A Walk in March

by Grace Paley May 28, 2007

This hill

crossed with broken pines and maples

lumpy with the burial mounds of

uprooted hemlocks (hurricane

of ’38) out of their

rotting hearts generations rise

trying once more to become

the forest


just beyond them

tall enough to be called trees

in their youth like aspen a bouquet

of young beech is gathered


they still wear last summer’s leaves

the lightest brown almost translucent

how their stubbornness has decorated

the winter woods


on this narrow path ice tries

to keep the black undecaying oak leaves

in its crackling grip it’s become

too hard to walk at last a

sunny patch oh! i’m in water

to my ankles APRIL


...........

March BEYOND the Pentagon to the Arms Makers

It's the 6th anniversary of the Iraq War. The March 21 ended in front of the VA corporate offices of General Dynamics and KBR-and a whole pile of Virginia State Police in full riot gear. Two provocateurs dressed as Black Bloc members were spotted behind police lines, as was a light armored vehicle.



While the mainstream press reported only "hundreds" of protesters, China's Xinhua News Agency reported that 170 cardboard coffins draped with US, Iraq, and other flags were carried. For less than 1,000 protesters, at least one in 10 would have had to be coffin bearers, so with coffin bearers nowhere near that high a percentsage, yet the number of coffins at 170, the total turnout must be higher.

The march that nominally went to the Pentagon went right by the Pentagon-to go after war contractors. It was in front of a building containing Boeing and a "contractor" or mercenary firm specializing in electronics that the APOC blockade of the march occurred. This blockade forced the march to stay on this target longer and approach it more closely (on the sidewalk).

The final stopping point was well beyond the Pentagon, at the Crystal City office plaza containing a big office tower labeled "General Dynamics." The offices of Kellog-Brown-Root(KBR) a former subsidiary of Halliburton, were at the very end of the stopping point area.An armored vehicle stood guard.

Riot cops menaced the protesters to such a degree that the very Black Bloc that had earlier participated in the APOC blockade had to turn around and deploy forward to protect those bearing the flag draped coffins from all those riot cops!A tiny counterprotest threatens Jane Fonda with LYNCHING!

These photos and words are from http://dc.indymedia.org/ one of the best of the US indymedia sites.

International Women's Day

This poster lists the women's agenda in Australia. The poster is a re-make of one of the Soviet posters designed by Rodchenko.

The Northern Territories (NT) Intervention
The Northern Territory National Emergency Response (also referred to as "the intervention") is a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007, nominally to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. Operation Outreach, the intervention's main logistical operation conducted by a force of 600 soldiers and detachments from the ADF (including NORFORCE) concluded October 21, 2008.

The package was the Federal government's response to the Territory government's publication of Little Children are Sacred, but implemented almost none of the report's recommendations. The response has been criticised, but also received bipartisan parliamentary support. The current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has and continues to support the response, though he did make some adjustments to its implementation.

The measures of the response which have attracted most criticism comprise the exemption from the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the compulsory acquisition of an unspecified number of prescribed communities (Measure 5) and the partial abolition of the permit system (Measure 10). These have been interpreted as undermining important principles and parameters established as part of the legal recognition of indigenous land rights in Australia. More generally, a lack of consultation with Aboriginal community leaders is often cited by critics of the response, alongside the fact that the action addresses very few of the specific recommendations contained in the Little Children are Sacred Report, while introducing many measures not suggested in the Report.

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation have responded:
"ANTaR disagrees with the former Federal Government that breaching the Racial Discrimination Act is necessary to protect children. In particular, we are concerned that this has led to mistrust, division and increased intolerance towards Aboriginal people that are barriers to protecting Aboriginal children from abuse."

Coal Fired Power Shut Down

March 3rd, 2009
Yesterday thousands of people came together to offer an unprecedented example of mass protest and civil disobedience for the climate. More than 2500 activists, many willing to risk arrest, successfully blockaded all five entrances to the Capitol Power Plant for more than four hours.
As impressive as that is, this action wasn’t just about this one coal-fired powerplant. The scale and the commitment of the participants was the biggest example yet of the kind of public support necessary to solve the climate crisis. We aren’t going to stop global warming by just changing lightbulbs and driving hybrid cars. The only real solution is to come together and demand unprecedented change through unprecedented action.
And that’s exactly what happened yesterday.