Turn Your Back on Bush!
* OSU students, alumni, and community activists will Protest the Endless War, Defend Democracy, and Stand Up for Civil Liberties by holding a sunrise ceremony, a rally, street theater, and an alternative commencement. * Graduates will decorate their mortarboards with Peace Signs and other symbols to express oppositions to the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policy.
Date: Friday, June 14 Time: From 6AM till the end of the OSU Spring Commencement Location: Ohio Stadium (East Side Gates), 411 Woody Hayes Dr., Columbus, OH
More than 3,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in the US war on Afghanistan (Marc W. Herold, <www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm>). Over 1,000 individuals of Muslim and Middle-Eastern backgrounds have been secretly detained by the US government; thousands more have been targeted for racial profiling. Afghan and Arab combatants detained in Guantanamo have been kept in a legal limbo, denied the rights of prisoners of war. In single-minded pursuit of vengeance, Washington has violated international law, disregarded human rights, and severely abridged civil liberties -- with no result useful for the investigation and prosecution of the crimes of 9.11 terrorists.
The only individual who has been charged with involvement in the 9.11 attack -- Zacarias Moussaoui -- was arrested in August last year, that is, before the 9.11 attack, not to mention the racist and militarist US government actions following the attack. Still unfolding revelations of intelligence nonfeasance on the part of John Ashcroft and others prompted even conservative columnist William Safire to conclude, "They had the power to collect the intelligence, but lacked the intellect to analyze the data the agencies collected" (New York Times 3 June 2002), criticizing self-serving justification for massive expansion of police powers pursued by the George W. Bush administration. In Afghanistan, Washington merely replaced the Taliban with worse warlords, while installing Hamid Karzai (former Unocal consultant, according to the Le Monde article "Hamid Karzaï, un Pachtoune nommé président" [13 Dec. 01] ) and others linked to the US oil industry -- not surprisingly, given the well documented Oil Connection maintained by Bush and Dick Cheney, made clearer now in the wake of the Enron scandal.
At the same time, US policy toward Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan, aggravated in the "War on Terrorism," has brought both the Middle East and South Asia to the brink of (possibly nuclear) apocalypse. The "second front" opened in the Philippines has alarmed Filipino activists who have long struggled to reclaim sovereignty of the Philippines from US military and political control of the nation (Walden Bello, "A 'Second Front' in the Philippines," The Nation 18 March 2002). US support for the short-lived coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Venezuela -- the coup condemned by "[a]ll the democratic nations, that is, except one" -- proved highly embarrassing: "President Chávez's comeback has . . . left Washington looking rather stupid," as Paul Krugman quotes BBC ("Losing Latin America," New York Times 14 April 2002). In Colombia, the alibi of the "war on drugs" is wearing thin; some of US military aid to the Colombian government will be explicitly dedicated to "to train, arm and provide air support for Colombian troops to defend the pipeline" (in part owned by Occidental Petroleum) as Bush requested this year (Karl Penhaul, "Protection for Oil Pipeline Raises US Profile in Colombia: New Policy Stirs Fears Bush Seeks to Widen War," San Francisco Chronicle 16 February 2002).
And yet, in a speech to West Point graduates, Bush said that the United States must be prepared to take the "War on Terror" to up to 60 countries (James Doran, The Times [London] 3 June 2002)!
On domestic policy, the Bush administration's record is no better. Citizens for Tax Justice reports that 52.1% of the post-2002 Bush tax cuts goes to the best-off 1% of US taxpayers, whereas the measly 0.1% goes to the poorest 20%; altogether, the bottom 80 % of US taxpayers receive only 16.8% of the cuts (@ <http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0402.htm>). Outraging AFL-CIO, the Bush Labor Department has "delayed, canceled, or withheld from final implementation" worker safety measures, including the first ergonomic standards "to protect workers from repetitive strain" and other injuries; further, Bush used "his executive order power in several attacks on workers' rights and unions, including stripping federal workers of their union representation" (@ <http://www.aflcio.org/bushwatch/ayearwithbush.htm>). Add his assault on the rights of the disabled - "The Americans with Disabilities Act is 'not needed,' says Bush's nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit" (@ <http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/extra/suttonjudge032701.htm>) -- to his attacks on workers' rights, and you'll begin to see how much Bush actually cares about the "safety" of Americans.
As Texas governor, Bush presided over 152 executions in 5 years, earning the monikers "Governor Death" and "Texexecutioner," in the state of criminal justice plagued by, in Bob Herbert's words, "myriad examples of grotesque injustices, including the sentencing of innocent defendants to death, the deliberate falsification of evidence, the execution of profoundly retarded defendants, the routine misuse of so-called expert testimony and rampant racism" ("Texas, The Death Capital," New York Times 16 October 2000). Bush helped to fuel racism in criminal justice. Racism in criminal justice, in turn, helped him steal the election: "thousands of voters" -- predominantly blacks -- "may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported 'felons' provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties" (Gregory Palast, "Florida's Flawed 'Voter-cleansing' Program," Salon.com 4 December 2001, <http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html>).
Bush's opposition to women's rights, as well as GLBT rights, in issues ranging from hate violence, employment discrimination, social welfare to reproductive rights and freedoms is too well known to be rehearsed here again (consult The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, <http://www.ngltf.org/elections/bush.htm>). In foreign policy, Bush refuses to take responsibility for terrors directly committed by the US government and indirectly supported by it (as explained by Noam Chomsky, "The United States is a Leading Terrorist State," <http://www.monthlyreview.org/1101chomsky.htm> -- see William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower for historical analysis); in domestic policy as well, Bush is soft on terrorists, when the terrorists turn out to be right-wingers -- terrorists who kill doctors who provide abortion and bomb abortion clinics (The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, "An Open Letter to George W. Bush: Stop Domestic Terrorism," <http://www.rcrc.org/new/drcarhartopenletter.html>).
In opposition to Bush's domestic and foreign policy that endangers the lives and liberties of Americans, as well as of those who find themselves on the receiving end of US state terrors in Bush's endless war, we'll seek to unite diverse communities in our struggle to build a world without exploitation and oppression, that is, a material foundation for a world free from terrorism.
Graduates Noor Alam <blotichoti at hotmail.com> and Hillary Tinapple <tinapple.4 at osu.edu>, among others, will be available for interviews.
For more info, call 614-252-9255 or 614-668-6554 or e-mail <turnyourbackonbush at yahoo.com>.
Turn Your Back on Bush!: <www.turnyourbackonbush.com> Student International Forum: <www.osu.edu/students/sif> Committee for Justice in Palestine: <www.osu.edu/students/CJP>
Downloadable Press Release: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/14June2002.doc>.
Info about parking, directions to the Ohio State University campus, etc.: <http://www.osu.edu/units/ucomm/commence/revised%20alert_O.html>. Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/ohiostadium.html>.
-- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>