Feature Archives

April 15, 2004: A number of organizations chose to protest the April 15th Tax Day because they do not agree with the US government's use of their tax money.
In Oakland, 16 people were arrested at the federal building when they formed a circle in the rotunda lobby and recited statistics about how U.S. tax dollars have paid for death and destruction in Iraq and Palestine.
Photos: 1 | 2   Report
There were also anti-war tax protests in Palo Alto, San Jose, and the Central Valley.
Nationwide, LGBT activists held "No Taxation with Discrimination" protests demanded equal marriage rights.

Relatives of victims of the World Trade Center bombings gasped in horror and disgust as Condoleezza Rice testified at the 9-11 Commission's ninth public hearing that she had briefed President George Bush with an August 6, 2001 CIA-memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States". As Rice danced around the majority of the questions put to her by the 9/11 Commission, several relatives yelled, "Shame!" while she continued to deny that the White House had knowledge prior to 9-11 of a possible terrorist attack on key designations on the East Coast. Many San Franciscans will remember that Rice must have known something serious enough to warrant a personal warning call to Mayor Willie Brown a full eight hours before the attacks. Many critics feel that her political connections to the two-party controlled commission helped to dumb down her interview, which was supposed to allot ten minutes per commissioner, but was instead eaten up by Rice's long-winded replies. Her credibility only continues to be degraded when one considers the outright lies that she has spun on Saddam and Iraq.

Rice is not alone in her spin-fest, though. No team of complicit war-mongerers would be complete without a suspect Secretary of Defense, and Donald Rumsfeld has told his own share of whoppers, including the one about "imminent threat," brilliantly captured on TV. Bush and Cheney are still planning to appear before the commission, though they have made it clear that they need each other in the interview and refuse to go it alone, to the derision of many. According to White House statements, neither the pre-9/11 memo nor the Bush and Cheney joint interview will be declassified or made available to the press or public.

City Attorney admits decision is "contrary to both public policy and common sense.”
(San Francisco) – Four people – including a Green Party congressional candidate – were arrested after a dramatic sit-in at the Department of Elections at City Hall late yesterday afternoon. All were cited and released. About two dozen demonstrators entered the Elections Office at about 4:30 p.m. Monday to protest voting irregularities during the March vote.
Terry Baum, a write-in candidate for Congress (8th District) on the Green Party ballot in March, was among those being arrested. Others include voters who said their votes were not counted in March.
Baum had apparently won her party's nomination in March – but then lost it when the city decertified hundreds of votes that it had previously counted.
City elections officials, a week after the Primary, told Baum she had won the Green Party nomination with 1,659 valid write-in votes, 54 more than necessary – the first third party write-in to win a state nomination in 36 years. But, a week later, the city invalidated hundreds of ballots, claiming voters, despite hand-writing in Baum's name, had failed to fill in an "arrow" on the ballot correctly, thus technically violating an obscure state code.
"We refuse to allow San Francisco to become another Florida. If disenfranchised voters in Florida in 2000 had been willing to go to jail to preserve their voting rights, we might not be facing the horrible mess in Iraq that we read about every day with such pain, and sense of doom," said Baum earlier Monday.

PunkVoter.com is organizing shows featuring well-known punk musicians all over the country as part of an attempt to bring 500,000 new, young voters to the polls for this fall's presidential election. Organizer "Fat Mike" Burkett of the band NOFX says, "We may be more concerned with humane drug laws or the Rave Act or the Patriot Act, but we still have concerns like any other citizens." More about the punkvoter.com project.
Jello Biafra perform Saturday, April 3rd, at Berkeley's Greek Theater. Photos
See more California Tour Dates.
PunkVoter.com is one of several organizations nationwide that seek to bring out voters who would normally be too alienated to participate, or who might disagree with electoral politics. Music for America | League of Independent Voters | Progressive Voter Project | National Coalition on Black Civic Participation

3/23: Two days after El Salvador held its highly anticipated election, ARENA's Tony Saca has won another five years for the ruling party. After oppressive tactics on part of the ARENA government to keep out election observers failed, FMLN supporters began a massive mobilization that gave hope to many that ARENA would be ousted. Supporters in red flooded the election polling places in massive numbers, and throughout the day it appeared that guerilla FMLN candidate Schafik Handal was in the lead. After spending over $55 million on a campaign of fear, Tony Saca was able to coerce a win. The FMLN has vowed that it will continue to fight US imperialism in all its forms, especially CAFTA's impending plans for the people of El Salvador.

Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is urging people to take action regarding the detention of at least 60 people, 13 of them election observers, at customs in El Salvador by immigration officials. Since September of last year, immigration officials have used intimidation tactics and illegal raids on the Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS), in order to discourage solidarity workers from organizing around the controversial elections of this month. For the past 15 years, ARENA has been the ruling party in El Salvador, employing a dirty campaign to ensure that the popular left-wing party, the FMLN, stands much less of a chance of unseating them. Six months after ARENA started its campaign of intimidation, the immigration police have informed observers that the Ministry of Governance has issued a general directive to deny entry to all international election observers. At least one local bay area observer was detained. The United States government has been complicit in the illegal detentions, issuing vague threats should the FMLN win the election and expressing their support for ARENA. Read more On Detentions

3/3/04: Mendocino County in Northern California voted yesterday to ban genetically-altered crops and animals within the county. In spite of the enormous local support for the Measure, CropLife America spent a total of 500,000 dollars on attempting to defeat the measure, in this county of about 88 thousand people. Washington DC based CropLife America represents biotech giants such as Monsanto, Bayer, Dupont, Dow Chemical and others. They spent 55 dollars per NO vote, outspent the local anti-GMO campaign at a ratio of 5 to 1, and broke all time campaign spending records in Mendocino County. Mendocino County is now the first county in the nation to ban the growing of genetically altered crops and animals. This vote comes as a significant boost to efforts around the country, such as GE Free Vermont Campaign on Genetic Engineering.
Free Speech Radio News Audio Report | Santa Cruz IMC Coverage | National Family Farm Coalition

In June, a convergence of permaculture, guerrilla gardening, and resistance to biotechnology, Reclaim the Commons, will face off against a $1,500-per-head international Biotech industry convention in San Francisco. Also, March 12-14 are the dates of the Genetic Engineering Action Network conference in Berkeley.
Read more about Permaculture. Permaculture Activist Magazine. Biotech IMC