Mata Amritanandamayi, 49, adds an embrace at a
San Ramon ashram to the estimated 21 million hugs she has given.
Chronicle photo by Michael Maloney
Visiting Indian guru wants to hug every person
on the planet
Erin Hallissy,
Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Hillary Clinton may be attracting long lines back East for her
book signings, but another woman -- a guru from India who is on
a mission to hug everyone in the world -- drew a crowd of her
own Tuesday to the East Bay.
Mata Amritanandamayi, known to her followers as Amma, the hugging
saint, sat in a Castro Valley prayer hall for hours on a throne
decorated with silk flowers, accepting flowers and fruit and drawings
before giving everyone -- from babes in arms to elderly supplicants
-- a hug.
And not just a little "thanks for coming, nice to see you"
kind of hug. Sometimes she drew several people at a time to her
bosom, rubbing their shoulders and arms while smiling beatifically.
At other times, she embraced just one person for long moments,
soothing each as they cried or laughing along with those overcome
by giggles of joy.
As they stood, the followers beamed or wiped tears from their
eyes or walked away speechlessly, awed by the woman in the white
sari who claims to have hugged 21 million people since she was
a young girl in southern India.
The Castro Valley Mata Amritananda Center, which is something
of a mecca for Amma devotees, is the second stop on her 10-city
U.S. tour that began earlier this month in Seattle and will include
stops this summer in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.
Amma, who turns 50 in September, will be in Castro Valley for
12 days and is expected to give about 1,200 hugs each day, said
spokesman Rob Sidon of San Francisco.
Candice Munger, 22, of Colorado Springs, was first hugged by
Amma in 1996 and has since lost count of the number of embraces.
But that didn't dim her enthusiasm as she eagerly waited for another
chance to come face to face with Amma on Tuesday.
"It's the experience of being held when you're sad or being
enthused when you're excited," she said after being embraced.
"She's somebody who can see right through you. It's almost
that she knows me more than I know me."
Munger, who will be married in July in a ceremony presided over
by Amma, took her wedding sari for the woman to bless on Tuesday.
She and others said they love Amma like a mother.
Amma, who conducted media interviews while keeping up her hugging,
sees herself that way as well. Asked what she gets out of hugging
thousands of people a day, day after day, she smiled as she replied
in her native dialect.
"It's like asking a mother 'What do you get from hugging
your baby?' " Amma said through her interpreter, Swami Amritswarup.
"Sometimes she'll receive 35,000 people a day," Amritswarup
added. Amma turned and spoke to him, and he quickly translated
"she will do it faster" when that many show up.
To keep the crowds moving, people are handed stickers and wait
patiently, first sitting and then kneeling in lines on the floors.
Before hugging Amma, they must wipe their faces with tissues.
Volunteers at the center said people have come not just from
throughout the United States but also from other countries to
bask in Amma's presence.
Among the foreign travelers were Stephen Fairclough and his wife
Diana, who left their home in Victoria, B.C., to see Amma first
in Seattle and then in Castro Valley. They first met her in 1997
on a trip to India.
"She's one of the more sparkling ones," said Fairclough,
who's been meditating since the early 1970s and who has met a
variety of gurus over the decades. "She's just the embodiment
of love. It just pours out of her. She's really mother; she's
the epitome of every mother."
Shakir Akbar, 25, of Flagstaff, Ariz., had never met Amma before
he went to Castro Valley on Tuesday at the urging of a friend.
After his hug, he seemed overwhelmed.
"It was wonderful. Very nice, refreshing," he said.
"You have to experience it for yourself. Words kind of belittle
the experience."
One of the best parts, he said, was watching the other followers
receive their embraces. Hundreds of people sat or stood for hours
watching Amma before they wandered over to a gift shop to buy
photos of her, along with the kind of beaded jewelry she wore,
Indian saris and other clothes and souvenirs.
Along with the hugs, Amma answers questions, Sidon said, ranging
from why people's cows aren't giving enough milk to scientists
asking about work they're doing or "a priest wondering if
he should remain a priest."
"She'll sometimes whisper something, or it could be as general
as 'darling daughter, darling daughter,' " Sidon said.
Sidon said that Amma has a hand in many charities, and that she
is not espousing any particular religious beliefs but instead
"firmly believes that all the religions are great and they
all lead to the same path."
Followers say different people see her in different ways.
"You can take her as a sweet woman from India who gives
you hugs up to the divine mother incarnate," said Stella
Petrakis, 55, of San Francisco.
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A key influence
Piano teacher has inspired generations of music
lovers
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, May 23, 2003
A stroke in 2000 weakened her right side, so she uses a songbook
of piano pieces for just the left hand. Macular degeneration and
cataract surgery diminished her eyesight, so she uses a contraption
that magnifies one measure of music at a time. She can't hear
as well as she used to, so enjoying her own music isn't easy.
Still, Jennie Lois Windle sits at the bench of one of two K.
Kawai grand pianos that fill her living room high atop the hills
of Berkeley almost every day to play for a while. The songs might
not trip off her fingers like they used to, but the reverberations
of the 88-year-old's lifetime of music will likely echo throughout
the Bay Area for generations to come.
In her 57 years teaching piano, she has instructed 445 students,
some of whom have become heavy-hitters in the Bay Area music scene,
holding positions at the Stern Grove Music Festival and the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music. Others have become piano teachers
themselves.
Oral Lee Brown's 1st-graders reach
for finish line
Kelly St. John
Monday, May 12, 2003
LaTosha Hunter beamed as she walked across the stage in her black
cap and gown and collected her diploma. Then she retreated from
the searing Mississippi heat to a shady spot, where she embraced
Oral Lee Brown, the Oakland real estate agent whose remarkable
promise 16 years ago got her there.
In 1987, Brown told Hunter and two dozen other first-graders
at Brookfield Elementary School that she would put them through
college if they graduated from high school. Four years ago, most
of them did, with 19 enrolling in college.
Pamela J. Podger,
Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
A 20-year-old Marine reservist showed up at the gates of his
San Jose base Tuesday -- conscientious objector papers in hand
-- ready for punishment for not joining his unit's deployment
to Iraq.
Marine Lance Cpl. Stephen Funk said he had had a lapse in judgment
when he signed up as a 19-year-old, swayed by his recruiter's
pitch of new skills, camaraderie and a naive belief that it would
be "like the Boy Scouts."
At the San Jose base, Marine Capt. Patrick O'Rourke said Funk
must report for duty at 7:30 each morning while his application
is reviewed.
"The Marine Corps understands there are service members
opposed to the war, " O'Rourke said. "He'll be treated
fairly."
Funk is one of several service members in today's volunteer military
who are seeking conscientious objector status.
The recruits say their idealistic expectations of military service
-- travel, tuition and adventure -- jarred against the harsh realities
of killing another human and ran afoul of deeply held religious,
ethical or moral views.
"They don't really advertise that they kill people,"
Funk said. "I didn't really realize the full implications
of what I was doing and what it really meant to be in the service
as a reservist."
In San Diego, Marine Staff Sgt. Nick McLaren said the new recruits
are clearly told about combat and involuntary recall to active
duty in the case of a national emergency. Recruits also must declare
whether they have conscientious objector reservations stemming
from firm or fixed beliefs.
Funk said his moral quandary had begun at boot camp, where he
was trained to shout "kill, kill" as he slashed with
his weapon. He said he felt like a "hypocrite." He shared
his qualms with military chaplains.
When his unit was deployed Feb. 9 for active duty, Funk failed
to show up. He has prepared a statement on his pacifist beliefs
and will be interviewed by a military chaplain, psychiatrist and
investigative officer before his fate is clear.
"There are so many evil things about war," said Funk,
who is originally from Seattle. "There is no way to justify
war because you're paying with human lives."
His mother, Gloria Pacis, 49, said she prayed daily for her son.
"I'm proud of the fact that he owned up to his reservations
and was not a hypocrite," she said.
The military acknowledges that recruits may change their views
during training and allows service members an exit if they prove
a religious, ethical or moral objection to war. Conscientious
objector applications can take up to one year for review. The
outcomes range from a noncombat job, still in the military service,
in the United States to, in the worst case, a court martial and
possible prison terms.
Funk's attorney, Stephen Collier -- a member of the National
Lawyer's Guild Military Law Task Force in San Francisco -- said
he would seek a general discharge for his client.
Anti-war groups report that their hot lines have been flooded
by calls from service members. The "GI Rights Hotline"
that counsels service members logged about 3,500 calls in January
and 3,100 in February -- double the monthly average in 2002.
Teresa Panepinto of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors
in Oakland, which runs the hot line, says in today's mostly volunteer
military there is "economic conscription" as young people
join the forces for job skills or tuition -- not to fight wars.
"The ads for the military are sold as a scholarship tool.
There is no footage of combat," she said. "It is a real
bait-and-switch that is costing young people their lives."
Critics of conscientious objectors, however, say it is disingenuous
to volunteer during peace time and then seek an escape hatch when
war breaks out.
Jason Crawford, 23, who founded the Internet site Patriots for
the Defense of America, said: "I think it is a grave dishonor
to back out when your country needs you. There aren't any proper
objections to this war. It is a just war."
Funk is being helped in his bid for a discharge by 1991 Gulf
War conscientious objectors: Army reservist Aimee Allison, 33,
of Oakland who ultimately took her fight with the military to
federal court and was given a discharge, and Marine Corps reservist
Erik Larsen, 35, of Milpitas who spent five months in the brig
and was granted a dishonorable discharge after his case was handled
by Amnesty International.
"There is nothing un-American or unpatriotic about saying
killing is wrong, and I won't kill," Allison said.
According to the Center on Conscience and War in Washington,
D.C., there had been an estimated 3,500 conscientious objectors
in World War I; 37,000 in World War II; 4,300 in the Korean War;
more than 200,000 during the Vietnam War; and 111 during the 1991
Gulf War.
George Houser, 86, who once lived in Berkeley and now lives near
New York City, said he and seven others had spent a year in federal
prison in Danbury, Conn., for defying conscription. "For
me, that year in prison was an important slice of my life,"
he said. "It led to other things, one step at a time."
Chronicle staff writer Maria Alicia Gaura contributed to this
report. / E-mail Pamela J. Podger at ppodger@sfchronicle.com.
From 1962 to 1993, Cesar Chavez dedicated himself to organizing
a farmworkers' movement in California. How will history remember
him?
Some may be content to define him simply as an historic labor
leader and founding president of the United Farm Workers union.
But his vision for the movement encompassed far more than organizing
a union. And his elevation to the status of a revered icon has
less to do with his union activities than with the personal sacrifices,
commitment to nonviolence and deep religious conviction that marked
his life of service to impoverished farmworkers.
April 23 marks the 10th anniversary of Chavez's death. Forty
years after he began organizing California farmworkers, what is
his legacy? Why does state government celebrate a holiday today
in his honor? Why are there now parks, streets and schools throughout
California and the Southwest named after Cesar E. Chavez?
Chavez was an indigenous, self-educated Latino leader, born in
Arizona and raised in California. He was a farmworker, a veteran,
a community activist, an organizer and the founder of the farmworkers'
movement. At great personal sacrifice -- including the sacrifices
made by his wife and eight children -- he accomplished what no
one had done before. In the face of undying opposition from agribusiness,
the state's largest industry, he built a farmworkers' union.
Following in the tradition of Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., he built this union through the use of militant nonviolence.
The most compelling aspect of Chavez's life was his decision
to live in voluntary poverty. When I first met him in 1963, he
did not have a telephone, a dress suit, a TV or a washing machine.
He rented a two-bedroom house in Delano, much too small for a
family of 10, and drove an old Volvo. (After the Volvo expired
during the first few months of the grape strike, Chavez never
again owned an automobile.)
His commitment to live in voluntary poverty for the sake of helping
farmworkers inspired -- and challenged -- others to join him.
They viewed Chavez as authentic and altruistic, not a self-appointed
leader out to get rich at the expense of others. Because of his
own example, Chavez was able to demand that all those who worked
for him would be paid subsistence wages. Because of Chavez's personal
example, no one would ever enrich him or herself at the expense
of the farmworkers' movement.
For more than a decade, Chavez's movement provided the grist
for churches and synagogues to discuss the application of the
principles of social justice when weighed against the call of
the farmworkers' union for an international consumer boycott of
California grapes. It is worth remembering that most of the growers
also attended church or synagogue and were generous in their support.
Mainline churches played a significant role in the development
of Chavez's National Farm Workers Association long before the
grape strike in 1965. Once the picket lines were formed in Delano,
they carried Chavez's message to urban congregations throughout
the country.
But Chavez, in turn, helped make the teachings of the church
and synagogue relevant to their religious members, who tipped
the scales in favor of the cause of the nation's most impoverished
workers. Whether canonized or not, Chavez has been enrolled as
a modern-day saint and prophet.
Chavez has also been held up as a symbol marking a new era in
the history of California and the Southwest: the beginning of
the Latino century. This year, according to state records, more
than half of all children born in California will be Latino, while
the majority of California students now attending urban elementary
schools are Latino. This ethnic sea change is reflected in Chavez's
life work.
Chavez always sought to avoid being referred to as a "labor
leader." He had created the NFWA not as a labor union but
as a self-help membership association for farmworkers. Nevertheless,
he became the nation's most respected and revered labor leader
of the past half-century. His humble lifestyle, his stubborn independence
and his vision of a union's role in the lives of its members made
Chavez as much a scourge to those labor leaders who operated in
the rarefied atmosphere of state and national capitols as a pillar
of inspiration for those union leaders searching for relevance,
renewal and reform.
What is Chavez's legacy for the rest of us? He taught us how
to organize, how to make something powerful out of nothing more
than conviction and perseverance. Results guaranteed, but only
if we are willing to make the personal sacrifices and the life
commitment required to motivate and inspire others to join with
us to overcome all obstacles, for as long as it takes.
Chavez has now been buried 10 years. He waits to be resurrected
by yet another indigenous leader who will rise up, in the spirit
of Gandhi and King --and Chavez -- to free people from injustice
and oppression. Chavez's life advanced the cause of human rights.
That is legacy enough.
LeRoy Chatfield worked with Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers'
movement from 1963 to 1973.
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Kevin Barner, considering joining the military,
and Kathe Burick speak during a march.
San Francisco -- With each new dawn in the war on Iraq, another
day's pay is lost for Berkeley piano teacher Rich Hubbard.
It's not that he's away at war -- he's protesting it almost daily
on the streets of San Francisco.
"I've turned down opportunities to make money tuning pianos
because this is a more valuable investment of my time," said
Hubbard, 41, who sat in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco
on Monday waiting for protesters to arrive from downtown. "If
I don't get involved in this, then the blood is on my hands."
Hubbard is one of hundreds of protesters who have interrupted
their lives nearly every day since the war began Wednesday night
to carry signs and shout for peace.
Those with such flexible time are usually students, homemakers
or, like Hubbard, self-employed. Some have arranged their lives
to be free to protest or lobby for issues they care about. Others
protest despite having employees or colleagues who count on them
to be somewhere else.
David Otten is one of those. He was easy to spot Monday sitting
among the protesters blocking the Turk Street entrance to the
Federal Building. Most of them wore faded jeans and sweat-shop-free
jackets from Thailand. Otten wore a suit and tie.
"This is my new full-time job," said Otten, 32, CEO
of Telectroscan Inc., a medical imaging research firm in Berkeley.
"It's not helping the company, I'll admit."
It was about 10 a.m, and Otten was due at a board meeting at
2. Just then, police announced over the bullhorn they would arrest
anyone who didn't immediately leave the vicinity. Otten stayed.
He slipped a departing reporter his cell phone number just as
police closed in.
"I'm scared," Otten admitted over the phone.
Was he having second thoughts?
"Not at this point," he said. "Complacency is
dangerous."
As the officers slipped plastic handcuffs around the protesters'
wrists, it was time for Otten to put down the phone. "I may
have to miss that board meeting," he said.
Jon Cody, a 25-year-old car salesman who has been protesting
daily since last week, found his own way to reconcile social values
with his day job: He quit.
"I just don't feel that I could work for the industry in
good conscience until they make cars that can run on something
else," Cody said as he protested outside the Transamerica
Pyramid.
Sherry Larsen-Beville, 60, didn't have to quit her job as head
ticket- seller at the Oakland Coliseum to rally against the war.
She and her husband, Frank Beville, 66, decided when they married
28 years ago that she would take part-time work so the family
could devote time to peace and justice.
It wasn't easy because the couple raised nine children, and Beville
held one job as an electrician and another as chaplain at the
Oakland County Jail.
Though he is now retired and the kids are grown up, it still
isn't easy. Neuropathy and a hip injury make walking painful for
Beville. But he and Larsen-Beville were on the streets Monday,
wearing black in recognition of the funereal theme adopted by
some protesters.
"It gets down to whether we believe the rhetoric of the
Bush administration,
and I have to say no," Beville said. "Besides, a pre-emptive
strike is just not the American way."
Kevin Barner, 21, was standing among the peace activists on Turk
Street because he had nothing better to do. Though opposed to
the war, he happened to mention his plans to join the military.
"Oh, please don't do that!" cried Kathe Burick, a 53-year-old
San Francisco City College dance teacher.
Barner, who dropped out of school in 10th grade, said, "But
if I don't do something, I'll be out on the street."
Burick said, "I'd rather see you on the street than in the
grave." She suggested he return to school.
"I want to go back to school," he said.
"I'll take you right now," Burick said, promising to
show him the financial aid office. They left to find a Muni station.
Chronicle staff writers Joe Garofoli and Kathleen Sullivan contributed
to this report. E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.
It isn't as lonely as it used to be way out there on the far
left.
A year and a half after casting the lone vote opposing President
Bush's global campaign against terrorism, Congresswoman Barbara
Lee has become the name attached to the anti-war movement.
When Lee came to the stage at last month's peace rally in San
Francisco, she heard the chant "Barbara Lee for president."
She has heard it before, and seen it on signs, from Oregon to
Massachusetts.
That's a long ways from Mills College, where she graduated 30
years ago. Now a fourth-term Democrat representing Oakland and
Berkeley, Lee, 55, gets all the inspiration she needs walking
into her district office in the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building
in Oakland.
Q: On the Barbara Lee for president movement.
It's a humbling moment when you hear that. I recognize I have
represented this area for five years in Congress, and I was in
the state Senate and Assembly since 1990. But when you hear the
shouts "Barbara Lee for president," you have to say,
"Where's that coming from?" It's not coming from me.
It's not coming from my staff. That's for sure.
Q: On the "I told you so' temptation.
On Sept. 14, 2001, right after the horrific attack, when I voted
no, I knew then that it was wrong for us to give the administration
a blank check. That was giving the president too much power to
use force without coming back to Congress at all. I believe, and
the Constitution requires, that the Congress declare war, that
we engage in debate with regard to war and peace. So I would cast
the same vote today. No second thoughts.
Q: On no longer being the one lonely anti-war vote.
I offered the Lee Amendment as an alternate with regard to disarmament
and finding diplomatic solutions to our problems with inspections.
We received 72 votes [Oct. 10, 2002]. When you look at the last
vote on the use of force, we had 133 no votes on that resolution.
Q: On North Korean missiles pointed at the Bay Area.
During the debate on Iraq, some members of the Progressive Caucus
really made the case for the missile scenario in North Korea and
said, "That's where we need to begin talking about containment."
I don't think the general public knew, because it's been "Iraq,
Iraq, Iraq" from the administration.
Q: On the solution.
We need to re-engage. During the Clinton administration, there
was engagement going on. For the first 18 or 19 months of the
Bush administration, there was no engagement at all. Next what
do we hear? The president goes to Congress and cites the "Axis
of Evil." We must re-engage with North Korea, and we must
do that immediately. It's a very dangerous situation - certainly
more dangerous than Iraq.
Q: On the peace movement.
This doctrine of pre-emption and first strike - Iraq is first
on their list,
and this is a policy that this administration is dead-set on
implementing. We see Iraq now, Iran, North Korea. Who knows what
country is next? I just hope it doesn't take hold, and that's
why I'm so happy and delighted to see the peace marches throughout
the world.
Q: On naked spellouts.
I've seen the pictures. People are finding creative ways to protest.
These women chose to express their views in this way. That's a
manifestation of their determination to make their statement.
.
Q: On becoming an activist at an early age.
I was born on July 16, 1946, in El Paso, Texas. When my mother
went to have me, they wouldn't admit her to the hospital because
she was black, and she almost died. I heard my mother tell me
this and I was really upset. They left her to die on a gurney.
Q: On growing up a civil rights activist.
I was raised in Texas and the schools were segregated. I wasn't
allowed to go to public school. I went to Catholic school. They
were the only ones that would let black folks in. I can remember
my dad in his uniform - he was an officer in the military - and
we'd go to restaurants and they'd say, "I'm sorry we can't
serve," and they used the N word. So I was always fighting
for what was right.
Q: On an Army brat becoming a peace activist.
My father is a retired lieutenant colonel. When I cast the one
vote against the war, he said, "That was the right vote."
He was in the Korean War and he's very clear on issues of war
and peace. My mother too. They're my source of strength.
Q: On mentors.
Ron Dellums is a phone call away. We work on issues together.
He's probably made more of an impact on me than anybody, in terms
of policy. He worked very hard to get this federal building here,
and every time I walk in, I think of Ron.
The following is a copy of Mary (Ann) Wright’s letter
of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wright was
most recently the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy
in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She helped open the U.S. embassy in
Kabul, Afghanistan, in January 2002.
U.S. Embassy
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
March 19, 2003
Secretary of State Colin Powell
US Department of State
Washington, DC 20521
Dear Secretary Powell:
When I last saw you in Kabul in January, 2002 you arrived to
officially open the US Embassy that I had helped reestablish in
December, 2001 as the first political officer. At that time I
could not have imagined that I would be writing a year later to
resign from the Foreign Service because of US policies. All my
adult life I have been in service to the United States. I have
been a diplomat for fifteen years and the Deputy Chief of Mission
in our Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan (briefly)
and Mongolia. I have also had assignments in Somalia, Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Grenada and Nicaragua. I received the State Department’s
Award for Heroism as Charge d’Affaires during the evacuation
of Sierra Leone in 1997. I was 26 years in the US Army/Army Reserves
and participated in civil reconstruction projects after military
operations in Grenada, Panama and Somalia. I attained the rank
of Colonel during my military service.
This is the only time in my many years serving America that I
have felt I cannot represent the policies of an Administration
of the United States. I disagree with the Administration’s
policies on Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, North Korea
and curtailment of civil liberties in the U.S. itself. I believe
the Administration’s policies are making the world a more
dangerous, not a safer, place. I feel obligated morally and professionally
to set out my very deep and firm concerns on these policies and
to resign from government service as I cannot defend or implement
them.
I hope you will bear with my explanation of why I must resign.
After thirty years of service to my country, my decision to resign
is a huge step and I want to be clear in my reasons why I must
do so.
I disagree with the Administration’s policies on Iraq
I wrote this letter five weeks ago and held it hoping that the
Administration would not go to war against Iraq at this time without
United Nations Security Council agreement. I strongly believe
that going to war now will make the world more dangerous, not
safer.
There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is a despicable dictator
and has done incredible damage to the Iraqi people and others
of the region. I totally support the international community’s
demand that Saddam’s regime destroy weapons of mass destruction.
However, I believe we should not use US military force without
UNSC agreement to ensure compliance. In our press for military
action now, we have created deep chasms in the international community
and in important international organizations. Our policies have
alienated many of our allies and created ill will in much of the
world.
Countries of the world supported America’s action in Afghanistan
as a response to the September 11 Al Qaida attacks on America.
Since then, America has lost the incredible sympathy of most of
the world because of our policy toward Iraq. Much of the world
considers our statements about Iraq as arrogant, untruthful and
masking a hidden agenda. Leaders of moderate Moslem/Arab countries
warn us about predicable outrage and anger of the youth of their
countries if America enters an Arab country with the purpose of
attacking Moslems/Arabs, not defending them. Attacking the Saddam
regime in Iraq now is very different than expelling the same regime
from Kuwait, as we did ten years ago.
I strongly believe the probable response of many Arabs of the
region and Moslems of the world if the US enters Iraq without
UNSC agreement will result in actions extraordinarily dangerous
to America and Americans. Military action now without UNSC agreement
is much more dangerous for America and the world than allowing
the UN weapons inspections to proceed and subsequently taking
UNSC authorized action if warranted.
I firmly believe the probability of Saddam using weapons of mass
destruction is low, as he knows that using those weapons will
trigger an immediate, strong and justified international response.
There will be no question of action against Saddam in that case.
I strongly disagree with the use of a “preemptive attack”
against Iraq and believe that this preemptive attack policy will
be used against us and provide justification for individuals and
groups to “preemptively attack” America and American
citizens.
The international military build-up is providing pressure on
the regime that is resulting in a slow, but steady disclosure
of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). We should give the weapons
inspectors time to do their job. We should not give extremist
Moslems/ Arabs a further cause to hate America, or give moderate
Moslems a reason to join the extremists. Additionally, we must
reevaluate keeping our military forces in the Middle East, particularly
in Saudi Arabia. Their presence on the Islamic “holy soil”
of Saudi Arabia will be an anti-American rally cry for Moslems
as long as the US military remains and a strong reason, in their
opinion, for actions against the US government and American citizens.
Although I strongly believe the time in not yet right for military
action in Iraq, as a soldier who has been in several military
operations, I hope General Franks, US and coalition forces can
accomplish the missions they will be ordered do without loss of
civilian or military life and without destruction of the Iraqi
peoples’ homes and livelihood.
I strongly urge the Department of State to attempt again to stop
the policy that is leading us to military action in Iraq without
UNSC agreement. Timing is everything and this is not yet the time
for military action.
I disagree with the Administration’s lack of effort in
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Likewise, I cannot support the lack of effort by the Administration
to use its influence to resurrect the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process. As Palestinian suicide bombers kill Israelis and Israeli
military operations kill Palestinians and destroy Palestinian
towns and cities, the Administration has done little to end the
violence. We must exert our considerable financial influence on
the Israelis to stop destroying cities and on the Palestinians
to curb its youth suicide bombers. I hope the Administration’s
long-needed “Roadmap for Peace” will have the human
resources and political capital needed to finally make some progress
toward peace.
I disagree with the Administration’s lack of policy on
North Korea
Additionally, I cannot support the Administration’s position
on North Korea. With weapons, bombs and missiles, the risks that
North Korea poses are too great to ignore. I strongly believe
the Administration’s lack of substantive discussion, dialogue
and engagement over the last two years has jeopardized security
on the peninsula and the region. The situation with North Korea
is dangerous for us to continue to neglect.
I disagree with the Administration’s policies on Unnecessary
Curtailment of Rights in America
Further, I cannot support the Administration’s unnecessary
curtailment of civil rights following September 11. The investigation
of those suspected of ties with terrorist organizations is critical
but the legal system of America for 200 years has been based on
standards that provide protections for persons during the investigation
period. Solitary confinement without access to legal counsel cuts
the heart out of the legal foundation on which our country stands.
Additionally, I believe the Administration’s secrecy in the
judicial process has created an atmosphere of fear to speak out
against the gutting of the protections on which America was built
and the protections we encourage other countries to provide to
their citizens.
Resignation
I have served my country for almost thirty years in the some
of the most isolated and dangerous parts of the world. I want
to continue to serve America. However, I do not believe in the
policies of this Administration and cannot defend or implement
them. It is with heavy heart that I must end my service to America
and therefore resign due to the Administration’s policies.
Mr. Secretary, to end on a personal note, under your leadership,
we have made great progress in improving the organization and
administration of the Foreign Service and the Department of State.
I want to thank you for your extraordinary efforts to that end.
I hate to leave the Foreign Service, and I wish you and our colleagues
well.
Very Respectfully,
Mary A. Wright, FO-01
Deputy Chief of Mission
US Embassy
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Following is the text of career diplomat John Brown’s
letter by which he resigned from the Foreign Service.
Dear Friends and Colleagues: FYI. John
To: Secretary of State Colin Powell
March 10, 2003
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am joining my colleague John Brady Kiesling in submitting my
resignation from the Foreign Service (effective immediately) because
I cannot in good conscience support President Bush’s war
plans against Iraq.
The president has failed:
To explain clearly why our brave men and women in uniform should
be ready to sacrifice their lives in a war on Iraq at this time;
To lay out the full ramifications of this war, including the
extent of innocent civilian casualties;
To specify the economic costs of the war for ordinary Americans;
To clarify how the war would help rid the world of terror;
To take international public opinion against the war into serious
consideration.
Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated
with the unjustified use of force. The president’s disregard
for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public
diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century.
I joined the Foreign Service because I love our country. Respectfully,
Mr. Secretary, I am now bringing this calling to a close, with
a heavy heart but for the same reason that I embraced it.
'Democracy Now!' Host Amy Goodman Is Making
Her Voice Heard on Iraq
by Michael Powell
March 10, 2003
NEW YORK -- And now for the news:
"President Bush last night claimed a war in Iraq would set
the stage for peace in the Middle East, but he did not set any
deadline or detail any specific steps." . . .
"The Financial Times describes the Bush administration's
financial analysis as 'a piece of fiction.' " . . .
"In Australia, 43 legal experts warn that an attack on Iraq
is a violation of international law." . . .
"And the United States asks aid groups in Baghdad for civilian
satellite coordinates in Iraq" -- pregnant pause here --
"Is it to bomb them or save them?"
"This is 'Democracy Now!' " says the anchor. "The
war and peace report." Cue the lilting Bob Marley reggae
guitar licks.
This is not the news as Brit Hume construes it or Dan Rather
intones it. In a "Showdown: Iraq," Blix-is-nixed, pack-my-trench-coat-honey
testosterone media age, Amy Goodman and her radio show, "Democracy
Now!," beam in as if from some alternative left galaxy.
Broadcasting on the Pacifica Radio network from a book-strewn
loft in an old firehouse a half-dozen blocks from Ground Zero,
Goodman is a daily polestar for those who crave the antiwar perspective
that mainstream networks and newspapers often consign to the margins.
"War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals
and retired government flacks posing as reporters," Goodman
says after the show. "Why not invite on some voices that
are not Pentagon-approved?"
Her 9 a.m. magazine show mixes investigative scoops (a recent
report detailed how the Bush administration quashed an FBI investigation
into Saudi Arabian funding of terrorist organizations), reports
from foreign correspondents, and very few generals. She and her
co-host, New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, speak, unabashedly,
to those who oppose a war with Iraq, a roomier club than one might
imagine from watching cable television news channels.
A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found that six in 10 Americans
harbor doubts about using force in Iraq, while 40 percent are
opposed to any invasion.
The audience for "Democracy Now!" is small but growing,
and the show is influential among antiwar activists. More than
120 stations carry it, including WPFW-FM (89.3) in Washington
and some public radio affiliates. And in the last two years, it's
begun broadcasting on Web TV (via www.democracynow.org)
and public access television channels around the world .
And starting today the formerly 60-minute show expands by an
hour to accommodate more reporting on the war.
Its politics can veer toward communion for the progressive choir.
But in this age of corporate media conglomeration, when National
Public Radio sounds as safe as a glass of warm milk, "Democracy
Now!" retains a jagged and intriguing edge.
Goodman is the show's center, a slight 45-year-old in a pullover
vest, jeans and sneakers. Her unruly brown hair is streaked with
gray. She can break out a playful smile, and punctuate an interview
by opening a hatch in her office floor and sliding down a fire
pole to the floor below.
More often, though, her intensity burns through.
In two decades of reporting for Pacifica, she's been beaten bloody
by Indonesian soldiers as she charted East Timor's battle for
independence. And she's wandered the deltas of southern Nigeria
charting the environmental and human rights degradations of the
Nigerian army and Chevron Oil Corp.
For such work, she's received some of mainstream journalism's
highest honors: The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the George
Polk Award and the Overseas Press Club Award (an honor she declined
at the podium on awards night -- more on that later).
But the awards seem beside the point. Her Edward R. Murrow comes
always with a twist of Emma Goldman.
Goodman leans forward in her chair, trying to explain what's
so very clear to her. "I feel this is a very urgent time,
for this nation and the world," she says. "The clock
is ticking towards war. We can't do enough, we absolutely can't."
She begins broadcasting at 7 a.m. every morning, and works until
near midnight, talking to sources, reading documents and talking
up funders. (Although the show raises $2.5 million annually for
the Pacifica network, it, more than any other program, runs on
a shoestring budget: $800,000.) Each Friday, she heads to the
airport, hopping planes to such places as Seattle and Albuquerque,
Boston and Cleveland and Ithaca, N.Y., to talk about the coming
war with Iraq.
Her eye sockets look a bit hollowed out. It's hard to leave phone
messages for her because her voice mail keeps filling up.
"She doesn't say 'no' very well," says Michael Ratner,
a friend and an attorney with and president of with the Center
for Constitutional Rights.
Sleep? Her friend, Elizabeth Benjamin, head of the Legal Aid
Society's Health Law Unit, chuckles.
"I wish she got more of it. Amy has so much passion to right
the wrongs of the world."
The Amy & Bill Show
Three years ago, President Clinton placed an Election Day call
to "Democracy Now!" For Clinton it was supposed to be
two minutes of get-out-the-vote happy talk with a progressive
radio show and then: Gotta go.
Except Goodman began by asking: "You are calling radio stations
telling people to vote. What do you say to people who feel the
two parties are bought by corporations and that at this point
their vote doesn't make a difference?"
"There is not a shred of evidence to support that,"
Clinton rejoined.
And they were off and running, Amy and Bill, debating American
politics, the health effects of sanctions against Iraq, and whether
Clinton would pardon native American activist Leonard Peltier.
Why, she asked, did he fly back to Arkansas in 1992 during the
presidential campaign to execute a mentally impaired man?
Goodman is the reporter who sinks her teeth in and never lets
go, and he was the president who never gives up hope of winning
you over. "You have asked questions in a hostile, combative
and even disrespectful tone," he scolded Goodman at one point.
Then he kept on talking.
In this insider media age when oh-so-serious reporters measure
status by access to the powerful, Goodman is the journalist as
uninvited guest. You might think of the impolite question; she
asks it. She torments Democrats no less than Republicans.
When former senator Bob Kerrey called a news conference to defend
himself against charges he committed a war crime while a soldier
in Vietnam, Goodman asked if perhaps a war crimes tribunal should
be set up to examine the guilt of the war's architects, such as
Henry Kissinger.
Kerrey's halting demurral made a few television broadcasts. But
Goodman's question displeased some establishment media worthies.
That Sunday, NPR reporter Mara Liason went on "Fox Special
Report With Brit Hume" and complained that Goodman was not
really a journalist and that no one would have asked such a question
in Washington.
Last year Goodman sneaked into the World Economic Forum, a hermetically
sealed gathering of the powerful (and a few well-behaved journalist
guests) in Manhattan. She found Nicholas Platt, a former U.S.
ambassador to the Philippines and asked him if American support
of Indonesia was worth it, given that its military killed tens
of thousands in East Timor.
Platt squinted at her and inquired (on the air): "What ax
are you grinding right here?"
"I survived a massacre in East Timor," Goodman responded.
Growing Up Amy
Goodman grew up a movement child, the daughter of radical parents
in Bayshore, N.Y., across from Fire Island. Her father, a physician,
was featured in a poster for nuclear disarmament, the image of
a mushroom cloud in his stethoscope. (Going further back, she
is descended from prominent Hasidic rabbis, although she counts
herself a secular Jew.)
After graduating from Harvard in 1984, Goodman came to New York
City. She fiddled with the radio dial and found WBAI, the New
York affiliate of the cacophonously left-wing Pacifica, a network
founded in the 1940s by pacifist Lew Hill. She heard vegans and
pagans, performance artists and beatniks, jazz musicians and black
nationalists.
"It was New York, in all of its beauty and all of its ugliness,"
she recalls. "And it wasn't trying to sell a thing. I was
riveted."
She took a video documentary class, began volunteering at the
station and a few years later became the station's news director.
She's never left.
In 1991, she traveled to East Timor with journalist Allan Nairn.
They fell in step one day with a Timorese memorial procession.
As the procession passed a row of Indonesian troops, the soldiers
brought rifles to shoulders and began firing, killing 250 men,
women and children. Nairn and Goodman huddled on the ground as
the soldiers began beating them with rifle butts.
"Allan put his body over mine," she recalls. "I
thought we would die."
Photos show them afterward, bruised and bleeding from head to
foot. The Indonesians expelled them. But Goodman and Nairn made
a documentary that drew attention to this distant island, and
not incidentally explored the American complicity in backing the
Indonesian occupation.
As she accepted a prize for that work, Goodman was asked to explain
her approach. She replied: "Go where the silence is and say
something."
She has lived that advice, traveling to Yugoslavia, Haiti, Cuba,
Israel's occupied territories and Mexico, often recording reports
in the face of danger. In 1996, she started "Democracy Now!"
as a daily newsmagazine.
The shows are of varying quality. The politics can sometimes
seem predictable and the overseas telephone lines can sound as
if sanded with gravel. And sometimes the guests are a bit . .
. dated.
So on a recent day Ramsey Clark, the 75-year-old former U.S.
attorney general and patron saint of very lost causes (former
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and the North Korean government,
to name two) wandered in to talk up his campaign to impeach Bush
(www.VoteToImpeach.org).
But on its best days, Goodman's show has the quality of a good
reporter peering under unexpected rocks.
Goodman talks with a reporter for the German newsmagazine Der
Spiegel about his investigation into complicity of American and
European companies in selling biological and chemical weapons
supplies to the Iraqis in the 1980s. Another recent guest details
an investigative report in British papers that found the United
States was tapping the phones and reading the e-mails of United
Nations Security Council members during the debate over Iraq.
Last Thursday she interviewed two veteran war correspondents,
Chris Hedges of the New York Times and Robert Fisk of the Independent
in London, about the Pentagon's censorship of reporters.
"The press in the first Gulf War was completely managed,"
said Hedges, who covered that event. "The coverage was absolutely
shameful."
Fisk and Hedges often worked outside the Pentagon-approved press
pools in that first war and suffered arrests and beatings for
their trouble -- from allied troops. "I was arrested by the
Marines after I was betrayed by a CBS reporter who said I was
not in the pool."
None of these stories and views have gotten much air time on
the commercial or publicly funded airwaves.
"There's such an hunger out there for an alternative,"
Goodman says. "It's almost explosive."
Radio Amy
Two hundred thousand people jam the frigid streets of New York
City in early February, protesting the planned war on Iraq. Vast
puppet heads bob in the air, along with placards reading: "Somewhere
in Texas, a village has lost its idiot." And throughout the
crowd, demonstrators tune radios to WBAI and Amy Goodman -- who
is broadcasting live from the march.
Later, you find Goodman, sitting outside in a director's chair
on First Avenue, a pathetic foot-heater kicking out little in
the way of warmth. A techie fixes a webcast video camera on her.
It's another of those alt-media celebrity moments: the anchor
without leg warmers or makeup, but with politics and passion.
Actors Danny Glover and Susan Sarandon, and entertainer Harry
Belafonte and Archbishop Desmond Tutu stop by to chat. The broadcasts
of their interviews draw cheers far up the parade route.
The cold this day is wind-driven and cuts to the bone. And yet
Goodman sounds invigorated. Her life and passions are one -- she
works the vast majority of her waking hours. She is single and
has no children.
Even her friends aren't always sure what drives her, not exactly.
"A lot of us have parents who were political, but we're
not willing to accept a life that has very little room for pure
enjoyment," says Ratner, the Center for Constitutional Rights
president. "Amy will come to our annual baseball game up
in the country each summer, but a couple of hours later, she's
gone.
"I would love for her to reserve some part of her life for
herself."
Ask Goodman about this and she shrugs. She talks of drawing inspiration
from a century-old grandmother who, when sick, organized her sanitorium.
But quickly she turns the conversation to the war for oil and
empire in Iraq.
She's not so much disapproving as disinterested in the career
arcs of her generational peers.
Two years ago, a new board took over Pacifica and was accused
of trying to pasteurize the network's political edge. Goodman
walked away and broadcast on the Web for eight months. (That board
has since been overthrown and she has returned.) Four years ago,
she was invited to the Overseas Press Club's awards dinner, where
her Nigeria documentary would be honored. She could not afford
the $125 ticket, so she and a colleague sat on chairs in the back.
Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke was the club's keynote speaker
that night, but the club's board, including its chairman, Tom
Brokaw, set the ground rules: Holbrooke would not appear if he
had to answer questions.
Then Holbrooke gave a speech and noted that American bombers
had just hit a Serbian television station. Goodman took the podium
and declined her award.
"He'd just told a roomful of journalists that we've bombed
a television station and yet no one said a word," Goodman
recalls. "I said: 'Thank you, Mr. Brokaw, but no thank you.'
"
Goodman manages to recount this without sounding terribly self-righteous.
She respects a number of mainstream reporters -- or, in her lexicon,
corporate media -- and she likes nothing better than when they
pick up her stories, with or without credit.
The interview at an end, she slides down the fire pole, and you
swallow hard and follow her. She walks you to the door. Upstairs,
her braided and spike-haired producers prepare for the next day's
broadcast, downloading, cutting, fiddling with soundboards like
so many caffeinated maestros.
It's dark. She's eager to get back upstairs and rejoin them.
"There are so many deeply patriotic voices out there raising
questions about this war, and they aren't being heard." She
says goodbye, and reminds you: "Steal our stories -- please."
In response to tens of thousands of emails
and countless phone calls, letters and personal appeals, I am
moving forward to take the first step towards a candidacy for
the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
In the past year I have had the opportunity
to meet with many of you in dozens of cities across our nation.
The heart of America is yearning for dramatic, transformational
change which can reconnect us with the vision of our nation's
Founders, to be the light of the world.
In the next few months I will be returning
to visit the neighborhoods of America. If the response continues
to be strong, if the financial support is there, the encouragement
and the participation continues, I will schedule a formal announcement
of candidacy sometime in June.
I need to hear from you! I hope you enjoy
our new website and I welcome your suggestions. And most of all,
I need your help.
