ON THE LINE
On The Line Battling Immigrant Bashers Tucson, Arizona Only a week after Californians passed Proposition 187, aimed at denying health care and education to undocumented immigrants, one group...
...It was one of the most elaborate actions the Avengers have done in years," says Ana Simo, who has helped organize the campaign against MEGA-KQ FM...
...When Congress passed the Act in 1973, it called for periodic review and reauthorization...
...I'm waiting for that...
...How can you reasonably compromise the last habitat for endangered species...
...They've been picketing people's offices and disrupting meetings I've been called a 'house Negro.'" Management "made some mistakes," says Daniels...
...California's Proposition 187 has already sown confusion in Arizona...
...Grizzly bears range extensively in the wild and Carlton thinks if a thriving population can be maintained, then the ecosystem the bears depend on will remain vibrant as well...
...There will be a fight for power, there will be something important in Haiti...
...LESBIANS STRIKE BACK AT HATE RADIO A noisy crowd of chanting, drumming lesbians tied up traffic on Fifth Avenue in New York City for twenty minutes during rush hour on November 17...
...They just take...
...People are scared," Matus says...
...The Endangered Species Act is our only and last defense...
...Many environmentalists point to the Endangered Species Act's twenty-year history of success...
...Unless I miss my bet," Carlton says, "the world will want to beat a path to intact ecosystems in fifteen to twenty years...
...Mark Dow PROGRESSIVE WIRING If you've decided to explore the over-hyped world of online computing, commercial networks like America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy offer online "resources" that are in reality the usual media suspects: Time, The Washington Post, Omni, etc...
...They contribute nothing to make this community of Tucson better...
...America is dying and the Endangered Species Act is needed more than ever," says Jasper Carlton, founder of the Colorado-based Biodiversity Legal Foundation, and one of the environmentalists urging full reauthorization...
...For a $15 sign-up fee and a monthly $12.50 subscription fee, users have access to e-mail, the Internet, and hundreds of conferences containing news and analysis from all over the world...
...We've done it many times, and we will do it again...
...We had get-away vehicles waiting outside...
...What's at stake are hundreds and thousands of fascinating life forms...
...For years, his songs have criticized Haiti's military regimes and their supporters, and encouraged active resistance...
...Under the banners of environmen-talism and population control, the foundation advocates a moratorium on all immigration, instant deportation of undocumented immigrants, and the stationing of troops at the U.S.Mexico border...
...But Carlton has also sued to protect "flagship" species, such as Ursus Horribilis—the grizzly bear...
...The Coalition plans to conduct teach-ins, and will help organize a national march on Washington in 1996...
...In August, a carefully planned invasion of radio station MEGA-KQ by the Lesbian Avengers set the stage for the larger protest...
...Look, Aristide is my friend," he continues...
...And that is what I see: both sides acting destructively, in a classic case of the Left devouring itself...
...They still can't do that here," says Jose Matus, project coordinator for the Arizona Border Rights Coalition...
...Ron Daniels, CCR's executive director and a 1992 independent presidential candidate says, "We welcome the union...
...But if I smoke, when you open your window, you don't have a problem...
...Those girls were entitled to attend school regardless of their citizenship, which school officials eventually realized...
...Without it, they doubt that the gray whale, peregrine falcon, American alligator, and even the national icon, the bald eagle, would exist today...
...We did a dry run where the physical lay-out of the station was reproduced...
...Wildlife Defender Boulder, Colorado The Endangered Species Act is on the chopping block again...
...The Border Patrol stops a vanload of immigrants seeking work (left...
...It's the strongest conservation law passed by any country ever...
...The Biodiversity Legal Foundation differs from other wildlife defenders in that it frequently charges to the aid of unglam-orous species, such as toads, frogs, salamanders, and obscure plants...
...An orphan slides back into a sewer tunnel for the return trip to Mexico (right...
...That's been quite a considerable amount of work to bring these groups together of different race and social class...
...I would have hoped we could work things out...
...But after overthrowing Duvalier, everybody wanted to be president...
...We have more life forms in peril today, on a percent basis, than the Amazon rain forests," he notes...
...Before people make decisions of such monumental importance, they need to have a sense of facts and justice...
...They'd call me over and say, 'Hey, Manno, walk slow and give this to that guy over there.'" Haitian singer/songwriter Manno Charlemagne is a hero in his country...
...But what makes them think that people are going to want to work here anymore if they're not involved in decisionmaking and have to accept this kind of top-down management...
...But at least now there will be clear lines of authority and evaluation...
...We realize that what we're doing doesn't reach many people...
...Tim Vanderpool n Nogales, a border town south of Tucson, people migrate back and forth across the border every day...
...They behave as if they were in a Central American dictatorship...
...Three years ago, when we were in a similar fiscal crisis, everybody took the same cuts...
...On November 14, Save Our State/Arizona called a press conference in downtown Tucson, next to the statue of a mounted Pancho Villa...
...Charlemagne was in exile from 1980 until the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986...
...For twenty-nine years CCR has been a worker collective, with the full staff . . . involved in deciding agendas, program, what cases to take, how to hire, and so on," the strikers declared in a press release...
...The Border Rights Coalition fields a growing number of calls from immigrants...
...We'll see what happens after February 7, 1996 [when Aris-tide's term ends...
...Once a species obtains endangered status, it becomes illegal to trade, hunt, kill, collect, or injure it or its habitat...
...My civil rights simply cannot be put up for a vote...
...The worst thing we can do right now is take a defeatist approach...
...Workers at the public-interest legal organization went on strike in October...
...The march, which drew about 100 lesbians, many of them immigrants and novice political activists, was a landmark effort, bringing together lesbians from New York's diverse racial and ethnic communities...
...Jokes about black people called "macumbas" who belong to "tribes," and about lesbians and gay men as disgusting and sick encourage violence and discrimination in the Spanish-speaking community, Simo says...
...This project is part of the answer to that problem—to bring it into the barrios...
...Daniels and some other board members say the staff collective was ineffectual—unable to make decisions about hiring and firing, or to produce performance evaluations...
...Songs of Resistance in Haiti Miami The dirty words adults used when they argued, the songs in Catholic school, and the people hiding in his yard from the gunfire as President Paul Magloire was overthrown in 1956—all these form part of the texture of Manno Charlemagne's songs...
...Charlemagne has also earned enemies in the Haitian diaspora for his willingness to criticize those he considers hypocrites or opportunists, no matter what their political affiliation...
...We've been going to meetings of church groups, to the Lions Club, local county adult education classes, anywhere people will listen," Garcia says...
...only one among a score of callers supported immigrants' rights...
...You can reach IGC at 18 De Boom Street, San Francisco, CA 94107...
...I was raised by the priests, so you might hear that Gregorian thing when I'm singing...
...To us, it shows a failure in educating the American public," she says...
...Often they're too intimidated to use the services available to them...
...Everything was like clock-work...
...We had someone take a tour of the facilities and she came back with an eight-page report...
...But the girls wouldn't have known that if they hadn't contacted us...
...That point was driven home for Garcia when she recently appeared on a Phoenix radio talk show...
...The staff filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint against CCR, after management declared its intention to fire the shop steward, attorney Matthew Chachere...
...I love him very much...
...I have successfully sued every secretary l of the interior—from WARRIORS James Watt to Bruce Babbitt—to enforce the Endangered Species Act," he says...
...People have to know Aristide was their man, but they have to organize themselves...
...Attorney General Ramsey Clark and a group of Hollywood notables, led by film director Jonathan Demme...
...Hell, attack...
...718)468-4139, and from Mimi Records, 13710 NE 11 Avenue, Miami, FL 33161...
...Thus, in mid-November, right after the fall elections, environmentalists gathered in Washington, D.C., for a strategy session on renewing the Act...
...After that coup, Charlemagne was arrested, released, and arrested again...
...Created in 1986 to link people and organizations working on peace and justice, PeaceNet and its companions EcoNet, ConflictNet, and LaborNet are operated by the Institute for Global Communications...
...She also criticized the staff for escalating the crisis with its public actions, writing in a letter to the Center, "I am withdrawing because I do not believe that either side has the right to destroy the Center...
...Management and striking workers agree that the days of the CCR collective are over...
...Overnight, with no notice to the staff, the Board terminated this carefully constructed structure, scrapped the personnel manual, and imposed a top-down management structure...
...And that fellow on the horse is an example of a Mexican national who didn't give a damn about the border...
...The larger issue is total lack of social responsibility on the part of the Spanish-speaking media...
...His lawsuit terminated the sport-hunting of grizzlies in Montana's wilderness areas...
...305)892-6200...
...These days he is trying to reach out to an English-speaking audience...
...I am a hard-ass, yes," Carlton says...
...In that action, seven women seized two studios during a morning talk-show, grabbing a few minutes of air-time to protest the station's bigotry before making their escape...
...The protest, organized by the groups Las Buenas Amigas, African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change, and the Lesbian Avengers, was aimed at MEGA-KQ 97.9 FM, a Spanish-language radio station that regularly broadcasts racist, sexist, and anti-gay commentary...
...These groups, writes Wes-leyan music professor Gage Averill, played noncommercially and drew from the troubadour tradition: "In many cases, the groups rewrote and radicalized peasant songs, transforming them into weapons to use against the dictatorship...
...Even though it's a little tough sometimes, we still have to do things like that," Garcia says of her radio experience...
...We aggressively defend all life forms equally," Carlton says...
...Science is on our side, morals and ethics, too...
...Reaching out to lesbians in the Latina community and other communities of color is of particular interest to Simo and to the coalition of groups that worked on the radio-station protest...
...The board is now proposing a 20 percent staff pay cut...
...Each side has compiled letters of support from attorneys and activists involved with the Center...
...There are a lot of highly ignorant people out there...
...But I think we're happy with the result...
...Though little known in the mainstream American music scene, Charlemagne performs regularly in Miami, New York, Boston, and Montreal—cities with large Haitian populations— and throughout the Caribbean and Europe...
...A tug and pull ensued between those who want full support for it and those who would go along with weakening the Act...
...Simo says...
...Since I was young, just sitting around in the neighborhood put me in some very subversive company...
...They want the opportunity to go in and squeeze the last ounce of profit out and the ecological consequences be damned," he says...
...It's too early to gauge how much support such organizations have among Arizona voters...
...Williams criticized the board for not keeping her informed of its decisions and for cutting the staff out of the process...
...Under current law, he explains, his cases "cannot lose...
...The United States has already lost vast chunks of its pre-colonial habitat, including 95 percent of its old-growth forests, 98 percent of its native prairies, and half of its wetlands...
...It is a message of hope...
...Such ugly rhetoric is a serious problem to Isabel Garcia, a Tucson attorney and spokeswoman for the Derechos Humanos (Human Rights) Coalition...
...Manno Charlemagne's records are available from: Kako Productions, 89-59 212 Street, Queens Village, NY 11427...
...We said, why do this...
...E-Mail: support@igc.apc.org...
...For example, he attributes the inequity of the proposed pay cuts to errors in calculating the net result of pay reductions and "furloughs" (mandatory time off without pay...
...And the people know that those who die to give life, pa ka pedi—they can't lose it...
...303)442-3037...
...Chachere says...
...I think they're seeing it as the Willie Horton of 1996...
...But as in other border states, there is a danger that anti-immigration hysteria could explode...
...Another key goal of the Foundation is protecting large habitats for communities of species and natural ecosystems...
...We feel that's the only way we're going to counter all this, because it's very clear to us that conservative politicians plan to use immigration as their main theme...
...The staff association is now negotiating for a union contract...
...Illegal aliens are criminals...
...Born in Port-au-Prince in 1948, Charlemagne spent his adolescence in the "popular" neighborhoods that would later vote overwhelmingly for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (the two men are personal friends) and that would also be so brutally repressed when Aristide was overthrown in September 1991...
...Others called her a "beaner" and "wetback" on the air...
...Developers, mining companies, and other large economic interests hunger for greater access to the nation's 900 million acres of public lands...
...All aspects of the next contract are still under negotiation...
...In the past dozen years, he has initiated eighty-five endangered species cases...
...602)770-1373...
...Its grounding in the law and science has enabled the organization to win even when its lower-court victories have been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court...
...Will Fantle...
...Recently, for instance, the Tucson school district asked two girls for birth certificates before letting them take classes...
...And management will be management...
...Inadequate funding for the law and political opposition have created a massive backlog of plants and animals awaiting Endangered Species Act classification...
...But, said Barbara Ransby, a member of the staff association, "if CCR cannot survive with integrity, what is its survival worth, and who is it for...
...For more information, contact the Biodiversity Legal Foundation P.O...
...Discussions about the problems with the collective had been going on for a while," he says...
...Phone: (415) 442-0220...
...This is not the first time they have survived a coup d'etat...
...Republican Governor Fife Symington says he would not support such a measure as 187, although he has pushed through a law denying undocumented immigrants nonemergency medical care...
...Why alienate the whole staff...
...ERIK NESS Labor Trouble on the Left A labor struggle pitting well-known activists at the helm of the Center for Constitutional Rights against the Center's workers threatens to tear apart a major progressive institution...
...But he's in an impossible position...
...The Endangered Species Act may take a hit, but what it needs is enforcement, funding, and heartfelt support...
...We want to pass 187 in Arizona at the earliest possible date," said founder Don Barring-ton...
...Charlemagne came to musical maturity in the kilti libete, or "freedom culture" groups of the 1970s...
...He was able to leave Haiti with the help of former U.S...
...Nonetheless, groups like Save Our State are now coalescing with other factions, including the Phoenix-based Foundation for Optimal Planetary Survival...
...IGC, working with the Association for Progressive Communications, also provides access to an international coalition of computer networks that serve more than 25,000 people and groups in 130 countries...
...The same opportunism, and what he calls "a lack of consistency," have poisoned the democratic movement in Haiti, as Charlemagne sees it...
...This is the time we've got to rise to the occasion, to tell the truth...
...I would see guys making homemade bombs...
...We were very pleased with it...
...Carlton has a particular fondness for invertebrates—bugs to the rest of us—calling them the "building blocks" of natural systems...
...Eventually, he found refuge in the Argentine embassy in Port-au-Prince...
...We had floor plans...
...Of the nation's 9,000 biologically threatened species, less than 20 percent are currently protected by the Endangered Species Act, according to Carlton...
...The Biodiversity Legal Foundation bases its legal challenges on evidence gathered from the top life-science experts...
...At least one member of the CCR board—Patricia Williams-resigned because of the strike...
...When he returned to Haiti, he says, "There was a big cultural movement going on...
...For Charlemagne, music, culture, and politics are inseparable...
...That's the problem...
...Groups were working together to bring down Duvalier...
...Arizona's economic footing is far better than California's, which makes for less antagonism toward immigrants...
...Carlton himself is the country's most confrontational user of the Act...
...We weren't happy, but we lived with it because we were part of it...
...The smoke leaves, and you stay...
...We feel that it is imperative that the Internet and the new information-superhighway technology be used to disseminate information that is more thought-provoking and in-depth than five o'clock news sound bites," says George Gundrey, who coordinates PeaceNet, one alternative to commercial computing services...
...Box 18327, Boulder, CO 80308...
...People saw the election of Aristide as an end instead of a beginning," he says...
...Many gave up the struggle, "as if we were drugged . . . and the coup happened...
...So much for building a global village based on the free flow of information...
...On The Line Battling Immigrant Bashers Tucson, Arizona Only a week after Californians passed Proposition 187, aimed at denying health care and education to undocumented immigrants, one group announced plans to start a similar anti-immigrant crusade in Arizona...
...Future generations will prize the fact that we can go out and hike in wild areas with grizzlies, hear wolves howl, and see great migrations of trumpeter swans...
...For more information, contact the Arizona Border Rights Coalition at 631 South Sixth Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85701...
...In addition to lay-offs and a differential pay cut—amounting to 36 percent for staff, but only 10 percent for management— staff have been protesting a shift in decision-making power from a worker collective to management and the board of directors...
...Explaining the title song on his latest album, La Fimen, he says: "The smoker is the guy who oppresses the people in Haiti...
...One of the things that we've found very painful is the tactics of the staff association— for example, the haranguing and harassment of Arthur Kinoy as he was coming out of the anniversary celebration for the Chicago Seven...
...Despite the climate of fear, the prospects for a 187-type law here remain uncertain at best...
Vol. 59 • January 1995 • No. 1
