Ké Huelga Radio writes: Mexico is bleeding. Along with the so-called "war against drug-dealers" we see the whole Mexican territory turn olive green. The militarization is part of the global war driven by the United States, which began with the 9-11 events and created new enemies: terrorism and drug trafficking. Attuned with the Lords of the north, the Mexican government has launched its own war creating a police-ruled state and criminalizing social protest.

The militarization leads to social-control practices which have nothing to envy from those used by the dictatorships of the 70's: from video cameras to torture chambers, via disappearances and massacres, the regime uses all its resources to establish new conditions for slavery. In addition to the barbarism of the beheaded, the "wrapped" (encobijados), those cooked in soup ("pozoleados") and other expressions of savagery which the media use to feed the social fear, we find the technology of electronic espionage (phones and internet) as well as the offers for mercenary imports which "will accomplish" the extermination of the criminals. This is how fear and silence appear as the "magical recipes" (extracted from the manuals for psychological warfare) for habituating the media to censoring itself, managing to also desensitize the population towards state and paramilitary-driven violence against social movements.

Read more | México Sangra: Los medios libres contra la tiranía invisible | Ké Huelga Radio

In this chapter of the series “Hidden in Plain Sight,” Indybay volunteer Peter M writes about Greg Landau. Landau is a record and film music producer living in the Bay Area. He learned filmmaking from his father, Saul Landau, while traveling throughout Latin America. Greg spent most of the 1980s in Nicaragua, where he was baptized by fire working for the Ministry of Culture in the Sandinista government. He relates the experiences that formed the cultural perspective informing his career today.

“Greg Landau has produced over fifty CDs, and coordinated and composed the music for a number of movies, both small and large, including this year’s 'La Mission.' His productions have been nominated for Grammy awards four times. Most of his recordings are of Latin American artists, and the roots of his musical mission are in his experiences in Latin America—although in Landau’s world San Francisco itself is a Spanish speaking town where Latin American culture can take center stage.”

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On Friday, April 16th, veteran Indybay reporter David Morse (known to readers as "dave id") moved to quash a search warrant issued for photographs he took at a December 11th protest on the UC Berkeley campus. The photographs were taken while Morse was covering a protest in front of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's residence for Indybay. Despite clearly identifying himself as a journalist, Morse was arrested along with seven others, had his camera and photographs seized, and was charged with multiple felonies.

After the arrests, UC Berkeley's public relations machine went into overdrive, disseminating sensationalized misinformation about the protest and the eight people arrested that night. Morse spent a weekend at the Santa Rita "mega-jail" and was forced to post a $13,000 bond to secure his release. Within days, charges against the "UC8" were dropped, but Morse had yet to recover the pictures confiscated by police.

Morse writes, "UC had successfully managed to not only silence my eye-witness reporting that would have contradicted many of their press statements as the news broke but to seize my photographs from the scene for their own purposes... I am compelled to stand up for my own right to continue reporting without undue police interference and for the many other journalists who have been or might be mistreated in police attacks on the free press."

The motion to quash the search warrant was filed in Alameda County Superior Court by the nonprofit advocacy group First Amendment Project. It asserted that the search warrant violated the California journalist's shield law. On June 18th at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland, Judge Yolanda Northridge agreed and quashed the warrant, ordering the UC Regents to return the original photographs and all known copies.

Read More | Update on Delays of Hearing for Motion to Quash | UC Regents' Opposition to Motion to Quash Warrant, and Movant Reply | UC Search Warrant Quashed!! | Judge's Order to Quash Warrant, for UC to Return All Photos & Submit Declaration | Press Release: Court Quashes Search Warrant | dave id's Account | First Amendment Project

Related Coverage: Eight Arrested at UC Berkeley After Concert & March

Chapter five of the Hidden in Plain Sight series by Peter M is a profile of Josh Wolf. Wolf spent seven and a half months in federal jail asserting his right as a journalist not to turn over videotape of a demonstration. He is now a graduate student in journalism at UC Berkeley.

Just last week, as this profile was being prepared for publication, the UCB administration announced it will try to suspend Wolf for seven months as punishment for his being arrested while covering the protest against fee hikes that led to the occupation of Wheeler Hall last November. Wolf contends that he should not be disciplined because he was there as a reporter. He may take his case to a hearing before a panel made up of two faculty, two students and one university staff member.

Perhaps the past is the best guide to what the future holds for Wolf, who turned being targeted by the feds into a professional distinction. Peter writes, "I met Josh Wolf at a North Berkeley café. Having ascertained beforehand that I was not going to broadcast the recording, he had ordered lunch, which he ate as we began to talk. The first thing I asked was what happened in San Francisco on the night of July 8, 2005, when he shot the video that would change his career and his life."

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On March 27th, a birthday party was held to celebrate 15 years of Free Radio Santa Cruz. The party took place at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in downtown Santa Cruz. The night featured local musicians and brought together past and present station programmers, as well as other community members. In addition to the local musicians, Tom Lodge, a pirate radio legend and pioneer from England, spoke of the great days of Radio Caroline, which allowed for the British Invasion. Lodge recently penned a book called The Ship That Rocked The World: How Radio Caroline Defied the Establishment, Launched the British Invasion, and Made the Planet Safe for Rock and Roll.

Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC) is a collectively run, community supported, Do It Yourself (DIY) radio station broadcasting at 101.1 FM and streaming online at freakradio.org. FRSC writes, "We do not accept commercial advertising, sponsors, patrons or underwriting. We don't do 'pledge drives.' We feature independent news, public affairs, and music programming in English and Spanish. We have a policy against 'hate speech' while encouraging a wide variety of community opinion and commentary. We recruit and train members of the community to express themselves and speak for their community on radio."

Photos | Event Announcement | Tribute to Free Radio Santa Cruz | Happy Birthday Freak Radio Santa Cruz

Chapter four of this series is Peter M’s profile of Oakland's Favianna Rodriguez. By any measure she is a successful poster artist, businesswoman and organizer. She organizes other progressive artists into projects, such as the mural that went up last year on the side of the Oakland Museum. She is a role model for up-and-coming Latina artists, proving in her life that sí se puede — yes it can be done.

“I first interviewed Favianna Rodriguez for Indybay in 2004. We met at a conference held in Barrows Hall at the University of California Berkeley that was called ‘Designs on Democracy.’ She was one of a handful of designers and activists who put the conference together, and it was attended by several hundred people from around the U.S. She told me, ‘The conference is not just for designers, it’s for communicators and people who are in the business of doing marketing and selling the image of the left, to take it to a broader audience, and make it more appealing.’ Rodriguez contributed a poster to the event, in which she portrayed herself pasting the poster—a poster within a poster—onto the air in front of a cityscape. ‘It’s being posted on a cityscape to reclaim the right to public space,’ she said recently. ‘I wanted to highlight this, since the conference was around our democratic right to have our voice of dissent.’”

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Chapter 1: Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance
Chapter 2: Bradley of Santa Cruz Indymedia
Chapter 3: Bill Hackwell, Activist and Photographer

This is the third in a series of profiles of activist and alternative media workers in the Bay Area by Indybay contributor Peter M. Featured in this profile is Bill Hackwell, a photographer/activist who lives in Oakland. His career spans four decades.

"In 1968 Bill Hackwell was in Viet Nam, assigned to Air Force intelligence as a photographer. His year there was the formation of what would be a life in photography and activism. 'I had a political awakening there,' he said. 'I consider myself an anti-imperialist and that’s where it began. I couldn’t express myself at the time, but I just … I felt lied to. All those things they told us that we were doing— it was the exact opposite.'”

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Chapter 1: Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance
Chapter 2: Bradley of Santa Cruz Indymedia

On December 17th, 2009, dozens of supporters of the KPFA-Pacifica show Flashpoints, which is also carried around the country, went to the station to hear a report on the layoffs and attacks on the show by the KPFA management. After Manager Lemlem Rijio vacated the building to avoid answering questions, Amelia Gonzalez, the assistant manager, told the rally that the station had violated the union contract and laid off staff disregarding the seniority list. She said they were in discussion with CWA 9415 on how they could have layoffs without regard to the station wide seniority list.

The first victim of this new cutback campaign was Eric Klein, Flashpoints' technical producer and engineer, whose half-time position was eliminated with no advance notice on December 7; Dennis Bernstein, the show's host, wasn't informed until he went looking for Klein an hour before airtime. After co-host Nora Barrows-Friedman emailed station manager Lemlem Rijio seeking an explanation and making the case that the show requires a technical producer, Rijio invited her to "share her concerns" in person. When they met on December 9, Barrows-Friedman argued that it was "unreasonable" to expect her to absorb Klein's work on top of her other responsibilities, whereupon Rijio "casually" informed her that her hours were being cut in half, from 40 to 20 per week, effective immediately.

Photos: 1 | 2 | Videos: 1 | 2 | 3

Cuts to KPFA's Flashpoints Spark Outrage | Award Winning Flashpoints Radio Show Under Threat by KPFA Management | KPFA Lemlem's Ambush Of Flashpoints Producer Nora-Barrows-Friedman | KPFA's Manager Lemlem Rijio Shuts Down Flashpoints Without Notice For Fund Drive? | Robert Knight and the Knight report axed by KPFA management-KPFA CL Management Seeking To Shut Down Flashpoints | Letter from KPFA General Manager to Our Listening Community | Open Letter to KPFA General Manager, Lemlem Rijio and the KPFA community | Flashpoints receives Top 20 Media recognition