Volume 5 Issue 37…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…September 20, 2002

 Atlanta Vibe

During its International Speak-Out Against War and Racism, Poets for Peace declared a war of words on August 16, 2001. Committed to solving problems through dialogue rather than war, this consortium of Atlanta Vibe artists called on others worldwide to rail against US hypocrisy. Urging everyone to speak and act to end the mindless silence, senseless destruction and needless deaths of men, women and children in places like Somalia, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, poets sounded the alarm (The DISH Vol. 5 No 2). Connecting dots in Time Magazine, Nina Burleigh's "Missing the oil story" explained why "Afghanistan and the other "stans" of central Asia figure so prominently in George Bush's new world order (The DISH Vol. 4 No 41).

The US drive to control the oil rich Middle East is an extension of its 18^th century North American policy of Manifest Destiny. Under this socioeconomic and political doctrine, designed to destroy aboriginal culture, the US government slaughtered millions of buffaloes to force American Indians to trade land for survival (Ode to Buffaloes, The DISH Vol. 4 No 17). The basis of plains dwelling cultures, the buffalo supplied food, fuel, shelter, clothing, tools, medicines and ceremonial artifacts. Ode to Buffaloes laments the stolen lives that resulted from the merciless US policy of taking Native lands. Driven to the brink of extinction, the Native American's fate foreshadows the real intent of Bush's war on Iraq.

Civil societies coexist as a result of agreements to abide by certain standards of conduct that recognize two basic principles: sovereignty and self-determination (The DISH Vol. 5 No 16). After countless localized armed struggles, civilization achieved the status quo during the last century following WWI and WWII. Intelligent leaders agreed communication is better than confrontation, and cooperation is far more beneficial than conflict. Moreover, it was accepted that civil societies exist only if powerful nations recognize the right of others to determine their own fate as people. Tyranny results when unilateralism reigns.

Today, agitating ashes from WWII, any people can live with tyranny, if they allow others to define their reality. "People do not become slaves overnight, their freedoms are taken a little at a time. One morning you wake up wearing gold stars." Imperialism: Racism Uncloaked and Shadow Dictatorship (The DISH Vol.5 No 1 & Vol. 5 No 9) make the point, "One can never appease a greedy bully. They should be stopped at the gate or in the yard if possible but at the door by any means. Once inside the house, one may have to destroy it to get them out." Everyone says this of Adolf Hitler today. Back in 1939, they turned their backs on the people in the Sudetenland and opened oven doors for six million. Bush resembles Hitler taking Afghanistan. Now, he demands Iraq. The UN must decide if it fears US retribution or loves freedom more. The UN's answer can only be, no we will not let you have Iraq too! Who will be next? Essays by John Burl Smith --- Atlanta Vibe Homepage

Condemning the federal government's handling of Indian affairs for more than a century, on Tuesday (9-17-02), U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in Cobell v. Norton (Case No. 1:96 CV01285) ruled Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior, and Neal McCaleb, Asst. Secretary of Interior for Indian Affairs, were in civil contempt of court for mismanaging this case. Cobell v. Norton is a class-action lawsuit filed in 1996 to force the government to reform its system of compensation for Indian lands and account for billions of dollars belonging to Native Americans and their heirs and held in trust since the late 19^th century. Access the contempt citation and other documents online at http://www.indiantrust.com/

The Dreamer's Last Dream

Most people who profess a deep and abiding respect, if not love, for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., point to his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech as his greatest achievement. Few grasps the significance of his dream of a Poor People's Campaign." Approximately, one hour before his assassination, I spoke with him about this very subject. It was my leadership of the black power group called the Invaders, which some of Dr. King's staffers blamed for the riot two weeks earlier, that brought us together the evening of April 4, 1968.

Having failed to extend the civil rights movement northward into urban ghettos, hamstrung by power squabbles within SCLC and plagued with questions about his nonviolence tactic, Dr. King and Rev. Hosea Williams desperately needed help with the "Poor People's Campaign." Against this backdrop, Dr. King joined us at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He came specifically to recruit the Invaders as marshals for his next Sanitation Workers' March, but he hoped to gain our commitment to the "Poor People's Campaign." It would attack poverty and injustice by forging blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, immigrants and poor whites into a national coalition. Dr. King said, a mule train would begin in the deep South and swing North through most major cities and arrive in Washington, D.C. as Congress convened after Labor Day.

For such an audacious gamble to work, Dr. King needed highly motivated well-trained street organizers to prepare black communities in advance of the train as it meandered across the country. Stunning everyone, Dr. King proposed a civil rights/black power pack between himself and the Invaders. He said, Hosea had convinced him that the Invaders' alliance of students, children of striking sanitation workers and other activists was responsible for the overflow crowd that overwhelmed march organizers and police the day of the riot. Dr. King said, we showed we knew how to mobilize people.

Until that moment, civil rights leaders had attacked black power activists, claiming they were loud mouth troublemakers lacking community support. Pushing his proposal with a sense of urgency, Dr. King confided that a tug-of-war over meeting with and embracing black power advocates was tearing SCLC apart. Putting everything on the line for the "Poor People's Campaign, Dr. King believed Hosea's logic would prevail. He hoped a favorable response from blacks would counter Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson's criticism that "He was squandering his clout as a Nobel Peace Prize winner."

Struggling to counter the revolt within SCLC, Dr. King explained why he felt the Invaders were the future (Building the Future, The DISH Vol. 5 No 16). Traveling city to city, he observed black power cadres the Invaders could recruit to support the "Poor People's Campaign." An audacious power play no black leader ever contemplated, not even the illustrious Marcus Garvey, if only Dr. King could have pulled it off. Unfortunately, like Garvey, the US government was orchestrating events behind the scenes. Fighting pressure and treachery from all sides, Dr. King's intrepid gamble to make black power the future ended with an assassin's bullet that instantly made Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson the future. Consequently, Dr. King's assassination nightmare, not his "Poor People's Campaign" dream, became history. Essays by John Burl Smith

The Dark Knight- Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is a student of chess. Encouraged to stay abreast of world events, when Saddam Hussein changed his mind about weapons inspections under the threat of a US attack, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro exclaimed, "That's a castle!" Bat Cave

Disgruntled feels: Poetic Justice! Like chronic wasting disease (USA mad cow) that lies in wait for woodsmen (gun-toting hunters) that eat their deer and elk kills, Janet Reno got a taste of how it feels to have an election stolen. As US Attorney General in 2000, Reno sat on her hands and did nothing while thousands of black voters were disenfranchised. It is poetic justice that the same white Florida Democrats that paved the way for a Bush White House dissed Reno too!

Disgruntled wants to know: According to Co-InTel-Pro documents, several of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s closest lieutenants were FBI operatives. One of his closest associates, Rev. Jesse Jackson, claims to lead black people. A mass of misinformation that hurts rather than help the black situation, his statement that the USA has been a democracy since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act discounts the Electoral College and ignores black voter disenfranchisement in 2000 and 2002. Does he spread this USA democracy propaganda, which supports the status quo, because he is a FBI operative?

Disgruntled says: There is a wealth of scientific evidence which suggests Anvil and other insecticides used to spray for mosquitoes may prove worse than the mosquito's bite. Used in urban settings, thousands may experience long term health problems, such as cancer, hormonal imbalances, neurological damage and possible genetic mutations. Despite the readily available warnings about these chemicals, authorities in cities like Chicago continue to spray these toxins under the pretext of controlling the dreaded West Nile Virus (WNV). Disgruntled

The origin of cotton is unknown. India produced cotton cloth as early as 1500 BC About 1500 AD, India was perhaps the center of the cotton industry. In the 1920's, archaeological discoveries indicated that as early as about 3000 BC cotton was being used in India to make fabric and string. From India, cotton and the making of cotton cloth are believed to have spread to Persia (Iran), China and Japan.

Romans and Greeks used cotton fiber. In early Christianity, mummy cloths from Egypt were made of linen, but there are other indications that Egyptians also used cotton cloth. Columbus found it employed by Native Americans. In the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru, the use of cotton cloth was discovered, and ancient Peruvian tombs yielded mummy cloths of cotton.

Before the Industrial Revolution, most of the yarn cloth produced was either handmade or made with very crude instruments. In the second half of the 18th century new machines were invented in England. Samuel Slater, an apprentice under Jedediah Strutt (1789), partner of Great Britain's inventor Sir Richard Arkwright, brought a working knowledge of the textile machine to New England. The first cotton mill was built at Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1793 from memory.

Produced mainly as a cash crop in the southern United States, as the cotton culture expanded, its centers of production moved westward to the fresher lands. Eventually, the cotton fields of the New World stretched from North Carolina to Texas as the prospect of large profits drew settlers by the thousands to lands once occupied by Native Americans. Some of the newcomers were wealthy plantation slave owners, but most were either small slaveholders or non-slave farmers.

Labor intensive, numerous African slaves were imported for the cultivation of cotton, thus a similar shift occurred in slave populations. From 1820 to 1860, Alabama slaves grew from 41,000 to 435,000 and in Mississippi from 32,000 to 436,000. During this period, Virginia slaves increased from 425,000 to only 490,000. Between 1840 and 1860, an estimated 410,000 slaves were moved from the upper South to cotton states.

From one million bales in 1830, Southern cotton production steadily increased until it reached 4 million bales in 1860. In that year, Southern cotton brought $191 million in the European markets and constituted almost two-thirds of the total export trade of the United States of America. No wonder Southerners proclaimed "Cotton is King!" (Sources: Encyclopedia Americana and American History: A Survey, 4^th edition)

The American agri-business giant, Monsanto, developed Bt-cotton, which is genetically modified with a toxin gene from Bacillus thuringiensis, a species of bacteria that live in the soil, to kill the cotton bollworm and other insect pests and reduce the need for pesticides. There are numerous Bt toxins, which are harmful to organisms from bacteria to butterflies. Monsanto has incorporated several of these into a range of crops, which include cotton, rice, maize (corn) and potatoes.

According to the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS), no long-term environmental and health impact studies was conducted before genetically modified (GM) crops were approved for commercial use. Though first introduced on American farms in 1996, the implications of this technology on bio-diversity remain unknown. In Australia, China, India and Indonesia, scientific reports suggest Bt-cotton poses a serious threat to bio-diversity.

Because there is no way to prevent GM genes from spreading through cross-pollination and horizontal gene transfer, the most immediate danger is the creation of new bacteria and viral pathogens and the spread of drug and antibiotic resistance genes to pathogens. UK scientists have warned against Bt-cotton on account of its serious implications in the treatment of gonorrhea. Moreover, recent reports indicate foreign DNA can become incorporated into the cell's genome with potentially harmful effects, including cancer. For more on the implications of genetically modified crops on bio-diversity, log on to ISIS at http://www.i-sis.org.uk.

On Deadly Ground is a movie starring super action hero Steven Seagal. Like his other movies, this one is filled with gratuitous violence and profanity; hence, this is not a recommendation, but an observation. In the movie, our hero, Forrest Taft (Seagal), is pitted against the unscrupulous CEO of an oil company that is polluting the Alaskan wilderness. At the very end of the movie, Taft delivers an insightful speech on the disastrous consequences of environment pollution and calls on all people to confront our political leaders.

In June 2002, scientists specializing in carcinogens in food announced a newly suspected substance, acrylamide, found in French fries and other foods. The September 1994 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Chemical Fact Sheet on acrylamide described it as an odorless solid that exists as flake-like crystals. Produced in large quantities for use in dyes, adhesives, textiles, seed coatings, printing ink, agricultural sprays, water retention aids, such as disposable diapers, water purification systems and dozens of other products, it does not occur in nature. Though the US imports some acrylamide, Cytec, Dow Chemical and Nalco produce most of it for domestic use.

Dissolvable in water, the EPA knew acrylamide was a probable carcinogen as early as 1994. Studies on the chemical found tumors, birth defects, lowered sperm count and a host of other problems associated with exposure to the toxic substance in clinical trials. Yet, the government allowed companies to continue to produce and use larger and larger quantities of the chemical. More important, now that there is evidence it has found its way into the food chain, neither business nor government has made an effort to educate the public about its dangers. To the contrary, there are concerted efforts to downplay the danger associated with the use of products containing acrylamide such as hair dyes and the consumption of certain foods found to have high levels of acrylamide, such as McDonald's French fries.

We are being poisoned by big businesses that control our politicians through their generous campaign contributions. Whether by the sprays used to "kill" mosquitoes or French fries filled with acrylamide, we are dying so corporate American can turn a profit. As art imitates life, we are indeed on deadly ground. DISHing It Up Hot!

Email no_reply@yahoo.com BIG agri-business seems to be trying to find a way to dump a product that has questionable positives. If this product cross-pollinates/or establishes itself locally, it will wipe out the domestic version, which will leave farmers totally dependent on seed that they can ONLY buy from one or two USA sources. GM seed will NOT allow them to save seeds to plant next year's crop. Modified seed will not reproduce the original, since it is a hybrid. The current atmosphere in corporate America leads me to be suspicious of the true goal behinds this "aid." If this agri-business/government aid is indeed being used as an excuse to dump a product that nobody wants and that makes them more dependent, then I say it is a despicable act. I can't imagine using hunger as a tool for some sort of corporate agenda, but we now know just how far they will go with the Enrons of the world paving the way.

Email valojo@earthlink.net . Excerpt of editorial from The Independent. The safety of GM food remains in doubt - any effect will not show for many years yet - and African countries are worried that their peoples, whose immune systems have already been impaired by HIV/AIDS, may be especially vulnerable. More important, they fear their farmers will illegally plant grain given as aid, introducing GM crops to their countries. Their genes would spread until all their harvests were contaminated, and then they would be unable to sell their products in Europe. Something of the kind has already happened in Mexico. GM aid looks more like an odious attempt to introduce the technology by the back door.

Email chiefo@hotmail.com The US war machine and its mighty industrial complex would come to a screeching halt, without minerals and ores mined only in Africa, It may well be the world's only super power, but it is nothing without African wealth (natural resource)!

Email http://news.bbc.co.uk Angola has fined US oil giant ChevronTexaco $2 million for causing environment damage. It is the first time the African nation has imposed a fine on a company operating in its waters. The ministry for the environment and fisheries said in a statement that a spill earlier in June from ChevronTexaco's offshore platforms in northwest Angola polluted beaches and forced fishermen to stop work. A government investigation found that the spills were the result of leaks from poorly maintained pipes used to transport crude from the platforms.

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