Empire or Humanity?
What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me About the American Empire
By Howard Zinn

With an occupying army waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with
military bases and corporate bullying in every part of the world, there
is hardly a question any more of the existence of an American Empire.
Indeed, the once fervent denials have turned into a boastful, unashamed
embrace of the idea.

However, the very idea that the United States was an empire did not
occur to me until after I finished my work as a bombardier with the
Eighth Air Force in the Second World War, and came home. Even as I began
to have second thoughts about the purity of the "Good War," even after
being horrified by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even after rethinking my own
bombing of towns in Europe, I still did not put all that together in the
context of an American "Empire."

Mugabe Said to Be Negotiating Possible Exit
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Advisers to President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe
are in talks with the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, amid signs
that Mr. Mugabe may be preparing to resign, a Western diplomatic source
and a prominent Zimbabwe political analyst said Tuesday. The
negotiations about a possible transfer of power away from Mr. Mugabe
come after he apparently concluded that a runoff election would be
demeaning, a diplomat said.

23 Polish Antimilitarist Activists Violently Arrested
From Krzysztof Krol

23 Polish antimilitarist activists were violently arrested on Sunday (30/03/2008) at a private flat of one of them morning after coming back from a demonstration after-party in Slupsk in nothern Poland.

On Saturday (29/03/2008) noon a demonstration against the plans of locating up to ten silo-based long-range missile defence interceptors in Poland took place in Slupsk, a city in northern Poland. The military base where the shield would be placed is located near this city. Around 500 people took part in a peaceful march in the city centre, after that around 50 people came to the military base and tried to come inside but were stopped by the police. Nobody was arrested, one person got a fine for using swearwords and drinking beer.

At night a techno party organized by anti-war activists was organized at one of the local pubs in Slupsk. The activists came back to their flat and around 6 a.m. cops raided their house and arrested the people inside, aged 18 to 35. The police used heavy violence, beating up the activists with batons and using pepper spray. One of the activists had his arm broken and later managed to run away from the hospital.

After an immediate reaction of other activists, lawyers and media cops gave their official version of the event which says that the activists were arrested for „violating the night silence”, some of them are charged with an physical assault and verbal insult of a police officer. First activists were released after 12 hours of interrogation, cops claimed that the activists were drunk and had to sober up before they were questioned. So far (Sunday, 10 p.m.), around 10 people are out, 9 who are charged are still detained and they are said to leave the arrest tomorrow (Monday, 31/03/2008) by 3 p.m. The cops had no legal warrant to come inside the flat. It is not common to send a dozen or so cops to silence people at night, so the argument about them being too loud is clearly a lie.

The Police & Abahlali baseMjondolo

A List of Key Incidents of Police Harassment Suffered by Abahlali baseMjondolo (2005-2007)
- compiled by Stephanie Lynch and Zodwa Nsibande

CISPES Accused of Being Foreign “Agent” of Leftist Political Party

Contact: Burke Stansbury, CISPES – 202 521 2510 ext. 205; burke at cispes.org

Central American Solidarity Activists Dispute Department of Justice
Order, Denounce Possible Repeat of Illegal Harassment

Grassroots Group Accused of Being Foreign "Agent" of Leftist Political
Party in Lead-up to Contentious Salvadoran Presidential Elections

Washington DC: The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El
Salvador (CISPES), illegally targeted in the 1980's by the largest FBI

British Prime Minister Blair Takes Job at Yale

New Haven, Conn. -- Yale University is pleased to announce the appointment of Prime Minister Tony Blair as the WalMart Fellow Official Greeter for the next academic year.

South American Anarchists and Anti-Militarists Say NO to War

* The threat of armed conflict involving the governments of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela has mobilized anarchists and anti-militarists across the continent, in words and in action, to repudiate what would be a monstrous aggression by state powers against our peoples. Below there are two documents that call for struggle against this evil.

__Declaration of Latin American antimilitarists: We don’t need another war__

Venezuela 2008: A Libertarian Proposal for the Current Situation

* The Collective Editorship of El Libertario, www.nodo50.org/ellibertario, expounds its vision of which path to follow in the current situation in Venezuela, summed up in the slogan, “Against the (B)oligarchy, demagoguery and corruption: Autonomous struggle of the underdogs!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-holtzman/cheney-impeachment-cour...

Cheney Impeachment: Courageous, But Not Surprising
Elizabeth Holtzman

For the first time since the Bush administration took office, three members of the House Judiciary Committee, Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), are calling for hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Richard Cheney.

Here is my own offer for ending the conflict (originally written almost 3 months ago, right after shmanapolis):

Fellow Leftists...