[L-I] Fri., 6/14: Turn Your Back on Bush! (Press Release)

For Immediate Release
June 6, 2002
Columbus, OH, USA

Turn Your Back on Bush!

* OSU students, alumni, and community activists will Protest the
Endless War, Defend Democracy, and Stand Up for Civil Liberties by
holding a sunrise ceremony, a rally, street theater, and an
alternative commencement.
* Graduates will decorate their mortarboards with Peace Signs and
other symbols to express oppositions to the Bush administration's
foreign and domestic policy.

Date: Friday, June 14
Time: From 6AM till the end of the OSU Spring Commencement
Location: Ohio Stadium (East Side Gates), 411 Woody Hayes Dr., Columbus, OH

More than 3,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in the US war on
Afghanistan (Marc W. Herold,
<www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm>).  Over 1,000
individuals of Muslim and Middle-Eastern backgrounds have been
secretly detained by the US government; thousands more have been
targeted for racial profiling.  Afghan and Arab combatants detained
in Guantanamo have been kept in a legal limbo, denied the rights of
prisoners of war.  In single-minded pursuit of vengeance, Washington
has violated international law, disregarded human rights, and
severely abridged civil liberties -- with no result useful for the
investigation and prosecution of the crimes of 9.11 terrorists.

The only individual who has been charged with involvement in the 9.11
attack -- Zacarias Moussaoui -- was arrested in August last year,
that is, before the 9.11 attack, not to mention the racist and
militarist US government actions following the attack.  Still
unfolding revelations of intelligence nonfeasance on the part of John
Ashcroft and others prompted even conservative columnist William
Safire to conclude, "They had the power to collect the intelligence,
but lacked the intellect to analyze the data the agencies collected"
(New York Times 3 June 2002), criticizing self-serving justification
for massive expansion of police powers pursued by the George W. Bush
administration.  In Afghanistan, Washington merely replaced the
Taliban with worse warlords, while installing Hamid Karzai (former
Unocal consultant, according to the Le Monde article "Hamid Karzaï,
un Pachtoune nommé président" [13 Dec. 01] ) and others linked to the
US oil industry -- not surprisingly, given the well documented Oil
Connection maintained by Bush and Dick Cheney, made clearer now in
the wake of the Enron scandal.

At the same time, US policy toward Israel/Palestine and
India/Pakistan, aggravated in the "War on Terrorism," has brought
both the Middle East and South Asia to the brink of (possibly
nuclear) apocalypse.  The "second front" opened in the Philippines
has alarmed Filipino activists who have long struggled to reclaim
sovereignty of the Philippines from US military and political control
of the nation (Walden Bello, "A 'Second Front' in the Philippines,"
The Nation 18 March 2002).  US support for the short-lived coup that
overthrew the democratically elected government of Venezuela -- the
coup condemned by "[a]ll the democratic nations, that is, except one"
-- proved highly embarrassing: "President Chávez's comeback has . . .
left Washington looking rather stupid," as Paul Krugman quotes BBC
("Losing Latin America," New York Times 14 April 2002).  In Colombia,
the alibi of the "war on drugs" is wearing thin; some of US military
aid to the Colombian government will be explicitly dedicated to "to
train, arm and provide air support for Colombian troops to defend the
pipeline" (in part owned by Occidental Petroleum) as Bush requested
this year (Karl Penhaul, "Protection for Oil Pipeline Raises US
Profile in Colombia: New Policy Stirs Fears Bush Seeks to Widen War,"
San Francisco Chronicle 16 February 2002).

And yet, in a speech to West Point graduates, Bush said that the
United States must be prepared to take the "War on Terror" to up to
60 countries (James Doran, The Times [London] 3 June 2002)!

On domestic policy, the Bush administration's record is no better.
Citizens for Tax Justice reports that 52.1% of the post-2002 Bush tax
cuts goes to the best-off 1% of US taxpayers, whereas the measly 0.1%
goes to the poorest 20%; altogether, the bottom 80 % of US taxpayers
receive only 16.8% of the cuts (@
<http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0402.htm>).  Outraging AFL-CIO, the Bush
Labor Department has "delayed, canceled, or withheld from final
implementation" worker safety measures, including the first ergonomic
standards "to protect workers from repetitive strain" and other
injuries; further, Bush used "his executive order power in several
attacks on workers' rights and unions, including stripping federal
workers of their union representation" (@
<http://www.aflcio.org/bushwatch/ayearwithbush.htm>).  Add his
assault on the rights of the disabled - "The Americans with
Disabilities Act is 'not needed,' says Bush's nominee for the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit" (@
<http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/extra/suttonjudge032701.htm>) -- to
his attacks on workers' rights, and you'll begin to see how much Bush
actually cares about the "safety" of Americans.

As Texas governor, Bush presided over 152 executions in 5 years,
earning the monikers "Governor Death" and "Texexecutioner," in the
state of criminal justice plagued by, in Bob Herbert's words, "myriad
examples of grotesque injustices, including the sentencing of
innocent defendants to death, the deliberate falsification of
evidence, the execution of profoundly retarded defendants, the
routine misuse of so-called expert testimony and rampant racism"
("Texas, The Death Capital," New York Times 16 October 2000).  Bush
helped to fuel racism in criminal justice.  Racism in criminal
justice, in turn, helped him steal the election: "thousands of
voters" -- predominantly blacks -- "may have lost their right to vote
based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported 'felons' provided
by a private firm with tight Republican ties" (Gregory Palast,
"Florida's Flawed 'Voter-cleansing' Program," Salon.com 4 December
2001,
<http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html>).

Bush's opposition to women's rights, as well as GLBT rights, in
issues ranging from hate violence, employment discrimination, social
welfare to reproductive rights and freedoms is too well known to be
rehearsed here again (consult The National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force, <http://www.ngltf.org/elections/bush.htm>).  In foreign
policy, Bush refuses to take responsibility for terrors directly
committed by the US government and indirectly supported by it (as
explained by Noam Chomsky, "The United States is a Leading Terrorist
State," <http://www.monthlyreview.org/1101chomsky.htm> -- see William
Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower for
historical analysis); in domestic policy as well, Bush is soft on
terrorists, when the terrorists turn out to be right-wingers --
terrorists who kill doctors who provide abortion and bomb abortion
clinics (The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, "An Open
Letter to George W. Bush: Stop Domestic Terrorism,"
<http://www.rcrc.org/new/drcarhartopenletter.html>).

In opposition to Bush's domestic and foreign policy that endangers
the lives and liberties of Americans, as well as of those who find
themselves on the receiving end of US state terrors in Bush's endless
war, we'll seek to unite diverse communities in our struggle to build
a world without exploitation and oppression, that is, a material
foundation for a world free from terrorism.

Graduates Noor Alam <blotichoti@xxxxxxxxxxx> and Hillary Tinapple
<tinapple.4@xxxxxxx>, among others, will be available for interviews.

For more info, call 614-252-9255 or 614-668-6554 or e-mail
<turnyourbackonbush@xxxxxxxxx>.

Turn Your Back on Bush!: <www.turnyourbackonbush.com>
Student International Forum: <www.osu.edu/students/sif>
Committee for Justice in Palestine: <www.osu.edu/students/CJP>

Downloadable Press Release: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/14June2002.doc>.

Info about parking, directions to the Ohio State University campus,
etc.:
<http://www.osu.edu/units/ucomm/commence/revised%20alert_O.html>.
Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/ohiostadium.html>.

--
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus:
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>

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