We will be Providing LIVE COVERAGE of
the School of the Americas Protest
520 Years of Oppression – 520 Years of Resistance
Shut Down the School of Assassins and Resist U.S. Militarization in the Americas
Coverage will be available in Spanish and English
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SATURDAY PROGRAM
11:30 SOA Watch Musicians Collective
The SOA Watch movement has been fueled by numerous gifted and generous musicians throughout the Americas.
Welcome and Words of Solidarity, Father Roy Bourgeois, Vietnam veteran, Purple Heart recipient, a Roman Catholic priest and founder of SOA Watch. He has spent four years in prison for nonviolent protests against the SOA.
12:00 former SOA Watch Prisoners of Conscience
300 SOA Watch activists have been sentenced to prison and probation for nonviolent resistance actions to expose the horrors of the SOA and to express solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Latin America.
Joe Jenks
Joe Jencks is an international touring performer, songwriter, entertainer, and educator, based in Chicago, Illinois. From venues like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, to coffee houses, festivals, spiritual communities, and schools, Joe Jencks has spent the last 12 years touring full time.
Colonel Ann Wright
Ann Wright is a former United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
U.S. military veterans are on the forefront of the struggle to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC. Veterans have fasted, organized, marched, hung uniforms and other military items on the fence, crossed the line to carry the protest onto the Fort Benning military base, and served jail time.
Maria Victoria Batista
Maria will address the situation of U.S. militarization in the Dominican Republic, especially in regards to the Saona Island, where the U.S. Southern Command is planning to build a naval base.
Omari Fox, New Danger Collective - the New Danger Movement is a play on the historical identification of the perceived “threat” that artists, thinkers, and change agents pose to the system.
Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based worker organization whose members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout Florida.
Charlie King
Charlie is a musical storyteller and political satirist, who sings and writes about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.
Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 30 years. Benjamin is the author of the book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, and she has been campaigning to get lethal drones out of the hands of the CIA. Predator drones from the war in Afghanistan are being transferred to the control of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) for use in its operations in Latin America. As Fort Benning is scheduled to become a drone base, organizing against drones is picking up around the country.
Brother Domingo Solis is a Franciscan friar and currently the director of the Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC) in El Salvador. JPIC is an organization of Franciscans whose mission is to care for the poor and marginalized, advocate for human rights, be peacemakers and respect and care for all of creation. In El Salvador, JPIC is an active member of the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining (the Mesa) and has supported the struggle for a complete ban on all metallic mining in the country. As part of the Mesa, Brother Domingo has helped organize protests of thousands of people demanding stricter domestic environmental regulations, has educated parishes and communities around the dangers of mining, and has demanded the respect for the human rights of environmental activists.
1:00 Sarab Shada
Sarab Shada is a student from Iraq, who is currently studying at Loyola University Chicago through the Iraqi Student Project.
Legislative Update
With Representative McGovern (D-MA), our champion in Congress, is going to introduce legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to suspend operations at the SOA/ WHINSEC and to investigate the links between U.S. foreign military training and human rights abuses in Latin America.
Yolanda Oquelí
Yolanda is an activist and leader of the organization Frente Norte del Área Metropolitana in Guatemala. She is a human rights defender and an anti-mining activist, was shot on June 13 as a result of her work. Her organization has been protesting against a proposed mining project in her community.
SOA Watch Musicians Collective
Music and culture is an integral part of SOA Watch gatherings as a rich source of challenge and inspiration to us all.
SOA Watch Labor Caucus - Union organizers are among the primary targets of SOA violence in Latin America. SOA graduates have been directly responsible for the slaying of striking workers and the killing of union organizers. The SOA torture manuals identified union organizers as potential subversives and targets. Union solidarity means for the labor caucus that we need to speak up and stop the killing.
1:40 Jon Fromer and Francisco Herrera
Francisco's songs capture the vitality of the immigrant experience, stories of faith, love and struggle.
Jon Fromer is an award-winning singer/songwriter whose music is a special blend of folk, blues and country.
Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlan (MEChA)
MEChA is a student organization that promotes higher education, cultura, and historia. MEChA was founded on the principles of self-determination for the liberation of our people. We believe that political involvement and education is the avenue for change in our society.
Francia Marquez, Colombia
Francia Marquez is a leader from the Afro-Colombian gold-mining community of La Toma in southwestern Colombia. Home to 1,052 families, La Toma was founded by runaway slaves in 1636, and since then the community has struggled against political, economic and armed forces looking to control their lands and resources. Francia makes up part of this struggle. Through her work as a community leader and as part of Procesos de Comunidades Negras (PCN), she has striven to protect La Toma's ancestral lands from plunder, violence and dispossession, despite being identified as military target by paramilitary groups and receiving death threats that seek to drive her off this land.
2:00 Son del Centro
Son del Centro is a group of companeros and camaradas who are students, musicians, activists, dancers, friends and organizers from various parts of Santa Ana, California. The group was formed to create a space for youth to explore their traditions, creativity and consciousness, through son jarocho music.
Edward DuBose, president of the Georgia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP passed a national resolution in 1998, calling for the closure of the SOA.
emma’s revolution
emma’s revolution is the duo of award-winning, activist musicians, Pat Humphries & Sandy O.
Luis Roberto Zamora Bolaños is a young Costa Rican attorney who has brought a law suit to the Costa Rican government, challenging the decision of President Arias of authorizing military training for Costa Rican civilian police to study at the School of the Americas (WHINSEC); the case is pending at the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Previously, he challenged president Pacheco’s decision of supporting the US-UK led aggression on Iraq.
Son Altepee
Son Altepee is a traditional string band from Veracruz, Mexico. Son Altepee make their own instruments, repair instruments, teach string music, contribute to traditional community celebrations, build community with elders and youth in several communities throughout southern Veracruz, and they support several struggles for liberation and self-determination in Veracruz and throughout Mexico.
2:35 Martin Almada, Paraguay
Martin Almada is a Paraguayan educator who was imprisoned under the regime of Alfredo Stroessner. His wife died of a heart attack after being forced to hear through a telephone her husband's cries as he was tortured. After a campaign by Amnesty International, Almada was released. He later uncovered the Terror Archives, a set of file describing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, under Operation Condor.
Mario Venegas
Mario represents the Illinois Coalition Against Torture (ICAT). He is a torture survivor from Chile, tortured by two officers from the Chilean Army, who were trained at the SOA.
Rebel Diaz
Rebel Diaz is a political hip hop duo out of the Bronx, New York and Chicago, IL consisting of the Chilean brothers Rodrigo Venegas (known as RodStarz) and Gonzalo Venegas (known as G1). Rebel Diaz uses their music as an organizing tool and to spread knowledge about injustice.
Aly Wane and Jonathan Perez
Undocumented activist from New York and California. In the past two years, undocumented students and their allies have organized some of the largest mass gatherings in the country. There has been a preponderance of undocumented students “coming out,” announcing that they are “undocumented and unafraid.” Some have taken an even greater risk by engaging in acts of civil resistance.
SOA Watch Musicians Collective
Music and culture is an integral part of SOA Watch gatherings as a rich source of challenge and inspiration to us all.
Belen Asuncion, Los Angeles
Belen was the youngest of 40 participants on the Mexican Caravan for Peace and Justice, all of whom were participants were victims of Mexico’s drug war. The caravan brought these courageous voices to over 30 US cities this summer, sharing the tragic consequences of a drug war that starts in the US, and that must also be stopped from the US. Belen’s brother disappeared while driving from Mexico to the border, while conversing on his cell phone with his mother in Los Angeles. On the last visit of the Caravan to Washington, Belen shared: "Fear is the oldest weapon that has been used by government to control you, but when someone is taken from you who you didn’t realize meant so much to you, your consciousness is elevated. ...We don’t want you to feel sorry for us, ...You, who are looking from the other side, I was once there. I hope that you join us."
Juan Carlos Trujillo Herrera and Rafael Trujillo Herrera
Juan Carlos and Rafael are survivors of the U.S. sponsored and SOA fueled “Drug War” in Mexico.
Colleen Kattau and Elise Witt
Elise is a singer who was born in Switzerland, raised in North Carolina and since 1977 has made her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Colleen performs progressive folk rock colored w/ south of the border beats and socio-enviro-fem conscious compositions.
3:30 Roy Bourgeois, SOA Watch founder
Pageant with the Puppetistas
Artists are a tremendously important part of the movement to close the School of the Americas. The creatively minded inspire the campaign. Art and activism is an effective combination that is able to reach people on a different level and moves them to take action.
SUNDAY PROGRAM
Veterans for Peace and friends will gather at 8:00am the Columbus Inn (3170 Victory Drive) to march together to the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia. Join the march!
9:00 Veterans Cadence to Close the SOA
U.S. military veterans are on the forefront of the struggle to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC. Veterans have fasted, organized, marched, hung uniforms and other military items on the fence, crossed the line to carry the protest onto the Fort Benning military base, and served jail time.
Buddhist Drumming with Peace Pilgrimage - Nipponzan Myohoji
Musicians Collective
Indigenous Blessing
Nonviolence Guidelines
Solidarity Statements
Xochitl Espinosa, National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC)
The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC) seeks to improve the quality of life for Latinos and Latino immigrants in their communities both in the United States and in countries of origin. NALACC seeks to build transnational leadership capacity and increase immigrant civic participation, so that immigrants can advocate effectively for public policies that address the root causes of migration, as well as addressing the challenges faced by immigrants in the United States. NALACC aspires to become an entity recognized for its ability to articulate the challenges faced by transnational immigrant communities, as well as viable solutions to those challenges.
Nuns at the Gates
Every hour of each day, Catholic Sisters stand in solidarity with all who face repression and violence, and we confront injustice and systems that cause suffering.
9:55 SOA Watch Musicians Collective
Adriana Portillo-Bartow
Adriana is a life-long advocate for human rights and a survivor of the war in Guatemala. After Guatemalan security forces killed one of her brothers and disappeared six members of her family, among them her father, her 10 and 9 year old daughters, and her 18-month old sister, Adriana and her two surviving daughters fled their native country and arrived in the US in 1985.
Father Melo
Father Melo is a Jesuit priest, radio host and contributor to Envío magazine, condemned the coup from the start. As a result, his radio station was occupied by the military following the coup and he began receiving death threats.
Father Roy Bourgeois, SOA Watch Founder
In Honor of the Victims: No Más, No More
Commissioning of Funeral Procession
Puppetista pageant and commemoration of the victims of SOA/WHINSEC violence.
1:15pm SOA Watch Musicians Collective
Silvia Brandon Pérez
Silvia is a singer and a member of the SOA Watch Bilingual Space Working Group
Poem by Langston Hughes, the American poet and social activist, who was one of the earliest innovators of the literary art form jazz poetry. The poem will be read by Pedro-Jesus Romero-Menendez
Mike Stout
Mike is a socially conscious singer song-writer and community leader. He leads crusades against local and global economic injustice, rallying people with his music to take action. His sound and lyrics are influenced by his musical heroes Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Jackson Browne and Bruce Cockburn.
Dan Dale
Dan is currently a minister at Wellington Avenue UCC in Chicago. During the 1980´s, Rev. Dale and his family served as missionaries in El Salvador during that country´s civil war. Working with the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America, Rev. Dale played a central role in creating the National Sanctuary Movement for refugees fleeing the U.S.-sponsored wars against the poor in Central America.
2:00pm Closing
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Comments
The trouble with so many people like you, Naomi, is that you want to have your moral cake and eat it.
Secondly, to answer that question depends on what the author has in mind in order - perhaps restrictions on porn, but what restrictions and would that actually address the the core problem of the sexual exploitation of children? There are certainly plenty of topical examples around at the moment of how long the sexual exploitation of children has been going in for.
Also (as the article doesn't say) and I'm not familiar with what age children are in 7th grade was the 30-year old man in question charged for possessing child pornography? Or am I missing something
All agreed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Peraino
If you want to live life get offline.
I live in a European country in which a sizeable number of women, young and old alike take off their bikini tops when they are enjoying the beach, lake or park in public, on a sunny day, with their friends or family.
Ah, I've the first step to acceptance in acknowledging it and on the road to recovery :-)
I must confess to laughing hysterically at the latter, and it wasn't even that funny. Have we all become completely desensitised?
I convinced many girls to send me pictures of themselves or go on webcam when I was in my teens; some were girls I was dating, some were girls I'd met online, all were surprisingly compliant.
I actually think a lot of it comes down to a lack of self worth rooted in the unrealistic body images that are expected to aspire too - taking their clothes off, getting complemented, pleasing a boy, it raises confidence and self esteem in girls who have little.
Incidentally, there is a reasonable amount of research about the ownership & financing of porn around for anyone who cares to do a tiny level of investigating.
I sometimes wonder if Naomi Wolf is in fact a fiendishly clever anti-feminist fifth-columnist whose true aim is to make the rest of us look stupid.
And while it might be better if more sexting teens were aware that what they were doing was technically illegal (and the law certainly seems appropriate for adults trying to obtain such pictures), it hardly seems like the best thing to emphasise: it would be ridiculous (if, sadly, not unheard of) to threaten two 15-year-olds sending each other racy pictures with a child pornography prosecution. Far better to educate young people more generally on internet behaviour, with plenty of reminders that once something's in digital form it's trivial to copy and distribute, and can have long-lasting effects.
Jack to do with porn, though.
The pressure that caused her to take her own life was, in part, applied by the prudishness of American society. It's clear, the guy who published her photo is scum. However, here in Europe lots of women and girls routinely go topless on the beach. No big deal. They're comfortable with their bodies. If somebody photographs them, and publishes the photos, he's also scum.
The women would not be traumatised. People looking at the photos would judge the publisher MUCH more harshly than the victim. That's one thing you can thank the paparazzi for. And that's real liberation for women!
America needs to follow suit, and stop, prudishly, blaming the porn industry for your society's ills. (Europe's got porn too, you know)
I experienced misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic bullying, and later politically-based bullying/bashings, throughout my school years. I am glad I didn't kill myself. But the bullying left me wanting to die, and along with later bashings, has left me with severe complex ptsd.
Victim-blaming is beyond sick.
I hope you're doing all right. We need more support, solidarity, and healing among survivors.
I'm very disturbed and sorry to hear of the abuse you too have suffered, and I hope you're coming through it and coming to terms with the impact it has had on your life. We will face down the bullies - all of us together - no question about that.
I do think, though,that the real story here is how technology has let loose a terrifying amount of new weapons for bullies to abuse and has also allowed them to remain hidden far more easily. I'm not sure how much the broader phenomenon is really a gender issue, let alone traceable to porn.
As I've posted elsewhere, we had a similar case here in NZ (though without the tragic ending), in which, as well as the school bullying, the parents of the 16 year old girl threw her out of the house. There's something wrong with our societies, all right, but I think it's mostly at the puritanical rather than the porny end.
And yet again the sad story of a girl bullied to death and the article completely ignores that several of her so called friends and ex-bf were part of the gang of online and offline bullied who continued the bullying till her death. And Amy claims to have been physically attacked by the girlfriend of her exboyfriend who used her. So where is reference to the bullies involved including the female bullies? The female predators are conveniently ignored.
Lets hope yet again that the death of a teenage girl is being used for another man hating article in the guardian while deliberately missing the point of the part played by the male and female bullies and predators involved..
Some people need to start playing catch up.
The fact that teens now have technology, literally in their hands, that allows them to send take a photograph and instantly send it to someone else, or publish it for all to see, will of course result in some of them taking more "risque" pics.
This is the equivalent of flashing your boobs behind the bike shed only today you can do it from home and flash them to total strangers, and rather unfortunately dirty old bastards.
Yes, something should be done, but blaming porn is an absolutely ridiculous leap to make.
Then actual complain about the porn industry making money as if its a bad thing and people accept that.
THe fact is feminism has become puritancial about sex in the exact same way Christians were the only difference is they still try to jump through idealogical hoops to convince themselves they are liberal....
This article shows 3 girls killing themselves for this reason between canada and America, we had had a few gay guys do the same when they were exposed. On tean suicides what percentage is this? What percentage of bullying suicides is this?
Obviously this behaviour is wrong, I'd like to see the blackmailing bully go to jail for a long time but linking 3 deaths with the whole porn industry and saying will somebody think of the children is Whitehouse territory.
Amanda's story is utterly chilling, it should make a great deal of people who were not there to help her very ashamed.In the days of digital video cameras, screen shots on Skype, plenty of women must have concerns about what images could actually be out there.
Teenagers are not passive victims who are groomed into a sexual awareness, their own hormones determine that they are obsessed with the subject however much latter day puritans would like to pretend otherwise.
Teenagers are not children but they are not yet adults, that's what the word "teenager" means.
Rather than indulging Adult Puritan Fantasies about the sold called "child" status of fourteen year olds we would be far better living in the Real World.
Teenagers are highly sexualised beings, the role of adults is to help them embrace their sexuality in a responsible and safe way.
Bullying and abusive of power infects every aspect of our society and is especially a problem for young people because they are vulnerable and not yet fully formed adults.
Bullying and abuse of power are the problems, not sexuality or the Internet.
You can say technology facilitates it, but the behaviour's not new, and there's no real proof that porn "causes" any of it outside feminist ideology. I'm also amazed at the behaviour of the stalker. OK, if you're a predatory paedophile, you go after kids, but admitting it on your Facebook page? He must really enjoy social exile, extensive flaming and being the go-to guy for the local police whenever anything similar crops up.
Of course they only do it because their parents do it.
Having lived in four countries, and now in Canada (not far from Vancouver), I can say that my experience of West Coast Canadian women is that they are the cattiest and most spiteful bullies, who seem to view the public takedown as a legitimate form of peer control. My experience is with adults. I can't imagine what it's like to be teenager here.
We have to start off from the fact that teenagers are highly sexualised beings.
As I said the role of adults is to help them embrace their sexuality in a safe and responsible way.
The problem is not sexuality or the Internet, it is bullying and the abuse of power. I was badly bullied as a teenager and permanently affected, but the bullying had nothing at all to do with my sexuality.
Our society is infected with bullying and the abuse of power. Teenage grooming is just one manifestation of this. It is of course convenient to hang the problem on sexuality because many adults are Puritans who feel threatened by teenage sexuality. It is convenient for them to label all teenagers as "vulnerable children".
Teenagers are not children but they are not adults, they are making the difficult and often painful transition from one to the other.
Denying their sexuality does not help.
But does anyone ever think about the levels to which we are sinking? Obviously little.
Weird seeing this article alongside the one on ex-porn performer Sasha Grey yesterday. Could a debate between Wolf and Grey be set up?
if you look into Amanda's story, it is really one of complete waste, fed by the cruelty of pretty much all her peers.
She actually did nothing to be ashamed of, she was just caught by a vicious predator on camera, who the internet system allowed her to hound and to degrade her not just at one school but at many.
The issue here is bullying and the unwillingness of massive online forums to remove personal content on request. Facebook cannot and should not justify naked pictures of a minor in a personal profile, when they censor Femen.
None of that of course helps the victims
My point still stands for the US, but I don't know how valid it is for Canada.
There isn't really much we can do about it though, without intruding into people's legitimate freedom. I think it is a matter of sex education, if we teach children about safe sex, contraception etc then we should also teach them of the dangers of making home made porn images when there is no copyright.