Of Occupations and Economic Justice

From local peace activist Joy First:

Our vigil with Senator Kohl continues for the 7th straight Wednesday this week on February 21. We will again meet outside Senator Kohl's office at 4:00 pm at 14 W. Mifflin St. and then go inside. Our message remains the same, and is being echoed by peace activists in congressional offices around the country. We want Congress to end the funding for the war and bring all of our sons and daughters home NOW. Our work is part of the Occupation Project, a nationwide campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. There are similar actions taking place in 35 states around the country. ...

While many of you were vigiling in Madison on February 14, I was in court in DC with 20 others out of the 97 people who were arrested last September in an attempt to give the message to members of Congress that we want them to take responsibility and do something to end the horrific war in Iraq. There were many people in court this past Wednesday who spoke out so eloquently against the war, and their words were entered into the official court record. We were tried by the Chief Judge in the Washington, DC District Court. Though he found us guilty, I know that our words moved him, and we received a suspended sentence.

The Iraq War isn't the only issue on which Sen. Kohl's stance is wanting. He also voted for a bankruptcy bill authored by credit card companies and widely criticized by consumer groups, progressives and Democratic groups.

On a related note, two feminist economists present an interesting critique of microcredit and the Grameen Bank in a Women's eNews article:

One can hardly imagine a more paternalistic act than acknowledging the need for women's economic equality by making an award to a U.S.-trained, conservative male economist. This marginalizes the achievements of the world's first female-led microcredit organization, the Self-Employed Women's Association of India, known as SEWA.

Unlike Grameen and other microfinance enterprises, SEWA is run by poor women for other poor women. It organizes women working in the informal sectors so they can obtain income security, food security, health care, child care and shelter. Its philosophy unites the labor movement, the cooperative movement and the women's movement to ensure that self-employed women, like salaried employees, have a right to their wages, decent working conditions and protective labor laws. ...

Does the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Grameen Bank add credence to the neo-liberal myth of individuals escaping poverty merely through their own hard work? Yes. Do these programs help some women pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Yes. Will micro-enterprises do much to end widespread poverty among the world's poorest women? Not a chance.

Stop the Wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti...)

In Iraq, at least three young women have been sentenced to death, for vague offenses. "Questions have arisen about the fairness of proceedings, the lack of legal representation, transparency in the justice system and use of the death penalty as well as the legitimacy of the legal tribunals themselves," reports Women's eNews.

More information on the three women's cases is below, and on Amnesty International's website. But first, this reminder to join the peace rally and march this Saturday:

Rally and March to End the Iraq War
Saturday, March 17 2007 at 12:30 pm
UW Library Mall in Madison (Lake and State Streets)
We are calling for an end to the war and bringing all the troops home now. We will gather to mark the 4th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war and call for "Not One More Death. Not One More Dollar." We will also be leafletting with the theme of encouraging young people to seek alternatives to military enlistment, and to resist the lures of military recruiters.

Gather at UW Library Mall at 12:30pm for musical satire and spoken word artists. Rally begins at 1pm with speakers. March steps off at 1:30pm. Bring signs and noise makers. Come early if you can volunteer to leaflet or help with another task.

From Women's eNews:

According to information collected by Amnesty International, Wassan Talib and Zayneb Fadhil were sentenced to death by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq on August 31, 2006, after being convicted of killing members of the Iraqi security forces in the Baghdad district of Hay al-Furat in 2005, charges that both deny. Zayneb Fadhil, the mother of a 3-year-old girl, has reportedly said that she was not in the country at the time of the incidents.

Liqa' Qamar Muhammad was convicted of participating in a kidnapping in 2005 and sentenced to death on Feb. 6, 2006. Her husband was detained and charged with the same crime, according to Amnesty International. Muhammad has an infant daughter, who was born in prison and remains there with her.

The International Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, a network of lawyers in the United States, points out that the U.N. has passed a resolution against imposing the death penalty on new mothers.

The group called for the Iraqi government to repudiate the executions. "We have received information that these three were denied legal counsel," the group said in a public statement. Denial of counsel violates international guarantees to a fair trial, the group said.