February 13, 2006: Rustbelt Radio

Intro

Welcome to this week's edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of the news from the grassroots, news overlooked by the corporate media. The show airs live every Monday from 6-7pm on WRCT 88.3FM in Pittsburgh, PA, every Thursday from 11am to noon on WARC-Meadville from the campus of Allegheny College, and every Saturday from 5-6pm on WVJW Benwood, 94.1 FM in the Wheeling, West Virginia area. And we're now on WPTS 92.1FM from the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, also Saturdays at 5pm.

We're also available on the internet, both on WRCT's live webstream at W-R-C-T dot ORG and for download, stream or podcast at radio dot I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot org.

On today's show...

• South America's largest squatted highrise is facing eviction
• Voices for Animals must renew efforts to make the Big Burrito Restaurant group foie gras free
• We hear from the sister of a prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay
• and we talk with local peace and activist organizations about their efforts to find out how much the government has been spying on them.

but first, these local headlines

Headlines

Local News

[0:45] Injured soldier forced to pay for body armor

A former U.S. soldier injured in Iraq says he was forced to pay $700 for a blood-soaked Kevlar vest that was destroyed after medics removed it to treat shrapnel wounds to his right arm.

First Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV, of Charleston, West Virginia had to leave the Army because of his injuries. But before he could be discharged last week, he had to borrow money to pay for the body armor—all because a supply officer failed to document that the vest had been destroyed more than a year ago as a biohazard.

Rebrook told The Charleston Gazette [quote] “I last saw the (body armor) when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter. They took it off me and burned it.”

The Army concluded last Wednesday that Rebrook failed to follow proper procedures and fill out necessary paperwork to exempt the body armor from a list of items Rebrook lost while on active duty. However, following national publicity of the story, the Army announced that they would reimburse him.

[0:30] Health care bill introduced in Senate

State Senator Jim Ferlo introduced a Senate bill calling for state-wide health care. The legislation is entitled the Balanced and Comprehensive Health Reform Act. It calls for comprehensive health, dental and mental coverage for all Pennsylvanians. Included in the act are calls for a single-payer plan, which will fund coverage plus additional benefits, such as prescription drugs, health education and physical fitness classes in schools. Under this plan, individuals are free to choose their doctors. The plan would also help physicians by eliminating malpractice concerns.

The Pennsylvania Healthcare Solutions Coalition drafted the bill. Pennsylvanians United for Single-Payer Health, previously featured on Rustbelt Radio, is actively lobbying for the legislation.

[0:55] Family Dollar opens in Hill District one month ahead of schedule

The New Pittsburgh Courier reports that the Hill District's new Family Dollar Store has opened for business one month ahead of schedule. The 8,000 square-foot store, located at the intersection of Centre Avenue and Devilliers Street, is the Hill House Economic Development Corporation's first major project.

One dispute has already arisen over the store. Irv Williams, who owns the parking lot immediately adjacent to the building, expressed anger at having to hire a security guard to ensure Family Dollar shoppers do not use his building's limited number of parking spaces.

But other residents voiced their satisfaction with the store's opening. Roland Slade Sr., who worked on the Family Dollar project as part of his graduate degree program, said he was happy to see his childhood neighborhood being revitalized.

“I saw the Hill at its peak and I saw its demise,” he said. “Hopefully, this will inject new life into the business corridor. I'm proud to be associated with this.”

[2:30] VFA campaign against Big Burrito

Voices for Animals of Western Pennsylvania is a group working to promote animal rights and make Pittsburgh a friendlier place for animals. One of their current campaigns is to pressure local restaurants to remove from their menus foie gras (FWAH- GRAW), a poultry product that is the bloated liver of a duck or goose.

The methods inherent to making foie-gras are cruel, involving caging animals, and force feeding ducks and geese many times their normal food intake. The cruel practices necessary to produce this food item are well documented. Countries such as Poland, the U.K., Switzerland, and Israel have banned its production. Here in the US, California has also banned the sale and production of foie gras due to the abuse ducks and geese endure.

In Pittsburgh, Voices for Animals made a verbal agreement with the Big Burrito restaurant group to stop selling foie gras. But since the promise, Big Burrito, who owns and operates the restaurants Mad Mex, Kaya, Eleven, Soba, and Casbah, have gone back on their promise. Rustbelt Radio spoke to VFA member Jon Farinelli about their initial promise from Big Burrito.

• VFA part 1 (0:40)

We asked Jon about the current communication going on between Big Burrito and Voices for Animals:

• VFA part 2 (1:00)

[1:00] Pittsburgh Republican Party Shambles Continue

In Pittsburgh, the Republican Party has been the perpetual underdog of local two party politics, roughly as serious a threat to the Democrats as the Socialist Worker's Party. Last September their political machine suffered an additional setback when Bob Glancy, the Allegheny County Republican Chairman, expelled the local party leader Bob Hillen.

Glancy removed Hillen as a member of the county Republican Committee because Hillen violated party bylaws and endorsed some Democratic judges in the primary elections last May.

At the time Glancy said [quote] "He was warned not to endorse Democrats. We're not in the business to endorse Democrats. It's not an action I wanted to do, but we have rules to follow."

However, according to a criminal complaint filed by Hillen last week, Glancy did not follow all the rules. Hillen says that Glancy demanded a political donation of more than $5,000 in return for keeping his post. This is known as Macing, the practice of demanding political donations in return for positions, and it is illegal under Pennsylvania law.

Glancy claimed ignorance of the law, saying that he had never heard of macing and did not know it was illegal.

Another condition of the remedial action against Hillen required that he have no direct contact with the media for a year without written permission from the county party.

Hillen said [quote] "I'm not going to let anyone violate my First Amendment rights. ... I'm hoping he gets punished for what he did. What he did is wrong."

Wrapup

For more on local news, you can visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot org.

[ HMB BREAK RUSTBELT - 0:20 (fades down 0:10 in to start global intro) ]

Global News

Intro

You are listening to Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news overlooked by the corporate media. We turn now to news from other independent media sources around the world.

[0:30] Ads never end

An advertising firm for the soap company Unilever has taken the deoderant commercial to a new level---a new show on MTV. The Gamekillers, which debuted on Feburary 6, is both a scripted reality show and the first major marketing push behind the new Axe Dry antiperspirant stick. This foray into branded entertainment will not directly feature the Unilever product, but the show's characters, visual look, and typography will be tied to the brand, and they will appear in an ad campaign that began last week. A spokesman for the advertising agency said, [quote] "The whole show is about making a brand statement without mentioning the brand."

In other advertising news, in a bid to underline its 'green' credentials, Shell is currently sending a fleet of Volkswagen Golfs on a journey in the spirit of around the World in 80 Days. The expedition is titled 'around the world in 50 fill-ups' and the goal is to win a place in the Guinness Book of Records for circumnavigating the globe in the most fuel-efficient manner possible, using Shell's specially customized vehicles.

However, unlike the original Around the world in 80 days, the trip by Shell will entirely avoid Africa. Guy Adams writes, "Shell has a - shall we say? - dodgy record in those parts, as a result of its ongoing operations in Nigeria." Environmental, social and human rights concerns - including the 1995 murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa - have resulted in Shell boycotts. Shell spokespeople have called Nigeria the company's "worst public relations nightmare," according to the Multinational Monitor. But the company insists that its "strange itinerary" is simply due to "difficulties taking all the cars through customs" in Africa.

[3:00] US Economy Update

Now we turn to an update on the economic situation in the United States, where reality is diverging sharply from the reports in news media. In January, Rustbelt Radio reported that the Bush administration planned to focus on the low unemployment rate as evidence that the economy is doing well. Despite the fact that the country now faces a record low employment rate as well, newspapers like the New York Times have managed to report the rosy outlook of the White House without acknowledging the numerous indicators to the contrary. Rustbelt Radio spoke with Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, about why this disinformation occurs.

• PaulCraigRoberts.ogg 2:00

[2:15] New tactic against minutemen

In Costa Mesa, California, City Councilman Gary Monahan was the target of an-anti minutemen picket. Thirty members of Colectivo Tonantzin picketed in front of the councilman’s restaurant on Feb, 10th. Activists targeted Monahan, due to his recent vote to increase the training of local police in repressive immigration law enforcement.

To date, public opposition to the minutemen's agenda of protesting day labor centers and public art, as well as vigilante patrols at the border, has been largely reactive. Activists now want to go beyond a mere response to the minutemen's disruption of civic life. As a new strategy against the minutemen, Colectivo Tonantzin took the fight to their supporters.

Restaurant employees reported that the bar, normally a popular Friday-night watering hole, was hard-hit by the protest. The tactic, designed to attack Monahan's income and draw public concern to the onerous policy, resembled the minutemen's year-long assault on the income of day laborers by protesting at laborers' gathering sites.

In addition to the picketers, as many as twenty minutemen turned up to counterprotest. At first they mingled with the picketers, but they soon moved off to the side, effectively aiding the picketers by blocking the entrance to the restaurant's parking lot. By 8:10 the minutemen had left the site, many escaping into the side door of the bar, presumably for refreshment.

The smiling and sometimes jocular picketers, with large signs easily visible from the street, circled the sidewalk in front of the club and lined the curb, chanting and singing to guitars. One veteran protestor, a 10-month-old nina, was wrapped in her mother's rebozo. Her mother smiled proudly when she asked if it this was her daughter's first protest. "No," she said, "it's her third. She's been to two city council meetings."

[2:30] NM nurse accused of sedition

Laura Berg, a clinical nurse specialist at the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, NM, was accused of sedition for criticizing the Bush administration. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, Berg wrote a letter to the editor stating in part, "Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence. This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil."

The offending part of the letter, though, seems to be the closing, cited in a memo by Mel Hooker, chief of the human resources management service at the VA. The memo says "[You] publicly declared the Government which employs you to have 'tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence' and advocated, 'act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.'" The memo came in response to the VA confiscating Berg's computer to look for evidence of it having been used to write the letter. They found none. Rather than apologize for the disruption, Hooker's memo instead says "The [VA] is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition."

The ACLU of New Mexico is working on Berg's behalf filing a Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to the incident. Peter Simonson, the executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico, said in a press release, "Is this government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of 'sedition'?"

Berg's union representative has alerted her that the letter has been reported to the FBI though Mel Hooker denies this. In the initial memo accusing Berg of sedition, sent on November 9th, Hooker says, "The Agency has no knowledge of any report alleged to have been made to the FBI regarding you or your letter."

Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democratic Senator from New Mexico, has asked the VA for a thorough inquiry into agency's investigation of Berg. Though the VA has cleared Berg of all charges, Sen. Bingaman wants to know why she was investigated at all and is worried that such investigations raise "a very real possibility of chilling legitimate political speech."

[0:30] UN calles Gitmo illegal

A United Nations inquiry has called for the immediate closure of America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees.

The UN Human Rights Commission report, due to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.

It calls for the United States to halt all practices amounting to torture, including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.

The report wants the Bush administration to ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice.

We will have more about conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and force feeding later in the show.

[0:30] Elections in Haiti

Counting of ballots has started in Haiti after elections marked by stampedes that left four dead. Voters were frustrated by voting stations opening late and other major problems, leading to crowds storming polling stations and voting continuing late into the night. Rene Préval is the absolute favourite to win the battle for the presidency. He's already served in that office and was once the protégé of the exiled former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Although Preval has distanced himself from Aristide, he enjoys great popularity among the same poor sections of Haiti's population as Aristide does.

The early count gave Preval a strong majority of 61%, but by Sunday afternoon René Préval was down to 49% and two points shy of immediate victory. The second and third place candidates had less than 12% and 8% of the vote, respectively. If a run-off is required, there are no close contestants. Protests over suspected vote rigging in an election conducted under occupation control have been peaceful.

[3:00] Prestes Maia evictions

The largest squatted highrise building in South America is now facing eviction. Prestes Maia, a former abandoned clothing factory located in Sao Paulo Brazil, is home to 468 families.

The 22 story building has been occupied since 2002 and over half of the 3000 residents of Prestes Maia were previously homeless.

This month, the building’s residents face possible eviction from their home by the Mr. Hamuche Company. Within the last 15 years, the company has accumulated over 2.2 million dollars worth of debt, greater than the value of the building. This debt, along with the many years in which the company abandoned the building while tenants refurbished, cleaned, and lived in it, would, in normal circumstances, justify public ownership of the property and not eviction.

The 468 families are all part of the Movimento Sem Teto do Centro, or Downtown Roofless Movement of Sao Paulo. Before they occupied the building, it was in severe disrepair, with no human residents, and infested with rats and cockroaches. Once it was occupied, new residents cleaned out over 200 trucks of litter, and the building was transformed into a living space for families from across South America.

On January 27th, representatives from the Roofless Movement met with police authorities and stated their plans to hold a direct action at the building site sometime between the 15th and 21st of February.

Prestes Maia is home to residents from both urban and rural areas in Brazil, as well as Spanish speaking countries like Bolivia. It is linguistically and culturally diverse, yet the building is communally organized. The Roofless Movement includes members from all over Brazil, struggling for the reclamation of housing for homeless and low-income people.

Sao Paulo has over 39,000 abandoned buildings.

Orlando Almeida, a local housing secretary, recently informed a magazine that displaced tenants would be relocated to shantytowns, or favelas, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. This is part of a new gentrification scheme that human rights groups say will further marginalize the poor and working class in sao Paulo.

A resident of Prestes Maia, Ms Fonseca, states, “Our fight isn’t just for housing. It’s for healthcare, old people’s rights, employment, leisure, and schooling. People don’t know their rights. And our fight is to make sure they do.”

[1:00] WTO ruling on EU ban of GMO's

The World Trade Organization, or WTO, ruled that the Europe Union and six member states violated international trade agreements by banning imports of genetically modified organisms, or GMO's. The ruling only considers the period prior to 2003. The ruling finds that for six years, the European Union maintained an effective moratorium on GMO's, violating trade laws.

The EU ban was motivated by concerns about human safety, environmental pollution and inadequate testing. The ban has been officially lifted, but some member states retain individual bans.

This ruling is a victory for US corporations, who pressured the WTO to declare the moratorium illegal. In 2003, the US, Canada and Argentina---major producers of GMO crops---filed a complaint with the WTO that the EU ban violated trade laws.

There is much skepticism in Europe about the safety of GMO's, so it is unlikely that Europe will become a large market for genetically modified food. A major impact of the WTO ruling is that smaller nations will be less likely to ban GMO's.

Wrapup

You can read more independent global news stories by visting indymedia: I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.

Bad Cop No Donut

• [2:45] bcnd-localish.ogg

Features

Welcome back to Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.

[15:10 min] ACLU and wiretaps

Recent reports by NBC and other national news outlets have revealed that the Department of Defense has been tracking counter-recruitment and anti-war activities by a variety of peace and activist groups. The government is using a database designed to track terrorist threats to national security and public safety. One local organization, the Pittsburgh Organizating Group, was included in the database. Groups tracked in the surrounding region also included the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition, based in Cleveland, and the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service committee, based in Akron.

However, the report obtained by NBC only contained a portion of the database. Organizations across the country are now trying to figure out the extent of the government’s information-gathering. Rustbelt Radio spoke with Vic Walchek, a lawyer with the Pittsburgh ACLU office; Jim Kleisser, director of the Thomas Merton Center, and Tom Nomad, an organizer of the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition.

National and local branches of the American Civil Liberties Union have recently filed several freedom of information act requests on behalf of peace and activist groups to make the government reveal what information it has collected about the groups. The Pennsylvania ACLU chapter has filed a FOIA request with the Department of Defense. Groups included in the request are the Pittsburgh Raging Grannies, the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, CodePink Pittsburgh, The Thomas Merton Center, the Anti-war committee, the Save Our Civil Liberties campaign, the Pittsburgh Bill of Rights Defense Campaign, and the ACLU itself.

Jim Kleisser, director of the Merton Center, describes why they decided to pursue the FOIA request.

• intro-jk [:32]

Tom Nomad describes the FOIA request filed by the Ohio ACLU for his organization.

• tom_intro [:55]

The Ohio request also includes the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee. To date the request has been acknowledged only by the Cleveland Police and the Akron police; they expect to hear from the other agencies within a few weeks.

The new revelations of domestic surveillance make many uneasy because of the abuses of power that have accompanied such activity in the past. Vic Walchek of the Pittsburgh ACLU provides some historical context.

• tricks&laws1&2 [3:00]

Reports are already emerging of instances in which antiwar and counter-recruitment activists have experienced firsthand the scrutiny of law enforcement agencies. The Pittsburgh Organizing Group reports two incidents in which law enforcement has targeted the group, one in which a counter-recruitment protest was surveilled by federal agents, and another in which attendees at a different protest were tazed by law enforcement. Tom Nomad of the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition reports that Clevelend police attended several of the groups’ meetings.

• Police2 [1:15]

He says the FBI is also a regular presence at protests.

• fbi [ :22]

Nomad doesn’t know why his group has come under focus by agencies mandated to investigate domestic terror threats.

• Why-spy [1:10]

Vic Walchek addressed the government’s possible motivation in monitoring domestic groups that pose no threat to public safety.

• motivation [:25]

Tom Nomad offered an explanation as well:

• why spy2 [:55]

Many fear that the Department of Defense’s TALON database is just the tip of the iceberg in a larger pattern of expanding government surveillance that is being developed with almost no public notice or debate.

• [bush :42]

In addition to the Department of Defense activities, the FBI joint terrorism task force has also been collecting information on domestic anti-war groups. And, many branches of the military now have programs to use their personnel to collect information on domestic activities.

The TALON database is also emblematic of a new era in surveillance capabilities. Using computer databases and instant electronic data transfer, the government is developing powerful new information management tools. Stored data can now be instantly searched for any information collected on a particular person or group. And, domestic law enforcement agencies, the military, and intelligence agencies are working to pool information and make their respective repositories instantly available to other agencies. Such capabilities raise fundamental questions about the appropriate degree of separation between military, intelligence, and domestic law enforcement endeavors- and may violate existing laws. Vic Walchek comments:

• [dod :32]

The FOIA requests are the first step in attempting to bring to light the extent of surveillance activities. The information can also give local groups and inviduals who may be affected some understanding of the risks they face. Tom Nomad comments on what he hopes to gain from the FOIA request:

• [intelnetwork :20]

Jim Kleisser of the Merton Center:

• [whatsnext 1:00]

[13:45] Guantanamo Interviews

Captured during the US invasion in Afghanistan, Omar Deghayes is one of many prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. As a British resident, but not full citizen, Omar has been denied assistance from the British government. Tom Allan of Indymedia radio spoke to Omar's sister, Amani, about her brother's story, and what it is like for the families of those imprisoned in Guantanamo.

• Guantanamo Protest Mix Down

Ending

[2:30] Calendar of events

And now we present the Indymedia calendar of events:

• Monday Feb 13th and Tuesday Feb 14th, from 6 to 8 PM, Voices for Animals continues their campaign against big Burrito’s foie gras (fwah-graw) sales. They will picket at the restaurant Eleven , located at 1150 Smallman Street in the Strip District. For more information log on to www. vfa-online. org

• Tuesday Feb 14, the Ragging Grannies will give a Valentine's Day gift to their grandkids, by enlisting in the military so the kids don't have to. The Grannies invite all women to join them as part of a national effort to show that they are fed up with our illegal and immoral war. They will meet at 12 Noon at the Army Recruiting Center on Forbes Avenue in Oakland.

• Also Tuesday Feb 14, at 7 PM, Hands Off Venezuela - Pittsburgh, and other groups present a Valentines day film showing and forum on the Venezuelan Revolution. They will screen Venezuela Bolivariana and following up with a discussion on the recent developments of the Venezuelan Revolution at the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning in room 230, in Oakland.

• Thursday, Feb 16, Duquesne University will host a lecture by Robert “Biko” Baker, a nationally recognized hip-hop political strategist. The lecture will start at 7 p.m., in Room 608 of the Duquesne University campus.

• Friday, Feb 17, at 4:30 PM, The Carnegie Mellon University Center for African American Urban Studies and the Economy presents "The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South." This talk by Dr. William P Jones describes the vibrant, working-class communities that African Americans built in and around the sawmill towns and logging camps of the Jim Crow South. The talk will be in Carnegie Mellon University's Baker Hall room A53, in Oakland.

• Sunday, Feb 19, Louis "Hop" Kendrick, the political consultant and columnist for The New Pittsburgh Courier, talks about the history of the Hill District during the 10:45 a.m. service at Central Baptist Church, 2200 Wylie Ave, in the Hill District.

Outro

[ Outro music ]

Thanks for tuning in to Rust Belt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh, WARC Meadville, WVJW Benwood and WPTS Pittsburgh.

Our hosts this week are Jessica McPherson and Carlin Joy with contributions from Abie Flaxman, Jessi Berkelhammer, Jessica McPherson, Carlin Christy, Donald Deeley, Vani Natarajan. This week's show was produced by Matt Toups and Donald Deeley. Special thanks to all of our hosts, producers, and contributors.

You can get involved with Rustbelt Radio! To contact us, or to send us your comments, email RADIO at I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot ORG. All of our shows are available for download or podcast on our website at RADIO dot INDY-P-G-H dot ORG and this show can be heard again Tuesday morning on WRCT at 9 AM after Democracy Now!

Tune in next week at this time for another edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.