June 5, 2002

Noam Sheizaf, is a member of "Courage to Refuse," the movement of Israeli Reservist Officers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories. About 100 people attended the forum held at Baltimore Hebrew University on June 5 sponsored by "Friends of Peace". Sheizaf challenged the assumptions that the peace movement is having no effect in Israel. He called upon American Jews to oppose the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Baltimore's city council voted narrowly Monday to sell part of Woodberry Woods to Loyola College. Opponents of the sale continue to raise questions about the environmental impact of Loyola's planned construction and accuse the council of acting in the interests of the private sector, rather than the public.

Judith Le Blanc, correspondent of the People's Weekly World and Vice-Chair of the Communist Party USA, spoke about her April visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories at Stoney Run Friends Meeting House. About 45 attended the discussion sponsored by the Communist Party of Maryland and the Baltimore Peace Action Network. A report on the discussion.

An increasing number of land invasions by destitute campesinos in Guatemala are testing the limits of the country's 1996 peace treaty that ended Central America's longest and bloodiest civil war. A report on the current situation.

The Student Labor Action Committee at Johns Hopkins University links the 19th century struggle for an eight-hour work day to the 21st century struggle for a "living wage." A report on protests at the Hopkins Homewood campus on April 3 and May 1.

They got the facts right, but the story wrong. In coverage that discounts the solidarity evident in the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in U.S. history, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun portray A20 demonstrations as peaceful but anti-Semitic, united but competitive, alienating of mainstream America but super police-friendly.
ARTICLE INCLUDES VIDEO CLIP.

What should you do when hate groups stage a demonstration, especially when groups come to town specifically to demonstrate? The answer to this forces us to wrestle with the meaning of violence. It forces us to consider how we go about building an egalitarian society. It impels us to take a stand, even though we can't fully resolve the issues. There is no packaged response.

The struggle by laundry workers in Baltimore is one example of how an anarchists and anti-globalization protesters can make a local difference.