Friday, March 31, 2006

A new movement for immigrant rights takes to the streets:
3/31/2006

URL Weblink=
http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-1/582/582_02_Equal.shtml

“We want to be equal”
March 31, 2006 | Page 2

Ty Coronado, Sarah Knopp, Katie Miller and Avery Wear report from LA on the massive immigrant rights march.

A SLEEPING giant awoke March 25 in Los Angeles as some 1 million people marched to protest anti-immigrant legislation that would make criminals out of tens of millions of people.

The LA demonstration was the largest in a recent string of protests for immigrant rights that have shaken the U.S. It was also probably the largest demonstration of any kind in the city’s history.

People of all races and nationalities, but most of all immigrants and their families, traveled from across Southern California and the Southwest to converge on downtown LA. Aerial photos of the area around LA’s City Hall showed huge seas of people stretching in several directions, as far as the eye could see. Everywhere, the streets were a mass of white--marchers wore white T-shirts to symbolize peace.

The marchers turned out to take a stand against legislation sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.)--and passed by the House in December--that would classify not only undocumented immigrants but anyone who assists them as “aggravated felons.”

The day before the big march, thousands of students staged walkouts from Los Angeles high schools. Sandra Lucano, a 10th grade student, said, “Even though administrators tried to have a lockdown, students were climbing the fences to protest and have their voices heard. Students want to keep organizing and fighting for immigrant rights.”

The Sensenbrenner bill, known as HR 4437, was the final insult that galvanized simmering anger here and across the country about the rise of the racist Minutemen vigilantes and the unprecedented number of deaths at the border due to the militarization of Operation Gatekeeper. Many signs read, “We are not terrorists. We are workers.”

Alfredo Rodriguez, a day laborer originally from Mexico City, traveled to the march from Arizona. He carried a sign reading, “The sleeping giant has woken up,” and a T-shirt that read, “Thank you, HR 4437, for reuniting us.”

Juan, an undocumented worker from Hidalgo, Mexico, marched with his young son and daughter. He said it felt good to see support from people of all nationalities, not just Latinos. “We are worth a lot,” Juan said. “We raise this country up. We’re not trying to be better than anyone else. We just want to be equal.”

Plinio Castro explained why he came to the U.S. “The treasury of Central America was taken by North Americans,” Castro said. “That is why we are poor, why there is unemployment, poverty and hunger.”

“We are against gangs, and we’re having a hard time economically--that’s why we’re here,” explained Mario Alberto Bautista, a 24-year-old construction worker from El Salvador. Castro added, “I’m here because I want to make a better life for my family.”

Bitterness at the hypocrisy of politicians and their victimization of minorities ran high. One protester held up a sign that read, “We take care of your kids, mow your lawns, and now we’re felons?”

The march added to the growing confidence of the struggle for immigrant rights on display at previous demonstrations, like Chicago on March 10, when as many as 300,000 people clogged the streets of downtown.

Like in Chicago, Democratic Party politicians spoke to the LA rally, and urged demonstrators to support “compromise” measures. LA’s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a rising star in the Democratic Party, told the crowd that he is for an amnesty for undocumented immigrants, but also said, “We need to get behind Kennedy and McCain.”

But the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill that Villaraigosa was referring to doesn’t grant amnesty. On the contrary, it sets up a guest worker program and adds spending on border enforcement.

Maria Sanchez said a group that contributes so much to the U.S. economy deserves much better. “With this many people, we should demand legalization and amnesty,” Maria said.

Carlos, a community college student from San Bernadino, said, “This march isn’t just about illegal people. Look at all the Blacks and whites. They’re living terribly too. We all have to fight back.”

Since the Chicago demonstration, protests and marches have taken place in cities across the country, with the turnout surpassing organizers’ expectations in nearly every case.

In Milwaukee--the home to HR 4437 sponsor Sensenbrenner--some 30,000 immigrants and their supporters took the streets March 23 in a march that was billed as “A Day Without Latinos.”

In Phoenix, at least 20,000 marched to the offices of Arizona’s conservative Sen. Jon Kyl. “Everybody’s tired that people think we’re criminals,” said Demirel Montiel, who attended the march with his wife and three children. “If you drive, you’re a criminal. If you work, you’re a criminal. If you’re Mexican, you’re a criminal.”

In Denver, some 50,000 people gathered on March 25 to voice their opposition to anti-immigrant measures pushed by politicians such as Colorado’s own Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Earlier in the week, protest organizers in Denver thought a couple hundred people would show up. But by 10:30 a.m., tens of thousands had gathered, and chants of “Si se puede” and “We are not criminals” rang out. A police spokesperson told the Denver Post that the protest “caught everybody off guard,” and that he had not seen a crowd as large since the Denver Broncos’ Super Bowl win in 1999.

On the Monday after the LA march, hundreds of students walked out of school in San Diego as a response to congressional debate over immigration legislation. The walkouts took place at cities across the city--the students later came together for a demonstration outside San Diego Community College.

In California’s capital of Sacramento, on March 25, as many as 10,000 people protested, the majority of them Mexican Americans. The protest was organized by several groups, including the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, La Raza, MEChA and unions, including the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Service Employees International Union.

“People risk their lives to come over here to work and feed their families, not to harm people,” said Alicia Mendoza, who drove from Yuba City with her family to attend. “The majority want to follow the rules, as long as the rules are the same for everyone and not based on the color of your skin.”

In Atlanta, about 200 people turned out on the steps of the state capitol building to protest a bill passed by the Georgia House that would deny state services to undocumented immigrants--and impose a 5 percent surcharge on wire transfers from undocumented immigrants. Organizer Teodoro Maus told the Associated Press that as many as 80,000 Latinos responded to a call not to go to work on the day of the protest.

On March 26, as many as 1,000 people marched against HR 4437 in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood. Marchers beat drums and chanted, “Aqui estamos, y no nos vamos, y si nos echan, nos regresamos!” (“We’re here, we aren’t going anywhere, and if they kick us out, we’re coming back”)

“It’s really awesome that this movement is getting stronger,” said Marian Morell, from Iglesia San Romero de las Américas in Washington Heights and the Coalition in the Dominican Republic in Solidarity with the Haitian Community. “Hopefully, our movement will continue to grow and touch more working-class people. We shouldn’t have to be afraid to stand up. Those of us who aren’t afraid have to stand up for those who are, to help them to realize they don’t have to be afraid.”

Rev. Luis Barrios, of San Romero de las Américas, is calling for outright defiance of the law if it is passed. “If we can’t keep Congress from voting against this bill, religious leadership in the United States has the moral responsibility not only to protest this bill, but to refute it and violate it with acts of civil disobedience, because this law violates humanity and has nothing to do with national security,” he said.

Rhadamés Morales, one of the organizers of Sunday’s demonstration, said, “We are warming up for a fight that needs to be much larger, because this law isn’t just anti-immigrant, it’s promoting racism and terrorism against all human beings. This law ignores the fact that this country has been built by immigrant workers...Our next step should be to mount a massive protest in Washington, D.C., right on the steps of Congress.”

Hundreds protested in other cities, including Providence, R.I., where 200 people marched on Sen. Lincoln Chafee's office in support of immigrant rights and against HR 4437 on March 22. More protests are set to take place, with a march planned in Boston and a rally in Washington, D.C. on March 27.

April 10 has also been called as a national day of action for immigrant rights, with organizers promising demonstrations in at least 10 cities.
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Jeff Bale, Jim Bullington, Brian Chidester, Richard Greenblatt, Sarah Hines and Jenny Olsen contributed to this report.

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Join the Humane-Rights-Agenda Yahoo Group

Check out the Humane-Rights-Agenda Blog

Check out: De Tod@s Para Tod@s Blog
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Key Link: Aztlannet Website
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Re: [THIRD-WORLD-EARTH-NEWS] Sponsorship of Al-Awda's Fourth Annual International In San Francisco

Re: [THIRD-WORLD-EARTH-NEWS] Sponsorship of Al-Awda's Fourth Annual International In San Francisco

Gracias Brother Zahi ~ Let me be free enough to take this opportunity to express my sincere support for the Right to Return of Palestinian refugees, for the shining success of the Fourth Annual International Convention in San Francisco (July 14-16, 2006) and to remind all peoples of the 8th Annual CESAR CHAVEZ WALK on SATURDAY, April 1st, 2006 8:00am at Historic Olvera Street 125 Paseo de la Plaza, Los Angeles, California.
Key Link: http://www.ufwaction.org/ufw/events/cecwla06/details.tcl

As you should know there has been recent Spiritual Awakenings of Chicanos, Latinos and indigenous natives in the United States since the Great March in LA and other American cities. We are over 40 MILLION strong in our numbers inside the United States!

Many of our brothers and sisters are fighting for the exact same basic humane rights desired by all refugees, all immigrants and all exiled world citizens in their quest to be treated as decent human beings.

Let us learn of each others Movements, struggles and histories in order to work together to make true “liberty and justice for all” more than a sweet American slogan while we still suffer in the aching misery of poverty and sad suffering.

No Human Being Upon Mother Earth Is A Foreign Illegal Alien!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta
Humane Liberation Party
Sacramento, California, USA
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

Related Links:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/THIRD-WORLD-EARTH-NEWS/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Immigrant-Rights-Agenda/
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http://al-awda.org/faq-al-awda.html

Frequently Asked Questions on Al-Awda

1. What is Al-Awda's mission?
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is a broad-based, non-partisan, global, democratic association of grassroots activists and students. Our mission is to educate the international community to fulfill its legal and moral obligations vis-à-vis the Palestinian people and to support the refugees with direct aid and empowerment projects. Al-Awda develops, coordinates, supports and guides, as needed, global and local grassroots initiatives for action related to Palestinian rights. Our advocacy includes the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland, and to full restitution of all their confiscated and destroyed property in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International law and United Nations Resolutions which uphold these rights.

2. Is Al-Awda a political group?
Al-Awda is not backed by any particular political group or faction. However, that does not mean that individuals who are members of Al-Awda may not have their own political and factional sympathies, if any. People are welcome to work with us on the Palestinian refugees' right to return campaign regardless of their organizational affiliation, if any.

3. How is Al-Awda structured?

To help achieve our goals, Al-Awda members set up or join a local Al-Awda chapter in their area. Members may also join national and/or international action committees. Chapters and action committees elect representatives from their ranks to the Coordinating Committee. The functions of the Coordinating Committee are to coordinate the activities of the various chapters and committees as well as manage Al-Awda's functions per the organization's bylaws. The Coordinating Committee elects the Executive Committee from its own ranks. The Executive Committee manages Al-Awda's administrative affairs including those related to Al-Awda's internal, external and financial affairs.

4. What are the criteria for membership of Al-Awda?

The current criteria for membership of Al-Awda are commitment to our goals and points of unity. Anyone regardless of political, religious, ethnic or organizational affiliation may join Al-Awda if they are committed to these criteria.

5. How do I join Al-Awda?
To find out how to join or develop an Al-Awda chapter in your area and to find out how to join a national and international action committee, please write to us.

6. Where does Al-Awda get funding for its campaigns and educational programs?
Al-Awda is registered with the Internal Revenue Service of the United States of America as a 501(c)3 non-profit exempt organization. Al-Awda relies on volunteers and donations for maintaining its campaigns and educational programs. Please Donate Now to help us achieve our goals.

7. Who sets the agenda and plans?Each chapter sets its own local agenda and plans of action within the context of Al-Awda's mission, goals and points of unity and, for example, in support of workshop decisions arrived at the annual conventions of the organization. Through their elected representatives on the Coordinating Committee, chapters and action commitees coordinate their activities at the national level.

8. How do local chapters handle financial matters?
Chapters may only solicit funds if Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is registered with their state and if they are authorized to do so by Al-Awda's Executive Committee. Such authorized chapters are responsible for collecting funds but they must provide information on such funds to the Executive Committee in a timely manner so that the Executive Committee may issue receipts for funds collected via the organization's national treasurer. The elected represenatives of all local chapters are required to submit annual financial reports to the Executive Committee by no later than 30 Januray of the following fiscal year. These reports will be used for the required annual Federal and State reporting.

9. How do chapters and action committees coordinate their activities?
Chapters and action committees coordinate their activities through their elected representatives to the Coordinating Committee. Overlapping memberships in chapters and on action committees further facilitates coordination and communication. Members may join several action committees. Local chapters are naturally restricted to those in their areas.

10. How are members of the Coordinating Committee elected?
Each chapter and action committee elects representatives to the Coordinating Committee. Elections and representation are carried out annually per the bylaws. Each elected representative serves for a renewable one-year term.

11. How are members of the Executive Committee elected?
The Coordinating Committee elects the Executive Committee from within its ranks. The Executive Committee in turn elects the chair, vice-chair, secretary and treasurer to serve renewable one-year terms. Elections to the Coordinating and Executive Committees are carried out in an ordered manner that ensures overlap and continuity.

12. How do I communicate with chapters and committees without necessarily joining them?Please use the contact information provided.

http://al-awda.org/contact.html
For general questions about Al Awda, please write or call us at:
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda.org

The contact information of the elected chapter and action committee representatives currently serving on Al-Awda's Coordinating and Executive Committees is posted at the indicated pages.
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Zahi Damuni wrote:
http://al-awda.org/sf-conv2.html
For Immediate Release
March 31, 2006
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is pleased to announce a generous donation from renowned San Diego poet Steve Kowit to help fund our Fourth Annual International Convention in San Francisco (July 14-16, 2006).

As a token of our appreciation, we will send the first twenty sponsors of our upcoming convention, a signed copy of his powerful poem entitled "INTIFADA" (Caernarvron Press, San Diego Copyright @ 2005).

The first twenty sponsors will also receive a free DVD copy of the Al-Awda Alternate Focus film contest winner 'My Land' by Tone Andersen.

Sponsorship will help us with convention-associated costs such as venue, speaker travel and accommodation, mobilization, advertising, student participation etc.

Individual and organizational sponsorship are welcomed on the following basis:

Bronze - $50
Silver - $100
Gold - $250
Platinum - $500
Diamond - $1000

Please send your sponsorship donation to:

Al-Awda PRRC
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA

Alternatively, to make a secure donation online, simply click on the "Donate" button at
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html

 Please indicate that your donation is for sponsorship of the convention.

Note: Sponsors will be listed in the printed program of the convention unless otherwise requested.

We thank you for your support and look forward to your participation.

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.
§ Visit your group "THIRD WORLD EARTH NEWS
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Coca Eradication Way Down Under Morales: 03-30-2006


Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:42 PM ET
By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer

LA PAZ, Bolivia - The smell filling the grimy whitewashed rooms of the market in the Villa Fatima district overlooking this Andean capital evokes the sweetness of cut grass — only it's more pungent, nearly intoxicating.

Sacks of freshly harvested coca leaves are stacked all around, awaiting buyers. It's all legal, this trade in the leaves that produce cocaine.

There's lots more coca leaf around than there has been in years, no surprise given that new President Evo Morales was recently re-elected head of Bolivia's coca growers' federation.

Eradication of Bolivian coca leaf, an enterprise underwritten almost exclusively with U.S. tax dollars, is down more than 60 percent since Morales took office.

The destruction of coca fields is no longer forced, but depends on the cooperation of coca growers, said Felipe Caceres, the official in charge of the effort and himself a coca grower. Morales has declared zero tolerance for cocaine but says he won't discourage coca growing for traditional consumption.

To see one such traditional use, look no farther than the bulging cheek of Daniel Sonco, a 37-year-old coca trader.

He chews on a ball of coca leaves as he and a colleague repack a half-dozen 50-pound sacks of "hoja de coca" in airtight plastic for a trip down from Bolivia's high plains to the steamy eastern lowlands, where he says he sells them in one-pound lots to agricultural workers.

"If you don't chew down there, you get sleepy," says Sonco, his breath emitting a bitter, alkaloid odor. "The people in the east need to chew to work because it's so hot there."

There is a traditional mystique to coca-leaf chewing. It was once a restricted privilege of Inca royalty before becoming common practice among indigenous peoples in the Andes, where the stimulant doesn't just suppress the appetite but also helps ward off altitude sickness.

The first thing you're offered at La Paz hotels as you arrive in the world's highest capital — 11,800 feet above sea level — is a cup of "mate de coca," or coca tea. You'll get the same treatment in the former Inca capital of Cuzco, Peru.

Another means of coca consumption — as an all-purpose food supplement — has in recent weeks been suggested by politicians in the region.

Bolivia's new foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, said the "sacred leaf" is so nutritious it should be on school menus, although scientific studies show humans don't easily absorb its nutrients.

A spokesman for Peruvian presidential candidate Ollanta Humala said ground coca leaf could be baked into schoolchildren's bread. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez also embraced the idea of coca bread.

"Coca isn't the same as cocaine," Chavez said. "Coca is tremendously nutritional."

Coca recipes notwithstanding, Bolivians have no illusions that a good portion of their coca crop is being converted into cocaine.

The question is, how much?

In October 2004, then-President Carlos Mesa ended a tense confrontation with coca growers in the Chapare region by agreeing to let them cultivate 7,900 acres of the crop while the government commissioned a study of Bolivia's legal coca market.

Once that amount was determined, the government would eradicate the surplus.

The study has yet to be started and Bolivia's coca crop, meanwhile, grew to an estimated 65,500 acres last year, according to the U.S. State Department. That was an 8 percent increase over 2004 and more than twice the 29,652 acres that's permitted under Bolivian law. The crop has grown for four years in a row.

This worries U.S. officials, though they've been loathe to discuss the issue on the record. U.S. Ambassador David Greenlee has expressed concern, nevertheless, that excess coca leaf cultivation fuels the cocaine trade.

Of the $150 million in annual U.S. aid to Bolivia, about two-thirds is tied to narcotics. The money goes to everything from boots to health care and pay supplements for the 1,500 Bolivian conscripts in the eradication force.

Unlike in Colombia, where the chief method of coca crop destruction is aerial spraying with a herbicide, conscripts in Bolivia do it by hand. Last year, they ripped out an average of 1,235 acres of coca bushes every month.

In the nine weeks since Morales' Jan. 22 inauguration, however, they've destroyed just 1,017 acres — though nearly one-third of that was eradicated in the past week, according to the Vice Ministry of Social Defense, which oversees the force.

It's anyone's guess how much more coca is being planted.

Bolivia is the world's third-largest coca producer behind Colombia and Peru, and what gets processed into cocaine is smuggled across the porous border into Brazil, destined mostly for Europe and the Brazilian market, now the world's second-largest after the United States.

Alarmed by growing drug-related violence and rising crack cocaine addiction, Brazil last week said it would build nine new surveillance posts along its 2,100-mile border with Bolivia to combat drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

Pressure from neighbors may be tempering the Morales government's attitude toward coca.

While Bolivia's "Coca Control" agency has been renamed "Coca Development," its chief returned somewhat chastened last week from a meeting in Vienna, Austria, of the International Narcotics Control Board.

Caceres announced Morales would be delaying his campaign to get coca leaf decriminalized and said growers needed to understand that some coca destruction would continue.

"We will eradicate, but in a voluntary manner," he said. "We will meet our international obligations in a voluntary form."
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Associated Press Writer Carlos Valdez contributed to this report.
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Que Viva Che Evo!
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Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Gains Momentum:
03-31-2006

Press Releases
March 31, 2006

Washington, DC – The full Senate began to debate immigration reform this past week. The bill that will be debated and amended is the Senate Judiciary Committee bill that was approved by 12-6 bipartisan majority this past Monday. If passed, the bill would have to be reconciled with an enforcement-only measure passed by the House last December and would then need to be signed by the President to become law. The following is a statement by Frank Sharry, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy organization based in Washington.

The U.S. Senate began an historic debate this week on how best to overhaul our dysfunctional immigration system. In stark contrast to the enforcement-only bill enacted by the House of Representatives and the enforcement-heavy bill introduced by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), the basis for the Senate debate is an “enforcement-plus” package approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The signs of momentum towards workable, comprehensive reform that combines border security, workplace enforcement, future flow visas for workers and families, and a path to earned citizenship for those here illegally are mounting. A surprising number of Senators from both parties are announcing their support for the Senate Judiciary Committee bill as containing the right architecture and the right approach. The President is speaking up forcefully, if generally, and appears to be leaning in the direction of the Senate Judiciary Committee approach to comprehensive reform. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) announced his openness to a compromise with an enforcement-plus Senate bill. Opinion leaders as diverse as George Will, David Broder, David Brooks, Joe Klein, Bill Kristol, Mara Liaisson, Mort Kondracke, Fred Barnes, and Juan Williams have spoken out in support of comprehensive reform that is both tough and fair. And we dare you to name another issue in which the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the New York Times editorial page are in full agreement.

The reasons for the shift in momentum?

1) Public opinion: The American people are frustrated with the broken immigration system, and want solutions, even if they are uncertain about best way to do it.

2) Immigrants rising: in recent weeks, immigrant families have turned out in record numbers to protest punitive policies that denigrate their hard work, while expressing their yearning to become full members of society.

3) Political leadership: This is a moment that cries out for political leadership, and finally, a group of Senators had the courage to stand up and approve a bold, comprehensive plan that combines enhanced enforcement with enhanced legal channels for immigrants.

As a result, the winds are shifting and the debate is changing. A legitimate solution that is consistent with our nation’s interests and ideals is squarely on the table. And the anti-immigration loud mouths that have dominated the debate in recent years seem increasingly shrill and marginalized. The loud mouths are being passed by because their taunts, slogans, and vacuous sound-bites are all rant and no resolution. The heated rhetoric fans anger and boosts talk show ratings, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

The debate is getting serious. The problem-solvers are taking over. Challenging questions are being asked and addressed: How do we fix our broken immigration system in a way that is consistent with both our interests and ideals? How can we integrate the need for control of our borders with the need for immigrant workers? How do we restore respect for the rule of law and restore respect for the law of supply and demand? How best can we combine enforcement and legality so that these actions pull together rather than push apart?

We welcome this long overdue debate. Getting it right and getting it done won’t be easy. Immigration reform never is. But the principles that should guide us as we move forward are both traditional and modern: restore the rule of law, reward work, reunite families, respect rights, and renew citizenship as the cornerstone of our immigration system. And when the going gets tough, we recommend the members of Senate draw inspiration from the courage manifested this past week by the 12 courageous members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who took a stand.
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National Immigration Forum 50 F Street NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20001
(202) 347-0040 fax (202)347-0058 www.immigrationforum.org
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http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/04/comprehensive-immigration-reformgains.html
c/s
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Re: Support Immigrants. Oppose HR4437!: from Christine Chavez

Christine Chavez <christine_chavez@actionimpact.org> wrote:
From Christine Chavez
March 31, 2006
We brought thousands of farm workers to Los Angeles so their voices could be heard on immigration reform.
Our food is harvested by immigrants… the Republican proposal to make them felons is wrong.
When the U.S. Senate voted on Monday… immigration reform advanced!
Please take a moment to tell President Bush not to support HR4437. Church leaders, teachers and health care providers shouldn’t become felons for helping immigrants!
Together we can do it! Si Se Puede!
Thank you,

Christine Chavez
"We don't need perfect political systems, we need perfect participation." --Cesar E. Chavez.

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Link: Biography for Christine Chavez
http://www.actionimpact.org/about.html

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Global Voices:
Bridge Blog Index

Bridge Blog Index

From Global Voices

Table of contentsshowTocToggle("show","hide")[hide]
1 What are BridgeBlogs?
2 How do we maintain this index?
3 Global Index

3.1 Africa
3.2 Antarctica
3.3 Asia

3.3.1 Middle East

3.4 Europe
3.5 North and Central America
3.6 Oceania
3.7 South America

4 Similar projects/web sites

What are BridgeBlogs?

Hossein Derakhshan (aka. Hoder) proposed three models for ways people can use weblogs to communicate between cultures: windows, bridges and cafés. Windows allow us to look into another culture, but not interact - an example might be a weblog of someone in another country, talking about her daily life to her friends and family. We've got a chance to look in, but we're not invited to interact.

Cafés are complex spaces where groups of people can meet to discuss in ways that they can't meet in the real world, due to geography, politics or language. Joi Ito's IRC channel (http://joiwiki.ito.com/joiwiki/index.cgi?ircchannel) is a good example of a café.

Bridges are more interactive than windows, but less complex than cafés. They're usually the project of a single blogger, or a small group of authors. Bridge bloggers write for an audience outside their everyday reality - for instance, when Ory Okolloh (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ory) writes about corruption in Kenya, reaching family at home and readers at Harvard, she is bridge blogging. (And when people comment on her blog from outside Kenya, they're bridging back.

Some other great examples of bridge blogs:

Editor, Myself (http://www.hoder.com/weblog/) - Hossein Derakshan's English-language blog

Where is Raed? (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/) - Salam Pax's blog from Baghdad, now on indefinite hiatus. One of the original and most widely known bridgeblogs.

Black Looks (http://okrasoup.typepad.com) - Sokari Ekine's blog on African Women's issues

Screenshots (http://www.jeffooi.com/) - Jeff's Ooi's blog on Malaysian politics

We're interested in creating an index of these types of online spaces, with a special emphasis on bridge spaces. This index, as it grows will be a resource for people who want to understand what's going on in different parts of the world from a personal perspective, as well as a journalistic or encyclopedic perspective. We hope this will be a resource for the mainstream media as they look for local voices to expand coverage in parts of the world they routinely fail to cover, as well as for individuals.

including IRC chans, Usenet lists, Yahoo groups, etc?

yes, if they meet other aspects of the definition. It's easiest for us to track blogs and wikis because of RSS, but we're very open to the notion that lots of this content is posted in other kinds of spaces... EthanZ 16:20, 6 Jun 2005 (EDT)

How do we maintain this index?

Well, that's a work in progress.

Here's a methodology that EthanZ, Sj, RMack (http://rconversation.blogs.com/) and Joho (http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger) converged on in a recent discussion at Berkman (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/) to start indexing individual bits of bridge-content:

Individuals agree to watch a country or an issue. This includes watching Technorati (http://www.technorati.com), Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) and del.icio.us tags, as well as any prominent weblogs already identified as being from/about that country.

When a watcher finds a photo, post or article focused on that country, s/he uses del.icio.us to tag it, using the country name as a tag - i.e., if Ethan finds a blogpost about a new tech company in Accra, he tags it "ghana". If he finds a blog that consistently writes about Ghana, he tags it "gv-ghana", a special tag which means that a Global Voices watcher has identified a likely bridgeblogger.

Watchers maintain wiki pages within the Global Voices wiki which list identified bridgebloggers and the sources being watched. These pages invite other people to join in watching a country, or take on watching another country or issue.

As many watchers start using the gv-noun tags, it may become neccesary to aggregate a subset of trusted watchers - that's a script we can write if the need arises.

Global Index

We are trying to create a global index of bridge content. For examples of what people are trying to do with these index pages, see Ghana, Antarctica or Morocco.

Feel like watching a nation? Please add your name next to the country in the list below, and add the page itself to your watchlist (follow the "Watch this page" link once you're looking at the page itself). Then watch the feeds listed on the page for new bridge sources, and add them to the page when you find them... or add your own favorite feeds to the list.

Template: If you need assistance on how to add information to each page, please take a look at Nepal page. You can use the structure of that page as a template.

(Countries are from Wikipedia's List of Countries by Continent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_continent) - decisions on what is a country and what continent it belongs to (controversial topics) are made by the Wikipedia authors.

#Africa | #Antarctica | #Asia | #Europe | #North and Central America | #Oceania | #South America

Africa

Antarctica

Asia

Middle East

Europe

North and Central America

Oceania

South America

Similar projects/web sites

Globe of Blogs (http://www.globeofblogs.com/)

GeoURL2.0 (http://geourl.org/)

blogmap by cities (http://www.cathome01.com/blogmap/) Best Blogs in Asia Directory (http://www.misohoni.com/bba/)

Retrieved from "http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/wiki/article/Bridge_Blog_Index"
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