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September 15 — Turn Up the Heat in Washington DC!
Calendar of upcoming anti-war events
North/Central California "End the War Now" March:
Saturday, October 27, 2007, 11am, San Francisco Civic Center Plaza
Planning Meeting: Thursday, July 12, 7 p.m.
San Francisco Women’s Building, 3543 18th St. (btwn. Valencia & Guerrero)
Let's unite to build the broadest, most diverse and effective anti-war movement!
We want to thank the thousands of people and many organizations that have responded to ANSWER's May 31 Proposal to the Anti-War Movement. The essence of the proposal is for all the anti-war coalitions and organizations to come together to mobilize the largest single mass march on Washington DC under the demand End the War Now!
Most anti-war activists support this idea. At the national level some organizations support the call for building a united mass mobilization. Others are opposing it. The ANSWER Coalition will continue to promote and organize for a united action where organizations and coalitions can come together and organize a march of a million people to show the breadth and support of the anti-war sentiment in this country. March 2008 will mark the start of the sixth year of the Iraq war. If the anti-war organizations desire to unite, it would be an important moment to organize a huge show of force demanding an immediate end to the war. In unity there is great strength—it is that simple.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
(Call to check meeting schedules.)
[For more information see "Articles in Full," number 15, below...bw]
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New Orleans After the Flood -- A Photo Gallery
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=795
This email was sent to you as a service, by Roland Sheppard.
Visit my website at: http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret
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Stop the Blue Angels!
Write to the Board of Supervisors today and demand they be banned from our skies!
Here is my letter:
Dear Supervisors,
I am writing to all of you although I live in Bernal Heights. The Blue Angels fly and terrorize all of us in this city and in the Bay Area. Lethal weapons flying close to the ground right over our heads is neither celebratory nor fun. The noise is deafening--and no one can avoid it by choice--just as we can't avoid the war on Iraq and Afghanistan by choice--so much for our "democracy" that ignores the voice of its people!
We shouldn't have to plead with our supervisors to carry out what is surely the will of the people of San Francisco who have already voted twice to end the war and the military recruitment in our city.
We, the people, have made our wishes clear already. We are against the war; against the military industrial complex that is the U.S. Military that is personified by the Blue Angels--the "Angels of Death."
That our war planes are the fastest and that our pilots are the best trained to bring death and destruction does not comfort us or make us proud. It is an abomination and a condemnation of our government and its brutal, world war, domination plan!
And if this isn't enough, the Blue Angels' "performances" are wrought with danger already resulting in 26 fatalities. How can this threat to the wellbeing of the people of San Francisco be considered fun entertainment?
There is no excuse for their presence in our air! They should all be grounded permanently.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-824-8730
Here is the list of Supervisors:
District 1
Jake McGoldrick
Phone: (415) 554-7410
Fax: (415) 554-7415
Email: Jake.McGoldrick@sfgov.org
District 2
Michela Alioto-Pier
Phone: (415) 554-7752
Fax: (415) 554-7843
Email: Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org
District 3
Aaron Peskin
Phone: (415) 554-7450
Fax: (415) 554-7454
Email: Aaron.Peskin@sfgov.org
District 4
Ed Jew
Phone: (415) 554-7460
Fax: (415) 554-7432
Email: Ed.Jew@sfgov.org
District 5
Ross Mirkarimi
Phone: (415) 554-7630
Fax: (415) 554-7634
Email: Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org
District 7
Sean Elsbernd
Phone: (415) 554-6516
Fax: (415) 554-6546
Email: Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org
District 8
Bevan Dufty
Phone: (415) 554-6968
Fax: (415) 554-6909
Email: Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
District 9
Tom Ammiano
Phone: (415) 554-5144
Fax: (415) 554-6255
Email: Tom.Ammiano@sfgov.org
District 10
Sophie Maxwell
Phone: (415) 554-7670
Fax: (415) 554-7674
Email: Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org
District 11
Gerardo C. Sandoval
Phone: (415) 554-6975
Fax: (415) 554-6979
Email: Gerardo.Sandoval@sfgov.org
I suggest you send a copy to our Mayor:
Gavin Newsom
gavin.newsom@sfgov.org
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) When Is Enough Enough?
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
June 30, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/opinion/30herbert.html?hp
2) Castro Reacts to C.I.A. Documents
By REUTERS
Filed at 11:05 a.m. ET
July 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/news-cuba-castro.html
3) The Killing Machine
By Fidel Castro Ruz
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html
4) A Much-Needed Second Chance
NYT Editorial
July 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/opinion/02mon1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
5) Just Say AAA
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
July 2, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/opinion/02krugman.html?hp
6) Afghans Say Weekend Airstrikes Killed 62 Rebels and 45 Civilians
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?ref=world
7) A $135 Million Home, but if You Have to Ask ...
By KIRK JOHNSON
July 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/us/02aspen.html?ref=us
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1) When Is Enough Enough?
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
June 30, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/opinion/30herbert.html?hp
Chances are you didn’t hear it, but on Thursday night Senator Hillary Clinton said, “If H.I.V./AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country.”
Her comment came on the same day that a malevolent majority on the U.S. Supreme Court threw a brick through the window of voluntary school integration efforts.
There comes a time when people are supposed to get angry. The rights and interests of black people in the U.S. have been under assault for the longest time, and in the absence of an effective counterforce, that assault has only grown more brutal.
Have you looked at the public schools lately? Have you looked at the prisons? Have you looked at the legions of unemployed blacks roaming the neighborhoods of big cities across the country? These jobless African-Americans, so many of them men, are so marginal in the view of the wider society, so insignificant, so invisible, they aren’t even counted in the government’s official jobless statistics.
And now this new majority on the Supreme Court seems committed to a legal trajectory that would hurl blacks back to the bad old days of the Jim Crow era.
Where’s the outcry? Where’s the line in the sand that the prejudiced portion of the population is not allowed to cross?
Mrs. Clinton’s comment was made at a forum of Democratic presidential candidates at Howard University that was put together by Tavis Smiley, the radio and television personality, and broadcast nationally by PBS. The idea was to focus on issues of particular concern to African-Americans.
It’s discouraging that some of the biggest issues confronting blacks — the spread of AIDS, chronic joblessness and racial discrimination, for example — are not considered mainstream issues.
Senator John Edwards offered a disturbingly bleak but accurate picture of the lives of many young blacks: “When you have young African-American men who are completely convinced that they’re either going to die or go to prison and see absolutely no hope in their lives; when they live in an environment where the people around them don’t earn a decent wage; when they go to schools that are second-class schools compared to the wealthy suburban areas — they don’t see anything getting better.”
The difficult lives and often tragic fates of such young men are not much on the minds of so-called mainstream Americans, or the political and corporate elites who run the country. More noise needs to be made. There’s something very wrong with a passive acceptance of the degraded state in which so many African-Americans continue to live.
Mr. Smiley is also organizing a forum of Republican candidates to be held in September. I wholeheartedly applaud his efforts. But if black people were more angry, and if they could channel that anger into political activism — first and foremost by voting as though their lives and the lives of their children depended on it — there would not be a need to have separate political forums to address their concerns.
If black people could find a way to come together in sky-high turnouts on Election Day, if they showed up at polling booths in numbers close to the maximum possible turnout, if they could set the example for all other Americans about the importance of exercising the franchise, the politicians would not dare to ignore their concerns.
For black people, especially, the current composition of the Supreme Court should be the ultimate lesson in the importance of voting in a presidential election. No branch of the government has been more crucial than the judiciary in securing the rights and improving the lives of blacks over the past five or six decades.
George W. Bush, in a little more than six years, has tilted the court so radically that it is now, like the administration itself, relentlessly hostile to the interests of black people. That never would have happened if blacks had managed significantly more muscular turnouts in the 2000 and 2004 elections. (The war in Iraq would not have happened, either.)
There are, of course, many people, black and white, who are working on a vast array of important issues. But much, much more needs to be done. And blacks, in particular, need to intervene more directly in the public policy matters that concern them.
In the 1960s, there were radicals running around screaming about black power. But the real power in this country has always been the power of the vote. Black Americans have not come close to maximizing that power.
It’s not too late.
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2) Castro Reacts to C.I.A. Documents
By REUTERS
Filed at 11:05 a.m. ET
July 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/news-cuba-castro.html
HAVANA (Reuters) - Convalescing Cuban President Fidel Castro charged on Sunday the release of classified CIA documents detailing past abuses was a smoke screen behind which the Bush administration hoped to hide even worse methods.
"I think that this action could be an attempt ... to make people believe that these methods belong to another era and are no longer used," Castro wrote in an editorial published by the communist country's official media.
"Everything described in the documents is still being done, only in a more brutal manner around the entire planet, including an increasing number of illegal actions in the very United States."
The CIA declassified on Tuesday hundreds of pages of long-secret records that detailed some of the agency's worst illegal abuses during about 25 years of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping.
The documents are known in the CIA as the "Family Jewels" and some describe the agency's efforts to persuade Johnny Roselli, believed to be a mobster, to help plot the assassination of Castro.
"Sunday is a good day to read what appears to be science fiction," Castro began his three-page editorial, titled "The Killing Machine."
He went on to quote extensively from material covering the attempt on his life, as well as a New York Times analysis of all the documents.
Cuba charges that Castro has been the target of hundreds of assassination attempts. The Cuban leader has said numerous times that President George W. Bush has ordered him killed.
Castro also reiterated in detail his long-held belief that U.S. President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963, was the victim of a plot involving elements of the CIA and militant anti-Castro Cuban exiles.
Castro, a master sharp-shooter with a telescopic rifle, insists Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been the only shooter in Dallas.
"You loose the target after every shot even if it is not moving and have to find it again in fractions of a second," he said.
Castro has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July last year, when he handed over power temporarily to his younger brother, Raul.
But the 80-year-old revolutionary has returned to public life since March by writing occasional articles, called "Reflections of the Commander in Chief." He has been writing more frequently in recent weeks, fueling speculation that his health is improving.
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3) The Killing Machine
By Fidel Castro Ruz
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html
Sunday is a good day to read something that would appear to be science fiction.
It was announced that the CIA would be declassifying hundreds of pages on illegal actions that included plans to eliminate the leaders of foreign governments. Suddenly the publication is halted and it is delayed one day. No coherent explanation was given. Perhaps someone in the White House looked over the material.
The first package of declassified documents goes by the name of “The Family Jewels;” it consists of 702 pages on illegal CIA actions between 1959 and 1973. About 100 pages of this part have been deleted. It deals with actions that were not authorized by any law, plots to assassinate other leaders, experiments with drugs on human beings to control their minds, spying on civil activists and journalists, among other similar activities that were expressly prohibited.
The documents began to be gathered together 14 years after the first of the events took place, when then CIA director, James Schlessinger became alarmed about what the press was writing, especially all the articles by Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein published in The Washington Post, already mentioned in the “Manifesto to the People of Cuba.” The agency was being accused of promoting spying in the Watergate Hotel with the participation of its former agents Howard Hunt and James McCord.
In May 1973, the Director of the CIA was demanding that, “all the main operative officials of this agency must immediately inform me on any ongoing or past activity that might be outside of the constituting charter of this agency.” Schlesinger, later appointed Head of the Pentagon, had been replaced by William Colby. Colby was referring to the documents as “skeletons hiding in a closet.” New press revelations forced Colby to admit the existence of the reports to interim President Gerald Ford in 1975. The New York Times was denouncing agency penetration of antiwar groups. The law that created the CIA prevented it from spying inside the United States.
That “was just the tip of the iceberg,” said then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Kissinger himself warned, “blood would flow” if other actions were known, and he immediately added: “For example, that Robert Kennedy personally controlled the operation for the assassination of Fidel Castro.” The President’s brother was then Attorney General of the United States. He was later murdered as he was running for President in the 1968 elections, which facilitated Nixon’s election for lack of a strong candidate. The most dramatic thing about the case is that apparently he had reached the conviction that Jack Kennedy had been victim of a conspiracy. Thorough investigators, after analyzing the wounds, the caliber of the shots and other circumstances surrounding the death of the President, reached the conclusion that there had been at least three shooters. Solitary Oswald, used as an instrument, could not have been the only shooter. I found that rather striking. Excuse me for saying this but fate turned me into a shooting instructor with a telescopic sight for all the Granma expeditionaries. I spent months practicing and teaching, every day; even though the target is a stationary one it disappears from view with each shot and so you need to look for it all over again in fractions of a second.
Oswald wanted to come through Cuba on his trip to the U.S.SR. He had already been there before. Someone sent him to ask for a visa in our country’s embassy in Mexico but nobody knew him there so he wasn’t authorized. They wanted to get us implicated in the conspiracy. Later, Jack Ruby—a man openly linked to the Mafia—unable to deal with so much pain and sadness, as he said, assassinated him, of all places, in a precinct full police agents.
Subsequently, in international functions or on visits to Cuba, on more than one occasion I met with the aggrieved Kennedy relatives, who would greet me respectfully. The former president’s son, who was a very small child when his father was killed, visited Cuba 34 years later. We met and I invited him to dinner.
The young man, in the prime of his life, and well brought up, tragically died in an airplane accident on a stormy night as he was flying to Martha’s Vineyard with his wife. I never touched on the thorny issue with any of those relatives. In contrast, I pointed out that if the president-elect had then been Nixon instead of Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs disaster, we would have been attacked by the land and sea forces escorting the mercenary expedition, and both countries would have paid a high toll in human lives. Nixon would not have limited himself to saying that victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan. For the record, Kennedy was never too enthusiastic about the Bay of Pigs adventure; he was led there by Eisenhower’s military reputation and the recklessness of his ambitious vice-president.
I remember that, exactly on the day and minute he was assassinated, I was speaking in a peaceful spot outside of the capital with French journalist Jean Daniel. He told me that he was bringing a message from President Kennedy. He said to me that in essence he had told him: “You are going to see Castro. I would like to know what he thinks about the terrible danger we just experienced of a thermonuclear war. I want to see you again as soon as you get back.” “Kennedy was very active; he seemed to be a political machine,” he added, and we were not able to continue talking as someone rushed in with the news of what had just happened. We turned on the radio. What Kennedy thought was now pointless.
Certainly I lived with that danger. Cuba was both the weakest part and the one that would take the first strike, but we did not agree with the concessions that were made to the United States. I have already spoken of this before.
Kennedy had emerged from the crisis with greater authority. He came to recognize the enormous sacrifices of human lives and material wealth made by the Soviet people in the struggle against fascism. The worst of the relations between the United States and Cuba had not yet occurred by April 1961. When he hadn’t resigned himself to the outcome of the Bay of Pigs, along came the Missile Crisis. The blockade, economic asphyxiation, pirate attacks and assassination plots multiplied. But the assassination plots and other bloody occurrences began under the administration of Eisenhower and Nixon.
After the Missile Crisis we would have not refused to talk with Kennedy, nor would we have ceased being revolutionaries and radical in our struggle for socialism. Cuba would have never severed relations with the U.S.SR as it had been asked to do. Perhaps if the American leaders had been aware of what a war could be using weapons of mass destruction they would have ended the Cold War earlier and differently. At least that’s how we felt then, when there was still no talk of global warming, broken imbalances, the enormous consumption of hydrocarbons and the sophisticated weaponry created by technology, as I have already said to the youth of Cuba. We would have had much more time to reach, through science and conscience, what we are today forced to realize in haste.
President Ford decided to appoint a Commission to investigate the Central Intelligence Agency. “We do not want to destroy the CIA but to preserve it,” he said.
As a result of the Commission’s investigations that were led by Senator Frank Church, President Ford signed an executive order, which expressly prohibited the participation of American officials in the assassinations of foreign leaders.
The documents published now disclose information about the CIA-Mafia links for my assassination.
Details are also revealed about Operation Chaos, carrying on from 1969 for at least seven years, for which the CIA created a special squadron with the mission to infiltrate pacifist groups and to investigate “the international activities of radicals and black militants.” The Agency compiled more than 300,000 names of American citizens and organizations and extensive files on 7,200 persons.
According to The New York Times, President Johnson was convinced that the American anti-War movement was controlled and funded by Communist governments and he ordered the CIA to produce evidence.
The documents recognize, furthermore, that the CIA spied on various journalists like Jack Anderson, performers such as Jane Fonda and John Lennon, and the student movements at Columbia University. It also searched homes and carried out tests on American citizens to determine the reactions of human beings to certain drugs.
In a memorandum sent to Colby in 1973, Walter Elder who had been executive assistant to John McCone, CIA Director in the early 1970s, gives information about discussions in the CIA headquarters that were taped and transcribed: “I know that whoever worked in the offices of the director were worried about the fact that these conversations in the office and on the phone were transcribed. During the McCone years there were microphones in his regular offices, the inner office, the dining room, the office in the East building, and in the study of his home on White Haven Street. I don’t know if anyone is ready to talk about this, but the information tends to be leaked, and certainly the Agency is vulnerable in this case.”
The secret transcripts of the CIA directors could contain a great number of “jewels.” The National Security Archive is already requesting these transcripts.
A memo clarifies that the CIA had a project called OFTEN which would collect “information about dangerous drugs in American companies,” until the program was terminated in the fall of 1972. In another memo there are reports that manufacturers of commercial drugs “had passed” drugs to the CIA which had been “refused due to adverse secondary effects.”
As part of the MKULTRA program, the CIA had given LSD and other psychoactive drugs to people without their knowledge. According to another document in the archive, Sydney Gottlieb, a psychiatrist and head of chemistry of the Agency Mind Control Program, is supposedly the person responsible for having made available the poison that was going to be used in the assassination attempt on Patrice Lumumba.
CIA employees assigned to MHCHAOS—the operation that carried out surveillance on American opposition to the war in Vietnam and other political dissidents—expressed “a high level of resentment” for having been ordered to carry out such missions.
Nonetheless, there is a series of interesting matters revealed in these documents, such as the high level at which the decisions for actions against our country were taken.
The technique used today by the CIA to avoid giving any details is not the unpleasant crossed out bits but the blank spaces, coming from the use of computers.
For The New York Times, large censored sections reveal that the CIA still cannot expose all the skeletons in its closets, and many activities developed in operations abroad, checked over years ago by journalists, congressional investigators and a presidential commission, are not in the documents.
Howard Osborn, then CIA Director of Security, makes a summary of the “jewels” compiled by his office. He lists eight cases—including the recruiting of the gangster Johnny Roselli for the coup against Fidel Castro—but they crossed out the document that is in the number 1 place on Osborn’s initial list: two and a half pages.
“The No. 1 Jewel of the CIA Security Offices must be very good, especially since the second one is the list for the program concerning the assassination of Castro by Roselli,” said Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive who requested the declassification of “The Family Jewels” 15 years ago under the Freedom of Information Act.
It is notable that the administration which has declassified the least information in the history of the United States, and which has even started a process of reclassifying information that was previously declassified, now makes the decision to make these revelations.
I believe that such an action could be an attempt to present an image of transparency when the government is at an all time low rate of acceptance and popularity, and to show that those methods belong to another era and are no longer in use. When he announced the decision, General Hayden, current CIA Director, said: “The documents offer a look at very different times and at a very different Agency.”
Needless to say that everything described here is still being done, only in a more brutal manner and all around the planet, including a growing number of illegal actions within the very United States.
The New York Times wrote that intelligence experts consulted expressed that the revelation of the documents is an attempt to distract attention from recent controversies and scandals plaguing the CIA and an Administration that is living through some of its worst moments of unpopularity.
The declassification could also be an attempt at showing, in the early stages of the electoral process that the Democratic administrations were as bad, or worse, than Mr. Bush’s.
In pages 11 to 15 of the Memo for the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, we can read:
“In August 1960, Mr. Richard M. Bissell approached Colonel Sheffield Edwards with the objective of determining whether the Security Office had agents who could help in a confidential mission that required gangster-style action. The target of the mission was Fidel Castro.
“Given the extreme confidentiality of the mission, the project was known only to a small group of people. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was informed and he gave it his approval. Colonel J. C. King, Head of the Western Hemisphere Division, was also informed, but all the details were deliberately concealed from officials of Operation JMWAVE. Even though some officials of Communications (Commo) and the Technical Services Division (TSD) took part in initial planning phases, they were not aware of the mission’s purpose.
“Robert A. Maheu was contacted, he was informed in general terms about the project, and he was asked to evaluate whether he could get access to gangster-type elements as a first step for achieving the desired goal.
“Mr. Maheu informed that he had met with a certain Johnny Roselli on several occasions while he was visiting Las Vegas. He had only met him informally through clients, but he had been told that he was a member of the upper echelons of the ‘syndicate’ and that he was controlling all the ice machines on the Strip. In Maheu’s opinion, if Roselli was in effect a member of the Clan, he undoubtedly had connections that would lead to the gambling racket in Cuba.
“Maheu was asked to get close to Roselli, who knew that Maheu was a public relations executive looking after national and foreign accounts, and tell him that recently he had been contracted by a client who represented several international business companies, which were suffering enormous financial losses in Cuba due to Castro. They were convinced that the elimination of Castro would be a solution to their problem and they were ready to pay $ 150,000 for a successful outcome. Roselli had to be made perfectly aware of the fact that the U.S. government knew nothing, nor could it know anything, about this operation.
“This was presented to Roselli on September 14, 1960 in the Hilton Plaza Hotel of New York City. His initial reaction was to avoid getting involved but after Maheu’s persuasive efforts he agreed to present the idea to a friend, Sam Gold, who knew “some Cubans.” Roselli made it clear that he didn’t want any money for his part in all this, and he believed that Sam would do likewise. Neither of these people was ever paid with Agency money.
“During the week of September 25, Maheu was introduced to Sam who was living at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. It was not until several weeks after meeting Sam and Joe—who was introduced as courier operating between Havana and Miami—that he saw photos of these two individuals in the Sunday section of Parade. They were identified as Momo Salvatore Giancana and Santos Trafficante, respectively. Both were on the Attorney General’s list of the ten most wanted. The former was described as the boss of the Cosa Nostra in Chicago and Al Capone’s heir, and the latter was the boss of Cuban operations of the Cosa Nostra. Maheu immediately called this office upon learning this information.
“After analyzing the possible methods to carry out this mission, Sam suggested that they not resort to firearms but that, if they could get hold of some kind of deadly pill, something to be put into Castro’s food or drink, this would be a much more effective operation. Sam indicated that he had a possible candidate in the person of Juan Orta, a Cuban official who had been receiving bribery payments in the gambling racket, and who still had access to Castro and was in a financial bind.
“The TSD (Technical Services Division) was requested to produce 6 highly lethal pills.
“Joe delivered the pills to Orta. After several weeks of attempts, Orta appears to have chickened out and he asked to be taken off the mission. He suggested another candidate who made several unsuccessful [attempts].”
Everything that was said in the numerous paragraphs above is in quotes. Observe well, dear readers, the methods that were already being used by the United States to rule the world.
I remember that during the early years of the Revolution, in the offices of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, there was a man working there with me whose name was Orta, who had been linked to the anti-Batista political forces. He was a respectful and serious man. But, it could only be him. The decades have gone by and I see his name once more in the CIA report. I can’t lay my hands on information to immediately prove what happened to him. Accept my apologies if I involuntarily have offended a relative or a descendent, whether the person I have mentioned is guilty or not.
The empire has created a veritable killing machine that is made up not only of the CIA and its methods. Bush has established powerful and expensive intelligence and security super-structures, and he has transformed all the air, sea and land forces into instruments of world power that take war, injustice, hunger and death to any part of the globe, in order to educate its inhabitants in the exercise of democracy and freedom. The American people are gradually waking up to this reality.
“You cannot fool all of the people all of the time,” said Lincoln.
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4) A Much-Needed Second Chance
NYT Editorial
July 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/opinion/02mon1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
The United States now has more than two million people behind bars, a number that has been rising steadily for decades. But state lawmakers who once would have rushed to build new prisons have begun to see that prison-building is not the best or most cost-effective way to fight crime or protect the public’s safety.
Several states have instead begun to focus on developing community-based programs that deal with low-level, nonviolent offenders without locking them up. And they have begun to look at ways to control recidivism with programs that help newly released people find jobs, housing, drug treatment and mental health care — essential services if they are to live viable lives in a society that has historically shunned them.
Texas and Kansas have recently made important strides in this area. But corrections policy nationally would evolve much faster if Washington put its shoulder to the wheel. Congress needs to pass the Second Chance Act, which would provide grants, guidance and assistance to states and localities that are developing programs to reintegrate former inmates into their communities.
The states have made a good start, thanks in part to the efforts of the Council of State Governments and its prison policy arm, the Justice Center. The center’s analysis of corrections patterns has led to sweeping changes in Texas, where the Legislature was facing a projected upsurge in the prison population and a projected outlay of more than a billion dollars to build several new prisons.
The surge in Texas was not being driven by crime, which had risen only slightly, but by a breakdown in the parole and probation systems, which were unable to process and supervise the necessary numbers of released prisoners. Mental health and drug treatment services were also lacking. By expanding those services, along with other community-based programs, the Legislature projects that it could potentially avoid the need for any new prisons.
A similar solution was found in Kansas, where about 65 percent of the state’s admissions to prison were traced to technical violations of probation or parole, often by people with drug addictions or mental illnesses. The Legislature has expanded drug treatment behind bars and created a grant program that encourages localities to provide more effective supervision and services as a way of keeping recently released people away from crime and out of prison.
The social service networks that are necessary for this kind of work are virtually nonexistent in most communities. To put those networks together, the states need to require that disparate parts of the government apparatus work together in ways that were unheard of in the past.
It is encouraging that state officials are willing to break out of the old patterns. But they need help. The Second Chance Act would bolster the re-entry movement with money, training, technical assistance — and the federal stamp of approval.
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5) Just Say AAA
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
July 2, 2007
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/opinion/02krugman.html?hp
What do you get when you cross a Mafia don with a bond salesman? A dealer in collateralized debt obligations (C.D.O.’s) — someone who makes you an offer you don’t understand.
Seriously, it’s starting to look as if C.D.O.’s were to this decade’s housing bubble what Enron-style accounting was to the stock bubble of the 1990s. Both made investors think they were getting a much better deal than they really were. And the new scandal raises two obvious questions: Why were the bond-rating agencies taken in (again), and where were the regulators?
To understand the fuss over C.D.O.’s, you first have to realize that in the later stages of the great 2000-2005 housing boom, banks were making a lot of dubious loans. In particular, there was an explosion of subprime lending — home loans offered to people who wouldn’t normally have been considered qualified borrowers.
For a while, the risks of subprime loans were masked by the housing bubble itself: as long as prices kept going up, troubled borrowers could raise more cash by borrowing against their rising home equity. But once the bubble burst — and the housing bust is turning out to be every bit as nasty as the pessimists predicted — many of these loans were bound to go bad.
Yet the banks making the loans weren’t stupid: they passed the buck to other people. Subprime mortgages and other risky loans were securitized — that is, banks issued bonds backed by home loans, in effect handing off the risk to the bond buyers.
In principle, securitization should reduce risk: even if a particular loan goes bad, the loss is spread among many investors, none of whom takes a major hit. But with the collapse of the $800 billion market in bonds backed by subprime mortgages — the price of a basket of these bonds has lost almost 40 percent of its value since January — it’s now clear that many investors who bought these securities didn’t realize what they were getting into.
And it’s also becoming clear that in addition to failing to appreciate the risks of subprime loans, many investors were fooled by fancy financial engineering — those collateralized debt obligations — into believing they had protected themselves against risk, when they had actually done no such thing.
The details of C.D.O.’s are complicated, but basically they’re supposed to transfer most of the risk of bad loans to a small group of sophisticated investors, who are compensated for that risk with a high rate of return, while leaving other investors with a “synthetic” asset that is, well, safe as houses.
S.& P., Moody’s and Fitch, the bond-rating agencies, have gone along with the premise, telling investors that the synthetic assets created by C.D.O.’s are equivalent to high-quality corporate bonds. And investors have, in the words of a recent Bloomberg story, “snapped up” these securities “because they typically yield more than bonds with the same credit ratings.”
But the securities were never as safe as advertised, because the risk transfer wasn’t anywhere near big enough to protect investors from the consequences of a burst housing bubble. It’s not quite the metaphor I would have come up with, but here’s what the legendary bond investor Bill Gross had to say about C.D.O.’s in Pimco’s latest “Investment Outlook”:
“AAA? You were wooed Mr. Moody’s and Mr. Poor’s by the makeup, those six-inch hooker heels, and a ‘tramp stamp.’ Many of these good-looking girls are not high-class assets worth 100 cents on the dollar.”
Now we’re looking at huge losses to investors who thought they were playing it safe. Estimates of the likely losses on C.D.O.’s range from $125 billion to $250 billion, with some analysts warning that a wave of distress selling will deepen the housing slump even further.
Now, you might have thought that S.& P. and Moody’s, which gave Thailand an investment-grade rating until five months after the start of the Asian financial crisis, and gave Enron an investment-grade rating until days before it went bankrupt, would by now have learned to be a bit suspicious. And you would think that the regulators, in particular the Federal Reserve, would have learned from the stock bubble and the wave of corporate malfeasance that went with it to keep a watchful eye on overheated markets.
But apparently not. And the housing bubble, like the stock bubble before it, is claiming a growing number of innocent victims.
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6) Afghans Say Weekend Airstrikes Killed 62 Rebels and 45 Civilians
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?ref=world
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 1 (AP) — A local investigation into airstrikes that slammed into civilian homes in southern Afghanistan during a battle late Friday found that 62 insurgents and 45 civilians were killed, two Afghan officials said Sunday.
A suicide attack on Sunday in the same region killed a NATO soldier, officials said.
After the airstrikes, a local investigating team was sent to the Grishk district of Helmand Province, said Dor Ali Shah, the mayor of Grishk, and Muhammad Hussein Andewal, the provincial police chief. Both said the investigation found that 62 insurgents and 45 civilians had been killed.
Because of the site’s remote location, it was impossible to independently verify the casualty claims. Afghan officials said that air and ground forces were still patrolling the region and that the fighting continued into Sunday.
President Hamid Karzai ordered a team to conduct a more thorough investigation into the airstrikes, which came in Helmand Province during a battle between international forces and Taliban fighters, said Sher Muhammad Akhanzada, a member of Parliament from the province.
NATO has admitted that some civilians were killed Friday but says the number is far fewer than 45. “We will cooperate in any way that we can,” said Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. “We don’t mean to trivialize any of those who died, but we want to make it clear that we at this point believe the numbers are a dozen or less.”
Mr. Karzai has condemned the forces for carelessness and for viewing Afghan lives as “cheap.” He has also blamed the Taliban for using civilians as human shields.
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7) A $135 Million Home, but if You Have to Ask ...
By KIRK JOHNSON
July 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/us/02aspen.html?ref=us
ASPEN, Colo. — Some brokers have to shout to sell real estate in a glutted market, or employ ever more tortured elocutions of spin. Joshua Saslove whispers.
His company’s premier listing, called Hala Ranch, is a 95-acre estate built in 1991 for the family of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador to the United States from Saudi Arabia and the home’s only (occasional) occupant.
At $135 million, Hala, just northwest of downtown Aspen, is the most expensive single-family residential property in the nation on the market, Mr. Saslove said. Selling it mostly consists of saying no.
Mr. Saslove has received about 1,000 requests to tour the home since last October when it went on sale, and he, along with lawyers for the prince who review every call, have granted just 11 of them. This is what high-mountain hideaway money in Aspen has come down to: Even the ordinary rich can no longer press their noses to the glass.
In the marketing of Hala, which means “Welcome” in Arabic, nonbillionaires need not apply. Hala will almost certainly, Mr. Saslove believes, be a new owner’s second, third or fourth home.
Money on that scale does not just stumble in off the street. There are 946 billionaires, according to this year’s tally by Forbes magazine, keeping Mr. Saslove’s list of potential buyers relatively short.
He and Hala’s property manager, Martha Grimes, 57, who came to Aspen right after college, saw the place at its zenith, or others might say its nadir, as elements of the old hippie counterculture and Hollywood celebrity style melded. Ms. Grimes worked as a waitress and later a horse wrangler on the very ranch land that later became Hala.
“I remember this hill, this very hill, because I used to ride my horse through here,” she said as she led a tour through the house for a reporter and a photographer on a recent afternoon. “The 70s were really magical,” she added. “But the characters from those days are disappearing.”
Mr. Saslove said that people like Prince Bandar, who is now the secretary general of the Saudi National Security Council and is not spending as much time in the United States as he once did, helped establish Aspen’s newer style, which is much more about family, culture and art — and wealth that even Hollywood stars cannot match.
“I don’t see as much braggadocio as I used to,” said Mr. Saslove, a gruff 66-year-old with longish hair and a nonstop Blackberry.
In his 22 years as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, a tenure that ended in 2005, Prince Bandar was a powerful ally to a succession of presidents. Most recently, however, British media accounts have said that a major British arms contractor paid more than $2 billion clandestinely into bank accounts in Washington controlled by Prince Bandar. The prince has denied the allegations.
At 56,000 square feet, Hala is bigger than the White House, with a staff of 12. It has 15 bedrooms, 16 baths, a private barbershop and beauty salon just off the master suite and enough space for a party of 450 people.
Many of the rooms are huge, with banks of windows overlooking the Aspen valley and the mountains beyond. There are few proclamations of grandiosity beyond the occasional artwork, like the Albert Bierstadt painting that hangs over the main fireplace. (It does not come with the house.) Dark, gleaming wood beams, all with notched construction and not a single nailhead showing, pale plaster walls and television screens dominate the decor.
It is not a house for a family that putters in the kitchen, which is in the basement, the province of professional chefs with its stainless-steel everything and rows of hanging pots. Housekeepers were ironing the sheets in the nearby laundry, feeding them through a giant pressing machine.
Aspen certainly still has its glossy celebrities, of a sort. One of Prince Bandar’s nearest neighbors, for example, is Barbi Benton, the former Playboy playmate and actress who starred in B-movies like “Hospital Massacre” and “The Deathstalker” in the early 1980s. But the rising costs are rapidly squeezing out mere wealth.
Mr. Saslove, whose company, Joshua & Company, is an affiliate of Great Estates, the real estate arm of Christie’s auction house, said homes that cost about a million dollars in the 1970s now might sell for nine times that. On Aspen’s coveted west side, an ordinary lot, 60 feet by 100 feet, costs $3.5 million.
So far, through coincidence or not, Mr. Saslove said, a majority of the serious shoppers for Hala have come from old money, fortunes gained at least a generation ago. He is not sure why, and of course, he would not say who.
“There are a lot of stories that go along with it,” he said, “but in the interest of privacy and confidentially, I can’t talk about it.”
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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Lessons from Katrina
How to Destroy an African American City in 33 Steps
By BILL QUIGLEY
June 28, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.com/quigley06282007.html
PCHR weekly report: "Troops killed 16 Palestinians, including 2 children and 2 brothers"
The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR) based in Gaza, published its weekly report on the Israeli violations in the occupied territories in the period between June 21 – June 27, 2007. During the reported period Israel continued its violations in the occupied territories, and killed sixteen Palestinians, including two brothers and two children.
http://www.imemc.org/article/49223
Israeli brutality at a checkpoint near the Jordan Valley
Israeli assaults at checkpoints all over the West Bank have a terrible effect on the daily life of Palestinians. Such assaults are both numerous and wide-ranging in nature.
http://www.imemc.org/article/49228
Palestinian killed in ongoing Israeli raid
Israeli troops on Friday shot dead a Palestinian man as the army pressed a second day of operations in the flashpoint West Bank town of Nablus, security sources on both sides said.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=15955
Scientists Transplant Genome of Bacteria
By NICHOLAS WADE
June 29, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/science/29cells.html?hp
Texas: Immigrant Drowns After Border Agent Is Attacked
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
An illegal immigrant drowned in a border canal after a Border Patrol agent trying to rescue him was hit in the head with a rock thrown by a suspected human smuggler, Border Patrol officials said. The agent fired at least one shot at the suspect and another would-be immigrant, who fled back into Mexico, said an agency spokesman, Patrick Berry.
June 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/us/28brfs-IMMIGRANTDRO_BRF.html
California: Immigrants Die in Crash
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two suspected illegal immigrants died in a fiery head-on collision after the driver of a pickup fled the Border Patrol and swerved into oncoming traffic on a winding, rural road east of San Diego, the authorities said. Several people were seriously injured. The Border Patrol halted its pursuit after reaching the 55 m.p.h. speed limit, said a spokesman, Quinn Palmer.
June 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/us/28brfs-IMMIGRANTSDI_BRF.html
White House Is Subpoenaed on Wiretapping
By JAMES RISEN
June 28, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/washington/28nsa.html?hp
Fidel Castro on the 50th Anniversary
of the Chinese Revolution
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/mayjun_07/0507002.html
Files on Illegal Spying Show C.I.A. Skeletons From Cold War
By MARK MAZZETTI and TIM WEINER
June 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/washington/27cia.html?ref=us
Canada: Native Protests Planned for National Day
By IAN AUSTEN
Native groups are threatening to cause major travel disruptions at the start of the forthcoming Canada Day holiday weekend . Shawn Best, a spokesman for the Tyendinaga Mohawk Council, said members would block either Ontario’s main highway near Kingston, Ontario, or the rail line between Montreal and Toronto on Friday to protest poverty and land claims. He said that other native groups had told him they planned similar moves in other parts of the country.
June 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/world/americas/27briefs-native.html
28-Mile Virtual Fence Is Rising Along the Border
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
June 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/us/26fence.html?ref=us
U.S. Plan to Capture and Kill Insurgents in Baquba Fell Far Short of Goal, Officer Says
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
June 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/middleeast/26baquba.html
Army kidnaps six Palestinians from several parts of the West Bank
The Israeli army invades several cities and towns in the West Bank and kidnapped at least six Palestinians in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
http://www.imemc. org/article/ 49172
The Situation Room: Government officials, including the mayor, are concealing records of disastrously high levels of toxic dust from Lennar’s grading at the Hunters Point Shipyard by Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D., http://www.sfbayview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=222&Itemid=14
Boom times for banks in Venezuela
By JENS ERIK GOULD
www.latinamericanpost.com/index.php?mod=seccion&secc=4&conn=4860
The Big Profits in Biowarfare Research
Corporate America's Deadliest Secret
By SHERWOOD ROSS
June 22, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/ross06222007.html
How Could Blair Possibly Get This Job?
The Bumbling Envoy
By ROBERT FISK
Weekend Edition
June 23 / 24, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.com/fisk06232007.html
Nationwide, Black children 4-6 times more likely to die of asthma http://www.fpnotebook.com/LUN13.htm .
Nigeria: Strike - 50 Labour Leaders Arrested
Daily Champion (Lagos)
22 June 2007
Posted to the web 22 June 2007
Chukwudi Achife, Ufomba Uzuegbu, Akor Sylvester
Lagos
http://allafrica.com/stories/200706220007.html
Climate change blamed as Lake Superior shrinks
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 20 June 2007
http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2679474.ece
General Strike Over Rising Fuel Price Takes Hold in Nigerian Cities
By SARAH SIMPSON
June 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/world/africa/21nigeria.html
At Least 12 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq in 2 Days
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and GRAHAM BOWLEY
June 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/world/middleeast/21cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
The General's Report
By Seymour M. Hersh
The New Yorker
25 June 2007 Issue
"How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061707A.shtml
Medical Marijuana Measure Falls With Connecticut Governor’s Veto
By MATTHEW J. MALONE
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/nyregion/20rell.html
AP Blog: Living on Cuba's Rationed Food
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:18 p.m. ET
"AP Havana Bureau Chief Anita Snow is spending the month of June living on the ''libreta,'' a ration book for food consumption in Cuba. Here's her story."
June 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-INT-Cuba-Weblog.html?ex=1182916800&en=6f07cb599a5fd992&ei=5070&emc=eta1
The Earth today stands in imminent peril
" ...and nothing short of a planetary rescue will save it from the environmental cataclysm of dangerous climate change. Those are not the words of eco-warriors but the considered opinion of a group of eminent scientists writing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal."
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 19 June 2007
http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2675747.ece
With Rise in Radiation Exposure, Experts Urge Caution on Tests
By RONI CARYN RABIN
June 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/health/19cons.html?ref=health
Conservancy Buys Large Area of Adirondack Wilderness
By ANTHONY DePALMA
June 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/nyregion/19adirondacks.html?ref=nyregion
Global: Hidden cancer epidemic kills hundreds of thousands each year
"A worldwide epidemic of occupational cancer is claiming at least one life every 52 seconds, but this tragedy is being ignored by both official regulators and employers. A new cancer prevention guide, reveals that over 600,000 deaths a year – one death every 52 seconds – are caused by occupational cancer, making up almost one-third of all work-related deaths."
http://www.hazards.org/cancer/index.htm
Preventing occupational cancer
"A new cancer prevention guide, reveals that over 600,000 deaths a year – one death every 52 seconds – are caused by occupational cancer, making up almost one-third of all work-related deaths."
IMF / News article
http://www.imfmetal.org/main/index.cfm?n=47&l=2&c=15708
A Harsh Lesson in Finances for After-School Students
By DAVID GONZALEZ
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/nyregion/18citywide.html?ref=nyregion
Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers
By SAM DILLON
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/education/18pay.html?ref=us
Meadow Birds in Precipitous Decline, Audubon Says
By FELICITY BARRINGER
June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/us/15birds.html?ref=science
Strike in South Africa expands
By Geoff Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 12, 2007
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20070611-114232-8445r.htm
Oregon: More Than 165 Workers Are Detained After Raid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
More than 165 workers were detained to be processed for possible deportation after federal agents raided the Fresh Del Monte Produce food-processing plant and two offices of a staffing company in Portland. Three people were indicted on immigration, illegal documents and identity theft charges. An official at Fresh Del Monte Produce Company headquarters in Coral Gables, Fla., said the company could not comment until federal investigators provided it with more information. Mayor Tom Potter of Portland criticized the raids. The three arrests were understandable, Mr. Potter said, but “to go after local workers who are here to support their families while filling the demands of local businesses for their labor is bad policy.”
June 13, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/us/13brfs-immigration.html
Robert Fisk: Lies and outrages... would you believe it?
It was Israel which attacked Egypt after Nasser closed the straits of Tiran
Published: 09 June 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2636206.ece
Judge Throws Out Sentence in Teen Sex Case
By BRENDA GOODMAN
June 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/us/11cnd-consent.html?hp
US Military Envisions "Post-Occupation" Force
"US military officials are increasingly envisioning a "post-occupation" troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061107J.shtml
Lieberman Backs Limited U.S. Attacks on Iran
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
June 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/washington/10cnd-policy.html
Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells
By NICHOLAS WADE
June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/science/07cell.html?ref=science
Report Confirms CIA Secret Prisons in Europe
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060807J.shtml
The Dirty Water Underground
By GREGORY DICUM
OAKLAND, Calif.
May 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/garden/31greywater.html
A Hot-Selling Weapon, an Inviting Target
By ANDREW PARK
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03rifle.html?ref=business
Surf’s Up, but the Water Is Brown
By MIREYA NAVARRO
June 3, 2007
Los Angeles
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/fashion/03beaches.html
When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?
By ELIZABETH WEIL
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/magazine/03kindergarten-t.html?hp
After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay
By GARDINER HARRIS and JANET ROBERTS
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/health/03docs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Somalia: The Other (Hidden) War for Oil
by Carl Bloice; Black Commentator
May 07, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=12768
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s
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Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/
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"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm
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Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
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MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ
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ADDICTED TO WAR
Animated Video Preview
Narrated by Peter Coyote
Is now on YouTube and Google Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZwyuHEN5h8
We are planning on making the ADDICTED To WAR movie.
Can you let me know what you think about this animated preview?
Do you think it would work as a full length film?
Please send your response to:
Fdorrel@sbcglobal. net or Fdorrel@Addictedtow ar.com
In Peace,
Frank Dorrel
Publisher
Addicted To War
P.O. Box 3261
Culver City, CA 90231-3261
310-838-8131
fdorrel@addictedtow ar.com
fdorrel@sbcglobal. net
www.addictedtowar. com
For copies of the book:
http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html
OR SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO:
Frank Dorrel
P.O. BOX 3261
CULVER CITY, CALIF. 90231-3261
fdorrel@addictedtowar.com
$10.00 per copy (Spanish or English); special bulk rates
can be found at: http://www.addictedtowar.com/bookbulk.html
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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
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DEMAND THE RELEASE OF SAMI AL-ARIAN
The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA) demands the immediate
release of political prisoner, Dr. Sami Al-Arian. Although
Dr. Al-Arian is no longer on a hunger strike we must still demand
he be released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). After an earlier
plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further questioning,
he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before
a grand jury in Virginia. He has long sense served his time yet
Dr. Al-Arian is still being held. Release him now!
See:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255
ACTION:
We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate
release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.
Call, Email and Write:
1- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
2- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
John.Conyers@mail.house.gov
3- Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-4242
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
4- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
March 22, 2007
[No email given...bw]
National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
http://www.arab-american.net/
Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of
Terror
By Charlotte Kates, The Electronic Intifada, 4 April 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6767.shtml
Related:
Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America
This systematic censorship of Middle East reality
continues even in schools
Published: 07 April 2007
http://news. independent. co.uk/world/ fisk/article2430 125.ece
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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
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Excerpt of interview between Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez
http://www.borev.net/2007/03/what_you_had_something_better.html
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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw
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'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html
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Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ
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"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]
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THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO DESTRIBUTED BY U.S. LABOR AGAINST
THE WAR (USLAW) FEATURING SPEAKERS AT THE JANUARY 27TH
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOCUSING ON THE DEMAND - BRING
THE TROOPS HOME NOW.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6935451906479097836&hl=en
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Defend the Los Angeles Eight!
http://www.committee4justice.com/
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George Takai responds to Tim Hardaway's homophobic remarks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJoJZIcQW4&eurl_
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Iran
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
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Another view of the war. A link from Amer Jubran
http://d3130.servadmin.com/~leeflash/
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Petition: Halt the Blue Angels
http://action.globalexchange.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=458
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/289327
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A Girl Like Me
7:08 min
Youth Documentary
Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer
Winner of the Diversity Award
Sponsored by Third Millennium Foundation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1091431409617440489
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Film/Song about Angola
http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/
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"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Cheyenne and Arapaho oral histories hammer history's account of the
Sand Creek Massacre"
CENTENNIAL, CO -- A new documentary film based on an award-winning
documentary short film, "The Sand Creek Massacre", and driven by
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who tell their version about
what happened during the Sand Creek Massacre via their oral
histories, has been released by Olympus Films+, LLC, a Centennial,
Colorado film company.
"You have done an extraordinary job" said Margie Small, Tobient
Entertainment, " on the Colorado PBS episode, the library videos for
public schools and libraries, the trailer, etc...and getting the
story told and giving honor to those ancestors who had to witness
this tragic and brutal attack...film is one of the best ways."
"The images shown in the film were selected for native awareness
value" said Donald L. Vasicek, award-winning writer/filmmaker, "we
also focused on preserving American history on film because tribal
elders are dying and taking their oral histories with them. The film
shows a non-violent solution to problem-solving and 19th century
Colorado history, so it's multi-dimensional in that sense. "
Chief Eugene Blackbear, Sr., Cheyenne, who starred as Chief Black
Kettle in "The Last of the Dogmen" also starring Tom Berenger and
Barbara Hershey and "Dr. Colorado", Tom Noel, University of Colorado
history professor, are featured.
The trailer can be viewed and the film can be ordered for $24.95 plus
$4.95 for shipping and handling at http://www.fullduck.com/node/53.
Vasicek's web site, http://www.donvasicek.com, provides detailed
information about the Sand Creek Massacre including various still
images particularly on the Sand Creek Massacre home page and on the
proposal page.
Olympus Films+, LLC is dedicated to writing and producing quality
products that serve to educate others about the human condition.
Contact:
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
7078 South Fairfax Street
Centennial, CO 80122
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
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A NEW LOOK AT U.S. RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use
of these illegal weapons
http://poisondust.org/
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You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
Che:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqcezl9dD2c
Leon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkFVV5X0p4
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FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html
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[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret]
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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177
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Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.
Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:
Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.
You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
DOCUMENTARY PRESENTATION/EDUCATIONAL DVD IS
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (dvasicek@earthlink.net, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.
Happy Holidays!
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html
SHOP:
http://www.manataka.org/page633.html
BuyIndies.com
donvasicek.com.
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