December 14, 2004: Rustbelt Radio, from Pittsburgh Indymedia

Airs at 6pm on WRCT Pittsburgh, 88.3FM, and webcast.

Welcome to this week's edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's bi-weekly review of the news from the grassroots that the corporate media overlook. We will be alternating this semester every-other week with Left Out, a talk show that presents news and opinions from a perspective "left out" of the mainstream media.

On today's show...

• Contention and Repression: An Activist-Academic Dialogue at the University of Pittsburgh
• The Mon-Fayette Expressway, recently given final approval, faces criticism from local residents

but first, these headlines from Independent Media Centers in Pittsburgh and around the world

Headlines

Local News

Tuesday could be "doomsday" for public transit

As Rust Belt radio has previously reported, public transit riders have been engaged in two-year struggle to save the region's public transit from fare hikes, service cuts and lay-offs. That battle will reach a crescendo on Thursday when the Port Authority board will meet to decide on one of three different scenarios to resolve the $75 million dollar shortfall in its 2004 and 2005 fiscal year budgets.

The fate of public transit has involved a staggering array of players, including the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Governer Rendell, the Alleghany County Council and the Port Authority board. But both County and Port Authority officials have repeatly claimed the crisis could only be avoided with extra money supplied by the State.

Three weeks ago, however, the General Assembly adjourned without passing legislation necessary to save the statewide public transit crisis. Then, two weeks ago, the County Council Budget and Finance committee in an exceptionally roudy meeting decided against having any money for Port Authority in the budget they were recommending to the County Council. As a consequence, none of the State's matching funds would be available for the Port Authority. Some County Council members say they may be willing to provide a county supplemental budget depending on whether the State comes through with any money.

The State bail-out seems possible only if Governer Rendell dips into emergency funds to provide stop gap funding. Save Our Transit member Stephen Donahue told Pittsburgh Indymedia that the Governer is appealing to the Federal Department of Transportation in the hopes that they would come to the rescue.

So, on Thursday morning, the Port Authority board will chose between two rocks and a hard place. One proposal is to cut weekend and night-time service, shut down 70 routes, layoff 525 employees and also raise the base fare to $2.50. A second, slightly less draconian proposal, would raise the base fare to $2.50, eliminate and restructure numerous routes, cutback on nighttime service and lay-off 500 employees. A third proposal is to maintain present fares and service levels until Port Authority goes broke next next March.

Save Our Transit supports the third proposal, knowing full well that public transit riders will need to fight even harder to get the state funding. They oppose both the first and second proposal as they would [quote] "send a message to State that we are willing to accomodate the state's underfunding," according to Donahue.

Donahue is calling on all people concerned about public transit to attend a Save Our Transit rally at 9:00am in Mellon Square, Downtown, on Thursday, December 16th, before going to the 9:30am Port Authority Board meeting at 345 6th Avenue. Save Our Transit is asking that bus riders flood the meeting to ask that the system continue to be run at present service levels.

Meanwhile, on December 16th, the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority will also meet to decide on a base fare increase to $2.50 and eliminating weekend service to solve its budget shortfall. That same day in Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority will meet to decide on similar far-hikes, service cuts and layoffs to address its budget crisis.

US Attorney drops civil rights investigation in Ellerbe Case

Yesterday the US Attorney's office announced that it has dropped the civil rights case of Michael Ellerbe, a unarmed 12-year old boy who was shot in the back and killed by Pennsylvania state police in Uniontown on Dec 24, 2002.

According to the two state troopers in the case, Michael Ellerbe was shot while running away from them after leaving a crashed, stolen car on Christmas eve in a Uniontown housing complex. One of the troopers claims that his gun accidently discharged while he attempted to climb a fence in pursuit of Michael. The other trooper maintains that he heard the shot, saw his collegue fall. Thinking that Michael shot the trooper, he shot the boy.

But Michael was unarmed and the officer was not shot. Morever, an eyewitness says Curry did not fall and that he deliberately fired his weapon.

The bullet that killed Michael was never recovered. After a one day hearing on January 27, 2003, the Fayette County Coroner’s jury recommended that no charges be filed against the officers and that the homicide was justifiable. The Fayette County DA, Nancy Vernon, subsequently declined to file charges. Ellerbe's family then approached the US Attorney's office to charge the two state police officers with violating Micheals civil rights. After 23 months, the office announced that there not enough evidence to support criminal charges against the two Troopers and they were closing the case.

US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan is quoted in today's post-gazette as saying that she followed every lead that was passed on to her and the FBI. However, Rene Wilson, director of People Against Police Violence, informed Pittsburgh Indymedia earlier this afternoon that Buchanan wasn't telling the whole truth.

According to Wilson and to Ellerbe's family's attorney, Joel Sansone, there were other witnesses who could challenge the state trooper's accounts. These include the other children in the car, who say that the vehicle was not stolen and that Michael wasn't even driving it.

Wilson also wants to know why the FBI didn't investigate why the State troopers were visiting the housing complex instead of doing traffic control, which was their assignment, or why neither of them tested for alchohol, since the shooting took place on Christmas eve.

Wilson says, [quote] "This just goes to show that an African American's life doesn't have the same value as a white's. But we will never stop fighting for justice for michael."

People Against Police violence is organizing a protest on December 24th in Uniontown for the 2nd anniversary of the death of Michael Ellerbe.

Activists keep up the pressure on Skybank

For the past few months, Rust Belt radio has reported on the ongoing efforts of the Thomas Merton Center to get justice for the janitors who were fired last December by the Centre City Tower. The janitors lost their jobs after a successful union negotiation. Faced with having to pay the janitors a decent wage and provide healthcare benefits, Centre City Tower dropped the unionized janitor contractor and hired non-union workers.

On Friday December 3rd, 25 people picketed Sky Bank's Northside branch to protest the Bank's complicity in the Centre City affair. In addition to being one of its largest tenants, Sky Bank holds the mortgage of Centre City Tower and loaned the owner of the new janitorial contractor money at the same time that the contractor was hired to replace the unionized workers. On Saturday, December 11th, activists paid a visit to yet another Sky Bank branch.

[ skybank_dec14.ogg: 3:03 ]

The group is plans to return to the downtown Sky Bank branch this Friday at noon. They are also planning a mass action for the one year anniversary of the Janitors being laid-off, which is December 30th.

Environmentalists Expose "Victoria's Dirty Secret"

As snow fell down in Shadyside on Saturday, December 11th, a dozen environmentalists picketed outside Victoria’s Secret to protest the company’s logging of endangered forests. Each year Victoria's Secret mails out more than 395 million catalogs from virgin fiber paper, with little or no recycled content.

Peter McKosky, one of the protesters, noted that [quote] “There’s nothing sexy about cutting down vast swaths of forests to make junk mail.” “Five acres of forest are cut every minute in Canada, over half of it to make paper. As a leader of the catalog industry, Victoria’s Secret has the power to change that.” [end quote] Most of the paper comes from endangered forests, particularly from the Canadian Boreal and U.S. South.

The Shadyside demonstration was part of a national campaign organized by the San Francisco-based ForestEthics. Similar demonstrations have taken place in cities across the country, including Asheville and Portland in Oregon. The campaign demands that Victoria’s Secret maximize post-consumer recycled content in catalogs, stop purchasing paper from endangered forests, and reduce paper use.

The Pittsburgh event was organized by Voices for Animals, a local animal rights group that promotes animal rights and vegetarianism through education, community outreach, and demonstrations.

Mumia banned from Chicago subways

The name of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a civil rights activist from Philadelphia and death row inmate in western Pennsylvania, has been banned from the Chicago subway system.

South End Press, a 27-year-old independent book publisher, has learned that any advertisements promoting Mumia Abu-Jamal have been banned on Chicago's public transit system. This action was discovered when the Press investigated a report that a Chicago police officer had torn down a paid advertisement on Chicago's Red Line for the award-winning journalist's new book WE WANT FREEDOM: A LIFE IN THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY.

When asked for comment, Viacom Outdoor Marketing--a subsidiary of Viacom, Inc. that manages the advertisements on the Chicago transit system--informed South End Press "the CTA [Chicago Transit Authority] can no longer accept any more advertisements on this author, [Mumia Abu-Jamal]." This is not the first time Viacom has acted to prevent even the mention of Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 2002 Viacom-owned MTV censored a video by Public Enemy because the song included the line "Free Mumia." In addition to barring ads including Mumia Abu-Jamal, all South End Press advertising will be subject to approval before posting.

Similar repression took place in the days of the Black Panthers. WE WANT FREEDOM recounts two occasions when the police limited the First Amendment rights of Black Panthers. In one instance, Mumia tells the story of when he was selling papers in downtown Oakland and crossed the street in the middle of the block. Before he knew it, two police officers pulled up and arrested him for jaywalking. "If we were not selling copies of The Black Panther," asks Abu-Jamal, "would this have happened?" His conclusion is grim: "I don't think so. They were beating us softly."

Wrapup

For more on all of our local news stories, visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.

Global News

Intro

We turn now to headlines from Independent Media Centers around the world.

Post-Election Fracas Continues

As protests were held in State capitols across the country yesterday, the members of the Electoral College met to cast their votes for president. All 20 GOP electors for the state of Ohio cast their votes for George W. Bush, despite ongoing legal action in the state to determine if the large number of problems during the November 2nd election could have changed the outcome of the vote. In Pittsburgh, a protest was held in Squirrel Hill on Sunday.

Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell last week certified the states election results, after the Libertarian and Green campaigns failed in court to order that the states election results be certified early. Ohio law specifies that a recount may not take place until the election results are certified. The two campaigns have joined together to perform a recount in every one of Ohio's 88 counties, a process that they began this week. Because the Electoral College has already met, it is still not certain what actions could be taken if the recount found that John Kerry, rather than George Bush won the state.

Also this week, Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow/PUSH alliance have brought a lawsuit in the state of Ohio to examine the election results. Reports have come in of broken electronic voting machines that systematically awarded votes to George Bush, longer lines in predominantly Democratic precincts, and organized campaigns to re-direct voters to the wrong precincts. The Ohio courts did not hear arguments before the Electoral College met.

In their filing, the group said ""While the existence of anomalies could possibly be explained by human error or technical malfunctions, the fact that, in every case in Ohio known to the contestors, the error favored the Bush-Cheney ticket, strongly indicates manipulation or fraud."

Anti-biotech Professor at Berkeley denied tenure, loses job

A professor at California's largest public university is losing his job for criticizing the biotech industry.

Ignacio Chapela is a microbial ecologist who became an Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley in 1995. In that time he has taken a critical stance on the university's ties to the biotechnology industry, specifically a $25 million research pact signed in 1998 between Syngenta, a multinational biotech business, and the campus Department of Plant and Microbial Biology.

And in 2001, Chapela published a report in Nature magazine documenting the presence of transgenic DNA in traditional corn crops in Oaxaca, Mexico. His discovery provided evidence of transgenic contamination by genetically modified organisms (or GMOs) of non-GMO food. That contamination by out-of-control GMOs threatens the biodiversity of the planet and the safety of our food supply. His study was later denounced by the biotechnology industry.

Professor Chapela's tenure was was approved 32 to 1 by his department, but was rejected by the UC Berkeley Chancellor. The decision drew a wide range of protest and criticism around the Berkeley campus and the world. Hundreds of protesting letters were written to the University and groups of students and faculty held demonstrations in support of the Environmental Science Professor.

Chapela taught what could be his last class ever on the Berkeley campus last Thursday, December 9th. The day before his last class, he spoke with the program Food Fight on 3CR 855AM Community Radio in Melbourne, Australia about his research on GMOs and the response of a University administration he says has been bought by the biotech industry.

[ ignacio.ogg: chapela 1:43 interview clip ]

A campaign called Tenure Justice Now! has been formed to fight the corporate influence on universities and GMO food safety policy. Thanks to 3CR 855AM Community Radio in Melbourne Austrailia for excerpts of their interview with Ignacio Chapela.

West Papua: thousands face genocide by Indonesian military

In the remote Highlands of West Papua, the Indonesian-occupied western half of New Guinea island in the Pacific, up to 15,000 Papuan refugees are huddling together to keep warm in caves or make-shift shelters on the frozen foothills of the glacier-topped Puncak Jaya -- at 5,000 meters high, the tallest mountain in Australasia.

Sometime last week, they were herded into the mountains by Indonesian soldiers firing machine guns at them from helicopter gunships as they ran for their lives. Dozens have been shot dead by Indonesian soldiers including at least two elders, a church pastor, a woman and two children. The Indonesian military claims their most recent strikes the against West Papuan population are needed to defend development projects from guerilla attacks.

The Indonesian authorities have referred to the violence as "excesses" in their attempt to downplay human rights violations as they move for a restoration of ties between the Indonesian and U.S. militaries. The US has been pushing the Indonesian government to improve security for copper and gold mining operations in the area by multinational corporations, such as New Orleans-based Freeport McMoran.

Yes Men Dow Hoax

The 20th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy was a day of embarrassment for Dow chemicals and the major news media around the world when the BBC fell victim to a hoax from, Jude Finiseterra, a man, claiming to be a Dow spokesperson who claimed full responsibility for the tragedy. Finiseterra, a member of the Yes Men, a group who has impersonated some of the world's most powerful corporate criminals, was interviewed on BBC World. In the interview, Finisterra said Dow had accepted responsibility for the accident and had set-up a multibillion dollar compensation package The hoax ran twice on BBC World and was picked up by the major news wires before the BBC determined that no man named Jude Finisterra worked at Dow and he was an imposter.

Dow which bought Union Carbide three years ago, has always maintained it "has no responsibility" for the 1984 disaster when tons of lethal gases leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide factory in the city of Bhopal, India. 7,000 people lost their lives within days. 15,000 more lost died in the following years. Around 100,000 others are still suffering chronic and debilitating illnesses. It was one of the worst industrial disasters in history and for years activists have called on the firm to take full responsibility for the disaster and to clean up the contaminated site.

After the Yes Men hoax the company was forced to remind the world it did not take responsibility for the disaster and said there was no compensation fund set-up for the victims. In Frankfurt, Dow's share price fell 4.2 percent in 23 minutes, wiping $2 billion off Its market value before recovering all the day"s losses three hours later

Death toll for journalists is highest in decade

The ongoing violence in Iraq and a rash of killings in the Philippines have made 2004 the deadliest year for journalists in a decade. According to research compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 54 journalists have been killed in the line of duty so far this year, surpassing the toll in 1995, when 51 were killed, many in Algeria's bloody civil war.

"The number of journalists killed in 2004 is both shocking and unacceptable," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said. "Some of these reporters died in crossfire while covering a very dangerous war in Iraq, but the majority were murdered in direct reprisal for their reporting, particularly in the Philippines, where killers of journalists are not brought to justice."

A reporter was murdered in the Phillipines in 9 out of the past 10 months. Together with the National Union of Journalists of the Phillipines, the Phillipines Independent Media Center issued the following statement on December 8th:

"As Filipino journalists unite today in outrage, we also stand defiant against those who wish to silence Philippine media...Filipino journalists shall give no quarter to those to want to see a cowed and quiescent press. A united media sends notice to the enemies of Press Freedom: We shall overcome."

Not a single journalist killer has been brought to justice in the Phillipines since 1986.

Intelligence Bill Broadens Justice Department Powers

Last week Congress passed the Intelligence Reform Bill, which contains a number of provisions expanding the government's police powers. The Bill lays the foundation for a de facto national ID card, allows the Justice Department to detain suspects without bail more easily, and loosens the standards the FBI must meet to obtain surveillance warrants.

The Intelligence Bill, much like the USA PATRIOT Act that preceded it, was passed with little or no public input. The House voted 336 to 75 for the measure, while the Senate gave its approval by a whopping 89 to 2 margin.

The following are five of the bill's measures related to law enforcement:

First, the bill broadens the definition of activities that can constitute [quote] “material support” [end quote] of terrorist groups.

Second, the bill grants new authority for U.S. prosecutors to share grand jury information with states or foreign governments in major terrorist cases.

Third, the bill allows for immediate denial of bail to suspects in major terrorism cases unless they can demonstrate that they are not a danger or flight risk.

Fourth, the bill increases penalties for harboring illegal immigrants, perpetrating a terrorist hoax, and possessing smallpox, anti-aircraft missiles or “dirty” bombs.

Fifth, the bill gives new authority for FBI agents to obtain secret surveillance and search warrants without having to show a connection between the target of the warrant and a foreign government or terrorist group.

Regarding that last point, its worth reminding our listeners about the FBI's October seizure of two indymedia servers that brought down 20-plus indymedia websites. Last month we reported that the secret court order leading to the FBI seizure of the Indymedia servers was justified by the federal authorities in a letter to a U.S. district court because Indymedia was part of a [quote] "ongoing criminal terrorist investigation." [end quote] The expanded FBI powers make will it easier for the FBI to seize in secret even more Indymedia hardware in the future without public accountability.

Wrapup

You can read more about our global news stories by visting I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G. We'll be back after a brief break.

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Features

Intro

That was ReBirth Brass Band. Welcome back to Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's bi-weekly review of the news that the corporate media overlook.

Contention and Repression: An Activist-Academic Dialogue

Last Tuesday, December 7th, The Pittsburgh Social Movements Forum presented Contention and Repression: An Activist-Academic Dialoge at the University of Pittsburgh.

Two renowned social movements scholars presented research on state repression, and local activists responded to and dialogued with them.

John McCarthy of the Sociology Dept. at Pennsylvania State University gave a presentation on Protest and Place: The Shrinking Effective Size of the U.S. Public Forum

and

Jennifer Earl of the Sociology Dept. at the University of California, Santa Barbara: Seeing Blue: A Police-Centered Explanation of Protest Policing

Dr. Earl spoke about different theories of how and why protest movements are repressed. In particular, she looked at the "Elite-threat" model and her "Blue" or police-centered model.

The Elite Threat model suggests that movements which present the largest threat to Elites will feel the most repression. But Dr. Earl presented an argument for her "Blue" model of repression, which is based upon factors within police organizations that affect how they deliver repression.

Here is Dr. Jennifer Earl of UCSB with more on her presentation "Seeing Blue: A Police-Centered Explanation of Protest Policing"

[ ucsb_cops.ogg dr. earl clip - 3:50 ]

The Academic presentations were followed by a roundtable on studying state repression.

This discussion also involved Scholars from the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University as well as local activists, studying repression in the US and abroad.

The Pittsburgh Social Movements Forum, which organized the event, includes faculty and students from the University of Pittsburgh Department of Sociology and Duquesne University.

Mon-Fayette

andalusia will edit a bit more later if there is time

The federal government has just authorized the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to move forward with the 24-mile, $2 billion northern end of the heavily contested Mon-Fayette Expressway.

The Federal Highway Administration's decision ends a dozen years of preliminary planning, public meetings and debate for one of the largest road-building programs under way in the United States. Another 10 years of work lie ahead.

Much of the argument against the Mon-Fayette Expressway involves the expense of building a new toll road, especially in an area with such underfunded public transportation. Activists such as the Group Against Smog and Pollution, GASP, feel that the money is being put into road building instead of road maintenance. They refer to PennDot and PTC as a “transport machine that is maintaining less but building more” while in the meantime “communities, homes and natural resources are being swallowed” (“Mon-Fayette Expressway”).

Because the expressway will run through towns from Route 68 in West Virginia to Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River Valley, the construction will call for the removal of homes, buildings, and natural surroundings that lie in the proposed path of the expressway. Many residents faced with these issues feel that the Mon-Fayette Expressway will do more to hurt them than to help”

Rust Belt Radio will now air audio clips taken from the Mon Fayette Expressway Video Project- a series of interviews with people who oppose the Highway construction.

We will first listen to a protest that took place at the ribbon cutting ceremony of the opening of part of the highway on april 12, 2002. We will hear skits and speeches by members of the Sierra Club, Citizens for Alternatives to Toll Roads, Penn Future and the What Collective.

[ ribboncutting.ogg: ribbon cutting ceremony 6:30 ]

We will now hear from an interview with Etta Cetera and Duck Hollow residents Al Haws? about their fight against the construction of the highway.

[ duckhollow.ogg 1:30 ]

We also spoke with Billy again on teh Hazelwood riverside trail about the impact of the highway and Waterfront development in Homestead

[ billy.ogg billy 6:30 ]

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Ending

Calendar of events

• tomorrow on the CMU campus, Think Before You Drink, A stimulating look at coffee production and consumption. Courtesy of the CMU History and Policy Project Course: THINK BEFORE YOU DRINK. WEDNESDAY, December 15, 2004: CMU Campus, Baker Hall room A-53 (basement) at 4:30 PM. In addition, a coffee tasting will be held beforehand.
• also on Wednesday, a Public Hearing on Election Irregularities and Voter Suppression in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. That's downtown at the City Council Chambers, 5th floor, Forbes Ave.and Grant St. From 6:00 PM-9:30PM, Voters, poll workers and poll monitors who experienced or observed election irregularities or voter suppression on Election Day. This is a non-partisan statewide event from Election Protection.
• and also On Thursday December 16, the Women's Independent Press will host a Townhall meeting to discuss Where Do We Go From Here? Critical thinking about our political system. How do women work together to create a positive social and political change? A dialogue that meant to eventually result in a fair representation of women in leadership roles and government at all levels. That's at the Friends Meeting House on 4836 Ellsworth Avenue on thursday.

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Outro

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Thanks for tuning in to Rust Belt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh. To get involved with Rust Belt Radio, or to send us your comments, email RADIO at I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot O-R-G. All of our shows are available for download on the internet at RADIO dot INDY-P-G-H dot ORG