News from the Police Raid and Detainment of journalists at the RNC

Breaking: Amy Goodman and producers arrested in St. Paul


The following is a release from Democracy Now!

ST. PAUL, MN -- Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time.

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman's office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).



An earlier video about harassment of journalists there:

The Zinn Education Project

We've come across a few pieces from the people behind "Rethinking Schools" (their great Rethinking Globalization) and "Teaching for Change" (their inspiring "Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching" featuring Roz Payne photos), but of course when the two got together to make the Zinn Education Project, we had to share. They've put together a great PDF packet that's packed with over a hundred pages of material for teachers who want to us Zinn's work in the classroom. We looked through it and it looks great. So if you're a teacher or a student, or you know someone who is, check it out at http://www.zinnedproject.org/.

The 2000 Election and the "War on Terrorism"

So until today, the last two chapters of the most recent A People's History of the United States were never typed up. But now it's just one chapter that remains, because The 2000 Election and the "War on Terrorism" is online.

Where are the other updates? We've got stuff on the stove, kids, and you'll see it unleashed when it's good and ready.

HAPPY 4th OF JULY! JESSE HELMS HAS DIED!

• Anti-integrationist
  
• Opposed Martin Luther King day
  
• Name is on the Helms-Burton act, the centerpiece of the embargo against Cuba
  
• against ALL Affirmative Action programs
  
• voted to bail out the savings and loan industry AND to slash school lunches for impoverished children, medical care for disabled veterans, prescription drugs for the elderly, and wages for working families
  
• absolutely hated all gay people
  
• supported apartheid in South Africa
  
• From a Mother Jones article

  a staunch ally of right-wing military rulers like Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Raoul Cedras in Haiti, and Roberto D'Aubuisson in El Salvador. Confronted with evidence that D'Aubuisson directed death squads to murder civilians, Helms made it clear that some things are more important than human life. "All I know," he replied, "is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious."

• Routinely fought against AIDS research from the beginning, blaming people suffering from the disease for it.
  
• In 1993, sang Dixie to the first african american senator, Carol Mosely-Braun, and promised to make her "cry."
  
• Hell burns hotter tonight!
  

The 4th of july is coming up.

Every year, the fourth of July comes up and the empire celebrates revolution. The contradiction annoys a lot of us, but something else happens: a lot of people come to History Is A Weapon and read The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. Read it, forward it to your friends, and enjoy your Fourth. We may be a small axe, but the big tree will know soon enough, we're sharp and ready and, soon enough, it'll fall.