On Dec. 3, 2005, NOW introduced its campaign to help stop violence against women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico. NOW held a press conference and rally in El Paso, Texas, followed by a march across the border to Mexico in protest of the unsolved murders of Juarez women.
The slaying of hundreds of young women, now estimated to be more than 400, has frustrated the grieving families for over a decade. By joining with the international community and an increasing list of feminist organizations, NOW is helping send a message to the victims' families that they are not alone in their fight for justice. Many of the women were killed going to or from work at the maquiladora factories near the border, some of which are owned by U.S. companies.
Martina Alveldaño, Consuelo Valensuela, Hortensia Enriquez, Patricia Cervantes and Francisco Torres, parents of some of the victims, led the demonstration along with NOW officers. Accompanied by over two hundred people, mostly women, these parents marched over the El Paso del Norte Bridge from Texas to Mexico.
NOW's National Board members, and activists from states such as California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were joined by members of Justicia para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters), Mexico Solidarity Network, Amigos de Mujeres de Juarez (Friends of Women of Juarez), Casa Amiga (Friendly Home), Las Hormigas (the Ants), Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (Return Our Daughters Home)-sister organizations in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico and Las Cruces, N.M.
The above is from Zenaida Mendez's "Hundreds March from El Paso to Mexico in Protest of Femicide" (NOW) which Keesha noted in her e-mail. Along with NOW, another great resource for this topic is Eve Ensler's V-Day. We've got two other highlights but Brady wondered if we were doing Indymedia roundup this Thursday? I intend to. So if you have something, e-mail it in. Newer members, remember that the vote was (I didn't vote in the poll) no more than five highlights in each entry (total of ten).
More than that and the feeling is that the Indymedia isn't highlighted. I respect that results. If I sneak in a sixth, I'll try to make a review or interview with an artist. We do have artists speaking out. Some with statements, some with music, some with both. (Or books, films, what have you.) It is important that we know of those people. (Read Howard Zinn's Artists In Times Of War if you haven't been convinced thus far. Availabe at bookstores and also at Seven Stories Press, the publisher.)
But I'm for the Indymedia roundup. So send in your choices.
No there haven't been evening posts this week. I've been addressing members' e-mail. (I'm not even going into the public account because there are so many members e-mailing right now about things other than highlights. If you're a member and you're using the public address, Ava and Jess are hitting that account and they'll reply or forward it over to the members account.)
I can only do so many things and I can't read all of those e-mails each evening and still do an evening post.
Will there be anything posted on December 25th? That's Christmas, for those who celebrate it. (I do.) And it falls on a Sunday. As a result of the two, Joan wondered if there would be anything noted here? The plan is to do so. I can't imagine anything changing that. (Knock wood.)
There was another question in the e-mails that seemed to be something that others might be wondering and I'm blanking on it now. If I remember, I'll squeeze it at the end.
Andre wanted to note something on Stanley Tookie Williams that Angela Davis said on Democracy Now! today:
ANGELA DAVIS: Well, Stanley Tookie Williams did repeatedly express remorse for all of the terrible things he admitted he had done in his youth. At the same time, he indicated that, time and time again, that he was not guilty of the particular crimes with which he was charged. It would have actually been easy for him to admit guilt, even though he is innocent, it would have been very easy for him to admit guilt, apologize for the purpose of guaranteeing that he might receive clemency from Governor Schwarzenegger, but he maintained his innocence until the very end.
And, of course, there has been little discussion about the actual evidence in the trial. There's been little discussion of the witnesses who testified against him, the jailhouse informant, for example, because there was no DNA, or what they call factual evidence in the case, and this is what I think is quite dangerous about the assumption that the only way innocence can be demonstrated is through DNA. I would say parenthetically that I happened to catch on CNN an interview with a man who had been released from death row in Illinois based on DNA evidence, and he told a CNN reporter that he believes that Tookie Williams should be executed, because there was no actual innocence, there was no factual evidence of his innocence. This is very frightening to me, because it means that the science, the so-called scientific production of innocence can, as a matter of fact, boomerang against all of those who are not able to mobilize such evidence. And it might boomerang against the notion that we need to abolish the death penalty because it is wrong. No one, regardless of guilt or innocence, should be put to death by the state during this day and age.
Zach found something on Iraq and the air war. It's by Dahr Jamail, proving once again, you can count on the unembeds. It's just the mainstream that fails you. From Jamail's "Tomgram: Dahr Jamail on the Missing Air War in Iraq" (TomDispatch.com):
The American media continues to ignore the increasingly devastating air war being waged in Iraq against an ever more belligerent Iraqi resistance -- and, as usual, Iraqi civilians continue to bear the largely unreported brunt of the bombing.
When the air war shows up at all in our press, it is never as a campaign, but as scattered bare-bones reports of individual attacks on specific targets, almost invariably based on military announcements. A typical example was reported by Reuters on December 4th: "Two U.S. Air Force F-16 jets dropped laser-guided bombs" which, according to a military spokesperson, killed two "insurgents" after they attacked an army patrol near Balad, 37 miles west of Baghdad. On the same day, Reuters reported that "a woman and two children" were "wounded when U.S. forces conducted an air strike, bombing two houses in Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad."
And even this minimalist version of the American air war rarely makes it into large media outlets in the U.S.
Ignoring the Obvious
Author and media critic Norman Solomon asked the following question recently: "According to the LexisNexis media database, how often has the phrase ‘air war' appeared in the New York Times this year with reference to the current U.S. military effort in Iraq? As of early December, the answer is: Zero." Solomon went on to point out that the phrase "air war" had not appeared in either the Washington Post or Time magazine even a single time this year.
Curiously enough, U.S. Central Command Air Force (CENTAF) reports are more detailed than anything we normally can read in our papers. On December 6, for example, CENTAF admitted to 46 air missions over Iraq flown on the previous day -- in order to provide "support to coalition troops, infrastructure protection, reconstruction activities and operations to deter and disrupt terrorist activities."
And I'm still blanking. Sorry. I'm still going through the e-mails. If I remember, I'll post again.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
zenaida mendez
femicide
now
angela davis
democracy now
dahr jamail