community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Rustbelt Radio for April 23, 2007
by Pittsburgh IMC: Rustbelt Radio collective
Monday, Apr. 23, 2007 at 8:51 PM
radio@indypgh.org (email address validated) 412-923-3000 WRCT 88.3 FM
On this week's show... * Independent media activists and organizers from Chiapas and Oaxaca Mexico speak about the benefits and challenges of indigenous media-making in southern Mexico. * Concerned Parents, University Researchers and Community Activists challenge abstinence only education in Pittsburgh Public Schools * Falun Gong practitioners and Human Rights advocates speak out in Pittsburgh about persecution and organ harvesting by the Chinese Government * plus commentary from Mumia Abu-Jamal, and more in our local and global headlines
audio link: 
MP3 at 27.3 mebibytes
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.
On today's show...
Rustbelt Radio airs live every Monday from 6-7 PM on WRCT 88.3 FM in Pittsburgh, PA, and again on Tuesday mornings 9-10 AM. We're also on Pacifica affiliate WVJW Benwood, 94.1 FM in the Wheeling, West Virginia area, on Thursdays from 6-7 PM. And we're on WPTS - 10-11 AM on Wednesday mornings on 92.1 FM from the campus of the University of Pittsburgh.
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.
We turn now to local headlines.
On April 12th, more than 50 citizens and lawmakers attended a hearing organized by the Just Harvest Welfare Justice Project. The group gathered to give input to local lawmakers on the federal Farm Bill, which oversees food and nutrition programs across the country, including the Food Stamp Program.
Guests were encouraged to voice concerns they had with hunger programs in light of the fact that the Farm Bill is reauthorized only every five years. Anti-hunger organizations are taking this opportunity to speak out about the Food Stamp Program, Emergency Food Assistance, Commodity Supplemental Food, and the Farmers Market Nutrition programs, as well as a number of other projects totaling roughly forty billion dollars.
The hearing aimed to show that a broad spectrum of people would be affected by changes in the Farm Bill, supported by the statistic that one in ten US households are food insecure. Among the testimonials at the hearing were stories from single parents, social security recipients and retirees who would like to see changes in eligibility requirements and asset limits within the Food Stamp program.
One speaker noted that while the new year brings a cost of living increase in social security checks, this comes along with a raise in rent expenses and a decrease in food stamp allowances. These factors combined leave the person in worse condition than the previous year. Monica Kriegisch, a single mother of two, stated that she was denied any public assistance because of her pension. Despite the fact she does not access this money, it was considered an asset rendering her ineligible for welfare. Kriegisch and her children now reside in a transitional housing facility for homeless families.
Many attendees at the hearing complained that a lack of access to caseworkers was their biggest problem with the Department. They noted that caseworkers have an average of “more than 800” clients each and are not able to be reached by phone. Congressman Doyle, one of the legislators present at the hearing, called the threat of hunger in the US (quote) a “national disgrace.” He reminded the audience to stay focused on this issue, noting that this is the only chance for reform in the next five years: (quote) “anti-hunger advocates need to be on the ball this year… Millions of Americans will suffer if we fail.”
The United Mine Workers of America ended a strike at Foundation Coal mines in Pennsylvania on April 12. The week-long strike was the Union’s first major strike against the coal mining industry since 1993.
An agreement was also reached with workers at a mine in Illinois, which Foundation Coal shut down on April 4 after the union announced that workers there and at the two Pennsylvania mines would strike.
Under the agreement, the Illinois workers would receive severance packages that include pay and retiree health benefits. Workers who wish to relocate would be guaranteed jobs at the Pennsylvania mines. Nearly 1,000 workers at the Cumberland and Emerald mines near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania returned to work last week.
Foundation Coal is the nation's fourth-largest coal producer, with fourteen mines in Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wyoming. It primarily supplies coal to utility companies for power plants.
In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission established the Low Power FM or LPFM radio service-a service that licensed noncommercial, local, low-powered radio that schools, community groups, and any nonprofit could use to broadcast information to their local community. There are currently about 800 LPFM stations operating across the country. But in 2000, when the FCC granted the licenses for these stations, all the Pittsburgh groups that applied were left out.
Hannah Sassman from the Prometheus Radio Project explains why:
Hannah Sassman went on to discuss a new development that could allow Pittsburgh non-profit groups to license their own LPFM stations.
That was Hannah Sassman from the Prometheus Radio Project speaking about Low-Power FM radio stations. Congressman Mike Doyle can be contacted at (202) 225-2135 and more information about LPFM and community radio is available from the Prometheus Radio Project at prometheusradio.org
For more on local news, you can visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot org.
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.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday April 18th upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which criminalizes one kind of abortion procedure used in the second trimester of pregnancy that doctors say is safe and sometimes necessary to protect women's health. The banned procedure's medical term is intact dilation and evacuation.
Kimberlee Evert, the President of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania says this federal abortion ban is extremely significant.
Evert outlines the history of the federal Abortion Ban.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Nurses Association and many other medical groups oppose the federal ban. Up until this recent Supreme Court decision, every court that examined the ban had struck it down due to its failure to protect women's health. The procedure criminalized under the federal abortion ban has been legal for the past 30 years under Roe vs. Wade.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America President, Cecile Richards, said (quote) The new Bush court turned its back on women's health and safety with this ruling, It's 2007. Americans need Supreme Court justices who recognize the importance of women's health. (endquote)
Protesting the deportation of Congolese Asylum seekers, people all across the UK took to the streets on April 12. Fleeing widespread violence in the "Democratic" Republic of Congo, many people have sought refuge in the UK. The British governent has been less than welcoming, and earlier this year 38 DR Congolese nationals, including 21 children, were forcibly removed on a charter flight.
From London: UK Indymedia brings us this report.
Since the DR Congo elections last year, more than 150 people have been gunned down by the security services in Bas-Congo for peacefully protesting against the election results. Hundreds more have been killed in Kinshasa in violent clashes between president Joseph Kabila's guards and forces loyal to his opponent in the presidential elections, Jean-Pierre Bemba. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by conflict in the eastern part of the country. Massacres, extra-judicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture, and rape are rampant, while thousands continue to die each week as a result of starvation and disease. The British Foreign Office has advised British nationals "not to travel at all" to eastern and north-eastern DRC and against "all but essential travel" to the rest of the country, as it is deemed "too unstable". Yet, the Home Office continues to 'remove' Congolese asylum seekers, including British children born to Congolese parents, to a place where they risk losing their lives. People across the UK say they will continue to challenge these deportations.
Rustbelt Radio now brings you a commentary from death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal:
You were just listening to Mumia Abu-Jamal, radio commentator and Pennsylvania death row inmate. For more commentaries from Mumia, log on to prisonradio.org
You're listening to Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.
On January 1st, 1994 the world witnessed the uprising of the EZLN, or Zapatista Army for National Liberation, in Chiapas, Mexico. The indigenous-led revolution, which is in its 14th year, has been called the first "post-modern" revolution due to the group's use of the internet to share their ideas with a global audience.
The EZLN has continued to utilize electronic mediums to demand justice from the Mexican government and to create global awareness of the plight of indigenous people across the Americas who are affected by globalization. Out of this movement for global awareness came the Chiapas Media Project. The project is a bi-national partnership that has worked to empower indigenous communities to share their voices with each other, and their supporters since 1998. The CMP provides media equipment, computers, and training to autonomous Zapatista communities to create their own video documentaries.
The resulting videos offer a unique perspective on the lives and struggles of these communities in Chiapas. The Chiapas Media Project has helped these communities produce videos on agricultural collectives, fair trade organic coffee farming, autonomous education, traditional healing practices and the history of their struggle for land.
Now, advanced video makers from the communities run the introductory camera and editing workshops in their regions. They share their knowledge with other community members, despite a lack of formal education, and unreliable access to electricity. Indigenous and non-indigenous instructors from outside of Chiapas provide advanced production, post-production and computer training in the CMP Media Center in San Cristobal de las Casas. The goal of the CMP is to have all training be carried out by community members in their native languages.
To date, the CMP has distributed over 4,000 indigenous-produced videos. Their work has spread to other parts of Mexico as well, and communities in Oaxaca are now highlighting their struggles through their own video productions.
In February, representatives of the Ojo de Agua Video Collective, and the Chiapas Media Project visited Pittsburgh to present their work, share their message of the people's resistance in Chiapas & Oaxaca, and to build solidarity with people in the US.
The founder of the Chiapas Media Project describes how the project began over 10 years ago:
In Oaxaca, the Ojo de Agua Video Collective has been working to spread awareness of the strikes, protests, and state repression that have transpired over the last year. We asked Jose, a representative of the group, to speak on the importance of people telling their own stories with their own media:
Jose explained how media produced by the people of Oaxaca is different from the mainstream media that appears in the newspapers and on television.
Ojo de Agua has created 20 video documentaries on the most recent conflict in Oaxaca. We asked Jose if the use of these videos has caused visible changes in the social struggle to occur.
The Chiapas Media Project stresses the importance of training indigenous people to create their own message, for their own people. With this in mind, one audience member asked what the organizers hoped to achieve by traveling to the US and presenting their message to an English-speaking, non-indigenous audiences.
The Chiapas Media Project and the Ojo de Agua Video Collective continue producing videos for distribution within their communities, and also productions for people outside of Mexico who would like to learn more about their struggles. For more information on the CMP, log on to www.promediosmexico.org
On Monday April 16th, student organizations from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University sponsored a forum on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese government. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice based on meditation, exercise, and religious study whose practitioners promote the concepts of truth, compassion, and tolerance.
In 1999, the People’s Republic of China banned the practice of Falun Gong out of fear that it was becoming too popular among citizens. The government placed practitioners of Falun Gong in detention centers and work camps where they were brainwashed, tortured, and targeted for organ harvesting.
Doctor Charles Lee, a U.S. citizen, traveled to China and attempted to publicize the human rights abuses among Falun Gong practitioners. During his campaign, Lee was imprisoned and sent to a labor camp for three years until he was finally sent released in 2006. Doctor Lee, on the persecution of Falun Gong followers and his experience in the Chinese labor camp:
David Kilgour, Canada’s longest serving parliamentarian and strong defender of international human rights, also spoke at the forum. Kilgour, along with his colleague David Matas, released an investigative report chronicling organ harvesting among prisoners of conscience in China. More from David Kilgour:
For more information on the human rights abuses among Falun Gong followers go to www [dot] organ harvest investigation [dot] net.
About 15 students, parents, reproductive justice activists and university researchers went before the Pittsburgh school board last week to challenge the district's conservative approach to sex that includes ‘abstinence only education’. Groups nationwide including the American Civil Liberties Union, AIDS advocacy organizations, and reproductive rights groups have challenged abstinence only education. Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, is among these groups and will soon be hosting a ‘Let's Talk about Sex’ conference in Chicago to address issues of reproductive health, sexuality, and social justice for women of color. Loretta Ross, the national coordinator of Sister Song, spoke in Pittsburgh last week. She believes that abstinence only education is bound to fail.
La Tasha Mayes of New Voices Pittsburgh, Women of Color for Reproductive Justice believes that the Pittsburgh public schools need to have a sex education program that rightfully addresses the needs of the student body.
With abstinence only education, youth are likely to make uninformed decisions.
La'Tasha Mayes believes that Sex is a taboo subject in many community institutions and homes and should therefore be discussed more openly in schools.
The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a national campaign called ‘take truth, take charge - Life Liberty and Reproductive Freedom.’ ACLU chapters across the country are challenging abstinence only education in schools and highlighting the government funding of these programs. Julie Petrella of the ACLU is the Interim Director of the Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Freedom Project. She says that abstinence only programs are virtually the only sex ed programs that receive funding in Pennsylvania..
She explained where this funding comes from and how Senator Specter and Governor Rendell allot millions of dollars for this education.
New Voices Pittsburgh as well as members of the ACLU Reproductive Rights Committee and concerned parents say they will continue to pressure Pittsburgh Public Schools to have more comprehensive and inclusive sex education.
And now we present the Indymedia Calendar of Events:
[ Outro Music ]
Thanks for tuning in to Rustbelt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh, WVJW Benwood and WPTS Pittsburgh.
Our hosts this week are Andalusia Knoll, Diane Amdor and Carlin Christy with contributions from Andalusia Knoll, Carlin Christy, Diane Amdor, Veronica Milliner, Donald Deeley, Jessica McPherson and Thiago Hersan. This week's show was produced by 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.
Rustbelt Radio for April 23, 2007 (ogg vorbis)
by Pittsburgh IMC: Rustbelt Radio collective
Monday, Apr. 23, 2007 at 8:51 PM
radio@indypgh.org 412-923-3000 WRCT 88.3 FM
audio: ogg vorbis at 24.6 mebibytesaudio: ogg vorbis at 24.6 mebibytes
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