Friday, May 08, 2009

Haw River Festival, labor teach-in, and Mukasey protest this weekend

The Haw River Festival is this Saturday, 1-6pm in Bynum.  For more information see www.hawriver.org
 
Also:
 
Saturday, May 9, 2009
3:30-5:30 Chapel Hill Public Library, 100 Library Drive (off Estes Drive )

Teach In: Corporate Rule, Bailouts and Greed: Why We Need Unions

Join Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and other HKonJ allies for a teach in on the struggle for workers rights and the struggle to form unions against increasing corporate control of the workplace, political conversation and civic life.

Hear prophetic voices: NC State Prof. David Zonderman, noted labor historian and civil rights activist; Chris Chafe, Exec. Dir., Change to Win Labor Federation; Moncure Plywood workers, back from 8-month strike and settlement; N.C. public employees, in a fight for collective bargaining rights.

(Also on the panel will be Cat Warren, Past President of NC-AAUP, and Tim Stallman, a UNC alum.  They will speak about the changing power structure of universities and the impact of budget cuts on university workers, particularly in the absence of collective bargaining rights.)

Learn how you can become involved.
View fact sheet and flyer.
<http://www.hkonjoc.org/WILPF%20Union%20Teach-In%2020090509.pdf>
Contact WILPF, 919.370.4114, for more information.
 
MOTHERS TO PROTEST MUKASEY AT LAW SCHOOL GRADUATION
 
North Carolina Stop Torture Now invites mothers and their children of
all ages to protest the appearance of torture advocate and former
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, the featured speaker at the
University of North Carolina School of Law graduation ceremony, 3:30
p.m., Sunday, May 10 at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, NC.
 
After they failed to convince the school to withdraw the invitation to
Mukasey, a group of students in the graduating class asked the
grassroots, anti-torture group to organize an educational protest.
 
In 2008, as Attorney General, Mukasey ignored a request joined by
Representative David Price (NC - Fourth District) and 55 Congressional
representatives to investigate allegations of detainees tortured by the
Central Intelligence Agency.
 
Joining former CIA Director Michael Hayden, Mukasey wrote that
soldiers' guidelines for treatment of captives under U.S. control
detailed in the Army Field Manual are " ... not appropriate ... for more
experienced people in controlled circumstances with high-value
detainees. Indeed, the Army Field Manual was created with awareness that
there was an alternative protocol for high-value detainees." (April 17,
2009.  The Wall Street Journal. " The President Ties His Own Hands on
Terror")
 
"I believe that Mr. Mukasey failed to execute his responsibility as
Attorney General," Tamar Birckhead, Assistant Professor of Law at the
University of North Carolina, said, "His commitment to justice is
questionable and he ought not be honored by outstanding graduates, whom
we have every confidence will give honorable and selfless service to
their community and the legal profession."
 
North Carolina Stop Torture Now has worked since 2005 to expose and
end North Carolina's links to the U.S. torture program, with emphasis on
the role of Aero Contractors, Ltd., a company headquartered at the
Johnston County Airport that provides flight crews, aircraft maintenance
and other support for CIA counter-terror operations, which have included
the kidnap, disappearance and torture of men who were later released
without charges.
 
The group plans to distribute Mother's Day cards that read, in part:
 
     "Mom: Imagine your child were detained by police while traveling
abroad or kidnapped on his way to worship; handed over to the CIA,
beaten, stripped, photographed, drugged, hooded, and shackled to the
floor of a business jet; "disappeared" to a foreign prison -- while you
know nothing of his whereabouts  -- and denied access to the Red Cross,
a lawyer, or a judge; interrogated and tortured daily  ...
     Would you want justice?  Would you insist on accountability?   Of
course you would!  Whose Mom would do any less?"
 
Additional information: www.ncstoptorturenow.org

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