunity for the people of San Antonio to learn about our state's criminal justice system and the impact it has on our community.

Our speaker for the evening will be Mario Africa of MOVE and AWOL Magazine.

Musical performers will include San Antonio's own Get Money Click, Throwedville Entertainment, SLYKAT, poet and lyricist Sincere, Do It Big Entertainment, DJ Boys and Crew. In addition, all the way from the Netherlands, Dutch hip-hop artist Jav'lin will be performing her song for Kenneth "Walk with Me" featuring Kenneth's daughter Nydesha Foster.

More to come so stay tuned.

Admission is $5 and will benefit the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign.

Come join us for a night of pure entertainment and knowledge in solidarity with Kenneth. Don't forget to visit www.freekenneth.com for more about Kenneth's case and what you can do to save his life.

Plano/Dallas Folks...I Need Your Help

2007-08-11T06:54:33Z

Ok. As all of you are well aware by now, the state of Texas wants to execute my friend Kenneth on August 30. I, along with his family and numerous other supporters have been spending the summer trying to stop them. We have had a lot of successes where getting this case out to a big audience is concerned, but the execution is still scheduled to go forward in under three weeks.

Right now, the most likely way we are going to save Kenneth's life is if Governor Rick Perry grants him clemency. One of the ways we are trying to make this more likely is seeking out legislators to directly write Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles, encouraging them to grant relief. One of the people we are targeting is Representative Jerry Madden, who chairs the House Corrections Committee. He is an influential Republican who could have an impact on Perry.

Madden represents parts of Dallas and Plano. I've already written him, but I imagine a number of emails from constituents will be even more persuasive. To figure out if he represents you (something you should mention in your correspondence to him), you can visit his webpage. Then, follow this link to write him an email. I'm pasting the one I sent him below. It doesn't have to be that long but should be factually accurate.

Please write Madden and circulate this to friends and family who are also in the Plano/Dallas area. Not only is Kenneth's case a flagrant injustice, but he, along with his family, mean a great deal to me. Please help me out.

Here's what I wrote Madden, if you'd like to use it as a template:

Representative Madden,

On August 30, Kenneth Foster, Jr. is scheduled to be executed for the murder of Michael LaHood, Jr. Kenneth, however, killed no one. Even the prosecutors in the case will admit he did not shoot Michael LaHood in 1996. Mauriceo Brown did and has since been executed. Kenneth is on death row because he was convicted under the Law of Parties which, as I am sure you are aware, holds individuals who are present at the scene of a crime accountable for the acts of others.

Kenneth was, indeed, driving a car carrying three men who were smoking marijuana and committing robberies on August 14, 1996 in San Antonio. However, in sworn affidavits after the trial, two of the men in the car, Julius Steen and Dewayne Dillard, have said all four, at Kenneth's insistence, agreed to cease the night's activities and head home. On the way back, they took a wrong turn down a dead end street and were flagged to the side of the road by a woman, Mary Patrick, who thought they were following her. Mauriceo Brown exited the car, walked 80-feet away toward a driveway, encountered Mr. LaHood, began arguing with him, and shot him. Brown then reentered the car and Kenneth drove away. There is little disagreement on the above, even from the prosecution.

I write you fully aware that you cannot, as a legislator, pardon Kenneth. Rather, I am asking that you submit a letter to Governor Perry and the members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking them to grant relief to Kenneth. Allow me to explain why I believe this is appropriate.

First, Kenneth's case is entirely out of the court's hands. The Court of Criminal Appeals has denied his final petition. It is now entirely in the hands of the Board and the Governor. Given your position as Chair of the House Corrections Committee, you are in a position to influence the Governor on this matter.

Second, the Fifth Circuit Court of appeals has ruled in a published decision that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals relied on the wrong statute when it affirmed Kenneth's death sentence.

Finally, in 1995, the Texas Legislature passed an act forbidding judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals from considering new evidence in death penalty cases, even if the judges unanimously supported sparing the offender's life. This act prevents judges from granting relief to people who they believe do not deserve to die. This ties the court's hands even more in cases such as Kenneth’s, making it all the more a political, rather than legal concern.

I have been working hard to save Kenneth's life this summer and have encountered many people, who otherwise support the death penalty, who still believe Kenneth should not die. He will be the first to admit that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, when we are told that the death penalty is reserved for the “worst of the worst”, the people have a difficult time accepting the notion of a man being sent to death for driving a car. It is in this spirit that I ask you to seriously consider encouraging the Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Perry to grant Kenneth Foster relief.

Sincerely,

Bryan Mccann

Austin, TX

Things You Can Do to Help Save Kenneth Foster

2007-08-09T20:03:28Z

As interest continues to grow in Kenneth's case, we wanted to remind visitors of what they can do to help the Fosters and the rest of the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign fight this gross injustice:

1) Learn about the case by visiting the Free Kenneth Foster website and reading any of the excellent news stories posted on this blog.

2) Donate to the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign. Donations can be sent to:

To Save Kenneth Foster, #831766
Velocity Credit Union
P.O. Box 1089
Austin, TX 78767-9947

3) Contact Texas legislatures, encouraging them to pressure the Board of Pardons and Paroles and Rick Perry to grant a stay. You can fill-out a form letter through this link.

4) Write a clemency letter directly to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry. Letters can be mailed to Kenneth's criminal attorney, Keith Hampton, who will hand deliver them. Keith's address is:

Keith S. Hampton
Attorney at Law
1103 Nueces Street
Austin, Texas 78701

5) Attend our August 18 event, "A Night in Solidarity with Kenneth Foster." It will be held at the Carver Community Center in San Antonio at 226 N. Hackberry (between Commerce and East Houston). Doors open at 5pm. Admission is $5 and will go to the continued work of the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign. The main speaker will be Mario Africa, who also gave a memorable speech at the July 21 rally for Kenneth in Austin. Musical performers will be Get Money Click, SLYKAT, Precise of Throedville Entertainment, Bubble Rap Inc., and Kenneth's wife Ja'vlin, featuring his daugher Nydesha Foster.

6) Attend the August 21 event in Austin. We will gather at 11th and Congress at 5pm and march to the Governor's mansion to make our voices heard!

The Court of Criminal Appeals decision was a setback, but by no means the final word in this campaign. We are in this to win. Join us as we continue the struggle to SAVE KENNETH FOSTER!!!!

Watch/Listen to Democracy Now! show on Kenneth online

2007-08-09T16:22:49Z

Follow this link to watch or listen to the one-hour nationally-syndicated show on Kenneth!!!

Kenneth's Case on Democracy Now!

2007-08-09T00:28:50Z

The nationally-syndicated program, Democracy Now!, will be dedicating its entire show tomorrow to Kenneth's case! This is excellent exposure for Kenneth, especially at this urgent stage in the case. The on-air guests will include:

Nydesha Foster - Kenneth's daughter
Tasha Narez-Foster - Kenneth's wife
Lawrence Foster - Kenneth's grandfather
Kenneth Foster, Sr. - Kenneth's father
Bryan McCann - Member, Save Kenneth Foster Campaign

To find out how you can view or hear this important show, visit the Democracy Now! website to learn about affiliate stations.

EMERGENCY: Kenneth Foster's Final Appeal Denied - All Eyes on the Governor

2007-08-07T22:42:11Z

The Save Kenneth Foster Campaign has officially entered emergency mode with
the announcement that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has denied
Kenneth's final appeal. This outrageous decision shows yet again how
backward the Texas injustice system truly is. Now it is up to the Board of
Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry to grant Kenneth clemency. It
is also a call to all of us to push harder than ever to SAVE KENNETH
FOSTER!!!!

The State of Texas intends to execute Kenneth Foster on August 30, despite
the fact that he did not murder anyone. Unlike any other state in this
country, Texas utilizes a unique statute called the Law of Parties which
allows the State to subject a person to death even
though he did not kill, intend to kill, help or encourage anyone to do so.

Meanwhile, the Save Kenneth Foster, Jr. Campaign is definitely picking up
steam. We held a highly successful rally on June 21st in downtown
Austin. The rally drew over 200 people who marched and heard from fantastic
speakers and performers. Since then, media coverage has really picked up,
with recent editorials in the Ft. Worth Star Telegram and the Austin
American Statesman calling for clemency for Kenneth Foster, Jr. We have had
radio coverage on Chuck D's show on Air America, Democracy Now, and
more. We have much more planned in the coming weeks, so read below about
how to get involved. To read the latest news coverage:
http://savekenneth.blogspot.com/

Save Kenneth Foster, Jr. Campaign Meeting
Wed. August 8th
Cepeda Branch
651 N. Pleasant Valley Rd., 78702
512) 974-7372
Southeast corner of Pleasant Valley and 7th St.
*****************************************

FIGHTING TO SAVE KENNETH FOSTER JR.
Family Members Speatk Out !

Tuesday, August 14 at 6:30 PM
Carver Library
At Rosewood Ave. and Angelina St.

A Roundtable Featuring:

Kenneth Foster Sr. - Father of Kenneth Foster, Jr.
Beverly Fisher - First Cousin of Kenneth Foster, Jr.
Sandra Reed - Mother of Death Row Prisoner Rodney Reed
Jeannine Scott - Wife of Texas Prisoner Michael Scott
Delia Perez Meyer - Sister of Death Row Prisoner Louis Castro Perez

Kenneth faces an August 30th execution date. Family members discuss
the case and how to stop this and all executions !

Sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty
For more info contact cedpaustin@gmail.com or call 494-0667
***********************************************

Save the Dates!

Rally to Save Kenneth Foster, Jr in San Antonio, Texas!
Saturday, August 18th, beginning at 5pm
Carver Community Cultural Center
226 N. Hackberry
San Antonio, TX 78202

Emergency Rally to Save Kenneth Foster!
Tuesday, August 21st, 5pm
11th and Congress, Austin
We will meet and march to the Governor's Mansion to make our voices heard!

DNA Tests Suggest Gregory Edward Wright, On Texas Death Row, Has Been Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder

2007-08-06T18:20:16Z

This is HUGE!!!!!

DNA Tests Suggest Gregory Edward Wright, On Texas Death Row, Has Been Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder

On December 10, 1997, a Texas court convicted and sentenced Gregory Edward Wright to the death penalty for murder (F97-01215-PJ). Today, his attorneys have authorized release of news that approved DNA tests show evidence used at his trial, and crucial to the prosecution case, is unlikely to be reliable. This new DNA evidence, together with a recent successful polygraph test, suggests that Wright has been truthful in his assertion of innocence.

Livingston, Texas (PRWEB) August 6, 2007 -- Greg's legal team, headed by Bruce Anton and Meg Penrose have authorized the following announcement: "Following approved DNA testing in recent weeks, Gregory Edward Wright was excluded as a contributor to the DNA on the knife used in the crime for which he has been accused. Additionally, it has been found that Greg's DNA is inconsistent with the biological material found on the pair of jeans, claimed at the trial (F97-01215-PJ) by the prosecution to have been worn by him."

Following approved DNA testing in recent weeks, Gregory Edward Wright was excluded as a contributor to the DNA on the knife used in the crime for which he has been accused. Additionally, it has been found that Greg's DNA is inconsistent with the biological material found on the pair of jeans, claimed at the trial (F97-01215-PJ) by the prosecution to have been worn by him.

These two facts, coming as they do on top of a successful polygraph examination, represent significant new evidence in this case. It is the intention of Greg's attorneys to seek immediate consideration of these factors by every legal means.

In June 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to consider a Writ of Certiorari (No. 06-10186). In November 2006 the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal declined a Certificate of Appealability (05-70037). Wright's wife, Connie, states: "The new DNA evidence challenges still further the prosecution theories of my husband's actions and complicity in the crime of murder. He has further shown he has told the truth by convincingly passing a polygraph test in May this year. Greg has always declared his innocence of this crime and now it is the duty of the courts to heed this new evidence. I live for the day of Greg's exoneration and release from Death Row. We place our trust in the legal process of the American courts to ensure that Greg is protected from a miscarriage of Justice."

Contact: CONNIE WRIGHT
URL: http://www.freegregwright.com
Attorney: Bruce Anton
Sorrels, Udashen & Anton
Suite 400
2301 Cedar Springs Road
Dallas
Texas 75201
USA
Tel: 214-468-8100

###

http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/Q291cC1Db3VwLUVtcHQtSGFsZi1UaGlyLVplcm8=

Money for Bridges, Not for War

2007-08-02T20:41:41Z

http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1339911.html

Nick Coleman: Public anger will follow our sorrow

The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota.

By Nick Coleman, Star Tribune

Last update: August 02, 2007 - 1:06 PM

The cloud of dust above the Mississippi that rose after the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday evening has dissipated. But there are other dark clouds still hanging over Minneapolis and Minnesota.

The fear of falling is a primal one, along with the fear of being trapped or of drowning.

Minneapolis suffered a perfect storm of nightmares Wednesday evening, as anyone who couldn't sleep last night can tell you. Including the parents who clench their jaws and tighten their hands on the wheel every time they drive a carload of strapped-in kids across a steep chasm or a rushing river. Don't panic, you tell yourself. The people in charge of this know what they are doing. They make sure that the bridges stay standing. And if there were a problem, they would tell us. Wouldn't they?

What if they didn't?

The death bridge was "structurally deficient," we now learn, and had a rating of just 50 percent, the threshold for replacement. But no one appears to have erred on the side of public safety. The errors were all the other way.

Would you drive your kids or let your spouse drive over a bridge that had a sign saying, "CAUTION: Fifty-Percent Bridge Ahead"?

No, you wouldn't. But there wasn't any warning on the Half Chance Bridge. There was nothing that told you that you might be sitting in your over-heated car, bumper to bumper, on a hot summer day, thinking of dinner with your wife or of going to see the Twins game or taking your kids for a walk to Dairy Queen later when, in a rumble and a roar, the world you knew would pancake into the river.

There isn't any bigger metaphor for a society in trouble than a bridge falling, its concrete lanes pointing brokenly at the sky, its crumpled cars pointing down at the deep waters where people disappeared.

Only this isn't a metaphor.

The focus at the moment is on the lives lost and injured and the heroic efforts of rescuers and first-responders - good Samaritans and uniformed public servants. Minnesotans can be proud of themselves, and of their emergency workers who answered the call. But when you have a tragedy on this scale, it isn't just concrete and steel that has failed us.

So far, we are told that it wasn't terrorists or tornados that brought the bridge down. But those assurances are not reassuring.

They are troubling.

If it wasn't an act of God or the hand of hate, and it proves not to be just a lousy accident - a girder mistakenly cut, a train that hit a support - then we are left to conclude that it was worse than any of those things, because it was more mundane and more insidious: This death and destruction was the result of incompetence or indifference.

In a word, it was avoidable.

That means it should never have happened. And that means that public anger will follow our sorrow as sure as night descended on the missing.

For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It's been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase - the first in 20 years - last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government.

I'm not just pointing fingers at Pawlenty. The outrage here is not partisan. It is general.

Both political parties have tried to govern on the cheap, and both have dithered and dallied and spent public wealth on stadiums while scrimping on the basics.

How ironic is it that tonight's scheduled groundbreaking for a new Twins ballpark has been postponed? Even the stadium barkers realize it is in poor taste to celebrate the spending of half a billion on ballparks when your bridges are falling down. Perhaps this is a sign of shame. If so, it is welcome. Shame is overdue.

At the federal level, the parsimony is worse, and so is the negligence. A trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren't enough cops on the street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the rising chances of disaster.

And now, one has fallen, to our great sorrow, and people died losing a gamble they didn't even know they had taken. They believed someone was guarding the bridge.

We need a new slogan and we needed it yesterday:
"No More Collapses."

In Chicago? You should go to this!

2007-08-02T18:31:34Z

Protest the Racist Minutemen
Saturday August 4 - 10 am

Mexican Consulate
204 S. Ashland (Corner of Adams)
For directions click here For more info call 773-463-0311

On Saturday August 4 the anti-immigrant and racist Minutemen are holding a protest at the Mexican Consulate. The Minutemen is a national group led by fascists.

On Saturday the Minutemen are protesting against the government of Mexico and in support of two border patrol agents who shot an un-armed immigrant in the back. The border agents are currently in jail. Let's come out on Saturday to oppose racism and let the Minutemen know they are not welcome in Chicago.

Say NO to Racism! ¡Diga NO al Racismo!
Down with the Minutemen/KKK!
Stop the Raids, Detentions and Deportations!
Full Rights for All Immigrants Now!

Many Anti-racist groups are mobilizing for this protest, including ANSWER Chicago

Two more reasons Kenneth Foster is my hero

2007-08-01T15:43:03Z

'I shouldn't have to abandon my humanity, my dignity'

By BOB RAY SANDERS
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Kenneth Foster Jr. has an appointment he hopes not to keep.

He is scheduled to die Aug. 30 in the Texas prison system's death chamber.

If it comes to that, Foster says he is ready. But as I pointed out in Sunday's column, Foster never should have gotten the death penalty in the murder of Michael LaHood of San Antonio.

In fact, Mauriceo Brown, the man who killed LaHood in 1996, was executed a year ago for the crime.

Foster and two other people were with Brown most of the evening that LaHood was killed, but all the evidence -- including Brown's testimony at trial -- clearly shows that neither Foster nor the other men knew about, planned, participated in or anticipated Brown's act.

But under Texas' "law of parties," and partly because Foster was tried along with Brown, he was convicted and given a death sentence.

Although a federal judge overturned that sentence, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

Foster does not deserve to die, and he and others are fighting to stop the execution through more appeals to the courts, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and directly to the governor's office.

As promised Sunday, I want to share some of Foster's thoughts on his scheduled execution, Texas' Death Row, and the victim and his family.

"I got a strong heart. I got a strong heart," Foster told me on a recent visit to Death Row. "I don't have any fear toward death. If we have to walk that path, then I'll walk it."

He added, "If they do murder me -- and it will be murder -- then I'm prepared."

Foster has become active in fighting for inmates' rights on Death Row, and like another former inmate we knew -- Gary Graham, executed in 2000 while still maintaining his innocence -- he said he doesn't plan to go to his death quietly after "eating nine cheeseburgers that you can't digest."

He stated emphatically: "I won't be walking. I won't have no last meal. If they want me executed, they are going to have to throw me on that gurney.

"It's genocide. Covert genocide. They are approaching 400 murders here."

Texas has executed 398 people since capital punishment was reinstated in 1974.

In reference to LaHood, Foster said: "I've been accused of not reaching out to the victim's family. We never wanted the family to feel we were indifferent to their loss. I pray for that family. They don't know.

"I thought it would be rude to them for me to write a letter ... My father wrote to them, and a friend of the family's wrote them."

He noted that he's been getting a lot of hate mail (from people sympathetic to the LaHood family) on a Web site set up by his supporters, yet he continuously thinks about the people whom the victim left behind.

"If they want atonement, I can give them atonement," he said. "If they want vengeance, I can't help them.

"I have a lot of respect for that family .... I've repeated to my supporters to keep the victim in mind."

Foster, whose 11-year-old daughter was only 8 months old when he was charged with this crime, said his child comes to Texas from California once a month to visit him.

"She's a soldier," he said of his daughter.

As for his experience on the nation's busiest Death Row, he said: "There's something ugly and beautiful about Death Row. It's ugly what we have to go through here. It's a beautiful process with what you go through spiritually and emotionally."

He vowed that no matter what happens, there are some things to which he simply will not succumb.

"I can't surrender my humanity," he said. "Yeah, I made a mistake; let me correct it. I shouldn't have to abandon my humanity, my dignity."

Humanity should compel us to try to save this innocent man's life.

JOIN THE FIGHT

Contact the governor's office or the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to object to the execution of Kenneth Foster Jr.

Gov. Rick Perry

Mail: State Capitol, P.O. Box 12428, Austin, TX 78711-2428

Telephone: 512-463-2000

Fax: 512-463-1849

E-mail: Use the form at www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles

Mail: P.O. Box 13401, Capitol Station, Austin, TX 78711

Bob Ray Sanders' column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. 817-390-7775
bobray@star-telegram.com

Kenneth Foster speaks out from death row:
Struggling to survive the Texas death machine

August 3, 2007 | Pages 8 and 9

KENNETH FOSTER is facing an execution date of August 30. His “crime” was to drive a car--but the state of Texas is using its unjust “Law of Parties” to hold him responsible for capital murder. Here, he answers BRYAN McCANN’s questions about the travesties of justice that landed him on death row, and his struggle to survive the Texas execution machine.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

YOU WERE sentenced to death even though you didn’t fire the gun that killed Michael LaHood, Jr.--you were actually sitting 80 feet away in a car when LaHood was shot. Can you describe the Law of Parties that Texas has used to seek your execution?

THE GIST of the conviction comes down to one word, and that’s “anticipation.”

According to the law, “[A]ll conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy.”

We’ve all heard of hindsight being 20-20. We look back, and we learn from our mistakes. But Texas has created an inconceivable concept, and that’s foresight being 20-20--i.e., you better be psychic.

What you can do

Call on Gov. Rick Perry to stop the execution of Kenneth Foster. Call 800-252-9600 (Texas callers) or 512-463-1782 (Austin and out of state), and send faxes to 512-463-1849.

For more information on Kenneth’s case and the struggle of Texas death row prisoners against executions and rotten conditions, see the Free Kenneth Foster and DRIVE Movement Web sites.

Go to YouTube to watch videos of numerous speakers at the July 21 rally, including Nydesha Foster, Mario Africa, Dana Cloud, Shujaa Graham and the Welfare Poets.

Donations to the Save Kenneth Foster campaign can be made by sending checks or money orders (to the account “To Save Kenneth Foster,” no. 831766.1) to: Velocity Credit Union, P.O. Box 1089, Austin, TX 78767-9947.

You can also write Kenneth to voice your support: Kenneth Foster Jr. #999232, Polunsky Unit, 3872 FM 350 South Livingston, TX 77351.

This is a direct contradiction to what the U.S. Supreme Court has mandated, but this renegade “do what we want to do” attitude isn’t uncommon for the Lone Star State.

The Supreme Court specifically stated that a person must “have major personal involvement in the felony and display a reckless indifference to human life.” You have to have both, not just one or the other. Federal Judge Royal Ferguson on March 2, 2005, found that neither existed in my case.

But on October 3, 2006, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave an extremist interpretation of the law and said that because Texas law only requires “anticipation,” that was good enough. Basically, they disregarded what the Supreme Court has said as well.

Texas has given no logical guidelines for what anticipation should entail--if you acted with malice, forethought, etc. It’s a very vague lynch law, made to widen the death penalty in a shameful and contemptible way.

CAN YOU talk about what your trial was like?

MY TRIAL was a sham. There were two main things that led to the corruption of this case. One was the influence of the victim’s family. The victim’s father was a prominent attorney from San Antonio, and this led to a vendetta being carried out.

I’ve never tried to turn this into a family war. I pray for the LaHood family’s peace, and I’m sorry for their loss, but I can’t deny what took place. There were lawyers and judges at the courthouse telling my family that I should take a plea bargain, because they knew I was going to get death.

This is what I faced going to trial. And at the same time, I didn’t have the proper funds to hire an experienced legal team. The Law of Parties is a very intricate law that must be clearly explained to the jury.

My trial attorney, Joanne Eakle, only had one capital case before me, and he went to death row as well, and was ultimately executed. The third and last capital case that my trial attorney represented went to death row, too, but ironically, he got his case reversed on a Law of Parties appeal.

Also, I was tried together with the self-admitted shooter. So this case was set to lose from the beginning.

WHAT’S THE current state of your case?

CURRENTLY, WE have a Subsequent Writ pending in the lower courts. We are using the legal gateway of Section 5 of Rules for Procedures in Death Penalty Cases, which states that we can file a Subsequent Writ if: “The current claims and issues have not been and could not have been presented previously in a timely initial application or in a previously considered application filed under this article because the factual or legal basis for the claim was unavailable.”

We have exactly this through new testimony from my co-defendant, and the state’s star witness, Julius Steen, who has come forward to exonerate me.

During my original State Writ of Habeas Corpus, we couldn’t get to Steen, because his attorney, Michael Gross, wouldn’t let my defense team speak to him. They wanted him protected until he finished testifying for this and another capital case. Basically, we were barred from eliciting testimony from him that would have exonerated me.

Keep in mind that the state gave this man 35 years for two capital murders. He pled out to robbery for his testimony, but I’m getting death for the same crime he was arrested and charged with, and I did no more than him in this crime--sit in the car. I’d also like to point out that Julius Steen stayed in the county jail until mid-2003. He was in the county jail for seven years.

We now have an affidavit from Michael Gross stating that he wouldn’t let any of my attorneys talk to Steen until he got his deal (though he did let Steen talk to the district attorney’s office), and also from Steen, stating that we didn’t conspire to carry out a crime against Mr. LaHood and I had no part in it.

Up until now, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has relied on Steen’s testimony. They no longer have that. We have also filed a motion to stay this execution. The Court has an opportunity to correct this injustice, and we, the people, have to remind them that this is exactly what they must do.

ASIDE FROM the way it was applied in your case, can you comment on the Law of Parties in general? What do you think it says about the death penalty in Texas?

THE TEXAS Law of Parties is draconian. It’s riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions from top to bottom. It reflects the longstanding mentality of this state. It must be repealed.

I come across people who say, “It’s the law.” Well, words on a piece of paper don’t make justice. This country has had many laws before--slave laws, lynch laws, Jim Crow laws and now the Patriot Act laws. None of them were just or right.

We know the system doesn’t want to correct this statute, because it would not only show that they were incompetent, but it could open the floodgates to many other cases being overturned--who knows how many? So it’s easier for them to kill me than do the moral thing.

This is why I fight as hard as I do--because if I am murdered, then I want to have done something for this cause. If I had done nothing, then that would have been the ultimate insult to life and this beautiful struggle.

YOU ALSO are a founding member of the Death Row Inner-Communalist Vanguard Engagement, or DRIVE--a group of Texas death row prisoners who organize for better conditions, and against the death penalty. Why did you feel it was necessary to form DRIVE?

IT WAS necessary to form DRIVE for many reasons. One of the main ones was we had to become our own number-one advocates.

I feel it’s a contradiction if I have flyers and Web sites saying “Save Kenneth Foster,” and I’m not doing everything within my power to do that. If I don’t fight for me, why should you?

Also, we had to come together to show that just because a person makes a mistake, that doesn’t mean that they have to surrender their humanity. We have Christians who browbeat us with the Bible (“an eye for an eye,”), but have they forgetten that Abraham killed an Egyptian, that David had a man killed behind Bathsheba’s back. Yet both of these men were called to do God’s work and be Prophets.

We needed some unified efforts here on Texas’ death row because we have it the worst. We have nothing--no TVs, no arts and crafts, no group recreation--but we have the most executions. There was nothing going on here--no activism, no conscious thought--and it became nauseating. It was time to become pebbles in the pond. The right minds met each other (myself, Rob Will, Gabriel Gonzales and Reginald Blanton), and that was the catalyst.

What we began to do was initiate nonviolent, but combative and resistant, protests on the inside. We would do sit-ins, occupy areas (day rooms, rec yards, visiting rooms) and refuse to leave these areas until issues were addressed.

We put our bodies on the front line, basically saying, “All you have to do is give us what we are due, or you can beat us.” Many times we got the latter, because the iron fist is the American way. But if there is no struggle, there is no progress.

With the support of family, friends and groups like the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) and International Socialist Organization (ISO), we began to launch complaints to the right Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials and Texas politicians. Media outlets were contacted, and awareness was raised.

We also began to reach out to other death rows to unify the efforts, and this continues to today. DRIVE needs to be a national movement. Not everyone will take on activities like in Texas. Not all death rows are this bad, but we still encourage people to speak out.

More than anything else, we encourage prisoners to not voluntarily walk to their executions or accept their death feast. It’s my opinion that when men and women do this, we humanize this process even more. There’s no way that I can act like this isn’t murder. Murder is murder, no matter how nice and neat you do it.

DRIVE comrades in Texas aren’t just progressive thinkers; we’re spiritualist, we’re students of life. We have thoroughly promoted nonviolence, because we know at the first sign of violence, the system will rant and rave: “See, that’s why we have to keep them caged up. They’re monsters.”

We’re not going to fall into that trap, but we aren’t that nonetheless. We’re here to emphasize that we can correct our mistakes, we can grow, and we can step outside of the box that this system tries to place us in. We’re here to DRIVE some humanity back into the minds of society.

IN MAY, some of your family members, friends and allies formed the Save Kenneth Foster Coalition. Can you comment on the work the coalition has been doing?

I’M VERY proud of the work that’s being done. Here we have people from different beliefs, mentalities and political stances, but they’ve worked through their differences to stand together on my cause. My heart is touched in a way that’s indescribable.

My family has stepped to the front line, and there’s no doubt that I couldn’t be where I am without the CEDP. I’ve always said that the CEDP will be the vanguard of the anti-death penalty movement, because it’s concerted and aggressive.

We are not going to defeat this death penalty by holding candles and praying--because faith without works is dead anyway. Many of these politicians who believe in the death penalty claim to be Christians, so how are we going to make this a moral issue when their morals tell them this is okay?

People have to get serious about their activism. The CEDP is like the spear and shield in the hands of the people.

There have been weekly meetings held in Austin for mobilizing behind my case, events organized, activists like Mumia Abu-Jamal and author David Zirin contacted, phenomenal professors like Dana Cloud participating, solidarity from artists like the Welfare Poets, and the list goes on. This coalition is determined to gain victory by any means necessary, and is trying to be smart, but firm.

Like myself, CEDP members agree that the death penalty is systematic social genocide. This year, Texas is approaching 400 executions since capital punishment was reinstated. This coalition is going all out to make sure that I’m not one of those numbers.

We’ve taken up the words of Che Guevara and turned it into a mantra: “Let’s be realistic, let’s do the impossible!” La lucha continúa!

Sports, Violence, Race, and Hypocrisy

2007-08-01T01:30:15Z

Two important articles on the Michael Vick controversy

Who Let the Dogs Out on Michael Vick?

By Dave Zirin

In our sweaty, panting, twenty-four-hour media culture, "presumption of innocence" seems almost quaint, the legal equivalent of a potbellied stove.

This is certainly the feel of things in the curious case of the People vs. Michael Vick. The Atlanta Falcons quarterback was indicted Tuesday on federal charges of conspiracy for alleged involvement in a dogfighting operation in Virginia. The media have released the hounds.

In what can charitably be called a sprint to judgment, MSNBC's Michael Ventre opines that Vick should be "suspended for life" from the NFL: As if he has a desk inside the federal prosecutor's office, Ventre writes, "When the general public starts to hear gory tidbits about the savagery that was allegedly condoned by the Falcons' quarterback, he will be persona non grata in society, let alone the NFL."

Ventre's not the only one in attack mode. Greg Couch of the Chicago Sun-Times has a piece called "Put the Bite on Vick Now." Mark Starr of Newsweek wants him benched immediately. And sports radio has been atwitter with coverage that can charitably be called repugnant. America Online's highly trafficked Fanhouse discussion board turned ugly. The offending posts have now been scrubbed from the board, but when I checked earlier this week, there were calls to "hang him from a tree" as well as a liberal use of the N-word. (Please tell the NAACP that it's not just rappers who say that.)

The case is no longer just about what Vick did or did not do on the property he owned in Virginia that housed an alleged dogfighting operation. It's about celebrity, racism, the South and the precarious position of the African-American athlete. As someone in the Atlanta sports-radio universe described the local populace, "Half hate him. Half don't. Why? He's a black quarterback who represents hip-hop culture."

Michael Vick is in a world of trouble. If convicted, the career of an NFL marquee player--the only quarterback ever to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season--now stands in serious jeopardy.

As sports legal expert Lester Munson explained on ESPN.com, "The government's case includes evidence that Vick and his cohorts 'tested' pit bulls for ferocity. If the dogs failed the test, the indictment charges, they were executed by hanging or drowning. In one case, with Vick present, the document says a dog was slammed to the ground until it was dead. In another incident, a dog was soaked with a hose and then electrocuted. Those aren't the sort of transgressions that lead to probation and community service. It's the kind of behavior that results in punishment, and the punishment will be jail time."

Fighting dogs is an ugly, brutal business, and none of this is to excuse anything that may or may not have happened. But whether Vick is found guilty or not, the self-righteousness of the media and the many Vick-bashers is staggering.

American culture celebrates violent sports--especially football--and is insensitive to the consequences that the weekly scrum has on the bodies and minds of its players. We love a sport where any given play can be a player's last. We accept that after 44-year-old former Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters committed suicide, the autopsy revealed that his brain resembled someone with early-stage Alzheimer's due to repeated concussions. We ignore that a Hall of Fame running back, the once-unstoppable Earl Campbell, can barely get out of a car without assistance. We forget that Johnny Unitas, the greatest quarterback to play the game, couldn't grip a football by the time of his death.

But in Vick's case, when this media-massaged package of NFL fury fails to remain safely contained on the field, the sports establishment throws up its hands in horror.

I asked one player why some NFL players are attracted to dogfighting, and he said, "It's exciting, it's violent and it's high-impact." That could easily be an ad for the NFL. Another player, when I asked him about dogfighting, called it a case of "trickle-down violence," a pastime in which players make the journey from controlled to controller.

Whether Vick is guilty is for the courts to decide. Meanwhile, let's turn the magnifying glass on a society that condones so much violence in war, film and sport. Let's question the media's rush to judgment when the violence spills over into a shadow game where animals are brutally exploited in the service of violent entertainment. Let's ask why some of these fans can decry the treatment of dogs but barely acknowledge the pain of Earl Campbell. And let's all wonder whether just this once, the media will take a nice cold shower and reflect for just a moment on the role they play in this enduring hypocrisy.

Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming book: "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports" (Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to http://zirin.com/edgeofsports/?p=subscribe&id=1.

Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com

Viewpoint: 'Bad Newz' sweatshops

The power of protest by animal rights groups was on full display last week as Nike Inc. suspended Michael Vick's multimillion dollar endorsement contract without pay one day after he pleaded not guilty to federal dogfighting charges. The corporation canceled the release of his latest shoe, the Air Zoom Vick V, and erased his products from their Web site while affirming the Atlanta Falcons quarterback's right to due process.

"Nike is concerned by the serious and highly disturbing allegations made against Michael Vick," Nike spokesman Dean Stoyer said in a statement. "We consider any cruelty to animals inhumane and abhorrent."

If only Nike's newfound ethical stance was reflected in its treatment of workers overseas.

A 1996 CBS News report, released after a Korean supervisor fled the country following accusations that he sexually molested female workers, revealed Nike workers in Vietnam earned a mere 20 cents per hour, which, in the unlikely event that they worked a 40-hour week, adds up to a mere $32 per month - $13 below the minimum wage in Vietnam.

The same report also revealed that Nike supervisors in Vietnam struck 15 female workers on the head and forced 45 women to kneel on the ground for 25 minutes with their hands in the air.

Despite widespread awareness and disgust for sweatshop labor since the 1990s, human rights violations by corporations continue unabated even today.

From fiscal years 2005 and 2006, Nike rated its own factories on an "A" to "D" scale. By May 31, 2006 approximately 150 factories worldwide were classified as a "C," meaning these factories violate labor laws, harass workers or abuse employees, and work them seven days a week, among other violations.

Worse still, 50 factories received a "D," the lowest rating of the system, meaning management refuses to comply with Nike standards, provides false information on worker conditions, pays workers less than the local minimum wage and works some employees more than 72 hours a week. Such factories also force laborers to work 14 or more consecutive days, employ children, force women to submit to pregnancy tests, abuse and harass employees, provide no benefits and even issue "homework" to workers.

In light of Nike's cynical moral stance against dogfighting but its continued use of exploitative and dangerous factories, it appears as if Nike cares more about dogs than it does about people. This, however, is too simple and crass of an explanation. Nike's dearest concern is profitability, and consumer choice is inexorably tied to public image. Furthermore, Nike, along with Reebok, Donruss and Upper Deck Co. - companies that also severed ties with Vick last week - had to be pressured by groups like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The companies' outrage was palpably protracted.

Because of PETA's focus on the rights of pit bulls in Virginia, Nike was able to slip by without addressing the more heinous violations of rights against human beings across the world. Perhaps a group called PETOP, People for the Ethical Treatment of People, is needed to force Nike into making systematic change for its workers.

War Crimes from Above

2007-07-31T20:14:00Z

While our media is saturated with stories of sectarian strife and suicide bombs, an even greater cause of Iraqi suffering is coming from US troops. The continuing "blame the victim" rhetoric that permates both political party platforms and the mainstream press obscures the central truth of the disaster in Iraq: the US is the single greatest barrier to Iraqi stability and self-determination.

Check out this excellent article:

IRAQ:
A Little Easier to Occupy from the Air

Ali al-Fadhily*

BAGHDAD, Jul 31 (IPS) - Many Iraqis believe the dramatic escalation in U.S. military use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation forces on the ground.

U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of this year as over the first half of 2006, according to official information.

They dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first half of 2007, compared to 86 in the first half of 2006. This is also three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data.

The Air Force has also been expanding its air bases in Iraq and adding entire squadrons. It is now preparing to use a new robotic fighter known as the Reaper. The Reaper is a hunter-killer drone that can be operated by remote control from thousands of miles away.

"We find it strange that the big strategists of the U.S. military have actually failed in finding solutions on the ground and are now back to air raids that kill more civilians than militants," former Iraqi army brigadier-general Ahmed Issa told IPS.

"On the other hand, they are giving away the land to local forces that they know are incapable of facing the militants, who will grab the first chance of U.S. withdrawal to bases to hit back and hold the ground again."

"Going back to air raids is an alarming sign of defeat," Salim Rahman, an Iraqi political analyst from Baghdad told IPS. "To bombard an area only means that it is in the hands of the enemy."

"Our area is under threat of air raids all the time," Mahmmod Taha from the Arab Jboor area southwest of Baghdad told IPS. "Each time they bombed our area, civilians were killed by the dozens, and civilians' houses were destroyed. They could not fight the resistance face to face, and so they take revenge from the air."

May 2007 was the most violent month for U.S. forces in Iraq in nearly three years, according to the U.S. Department of Defence.

There were 6,039 attacks on U.S. and Iraqi government forces, 1,348 roadside bombs detonated under their vehicles, 286 "complex ambushes" involving roadside bombs and coordinated teams of attackers were carried out, 102 car bombs exploded, 126 U.S. soldiers were killed and 652 were wounded.

The U.S. forces have been hitting back at predominantly Sunni areas such as those around Fallujah. But the forces have also targeted Shia pilgrims around Najaf in the south.

"Air raids are back even in Shia areas like Sadr City in Baghdad and many southern cities like Diwaniya, Samawa, and Kut where the al-Mehdi militia (of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr) controls the ground," Abbas Abdul-Mehdi from Diwaniya told IPS while on a visit to Baghdad. "Their bombs fall on our heads, while the militiamen know how to hide and escape."

The U.S. forces are looking to do more of all this. "There are times when the Army wishes we had more jets," F-16 pilot Lt. Col. Steve Williams, commander of the 13th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron told reporters.

"What the U.S. forces are doing now is increasing their air force potential in a last attempt to crush the fighters with the minimum casualties possible," retired Iraqi Army colonel Mustafa Abbood from Baghdad told IPS. "It is a desperate attempt to make Iraqis turn against their fellow-fighters. It failed in Fallujah, and I do not see how it will work elsewhere."

Iraqis around Baghdad say they have noticed more air traffic in recent months. "There is a notable increase in the number of airplanes flying in the Iraqi skies," Amjad Fadhil, a farmer from Latifiya, south of Baghdad, told IPS. "F-16s and helicopters are roaring like monsters everywhere." There are more than 100 U.S. aircraft crisscrossing Iraqi air space at any one time.

Air Force engineers are working long hours to upgrade Balad air base, just north of Baghdad, which already supports 10,000 air operations per week. One of the two 11,000-foot runways has been reinforced to withstand five to seven years more of hard use.

Ten-year-old Salli Hussein lost both her legs when her home was bombed by a U.S. jet fighter near the Abu Ghraib area of Baghdad in November 2006. Her 11-year-old brother, Akram, and cousin Tabarak were torn to pieces in that missile attack.

"I want to have legs again so that I can play with my friends and make Mama happy," she told this IPS correspondent.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2007)

Campaign to End the Death Penalty Panel, August 14!!!!

2007-07-31T00:32:19Z

FIGHTING TO SAVE KENNETH FOSTER JR.
Family Members Speak Out !

Tuesday, August 14 at 6:30 PM
Carver Library
At Rosewood Ave. and Angelina St.

A Roundtable Featuring:

Kenneth Foster Sr. - Father of Kenneth Foster, Jr.
Beverly Fisher - First Cousin of Kenneth Foster, Jr.
Sandra Reed - Mother of Death Row Prisoner Rodney Reed
Jeannine Scott - Wife of Texas Prisoner Michael Scott
Delia Perez Meyer - Sister of Death Row Prisoner Louis Castro Perez

Kenneth faces an August 30th execution date. Family members discuss
the case and how to stop this and all executions !

Sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty
For more info contact cedpaustin@gmail.com or call 494-0667

Fantastic Media Support for Kenneth Foster!!!

2007-07-30T04:22:46Z

It's been a week since the march/rally in downtown Austin and it is still paying off!!! The Austin-American Statesman published an editorial in support of Kenneth on July 28 and the Dallas/Ft. Worth Star-Telegram printed the following FANTASTIC editorial (part one of two, no less) today. Similar editorials are in the works. Kenneth's case is receiving unprecedented support from the mainstream Texas media. We've managed to make it impossible for the Court of Criminal Appeals, Board of Pardons and Paroles, and Governor Perry to escape large-scale public scrutiny on this case!!!

To keep up to speed on other exciting developments in the case, keep visiting the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign blog.

And here's the Star-Telegram editorial:

Posted on Sun, Jul. 29, 2007

An appointment with death despite the evidence

By Bob Ray Sanders
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Another trip to Death Row.

Another man scheduled to die on the gurney in Texas' infamous killing chamber.

Another human being who does not deserve this tragic fate.

And another case that speaks to the absurdity of how capital punishment is applied in general throughout this country, but particularly in the Lone Star State.

The case of Kenneth Foster Jr., scheduled to die next month for a 1996 murder in San Antonio, is further proof of how cruel, capricious, unjust and utterly insane our death penalty laws have become.

Because of this tainted system, whether you believe in capital punishment or not, a man who did not plan or commit a murder will die Aug. 30 unless somebody -- a judge, the Board of Pardons and Paroles and/or the governor -- has the heart and the guts to stop it.

On Aug. 14, 1996, Foster -- who was 19 at the time -- was driving around with two guys he recently had met, Dewayne Dillard and Julius Steen. They were in a car that had been rented by Foster's grandfather, the man who basically had raised him since he was in the fourth grade because "my mother and father ran the streets," he said.

According to Steen's testimony, they were "just goofing off, more or less, and smoking some weed" when they decided to pick up a fourth person, Mauriceo Brown, who rode with them into the night.

Testimony showed that at some point, Brown announced that because they had a gun, they ought to "jack" someone.

With Foster as the driver, Steen and Brown first got out of the car and robbed a Hispanic woman at gunpoint and later robbed a man and two women in a parking lot.

On their way home, they came off the freeway and ended up in a residential neighborhood and saw, according to court documents, "a scantily-clad woman, Mary Patrick, who approached them and demanded to know why they were following her."

As it turned out, Patrick had been following her friend Michael LaHood to his home, and the car driven by Foster was right behind their two cars until they came to a dead end and turned around.

After seeing Patrick standing at the edge of the driveway, they assumed there was a party going on. They stopped and chatted with her for a few seconds, when she started cursing Steen and accusing the group of following her.

Foster put his foot on the gas and prepared to leave, he said, knowing he needed to get the car back to his grandfather. But Brown jumped out of the car, he said, went up the steep driveway and started talking to LaHood, who was more than 80 feet away from the car.

He said he heard a "pop," and when Brown got back to the car, "We're asking -- everybody's asking -- what went down? What happened?"

Brown had shot LaHood.

Shortly afterward, the four men would be arrested and later charged with capital murder.

Dillard and Steen were never made available to Foster's attorney while the district attorney held other cases over them. The district attorney chose to try Foster and Brown together, and the judge refused to sever the cases.

Foster was convicted along with Brown under the Texas "law of parties," even though he never participated in, intended for or anticipated a murder.

Prosecutors, with the help of testimony from Steen, made jurors believe that Foster had conspired in the killing and should have anticipated it.

"[Foster] was a victim of a statute that was never intended by its authors to be used this way," said Austin attorney Keith S. Hampton, who recently filed a second application for a writ of habeas corpus with the district court in San Antonio and an application for commutation of sentence with the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

"I talked to the authors, and they intended [the statute] to be used in conspiracy cases," Hampton said.

Steen has since said that he was pressured by the prosecutors to give the trial testimony and has signed an affidavit clarifying that he did not intend to imply that Foster was aware of what Brown was about to do. Brown himself testified that neither Foster nor the others had planned a robbery or a shooting of LaHood, nor did they know what he was doing.

At least one of the jurors has said in an affidavit "that he would have given a different verdict if he had known that Kenneth Foster did not anticipate that Brown would take the gun when he got out of the car, did not anticipate Brown would shoot LaHood, or that he tried to drive away when he heard the shot," according to court documents.

Federal District Judge Royal Furgeson of San Antonio overturned Foster's death sentence in 2005, saying:

"There was no evidence before Foster's sentencing jury which would have supported a finding that Foster either actually killed LaHood or that Foster intended to kill LaHood or another person. Therein lays the fundamental constitutional defect in Foster's sentence .... Therefore, Foster's death sentence is not supported by the necessary factual finding mandated [by the U.S. Supreme Court] and, for that reason, cannot withstand Eighth Amendment scrutiny."

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision. Last spring, the U.S. Supreme Court, which was considering three other Texas death penalty cases at the time, did not take Foster's appeal.

Thus, the subsequent writ application and request for commutation have been filed in an effort to save Foster's life. His supporters also have been writing to the governor and the pardons and paroles board.

"I've never tried to portray myself as an angel," Foster told me on a recent visit to Death Row. "I take responsibility. I was a follower. I was a fool for being there."

He added: "We're not saying I never did anything wrong; for this case, I did nothing wrong. I didn't conspire, I didn't participate, and I didn't plan."

Mauriceo Brown was executed for this crime on July 19, 2006. Foster's execution is set for Aug. 30.

Steen pleaded guilty to two capital murder cases and received a sentence of 35 years to life, and Dillard was given a life sentence.

Does Foster deserve a more severe sentence than Steen and Dillard?

No.

Texas has become the "capital" in "capital punishment," and it is time for us to put an end to the madness.

We can start by making sure this one innocent man's life is spared.

NOTE: In Wednesday's column, I'll tell you more about my conversation with Foster -- his views on dying, Death Row and his feelings for the victim and his family.

What Kind of Alternative?

2007-07-29T21:30:13Z

http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/638/638_09_Obama.shtml

READING BETWEEN THE LINES
Does Obama stand for a different foreign policy?

July 20, 2007 | Page 9

LANCE SELFA looks at a recent Foreign Affairs article by Barack Obama that puts his ideas on display.

FOR MANY who are looking forward to the end of the Bush administration, Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination has seemed to promise a major change.

He is the only top-tier candidate (apologies to supporters of Rep. Dennis Kucinich) who opposed the Iraq war from the start. Largely for this reason, he has attracted early support from antiwar voters in the same way that Howard Dean did in 2003.

But like much of Obama’s candidacy so far, his antiwar message remains vague, allowing supporters to project onto him their hopes and aspirations for a post-Bush era.

Until now, that is. Obama’s article, “Renewing American Leadership,” the headliner in the July/August 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, puts his ideas about foreign policy out for all to see.

It’s well worth paying attention to this article because Foreign Affairs, published by the ultra-establishment Council on Foreign Relations, is the chief organ by which the U.S. foreign policy elite talks to itself. A Foreign Affairs article by a presidential candidate has become part of the audition for winning a nomination and the election.

For someone who is positioning himself as an antiwar candidate, the article’s main theme, “renewing American leadership,” is quite striking. The entire article, while reading a lot like the text of a campaign stump speech, returns continuously to this theme.

The main aim of Obama’s presidency, it seems, will be to regain the leadership of the world that George Bush’s reckless and dumb foreign policy has squandered. “In the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles,” Obama writes. “We must lead the world, by deed and by example.”

There’s no disputing that the U.S. is more widely hated today than before Bush took office, and Obama’s message recognizes that. And it’s not surprising that Obama would urge “renewing American leadership,” because “leading the world” has been the overriding U.S. foreign policy aim since at least the end of the Second World War.

Therefore, those expecting new and fresh ideas in the Obama essay will have to look hard to find them.

The ideas that will sound appealing--a shift of emphasis from Europe to the newly industrializing countries like Brazil and India, a commitment to fighting global poverty, and incorporating “green” themes into traditional foreign policy debates--feel more like window dressing than the bases of a new departure in foreign policy.

Even his discussion of global poverty stems from a commitment to preventing “failed states” that would be “optimal breeding grounds” for terrorism.

“This century’s threats,” he writes, “are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past,” including “weapons that can kill on a mass scale,” “global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism,” “rogue states,” “rising powers,” “weak states that cannot control their territory” and global warming.

Leaving aside the question of whether al-Qaeda is really the equal of Nazi Germany or thermonuclear holocaust--the last century’s major threats--except for his inclusion of global warming into the list, this is the standard issue from all sectors of the political establishment, including George W. Bush.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHAT ABOUT Iraq, the issue that Obama uses to distinguish himself from the rest of the Democratic field? Here again, we find pretty cautious and hardly visionary leadership.

While Obama supports bringing “the Iraq war to a responsible end” and backs the Iraq Study Group’s peg of March 31, 2008, for the beginning of a “phased withdrawal,” these pledges are hedged with all sorts of qualifications. “This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political and economic benchmarks to which is has committed,” he writes.

Obama says “we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq,” but, like the hawkish Rep. John Murtha, he calls for an “over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces and root out al-Qaeda.” One wonders whether “no permanent bases” and “American personnel and facilities” is a distinction without a difference.

In case anyone gets the idea that Obama would be a wimp in the White House, he stresses many times that he is committed to building up and using U.S. military force. He calls for adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 to the Marines. He says “we must not rule out using military force” against Iran while convincing it to give up its nuclear program.

“We must become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale,” Obama writes. “I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.”

In other words, it seems that the Bush Doctrine of endless war and unilateral intervention would not disappear under an Obama administration. It will simply be “repurposed” and given more lofty-sounding justifications.

Lest anyone think that this kind of interventionism is just campaign rhetoric, one should consider who Obama’s chief foreign policy advisers (and likely authors of the Foreign Affairs article) are.

They include Anthony Lake, a one-time protégé of Henry Kissinger. As Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, Lake devised the main strategy for U.S. intervention in the Balkans, including NATO bombings of Serbia and aiding Croatia’s ethnic cleansing of Serbs, which ultimately led to the 1999 NATO war.

Another is Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard history professor who is a leading advocate of “humanitarian intervention” around the world. Beyond them are a number of ex-Clinton advisers, including Gregory Craig, who oversaw State Department policy planning around the expansion of NATO and the decision by the Clinton administration to endorse “regime change” in Iraq.

After nearly seven disastrous years of the Bush administration, Obama’s approach will sound appealing to millions. But his Foreign Affairs article shows he is less interested in challenging the American empire than in placing it under more competent management.

It's Game Time: Rally to Free Kenneth Foster TODAY!!!!!

2007-07-21T17:26:45Z

EMERGENCY!
The State of Texas intends to execute Kenneth Foster on August 30, despite the fact that he did not murder anyone. Unlike any other state in this country, Texas utilizes a unique statute called the Law of Parties which allows the State to subject a person to death even though he did not kill, intend to kill, help or encourage anyone to do so.

RALLY AND MARCH IN AUSTIN
Saturday, July 21, 5:00 PM
Texas State Capitol, south steps

On July 21, join Kenneth's family, friends, and supporters for a march and rally with speakers, live music, and food to demand that Texas does not go through with the execution.

Speakers and Performers include:

Tasha Foster - Wife of Kenneth Foster and Hip Hop Performer
Nydesha Foster - Daughter of Kenneth Foster
Shujaa Graham - Exonerated Death Row Inmate
Welfare Poets - Politically Conscious Music from NY
Mario Africa - With the MOVE organization, Activist from Philadelphia
Darby Tillis - Exonerated Death Row Prisoner & Blues Musician from Chicago

Plus many more!

More info about Kenneth's situation:
http://www.freekenneth.com

Help Save Kenneth Foster: Jam Gov. Perry's Phone on Friday!!!!!

2007-07-19T15:39:56Z

WHAT: Call, Fax, email Texas Governor Rick Perry!
Ask him to grant clemency to Kenneth Foster, Jr.

WHEN: Tomorrow (Fri. July 20)

On Sat. July 21, supporters of Kenneth Foster, Jr. are rallying to save his life from the Texas death machine. In solidarity with this rally, we are asking people all over the country to help step up the pressure on Gov. Rick Perry the day before the rally (July 20). We'd like to clog up Gov. Perry's phone and fax line with one simple message: Stop the Execution of Kenneth Foster, Jr.

You can contact Rick Perry in the following ways:

Phone: (512) 463-1782
Fax: (512) 463-1849

You can also send him a message through his website:
<http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact.>http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

All Out for Kenneth Foster - SATURDAY!!!!

2007-07-17T19:29:36Z

Iraq PM: Country can manage without U.S.

2007-07-14T15:15:09Z

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 22 minutes ago

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want," though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training.

The embattled prime minister sought to show confidence at a time when congressional pressure is growing for a withdrawal and the Bush administration reported little progress had been made on the most vital of a series of political benchmarks it wants al-Maliki to carry out.

Al-Maliki said difficulty in enacting the measures was "natural" given Iraq's turmoil.

But one of his top aides, Hassan al-Suneid, rankled at the assessment, saying the U.S. was treating Iraq like "an experiment in an American laboratory." He sharply criticised the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations, embarassing the Iraqi government with its tactics and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in its campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Al-Suneid's comments were a rare show of frustration toward the Americans from within al-Maliki's inner circle as the prime minister struggles to overcome deep divisions between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish members of his coalition and enact the American-drawn list of benchmarks.

In new violence in Baghdad on Saturday, a car bomb leveled a two-story apartment building, and a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-packed vehicle into a line of cars at a gas station. The two attacks killed at least eight people, police officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorize to release details of the attacks.

Thursday's White House assessment of progress on the benchmarks fueled calls among congressional critics of the Iraqi policy for a change in strategy, including a withdrawal of American forces.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned earlier this week of civil war and the government's collapse if the Americans leave. But al-Maliki told reporters Saturday, "We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want."

But he added that Iraqi forces are "still in need of more weapons and rehabilitation" to be ready in the case of a withdrawal.

On Friday, the Pentagon conceded that the Iraqi army has become more reliant on the U.S. military. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, said the number of Iraqi batallions able to operate on their own without U.S. support has dropped in recent months from 10 to six, though he said the fall was in part due to attrition from stepped-up offensives.

Al-Maliki told a Baghdad press conference that his government needs "time and effort" to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks — "particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference."

"These difficulties can be read as a big success, not negative points, when they are viewed under the shadow of the big challenges," he said.

In the White House strategy, beefed-up American forces have been waging intensified security crackdowns in Baghdad and areas to the north and south for nearly a month. The goal is to bring quiet to the capital while al-Maliki gives Sunni Arabs a greater role in the goverment and political process, lessening support for the insurgency.

But the benchmarks have been blocked by divisions among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders. In August, the parliament is taking a one month vacation — a shorter break than the usual two months, but still enough to anger some in Congress who say lawmakers should push through the measures.

Al-Suneid, a Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, bristled at the pressure. He called Thursday's report "objective," but added, "this bothers us a lot that the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory (judging) whether we succeed or fail."

He also told The Associated Press that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus, who works along a "purely American vision."

He criticized U.S. overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala, encouraging former insurgents to join the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. "These are gangs of killers," he said.

"There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaida in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias," said al-Suneid.

He said that the U.S. authorities have embarrassed al-Maliki' government through acts such as constructing a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's eastern slum of Sadr City. He said the U.S. use of airstrikes to hit suspected insurgent positions also kills civilians.

"This embarrasses the government in front of its people," he said, calling the civilian deaths a "human rights violation."

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

bjm5223

The Case for Socialism

Video footage and press release from yesterday's great Austin rally for Kenneth Foster!!!

REMINDER: All Out for Kenneth Foster on Tuesday!!!!

Night of Solidarity for Kenneth Foster TONIGHT!!!

Important San Antonio Event for Kenneth Foster

Really important event tonight

8/18: THOU SHALL NOT KILL: A Night for Kenneth Foster Jr

Plano/Dallas Folks...I Need Your Help

Things You Can Do to Help Save Kenneth Foster

Watch/Listen to Democracy Now! show on Kenneth online

Kenneth's Case on Democracy Now!

EMERGENCY: Kenneth Foster's Final Appeal Denied - All Eyes on the Governor

DNA Tests Suggest Gregory Edward Wright, On Texas Death Row, Has Been Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder

Money for Bridges, Not for War

In Chicago? You should go to this!

Two more reasons Kenneth Foster is my hero

'I shouldn't have to abandon my humanity, my dignity'

By BOB RAY SANDERSStar-Telegram Staff Writer

Sports, Violence, Race, and Hypocrisy

Who Let the Dogs Out on Michael Vick?

War Crimes from Above

Campaign to End the Death Penalty Panel, August 14!!!!

Fantastic Media Support for Kenneth Foster!!!

An appointment with death despite the evidence

What Kind of Alternative?

It's Game Time: Rally to Free Kenneth Foster TODAY!!!!!

Help Save Kenneth Foster: Jam Gov. Perry's Phone on Friday!!!!!

All Out for Kenneth Foster - SATURDAY!!!!

Iraq PM: Country can manage without U.S.

By BOB RAY SANDERS
Star-Telegram Staff Writer