Category: Articles

Fuck You Forest Service! and greetings from Fall Creek tree occupation, Oregon! Yes, we\’re still here well into our third year of occupation of this lovely old forest, still keeping the lying, thieving de-Forestation Service at bay. Although the Clark timber sale has been on hold since December 99 for red tree vole surveys, the bastards have rushed all that through as quickly as possible, allowed Zip-O Lumber (of Eugene) a 1 year extension on their contract and, by all indications, plan on letting them in here to cut this spring (May 1 possibly). We\’ve girth-climbed lots of trees, found several more vole nests to jam up their bloody gears but have no delusions about our enemy and its intentions, one who writes, breaks and re-writes the rules to suit its own felonious fancies. In one of the most classic true-life tales of Good vs. Evil ever told, we\’ve put our lives on the line (literally) to keep those greed eyed federale nature-raping chain-sawing sons & daughters of clear-cutting bastards and bitches greedy money-grubbing hands the Fuck off this magical ancient forest and we ain\’t about to give up now!

Honka hey! I don\’t have to tell you that strength is in numbers but I will tell you that we need you badly this spring. If you truly love what little wilderness that\’s left (thanks to them, less than 5 percent of Mother Nature\’s-our-your kid\’s ancient forests remain) then you\’ll be here this spring to walk your talk and help us put this god be-cursed white-Anglo-Saxon Protestant male-oriented techno-industrial-manifest destiny juggernaut in its place and keep it there. Many folks have flaked on us feeling the vole hold has saved the forest. Wrong. Hopefully they\’ll be back this spring or you\’ll be here to take their place, either up in one of our many tree sits or fucking shut up on the ground-whatever best suits you. If you are for the trees then we are for you, and if your heart\’s not in it, get your ass out. Infiltrators, agents, disruptors will be tarred, feathered, bound, gagged, pissed and shat upon. All others will achieve some level of sainthood (so long as you don\’t injure or kill one of the bastards.)

Come Out! Help out!! Do Something!!! Wake Up!!!

For more info, contact Red Cloud Thunder, PO Box 11122, Eugene, OR 97440, (541) 684-8977, redcloud@efn.org, www.ecoecho.org. Drop by Out of the Fog Cafe or Morning Glory Cafe in Eugene for directions to the Forest (just 45 miles away.)

You want us out of our homes;

you want us out of our city.

We want you out, too.

On the night of December 13, we broke the windows of Zephyr Real Estate, and we smeared paint on their building. Zephyr real estate deserved it: [they are] responsible for the evictions of hundreds, maybe thousands, of San Francisco families, responsible for what happens to us after we are evicted (hunger, homelessness, displacement).

They break our spirits and our families; we broke a few windows.

They evict us from our homes; we smeared some paint on their building.

They have insurance to replace their windows; and we have residential hotels, soup lines, and unemployment.

On the uneven field of combat we find ourselves on we are not the antagonists Forced out of our city and forced out of our homes, all we can do is react.

We tried reasoning and understanding, we tried the streets and the planning commission, and we tried the ballot box; now we try bricks and the cover of fog.

What we try next is up to you, we have our eye on escalation.

We isolated a symptom, a real estate agent, the cough that lets us know we have bronchitis.

The disease is the government and capitalism. This action should not be seen as an attack, not as a response in like; we haven\’t gotten there yet. It is more like a greeting card; a statement of intent; a breaking of the ice.

The warning shot is coming, and the war is after that. Don\’t think that we aimed low this time, we just aimed reasonably.

We look forward to the day that you will leave us alone, we look forward to peace, good education, good food, and no police. We look forward to freedom. We dream, but when we wake up you are still there. Please leave.

Do you want to hear radio programming that is more than 50% Queer, more than 60% weird, and more than 100% non-commercial, non-profit, and non-professional (in the very best way)?

RadioActive Queers 87.9 FM is a microradio station broadcasting every Saturday (9 am-midnight) and Monday (3pm-10pm) in North Oakland and South Berkeley.

Programming includes almost everything you might want on the airwaves: techno, punk, hip hop, old sci-fi radio plays, Noam Chomsky, discussions of masturbation, science news, porn, the weekly literary hour, ….. and it varies every week!

Station highlights include live anal sex, a live interview with Company of Prophets, and a covert broadcast in front of the National Association of Broadcasters conference.

You too can get involved. You don\’t have to be queer; we think hearing straight dj\’s announce the \”Radioactive Queers\” station ID is a small yet important revolutionary act. The point of the station is not to provide programming just for queers, but to point out how everyone, in some way or another, might be queer.

Call the voicemail: (510) 239-2239 x 2477. Send tapes or $ or love if you live outside our broadcast range!

The East Bay Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) won a unanimous NLRB election on February 7 to represent largely spanish-speaking workers at Community Conservation Centers/ The Buy Back in Berkeley, CA. The election was 16 yes, 0 no.

None of the usual union-busting allowed by NLRB regulation loopholes occurred. However, the process was smooth only because the boss chose not to cause problems; the NLRB system still sucks.

Protesters will occupy South Vandenberg Air Force Base on Armed Forces Day, May 19, 2001. Anti-ballistic missiles and counter-intelligence satellites, including surveillance technology being used in the war against Columbia, are launched from South Vandenberg AFB.

Vandenberg, a nexus of Star Wars activity, was the site of major protests during the Reagan era. The Bush administration has raised Star Wars from its grave; the $60 billion scheme is a cover -up for Theater Missile Defense (TMD), a strategy for deploying an umbrella of anti-ballistic missiles over US troops anywhere in the world. Both Star Wars and TMD are basically subsidies for the defense/aerospace industries, diverting money away from good science like renewable energy research.

Protests at Vandenberg are in solidarity with the indigenous people of the Kwajalein Islands, the landing site for anti-ballistic missile tests launched at Vandenberg.

The May action is a nonviolent backcountry security zone occupation. A film about Vandenberg will be available soon. For more information, contact

A few anarchist book sources have been going through some major changes, and we thought we\’d keep you up to date.

After many years as a bookstore/infoshop, Blackout books closed its doors on Manhattan\’s Lower East Side this past fall, due to a loss of funding source and a lack of volunteer support in securing a much-needed new location.

Another long-time anarchist collective, Left Bank Distribution in Seattle, has been going through financial crises and as a result will be scaling down its operations somewhat to cut overhead costs. They are reducing stock on hand and moving all inventory to their retail space on Pike Street. Individuals can order books online at www.leftbankbooks.com.

AK Press, the publishing and distribution collective has settled into their new digs in Oakland. They are indeed up and running but need volunteer support, since they lost some of their San Francisco volunteer staff. You can inquire about volunteering or about AK\’s upcoming readings & other events by calling (510) 208-1700 or e-mailing them at akpress@akpress.org. You can also order books online at www.akpress.org.

The Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley just starting carrying new books (from AK press) and still has its used bookstore as well as zine shop and library running Sunday-Thursday, 6-9 p.m.

Please patronize distribution collectives in our anarchist community when purchasing radical literature. A lot of folks have invested time and energy over the years to make these collectives work, and the pernicious omnipresence of chain bookstores threatens these collectives specifically and the future availability of radical literature in general.

What Corporations Don\’t Want You to Know

In July 1997, I was doing my monthly breast self-exam and I found a suspicious lump. I was 28 years old when I finally had the lump, which turned out to be breast cancer, surgically removed in January 1998. In October 1999 I was diagnosed with a local reoccurance of the breast cancer and in August 2000 the cancer metastasized to my bones. It took a long time to have the lump removed because I was so young that I had a hard time convincing doctors to diagnose the cancer. I had no risk factors for premenstrual breast cancer in my family. In fact, only 5-10 % of cases of breast cancer are purely hereditary, which leaves environmental factor, including lifestyle — obesity, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and exposure to toxins, radiation and hormones — as the cause of 90-95% of breast cancer cases. In 2000, one woman was diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes.

Along with hereditary genes and exposure to agricultural chemicals and organochlorides (chemicals containing chloride), breast cancer has been linked to everything from wearing bras with under wire to an affluent lifestyle with a high fat diet. However, it is no coincidence that the rate of breast cancer has increased by 1% per year since 1940 and during the same period the production of synthetic chemicals has increased 350 times from 1940 to 1982. California uses 25% of the nation\’s pesticides and between 1991 and 1998 the use of carcinogenic pesticides increased by 127%. It is difficult to prove the guilt or innocence of a single chemical when humans are a crazy stew of chemicals. But reducing our exposure to as many cancer-causing chemicals as possible must be our goal.

I\’m convinced that my cancer and the cancer of millions of other people are caused by a political and economic system which value profits over our health, our right to know and our lives.

Because I do not have any of the hereditary and lifestyle factors associated with cancer, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and asked \”why me?\” the only reason I came up with was my exposure to environmental toxins as a child and teenager. As a lifeguard of an indoor swimming pool when I was 16, I spent so much time exposed to chlorine I no longer was able to smell it. A fireman at the time told me that meant I was probably beginning to experience brain damage from exposure. Chlorine is considered highly toxic and organochlorides can function as estrogen-mimicers which also disrupt hormone function in humans and animals.

I grew up in Southern California, where malathion was sprayed in the suburbs as well as agricultural areas to prevent the spread of the Mediterranean fly. While residents were informed that malathion was being sprayed in their neighborhoods, they only knew when this would happen by the sound of the approaching helicopter. City ordinances prohibiting the spraying were ignored by the state primarily because the agriculture industry is the most powerful lobby in California. Malathion is also a \”suspected\” (as defined by Federal regulations) endocrine disrupter, similar to DDT and dioxin, which disrupts hormone function in humans and wildlife.

I had to be diagnosed with breast cancer before I felt the urgency to find out this information, but I don\’t believe we should wait before we take stronger action, including pushing governing bodies to enforce the \”precautionary principle\” with respect to every human activity which effects the environment. The precautionary principle is defined as follows: \”When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.\”

The precautionary principle is based on the first part of the Hippocratic Oath — \”do no harm.\” It is already applied to the drug approval process. For example, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) didn\’t approve Thalidomide for use in the United States for pregnant women because of the precautionary principle. Its approval in other countries caused over 10,000 birth defects, although the risks were only \”suspected\” when these other countries approved its use.

For the past 10 years there have been efforts to extend the precautionary principle from food and drug regulations to environmental regulations. Unfortunately, as can be seen by the WTO\’s successful overturn of Europe\’s ban on hormone-treated beef, we have a long haul ahead.

Opposition to extending the precautionary principle comes, not surprisingly, from the chemical industry, which does not want to be responsible for the \”burden of proof.\” Jack Mongoven of the public relations firm Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin has advised the chemical industry to \”mobilize science against the precautionary principle,\” saying the precautionary principle \”threatens the entire chemical industry.\” Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, Director of the American Council on Science and Health — an organization \”defending the achievements and benefits of responsible technology within America\’s free-enterprise system\” — claims \”advocates have recommended discarding a useful form of technology, for example pesticides or pharmaceuticals, even if there is just a hint of a problem. For example, there are those who have recommended that a basic, health-enhancing chemical like chlorine be banned because of questionable adverse effects on wildlife.\”

In 1978 Israel banned three organochlorine pesticides detected in milk and other dairy products which caused 12 types of cancer in 10 different strains of rats and mice. After the ban, breast cancer rates which had increased every year for 25 years, dropped nearly 8% for all age groups and more than a third for women ages 25 to 34 by 1986. The American Cancer Society (ACS), an organization supposedly established to eliminate cancer, sided with the Chlorine Institute and issued a joint statement against a proposed 1992 international phase out of the roughly 15,000 chlorinated compounds in use. Members of the pharmaceutical and chemical industry have sat on the board of ACS, and since 1982, ACS has insisted on unequivocal proof that a substance causes cancer in humans before taking a position on the substance\’s public health hazards.

There is no conclusive research proving that specific chemicals in the environment directly cause specific cancers. It is difficult to prove a direct correlation between exposure to a chemical and a specific disease in humans because we are not controlled experiments, we move around too much and are continuously exposing ourselves, either knowingly or unknowingly, to hazardous chemicals. Corporations use the inconclusiveness of scientific research to avoid regulation, and government conservatives to take no action while their palms are being greased. While not every chemical is dangerous, the burden should be on chemical companies to prove their products are safe.

Often,, corporations control both the scientific research process and the regulatory process over their own products. They control the media which defines for us what \”healthy\” is. And they produce cancer drug treatments as well as carcinogenic pesticides. Both our political-economic structure and health care system are focused on profit instead of people. These structures focus on the treatment of disease, a huge industry, rather than prevention of disease, which might hurt business. They fail to keep dangerous toxins from entering our environment and bodies in the first place.

I find it more than ironic that I am being treated with drugs, manufactured by corporations which also make agricultural products that are suspected carcinogens and hormone disrupters. It is amazing that for my treatment, medical products made from PVC plastic are used, which when incinerated in
East Oakland will pollute the environment with dioxins – hormone disrupters that can cause cancer. It is insulting that I am then told every October for \”Breast Cancer Awareness Month,\” which is funded by the aforementioned drug and pesticide producing and incinerating companies, that \”early detection is the best protection.\” Breast Cancer Awareness Month encourages women to use techniques and treatments owned by the same corporations!

I want to give a few examples of what we are up against because I often feel completely overwhelmed by the incestuousness of the government and business interest which are both treating and poisoning me.

The EPA recently declared dioxin to be a \”known\” human carcinogen. Yet, as Robert K. Musil, Ph.D, Executive Director of Physician for Social Responsibility (PSR) states, \”industries flooding our environment with dioxin have denied its dangers while this report has been held up for nine years.\” Sure enough, as soon as news of the EPA\’s change to the listing was leaked, New York restaurant owners and a medical device maker filed suit in federal court to overturn the finding, arguing they would suffer economic harm from the announcement, because people would avoid dioxin containing products such as plastic bag and food containers made from PVC, medical products such as plastic tubing and IV bags which release dioxins when incinerated, and foods such as meat and dairy. Dioxin is found in some herbicides and pesticides, but Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), a collaborative campaign of over 250 organizations for environmentally responsible health care, states that health care practices, especially medical waste incineration, are a leading source of dioxin and mercury emissions. Patients, such as myself, have urged my hospital, Alta Bates in Berkeley, to work with HCWH, so far to no avail.

Astra-Zeneca is the world\’s third-largest drug concern, valued at $67 billion, and manufactures tamoxifin, a successful breast cancer treatment. They provide me with my monthly dose of tamoxifin for free, which would otherwise cost me over $150, because my health insurance does not cover prescriptions. When Astra-Zeneca created \”Breast Cancer Awareness Month\” (BCAM) for October 1985 they were owned by Imperial Chemical Industries, a multibillion-dollar producer of pesticides, paper and plastics, a company sued by federal and state agencies in 1990 for dumping DDT and PCBs into Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, near beaches where I spent every summer swimming as a child. Astra-Zeneca also: manufactures fungicides and herbicides, including the carcinogen acetochlor; owns the third-largest source of cancer-causing pollution in the U.S., a chemical plant in Perry, Ohio which released 53,000 pounds of recognized carcinogens into the air in 1996; holds a controlling interest in Salick Health Care Cancer Centers; and recommends use of tamoxifin for \”risk reduction\” in healthy women at high risk of developing breast cancer. It is no wonder that during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October you will be hard pressed to hear messages about real prevention — eradicating environmental toxins — and will hear more about the magic bullet that makes Astra-Zeneca money.

The federally funded National Cancer Institute\’s focuses on \”prevention research\” such as magic bullets like tamoxifin. It is no coincidence that NCI\’s senior executives work for pharmaceutical and chemical industries. For example, in 1990 the chairman of its advisory panel was Armand Hammer, who was also chairman of Occidental Petroleum. Occidental was responsible for the infamous toxic dump in New York, Love Canal.

When I realize the extent of destruction of both the planet and my body, and how deep lies the corruption of the government and industry, I wonder whether or not my actions as an individual are futile. However, I also believe action is an antidote for despair and I therefore have some suggestions. I specifically want to move beyond \”the Race for the Cure\” and focus on preventing cancer in future generations, taking Rachel Carson\’s words, which she wrote in Silent Spring while dying of breast cancer: \”It is a disservice to humanity to hold out the hope that the solution will come suddenly, in a single master stroke.\”

Call things by their real names. Breast Cancer Action is urging other cities to follow the lead of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley to declare October \”Stop Cancer Where It Starts Month,\” acknowledging the impact of toxins in the environment and working to reduce them, on the grounds that we are already \”aware\” and do not need the breast cancer industry\’s \”National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.\” Toxic Links has taken this a step further in attempting to declare October \”Cancer Industry Awareness Month.\” They had a \”Cancer Industry Tour\” of San Francisco, which included street theater.

Use alternative methods to educate the public. Web sites, such as www.50polluters.org — which ranks top Bay Area polluters, locates them on a map and was originally an interactive art installation — and www.artactivist.com and Art and Revolution are examples of creative, direct action efforts to educate. On March 26 PBS will air \”Trade Secrets,\” a Bill Moyers investigative report on how industries have put our health and safety at risk. A coalition of groups are launching Coming Clean, a project aimed at cleaning up the chemical industry, which will work with groups across the country to organize local \”Trade Secrets\” viewing events. Growers, farm workers and citizens have the right to know associated hazards in all ingredients and Pesticide Action Network (PAN) urges the EPA to require pesticide manufacturers to fully disclose any adverse health or environmental impacts on their product labels. We also need to access this information easily and PAN\’s database of chemicals, accessible for free through the web, is an example of this.

Move beyond a politics of individualism and build coalitions with diverse communities. Individuals recycling, using less pesticide heavy products, such as cotton, and eating organic is fine, but a small piece of the pie. We are all interconnected and so are our politics. The environmental racism movement is building coalitions between environmental activists and the neighborhoods who suffer the health effects of chemical toxicity. Locally, Greenaction, Asian and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health, the Center for Environmental Health and others are demanding that Integrated Environmental Systems replace their medical waste incinerators in East Oakland with safer non-incineration technologies to better protect the health of the workers and residents.

Pressure the government to make structural changes. Science, regulatory bodies and the education system should serve the interests of citizens, not industries. Extending the precautionary principle from food and drug regulations to the environment is one necessary change. PAN points to structural causes, such as economic factors and institutional support for present practices, including the lack of research into alternatives and agricultural extension outreach, as the reason for the increased use of pesticides. The costs associated with farmers transitioning away from pesticide use are major economic deterrents, especially since there is no incentive — pesticide users and producers do not have to pay for environmental and health damage caused by the use of pesticides. PAN recommends mandating the use of pesticide reduction and changing the economic equation, including internalizing the full costs of pesticides, providing for growers to transition, and increasing research funding for alternative approaches to pest management.

REFERENCES:

Batt, Sharon and Liza Gross. \”Cancer, Inc.\” Sierra. Sept / Oct 1999.

Kegley, Susan, Ph.D., Stephen Orme, and Lars Neumeister. \”Hooked on Poison: Pesticide Use in California 1991-1998.\” Pesticide Action Network. Report by Californians for Pesticide Reform.

Love, Su
san M., M.D. with Karen Lindsey. Dr. Susan Love\’s Breast Book, Second Edition Fully Revised. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company: Menlo Park, CA. 1995.

Breast Cancer Action = www.bcaction.org

Direct action sites = www.50polluters.org, www.artactivist.com, www.protest.net/artandrev/

Greenaction = www.greenaction.org

Health Care Without Harm = www.noharm.org

Pesticide Action Network and the Pesticide List = www.panna.org, www.pesticideinfo.org

Physicians For Social Responsibility = www.psr.org

Rachel\’s Environment and Health Weekly (back issues): www.monitor.net/rachel

Toxic Link Coalition (East Bay) = www.agitprop.org/tlc

\”The more people fall ill, the more money corporations running the hospitals make.\”

\”Contamination…disproportionately impacts low-income people of color because of the incinerators location.\”

\”My cancer… was caused by a political and economic system which values profits over our health, our right to know, and our lives\”

\”I realize the extent of destruction of both the planet and my body…I also believe action is the antidote for despair.\”

\”I am being treated with drugs manufactured by corporations which also make agricultural products that are suspected carcinogens and endocrine disrupters.\”

\”The precautionary principle states that…the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.\”

\”The proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.\”

East Oakland\’s Fight Against Environmental Racism

53 of California\’s 54 known toxic waste disposal sites are located in low income communities of color. Nationally, 3 of every 5 African American and Latino people live in neighborhoods that contain uncontrolled toxic waste sites. Toxic fires burn in San Francisco\’s Bayview/Hunter\’s Point, toxic explosions expose Richmond neighborhoods to noxious fumes, and industrial dumping in the South Bay has rendered the water a stagnant pool of chemical waste. The environmental degradation and health risks disproportionately fall on the shoulders of low-income people and people of color who inhabit these areas.

One particularly egregious and blatant local case of environmental racism is the medical waste incinerator in the Fruitvale area of East Oakland, operated by Integrated Environmental Services (IES), located at 499 High Street in Fruitvale. It is the only medical disposal facility left in California that uses the incineration process, continuously spewing noxious waste products into the air, soil, and water. One such waste product, the most carcinogenic chemical known to science, dioxin, is released into the surrounding low-income and predominantly Black and Latino community as a byproduct of its outdated incineration process. Experts say that just one ounce of dioxin, about the size of an M & M, would be enough to give a million people cancer.

The process is simple. Medical institutions, like Alta Bates Hospital for example, send their medical waste (diapers, IV bags, syringes) to IES for disposal. Materials made of PVC plastic (mainly syringes) contain chlorine, which, when incinerated, releases dioxin. The IES facility uses ovens that burn materials at temperatures approaching 10,000 degrees. At this temperature, the chlorine from the plastic reacts with carbon to create molecules of dioxin. The dioxin leaves the compound, carried by the smoke, and enters the surrounding community as particulate matter.

A few dioxin molecules may settle in a local garden where a family harvests vegetables. Still more dioxin may be carried high into the atmosphere, only to fall with rain into the Bay where fish consume them. (Indeed, the San Francisco Bay is heavily contaminated with dioxin, PCBs, mercury, and lead, and these chemicals have been measured in fish at dangerous levels.) As 90% of human exposure to dioxin occurs through diet, the EPA estimates that eating just a quarter pound of San Francisco Bay fish daily causes cancer risks to increase to a level of nearly one in 1,000. Many Bay Area immigrants and low-income individuals rely on fishing as a free protein supplement to their diet. As their access to fresh, high quality foods are already limited by income, this slow poisoning through what was a free nutrition supplement is just one aspect of the environmental racism of the incinerator.

When people eat contaminated vegetables and fish, they absorb the dioxin into their bodies. Dioxin bioaccumulates in fat cells which absorb the dioxin and transport it to their nuclei, where the chemical bonds to the cells\’ DNA and alters the expression of their genes. As the EPA and its 5,000 studies of dioxin have shown, people who absorb even minute amounts of dioxin tend to develop cancer. Other health problems associated with the dioxin exposure include birth defects, endometriosis, decreased testicle size, decreased sperm count, decreased brain size developmental delay in children, and learning disabilities. Once dioxin enters the ecosystem, even by falling on grass where cattle graze in the central valley, it magnifies up the food chain. Thus the very top of the food chain, the breast feeding baby, is getting the largest dose of dioxin possible.

The process described disproportionately impacts low-income, people of color because of the medical incinerator\’s location. In fact, according to scientists at Communities for a Better Environment, ninety percent of the census tracts that the incinerator smoke blows over are populated by lower income, people of color. Not coincidentally, breast cancer rates in the African American community in Oakland are significantly higher than those of white communities in the Bay Area. This environmental poisoning, coupled with insufficient access to health-care (in terms of both early screening/detection and treatment) has lead to a local increase in the mortality rate of African American women from breast cancer; while the local mortality rate for white woman has begun to decline. It is hard to construe this an anything other than blatant environmental racism.

IES does have other options in terms of medical waste disposal. There are two available technologies that do not send toxic chemicals into surrounding neighborhoods. One is called autoclaving, in which hazardous materials are sterilized essentially through pressure cooking. The other is microwave technology, which is also far cleaner than incineration. IES currently treats only 10% of its incoming waste with its microwave facility. For years community groups have been pushing for the expansion of IES\’ microwaving facility and the elimination of its incineration capacity altogether, but to no avail. Responding to community pressure, Stanford Hospital and Alta Bates Hospital no longer send their medical waste to IES.

Besides alternative disposal methods, the suppliers of the waste materials, hospitals, clinics, and research facilities must reduce the amount of waste they send to IES, particularly plastics. The adoption of reusable equipment, though more expensive due to higher quality materials and the added cost of sterilization and storage between use, would reduce waste immensely. Furthermore, the less PVC products are being used, the less potential there is for dioxin to be released into the environment. Unfortunately, as health insurance companies override the mission of providing health care for the bottom line of money, and hospitals increasingly are being privatized and run like a for-profit business, it is unlikely that they will adopt any changes unless these changes save them money. Ironically (or not) the healthcare industry, whose stated mission is to heal the sick, becomes an integral part of producing the poisons that make people sick. While a contradiction in purpose is evident, a conflict of interest certainly is not; the more people fall ill, the more money the corporations running the hospitals make. There is no way to reconcile this issue until there is free healthcare for all.

Thus far the board of IES has ignored the demands of the Oakland community groups mobilized to protect the health of local residents. Currently, the medical incinerator faces potential denial of a permit renewal from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The permit is required for operation and is issued if the facility is in compliance with the Title V Clean Air Act. The US EPA has recommended that instead of a permit denial, the Air District should impose an Order of Abatement which triggers a series of administrative meetings wherein IES explains to the Air District what steps they will take to bring the incinerators into Title V compliance. IES has been given enough second chances and the ongoing pollution violations have been systematically ignored by the state. Local groups like PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland), Center for Environmental Health, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Women\’s Cancer Resource Center, Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas, and many others have formed a coalition to expose this clearly racist operation and the state\’s complicity in supporting it. These groups are building pressure on IES, Oakland City Council, the Air Quality District, and clients of the incinerator to stop incineration and the poisoning of the plants, animals, and people of the Oakland community. At one recent protest of over a hundred people, police barricaded streets for blocks around the area while activists c
hained and locked the incinerator\’s front gates, chanting, \”If the government won\’t, the people will shut the incinerator!\”

For more information, contact the following groups: www.greenaction.org www.cehca.org (center for environmental health) www.peopleunited.org (pueblo – people united for a better oakland)

Massive protests against dollarization led to the resignation of the Ecuadorian president a year ago. Under pressure from the US, the Ecuadorian government has nonetheless continued with dollarization and IMF structural adjustment policies, casting vast segments of the population into dire poverty. In the face of drastic transportation and fuel price hikes and increasing Ecuadorian involvement in Plan Columbia, another massive uprising by the indigenous people this February caused the government to scale back the most recent round of structural adjustments. The following are some observations from a Slingshot associate in Ecuador.

Dollars, oil spills and an indigenous uprising. There\’s always something of interest here in Ecuador. In the month since I arrived, I have learned a lot about the power of protest and the power of the media to distort what is happening.

The media portrayed the indigenous uprising, that resulted in road blockades and the imposition of a state of emergency, as response to rising prices. While this is certainly a concern, people were really fighting against the IMF policies that are threatening their way of life. In addition, the US military is setting up in Ecuador what is to be its largest base in South America, for the purpose of waging war on Colombia. The creation of the base is almost certain to bring the war to Ecuador as well.

The \”drug\” war on Colombia at its root is a war for oil, some of which is on Ecuadorian soil. The extraction of oil in Ecuador for corporations such as Texaco has done tremendous environmental harm to traditional lands and has displaced many indigenous peoples. These multinational corporations extract what they want for outrageous profits and give nothing back, leaving a toxic wasteland behind.

Around 6,000 indigenous communities blocked highways for two weeks, not allowing any food to enter or leave Quito. The y burned tires as blockades and tore up roads. The indigenas occupied a university where they were repeatedly bombarded with tear gas when they tried to leave. In some instances police opened fire on protesters, injuring scores of people and killing four.

Finally points were agreed on between the protesters and the government, including the lowering of fuel prices and bus prices, compensation for the families of those who were killed and injured, the goal of not sacrificing the environment to pay off the debt, and a weak commitment to keep the war from coming to Ecuador. There is little assurance that these agreements will be kept. A similar situation took place here with the protests a year ago, but in the end, under US pressure, last year\’s agreements were not kept, as is typical of the treatment of indigenous people by the U.S. For now, at least, the indigenas have returned home.

Overall, the people of Ecuador have been supportive of the plight of the indigenas. However, there is rampant institutionalized racism and classism against them, which assist the IMF/WB and US military interests in dividing and conquering. It seems so clear that the same process of repression and exploitation is underway everywhere. This is what they mean by \”globalization.\”

It\’s also clear that automobiles and oil are very much at the heart of this. I was so sad when just recently the Galapagos Islands, a part of Ecuador so rich with unspoiled life and famous for Darwin\’s developing his theory of evolution, were hit by an oil spill. Walking around Quito, like in most \”third world countries\”, automobile traffic is essentially unregulated, and there is no respect for pedestrians and bicyclists. The pollution is terrible, I am trying to get a gas mask. While my fellow travelers worry about thieves and parasites, crossing the street is my biggest fear as I go to my English teaching job on foot. This is what we make war for? To secure oil and make war on our own neighborhoods? All at the expense of the balance and fabric of life that has existed for millennia and may be irreplaceable, from the indigenous cultures to the ecosystem itself. I was heartened to hear that there is one group in Ecuador, Accion Ecologia, a \”radical\” environmental group, which has reportedly organized critical mass rides in the past, though I haven\’t seen them. When I see a bicycle here it fills my heart with joy. And there is still much natural beauty here to protect.

Some resources:

Project Underground, Carwil James, Oil Campaign Coordinator

510-705-8981, carwil@moles.org, www.moles.org.

Accion Ecologia

www.ecuanex.apc.org/accion/

CONAIE (one of the main indigenous groups)

www.conaie.org

Reclaim the Streets

xinet.com/rts/past_actions/ecuador/

Kinky Sex for the Revolution

What is the weirdest sexual thing you have ever done? Think of something more bizarre. That is kink – stretching the boundaries of sex, refining sexual experiences to fit your individual taste, the inner cravings of your soul.

Not only is sexual exploration fun, it is a revolutionary tool as well. The honesty, trust, and creativity involved in kinky play are the same qualities underlying effective affinity groups, general communication, and revolutionary society as a whole.

Kink means being open to potentially threatening concepts, changing your mind, challenging your programming. Being unashamedly aroused is inherently related to being passionately, unabashedly revolutionary. Kink means not compromising your desires because they are contrary to the status quo, and instead flaunting, celebrating, reveling in them.

Absolute morality about sex is counterproductive to everything the sexual revolution, wymmons movement, disability movement, etc has done to open humanity\’s views about the mind/body. Different bodies and minds reach sexual satisfaction through equally diverse activities. Rigid opinions about sex and desire silence kink and make potential perverts into introverts. Desires, no matter how bizarre-seeming, must be respected and explore, not feared.

Say, for example, that somebody gets off on being dragged down an alley, beaten up, and pissed on. This person should not be expected to relinquish their desires just because their fantasy does not appear to reflect the love and respect that would anchor a revolutionary society. Sick and twisted desires can be fulfilled in ways that are safe and consensual. Fulfilling somebody\’s innermost desire is an act of love and subverts the dominant paradigm.

Issues of trust surface when two people engage in a kinky act. Nobody besides yourself can know your desires and fantasies unless you share them. Kinky people must be direct and honest about their desires because experiencing the sensations of, for example, play piercing needles in the back may be exciting for one person but intrusive for another. Also, people must own their desires and not take it personally if the person they are with does not share similar fantasies.

Sexual exploitation can be a good way to explore all parts of our person. One must truly trust/know oneself to explore the world of kink, and kink is an excellent way to learn about yourself. Kink can help you overcome your shit. When self-trust exists, the most intense exploration should not be a threat; you trust yourself to sense and respect what us too much for you at that particular time.

Kink is also a good way to work on communication. Self-understanding and honest communication can assist in the choice of play partners as well, many times eliminating \”playing\” with someone unless they are compatible. Kink also has potential to get people relating on different, unexpected levels. (Ofcourse some of us know these levels are a bit tricky, but we\’ll never be on our death beds wishin\’ we\’d of taken more risks.)

Being a radical is about challenging stereotypes and traditional definitions. We must break down the oppressive social constructs surrounding gender, absolute morality, perversion, punishment, politeness, beauty, pleasure/pain, right/wrong, good/bad. We must counter these stereotypes actively in our homes and communities because kink/qenderqueer/pansexuality/perversion is still extremely marginalized, even within \’radical\’ communities. If we can\’t be who we are within a radical community, then where?

Contrary to what mainstream culture says, sex is fluid and chaotic, like life. Kink is an excellent way to explore natural spontaneity. We use more areas of our bodies and brains if we actively engage in rigid AND fluid activities. As we work together to build a society that meets each individual\’s needs, sexual exploration must happen simultaneously to do-it-yourself mechanical work, radio building or plumbing. Own your desires. Do not be afraid of them! Find ways to express them that you are okay with!

A few notes on Safety:

• A safe word can be used when either person feels threatened or uninterested in continuing to \”play.\”
• Safer se materials such as gloves can be fetishized. Practice safer sex; STDs suck!
• Doing extreme sex acts when you\’re fucked up on drugs or alcohol can scathe you in negative ways, because you\’re less sensitive to pain thresholds.