Solidarity is not a Crime. Response to Rowley Sarfehjooy Article

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 As members of an organization committed to peace and justice, the Minnesota Committee in Solidarity with the People of Syria (CISPOS), it was disheartening for us to see an article in Huffington Post that falsely alleges that we are working “in sync with neocon warhawks to produce and sustain a perpetual state of U.S. war.” Coleen Rowley and Margaret Sarfehjooy’s article “Selling ‘Peace Groups’ on US-Led Wars” does not provide insightful analysis and is constructed on unfounded claims.The article is fallout from the widespread controversy in the peace movement over how to respond to the brutal war in Syria.Many anti-war pundits and activists have bought into U.S. propaganda that the U.S. is actively supporting the Syrian rebels to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria. They point to the 1997 Project for a New American Century plan for regime change in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. They believed Hillary Clinton in 2012 when she said the Assad regime must go and that the international community stands with the Syrian people.  In fact…the U.S. has given very little training, small weapons, and funds to very few rebel groups.  Congress recently dropped $300 million for the Syrian rebels from the defense bill, almost completely cutting what the Syrian opposition already saw as paltry support from the U.S.  On the other hand, the CIA has long had a working relationship with Assad, sending him numerous terrorist suspects to torture as part of their rendition program. Assad has provided Israel with a secure border.Talk with Syrians and you’ll learn that U.S. aid was never enough to counter Assad’s MiGs, attack helicopters, Scud missiles, heavy tanks, chemical weapons. They repeatedly state that the U.S. bombing of ISIS has helped Assad – the bombing has sometimes targeted groups aligned with anti-Assad forces and never hit the regime. Continue Reading

EMERGE Career and Technology Center Grand Opening Success

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Over 400 people celebrated the Grand Opening of the EMERGE Career and Technology Center (ECTC) on Thursday, January 22nd. Hands-on demonstrations in EMERGE training rooms were popular, and it was standing-room only for the 5 pm program. The ECTC is critical to EMERGE’s mission of helping people maximize their potential and launch careers. In addition to housing Leadership and Development teams, these are the activities and teams that will be housed in the ECTC:Computer literacy training will help close the ‘digital divide’ between people who are computer literate and those who are not. An open access computer lab on the lower level will allow community members to practice skills, search jobs online, create resumes, and otherwise use computers, particularly for purposes of seeking employment.Industry-specific workforce training will be delivered in training labs on the lower level, which will house EMERGE’s training department. EMERGE’s youth programs, focused on education and employment, will be housed on the upper floor. EMERGE is committed to providing quality, paid work experiences to youth who would otherwise not have employment opportunities.Designed to be a clearing house of partnerships, three key, initial partners will be onsite:Hennepin Technical College (HTC) will base an auxiliary campus in the center, with a manufacturing assessment lab in one of the three training rooms on the lower level.Minnesota Computers for the Schools will staff a new satellite site in the ECTC providing a variety of IT-related trainings for youth and adults.Northside Economic Opportunity Network (NEON) will provide entrepreneurial workshops and trainings.A highlight of the evening was closing speech by Lydia Johnson, former EMERGE participant. Said Lydia, “Education and jobs can break the cycle. When one person makes it, other people start to believe. Continue Reading

DEWATERING the CHAIN of LAKES: Can Calhoun Recover?

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The federal funding formula for the proposed Southwest LRT could require almost a billion in Minnesota money. Met Council and Hennepin County Commission estimates assumed a 50-50 split in the $1.65-billion-plus projected budget. However the new recipe looks more like 40-percent federal money, 60-percent state and local.The long-planned but constantly morphing SWLRT, with a “shallow” tunnel in the Chain of Lakes corridor, is the priciest public works project ever proposed in Minnesota. According to Met Council studies the cut-and-cover tunnel plan would dewater about 24,000 gallons of groundwater per day between Cedar, Lake of the Isles and Calhoun. Now a new plan for a “push through” tunnel is being researched but the Environmental Impact Statement is incomplete. Continue Reading

Community Voices: A white boy’s thoughts on Martin King

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(I originally posted this on Facebook, but that is probably not the right venue for essays.)

 

Martin Luther King. His day, so to speak?  What should a white boy think or say about this?  I was born in 1950 and remember the snarling hostility towards King. The billboards saying “Martin Luther King is a Communist.” And so on. King was hated by nany people, including my family. Continue Reading

Please Disturb Us

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Shortly before Christmas, organizers of a group protesting the treatment of black men scheduled a demonstration at the local monument to consumption: The Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. The Mall is private property and authorities said no to the request to demonstrate inside. Demonstrators said they would demonstrate there anyway to bring attention to their cause.Authorities tried to use the threat of force and mass arrests to deter the demonstrators. Sandra Johnson, Bloomington city attorney, threatened charges of disorderly conduct, trespassing and even inciting a riot for orchestrating a peaceful demonstration meaningful to everyone. That made matters worse.Between 2,000 and 3,000 people gathered in the mall’s rotunda and sang songs and chanted slogans. Continue Reading

OPINION | Time for law enforcement to listen to criticism

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The recent open letter issued by the police union presidents of Minneapolis and St. Paul (1/4/15) does not indicate a readiness to listen, but to lecture those critical of law enforcement (www.mpdfederation.com/police). Like police union leaders in New York City and elsewhere, their letter seems to make the same spurious claim that protests against police brutality and discrimination may have incited Ismaaiyl Brinsley to murder two NYPD officers.In light of protesters’ just anger over the killing of unarmed Black Americans, even suggesting such a link lacks respect for the communities that law enforcement serves. Protesters are as heartsick over the tragic death of the officers as anyone. We empathize with officers’ families who lost a loved one as we do with the families of Eric Garner or Michael Brown.The institution of policing in this country is being criticized because of its own actions, attitudes and arrogance abetted by politicians who support policing practices that daily disregards the dignity and human rights of communities of color. Continue Reading

Oil pipe lines, oil satire and Mike Gelfand

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The first of nine public and evidentiary hearings this month on the proposed Minnesota reach of the Sandpiper Pipeline convened on January 5th at St. Paul’s River Center. Ballrooms A and B, combined, are as large as Iowa and more than 200 citizens showed up to listen and/or speak.  I was there for about an hour with my video camera; the session went on into the night.  The hearings are being conducted by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and provide ample time for pro and con opinion and, under oath, experts, scientists, State DNR and MPCA regulators and Enbridge Oil, Inc. officials to present factual and clarifying information. The approximately 600-mile long pipeline would carry Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to Superior, Wisconsin.  About 300 miles or more of it would pass through Minnesota.   75% of Enbridge’s proposed Sandpiper alignment in Minnesota would be constructed within existing pipeline corridors.  There are alternate pipeline alignments in the discussion, at least one of which would run entirely within existing pipeline corridors.   Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) attorney Kathryn Hoffman and others say that 25% of the alignment favored by Enbridge goes through sensitive peat and bog lands, forests and lake and stream watersheds.  MCEA and citizen groups including Honor the Earth and Friends of the Headwaters oppose the Enbridge plan. It gets complicated being that the review and approval/denial process involves studies, reports and claims being generated by the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the MN DNR, MPCA, Enbridge, organized labor and others.  MCEA and Friends of the Headwaters have jointly filed a suit in Ramsey County requesting a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the thing.  Add in just a few of the operating acronyms – EIS, PUC, EPA, FOH – and it gets very complicated for the un-baptized.   But on the current edition of Democratic Visions, Kathryn Hoffman, Tim O’Brien and the Dem Vis graphics/editor guy admirably service we non-wonks. The O’Brien and Hoffman discussion is followed by a satirical, animated short film crafted by Vancouver-based editorial cartoonist Dan Murphy.  Murphy’s targets are Canada’s oil executives, pipeline politicians and its image, now dripping with tar-sand oil. As grandson and grandmother characters, Brandon Boat and Maggie Sotos from The Theater of Public Policy (T2P2) weigh in on the generation gap among Minnesota Democrats in an improvised sketch and humorist/provocateur Mike Gelfand speaks of the distracted drivers in his St. Louis Park neighborhood. Democratic Visions is an independently produced public access television monthly that can be viewed on flat screen sets in the following cities – SW ‘burbs — Channel 15 in Eden Prairie, Richfield, Minnetonka, Edina and Hopkins – Sundays 9 p.m., Mondays 10 p.m., Wednesdays 5:30 p.m., Saturdays 2 p.m. Bloomington – BCAT Channel 16 – Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m. & 10:00 p.m.; Fridays at 9:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. & 2:30 p.m.Minneapolis – MTN Channel 16 – Sundays at 8:30 p.m., Mondays 3:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m.  Program is streamed at the MTN website during cablecasts. Continue Reading

Tom Heuerman: Time to Think

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Anne Lindbergh told the story of Andre Gide who was traveling fast through the jungles of Africa. One morning the native guides sat in a circle and refused to leave the camp. When Gide urged them to get moving they looked at him and with firmness said, “Don’t hurry us–we are waiting for our souls to catch up with us”We live in a frenetic and connected world. We fear anonymity. Everyone wants to be known. Continue Reading