ON THE LINE
ON THE LINE Independent Monitoring in El Salvador San Salvador A Salvadoran shirt factory could change the way industries built on sweatshop labor operate—if it doesn't shut down first. David...
...Heavens to Betsy threatens to kill a potential rapist, Bratmobile sings a love song about a domi-natrix named Panik, and Bikini Kill yells, "I can sell my body if I wanna/God knows you already sold your mind...
...If it wins, the initiative could cancel out an agreement Idaho's Republican governor, George Batt, signed last year without consulting either his constituents or the state legislature...
...James Doyle, the state attorney general, responded to the blockade by asking the government to reinspect the "possibly catastrophic" train route and to draft an environmental-impact statement...
...As usual, their ears were deaf...
...After Wang rehires the union leaders...
...One album from the English group Huggy Bear, for example, includes liner notes with messages like "Punkqueercorps . . . hears nothing distracting in the voice of church or state, only that retarded antiluv Mantra of marry marry procreate (but be careful with pleasure...
...Kill Rock Stars works with artists the label considers challenging—musically and lyrically...
...Good rock and roll is a conspiracy, not just something nice made by crafty businessmen...
...The wardens have a lot of latitude when it comes to their rules on books," says Lamson...
...Books Through Bars has also rallied on behalf of various prisoners and has an ongoing project with women prisoners...
...Walter Bresette feels vindicated...
...It also means that many Kill Rock Stars artists are angry and on the offensive...
...Kernaghan vows to turn up the pressure on Mandarin's former customers for more orders...
...Dylan Foley PRISON PICTURES On September 13, the Peace Museum in Chicago opens Bisapline and Photograph: The Prison Experience, an exhibi-Bon of photographic and video art depicting prison life...
...David Proctor, media director for Stop the Shipments, the grassroots group that managed to rush the initiative onto the Idaho ballot with a ten-week campaign, says, "It appears that Andrus is being paid with Department of Energy money...
...So says Slim Moon, who owns Kill Rock Stars, a punk record label...
...The show runs through November 16...
...David Wang, the owner of the Mandarin International plant, has agreed to allow human-rights groups to monitor the working conditions in his factory...
...I'll resist with every inch and every breath/I'll resist this psychic death...
...If independent monitoring fails at Mandarin, "it would clear the field for them to return to business-as-usual," says Ker-naghan...
...Aside from the Gap and outdoor clothing chain Eddie Bauer, most of the big-name U.S...
...Sovereignty is not something you ask for," he says...
...On August 13, the Ogitchida allowed two trains carrying non-hazardous materials to pass through the blockade, on the condition that the protesters inspect the trains...
...Then a few warriors took it upon themselves to defend their homeland...
...A large majority of Idahoans—88 percent, according to an Idaho Statesman poll—opposes additional waste shipments to the laboratory...
...The Corporation was going to try a rare form of metallic-sulfide mining—injecting sulfuric-acid solution into old mines in order to leach out the remaining ore...
...And physical punishment is not taking place...
...Half the books we send out are political...
...It's just moving more slowly than one would think possible...
...On July 1, the Environmental Protection Agency granted a permit for the project without holding a hearing or drafting an environmental-impact statement...
...Books Through Bars is increasing its efforts to send political books and novels to prisoners, while educating the public about the harsh realities of the American prison system...
...The project would have poured 550 million gallons of acid into underground tunnels only five miles from Lake Superior...
...Many live in tin shacks without water or electricity...
...But the story does not have a happy ending—so far...
...The #Gw will also include videotapes by Jean Finley and Mar-shail Weber documenting the prison system...
...The workers—almost all female, many of them teenagers—were forced to work at a relentless pace late into the night without overtime pay...
...This is the first time a nuclear-waste issue has been put to a popular vote in the United States...
...Companies that have neglected to order clothing from Mandarin include department-store chain J.C...
...Sovereignty is the act...
...Kill Rock Stars Olympia, Washington "People who make music just to try to get famous or rich are dumb, and the people who put out records for those same reasons are pretty silly, too...
...The process is moving," says Barbara Briggs, who works with Kernaghan...
...Livia GershoN DOWN AND RADIOACTIVE IN IDAHO STAR-SHIPMENTS Anti-nuclear activists in Idaho placed a historic initiative on the state's November ballot...
...They find out about us mostly by word of mouth," he says...
...But will the union leaders ever be rehired...
...With this ceremony, the activists began a protest that halted train shipments of sulfuric acid bound for Michigan's Upper Peninsula...
...But Wang has repeatedly postponed rehiring the unionists, who have been blacklisted and can't find work in other maquiladoras...
...Chris Seymour Chippewa Block Acid Shipments Bad River Chippewa Reservation, Wisconsin At dawn on July 22, five men lit a fire at an isolated railroad crossing, placed a drum and an eagle feather on the tracks, and set up staffs in the four cardinal directions...
...We are a lot more radical than older prison societies...
...That's unprecedented in the city's walled San Marcos Free Trade Zone...
...Kill Rock Stars artists attack mainstream concepts of gender and other social norms...
...So is Wang's agreement to rehire the six union leaders he fired last year...
...Zoltan Grossman 14/ October 1996 Anarchist Books for Prisoners Philadelphia As the United States builds more and more prisons without libraries and cuts educational programs for inmates...
...When federal inspectors gave the green light to the trains, the blockade began...
...The tribe had been involved in negotiations with state and federal agencies," said Wilmer...
...Speakers and panelists at the SSnference will explore the problems of the prison system %h4 the offender, mothers in prison, the ex-offender re-ending a community, alternatives to incarceration, and ways K which the community can help rehabilitate prisoners...
...This blockade has successfully drawn public attention to the largest ecological threat in our region's history...
...For more information, contact Stop the Shipments at Box 2841, Boise, Idaho 83701, (208) 338-3810...
...For updates, contact the Midwest Treaty Network at (715) 779-5071, e-mail: bresette @win.bright.net...
...For postage, the group solicits private donations...
...The Bad River tribal government secured a temporary federal injunction against the acid shipments because of the unstable trestles...
...He says the company looks for performances that "the major labels are too profit-driven to have ever considered putting out...
...He maintains that he does not have enough work...
...Batt's agreement with the U.S...
...Later, the tribal government took over the blockade from the Ogitchida and refused to allow acid shipments through the reservation until the tribe's conditions are met...
...Or see the Network's website: http://www.al-phacdc.com/treaty...
...Moon started the label in 1991 to produce "wordcore," intense spoken-word performances...
...Curated by James Hugunin, the exhibit features photographs by Morrie &hmi (California), Lloyd DeGrane (Chicago), Lucinda Devlin (New York), and Robert Saltzman (Mexico...
...Books Through Bars is a non-profit entity affiliated with New Society Publishers in Philadelphia, which publishes works on nonviolent social change...
...At a powwow to honor the Ogitchida, John Wilmer, the tribal chairman, recognized that the decisive action had come from outside his government...
...The anger of many punk performers doesn't prevent them from exploring ideas in subtle and linguistically interesting ways...
...government has made that promise for the past forty years— without coming through...
...Amaya, at least, seems to have left Mandarin, says Kernaghan...
...Bresette then decided to take more direct action—he helped form Anishinabe Ogitchida (Protectors of the People), the group that blockaded the tracks...
...The Copper Range Corporation wanted to use the acid to extract ore from the White Pine copper mine...
...Punk is a club for people who are suspicious of clubs," he says...
...Department of Energy allows 1,133 shipments—totalling fifty-five tons—of highly radioactive naval nuclear waste to enter Idaho during the next forty years for what the government claims is temporary storage at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory...
...Army-style discipline included corporal punishment and punitive duties such as sweeping outside the factory all day in the blazing sun...
...Red Cliff Chippewa activist Walter Bresette resigned in protest as Indigenous Chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which formally advises the Environmental Protection Agency...
...When the women formed the first-ever legally recognized union in the free-trade zone last year and led a sit-down strike, Amaya's security force attacked the union leaders with fists and clubs...
...for more information, contact Diane Grams at the rfee Museum, 314 West Institute Place, Chicago, IL i&fQ, or phone (312) 440-1860...
...And although the Department of Energy promises to clean up nuclear waste in Idaho in exchange for the storage, Proctor says the U.S...
...Pay at Mandarin and other Salvadoran maquiladoras is between fifty-six and sixty-nine cents an hour, according to the National Labor Committee...
...Many organizations do not know what to make of us...
...Your world, not mine/Your world, not ours," screams Bikini Kill, probably the most famous band Kill Rock Stars produces...
...No American company is anxious to make this succeed,' says Charles Ker-naghan, the apparel-industry gadfly whose New York City-based National Labor Committee exposed conditions at Mandarin...
...Under personnel manager Luis Amaya, a former Salvadoran army colonel, business-as-usual meant running the factory like a military installation, according to the Archdiocese of San Salvador's humanrights office...
...The group supported a recent unsuccessful pardon appeal by Cyd Berger, a battered woman imprisoned since the 1970s for not stopping her partner from committing murder...
...For more information, contact Books Through Bars, 4722 Baltimore Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19143, (215) 724-1424, e-mail: taojones@-iww.org...
...Punk stands against the status quo in a lot of ways," says Moon...
...We arc applying for grants to meet the demand now," says Susan Phillips, another member...
...Idaho progressives are finding themselves in a battle with a one-time ally, former Governor Cecil Andrus, a Democrat who was known for his administration's anti-nuclear stances...
...Coinciding with the exhibit, Inside/Outside: An Informational and Interactive Conference on the Prison System Today is Scheduled for September 28...
...One prison demanded that we stop sending political books...
...Pro-mining Republican Governor Tommy Thompson replied that the blockade violates interstate commerce...
...For more information, contact the National Labor Committee at 275 7th Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10001,(212)242-0986...
...He argues that punk culture provides a feeling of community and connection to people who are considered outsiders, yet avoids forcing them to conform to any single model...
...Works range from fee voyeuristic to the documentary to collaborations be-m&en prisoners and artists (right...
...Most workers go without meat and fish, and often without milk...
...For Moon, it is important that the artists get the chance to communicate their ideas to people who feel isolated...
...Some prisons refuse hardcovers, and others, like the Angola penitentiary in Louisiana, only accept books directly from publishers...
...Now Andrus receives $ 165 per hour for his work as a public-relations lobbyist for Lockheed-Martin, which runs the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory for the Department of Energy...
...The only railroad tracks leading to the mine cut through a Chippewa reservation, passing over crumbling trestles that traverse wetlands...
...It's anti-complacency, anti-big business, anti-powers-that-be...
...firms that used to buy shirts from Mandarin have not placed orders this year...
...Advocates for the initiative point out that the Snake River Aquifer where the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory is located is prone to severe earthquakes and volcanic activity...
...Today, Kill Rock Stars puts out more rock than spoken word, but what the artists say remains as important to the label as how they say it...
...Books Through Bars gets hundreds of requests a month from prisoners, according to Scott Lam-son, a member of the anarchist-influenced group...
...That means performers express radical views on politics, social structures, personal relationships, and just about everything else...
...The group advocates setting up dialogues on alternatives to prison: "Prison is an attempt to dehumanize inmates," says Phillips...
...The majority of the label's artists are women, and the feminist, queer-positive music and poetry most of them perform would drive the Jesse and Tipper crowd to new heights of outrage...
...Wang agreed to the monitoring scheme in March, bowing to pressure from the Gap clothing chain, a major customer...
...We get a lot of requests for African-American history, Mexican history, and Native-American texts...
...Andrus has joined forces with Republican conservatives to fight the initiative and has endorsed Batt's stance...
...Penney, women's sportswear maker Liz Claiborne, and women's clothing retailer Casual Corner...
...Moon's punkers express themselves not with calm, rational discussion but with rage...
Vol. 60 • October 1996 • No. 10
