Archive - Nov 2000

By Chodron (with generous assistance from CISPES)

While many Zapatistas and Anarchists in Austin are struggling to discover and define what lies "beyond solidarity," there can be no turning one's back to genuine calls for solidarity with our sisters and brothers, los abuelos and the many people who have suffered directly from the U.S. military/corporate killing machine. There is, unfortunately, no scarcity of cases to illustrate the complicity of U.S. forces with corrupt regimes. An important example is El Salvador.

Florabelth de la Garza is a Javelina contributor writing from Feison, North Carolina, where the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) is located. With Ramiro Sarabia, a FLOC organizer, Flor mobilizes migrant farmer workers picking cucumbers, tobacco, and tomatoes for agro-industrial corporations like Mt. Olive Pickles.

Focus on biotechnology in world trade, Cuba

by Anne Tagonist

Professors from Texas A&M University will be meeting with world government officials, biotechnologists andagri business representatives, as well as farmers and ranchers at the International Agricultural Trade Summit at the Hyatt Regency International in Houston on November 14 and 15. Officially, the summit will "allow producers and agribusinesses to receive a first-hand look at important issues affecting today's trade of foods and other agricultural goods." Unofficially, the conference resembles a summit on biocolonialism.

Bastrop Strip Mining Hearing overrun by ALCOA Supporters

by Stefan Wray

GIDDINGS, TX On Nov. 2, what organizers had hoped would have been a "Rage Against the Corporate ALCOA Machine" turned out differently than expected. It was hoped that hundreds of nvironmental activists and concerned citizens would converge on the Lee county courthouse to send a strong message to the Texas Railroad Commission that surface mining in Lee and Bastropis unacceptable.

Quite a number of strip mine opponents did turn up, but so did lots of people wearing "I Support ALCOA" badges. Their presence overshadowed the proceedings and cast an aluminum gray tone over the entire affair.

by Nicole True

Political asylum is officially offered in the United States and in all other countries who signed the Convention against Torture. If an individual establishes that she has a well-founded fear of returning to her home country due to the threat of persecution for her race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion, she may be granted political asylum.

Action was sixteenth US decontamination of 2000

On October 9th, an underground organization known as Green Streets destroyed a half-acre test plot of genetically engineered corn at the University of California/Berkeley's Gil Tract Research Facility. This is the third time in five years that the group, (which presumably has no connection to the Austin area newsletter of the same name) has decontaminated the Gil Tract site. In a communique, the group claimed it had been monitoring the site since August, testing crops for genetic contamination at an independent lab.

Deep Roots News

By Cypress

How to Survive the Rainy Season Blues and Flu

It is a wonder to me that peoples' gardens have not gone into shock due to the abrupt seasonal shift. Some fall crops may be gladly welcoming the rains but others are getting more than they can handle. The transition from extremely hot and dry summer days to indeterminate rains has caught many gardeners off guard both concerning their gardens and their own bodies. Fortunately, with some good planning and knowledge, gardeners can flood and mold proof their gardens and keep their immune systems strong and spirits lifted through the rainy fall season.

this time we fight back!

November 6, 2000- Barely a month after going back on the air, Free Radio Austin, an East Austin unlicensed community microradio station broadcasting at 97.1FM was again shut down by federal agents. Rather than simply mocking the Federal Communications enforcement officials and US marshals, supporters rolled trash cans into street and attempted to block government vehicles from loading or carrying off radio equipment. One woman was run down, one woman was arrested, and another man was thrown roughly after attempting to lock his neck the bumper of FCC agent Lloyd Perry's vehicle.

Free Radio supporters climb a fence from a neighboring property. The property owner flat refused to file acomplaint.

The following letter was sent to the Javelina by the Houston Anarchist Black Cross

Sept. 2, 2000

Dear Friends,

Please help. I am a U.S. federal prisoner. After years of being misdiagnosed and mistreated, I have just been informed another major attack of the disease would mean my feet would have to be amputated below the ankle. This is directly due to the neglect I have endured over the years.