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STRAIGHT TRACK
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Sunday, November 30, 2003 |
"The President Ought to be Ashamed"
By Eric Boehlert
Salon
Friday 21 November 2003
Former Sen. Max Cleland blasts Bush's "Nixonian" stonewalling of the 9/11 commission, his "lies" about Iraq, and his flight-suit photo op on the USS Lincoln after "hiding out" during Vietnam.
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During his six years as a United States senator from the conservative state of Georgia, Max Cleland was known as a moderate Democrat. He drew the wrath of liberals in 2001 when he broke ranks with Democrats and voted for President Bush's tax cuts, and last year he backed the resolution authorizing Bush to wage war with Iraq (though on that vote, at least, he was joined by some liberals).
Today, though, Cleland has emerged as one of the president's harshest critics, especially about the war he voted to authorize. Today, he says, it's a move he deeply regrets, as he scans the headlines from Baghdad. "I feel like I have been duped, I don't mind telling you," Cleland admits. "Everybody in the administration was selling this used car. The problem is all the wheels have fallen off the car and we've got a lemon."
Cleland, perhaps known for being a triple amputee Vietnam vet, lost his Senate seat last November in a race that has gone down in history as typifying the GOP's take-no-prisoners approach to politics. The disabled veteran was smeared as soft on terror because he didn't back Bush's version of homeland security legislation.
Now, outspoken and blunt, he's furious about the White House's handling of the war with Iraq, which he calls a disastrous "war of choice." And he mocks the administration's claims that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were allies. "They had a plan to go to war [with Iraq], and when 9/11 happened that's what they did; they went to war."
Meanwhile, as one of 10 commissioners serving on the independent panel created by Congress to investigate the 9/11 attacks, Cleland bemoans the administration's "Nixonian" love of secrecy and its attempt to "slow walk" the commission into irrelevancy.
At the center of the secrecy debate are sensitive presidential daily briefings, or PDBs, that the commission wants to examine as part of its inquiry. Particularly important is the crucial Aug. 6, 2001 PDB, which warned of Osama bin Laden's desire to hijack commercial planes in the United States. For months the White House resisted, and the commission hinted it might subpoena the document. A deal was finally cut last week, which Cleland opposed, allowing a handpicked subset of commissioners to be briefed on the PDBs.
"We shouldn't be making deals," Cleland complains. "If somebody wants to deal, we issue subpoenas. That's the deal."
Republicans say the partisan flavor of Cleland's anti-Bush broadsides are easy to explain; he's still stinging from his surprise reelection loss last November. Cleland denies it, but if he were still bitter, it would be easy to see why, considering he was the victim of a now-infamous attack ad, which even some Republicans objected to.
Cleland's opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who sat out Vietnam with a bad knee, aired a spot featuring unflattering pictures of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein ... and Max Cleland. Chambliss charged Cleland, the Vietnam vet amputee, was soft on national security because he'd voted against creating the Homeland Security Act. In truth, Cleland co-wrote the legislation to create the Homeland Security Department, but objected to repeated attempts by the White House to deprive future Homeland Security employees of traditional civil service protection.
It's hard to imagine any recent Democratic senator less soft on national security than Max Cleland, a reflection on the unlikely path he took to the U.S. Senate. In 1967 he volunteered for combat duty. The next year, during the siege of Khe Sahn, Cleland lost both his legs and his right hand to a Viet Cong grenade. Two years later, at the age of 28, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Georgia state Senate. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed him to head the Veterans Administration. He later became Georgia's secretary of state. And in 1996, Georgia voters sent Cleland and his wheelchair to the Senate.
In a lengthy phone interview on Tuesday, Cleland wondered why Bob Woodward gets better access to White House documents than the 9/11 commission ("Just think about that"), blasted Bush on Iraq ("We've got an absolute disaster on our hands"), while constructing a viable exit strategy ("They're trying to make Iraq the 51st state.") He also talked about the trouble Democratic politicians are having getting elected in the South.
12:48:01 PM
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Saturday, November 29, 2003 |
Diebold Caves on Threats But Potential Voter Fraud Lives On in U.S.
As reported on U.S. Democrat Party presidential hopeful, Denis Kucinich's website , "Diebold Inc., one of the nation's largest electronic voting machine manufacturers, is withdrawing threats against ISPs for hosting users [like Indymedia] who publish or link to corporate documents suggesting there are flaws in its equipment and irregularities with certifying the systems for elections." An Indymedia global feature last month described the threats and activists response to them. Now the documents can even be found on Kucinich's own government webpage where the congressman refers to Diebold's threats as contrary to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Growing concern in the U.S. about the potential for one's vote to be changed without their knowledge in the upcoming 2004 presidential elections has sparked a rapidly expanding movement to correct the course of events. The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (H.R. 2239) , represents one such response, but Rep. Robert Ney, chairman of the House committee that would propose the bill, opposes it, so its future is in doubt. Interestingly, Ney is a Republican representing Ohio, the home state of Diebold.
Black Box Activist Forum | Endorse letter to House Committee | Read entire feature ]
12:21:12 PM
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Thursday, November 27, 2003 |
November 24, 2003 04:14 PM US Eastern Timezone
News From USWA: Steelworkers Calls for Congressional Investigation into
Police-State Assaults in Miami
PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 24, 2003--News From USWA: Union
condemns use of federal Iraq reconstruction funds to subsidize "homeland
repression" at FTAA meetings
The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) is calling for a Congressional
investigation into "a massive police state," created in part with
federal funds, to intimidate union members and others critical of the
proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and limit their rights
during FTAA meetings in Miami last week.
"Last week, the fundamental rights of thousands of Americans ... were
blatantly violated, sometimes violently, by the Miami police, who
systematically repressed our Constitutional right to free assembly with
massive force, riot gear and armaments," said Leo W. Gerard, USWA
international president, in a letter to Congressional leaders.
"It is condemnable enough that a massive police state was created to
prevent American citizens from directly petitioning FTAA negotiators for
redress of their grievances," Gerard said in the letter.
"It is doubly condemnable," he added, "that $9 million of federal funds
designated for the reconstruction of Iraq were used toward this
despicable purpose. How can we hope to build democracy in Iraq while
using massive force to dismantle it here at home?"
Citing "countless instances of humiliating repression in which the Miami
police force disgraced itself," Gerard said that Miami police chief John
Timoney should be fired, all charges against peaceful demonstrators
should be dropped, and a Congressional investigation into the Miami
police department's systematic repression should immediately be
launched.
"To do less would be to endorse homeland repression in the guise of
homeland security," Gerard's letter concluded.
The full text of the letter is available on the USWA website:
www.uswa.org
Contacts
USWA
Marco Trbovich, 412-562-2442
5:50:10 PM
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Wednesday, November 26, 2003 |
International Buy Nothing Day To Be Celebrated In 55 Countries
In observance of what may very well be the most important holiday of the year for the anti-capitalist movement, people in at least 55 countries will celebrate International Buy Nothing Day this weekend. Begun in 1993 by the founders of Adbusters, the concept has taken root in diverse communities and manifested in multiple ways in cities throughout the world. In Europe, International Buy Nothing Day (BND) is celebrated the last Saturday in November (the 29th) while in the United States and Canada the event has coincided with the day after Thanksgiving. The latter date was chosen in response to the fact that the last Friday of November has become, due to intentional marketing strategies, the "biggest shopping day of the year" in the United States. BND was conceived as a protest against the religion of consumerism, and the multiple ways in which the imperative to shop is implicated in systematic violence throughout the world. In its positive aspects, BND is a celebration of life, community and local autonomy.
Meanwhile, a group of "anarcho-situationists" from Montreal have decried Buy Nothing Day as a "misplaced...notion of consumer empowerment." Seeking to raise the bar on anti-consumerist action, they have called for Steal Something Day, to be held Friday, Saturday and everyday.
Read the entire feature.
[ International Buy Nothing Day | UK | New Zealand | Netherlands ]
11:43:47 PM
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Tuesday, November 25, 2003 |
Frederick C. Gamst
Abstract
The customary focus of internal and external investigations of human error on US railroads is the individual. For undistorted understanding of errors, and resulting accidents, we must understand the power structure in the hierarchy of levels of error. At the highest level, a state society and its culture(s) generate human errors. Below this are the errors from legislation, its executive enforcement including by regulatory agencies, and their judicial interpretations. Next, we reach the level of error from organizations, in actions and inactions of managers. At the bottom of the levels of error causation are the team and, then, the individual whose error is ordinarily not in isolation but shaped by errors on the higher levels. When supra-individual error remains uncountered, then, efforts to reduce error frequency in a workplace are largely ineffective.
Keywords: Human Error, Societal Levels, Organizations, Regulation, Railroads
8:18:28 PM
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Friday, November 21, 2003 |
Miami Vice
By Tom Hayden, AlterNet
November 20, 2003
Editor's Note: Tom Hayden, reporting for AlterNet from the Free Trade Area of the Americas conference in Miami, filed this update Thursday evening. The original story follows the update.
UPDATE. MIAMI. 10:30 EST, Thursday An ugly and bloodier ending to the Miami FTAA meeting was averted by a sudden decision tonight to end the closed official events one day early. FTAA co-chairs from the US and Brazil both described the summit as a step forward though it was widely understood that the agreement was far less than the American business community and the White House originally hoped for.
7:08:59 PM
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Wednesday, November 19, 2003 |
Anti-FTAA protests begin in Miami amidst police harassment
Monday kicked off the week of negotiations and protests on the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Miami, Florida. Business leaders gathered Monday for the American Business Forum in the Hyatt Regency in downtown Miami for three days of planning how to pressure the FTAA toward preserving corporate interests. Police from all over the country have arrived to supplement the already massive presence of city police, sheriffs, homeland security agents and the FBI. Before the protests even began, activists and reporters have been singled out, targeted, and followed on a regular basis, both by bicycle and by vehicle. In addition, at least 12 activists have been arrested for being on city sidewalks.
But despite the intimidation campaign by the police and media in Miami, support for the protest has been growing, and activists have created a non-hierarchical organizational and logistical structure that emulates the society they say they would like to create.
Meanwhile, inside the walled-in fortress of downtown Miami, trade negotiators have already hit bumps that may disrupt or even de-rail this week's talks. While the US had hoped to avoid controversy by pushing for a scaled-down version of the FTAA that avoided contentious issues like agricultural dumping and intellectual property, officials from Canada, Chile and several other nations disapprove of this idea, said negotiators on Sunday.
[ FTAA Indymedia | Live audio stream | Trading Away Democracy ]
2:45:24 AM
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Thursday, November 13, 2003 |
Veteran's Parades Are Over But Bush Regime Disregard Lives On
Now that the Veterans Day Parades and speeches are over many war vets and their families continue to ask why the Bush regime gives nothing but lip service to U.S. vets while at the same time slashing their benefits and those to their families. 750 vets sent an open letter to their "commander-in-chief" asking just that, as well as questioning the validity of the regime's occupation of Iraq. Even the commander of the conservative veterans group, the American Legion, is upset about the travesty of Whitehouse disregard of veterans benefits.
With the recent publication of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's own version of the story of her capture in Iraq and her dismay about the Pentagon's fabrications of that event, as well as some other war heroes asking hard questions of the Bush regime and demanding that Washington stop passing the buck on veterans issues, the Bush regime is facing growing opposition from the veteran community. The fact that neither Bush, nor any other high-profile neo-cons are attending funerals for the growing number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq, speaks volumes about the regime's priorities.
[ Vets for Justice | Vets Bushflash | The petition ]
10:41:09 PM
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Wednesday, November 12, 2003 |
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Tuesday, November 11, 2003 |
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Internal emails and memos from Diebold on their voting machines/software
A few months ago, an internet user stumbled upon an anonymous ftp site that contained archives of emails sent to/from diebold. These memos indicate that diebold knowingly sold insecure voting equipment to states and also violated federal law by making changes to the sofware after certification. Diebold is currently on a mission to block this information from becoming public knowledge. Below are a few quotes from the memos that should scare anyone who believes in democracy.
- I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb"
- For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the last AT/AV demo.
- Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.
- Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.
- Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.
- 4K Smart cards which had never been previously programmed are being recognized by the Card Manager as manager cards. When a virgin card from CardLogix is inserted into a Spyrus (have tried CM-0-2-9 and CM-1-1-1) the prompt "Upgrade Mgr Card?" is displayed. Pressing the ENTER key creates a valid manager card. This happens in Admin mode and Election mode.
- It does not matter whether we get anything certified or not, if we can't even get the foundation of Global stable. This company is a mess! We should stop development on all new, and old products and concentrate on making them stable instead of showing vaporware. Selling a new account will only load more crap on an already over burdened entity.
Are these really the type of people you want running YOUR elections.
| For more information on related sites and recent press coverage please visit the Main Site
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I have already been forced to remove the actual memos from my website, but you can try the following links to the complete memos unless/until they also get shut down.
* Browse the documents: http://chroot.net/s/lists/, http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~ping/diebold/lists.html
* Search the documents: http://diebold.f-451.net/search/search.php
* BitTorrent: http://cscott.net/Activism/lists.tgz.torrent
* EDonkey/Overnet: [ed2k://|file|list.tar.bz2|7762005|c53855d1c5da1fec2da1548905bc689f|/]
* Freenet:
CHK@sgOjWAy4g-0bf0m5biyqnEzWloENAwI,OXw8OfHPfsmLd068BtICKg/lists.tgz
CHK@fsatUAqLqJP91UTrCoReT3qciVYNAwI,whenOQbgnMLSo84zg1~~aA/lists.tar.bz2
* Newsgroup postings: Help us do this
* Archived file (tarred and gzipped):
http://eddie.ratm.net/johnkimble/lists/lists.tgz
http://www3.telus.net/swix/list.tar.bz2 (checksum, sig)
On a Windows PC, use WinZip or WinRAR; on a Mac just double-click the file
* .edu hosts of the documents (both archived and full-text):
o Swarthmore College (takedown request received)
o Swarthmore College (takedown request received)
o Univ. of Southern California http://www-scf.usc.edu/~kanawi/lists.tgz
o Massachusetts Institute of Technology (takedown request received)
o Massachusetts Institute of Technology (takedown request received)
o Massachusetts Institute of Technology http://web.mit.edu/chrisk/www/diebold/list.tar.bz2
o Purdue University (takedown request received)
o Univ. of TexasPan American http://www.asl.cs.panam.edu/~babbitt/diebold/lists.tgz
o Amherst College (takedown request received)
o Hampshire College http://stout.hampshire.edu/~pks03/list.tar.bz2
o Rochester Institute of Technology http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cmm5533/diebold/lists.tgz
o Rochester Institute of Technology http://libre.rh.rit.edu/lists.tgz
o Rochester Institute of Technology http://rancor.rh.rit.edu/
o Rochester Institute of Technology http://www.rit.edu/~tjd3307/lists.tar.bz2
o Univ. of Evansville http://csserver.evansville.edu/~sc87/diebold/
o Boston University http://cs-people.bu.edu/chrisn1/diebold-memos.tgz
o Carnegie Mellon University http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~matth/lists
o Carnegie Mellon University http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~dcheng/diebold/lists.tgz
o Carnegie Mellon University http://andrew.cmu.edu/~apapadop/lists.tgz
o Univ. of MissouriRolla (takedown request received)
o Indiana University (takedown request received)
o Harvard University (takedown request received)
o Harvard University http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~luey/lists.tgz
o Univ. of CaliforniaBerkeley (takedown request received)
o Univ. of CaliforniaBerkeley http://sims.berkeley.edu/~parkert/misc/lists.tgz
o Univ. of CaliforniaBerkeley http://sims.berkeley.edu/~ping/diebold
o Univ. of CaliforniaBerkeley http://sims.berkeley.edu/~savage/lists.tgz
o Duke University http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/archive/diebold.html
o Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://www.unc.edu/~cjp2/lists.tgz
o North Carolina State University http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jgkimbro/diebold.html
o Univ. of Pennsylvania http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~dmargoli/lists.tgz
o Grinnell College http://www.math.grinnell.edu/~laiu/lists.tgz
o Grinnell College http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/laiu/lists.tgz
o Grinnell College http://www.math.grinnell.edu/~lyonavra/diebold/lists/index.html
o Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/~stine.8/politics/list.tar.bz2
o Univ. of MarylandCollege Park http://www.glue.umd.edu/~chsimps/diebold/lists.tgz
o Univ. of Chicago http://home.uchicago.edu/~mhwang/lists.tgz
o Univ. of Chicago http://home.uchicago.edu/~yitzhak/list.tar.bz2
o Univ. of Chicago http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~ryochiji/
o Bentley College http://web.bentley.edu/students/h/heap_aust/lists.tgz
o Penn State University http://www.personal.psu.edu/~mjo168/lists.tgz
o Penn State University http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/b/j/bje128/diebold.html
o Princeton University http://www.princeton.edu/~kleinman/diebold.html
o Princeton University http://www.princeton.edu/~bcattle/diebold.html
o Princeton University http://www.princeton.edu/~cpence/diebold-lists.tgz
o Michigan State University http://www.msu.edu/~justmanj/lists.tgz
o Iowa State University http://www2.iastate.edu/~daoist/diebold-lists.tgz
o University of WashingtonTacoma http://faculty.washington.edu/dmclane/lists.tgz
o Johns Hopkins University http://myweb.jhu.edu/bananas/diebold-lists.tgz
o Kent State University http://www.personal.kent.edu/~sfidel/lists.tgz
o Kent State University http://www.personal.kent.edu/~bmcconah/lists.tgz
o Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~gordonmw/lists.tgz
o Yale University http://yale128036068211.student.yale.edu/~andrew/diebold/lists.tgz
o Bronx High School of Science http://www.bxscience.edu/~dauriaa/lists.tgz
o Dartmouth College http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~apd/lists.tgz
o Georgetown University http://saxa.georgetown.edu/lists.tgz
o Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy http://alumni.imsa.edu/~hangman/lists.tgz
o Lafayette College http://www.cs.lafayette.edu/~ahmedf/archive/lists.tgz
o Univ. of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~badr/lists.tgz
o Univ. of Virginia http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ajs6f/lists.tgz
o Univ. of WisconsinMilwaukee http://www.uwm.edu/~cmerkel/lists.tgz
o Univ. of WisconsinMilwaukee http://www.uwm.edu/~puissan2/
o Georgia Southern University http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~jtwyford/list/list.tar.bz2
o Middle Tennessee State University http://www.mtsu.edu/~cow2a/lists.tgz
o Ohio State University http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~wangje/lists.tgz
o Stanford University http://www.stanford.edu/~drumz/lists.tgz
o Stanford University http://www.stanford.edu/~ssavage/lists.tgz
o Stanford University http://www.stanford.edu/~fire/lists.tar.tar
o Stevens Institute of Technology http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~pgengler/lists.tar.bz2
o Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~paulj/lists.tgz
o Case Western Reserve University http://home.cwru.edu/~ajc30/list.tar.bz2
o Univ. of Michigan http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jwagnerk/lists.tgz
o Univ. of Michigan http://tenaya.physics.lsa.umich.edu/~dwchin/Diebold/diebold/lists.html
o Seton Hall University http://sciris.shu.edu/~moorerob/diebold/index.html
o Seton Hall University http://pirate.shu.edu/~encarnvi/index.html
o Seton Hall University http://sciris.shu.edu/~encarnvi/diebold/index.html
o Indiana University Southeast http://linux.ius.edu/header/download.php
o Monash University http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~ltdav1/list.tar.bz2
o Univ. of IllinoisChicago http://tigger.uic.edu/~kkubic1/lists.tgz
o Univ. of Northern British Columbia http://web.unbc.ca/~vogtd/list.tar.bz2
o Univ. of MinnesotaDuluth http://www.d.umn.edu/~ulfe0003/lists.tgz
To open the .tgz and .tar.gz files on a Windows PC, use WinZip or WinRAR; on a Mac just double-click the file.
2:14:45 PM
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Sunday, November 09, 2003 |
Anti-War Activist Subpoenas Ashcroft and Rove
Long-time anti-war activist Brent Bursey, 55, sent subpoenas to Attorney General Ashcroft and Karl Rove to appear at his trial next week, in a case that has come to epitomize the contentious battle for free speech emerging under the Bush Administration.
The controversy dates to October 2002, when local authorities in South Carolina arrested Bursey at Columbian Metropolitan Airport, where Bush was scheduled to arrive that day, for holding a sign that read "No More War For Oil." He was charged with trespassing, although he was on public property, because he had not been standing in the "free-speech zone" specially designated for protesters. Consistent with similar policies surrounding Bush’s appearances across the country, the protesters were confined to an area over half a mile from the airport, where their message was unlikely to be seen or heard by the President. Bursey told police he had been under the impression that the whole of America was a free speech zone.
[ Read entire feature | Past Feature | North Carolina IMC ]
11:47:00 PM
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Saturday, November 08, 2003 |
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Friday, November 07, 2003 |
Mn Education Commissioner Denies Native American Genocide. Genocide [Minneapolis/St Paul IMC]
MN Education Commissioner Denies Native American Genocide
by Kristina M. Gronquist 2:21pm Wed Nov 5 '03 (Modified on 3:53pm Fri Nov 7 '03) |
| address: 416 8th Ave NE Mpls. MN 55413 kgronquist@aol.com |
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MN Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke states on the MPR Midday Radio Program, 11/4, that there is no connection between Columbus and Native American Genocide, and argues that children's lesson plans should supress any such connection. She does not acknowledge that Columbus's advent to Indian lands initiated policies of genocide for the indigenous people of North America. |
11:28:52 PM
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© Copyright 2005 The Usual Suspect.
Last update: 5/25/2005; 4:11:21 PM.
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