chel

the kasama in you brings out the kasama in me.

Putting in Work: Seattle to the Philippines, ISA 2007

Wednesday 25 April 2007, 7pm – 9pm
at the Seattle Labor Temple
2800 First Avenue, Room 90


Seattle –

The Philippine U.S. Solidarity Organization, US Committee on Labor and Human Rights in the Philippines, and BAYAN-USA Pacific Northwest sends three delegates to the historic May First event in the Philippines, the International Solidarity Affair. The delegates are Gina Salao of SEIU Local 1199NW, Rob McCauley of Teamsters Local 763, and Chel Cendana of Powerful Voices a social service provider for young women.

The yearly ISA began during the martial law period of the Marcos dictatorship hosted by the Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement), the national federation of labor organizations and the largest labor center in the Philippines. From being a trade union solidarity affair, the ISA has developed into a yearly anti-imperialist solidarity gathering of trade unions, unionists and solidarity groups. It continues to become a venue to forge workers' resistance, solidarity and support on issues affecting the workers and people.

On Wednesday, 25 April 2007 there will be a presentation of local resolutions recently passed in support of KMU and or the ISA. There will also be a presentation of the workers situation in the Philippines, including an emphasis on labor leaders who have been among the 843 plus killed since 2001. And lastly, there will be an overview of the ISA 2007. Seattle has a longstanding relationship with Philippine workers since the 1930s.* Please join us at the Seattle Labor Temple in continuing this local legacy of workers unity and to celebrate international workers solidarity.

Sponsored By:
The Philippine U.S. Solidarity Organization
US Committee on Labor and Human Rights in the Philippines
and the BAYAN-USA, Pacific Northwest Regional Council

For more information:
Rob McCauley, US Committee on Labor and Human Rights in the Philippines
rob.mccauley@teamsters763.org or 206.383.7209

Gina Salao, Philippine U.S. Solidarity Organization
ginsalao@gmail.com or 206.422.3115

Chel Cendana, BAYAN-USA Pacific Northwest Regional Coordinator
pnc@bayanusa.org or 360.990.9424

www.bayanusa.org
www.kilusangmayouno.org

*Local labor organizations that have passed resolutions or made monetary contributions to support the KMU and or the ISA include: the Teamsters Joint Council 28, Teamsters Local 763, Teamsters Local 117, the Puget Sound District Council of the ILWU, ILWU Local 23, ILWU Local 54, ILWU Local 98, SEIU Local 1199 Northwest, the Greater Seattle Local of the American Postal Workers Union, the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO, and the Martin Luther King County Labor Council AFL-CIO.

Seattle –

CITY-WIDE STUDENT WALKOUT
AGAINST THE WAR
AND MILITARY RECRUITMENT IN SCHOOLS
WEDNESDAY,  APRIL 18,  2007
12 noon Walkout
1pm Rally at Westlake

Sponsored by Youth Against War and Racism

*Afterwards, join the masses of young people demanding that recruiters get out of our schools at the 6pm Seattle School Board Meeting!

Students, Youth, Soldiers (and those in Solidarity!)
Join the Troops Home Now Coalition to Kiss the War Goodbye!!
Featuring local hip-hop artist:
Gabriel Teodros of Abyssinian Creole

Monday, March 19th, 2007
Westlake, 4th and Pine – Downtown Seattle
3:00pm - Hip Hop Artist Gabriel Teodros, Speakers and Spoken Word.
4:00pm - March to the Federal Building. Bring signs and friends!
4:30pm - Join in protest at Federal Building with other anti-war groups

Sponsored by Troops Home Now Coalition
Contact: Carrie Hathorn, 206-963-4873, calni27@gmail.com
Download flyers at www.troopshomenowcoalition.org


Protest! 4 years of War and Occupation in Iraq

On Feb 15, 2003 millions around the world protested the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the largest anti-war actions in human history. Last month on the 4th anniversary of these mass protests students across the county took action against the Iraq war.

In Santa Barbara over 3,000 students marched through campus and into the streets! As thousands more joined in, they took to the freeway, and brought traffic to a complete standstill. This protest not only shut down the city but set into motion a movement of student resistance.

Seattle's next! Let's turn our schools into centers of resistance, and join thousands of people from across the country to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Students, Youth, and Soldiers! Unite and Resist!

The Troops Home Now Coalition calls for students, youth and soldiers to unite in a mass movement against the war. After all it is our brothers and sisters who are being recruited and shipped off to die. Every day military recruiters lie to and pressure students to enlist in what our government calls an all "volunteer military". Meantime, Bush and congress lie to soldiers – told that they would be fighting for democracy and freedom in Iraq but in reality fighting to stay alive.

With inadequate health care and poor housing conditions for Iraq veterans and grossly under funded public schools clearly our generation is suffering the consequences of war. Meanwhile, Bush, his corporate buddies, the Democrats/Republicans and the military machine profit from war. Now is the time for our generation to rise up and demand an immediate end to the Iraq war.

Historically, students and youth have been at the forefront of nearly every social and political movement, and our generation is no different. In 2005 when over 1000 students from around the Puget Sound walked out school, soldiers were watching. In fact Lieutenant Watada was watching. Inspired by the local anti-war student movement, Lt. Watada publicly refused to deploy and began speaking out against the Iraq war. The GI resistance movement continues to grow inspiring students and soldiers alike. Students and Soldiers, Unite and Resist! By resisting this war together we will bring the military to its knees.

Troops Home Now Coalition

On January 27th the Troops Home Now Coalition mobilized over 3,000 people to take the streets in opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq. We marched through the Central District to a military recruiting station on 23rd and Jackson and SHUT IT DOWN!! Now we're back to protest the 4 year war and occupation of Iraq!

For more information about the Troops Home Now go to www.troopshomenowcoalition.org

yay! clap again!!!!!

happy birthday kelsey and khalil...

and happy first of the month!

and everyone please keep my little george prizm in your thoughts today. =] the poor thing was startin to sound like a choo choo, so i took it to the shop this mornin...

--Check out the King 5 TV coverage of our Demo yesterday (when you get to the link, click on one women arrested;the coverage is actually pretty good, and it is more about the whole event that just her arrest): http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_012707warprotestEL.26a51858.html

--Then, check out the Seattle Times article that calls the demonstration "well organized"!!!

Drumbeat in Seattle: "Stop the war now"
Full story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003544844_protest28m.html

By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter

Disc jockey Romey Rom has seen a lot of protests and parades pass the radio station at 26th Avenue and South Jackson Street where he's worked for seven years.

He's seen Ethiopians, Somalis, gays and lesbians march for rights and protection.

He and his friend Henry Bolar stood outside station KYIZ Saturday and watched about 2,000 war protesters march, chant and sing their way through the streets to two military recruiting centers in a nearby strip mall.

"It's good," said Bolar, who said he was a local rap artist. "This one is organized."

The protesters -- among tens of thousands nationwide to participate in such rallies -- surrounded the Army and Navy recruiting storefronts at 2301 S. Jackson St.

They pressed against police, who blocked the closed storefronts with bicycles, and chanted "Stop the war now" to a drum accompaniment.

When police retreated around the corner, protesters continued to chant and then shouted "Shut down by people power."

One protester was arrested on investigation of a misdemeanor assault for hitting an officer on the arm, said Lt. Scott Bachler of the East Precinct. The person was released, and the protest was otherwise peaceful, police said.

Many in the crowd continued on to the Langston Hughes Center to hear anti-war speakers, including Lt. Ehren Watada, who is facing a court-martial Feb. 5 for his refusal to deploy to what he calls the illegal war in Iraq.

Protesters carried signs against the Iraq war, President Bush, oil, greed and tyranny, and in support of GI resistance, bringing the troops home, Watada, social services, justice and jobs.

Buddhist monk Gilberto Perez of Bainbridge Island and 5-year-old home-schooler Julian King both said they were there to support "peace." Seventeen-year-old Rachel Shelton of Monroe and Newcastle resident Frank Irigon were there to protest the war and the escalation.

"The war is just messed up, and we need to get the troops back now," Shelton said.

Compared with other marches and demonstrations, Romey Rom and Bolar said, Saturday's was well-organized and policed.

The biggest rally they ever saw from their perch on Jackson was the march for immigration rights that drew more than 25,000 people in April, they said. The most fun is the Soul Fest parade every summer, they said.

"That's the most joyful," Bolar said. "But I can't say I've seen a bad parade."

By SUSAN PAYNTER

P-I COLUMNIST

if 30 is the new 20, then i'm 13. geezus. =]

filthy: A word originating in Seattle meaning dope, tight, or cool.

didn't realize it was a seattle thang till this weekend.

check out www.urbandictionary.com

and...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY steppenwolf_x and geeteezy!

and...for tomorrow

HAPPY BIRTHDAY jabok!

wow, you're all turning 25! =]

new year.

new job.

same old chel.

still broke.

happy new year!

gudnyt!

vanilla ice cream and tear drop sprinkles...

=T

scooby-dooby-doo, where are you?
we got some work to do now.

spiritual. lyrical. miracle. take it for what you want.

love,
chel

-----

A Cosmic Trigger Event will occur on the 17th of October 2006.

By Raphiem/Blue

This is the beginning, one of many trigger events to come between now and 2013. An ultraviolet (UV) pulse beam radiating from higher dimensions in universe-2 will cross paths with the Earth on this day. Earth will remain approximately within this UV beam for 17 hours of your time.

This beam resonates with the heart chakra, it is radiant fluorescent in nature, blue/magenta in color. Although it resonates in this frequency band, it is above the color frequency spectrum of your universe-1 which you, Earth articulate in. However due to the nature of your soul and soul groups operating from Universe-2 frequency bands it will have an effect.

The effect is every thought and emotion will be amplified intensely one million-fold. Yes, we will repeat, all will be amplified one millions time and more.

Every thought, every emotion, every intent, every will, no matter if it is good, bad, ill, positive, negative, will be amplified one million times in strength.

What does this mean ?

Since all matter manifest is due to your thoughts, i.e. what you focus on, this beam will accelerate these thoughts and solidify them at an accelerated rate making them manifest a million times faster than they normally would.

For those that do not comprehend. Your thoughts, what you focus on create your reality.

This UV beam thus can be a dangerous tool. For if you are focused on thoughts which are negative to your liking they will manifest into your reality almost instantly. Then again this UV beam can be a gift if you choose it to be.

Mission-1017 requires approximately one million people to focus on positive, benign, good willed thoughts for themselves and the Earth and Humanity on this day. Your thoughts can be of any nature of your choosing, but remember whatever you focus on will be made manifest in a relatively faster than anticipated time frame. To some the occurrences may almost be bordering on the miracle.

All we ask is positive thoughts of love, prosperity, healing, wealth, kindness, gratitude be focused on.

This UV beam comes into full affect for 17hrs on the 17th of October 2006.

No matter what time zone you are in the hours are approximately 10:17am on the 17th of October to 1:17am on the 18th of October.

The peak time will be 17:10 (5:10pm) on the 17th October.

You do not need to be in a meditative state through out this time, though that would be beneficial. The main key time no matter what time zone you are in will be the peak time of 17:10 (5:10 pm). Perhaps at this time if you can find a peaceful spot or location to focus. The optimum is out in the vicinity of grounded nature, likened to that of a large tree or next to the ocean waves.

Focus on whatever it is you desire. What is required for the benefit of all Earth and HUmanity is positive thoughts of loving nature.

We call this UV beam trigger event, "818" gateway.

Please forward this message to as many people as you know who will use this cosmic trigger event to focus positive, good willed thoughts.

We require approximately 1-million people across globe to actively participate in this event. Please use whatever communication mediums you have at your disposal. Reach out to as many people as possible. We require 1-million plus people at the least to trigger a shift for humanity from separation
and fragmentation to one of unification and oneness.

This is your opportunity to take back what is rightfully yours i.e. Peace and Prosperity for all Earth and Mankind.

Mission1017
Raphiem/Blue

Questioning Freedom
FBI Keeps Tabs on Seattle Filipino Activists
BY SARAH MIRK

When Arthur Gotcho Cupp changed his name to Freedom Allah Siyam back in 1998, he had no idea that one day his identity would bring the FBI knocking on his front door. After years of working as a vocal antiglobalization activist in the Seattle Filipino community, Siyam recently discovered that he's on a government watch list as a suspected terrorist—on October 4, agents showed up at his house bearing a page-long list of names and began questioning his 56-year-old mother. Siyam, his lawyer, and the rest of the Seattle Filipino activist community are afraid they're about to be sucked into a giant, spiraling investigation that's an eerie repeat of the widespread government scrutiny of Arab Americans after September 11.

Siyam, 29, has a shaved head, thick eyebrows, and Filipino parents. When he was 21, he changed his name. "Of course people automatically assume or associate Allah with Islam, but Allah is Arabic... I want keep God central to my goals and aspirations," explains Siyam, who is not Muslim. "Siyam means nine and I was into numerology at the time, it's the period of gestation for a child. And Freedom because I hope to see freedom for people on the planet, as well as for myself." He's a spoken-word artist with friends in the hiphop community like Blue Scholars, and has a day job as a social-history teacher for public-school dropouts. His real passion, though, is activism, serving as the regional coordinator for BAYAN-USA, a lefty Filipino-American organization that coordinates race-and-politics workshops for college students. "A lot of the work we do is based on an anti-imperialist, antiglobalization viewpoint," says Siyam, who also sometimes leads a handful of students on trips to the Philippines. In fact, Siyam travels a lot between the U.S., Philippines, and Canada, which may have raised red flags within the Homeland Security information mines.

Siyam's notion that the FBI is monitoring him was, until this summer, based on shaky, very unsubstantiated rumors. Two years ago, another activist told Siyam that he and other Filipino-American organizers were on a government watch list for suspicious political activities. In 2005, a family friend told Siyam that he'd been questioned by Homeland Security agents who'd asked whether Siyam was leading troops of youths into the Philippines to convert them into anti-American Muslims. This all sounds a little like post–September 11 political-organizer paranoia—then in early July, Siyam got a phone call from the FBI.

Roy Woo, a Port of Seattle police detective who works with the FBI, called Siyam to tell him they had his passport and could he please come down and pick it up. On a trip to visit relatives in Canada, Siyam accidentally left his passport in a rental car. Somehow the passport had made it from the back seat of the rental car into the hands of the FBI. Suspicious, Siyam called a lawyer, Larry Hildes of Bellingham, whom he knew had worked on civil-rights cases for other activists. "I've never heard of the FBI being involved in a lost passport before," says Hildes, "We were immediately suspicious; this is not a normal situation."

On July 20, Siyam, Hildes, and a pack of 25 friends headed down to the Port of Seattle office to pick up the passport. Woo and FBI Agent Fred Gutt met them and, according to Hildes, tried to dissuade Siyam from bringing along his lawyer. Hildes refused to leave, and the agents led him and Siyam into a small room with a table and chairs.

"They were real cool and chipper and pretty chatty, too... offered me coffee," recalls Siyam, "They reiterated that it wasn't necessary for me to bring my lawyer, they just had some routine questions about my passport." According to Hildes and Siyam, the officers verified his address and handed over the passport without even checking his ID. "'Then they asked who I lived with, in case they stopped by," says Siyam. When he refused to answer, "[The officers] got a little uneasy and they said, 'Look, we were just wondering if you could help us understand the social-economic situation in the Philippines. Certainly the Philippines has been of interest to our government since 9/11.'" The Philippines are currently home to several al-Qaeda-linked Muslim separatists such as the Abu Sayyaf Group. Unsure of what the FBI wanted from him, Siyam refused to say anything. "They can read a book," he notes. The agents eventually told him he could go—but only after making him take their cards and promise to call if he had any information.

The whole situation reminds Hildes of government investigations in the Muslim and Arab-American communities after September 11. "It would always start with, 'Well, we just want a little bit of information about the community.' Some of them would help the FBI and some of them would disappear." It's not clear whether the FBI initially invited Siyam in with hopes he could be an informant against terrorist groups in the Philippines. In the passport-reclaiming interrogation, the agents said his insights on Philippine politics would be "mutually helpful."

Whatever the case, in early August the agents contacted Siyam's ex-wife and her parents, asking for details about the divorce, the name change, and possible links to terrorist groups in the Philippines. Hildes sent the FBI a letter threatening legal action, but got a disheartening reply. "They kept telling me that there was an attorney general's directive telling them they can investigate anything of any alleged terrorist activity that they want," he says. This is an exceptionally bad time in American history to be a possible alleged terrorist suspect: Last week's House and Senate vote repealed the occasionally honored tradition of habeas corpus for enemy combatants in the war on terror, and for someone like Siyam there's the strong feeling that at any given point he might be handcuffed in his classroom and led away on "alleged terrorist" charges.

For two months after his ex-wife's questioning, it seemed like the FBI forgot about Siyam. He never got hauled away to an incommunicado detention center and, after his ex-wife, none of his friends reported being approached or questioned. It wasn't until October 4 that the two agents resurfaced in Siyam's life—showing up at his door to interrogate his mother, Erlinda Cupp.

When the agents came knocking, Cupp refused to let them inside the house, meeting with them on her front walk. She says they showed her a page-long list of names and asked her if she recognized any of them. "I only know faces, not names," she replied and after a few minutes the agents left. Cupp immediately told her son what happened. One of the names on the list, it turned out, had been familiar: that of Chera Amlag, wife of Geologic of Blue Scholars, who is heavily involved with BAYAN. Now the fear for Siyam and other public Filipino-Americans figures is not just that they or a few of their friends may soon be wrapped up in an investigation, but the latent feeling that anyone working as an activist in the entire Seattle Filipino community could be the next suspect.

"I don't know what's going to happen next," Geologic posted to an internet message board last week, after he heard his wife was on the FBI list, "All I know is that this is the opening salvo, and that it's time to start the dialogue. I guess I just want to know who's gonna have our back when they kick down the door."

Hildes adds: "Whether they're intending to show up at his home or his workplace and spirit him away to a detention center somewhere, I don't know. But we're really concerned about it and we're really concerned that it just keeps going."

Since Siyam is a born-in-the-U.S. American citizen, it's unlikely he'll be whisked away by warrant-wielding Homeland Security agents, as he and Hildes fear. "With a lot of Arabs and Muslims, it wasn't citizens that were picked up, it was people whose immigration status was in question," explains Pramila Jayapal, executive director of Hate Free Zone, which has worked with Somali and Arab-American communities since September 11. "Citizens were questioned, but not whisked away into secret detention. We have that situation come up all the time—where an FBI agent will either show up at someone's door or be in the community showing a photo of someone... they're investigating those people because they believe they might have information about a terrorist organization or a link to someone they're investigating."

After the FBI stopped by Siyam's home on October 4, Hildes called to complain to Dave Rubencamp, a Washington-based employee of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and Frank Gutt's supervisor. "He told me he had personally assigned Gutt to investigate specific leads they have developed, and threatened to file a charge against me for interfering with a federal investigation," says Hildes. What those leads are, who provided them, what evidence the FBI is looking for, and confirmation of whether there even is currently an investigation against Siyam are all confidential. Hildes says that when he got frustrated and asked for Rubencamp's supervisor, Rubencamp hung up on him. He and Siyam are currently considering seeking a federal court injunction or filing suit against the FBI for harassment. The FBI would not comment for this story.

smirk@thestranger.com

[www.bayanusa.org]

my mom would always tell me while i was growin up to not stress cuz it's the best time of the year. it's the months of ber. septemBER. octoBER. novemBER. decemBER. she's gettin old now. 62. brought me back to memories of seein my grandma in a hospital bed. now my mom is the reigning dm: deebo mejia. these past few days have really shown me why everyone calls her mama_baby. fams came thru to the hospital like it was a partay - sinigang, isda, arroz caldo, tinola, rice like no other... hospitals give us ordinary people those moments of clarity, so we can strive to be extraordinary. i want to be a better person. a better woman, daughter, sister, auntie, kasama, friend... thanks for all the phone calls and texts. i heart you all. *hugs* from across the water.

sittin up in this btown coffee shop cuz they got the wifi hukap. too much coffee got me super alert with the ootooters. damn, i really live here. guests are always welcome... at our house, that is. come over for coffee, tea, lunch, dinner, even a sleepover. it really is a small place - but a good one at that... btown, that is. and our house too. gonna be here for a minute till mama gets better.

"call me if you need ANYTHING... except for money cuz i don't got that." thanks bro.