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Press Release

HOUSTON — Police arrested activist Diane Wilson Monday at the Indian Consulate in Houston. Wilson is on an indefinite fast in solidarity with nine survivors of the Uni*n Carbide Gas Disaster in New Delhi, India.

Through her actions, Wilson, a fourth generation fisherwoman, has urged the Government of India to fulfill the survivor’s demands for clean water, health care and justice. She refers to the survivors “my sisters and brothers,” as she is also from a community polluted by Dow/Carbide in Seadrift, Texas.

On December 3rd, 1984, thousands of people in Bhopal, India, were gassed to death after a catastrophic chemical leak at a Uni*n Carbide pesticide plant; thousands more are now being poisoned by toxic waste from the abandoned factory site. Wilson believes firmly that the Indian government and Carbide parent company Dow Chemical must be held accountable for the ongoing disaster there.

Diane Wilson summed up her commitment to justice and connection the Bhopal survivors: “As one of the Bhopalis said, ‘What else can people do when their government ignores their pain and cries of injustice? Agitate, agitate!’”

Diane’s fast is part of an ongoing Global Fasting Relay, which is being supported by nearly 400 concerned individuals in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and India. (The full list of fasters available at http://www.bhopal.net) In North America, actions have taken place in Boston, San Francisco and Toronto, with further action planned at the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC. The brave yet perilous decision to begin an indefinite fast has been undertaken by Wilson and others only after numerous unsuccessful attempts to focus the attention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh toward the grave situation in Bhopal.

Diane Wilson, a mother of five, became aware of the Dow/Carbide crimes in Bhopal after learning her own Texas County, located near several chemical plants including a Carbide/Dow plant, was the most polluted in the US. After Ms. Wilson was arrested after a protest at her local Dow facility, she toured the country refusing to go to jail until the former CEO of Uni*n Carbide was jailed. Former Carbide CEO Warren Anderson jumped bail after the Bhopal Disaster and has refused to face manslaughter charges in India.

Survivors are demanding the establishment of a special commission to deal with the issues that still plague the people of Bhopal. They are also demanding that the Prime Minister hold Dow Chemical legally liable, following Dow’s purchase of the initial disaster offender, Uni*n Carbide, in 2001. Though survivors have gained support from many influential lawmakers, as well as the Ministry of Law and the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, the Prime Minister Singh has not budged from his ongoing support of this rogue chemical company.

Nearly half a million people were exposed to poisonous methyl isocyanate during a runaway chemical reaction at the Uni*n Carbide plant in Bhopal in 1984. Since then, more than 22,000 people have died and 150,000 survivors continue to be chronically ill, as the Indian government and Dow have repeatedly failed to address their liabilities in the atrocities of the world’s worst industrial disaster.

The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB) is a coalition of people’s organizations, non-profit groups and individuals who have joined forces to campaign for justice for the survivors of the gas leak. The Campaign for Justice in Bhopal is active in more than 20 cities in the US, UK, France and India.

To view who has signed up for the fast worldwide, visit www.bhopal.net/2008hungerfast.html.

For more information about the history of the gas disaster, visit the following websites: www.bhopal.net, www.studentsforbhopal.org, and www.truthaboutdow.org

By Faddy MacMough
Don’cha Know
A Bona Fide Redneck Column
from the Texas Civil Rights Review

Well, from the left-edge of the world of Reneckedness I have a question. When does a civil right become an uncivil wrong? Maybe the editor will try to change that to incivil wrong … but I did mean uncivil … as in uncivilized.

Some newspaper editors have been suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively reinstated the poll tax that once kept minorities and the poor from voting, and it did so for no justifiable reason. They say that when the high court upheld an Indiana state law that requires a form of government-issued photo identification card for anyone to vote and that has undone our civil rights.

I suppose that those rednecks in Indiana (some call ’em lawmakers) approved the bill on the grounds of fighting voter fraud. What seems passing strange is that in upholding the law, the court said there is no evidence of voter fraud. The court apparently traded away the ability of many poor Americans to vote out of deference to fears that someone might cheat.

Now I admit to bein’ a redneck … but even to me that is a genuine case of fractured logic. Accordin’ to the Supremes, any state is now permitted to deny access to the polls to hundreds of voters – documented cases of such were entered into evidence – to prevent some potential, yet undefined, evil character from sneaking into the booth and voting twice. Well, now doncha know that kicks the concept of voting as the most sacred right in a democracy straight into the hole in the outhouse seat!

This photo-identification ruse is simply voter suppression, enacted by Indiana’s redneck legislature to keep down the vote of minorities and senior citizens. It is those people who will have the most trouble getting state-approved photo-identification cards and who will likely miss the vote.

For the historically challenged, the poll tax long had its supporters in the Old South. It cost only a couple of dollars to vote, its apologists said. That wasn’t much of a sacrifice for the sacred right. The poll tax wasn’t charged to most whites. That’s because people whose ancestors had voted before minorities won the right to vote after the Civil War were grandfathered in.

The whole idea of a poll tax, as with the identification card, is to suppress the vote of the poor. The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned poll taxes in 1964, but six justices effectively reinstated it with this decision.
So, let’s ask a simple question: How difficult can it be for someone to get a photo-identification card? The answer is: A lot harder than you might think.

Testimony before the court centered on the poor who do not own vehicles and who, therefore, do not have driver’s licenses. They can file for other forms of identification, but those cards require personal trips to government offices, which can be expensive, difficult or impossible for the infirm. Many citizens also don’t have access to their birth certificates, a key document needed in getting the proper identification in Indiana.

Just as those southerners who supported the poll tax denied that it was an impediment to voting, those Indianan’s supporting this identification requirement say it is not a big deal. But it is a big deal for the poor, and that’s why the Indiana legislature enacted this law. They know they implemented a new tactic in our nation’s sorry history of denying the vote to our poor and minority populations. And our supremes said they were right to do so, and worse, fer the rest of us … that means our states can do the same damned thing.

And, here you and I sit whining about it. Maybe it is time that this old a-hole got off his butt and helped to start the revolution. Of course, then again, maybe Franz Kafka was right: “Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind it only the slime of bureaucracy.”

Fredegar N. MacMough (his friends call him Faddy) is a pseudonym for a redneck living in New Mexico … in one of those down at the heel oil towns where the only hope is in the fall when we put our kids up to distract us from the grinding daily shit of our lives by watching them play football. Where the town spends most of its time either talking about this season or in hibernation waiting for next fall … and some still talk about when they played football. Pity the poor chump who only sires daughters … there is no glory in that.

Is it possible for a constitutional structure of governance, founded in the name of democracy, to willingly discard the principle of a human right to habeas corpus? In a 70-page ruling in the matter of BOUMEDIENE v. BUSH, the US Supreme Court (on Thursday) came within one vote of declaring the US President an absolute sovereign in his relations with citizens of the world.

So it was with special regard that we read the following passage from the concurring opinion written by Justice Souter, and joined by Ginsberg and Breyer. We thank the stars on the flag for these three of nine justices, who declared that it is “a basic fact of Anglo-American constitutional history:

“that the power, first of the Crown and now of the Executive Branch of the United States, is necessarily limited by habeas corpus jurisdiction to enquire into the legality of executive detention.

“And one could explain that in this Court’s exercise of responsibility to preserve habeas corpus something much more significant is involved than pulling and hauling between the judicial and political branches.

“Instead, though, it is enough to repeat that some of these petitioners have spent six years behind bars. After six years of sustained executive detentions in Guantanamo, subject to habeas jurisdiction but without any actual habeas scrutiny, today’s decision is no judicial victory, but an act of perseverance in trying to make habeas review, and the obligation of the courts to provide it, mean something of value both to prisoners and to the Nation.”

For what it’s worth, Justices Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer, we’d like to say that, as we prepare to reflect upon the meaning of “flag day,” the Nation stands ready to persevere with you.

We stand with you in this matter partly because we think that Edmund Burke long ago made a good point when he argued that the history of Anglo-American Constitutional Law is founded upon a contract to which all subject peoples are rightful parties.

As Burke would put it, locking people up without them having a right to seek judicial review — this is no “mere mischief” — it is the kind of action that breaks the contract between the government and the people. That famous statesman who drew a line between good and bad causes for revolution would say that wherever the essential principles of the contract had been broken, the executive would have in fact “abdicated” his Presidency, and the office would be “thereby vacant.”

Come to think of it — a curious irony indeed — it would eventually take a Justice (Souter) appointed by Daddy Bush to support an opinion on habeas corpus that would protect the Office of the President from being vacated on account of the tyrannical whims of George, Jr.

Finally, on this strictly nonpartisan basis, we could say that John McCain’s anti-habeas reflex, exampled in his intemperate denunciation of the Court ruling (although he said he had not had time to read it yet), says at least 51 percent of what we shall need to know come November.–gm

Flag Day P.S.: The White House is reportedly seeking ways to limit the scope of the Court’s habeas ruling. Does the White House not notice that its antagonism to habeas corpus is sufficient evidence that its whole global agenda of aggression cannot be viewed as an intention to promote greater democracy?

“Trying to weed through the salacious media coverage to uncover what wrongdoings the folks at the FDLS compound are being charged with, and what the basis for such is, is not easy,” writes Austin activist Debbie Russell in an email. “When you do finally get to the heart of the matter–the answer seems to be: they aren’t being charged with anything because there is no basis for doing so (so far), nor was there a basis to storm their compound in the first place.”

“As it stands, there is currently no substantiated claims of rape or physical abuse,” says Russell at her myspace blog. “No one in custody has made any such claims.” Russell continues:

“What is currently in legal dispute, it seems, is the teachings of the church—a clear violation of religious freedom. The marriage age law in TX was upped in 2005 in reaction to this particular group’s moving to Eldorado (it was fine for 14 year old Presbyterians to marry until THEY came to town), and is problematic in and of itself in that it defines two different penalty ranges for the same crime.

“A Mormon expert, in fact, claims it is not part of FLDS doctrine for teenage girls to marry or engage in sexual activity with older men – so how much of this is hype? Unless the state is prepared to handle every underage pregnancy where the suspected father is over 18 this way, then there is a religious freedom question.

Also, is “brainwashing” being legally defined as “abuse” in this case? Should it be? (Wasn’t I “brainwashed” at 11 years old to believe I needed to be dipped in water so that my spiritual self won’t be eternally subject to torturous conditions? Wasn’t I scared into conforming to a particular religious tenent?)

Another Austin analyst, Scott Henson, reflects upon the news via some High School memories involving a crush on a Mormon girl.

I was fascinated by her family nearly as much as the young lady, and for a while really loved spending time with them, especially her mother who I truly admired. The kids were all happy, disciplined, and well-adjusted. Listening to the Mormon religious narrative and doctrine, I never could buy it. But if you looked at the values and lives of the people living the faith, they behaved a lot like the more religious Baptists I knew, except with less hypocrisy.

Neither Russell nor Henson could be accused of sympathizing with polygamist anti-feminism, but they are both concerned about the way state power has been deployed to round up more than 400 children and separate them as a group from their parents.

Jim Harrington at the Texas Civil Rights Project has also expressed public concern that the rights of the children may have been violated in wholesale fashion.

Russell, Henson, and Harrington are reliable witnesses on the civil rights front in Texas. If all three agree that something is not quite right about what’s happening in El Dorado, then progressive voices around the world should take due note.–gm