Jena's quiet

Posted: Friday, September 28, 2007 7:21 PM

JENA, La.– Looking for the mood in Jena is like looking for the truth – it all depends on who you talk to.

The day after 17-year-old Mychal Bell was released on $45,000 bail, things are quiet. But, of course, in a town of just 3,000 it’s almost always quiet.

The satellite trucks, with the exception of our own, have shut down their generators, folded their dishes and moved on. Across the street from the LaSalle Parish Courthouse at the McCartney Slay GMC dealership the cars are back on the lot. When we were here last week for the large demonstration, the owner had moved them, fearing the worst.

Now that Bell’s out on bail, there is a sense of relief.

Cautious celebration
Family and supporters are happy to have the young man back after 10 months in jail. But since he still faces trial in juvenile court, it is a cautious kind of celebration.

Bell’s attorneys say the teen can’t talk. Even his parents have gone silent. At Bell’s home a couple of cars sit in the driveway and the yard. But there is no sign of activity. Except in the church parking lot across the street where two unmarked vehicles sit in the shade with plainclothes officers inside.

They are there to safeguard the home after a hate group published the address on the Internet. According to Bell’s lead attorney, Lewis Scott, the 17-year-old is confined to staying at his mother’s or father’s house in Jena, which are two blocks away from each other.

Scott says they want to get the teen back in school since he’s missed a lot, but there is no way he can go back until the juvenile trial is over. And there’s no way he could go back to school here, not with the memories and the feelings. They’re thinking of something private.

‘Why don’t you tell the truth about Jena?’
On Main Street there is relief Bell’s out since his continued time behind bars only seemed to reinforce the belief for outsiders that Jena is a racist haven. Of course they know that, thanks to the media, everyone continues to consider Jena a racist haven whether the youth is in jail or not.

Whenever I introduce myself as being with NBC News, the return greeting is usually the same. "Why don’t you tell the truth about Jena?" The old white guy at the thrift shop said it was just the blacks that were labeling the community racist. I had to agree he had me there – not too many whites had come forward claiming their town had a race problem.

As I returned to the courthouse, a young African-American woman was telling my cameraman about how racism was very much still living in town.

Still, there was a crime
District Attorney Reed Walters said if he had it all to do over again, he would do things differently. He would not change how he prosecuted the case; instead, he would change how he communicated the case. He’s been true to his word. In the past week he’s held two news conferences and written an Op-Ed spot for the New York Times.

Walters denies the protests and the pressure have had any bearing on his actions. No one in town or elsewhere believes him.

This story has grown beyond Jena in many minds. Sometimes the facts seem to just get in the way. Jesse Jackson said all charges should be dropped against Bell and the other members of the "Jena 6." But there was a crime. Classmate Justin Barker was beat up by a group of youths last December at the high school. And it was not just a schoolyard fight. Barker was blindsided with the first punch as he stepped out the door. As he fell he struck his head. He was defenseless as he was repeatedly punched and kicked while he lay unconscious.

Should Jena ignore this crime for the greater good? Ignore it like authorities allegedly ignored white-on-black incidents in the town? Perhaps Bell, who some say wasn't even part of the assault on Barker, should use the line some fostered in the high school after nooses appeared in a tree on campus, that it was "just a prank."

City officials openly lament that if the noose incident had been dealt with much more harshly and right away, Jena wouldn't be the modern synonym for Selma.

In other words – if the town had spoken out and hadn't remained so quiet.

Unfortunately, I agree with Tyrone Brooks. I don't have faith the Supreme Court will rule justly on this. Worth a shot, but I'm not holding my breath.

Supreme Court review of Indiana's voter ID law to affect Georgia's

By BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/25/07

A U.S. Supreme Court decision Tuesday to hear an appeal of Indiana's voter ID law could have far-reaching implications for Georgia's new statute and similar measures across the nation.

The Georgia law, which like the Indiana statute requires voters to bring one form of photo identification to the polls, is expected to be challenged in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

This month, a lower federal court judge upheld the statute, allowing the law to be applied for the first time in local elections across Georgia on Sept. 18. So did the Georgia Supreme Court, which tossed out a similar lawsuit against the voter ID statute in June.

The law, passed by the Georgia Legislature in 2006, is intended to prevent voter fraud.

But opponents said the law could dissuade the poor, the disabled, ethnic minorities and the elderly — who are less likely to carry driver's licenses or other forms of photo identification — from going to the polls.

Advocates on both sides welcomed the Supreme Court review of Indiana's law.

"I'm not surprised or disappointed at all," said state Sen. Cecil Stanton (R-Macon), the author of the state's voter ID law. "I think it can resolve this issue once and for all."

The state Legislature passed Stanton's voter ID bill in 2005. He reintroduced it in 2006 after U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy struck it down. Murphy upheld the revised statute on Sept. 6.

A plaintiff in the Georgia case was less optimistic that the Supreme Court might rule on the plaintiffs' side in the Indiana case.

"This is the same court that decided Bush v. Gore, the same court that has spoken on school desegregation," said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta). "Just looking at the record of this court there doesn't look like much to celebrate. But it is a ray of hope."

Brooks said it was a good sign that the high court didn't refuse to hear the case.

Brooks is president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, one of the groups listed as plaintiffs in the suit. The others are the League of Women Voters of Georgia; the NAACP; the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus; and the Concerned Black Clergy of Metro Atlanta.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, David Brackett, said the court's final decision on Indiana's voter ID law could have a direct impact on his clients' case.

That's because the central argument in both cases is the same, Brackett said.

"In cases in which the right to vote is burdened, there is a sliding scale," said Brackett. "You have to look at the interests that the state is trying to protect and you have to look at the magnitude and character it imposes on the right to vote."

Brackett said he plans to file a notice of appeal with 11th Circuit Court.

In Georgia and Indiana, lower courts have ruled that the new voter ID requirements didn't pose a significant burden on an individual's right to vote.

If the high court were to disagree, both laws ultimately could be tossed out because neither state provided evidence that voter fraud was actually taking place, said Brackett.

Stanton said he was confident the Georgia law would survive further court challenges.

"There is a balance between the right to vote and the need to protect voting and elections from fraud," said Stanton. "And I think the Georgia law has struck a good balance."

by Xochitl Bervera
Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC)

Resources:

New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and Network of Teacher Activist Groups (TAG) have developed: Revealing Racist Roots: The 3 R's for Teaching About the Jena 6, a curriculum guide for teachers to address what's happening in Jena. Download the resource guide in PDF Version or Word Version for free at: www.nycore.org OR www.t4sj.org.

Donate to support the legal defense fund:
Jena 6 Defense Committee
PO BOX 2798
Jena, LA 71342

Sign the petitions at: http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/

For more information or to offer concrete support, email:
jena6defense(at)gmail.com

The Jena Six and the School To Prison Pipeline: http://naacpldf.org/content.aspx?article=1208

If you are in nyc and want to get involved Jena Six Support, email: da_bla2@yahoo.com.
In New Orleans, email: neworleans@leftturn.org.

Support Organizations:
http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/
http://www.colorofchange.org
http://www.millionsmoremovement.com
http://www.laaclu.org/
http://www.fflic.org


Please support independent media! Subscribe to Left Turn Magazine. http://www.leftturn.org .

I've seen a trend of Mayor Franklin trying to show she's a "people's mayor." She's been on talk shows and traveled around the country to show what a success she's had in Atlanta. She's been really successful for business interests, that's about it. This opinion piece originally ran in the AJC.

Mayor Franklin targets the homeless

By BOB CRAMER
Published on: 09/10/07

Since her first days in office, Mayor Shirley Franklin has presented herself as someone interested in helping Atlanta's homeless. She speaks eloquently about her own father's experience with homelessness, and she has personally told me that she considers serving the homeless "God's work."

Against this backdrop, it is shocking and disappointing that Franklin would go out of her way to try to deny funding to Atlanta's largest facility serving homeless people. In an August letter to the state Housing Trust Fund for the Homeless, she writes, "as the mayor of the city of Atlanta, I am stating that we do not support the allocation of funding for the Peachtree-Pine facility."

One has to question why Franklin is now personally involved in reversing a letter of certification for the Peachtree-Pine facility that her own administration had provided to the state just months earlier. What would cause her to take such an unprecedented action harming hundreds of homeless people? How could she make any judgment on the Peachtree-Pine facility when she has never visited in her two terms in office?

Perhaps Franklin is not really leveling with us when it comes to her support of the homeless. Certainly her record in office does not equate with her rhetoric. Four years ago, she put together a commission that promised to end chronic homelessness in Atlanta in 10 years. This summer even The Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial board called the commission's efforts far from successful.

Franklin and her team oversold their $10 million, 24-hour Gateway facility. Today this downtown building serves only 300 people at full capacity, thus shutting out homeless people who are forced to sleep outside.

On a broader scale, Franklin supports tearing down more than 3,000 units of public housing. She doesn't say much about it, but I'm sure if she were against evicting more than 9,600 people, many highly vulnerable, she would not hesitate to write a letter. Perhaps the developers in town have persuaded her that she is in office to look after their interests, not the interests of the poor and vulnerable.

Finally, Franklin is not content with just preventing $110,000 of state money from reaching needy homeless people. Her administration is also trying to stop $340,000 of federal Housing and Urban Development funds from coming to the Peachtree Street-located Peachtree-Pine facility. Frankly, if you did not know better, you'd think Franklin was out to get Peachtree-Pine.

Which, of course, is exactly the case. The mayor's premeditated assault on the hundreds of predominantly African-American men who live at and depend on the Peachtree-Pine facility needs to be spelled out in black and white for all to see. Her recent letter to the state shows her true agenda. It is truly disheartening that she would stoop so low.

I think Jordan is a great writer, but this essay was just what I needed. The analysis of what happened and the organizing behind it helps me feel better. The days of charismatic leaders may be over. Or maybe not, maybe I'm just wishing it to be so. Either way, Jena is something.

Jena Ignites a Movement
By Jordan Flaherty
September 21, 2007

Six courageous families in the small Louisiana town of Jena sent out a call for justice that has now been amplified around the world. Yesterday's mass protests in Jena were unlike anything I have seen in my life, a beautiful and enormous outpouring of energy and outrage that may have the potential to ignite a movement.

The basic facts of the case are by now widely known. In this 85% white town, where the high school yard was segregated by race, a Black student asked to sit under a tree that had been reserved for white students only. The next day, three nooses hung from the tree. The white students who hung the nooses received only a mnor punishment, and more importantly, no one in the white power structure of LaSalle Parish, where Jena is located, seemed to take the nooses seriously as racial incident. There were no lectures to the students on the meaning of the nooses, or the legacy of racism, slavery and Jim Crow in the rural south. Instead, the Parish's district attorney told protesting Black students that he could take away their lives, "with a stroke of my pen." He then proceeded to attempt to do just that, charging six students with attempted murder after a schoolyard fight later that year.

In the nine months since their children were charged with attempted murder, the family members of the Jena Six organized meetings, hosted rallies, sent out press releases and letters and made phone calls – whatever they could think of. They were determined to not let this stand. For months, they stood nearly alone, accompanied by solidarity visits from activists from nearby towns and cities in Louisiana and Texas. Many of their friends and neighbors were afraid to speak out, and some reported having their jobs threatened. One white couple who spoke out said they felt pressured to leave town. But, in the face of what seemed like overwhelming obstacles, and with no organizing experience or friends in high places, the people of Jena continued to struggle. After months of silence from the media and from mainstream civil rights organizations, the first media stories began appearing, which were widely forwarded by mail, and amplified by homemade videos. After Mychal Bell's conviction at the end of June, and stories on Democracy Now and in the Final Call newspaper, support started growing exponentially, with hundreds of letters bringing tens of thousands of dollars in donations. By September, it became a movement that even the corporate media could not ignore.

At 5:00am, the buses were already arriving. A full bus from Chicago emptied out, some people brushing their teeth as they stepped into the slightly cold pre-dawn air. They seemed exhausted, but also charged and energized. Next came buses from Baton Rouge, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. By 7:00am, reports were coming in that hundreds of buses were lined up outside of town, some having been briefly prevented by State police from entering. Meanwhile, hundreds of people, from cars and buses and motorcycles, were pouring into Jena, while many thousands more were gathering in the streets outside the Jena courthouse. As simultaneous rallies began in the two locations, thousands of more people streamed into the city. By 9:00am, there were, by some estimates, up to 50,000 people in this town of 2,500. Almost every business in town was shut down, many roads were closed by police checkpoints, and a sea of protest filled the city for miles.

This demonstration was not initiated by any one national organization, and there was little coordination between some of the major organizations involved. The initial call came from the families themselves, and most people had heard about the demonstration through local Black radio stations, especially on syndicated shows like the Michael Baisden and Steve Harvey shows, as well as through blogs and youtube (one activist-made youtube video, recommended by Baisden, has already been seen well over a million times) as well as on social networking sites like myspace. As Howard Witt has pointed out in the Chicago Tribune, "Jackson, Sharpton and other big-name civil rights figures, far from leading this movement, have had to scramble to catch up. So, too, has the national media, which has only recently noticed a story that has been agitating many black Americans for months."

This decentralization was beautiful, although sometimes chaotic. As thousands gathered at the rally at the ball field, which was sponsored by the NAACP, thousands more demonstrators marched from the courthouse to the Jena High School, and tens of thousands continued to arrive and fill the streets around downtown Jena. Because this movement was without central leadership, there were many agendas, and also some confusion, as people were unsure when the march began, or if there was a march, and also unsure about parallel events, such as an afternoon hiphop concert at the ball field, which was mostly attended by people from the local community. People seemed unconcerned about the lack of clarity, however, and marched on their own schedule, which led to a more democratic feel to the day, unlike the more controlled, and sometimes disempowering, marches that some mainstream groups have organized in the past.

The t-shirts on display reflected the lack of central control – every community had made their own t-shirt, literally hundreds of variations on the theme of Free The Jena Six, many personalized to reflect their school or community. Hours of speakers delivered messages of solidarity and calls to action, from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to performers such as Mos Def and Sunni Patterson, while the enormous crowds marched and chanted, and also simply basked in a truly historic outpouring of activism. Participants varied from children and teens at their first demonstration to civil rights movement veterans. Many people who had never before been to a demonstration ended up organizing a delegation or booking a bus for this journey.

While the vast majority of the white community of Jena chose to stay either indoors or out of town, hundreds of Black Jena residents proudly displayed their "Free The Jena Six" shirts, and continued to gather in the ball field hours after most out of town visitors had left. White activists from across the US also largely stayed away from this historic event – perhaps 1 to 3 percent of the crowd was white, in what amounts to a disturbing silence from the white left and liberals. This silence indicates that the US Left is divided by race in many of the same ways this country is.

Yesterday's march, however, was not about division. It was a generational moment – the kind of watershed event that could signal a turning point in our movements. But what does the gigantic crowd in Jena mean? For some supporters, it felt like a fulfillment of those months that the families stood alone – a moment where the world stood with them, and the power structure backed down. In the last week Mychal Bell's convictions have been overturned, and most of the other students saw their charges lessened. Yesterday was also a moment for grassroots independent media, who built this story, and kept it alive until the 24 hour news channels could no longer ignore it. It was a moment for historically black colleges and universities to shine - Student activists organized bus convoys – five or more buses arrived from many southern schools - which were quickly filled by a broad range of students.

Yesterday was a moment for the unaffiliated left, for people everywhere concerned about a criminal justice system that has locked up two million and keeps growing. It was a moment for those concerned about school systems in the US, and especially the policing of our schools, what activists have called the School to Prison Pipeline. It was a moment for those that feel that the US has still not dealt with our history of slavery and Jim Crow, and our present realities of white supremacy. Perhaps that is where the power in yesterday's demonstration lies; if this undirected and uncontrolled outrage can be directed towards real societal change, if outrages like Jena can finally bring about the conversation on race in this country that we were promised after Katrina, if this united movement to support these six kids can show that we can unite for justice and win, then Jena will truly have been a victory.

As writer Andre Banks asked yesterday, "What would happen if every person who wore a t-shirt today or handed out a flyer or wrote a blog post woke up tomorrow and looked for the Mychal Bell in their own backyard? He, or she, won't be hard to find. What if our outrage, today directed at the small Louisiana town of Jena, extended to parallel injustices in Detroit or Cincinnati or Sacramento or Miami? What if we viewed this mobilization not as the end of a successful, innovative campaign, but as the moment that catalyzes us into broader and deeper action in every place where we are?" If this happens, we can say that it all began with six families in Jena, Louisiana, who refused to stay silent.

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Jordan Flaherty is an editor of Left Turn Magazine , a journal of grassroots resistance. His May 9, 2007 article from Jena was one of the first to bring the case to a national audience. His previous articles from Jena are online at http://www.leftturn.org. To contact Jordan, email: neworleans@leftturn.org. On myspace: http://www.myspace.com/secondlines.

There are reports all over the net about the Jena march. Take a look at the Free the Jena 6 website for a good collection of articles. I did notice that Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for a march on Washington. I hope this isn't true. I have a sinking feeling that the energy will be directed towards DC rather than in local communities. That could kill this wave. Don't get me wrong, this is a a good day.

Below is an article from the Guardian (original link here). There's an interesting paragraph where Secretary of State Handel said 3,585 ID's had been issued so folks could vote. It then says 522 of those had been done since the education effort started on August 1. What I find so interesting is that the AJC story reports Handel spending $250,000 on educational efforts on the new law. Handel said, "It was my view as long as the state made the effort to do the education and outreach, we would be able to manage if we did our jobs. All of that happened." Does it really make sense to say the outreach happened? 522 people got ID's who otherwise wouldn't have. That's about $478.93 per person spent on voter education statewide. To be fair, this was such a small election it's hard to read a lot into it. Unfortunately, I don't think there's data on who didn't vote because of the new law. We may have that on the primary. But I don't think we'll ever know how much more effort is put into turnout because of this. I'm thinking we're going to have to start pushing absentee ballots.

Georgia Voter ID Law Passes Test

Wednesday September 19, 2007 4:46 AM
By SHANNON McCAFFREY
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) - Local elections in 23 counties ran without a hitch on Tuesday in the biggest test yet of the state's new law requiring a photo ID to cast a ballot, election officials said.

``I didn't notice anything different,'' said Jennifer Rivers of South Fulton, which is voting on whether to incorporate. ``I think people are used to having to show ID to do most anything these days. I know I am.''

Secretary of State Karen Handel said Georgia poll workers have been trained to allow those without photo IDs to cast a provisional ballot. They would then have 48 hours to present a valid ID in order for their vote to count.

``We want as many people who are eligible to vote to be able to vote,'' Handel said.

Opponents of the voter ID law warn that hundreds of thousands people lack the photo ID needed to vote and will stay away from the polls. Most experts say the true test of the law will come in Georgia's Feb. 5 presidential primary, when turnout is expected to be far higher.

Lawyers and legislators in Georgia have been battling over voter ID for several years now.

Opponents claim the photo ID law will disenfranchise minorities, the poor and the elderly who don't have a driver's license or other valid government-issued photo. Supporters say the law is needed to prevent voter fraud and preserve the integrity of the electoral system.

The most recent twist came when a federal judge this month cleared the way for the law to take effect. U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy had found an earlier version of the law unconstitutional, saying it amounted to a poll tax. The Legislature addressed his complaints in a subsequent version, which made photo IDs free to anyone who needed them.

Handel's office reported that 3,585 state photo ID cards have been issued to Georgians who presumably lacked the needed photo identification, 522 of them since the state launched an education effort on Aug. 1 to let voters know about the new requirement.

Lawyers who challenged the law are deciding whether to appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A separate state lawsuit also failed. The Georgia Supreme Court tossed out a challenge filed by former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes.

The voter ID law had been used three times in Richmond and Gwinnett counties in 2005 before it was blocked by the courts.

This from the online edition of the Savannah Morning News. They have a great feature where they print the upcoming dates for future meetings. A little thing, but if you've ever tried to figure out when a legislative committee meetings you know a level of hell. I've copied that info at the bottom.

Eyewitnesses get closer look in death-penalty cases

ATLANTA - State lawmakers concerned about people wrongly sent to prison because of inaccurate witness testimonies plan to examine the issue in depth with defense attorneys, law enforcement agencies and researchers.

The first of five study committees about eyewitness identification is scheduled for this morning at the Capitol.

All six Georgia men, including two from Savannah, who have been exonerated after DNA evidence proved their innocence have been invited to attend and speak to legislators.

"Every single one of those original convictions was based on faulty identifications," said Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, D-Atlanta, who is chairing the committee.

Douglas Echols and Samuel Scott were convicted in Chatham County in 1987 for kidnapping and raping a woman, who identified each man. Both were released in 2001 when DNA evidence cleared them.

The pending death-penalty appeal for Savannah's Troy Anthony Davis, a convicted cop killer, also is expected to be discussed as part of the meetings. Because there was no physical evidence found in his case, his trial depended largely on witness statements.

Because six of the nine witnesses who testified against him have since recanted, lawyers for Davis are trying for a new trial.

Benfield, a former public defender, has been researching eyewitness identification and successfully pushed bills for the state to compensate some of the wrongly accused men.

She introduced legislation this year to tighten requirements for using witnesses to identify suspects, but it stalled out over several concerns about expenses for police departments and the increased difficulty prosecutors would have using witnesses at trials.

There also is dispute over some of the studies' results and how effective changing witness questioning procedures will be.

"What I'd like to see come out of this study committee is a pilot project in Georgia where we could select three law enforcement agencies of varying sizes and test procedures for a year," Benfield said.

Supporters of witness identification reform point to techniques being tried in other cities or recommended in research studies.

One example is a double-blind procedure in which neither the witness nor the officer conducting a lineup knows who the suspect is so that the officer does not unintentionally give out hints to the witness.

Another is requiring "confidence statements" from witnesses after they single out lineup suspects so they can record how certain they are before their memories gel over time.

Of the more than 200 convictions nationwide overturned eventually through DNA evidence, incorrect eyewitness identification contributed to more than 75 percent of the cases, according to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal group.

The group's Georgia branch has been canvassing the nearly 500 law enforcement agencies in the state to survey them on their techniques for identifying suspects through witnesses.

More than half have responded, and the results will be discussed as part of the upcoming study committee meetings, said Lisa Georgia, communications director for the Georgia Innocence Project.

"We really hope at the end of these hearings, we have an active conversation going that includes the Legislature, law enforcement and prosecutors and can reach a consensus on the need for eyewitness identification reform," she said.

Georgia House of Representatives Study Committee on Eyewitness Identification Procedures:

Oct. 1 - Law Enforcement's Perspective

Oct. 22 - Scientific Studies and Best Police Practices

Nov. 5 - Evidentiary Standards for Court Admissibility

Nov. 19 - Recommendations for Implementing Change

Time and location information can be found on the General Assembly's Web site at www.legis.ga.gov under "Meeting Notices."

Stuff like this just gets under my skin. This is what happens when the contradictions are pulled away. The article comes from The Atlanta Progressive News. The original URL is http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0226.html.

HA Security Forces Activist out of Tenants’ Meeting

By Matthew Cardinale, News Editor, The Atlanta Progressive News (September 12, 2007)
Photograph by Jonathan Springston, Senior Staff Writer, The Atlanta Progressive News

(APN) ATLANTA – Activist Terence Courtney, director of Atlanta Jobs with Justice, was forcibly escorted out of a residents’ association meeting by Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) security on Wednesday, August 22, 2007, he and two resident leaders told Atlanta Progressive News.

"We were expecting a normal meeting," Eleanor Rayton, President of the Palmer House highrise resident association, said.

"Then, when Mr. Terence got there, all these security and people from [AHA] Mr. [Barney] Simms’s office was there to greet me. They escorted him off the property. Mr. Mitchell said that was Barney Simms’s meeting and he proceeded," Rayton said.

"When Terence was down front prepared to start speaking, Simms walks in, with Mr. Mitchell and Charles Walker and one other. They proceeded to tell him he couldn’t say what he was going to say. They were confronting him. They told him he had to leave," Cornelia Chapman, Secretary of the Palmer House resident association, said.

"They don’t want someone to put the clean glass of water up next to a dirty glass of water," Shirley Hightower, President of Bowen Homes and Treasurer of Jurisdiction-Wide Resident Advisory Board (RAB), who heard about the incident, told Atlanta Progressive News.

"They must be trying to hide something from the residents. Why didn’t they let Terence speak?" Rayton said.

"This all happened in front of a room of residents, as if we don’t know what we’re doing," Chapman said.

"There appeared to be sheriffs there and dozens of suits. Simms and I got into a discussion of Democracy and people having the right to speak, and that fell on deaf ears. Residents at the Palmer House wanted to hear an alternate side to the story of the housing question," Courtney said.

"We helped organize a meeting to hold that discussion. On the day of that meeting, the AHA who were numbered in really at least a dozen or more was along with at least what I can remember to be about three sheriffs or officers. It wasn't blue uniform officers, they were brown. There were at least three plainclothes officers," Courtney said.

"As we were beginning the meeting, they approached me about how the meeting came about. They approached me about a flyer that I had managed to get distributed and they expressed concern about me conducting the meeting. They also asked me why I didn't go through the Administration of the Housing Authority," Courtney recalled.

"My reply is that I had spoken to residents and it was my opinion that the residents get to determine what they do and do not hear, and Democracy demands that I pay attention to that. It's the residents that really make the Housing Authority what it was," Courtney said.

"That reply seemed to take them aback. We went back and forth on that. It was at that point that Barney threatened to cancel the meeting. He and I argued and his right to do so. He claimed that what Palmer House represented was private property. I disagreed, since this was public property, being public housing, and since the residents were interested in what I had to say, that I had every right to have a discussion with people," Courtney said.

That was then he was surrounded and escorted off the property, he said.

Rayton and Courtney told APN that some residents came with Courtney off the property and held their tenant association under a nearby tree.

"One, they do not allow the people to have the opportunity to talk amongst themselves about what's going on. What the Housing Authority is trying to do is maintain very tight control over information and what the people get to hear," Courtney said.

"They don't really respect the will of their residents. They enjoy too much control of the people. Barney Simms should not individually have the right to throw me out of a meeting that residents and myself organized," Courtney said.

"The other thing is they're fearful. They're afraid of alternative points of view, they're afraid the residents will come to see this whole program of moving them out of public is all about giving the land over to the developers for the enrichment of the rich White and Black elite," Courtney said.

"From what people saw from my removal and what went down, some folks became suspicious of the AHA program. Even though I haven't spoken to all the residents that were there, overwhelmingly they said they thought this plan was really about giving developers what they want," Courtney said.

"It was outrageous for him to say I can cancel this meeting if I want to. From his point of view, he might actually believe that," Courtney said.

Two individuals familiar with the matter expressed concern about the resident leaders’ names being used in this article because they feel AHA, particularly Barney Simms, has intimidated the senior residents. Despite this concern, the resident leaders told APN they wanted their names to be used.

Atlanta Progressive News is still waiting on responses to several questions posed to Atlanta Housing Authority over three weeks ago.

This was posted on the Free the Jena 6 website. Looks like a partial victory, but there still has to be pressure on the D.A. Rally next week people!

This is from OnlineAthens, the website of the Athens Banner-Herald. Looks like local officials are getting mobilized. I fear though the deal they cut still won't be good for us who actually pay the taxes. Citizen involvement in this is going to be crucial.

Cities group opposes sales tax plan

Urges lobbying against objective

If city officials were the only ones allowed to vote on Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson's tax reform plan, it surely would go down in flames.

But state lawmakers, and then voters, will decide whether to go along with the Hiram Republican's proposal to replace property taxes with more sales taxes.

That's why the Georgia Municipal Association came to the Athens-Clarke Library Thursday: to urge mayors, managers, school board members and councilmen from more than a dozen cities to lobby against the plan.

"This is the single biggest attack I've ever seen or heard of on local government," Decatur Mayor and GMA Vice President Bill Floyd said.

The organization, which represents more than 500 municipal governments, contends that Richardson's proposal will cripple the ability of local government and school districts to raise or lower taxes to reflect the needs of different communities.

Almost all of the more than 50 officials from more than a dozen cities who attended the meeting agreed, tossing around words like "socialism," "communism," "bureaucracy" and "pseudo-Republicans" for an hour and a half. They focused mostly on how they would be unable to respond to citizens' concerns about tax rates or the quality of services like streets and schools.

"We're the only county in Georgia with three independent school systems," Commerce City Councilman Bob Sosebee said. "We know it's the most expensive and inefficient way to do it, but that's how we want to do it. That's how the voters in Commerce, Jefferson, Braselton and Jackson County want to do it."

Only Carnesville Mayor Harris Little disagreed with the consensus. Little said he and his constituents would support the change if Carnesville was guaranteed the same amount of money it's spending now.

"As long as they turn the water on and water comes out, and they flush the toilet and waste goes away, I'm not sure they care," he said.

Athens-Clarke Mayor Heidi Davison quickly countered Little, drawing applause for saying she won't be satisfied with providing only basic services. Athenians demand amenities like parks and a revamped Baxter Street from elected leaders, she said.

"I don't want my citizens reduced to a medium level of service because you don't want to pay your property taxes," Davison said.

Richardson's plan would eliminate property taxes and replace them with new sales taxes on services like haircuts and lawn mowing, along with groceries and other goods that now are exempt. The state would collect the taxes, then distribute them to cities, counties and school districts based on their 2006 budgets and population growth. It would require approval from two-thirds of state representatives and senators and a majority of voters.

With powerful politicians like Gov. Sonny Perdue and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle also demanding tax reform, but raising questions about Richardson's plans, competing proposals could also be introduced to the General Assembly next year.

On Tuesday, September 18 come out to the CNN center. Details are:

The AJC today is reporting that Gov Perdue and speaker Richardson sat down together. It wasn't a personal meeting, more of a Republican coffee klatch to talk about taxes. Perdue isn't endorsing Richardson's stupid idea to eliminate property, income and ad valoreum taxes. However, Perdue isn't saying he hates it either. Rather, in the political non-speak that is standard English for elected officials, he says he has strong doubts.

The governor wants another bad idea, to cut personal and corporate income taxes and to eliminate income taxes for some senior citizens. To be clear, he wants to give rich people and corporations a free ride. The senior citizen tax cut he proposed during his campaign applies to those making more than $120,000 per year. He gets credit for rejecting the property tax rebate, but not for silly pandering schemes.

At yesterday's Poor People's Day meeting, Peter Armstrong from the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute gave a short presentation on tax reform. Here's the deal. The Georgia budget is presently $20 billion. Richardson's proposal would cut the budget by $8 billion. Now, if the Georgia budget was $8 billion too big, this would be fine. But right now Georgia isn't doing near enough of what it needs to do (i.e. Grady, MARTA, water, my road, etc.). Richardson proposes a state sales tax to make up the difference. Trouble is sales taxes hit workers a lot harder than they do rich folk. Right off the bat, anyone not a CEO or rich lawyer is going to get smacked. Worse, Richardson will have to raise the sales tax. Armstrong estimates sales taxes would have to be raised by 5% to make up the difference. Richardson will also have to the exemptions. Now we're looking at paying taxes on EVERY transaction. Remember when Georgians paid taxes on groceries? There's a word for a situation like that: Alabama.

The GBPI will be having a January conference on poverty. Check out their website for future details. In the meantime, the next Poor People's Day meeting is September 27 at 9 Gammon Ave., Atlanta 30315. Lunch is at 12:30 and the meeting starts at 1pm. Call 404.622.7778 for more information.

Surplus value is the difference between what a worker produces and what that worker is paid. Take this real world example:


The International Labor Organization just published a report on productivity around the world. In it they state that each employed person in 2006 in the US produced $63,885 total. This was mainly from things like advanced technology, streamlining....and working more hours than most anyone else on the planet.

According to the US Census Bureau, the median income of US workers (half of workers made less than this figure, and half made more) was $30,428 for part-time workers and $35,603 for full time workers.

Each worker in 2006 produced almost twice what they got. Where did the extra money go? The boss's pocket.

That's surplus value. The harshest, most extensive tax in the world.

In this post:
* Press release - International Tribunal issues preliminary findings
* Greetings from People's Hurricane Relief Fund
* How you can support the tribunal



International Tribunal Issues Preliminary Findings
Bush, Blanco, Nagin Committed Crimes against Humanity

New Orleans—Between August 29, 2007 and September 2, 2007, a Tribunal of 16 esteemed jurists from nine countries, including Algeria, Brazil, France, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mexico, South Africa, Venezuela, and the United States, convened in New Orleans to hear testimony by experts and survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

After hearing nearly 30 hours of testimony by hurricane su! rvivors and experts – covering government neglect and negligence in 15 areas, ranging from police brutality to environmental racism, from misappropriation of relief to gentrification, the jurists announced their preliminary findings.

Jill Soffiyah Elijah, the Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and Coordinating Justice for the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, announced the Tribunal’s preliminary findings, “It is our view that the US Government has committed crimes against humanity particularly in relation to its failure to maintain functional levees that should have protected the City of New Orleans from flooding….it was the reckless disregard and, in some instances, negligence of the US government, the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans that created the devastation we continue to see today.”

Elijah also announced that the Tribunal made preliminary findings that the federal, state and local governments are guilty of violating the human rights to life, dignity and recognition of personhood; the right to be free from racial discrimination-- especially as it pertains to the actions of law enforcement personnel and vigilantes; the right to return, resettlement and reintegration of internally displaced persons; the right to be free from degrading treatment and punishment; the right to freedom of movement; the right to adequate housing and education; the right to vote and participate in governance and the right to a fair trial, the right to liberty and security of person and the right to equal protection under the law. Both actions and failure to act by the governments had disproportionate devastating impact with respect to race and gender.

Recently, Toyota became the number 1 car seller in the world. If the UAW doesn't abandon it's 1950's business unionism ways, it will be crushed. It's great to see the union of autoworkers actually organizing autoworkers. It probably would also make sense to organize the suppliers to the factories as well.

Hardly a Union Hotbed, Toyota's Kentucky Plant Is a Test for Organizers

By Jeremy W. Peters
September 4, 2007, The New York Times


GEORGETOWN, Kentucky - For the last two decades, the United Automobile Workers union has been a constant but largely neutralized presence in this rolling patch of central Kentucky horse country.

Union organizers arrived, informational leaflets in hand, not long after Toyota opened its first American factory here 22 years ago. At shift changes, the organizers would gather outside the factory exits to pass fliers to workers as they drove home.0904 01

Most of the time, cars did not stop. And that's pretty much the attitude union organizers here have faced for the last two decades. They would occasionally rally small groups of workers, but never made much headway.
Their biggest obstacle was a largely contented Toyota work force.

But now, emboldened by Toyota's plans to cut labor costs at its American factories, the U.A.W. is making its most concerted push yet to organize workers at the Japanese automaker's largest American plant.

The movement, led by a small but vocal group of workers with help from the union, is drawing attention to issues like wage stability and workplace safety. It is a departure from previous efforts, which focused mainly on gathering workers' signatures on union cards.

Organizers have seized on leaked Toyota internal documents that show the company wants to cut $300 million in labor costs in North America by 2011. They have joined forces with community activists, local politicians and workers' rights advocates to make their case. Organizers have also enlisted the help of ministers, who are speaking out publicly on the union's behalf.

Unionizing the Georgetown plant would be an enormous victory for the U.A.W., as it would be the first time it had organized a factory wholly owned by a Japanese automaker.

The U.A.W. has never collected enough signatures in the past to force a vote by all 7,000 Georgetown workers.
And even if it gets a vote, that is only the first step.
Workers at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn., have voted twice on U.A.W. membership and rejected it.

Organizing Toyota would also bolster the U.A.W.'s diminished clout at a time when Detroit's Big Three are cutting jobs, closing factories and expecting concessions from the union in ongoing contract negotiations.

The union needs a foothold in the company that is on track to displace General Motors as the world's largest automaker, said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Unless they can organize it, the union's power will inevitably be flushed away," he said.

Organizing Toyota promises to be difficult, and it remains unclear how much real progress will result from the latest push in Georgetown. While organizers said they have seen an increase in attendance at their regular meetings, the U.A.W. will not say how many Toyota workers are actively supporting the new effort.
Toyota officials estimate the core group of union loyalists to be less than 100.

"If our team members in America decide that they need a union, that's fine," said Pete Gritton, vice president of human resources for Toyota's manufacturing operations in the United States. "But the truth of the matter, so far, has been they've not elected to go that way."

In interviews, pro-union workers at the Georgetown plant said they are fighting the perception that unions are irrelevant, even dangerous to Toyota's future.

"In the past, we were kind of like bulls in a china shop," said Tim Unger, 51, who started at the Georgetown plant 18 years ago in the plastics division and now works in quality control. "If you weren't pro-union, we didn't want anything to do with you. Now we want to take our time and find out what's on the minds of our co- workers. What don't they understand? What do they like about Toyota? What don't they like about Toyota?"

Recently, the company has taken a harder line on wages and labor costs, giving union organizers what they perceive as an opening. Just last week, Toyota told workers in Kentucky they would have to start paying a premium for health insurance for family members.

And over the last few months, Toyota management has summoned small groups of workers at its colossal vehicle assembly complex here to attend a presentation titled "Growing in a Changing Market: State of the Automotive Industry." Executives describe the presentation as a routine update for workers.

Workers are shown a map with the locations of shuttered Big Three auto plants and a breakdown of autoworkers'
average wages, from Thailand to Mexico. While no Toyota executive explicitly says it, the theme of the presentation, according to workers who have seen it, is that Toyota will end up in the same troubled waters as G.M. if something does not change.

"That doesn't sit well," said Charles Hite, 41, who works on the loading dock at the Georgetown plant and has been with Toyota for 15 years. "They want people to fear losing their jobs."

Mr. Hite said that before one of the presentations recently, he gave to his colleagues copies of a news article about the millions of dollars in bonuses Toyota executive had received this year. A Toyota supervisor asked him to stop, he said.

Toyota declined to elaborate on the presentation or provide a copy of it to The New York Times. But the company said it was not considering cutting wages, only looking at how it might reduce wage increases in the future and shift more costs to employees.

A year ago, the U.A.W.'s efforts might have barely caused a stir. But in February, that changed when an internal Toyota document started making its way around the factory floor. It spelled out, in part, how the company would reduce labor costs by setting hourly wages based on what other manufacturers in the area pay, not on auto industry standards.

In Kentucky, where the average worker earned about $36,000 last year, $70,000-a-year Toyota jobs are among the best to be found.

The company fired two employees who had distributed the document. The U.A.W. said it has filed a complaint on behalf of the two employees with the National Labor Relations Board.

Terry Thurman, the new U.A.W. vice president for organizing who once led the union's Indiana and Kentucky region, pledged "all the assistance we can" at an organizing rally in nearby Lexington in March.

Toyota's cost-cutting plans were leaked just as it was about to announce another quarter of record-breaking profits. And in May, the company reported that it earned
$13.68 billion last fiscal year - its largest profit ever.

"This company is making billions of dollars, and it's going to start making us pay?" said Robert Bingaman, 53, a maintenance worker at the Georgetown plant who supports the U.A.W.

But unlike many of his co-workers, Mr. Bingaman knows what it is like to have a union job. Twenty years ago, he lost his job at a General Motors plant in Hamilton, Ohio, where he was a member of the U.A.W.

"At Toyota, whatever they want to do, they do," he said over lunch at the Big Boy down the road from the Toyota factory one recent summer afternoon. "At G.M., under a contract, they couldn't do anything without the rank and file agreeing. You had someone to fight for you."

In addition to using wages as a bone of contention, the union is hoping it can make headway with the heavy physical toll of assembly line labor.

At the U.A.W. Resource Center about a half mile from the Georgetown plant entrance, volunteers pore over injury logs from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that track every lacerated finger and ruptured disk reported in the Georgetown plant.

They said they have already identified more than 1,800 injured workers who are no longer employed at the plant.
And they are building a database to track injuries by type, to help reinforce their point that the job puts tremendous stress on a worker's body. Callers who reach the answering machine at the resource center are asked, "Have you thought about how many surgeries it takes to build a Camry?"

Toyota has disputed the notion that the Georgetown factory is a dangerous place to work. And records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that the company has been cited only once since 1998 for a safety violation.

For workers like John Williams, 41, who has spent the last 18 years at the Georgetown plant, the idea of having a larger voice in Toyota has appeal.

Mr. Williams said he envies the contracts his counterparts in Detroit have. "What they have is what the Big Three negotiated with them," he said. "What we have is what Toyota gives and takes from us."

This is from today's AJC. Is there anyone who can doubt the Republican strategy at this point? Of course, the Democrats had a similar strategy in place. That doesn't excuse it, it means the majority of the people are right to see both parties as 2 sides of the same corrupt coin. On another note, Judge Murphy is the same judge who threw out the ACLU racial profiling motion in the Operation Meth Merchant case. Seems he's willing to go only so far on anything.


STATE LAW UPHELD: Bring photo ID for voting
Ruling takes effect in time for Sept. 18 local elections. Judge commends Georgia's efforts to spread the word.

By Bill Rankin, Jim Galloway
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/07/07

Georgia's much-debated photo voter ID law survived a major court challenge Thursday when a federal judge found it did not impose a significant burden on the right to vote.

The ruling upholds Georgia's law, said to be one of the most restrictive in the country, and clears the way for it to be enforced in the upcoming local elections on Sept. 18. Early voting begins Monday.

"It's a tremendous victory for Georgia, for our citizens and for the integrity of our elections," Secretary of State Karen Handel said in a joint press conference with Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Handel promised to continue outreach efforts, which she started this summer, that show voters how they can receive free IDs. This program included 250,000 mailings, hundreds of radio ads and a toll-free hotline.

To date, she said, the state has issued about 3,000 free voter IDs, including 300 since it began the education project in August.

Said Perdue, "Our goal has never been, is not now and never will be to try to keep people from voting."

Lawyers for groups challenging the law claim it creates an unnecessary step that could prevent minorities, the elderly, the disabled and the poor from going to the polls. But state legislators maintained voter ID is a vital component in the state's effort to combat voter fraud.

In a 159-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy in Rome, who had previously halted enforcement of the law, lauded the state for its efforts to educate the public about the law.

"Plaintiffs simply have failed to prove that the photo ID requirement unduly or significantly burdens the right to vote," Murphy wrote.

"On the other hand, preventing voter fraud serves the public interest by ensuring that those individuals who have registered properly to vote are allowed to vote and to have their votes counted in any given election," the judge said.

David Brackett, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said it was too early to tell if the groups will appeal.

"Obviously, we're disappointed," he said. "We think it's going to result in the disenfranchisement of a significant number of elderly and minorities in Georgia who are registered to vote and who desire to vote in person."

In October 2005, when Murphy suspended an earlier version of the law, he was vilified by Republican legislators who accused him of being an activist judge. At that time, Murphy declared the law imposed an unconstitutional poll tax and did not effectively fight voter fraud.

The Legislature responded by passing a revised version of the photo voter ID law in 2006, allowing state-issued IDs to be obtained for free and requiring that local registrars be able to issue the free cards. But last year, Murphy again issued injunctions halting enforcement of the law.

However, after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a similar lawsuit filed in Fulton County should be dismissed, Murphy held a trial in August on the ongoing federal lawsuit. First, Murphy found the plaintiffs in the case did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit.

Filing suit were Common Cause/Georgia, League of Women Voters of Georgia, the Central Presbyterian Outreach and Advocacy Center, the NAACP, the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, the Concerned Black Clergy of Metro Atlanta and two individuals, Bertha Young, a 78-year-old woman from Rome, and Eugene Taylor of Screven County.

Among the organizational plaintiffs, only the NAACP could assert that at least one of its members would be harmed by the ID law. But Murphy noted that the NAACP could not provide the names of its members who could make that claim.

Although Young does not have a driver's license, she has a ID card issued by the Rome Police Department, and her sons or friends can drive her to the registrar's office, Murphy noted. Even though Taylor's daughter would have to take off from work to drive him to the registrar's office, this is not an unconstitutional burden, the judge found.

Murphy could have ended the case after making those findings. Instead, he also ruled on the merits of the issue.

Murphy noted that his previous injunction hinged in large part on the fact that many voters who lacked a photo ID had no real notice of the requirement or knew how to get one or vote absentee. But the judge said recent evidence showed the state "made exceptional efforts" to contact voters in the 23 counties planning to hold local elections this month.

The plaintiffs, Murphy wrote, "are hard-pressed to show that voters in Georgia, in general, are not aware of the photo ID requirement."

Addressing claims the law does nothing to combat voter fraud, Murphy did note that election rules allow someone to register to vote without presenting a Social Security number or other documentation, including a photo ID. This means, the judge said, a voter could register and then get a voter ID card without showing any other form of identifying information.

But Murphy said the additional step of obtaining the card could deter fraud.

Neil Bradley, a lawyer with the ACLU voting rights project, said Murphy's ruling shows that owning a state voter ID card "merely proves that you have a picture of yourself."

The law "is a complete sham, and we are disappointed that the court did not see it as a sham," said Bradley, one of the lawyers representing the groups that challenged the law.

Sen. Cecil Stanton (R-Macon), a sponsor of the law, praised the ruling.

"I am enormously pleased," Stanton said. "I feel vindicated that this frivolous lawsuit, like the ones brought before, has been dismissed. Judge Murphy did the right thing and I commend him."