The new issue of the monthly newspaper of the SF Bay Independent Media Center, Fault Lines is out. Coinciding with the Thanksgiving holiday, the theme of the sixth issue is Indigenous People; read about the Occupation of Alcatraz that took place 35 years ago, the indigenous struggle in Brazil and the origins of Thanksgiving.

Eddie Yuen analyzes the implications of the U.S. election and Kevin Keating provides readers with a historical overview of mutiny during the Vietnam War. In the Arts and Action section you can read how cinema has penetrated the abyss of electoral politics.

Other articles include, letter from Angola 3 political prisoner Herman Wallace, insight into the next 5 years in the Middle East by Immanuel Wallerstein, Bay Guardian lawsuit against SF Weekly publisher New Times, US approved carnage in Haiti and life after the oil peak.

PDF of the Sixth Issue | Distribution points | Subscribe and help our all-volunteer collective put out FL.

After broadcasting over the radio airwaves in the Santa Cruz, Ca. area for almost 10 years without a license, in defiance of federal regulations, one day this fall, the U.S. government decided to take some action. On Sept. 29, 2004, Federal Marshals, aiding the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), raided Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC), seizing radio equipment to disable their broadcasts. I wondered what FRSC volunteers, and other microradio, or “pirate,� radio station volunteers, were feeling about this raid. It seems so often the government does things like this to “set an example� for others, to be a warning to others engaging in similar activity, to deter them from continuing on with defiant behavior…and sometimes that type of governmental intimidation works, and sometimes it does not. Questions linger, such as what the federal government intends to do with FRSC’s seized radio equipment. I interviewed several West Coast microradio station volunteers about their reactions to the FRSC raid for this article.

[ Freak Radio I Enemy Combatant Radio I Free Radio Olympia I Radio 4 All I Micropower Radio Stations I Seizing the Airwaves, a free radio handbook I Micropower Broadcasting - A Technical Primer ]

This election cycle was no different from past campaigns, in that the national races overshadowed local and state ballot initiatives. On Nov. 2 voters in Santa Cruz, CA handed a crushing defeat to the controversial Measure J. This county-wide initiative would have created a half-cent sales tax to finance transportation projects, primarily a 30 year plan to widen the Santa Cruz portion of California Highway 1. Issues of growth and traffic congestion would only compound if the highway were widened, oppponents said, and more than 60 % of voters agreed. Sprouts contributor Vinny Lombardo brings us this post-mortem look at Measure J.

[ Sprouts - radio from the grassroots I SCCRTC (Yes on J) I No on Measure J I Campaign for Sustainable Transportation (No on J) ]

On the eve of what will be one of the most important elections in U.S. history, the Indymedia network announces the launch of a new and critical website for gathering the news and views of ordinary people across the country and around the world.

With its mission of publishing independent, on-the-ground reports from the people who experience the news most directly, www.indymedia.us will amplify the voices of those most impacted not only by the elections process, but also by the policies of either a Bush or Kerry administration.

The US IMC website centers around a syndicated wire of all featured articles published by participating local US-based IMCs, including Santa Cruz Indymedia. As with all Indymedia sites, the US-IMC's open publishing newswire empowers people to become the media by posting their articles, photos, videos, and audio clips directly to the website's wire. But the US-IMC's main function is to make the news that is published, culled and edited to local IMC sites relevant and accessible to a broader audience.

[ us.indymedia.org or Indymedia.us ]

While American airwaves are crowded with talk of a new war – narrated by generals and filmed from the noses of bombs – the human face of war is rarely seen. THE FOURTH WORLD WAR is a powerful new film from the makers of 'This Is What Democracy Looks Like', 'Zapatista', and 'Black & Gold'. It weaves together the stories of movements against empire from Palestine, Iraq, Chiapas, Argentina, South Africa, South Korea to Quebec City and Genoa.

The product of over two years of filming, The Fourth World War is a new kind of film for a new world. The intensity and immediacy of its images are beyond anything the mainstream media can shoot, the intimacy and passion of its stories are beyond anything it can feel. Directed by the award winning New York-based Big Noise Films, and narrated by Tony Award winner Suheir Hammad and Singer Michael Franti of Spearhead, it is a radical story of hope and human connection in the face of a war that shatters and divides.

[ The Fourth World War - a big noise film I VIEW TRAILER ]

"I think THE FOURTH WORLD WAR should be the center-piece of all political education for left activists in the present period. It really is that good."
-- Van Jones, National Executive Director - Ella Baker Center For Human Rights

On October 29, 2005, Activists, including the Watsonville Brown Berets, disrupt rally organized by Minutemen on the steps of the capital in Sacramento.

This site is just plain funny.

www.arnoldsneighborhood.com

It's for all you Seasame Street fans out there, and come on, aren't we all Seasame Street fans?

Interview with Ed from Radio Free Petaluma an Unlicensed Microradio station at 95.5fm in California. Free The Air!!

audio: MP3 at 7.6 mebibytes
radio.indymedia.org/uploads/frsc_radio_free_petaluma102505.mp3

Since you weren't invited to the last First Night meeting...

"What are they doing? Why do they come here?" "Some kind of instinct, memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives."