September 5, 2013

Weave room blues

September 5, 2013

Dunno. It might work sometimes.

Civil-Rights Activist, Ex-Klansman C.P. Ellis
November 08, 2005 12:00 AM
Civil rights activist and former Ku Klux Klansman C.P. Ellis has died at age 78. Ann Atwater, a black civil rights activist, talks about her friend. Ellis had a change of heart after a 10-day forum on integration of schools in Durham, N.C. He renounced his Klan membership, became lifelong friends with Atwater and went on to organize black and white labor unions.

An Unlikely Friendship
A new documentary by Chapel Hill filmmaker Diane Bloom gives Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis an opportunity to tell their own story
by Jamie Sue Potorti
... In Bloom's documentary, the two, in separate interviews, recall their feelings the first time they met, at a Durham City Council meeting. "Blacks are taking over the city. They got the good jobs--and you're all sittin' here letting 'em do it," Ellis recalls shouting at the council, in a quote that summed up his resentment. "That's when I wanted to cut his head off," says Atwater, who remembers brandishing a pocketknife and charging through the crowd toward Ellis, the president of the local KKK chapter. A couple of friends held her back. "That's what they want you to do," they told her, and Atwater grudgingly put away the knife ...

Face to Face with Durham History
October 2, 2007
... Atwater, an activist for fair housing in Durham's black neighborhoods, and Ellis, a gas station owner who rose to the position of Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan, were enemies on different sides of the color line during Durham's civil rights-era desegregation struggles. Chosen as the co-chairs of a 10-day-long series of meetings to improve public education, the two discovered that their kids had many of the same problems in school. It was then that they realized that poverty was a common bond and that class had shaped their experiences far more significantly than race separated them. A deep friendship ensued, which led to a profound personal transformation for Ellis. He abandoned the Klan, took a job at Duke, and became a union organizer. He and Atwater remained close until his death ...

C. P. Ellis: "Why I Quit the Klan”
from American Dreams: Lost and Found
by Studs Terkel
... I really began to get bitter. I didn’t know who to blame. I tried to find somebody. I began to blame it on black people. I had to hate somebody ... The natural person for me to hate would be black people, because my father before me was a member of the Klan ... I joined the Klan, went from member to chaplain, from chaplain to vice-president, from vice-president to president. The title is exalted Cyclops ... Here’s a guy who’s worked all his life and struggled all his life to be something, and here’s the moment to be something ... The majority of ‘em are low-income whites, people who really don’t have a part in something. They have been shut out as well as the blacks. Some are not very well educated either. Just like myself ... I will never forget some black lady I hated with a purple passion. Ann Atwater. Every time I’d go downtown, she’d be leadin’ a boycott ... I felt very big, yeah ... What happened? As a result of our fightin’ one another, the city council still had their way. They didn’t want to give up control to the blacks nor the Klan. They were usin’ us ... The same thing is happening in this country today. People are being used by those in control, those who have all the wealth ... I got a telephone call from the president of the state AFL-CIO. “We’d like to get some people together from all walks of life.” I said: “All walks of life? Who you talkin’ about?” He said: “Blacks, whites, liberals, conservatives, Klansmen, NAACP people” ... Ann Atwater was there ... I just forced myself to go in and sit down Some of the blacks stood up and say it’s white racism. I took all I could take. I asked for the floor and I cut loose ... Howard Clements, a black guy, stood up. He said: “I’m certainly glad C. P. Ellis come because he’s the most honest man here tonight.” I said: “What’s that nigger tryin’ to do?” ... The third night ... Howard Clements stood up and said: “I suggest we elect two co-chairpersons.” Joe Beckton, executive director of the Human Relations Commission, just as black as he can be, he nominated me. There was a reaction from some blacks. Nooo. And, of all things, they nominated Ann Atwater, that big old fat black gal that I just hated with a purple passion, as co-chairman ... It was impossible. How could I work with her? But after about two or three days, it was in our hands. We had to make it a success. This give me another sense of belongin’, a sense of pride. This helped this inferiority feelin’ I had ...

September 4, 2013

I'm sorry you weren't paying attention, but the DynCorp story was actually in the press BEFORE

Wikileaks released the Manning cables -- and quite a number of people have been raising closely related concerns about DynCorp for years and years. If you actually have a serious interest in fighting-back against warmongers, maybe you should consider doing some serious research into the corporate profiteers behind the curtain, instead of merely calling people names on the internet



... One effort to train Afghan civilian police has drawn attention from the State Department's inspector general following incidents of questionable management oversight, including one instance in which expatriate DynCorp employees in Afghanistan hired a teenage boy to perform a tribal dance at a company farewell party and videotaped the event ...
Amid Reviews, DynCorp Bolsters Ethics Practices
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 27, 2009

... testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations—namely that U.S. private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring ... more shocking than any of this was the accusation from Barry Halley, a former project manager for Worldwide Network Services, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that was working on subcontract for DynCorp. According to Halley, his site manager in Iraq, who he said was employed by a "major defense contractor," moonlighted as the leader of a prostitution ring ...
Contractors Gone Wild
Theft, hookers, melting down Iraqi gold to make cowboy spurs? All in a day's work for private military contractors in Iraq?
—By Bruce Falconer
Fri May. 2, 2008 12:00 AM PDT

... "DynCorp's site manager was involved in bringing prostitutes into hotels operated by DynCorp. A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was traveling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission. I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by the contractor's manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad" ...
U.S. Military Contractor 'Used Armored Cars To Transport Prostitutes'
First Posted: 05/07/08 06:12 AM ET
Updated: 05/25/11 01:30 PM ET
Jason Linkins

... Whenever I reported discrepancies in billing or questioned illegal activity in Iraq by DynCorp, CAPE or other contractors, I was told not to worry about it or it would be taken care of by others. After informing CAPE of my findings, I was locked in a room for days, held at gunpoint by private security guards, and physically beaten ...
“Contracting Abuses in Iraq: Is the Bush Administration Safeguarding American Taxpayer Dollars?”
Barry Halley
Former WWNS and CAPE Environmental employee

... In January 2007, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., reported that "he had identified tens of millions of dollars worth of accounting discrepancies, missing weapons and unauthorized billings" by DynCorp. Bowen accused DynCorp of "lax accounting and monitoring procedures." At issue is a $43.8 million State Department contract "for a camp that was never used by police trainers," including $4.2 million that DynCorp billed for "unauthorized work." Another $36.4 million expenditure, intended "for weapons and equipment, including armored vehicles, body armor and communications equipment ... cannot be accounted for," reported the Dallas Morning News ...
May 2, 2003
The Honorable Richard L. Armitage
Deputy Secretary of State ...
Dear Mr. Armitage:
We write to inquire about the Administration’s efforts to fight against the emergence of prostitution and human trafficking industries in post-conflict Iraq ... Our concern about U.S. contractors participating in prostitution or trafficking-related activities was recently heightened by the State Department’s award to DynCorp International of a contract providing up to 1,000 civilian advisors to help the Government of Iraq organize civilian law enforcement, judicial and correctional agencies ... We are also aware of the documented involvement by some DynCorp employees or agents in prostitution, human trafficking, and sexual misconduct and of DynCorp’s retaliation against those who endeavored to bring such misconduct to light ...
<HELSINKI> COMMISSION LETTER TO DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE

... DynCorp personnel contracted to the United Nations police service in Bosnia were implicated in buying and selling prostitutes, including a girl as young as 12. Several DynCorp employees were also accused of videotaping the rape of one of the women ...
Scandal-Hit US Firm Wins Key Contracts
Published on Sunday, April 13, 2003 by the Observer/UK
by Antony Barnett

Tuesday, Aug 6, 2002 06:26 PM EDT
Sex-slave whistle-blowers vindicated
DynCorp, a private military powerhouse, fired two employees who complained that colleagues were involved in Bosnian forced-prostitution rings. The employees went to court -- and won.
By Robert Capps

... Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia. Earlier that year Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters in Kosovo, filed a lawsuit against his employer. The suit alleged that that in the latter part of 1999 Johnson "learned that employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts" ...
CSC/ DynCorp

... As an article in the winter issue of the Wisconsin International Law Journal recounts, in 2000, employees of DynCorp Inc, a Virginia-based private military security company (PMSC) employed by the United Nations Police Task Force in the Balkans, were accused of participating in a Bosnian sex slavery ring. Kathryn Bolkovac, a DynCorp employee working as a UN Police Force monitor, reported to her supervisors that her male colleagues had made comments about women they owned. Bolkovac was fired soon after ...
Sex and security in Afghanistan
By David Isenberg
Oct 6, 2009

September 2, 2013

Sit Down

... when they smile and say "no raise in pay!"
sit down sit down
when you want the boss to come across
sit down sit down ...

September 2, 2013

Die Moorsoldaten

wohin auch das Auge blicket
Moor und Heide nur ringsum
Vogelsang uns nicht erquicket
Eichen stehen kahl und krumm ...

hier in dieser öden Heide
ist das Lager aufgebaut
wo wir fern von jeder Freude
hinter Stacheldraht verstaut ...

wherever the eye watches
bog and heath all around
no chirping of birds entertains us
oaks are standing bare and crooked ...

here inside this barren marshland
the camp is built up
where we are far from any joy
stowed away behind barbed wire ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat_Bog_Soldiers

September 2, 2013

Le déserteur

Monsieur le Président
je vous fais une lettre
que vous lirez peut-être
si vous avez le temps

Je viens de recevoir
mes papiers militaires
pour partir à la guerre
avant mercredi soir

Monsieur le Président
je ne veux pas le faire
je ne suis pas sur terre
pour tuer de pauvres gens ...

Mr. President
I'm writing you a letter
that perhaps you will read
If you have the time.

I've just received
my call-up papers
to leave for the front
Before Wednesday night.

Mr. President
I do not want to go
I am not on this earth
to kill wretched people ...

http://www.swans.com/library/art7/xxx071.html

September 2, 2013

oh! dear! what can the matter be?

oh! dear! what can the matter be?
dear! dear! what can the matter be?
oh! dear! what can the matter be?
women are wanting to vote! ...

women have reared all the sons of the brave
women have shared in the burdens they gave
women have labored this country to save
and that’s why we’re going to vote

September 2, 2013

hanging on the old barbed wire

September 2, 2013

black leg miner

... so join the union while ye may
don't wait till your dying day
that may not be far away
ye dirty blackleg miner!

September 1, 2013

Chicano Park Samba

... but the city of San Diego said
“chale! we’re going to make a highway patrol substation here man”
so on April 22nd 1970
la raza of Logan Heights and other Chicano communities of San Diego got together
and they organized
and they walked on the land
and they took it over with their picks and their shovels
and they began to build their park
and today that little piece of land under the Coronado bridge
is known to everybody as Chicano Park
Órale! ...