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Incident at Oglala - Part One - 45 min - Mar 21, 2007
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=387726205259162082
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THE SAN FRANCISCO CENTER FOR THE BOOK PRESENTS
The Fifth Annual
ROADWORKS: Steamroller Prints
Potrero Hill's street fair will take place Saturday, September 20, 2008, 12 noon to 5 pm, on De Haro Street between 16th and 17th streets.
Local artists and members of the community convene at this annual free street fair to create unique large-scale linoleum block carvings printed with a three-ton steamroller.
Roadworks: Steamroller Prints will bring together 6 local artists, Patricia Curtan, Emory Douglas, Jason Jagel, Rik Olson, Favianna Rodriguez, and San Quentin State Prison students of Katya McCulloch with Art Hazelwood, will create original linocut prints to be pressed by the steamroller. You can find out more about the artists and see some of their work here.
In addition to steamroller printmaking, there will be free children's activities, music and dozens of book arts vendors selling their wares. At the Roadworks: Steamroller Prints street fair you can buy a "little lino" steamroller print; chose from an array of handmade books, gifts and prints; get a bite to eat; take a tour of the SFCB gallery and pull your very own letterpress print.
http://www.sfcb.org/html/roadworks.html
http://www.sfcb.org/html/2008rwartists.html#sq
Sincerely,
Art Hazelwood
www.arthazelwood.com
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9/24 Emergency Organizing Meeting At ILWU 10
To Defend Beaten and Arrested Longshoremen
There will be an Emergency Organizing Meeting 7PM Wed. Sept. 24 at ILWU Local 10 located at 400 North Point St. in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco. Two longshoremen were attacked last year by police and port security in the port of Sacramento while going to work (see the article by Mumia Abu-Jamal). Charged with resisting arrest, their trial is set for Oct. 6 in Woodland (near Sacramento). The initial hearing Oct. 4, 2007, was protested by some 300 longshoremen and supporters. Ken Riley, president of the Charleston, South Carolina longshore union addressed that rally. This year the ILWU has vowed to mobilize the labor movement behind this case, standing up to the "war on terror" being waged against port workers-- longshoremen, seamen and port truckers. Mexican American and African Americans have been especially targeted by police racial profiling in the Delta. This action follows ILWU's successful May Day shutdown of all West Coast ports to demand an end to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of troops. The ILWU will be chartering buses from SF to the Woodland courthouse. Please send representatives of your organization to this important meeting.
Defend Workers Rights, Drop the Bogus Charge,
Jack Heyman
Beaten on the Docks
[column written 10/10/07 (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It was a sunny day, right after lunch, when all hell broke loose for two longshoremen, sitting in their car, about to return to work.
Jason Ruffin and Aaron Harrison were approached by private security guards who demanded to search their vehicle.
The men asked to see the maritime security (or MARSEC) regulations, and one of them phoned the local business agent to try to clear up the matter.
Rebuffed at their search attempt, and angry that the two men didn't immediately acquiesce in this illegal and unwarranted search, the security guards called the West Sacramento cops.
While on the phone, both men were attacked, assaulted, dragged from the car, maced and jailed by the cops, without provocation, and charged with trespassing.
Trespassing -- at the job! Previously, the guys showed their Port ID, and the driver showed his driver's license!
They were also charged with resisting arrest!
If these were just average folks, perhaps it never would've made the news; but they were union members of the ILWU, the historically militant International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10.
Local 10 didn't take this lying down. Along with Local 34, the ILWU has called for union protests against this naked, unprovoked brutality.
The union's executive committee called for a rally to support their union brothers, Harrison and Ruffin, and demanded that all charges be dropped against them. Before the first court hearing the ridiculous charge of trespassing was dropped. The committee also demanded the release of the port security videotape of the assaults.
The union's business agent, Melvin MacKay was on the phone with Ruffin when this ugly event occurred.
The ILWU looks at this assault on 2 Black union members by white security guards and cops, for what it is: racial profiling -- and parking --not even driving! -- while Black.
The ILWU says, "This is our Jena."
But they also see it in larger terms, as part and parcel of the wave of repression sweeping the nation since the inception of the so-called 'War on Terror.'
And the ILWU has urged its members, and other unions, to recognize and utilize their labor power to change the way things are going. In a statement on the Web, they've called for a Labor Conference to End the War, finding inspiration from history. The unions wrote:
As historian Isaac Deutscher said during the Vietnam War, a single strike would be more effective than all the peace marches. French dockworkers did strike in the port of Marseilles, and helped bring an end to the war in Vietnam. To put a stop to this bloody colonial occupation, labor must use its power.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union has opposed the war on Iraq since the beginning. In the Bay Area, ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly warned that the so-called "war on terror" is really a war on working people and democratic right. Around the country hundreds of unions and labor councils have passed motions condemning the war, but that has not stopped the war. We need to use labor's muscle to stop the war by mobilizing union power in the streets, at the plant gates and on the docks to force the immediate and total withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. {From: "A Call to Action; Labor Conference to Stop the War!."
http://laborstopwar.googlepages.com/laborconferencetostopthewar. 10/3/07, p.2.}
On Oct. 20, 2007, at 9 a.m., the ILWU is hosting a "Labor Conference to Stop the War", at Local 10's office, 400 North Point St., San Francisco, CA.
For more info: check out: laborstopwar.googlepages.com.
For the ILWU, the slogan, 'an injury to one, is an injury to all' ain't just rap.
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SAN FRANCISCO CITY-WIDE ANTIWAR OUTREACH DAY!
YES ON U! NO ON V!
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 11:00 A.M. - 3:00 P.M., 24TH AND MISSION STREETS, S.F.
It was on October 11, 2002 that a bi-partisan Congress approved the “Iraq War Resolution” granting the Bush administration authorization to invade Iraq. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2008--exactly six years after Congress unleashed the dogs of war on Iraq--we will be launching a campaign to label San Francisco an antiwar city again this November, 2008.
In 2004 we voted Yes on N to bring the troops home from Iraq Now; in 2005 we voted Yes on I, College Not Combat, to get military recruiters out of our schools; this year we will vote Yes on U to demand that congress vote NO on war spending--a proposition put on the ballot by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; and No on V, to get the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) military recruitment program out of our schools.
Proposition V, is a pro-JROTC, pro-military recruitment program that is currently being phased our of our schools. Proposition V--to keep the program in the schools--has been put on the ballot with the financial contributions of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Party among many other pro-war contributors with big bucks.
We will assemble at 11:00 A.M. At 24th and Mission Street where flyers and posters for a Yes vote on Prop. U and a No vote on Prop. V will be available for city-wide distribution. We will fan out across the city to distribute the material and talk with our fellow neighbors in the streets about how important it is for these antiwar votes--YES on U; NO on V--to carry. And we hope to keep this campaign going until election day.
While Proposition U--to put an end to war funding--is self-explanatory, the issues surrounding Proposition V have been made less clear by the lies their campaign is telling about the program, i.e., that JROTC does not recruit students to the military, that it teaches leadership skills, that it keeps children from gang activity and that students should have a "choice" to enroll in JROTC at their school.
But, we don't want the schools used to recruit our children for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!
JROTC is a military recruitment program that has already been scheduled for phase-out by June 2009 by the San Francisco Board of Education.
JROTC doesn’t teach students the realities of war: that they are likely to kill civilians, or that they are more likely to die or return from war with devastating mental and physical disabilities than earn college degrees.
Proposition V argues that students should have a “choice” to enroll in JROTC, but if they join the military they have no choice about killing or dying. JROTC is a military recruitment program, and it does not belong in our schools!
JROTC is not the way to keep kids away from gangs. There are peaceful ways to keep kids safe. JROTC is not a leadership program. It teaches unquestioning obedience in preparation for military service.
The San Francisco School Board's decision to end JROTC has set a precedent for communities nationwide. Let’s not allow it to be reversed.
We will be outside in the streets October 11 to encourage a resounding NO vote on Proposition V and to join with parents everywhere trying to save their children from being sent to fight these unjust and illegal wars!
We want funding for education, healthcare, the environment, and jobs, not war! U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan now!
Join us in community outreach against the war Saturday, October 11, 11:00-3:00 P.M., 24th and Mission Streets, San Francisco
For information on other actions taking place around the country against the war go to:
http://oct11.org/
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New Berkeley law will outlaw picketing with bullhorn
Hello,
I wanted to let you know that the city of Berkeley is planning to amend their Noise Ordinance in such a way as to prevent unions and protest groups (like Code Pink) from picketing in front of a business using bullhorns.
Here is the link to the new ordinance:
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/uploadedFiles/Clerk/Level_3_-_City_Council/2008/09Sep/2008-09-16_Item_33_Amendments_to_Community_Noise_Ordinance__BMC_Chapter_13.40.pdf
What the ordinance does is limits amplification permits to nine for any location per year (13.40.100 c3). If the business you are picketing wants to, it can get all nine permits, leaving you with none.
All amplification in Berkeley requires a noise permit.
The new law also allows the police to arrest a noise ordinance violator without any notice. Presently, a written warning and 15 minutes notice was required before arresting someone. A person charged with violating the noise ordinance will have no defense against the police officer's claim that he measured his volume, and it exceeded the allowable level.
The Berkeley City Council is holding a meeting tomorrow, Tues. Sept. 16 at 7 PM at 2130 M L King Way, 510-981-6900 for the first reading of the proposed ordinance. After a second reading it can be approved. Citizens can comment on the proposed ordinance but are limited to 2 minutes per person.
I believe that if members of your group show up at this meeting, or if you express your disapproval of this measure to the City Council, this new ordinance will not be adopted.
If you get this notice too late, there will be a second meeting before the regulation is passed. I don't know when that meeting will occur.
Sincerely yours,
Larry Rosenbaum
510-213-2584 cell
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LET OUR CHILDREN BE! NO ON V!
Keep Military Recruiters OUT of our Schools!
The NO on Proposition V website is now up and running, at
http://www.NoMilitaryRecruitmentInOurSchools.org
We don't want the schools used to recruit our children for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!
Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC)-is a military recruitment program scheduled to be phased-out of our schools by June 2009 by the San Francisco Board of Education. JROTC doesn't teach students the realities of war: that they are likely to kill civilians, or that they are more likely to die or return with devastating mental and physical disabilities than earn college degrees.
Proposition V argues that students should have a "choice" to enroll in JROTC, but if they join the military they have no choice about killing or dying. JROTC is a military recruitment program, and it does not belong in our schools!
JROTC is not the way to keep kids away from gangs. There are peaceful ways to keep kids safe. JROTC is not a leadership program. It teaches unquestioning obedience in preparation for military service.
The School Board's decision to end JROTC has set a precedent for communities nationwide. Let's not allow it to be reversed.
Join parents everywhere trying to save their children from being sent to fight these unjust and illegal wars!
We want funding for education, healthcare, the environment, and jobs, not war! U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan now!
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021, San Francisco, CA 94131-8021, 415-824-8730, www.bauaw.org
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National Assembly
Announcements:
Open Letter to the Anti-War Movement
The following “Open letter to the U.S. Antiwar Movement” was adopted by the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations on July 13, 2008. We urge antiwar organizations around the country to endorse the letter. Please send notice of endorsements to:
natassembly@aol.com
Open Letter to the U.S. Antiwar Movement
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
In the coming months, there will be a number of major actions mobilizing opponents of U.S. wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to demand “Bring the Troops Home Now!” These will include demonstrations at the Democratic and Republican Party conventions, pre-election mobilizations like those on October 11 in a number of cities and states, and the December 9-14 protest activities. All of these can and should be springboards for very large bi-coastal demonstrations in the spring.
Our movement faces this challenge: Will the spring actions be unified with all sections of the movement joining together to mobilize the largest possible outpouring on a given date? Or will different antiwar coalitions set different dates for actions that would be inherently competitive, the result being smaller and less powerful expressions of support for the movement’s “Out Now!” demand?
We appeal to all sections of the movement to speak up now and be heard on this critical question. We must not replicate the experience of recent years during which the divisions in the movement severely weakened it to the benefit of the warmakers and the detriment of the millions of victims of U.S. aggressions, interventions and occupations.
Send a message. Urge – the times demand it! – united action in the spring to ensure a turnout which will reflect the majority’s sentiments for peace. Ideally, all major forces in the antiwar movement would announce jointly, or at least on the same day, an agreed upon date for the spring demonstrations.
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations will be glad to participate in the process of selecting a date for spring actions that the entire movement can unite around. One way or another, let us make sure that comes spring we will march in the streets together, demanding that the occupations be ended, that all the troops and contractors be withdrawn immediately, and that all U.S. military bases be closed.
In solidarity and peace,
National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
http://natassembly.org/members/index.php?org-id=2
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OCTOBER 11, 2008 End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Now!
http://oct11.org/
Dear Readers,
The date of October 11, 2008 was designated as a day of localized national actions (see above for SF action) against the war at the National Assembly to End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this past June. Demonstrations are already being planned. Here is the call from the Greater Boston area--hopefully we can pull something together for October ll here in San Francisco.
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War
Hi all,
Below is an outreach letter that will be going out to various organizational lists
and individuals all over the Greater Boston area. Please feel free to circulate
this letter as an example of what is happening in Boston as you seek support
for October 11 in your various localities.
Adelante (forward),
John Harris
Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition
Dear Friends,
March, 2008 ushered in the sixth year of war and occupation “without end” on Iraq . In an act of arrogance and impunity, Congress in a bipartisan vote approved another
$162 billion in funding for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan . Stepped up threats against Iran and the increased likelihood of a U.S. troop “surge” into Afghanistan point to an imperative for action and an independent voice from the peace and justice movement.
In light of these developments, grass roots forces from around the country gathered together at the end of June for the National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation in Cleveland, Ohio. At the conference an action plan for the months ahead was discussed and approved in a democratic vote. As part of this plan, over 95 percent voted in favor of supporting pre-election protests being organized in cities and localities around the country on October 11, 2008.
It was on October 11, 2002 that Congress approved the “ Iraq War Resolution” granting the Bush administration authorization to invade Iraq . The weeks ahead promise to be filled with debate as the election campaigns gear up. Instead of being spectators who watch the media pundits put their spin on the political pronouncements of the candidates, the October 11 protests present us with an opportunity to be engaged in injecting our agenda, the antiwar agenda, into the intensifying debate.
Please join us in an initial planning meeting as we prepare a Boston protest demanding the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all occupation forces from Iraq and the closing of all military bases. All are invited. Looking forward to seeing you there.
Saturday, August 9, 3:00 PM
Encuentro 5
33 Harrison Avenue, 5th Floor
Boston (in Chinatown )
In Peace and Solidarity,
Marilyn Levin
*Arlington/Lexington United for Justice with Peace, New England United
Liam Madden
*IVAW – Boston Chapter
Suren Moodliar
Mass Global Action
Ann Glick
Newton Dialogues for Peace
Nate Goldshlag
Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 Veterans for Peace
Paul Shannon
American Friends Service Committee
John Harris
Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition
* Organization for identification purposes only
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A.N.S.W.E.R.Calendar of Upcoming Anti-war Events
Bring the Anti-War Movement to Inauguration Day in D.C.
January 20, 2009: Join thousands to demand "Bring the troops home now!"
On January 20, 2009, when the next president proceeds up Pennsylvania Avenue he will see thousands of people carrying signs that say US Out of Iraq Now!, US Out of Afghanistan Now!, and Stop the Threats Against Iran! As in Vietnam it will be the people in the streets and not the politicians who can make the difference.
On March 20, 2008, in response to a civil rights lawsuit brought against the National Park Service by the Partnership for Civil Justice on behalf of the ANSWER Coalition, a Federal Court ruled for ANSWER and determined that the government had discriminated against those who brought an anti-war message to the 2005 Inauguration. The court barred the government from continuing its illegal practices on Inauguration Day.
The Democratic and Republican Parties have made it clear that they intend to maintain the occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and threaten a new war against Iran.
Both Parties are completely committed to fund Israel’s on-going war against the Palestinian people. Both are committed to spending $600 billion each year so that the Pentagon can maintain 700 military bases in 130 countries.
On this the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we are helping to build a nationwide movement to support working-class communities that are being devastated while the country’s resources are devoted to war and empire for for the sake of transnational banks and corporations.
Join us and help organize bus and car caravans for January 20, 2009, Inauguration Day, so that whoever is elected president will see on Pennsylvania Avenue that the people want an immediate end to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and to halt the threats against Iran.
From Iraq to New Orleans, Fund Peoples Needs Not the War Machine!
We cannot carry out these actions withour your help. Please take a moment right now to make an urgently needed donation by clicking this link:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1121&JServSessionIdr011=23sri803b1.app2a
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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NEWS RELEASE
From: Radical Women, 5018 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98118
Contact: Anne Slater: office 206-722-6057; cell 206-708-5161; home 206-722-3812
RE: PUBLIC CONFERENCE
Radical Women Conference Aims to Expand and Embolden Feminist Movement
October 2 - 6
Women's Building
3543 18th Street,in the Mission District, near the 16th Street BART stop.
Wheelchair accessible.
Registration is $15 per day; students and low income $7.50 per day.
Register at www.RadicalWomen.org.
For more information, phone 206-722-6057.
Radical Women Conference Aims to Expand and Embolden Feminist Movement
Optimistic rebels from all walks of life are invited to participate in a national Radical Women conference, „The Persistent Power of Socialist Feminism,‰ to be held at the San Francisco Women‚s Building, October 3-6, 2008. The major goal of the four-day public event is to produce a concrete education and action plan to focus and strengthen the feminist movement. Speakers include activists and scholars from Central America, China, Australia and the U.S.
Highlights on Friday, Oct. 2 include a 9:30am keynote address by Nellie Wong on „Women and revolution˜alive and inseparable.‰ Wong is an acclaimed Chinese-American poet, whose works include Stolen Moments, the Death of Long Steam Lady, and Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park. A former Senior Analyst of Affirmative Action, she is also a founding member of Unbound Feet, an Asian American writers group. Afterwards, Laura Mannen will present proposals and spearhead a discussion on how to build a strong, independent, grassroots U.S. feminist movement. Mannen is a bilingual teacher, mother of two and seasoned antiwar organizer from Portland, Oregon. The afternoon will feature a roundtable of female unionists on „Standing our ground on labor‚s frontlines.‰
At 7:30pm Friday evening Lynne Stewart will address „Radical dissent: The righteous response to an unjust system.‰ Stewart, embattled human rights attorney, was convicted in 2005 of providing support for terrorism by delivering a handwritten press release to Reuters from a client. Though prosecutors sought a 30-year prison term, Stewart was sentenced to serve 28 months. The shorter sentence, the judge said, was in recognition of her „service to the nation‰ as a representative of the poor and unpopular. The government is appealing her shorter sentence. Stewart is appealing the conviction.
„Magnificent warriors: female leadership in the global freedom struggle, ‰ a panel presentation on Saturday, October 4 at 9:00am, will include Debbie Brennan, workplace delegate for the Australian Services Union and Melbourne RW president; Dr. Raya Fidel, an Israeli-American feminist and supporter of Palestinian rights; Patricia Ramos, a Costa Rican labor lawyer and leading organizer against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA); and Wang Zheng, a University of Michigan Women‚s Studies professor and co-chair of the U.S. based Chinese Society for Women's Studies.
Christina López, Chicana-Apache advocate for reproductive justice and frontrunner in the battle for rights for undocumented workers, will present her paper „Estamos en la lucha: Immigrant women light the fires of resistance‰ at 11:30am.
Interactive workshops in the afternoon include Challenging the Minutemen; ABC‚s of Marxist feminism; Women‚s stake in the struggle for union democracy; Federally funded childcare NOW; End the war on women˜in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S.; On the barricades for reproductive justice; Confronting movement sexism; Free trade is a feminist issue; and Young queer radical˜what are we fighting for?
Sunday, Oct. 5 begins at 9:00am with a panel on „The galvanizing impact of multiracial organizing in a society divided by racism.‰ Sharing first-hand experiences will be author Christina López of Seattle, reproductive rights activist Toni Mendicino of San Francisco, and campus organizer Emily Woo Yamasaki of New York City.
The remainder of Sunday will be devoted to issues and skills workshops. Topics include Power to the poor!; Radical campus organizing; For affirmative action not „civil wrongs‰; Alternative feminist radio; Radical youth and rebel elders; Disabled rights activists on RX for toxic healthcare. There will also be sessions on getting media attention, confident speaking and writing, knowing your rights as a worker, and producing effective fliers and banners.
The conference concludes on Monday, Oct 6, 10:00am with a National Organizer‚s report and action plan presented by Anne Slater, veteran campaigner for queer rights, the environment and women‚s equality.
All sessions will be held at the Women‚s Building, 3543 18th St., in the Mission District, near the 16th Street BART stop. Wheelchair accessible. Registration is $15 per day; students and low income $7.50 per day. Register at www.RadicalWomen.org. For more information, phone 206-722-6057.
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CUBA SUPPORTERS IN CANADA LAUNCH HURRICANE RELIEF FUND
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"...it's going to take the soldiers, sailors, and marines themselves allied with the antiwar and social justice movements to end this war. It's evident that ending the war will not come from the politicians in Washington. The Democratic Congress, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has not stood firm against continued occupation of Iraq. Historically, it is not the politicians but the people and soldiers within the military who ended the war in Vietnam." —Navy Petty Officer Jonathan Hutto
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Abroad, Bailout Is Seen as a Detour From Capitalism
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
September 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/business/worldbusiness/18rescue.html?ref=business
2) DESPERATE MILITARY
By: Allan Acevedo, Staff Columnist
Posted: 9/11/08
http://media.www.thedailyaztec.com/media/storage/paper741/news/2008/09/11/911WhereAreWeNow/Desperate.Military-3425477.shtml
3) Sixty Years of Global Economic Expansion Ending?
By Nat Weinstein
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/
4) Poverty and Militarism—A Deadly Combo
Vote No on V
By Bonnie Weinstein
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_08/sepoct_08_06.html
5) The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Book Review By Carole Seligman
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_08/sepoct_08_24.html
6) I’m a Slave!
By Kevin Cooper
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_08/sepoct_08_25.html
7) Subject: Rosenberg Case News: Robert Meeropol's Reaction / Karen Wald / 17 Sept, 08
howardkeylor@comcast.net
8) Irresistible force?
Thanks to No Child Left Behind, military recruiters swoop into schools
By J. Adrian Stanley
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 18, 2008:
http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A30182
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1) Abroad, Bailout Is Seen as a Detour From Capitalism
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
September 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/business/worldbusiness/18rescue.html?ref=business
PARIS — Is the United States no longer the global beacon of unfettered, free-market capitalism?
In extending a last-minute $85 billion lifeline to A.I.G., the troubled insurer, Washington has not only turned away from decades of rhetoric about the virtues of the free market and the dangers of government intervention, it has also likely undercut future American efforts to promote such policies abroad.
“I fear the government has passed the point of no return,” said Ron Chernow, a leading American financial historian. “We have the irony of a free-market administration doing things that the most liberal Democratic administration would never have been doing in its wildest dreams.”
While they acknowledge the shock of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the bailout package for A.I.G. on top of earlier government support for Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac has stunned even European policy makers accustomed to government intervention in the economy.
“For opponents of free markets in Europe and elsewhere, this is a wonderful opportunity to invoke the American example,” said Mario Monti, the former antitrust chief at the European Commission. “They will say that even the standard-bearer of the market economy, the United States negates its fundamental principles in its behavior.”
Mr. Monti noted that past financial crises in Asia, Russia, and Mexico brought government to the fore, “but this is the first time it’s in the heart of capitalism, which is enormously more damaging in terms of the credibility of the market economy.”
In France, where the government has long supported the creation of national champions and worked actively to protect select companies from the threat of foreign takeover, politicians were quick to point out the paradox of what is essentially the nationalization of the largest American insurance company.
“Today the actions of American policy makers illustrate the need for economic patriotism,” said Bernard Carayon, a lawmaker of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right governing party, UMP. “I congratulate them.”
For the “evangelists of the market this is a painful lesson,” he added.
We’re entering “an era where we have much more regulation and where the public and the private sector will mix much more.”
In Asia, the Washington-led bailouts have stirred bitter memories of the very different approach the United States government and the International Monetary Fund pushed during the economic crises there a decade ago.
When the I.M.F. pledged $20 billion to help South Korea survive the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, one of the conditions it imposed was that the Korean government allow ailing banks and other companies to collapse rather than bail them out, recalls Yung Chul Park, a professor of economics at Korea University in Seoul who was deeply involved in the negotiations with the I.M.F.
While Mr. Park says the current crisis is different — it’s global rather than restricted to one region like Asia — “Washington is following a different script this time.”
“I understand why they do it,” he added. “But they’ve lost credibility to some extent in pushing for opening up overseas markets to foreign competition and liberalizing economies.”
The ramifications of the rescue of A.I.G. will be felt for years within the United States, too, not just abroad.
That’s because it was a very different kind of company than Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which enjoyed government sponsorship as mortgage finance providers, or Bear Stearns, which was regulated by the federal government.
“This was an insurance company that wasn’t federally regulated,” said Gary Gensler, who served as a top official in the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration. Nor did A.I.G. have access to Federal Reserve funds or deposit insurance, like a commercial bank.
“We’re in new territory,” Mr. Gensler added. “This is a paradigm shift.”
A.I.G. is also in a different league both by virtue of the breadth of its businesses and its extensive overseas operations, especially in Asia.
What’s more, it fell into something of a regulatory gap under the current rules.
While the company, based in New York, is better known for selling conventional products like insurance policies and annuities overseen by state regulators in the United States, it is also deeply involved in the risky, opaque market for derivatives and other complicated financial instruments, which operates largely outside any regulation.
Along with the threat to the plain-vanilla insurance policies held by millions of ordinary consumers, it was the looming threat posed by these arcane financial instruments that prompted Washington to act and bailout A.I.G.
Mr. Chernow, who has written extensively about the efforts of J. P. Morgan to steady the economy in 1907 before the creation of the Federal Reserve, echoed Mr. Gensler’s conclusion.
“It’s pure crisis management,” Mr. Chernow said. “It’s the Treasury and the Federal Reserve lurching from crisis to crisis without a clear statement on how financial failures will be handled in the future. They’re afraid to articulate such a policy. The safety net they are spreading seems to widen every day with no end in sight.”
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2) DESPERATE MILITARY
By: Allan Acevedo, Staff Columnist
Posted: 9/11/08
http://media.www.thedailyaztec.com/media/storage/paper741/news/2008/09/11/911WhereAreWeNow/Desperate.Military-3425477.shtml
You probably know them most by their slogans: Army Strong; The Few, the Proud; Cross into the Blue. Military branches are conducting strategic mass media marketing campaigns to entice youth to join the service. After spending the last five years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as extending and reusing deployments, several branches of the military are having trouble with their recruitment quotas.
For many potential soldiers, it's the fear of death or injury that deters them from signing up. Our continued presence in the Middle East makes joining the military - and the resulting high possibility of entering a war zone - very unappealing. Potential recruits are also questioning the cause they are being asked to fight for. In response, the bonus packages have become greater and the recruitment rules more lax.
In 2006, the enlistment age for active-duty Army recruits was raised to 40 years old. Late in 2005, a key drug test for recent use of marijuana was softened. In fall of that same year, a high school equivalency program was put in place for high school dropouts. And later in the spring, a ban on childhood asthmatics was removed.
Congress is hoping to bring in 74,000 more recruits by 2010, using both the lowering of criteria and passing a new GI Bill - one of those rare measures backed by members on both sides of the aisle. Strongly supported by most veterans groups, the bill pays full tuition at any state school, provides a new monthly stipend tied to local housing costs and gives Army Reserve and National Guard members who already served lengthy deployments retroactive access to the same benefits.
But those of us who aren't yet soldiers remain unconvinced, and nothing proves that more starkly than the recruitment numbers.
The Army, which met its quotas consistently every year since 1990, finally fell short in 2005. Even the numbers in the Army Reserve are going down because the nature of the reserve has changed. Before 9/11, those who joined the Reserves were committing to one training weekend per month and two weeks in the summertime, though they could potentially be called into active duty in case of an emergency. But now that we've been at war for five years, there's no emergency necessary. The Reserves are providing the bulk of the logistical support for troops in combat, including transportation and helping local governments.
When the Department of Defense announced its recruiting statistics for fiscal year 2007, the Army, Marines and Navy all met or exceeded recruitment goals. However, the success of military branches came at a price in the quality of recruits. Department of Defense standards state that at least 90 percent of new recruits should have a high school diploma, but the Army's high school graduates make up only 79 percent of new recruits. The Army also approved more criminal history waivers than in years past. This year 15 percent of new recruits required waivers, and of that, 13 percent were for serious charges, including felonies.
U.S. casualties estimate 4,600 soldiers have been killed and 64,000 wounded in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It's going to take more than a catchy slogan and desperate promises of tuition to snare youth into joining the armed forces, especially as the war continues. Relaxing the rules and giving them a bigger bonus when they come out is not going to cut it.
With the war getting more unpopular by the day, the weakened U.S. dollar and economy impacting military budgets, and policies for new recruits becoming more and more lax, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. If the U.S. expects to keep this ill-fated war going, we may need to institute a draft.
Of course, if we need to institute a draft in order to get soldiers for a war, that says a lot about whether or not we should be going to war in the first place.
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3) Sixty Years of Global Economic Expansion Ending?
By Nat Weinstein
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/
You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go;
I owe my soul to the company store.1
I was struck by the number of unusually pessimistic reports on the deplorable state of the American and world capitalist economy in the July 20 New York Times. But in the days following, the bad news only got worse.
The first of these reports was a front-page story bearing the title, “Given a Shove, Digging Deeper into Debt,” by Gretchen Morgenson. Her story focused on the human side of the housing crisis as personified by Diane McLeod, a typical victim of the mortgage mess who is now awaiting eviction from her small, two bedroom ranch house in suburban Philadelphia.
The author describes her as having been “a dream customer for lenders; until she hit the wall financially, she juggled not one but two mortgages, both with interest rates that rose over time, and a car loan and high-cost credit cards debt.”
This story gets down to the nitty-gritty tale of woe suffered by a growing numbers of working people faced with a major assault on their dream of finally getting a home of their own.
Later Morgenson also takes up the larger economic picture underlying her report on the life-wrecking impact of the mortgage fiasco on ordinary working people. In a piece titled, “Work Out Problems with Lenders? Try to Find Them,” she explains why they can’t:
“In times past, when a borrower fell behind on a mortgage, the lender was likely to try to help work out the delinquency.
“But as many troubled borrowers are discovering, today’s lenders often sell the loans they make to investors, making it nearly impossible for homeowners to discover whom they should contact for a workout.
“And the companies to which borrowers send their mortgage payments—known as loan servicers—are often hard to reach or unwilling to modify a loan that is delinquent.
“As a result, one missed mortgage payment can quickly generate so many extra fees and charges that within a few months, a borrower can fall far behind and ultimately lose his home.”
Another report by Morgenson titled, “Borrowers and Bankers: A Great Divide,” appeared on the front page of the National section of the same edition of the Times. This one went a lot further than most toward putting the lion’s share of the blame where it belongs—on the bankers who make sub-prime and other risky loans that they would not make if they could not package them and sell them to other, larger banks to worry about the likelihood of borrowers defaulting.
This situation began when it first became legal and acceptable for governments to systematically print enough purely paper dollars to balance their budgets and keep the wheels of the global capitalist economy turning. Thus, every worthless dollar, pound or euro, put into circulation, dilutes the value of the given currency. And, of course, it results in the mass of public and private debt growing at a much higher rate—generating new loans and multiplying total indebtedness.
Making bad matters worse, the American superpower, with the largest and richest economy in the world, is able to sell its growing mountain of debt to the rest of the world, seemingly to an endless extent.
But there’s a limit to everything: Thus, presently, when a debtor is forced to take out new loans to pay interest on his debts, the debtor is in big trouble.
Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac and the credit crunch
Even with the printing presses running fast enough to provide enough new money to be added to both public and private debt for seemingly limitless investment opportunities, there inevitably comes a time when most available capital gets tied up in an ever-growing number of mortgages. Thus, “collateralized mortgages” are piled on top of millions of existing mortgages. But there is not nearly enough real new wealth to keep the cycles of investment, production, profits and sales going. Thus, the economy, which has been expanding for more than 60 years, is no longer growing.
That’s why Congress created the government-backed, trillion-dollar for-private-profit lending institutions to keep the profit-driven capitalist economy running at top speed. This was for the benefit of Fannie Mae’s and Freddy Mac’s stockholders and the managers with their multi-million-dollar salaries, bonuses and other benefits.
But for it to work for maximum effect, the government was forced to leave unchallenged the implication that the profitability and solvency of the two government-sponsored enterprises were guaranteed by the U.S. Treasury and its taxpayers—leading inexorably to today’s credit crunch!
However, it did the job for which it was created. It enabled Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to create more trillions of dollars of credit, adding more than $5 trillion to the now, 12 trillion-dollar total U.S. mortgage debt. But this debt was accrued without sufficient capital reserves to finance the possibility of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses which will also inevitably result in a staggeringly larger bailout—perhaps in the trillions.
Thus, “the two financial giants who now own or underwrite nearly 80 percent of all new mortgages in the U.S.” were, for all practical purposes, created out of thin air.
Therefore, the CEOs of these two giant lenders began making exceedingly risky investments, raking in fabulous profits without, necessarily, personally suffering the consequences when borrowers began defaulting on a massive scale.
Morgenson again points the finger of blame for the whole sorry business where it belongs. She writes:
“...[W]e are in dangerous territory today where bailouts are concerned, and not only because they feed Americans’ suspicions that only the rich and powerful get help in our country.... So asking Main Street to bail out Wall Street leads to this inevitable question: Weren’t the financial folks the ones who helped create the mess we are in?...
“Which returns us to the dispiriting divide between those who receive help and those who don’t....
“‘The banks are too big to fail and the man in the street is too small to bail,’ said John C. Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group, the mutual funds giant who is a philosopher of finance.”
Neither do the powers-that-be need worry too much about its impact on the richest taxpayers—supposedly taxed at a higher rate than most, but in reality, at lower rates than wage earners on all levels of the economic ladder.
For instance, “Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticized the U.S. tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner. (From The Times, of London, June 28, 2008.)”
Meanwhile, the justification for everything from bailouts to government subsidies to troubled giant corporations is the bipartisan capitalist government’s rationalization, “they’re too big to fail”!
The most obvious refutation of this absurdity is the Great Depression. After all, everyone knows that the entire global capitalist economy collapsed and remained stagnant until World War II, proving that nothing is too big to fail.
Let’s take a closer look at the reasons why enterprises “too big to fail” are now no less likely to fail—but with a bigger bang than ever-before.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, provides us with the damning arithmetic underlying the process:
“For every dollar of equity capital, a well-financed regional bank holds perhaps $10 in loans or securities. Wall Street’s biggest broker-dealers could hardly bear to look themselves in the mirror if they didn’t extend themselves three times further. At the end of 2007, Goldman Sachs had $26 of assets for every dollar of equity. Merrill Lynch had $32, Bear Stearns $34, Morgan Stanley $33 and Lehman Brothers $31. On average, then, about $3 in equity capital per $100 of assets.
“Leverage,” as the laying-on of debt is known in the trade, is the Hamburger Helper of finance. It makes a little capital go a long way, often much farther than it safely should. Managing balance sheets, as highly leveraged as Wall Street’s, requires a keen eye and superb judgment. The rub is that human beings err.”
More bad news
This takes us to the next of these unusually pessimistic reports for a mainstream publication. This one was featured on the front page of its Business section of the same July 20 edition of the Times. The story, written by Peter S. Goodman was revealingly titled, “Too Big to Fail.” He writes:
“In the narrative that has governed American commercial life for the last quarter-century, saving companies from their own mistakes was not supposed to be part of the government’s job description. Economic policy makers in the United States took swaggering pride in the cutthroat but lucrative form of capitalism that was supposedly indigenous to their frontier nation.
“Through this uniquely American lens, saving businesses from collapse was the sort of thing that happened on other shores, where sentimental commitments to social welfare trumped sharp-edged competition. Week-kneed European and Asian leaders were too frightened to endure the animal instincts of a real market, the story went. So they intervened time and again using government largess to lift inefficient firms to safety, sparing jobs and limiting pain but keeping their economies from reaching full potential. [Emphasis added.]”
His point about European and Asian capitalists saving companies from their own mistakes, and their American counterparts taking pride in their own “cutthroat but lucrative form of capitalism,” is certainly true—but only so far.
The very same can be said about all capitalist governments. They all consider their job description to include saving their “too-big-to-fail capitalists” from their own mistakes when the system goes out of whack. But they also consider their job description to include cutthroat and lucrative capitalist tactics whenever the opportunity arises to rake in bigger than normal profits.
However, it’s not easy to understand why capitalists do what they do without keeping in mind what Adam Smith, one of capitalism’s most insightful political scientists taught about the laws of capitalist economy.
Adam Smith’s contribution
to capitalist economic theory
Adam Smith, the Godfather of capitalist economics was the first to explain the basic laws governing capitalist economic relations in great detail and how the self-regulating mechanism of the profit-driven economic system works.
It’s virtually impossible to live and function in the capitalist world without having gained some familiarity with the A-B-Cs of every-day capitalist economic relations—the law of supply and demand. On the other hand, it’s one thing to understand the basic “arithmetic,” as it were, of everyday economic relationships, but it’s something else again to understand the “higher mathematics” of its interaction with human social and economic relations. This, of course, is because of the huge number of factors involved in any manageable algebraic economic formula involving, literally, millions and billions of variables—producers and consumers in the national and global capitalist economy.
We must rely, rather, on the “higher mathematics” of the vastly complicated human mind and brain when dealing with the business of billions of people engaged day-in and day-out in producing, buying and selling commodities in order to live and work in the capitalist world.
It will prove useful to take a closer look at the laws of supply and demand. In order to better see its limits, and thus be better prepared for the higher laws of capitalist economy.
First, let’s look at the reference to lower and higher mathematics.
The laws of gravity as metaphor
Everyone on this planet believed they knew the basic laws of gravity—what goes up must come down. Then Galileo came along in the early 17th century and proved that all things, from feathers to cannon balls— irrespective of weight and shape—fell at the same rate of acceleration—in a vacuum, greatly refining the understanding of gravity.
From the early 17th century on, it became possible for people to know how gravity really works.
Even so, later in the 17th century, after Isaac Newton discovered the dynamic between Galileo’s three laws of motion and their interaction with the force of gravity (that is, an iron ball fired from a cannon falls at the same rate of acceleration as an iron ball dropped from the Tower of Pisa)—thus, people’s understanding got even deeper.
Then, with the help of the even higher mathematics of Isaac Newton’s insight and his invention of the calculus, he proved that the same laws governed the orbits of all bodies in the universe—at least as far as science and technology had advanced in the late 17th century.
Adam Smith’s laws of supply and demand
It will prove helpful to lay out the fundamentals of the laws of supply and demand, which together with our metaphoric reference to the laws of gravity will serve as preparation for the “higher mathematics” of capitalist economic relations as discovered by Karl Marx.
Adam Smith’s arithmetical ABCs go like this:
• When demand is greater than supply, a cycle of economic expansion begins. It ends when the market is saturated with unsold goods.
• Saturation becomes problematic after supply matches demand, because like all other things in motion, the momentum of economic expansion carries it far beyond its intended goal of balancing supply with the given level of demand—resulting in a mass of unsold goods and the beginning of another cycle of creative destruction.
• But this cycle also forces the least productive capitalists into bankruptcy. Thus, with a smaller relative proportion of more productive and profitable surviving capitalists—each gains the possibility of grabbing a larger proportion of the growing marketplace vacated by their bankrupted competitors.
• Supply and demand also forces ever-larger sections of the middle classes into the ranks of the working class. But at the same time, it also forces a higher proportion of the expanding work force who have been replaced by ever more sophisticated machines, into the ranks of the “reserve army of the unemployed.”
• That, in turn, serves to intensify the competition for jobs, which tends to force wages down—also in accord with the laws of supply and demand.
• Consequently, when demand again exceeds supply, another cycle of creative expansion of the productive forces begins, with each succeeding cycle reaching new heights of efficiency, productivity and, therefore, higher absolute profits. This is followed, by another excessive expansion of the productive forces; after which, the cycle of creative destruction begins all over again.
Smith, and the economic experts who consistently followed in his footsteps, had argued that any attempt to interfere with the “invisible hand” guiding the self-regulating mechanism of capitalist economy, would do more harm than good—resulting in a more profound crisis of creative destruction!
While the logic of Smith’s argumentation was scientifically correct as far as he and those following in his footsteps went, they never fully explained why.
Marx, however, in his three volumes of Capital having benefited from what Smith and his most sophisticated followers had previously discovered, was able to confirm those generalizations he found in accord with the facts, and reject those that were not. But he also explained what they couldn’t explain. This takes us to one of Marx’s most important discoveries—why the average rate of profit tends to fall over time. Marx’s discovery is closely related to Smith’s, but it’s the only one that fully explains why the “invisible hand” of capitalism cannot be forced to do what it cannot do.
But if anyone does find a way to fool wise old Adam’s invisible hand for a time, the destructive force of the cycle of “creative destruction” will be proportionally greater.
The Keynesian revolution “refutes”
both Smith and Marx
The 60-plus years of uninterrupted global economic expansion (something that has never before occurred in the over 500 year history of capitalism) has led most bourgeois economic experts to the conclusion that both Smith and Marx were wrong about the counterproductive efforts to interfere with the self-correcting workings of capitalism’s “invisible hand”!
Economists like John Maynard Keynes, however, after witnessing the Great Depression and doing their best to extricate the system from its biggest, longest and deepest of all previous cycles of creative destruction, began having second thoughts. That is, they came to understand that the only “solution” for their dilemma was the mass destruction of surplus goods. This mass destruction can be done profitably only by war on a global scale, preparations for war, and the production of the tools, materials and weapons of mass destruction that comes with the horrendous cost in human life, limb and property.
Moreover, Keynes was able to convince those attending a meeting between the soon-to-be victors of the Second World War at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944. They decided that the Keynesian “solution” was the only way to prevent an even more destructive economic collapse at the end of the next big boom-bust cycle. This Keynesian “solution” would require a radical separation of the global capitalist economy from the dictatorship of the gold-based monetary and trading system, a system thousands of years old.
That is, by creating a faith-based monetary system, termed “fiat money,” based on purely paper currencies, they allowed the exponential expansion of credit and opened the door to unprecedented levels of credit. This new system would theoretically allow an expansion of the world capitalist economy for decades (instead of years) and avoid the kind of destructive crisis of overproduction detonated by the stock-market crash of October 1929.
Keynes and most others searching for a way out of another Great Depression had come to the conclusion that the capitalist world could not survive another one of those catastrophic episodes of not-so-creative destruction—unless a way could be found permitting the laws of capitalism to be radically stretched to a previously unattainable level of public and private debt.
Thus, the Keynesians, had come to the conclusion that without such a fundamental change in the global monetary system, (as Keynes had been the first to propose), a solution could not be found within the framework of the system. It would have been impossible to postpone the inevitable downward cycle for decades rather than years—but not indefinitely.
Or as Keynes famously answered a critical student who pointed to the consequent growth of public and private debt to unsustainable proportions: “By that time we’ll all be dead!” History has already confirmed the first part of Keynes’s conclusion, and society is now poised on the edge of the confirmation of its second side.
The Keynesian system has already given birth to permanent war, permanent preparations for war, an ever-expanding debt burden, and an accelerating rate of global inflation in most of the capitalist world.
Tweaking Adam Smith’s invisible hand
There are a number of indirect ways that Keynesianism allows the Federal Reserve Bank chairman, in conjunction with the U.S. Treasury secretary, to intervene to keep the U.S. economy on an even keel. They can tinker with, and otherwise manipulate, the Keynesian monetary system, albeit to a very limited extent. And each postponement, as both Smith and Marx warned, makes the inevitable economic collapse that much worse.
Those assigned by Congress to help Smith’s “invisible hand” maintain economic equilibrium, have already gone a long way toward loosening the grip over its monetary system, a system which, for thousands of years, had rigidly and ruthlessly enforced capitalism’s laws of supply and demand.
This little miracle, when viewed from the standpoint of history, was made possible by Keynes’s invention of fiat money; that is money whose value relative to other currencies and the world of commodities, has no objectively-determined economic foundation.
Rather, fiat money’s purely relative value is now determined not by the traditional universal equivalent—gold or some other precious metal—which undergoes continual changes in the exchange value of every commodity in the world marketplace. Thus, the totality of changing relative and absolute exchange values tests and readjusts them in accord with the varied and changing value of all commodities based on the changing proportion of socially necessary labor power incorporated in each commodity. And, because gold, acting as universal equivalent, is exchanged billions of times more frequently than any other commodity, its value was tested and proven billions of times more frequently than all the others.
That’s something that cannot possibly be done with fiat money; simply because it is what it is. In the final analysis, its real value is equal only to the value of the paper it’s printed on!
That’s why the tinkering with interest rates and otherwise deflating the real value of fiat money results in the printing of many more paper dollars, euros, pounds and yen than the value of most of these nations’ Gross Domestic Product. And it especially holds true for the U.S. dollar!
But the short and happy life of the global capitalist order has been extended by 60-plus years of expansion. The paper currency substitution for gold has done what it was designed to do. It has accomplished this little miracle by ending each cycle of rapid expansion with a slowdown of the rate of expansion, rather than in a destructive contraction. Until now.
Now, however, the mass news media has been scaring the daylights out of the world’s capitalists, as well as their most vulnerable victims who will suffer most from any recession. Even more frightening are the increasing number of economic commentators who have, one after another, been characterizing pieces of unusually bad news—and there have been plenty of those lately, as “something we haven’t seen since the Great Depression.”
Whether it turns out that way or not, it has become evident that the U.S. and the global capitalist economy, is now poised on the brink of another, even more destructive economic, financial and monetary crisis than we have seen since the terrible years of the 1930s.
This is the end result of the unending technological process that constantly replaces less efficient factories with state-of-the-art plants and machines. Thus, those capitalists that modernize, tend to realize a higher rate of profit than their competitors who are unable to match their higher level of productivity at lower cost in human labor power.
But this long-term environment in which there is the tendency toward ever-lower profit rates, is, in the final analysis, responsible for the boom-bust cycles of the capitalist mode of production. A growing portion of the least productive enterprises must either catch up and surpass those who were the first to introduce the most productive labor-saving machines, or die.
Because labor-saving machines keep getting more sophisticated, and therefore more productive and profitable, the greater proportion of workers who are replaced by machines, shrinks the world market. This explains why capitalism, as a social and economic system, is doomed by its own internal contradictions.
In other words, in direct relation with this overall, long-term process, as each capitalist earns a higher profit rate than the rest, the average rate of profit is proportionately reduced by competition.
Behind the falling rate of profit
We come now to the fatal contradiction between the two components of invested capital, which Marx calls constant and variable capital. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is the fundamental contradiction that will bring the entire structure of world capitalism tumbling down. Here is how the contradiction is manifested.
Constant capital; that is, the portion of capital invested in factory buildings, machines, and raw materials, is merely reproduced in commodities, but does not create any new—that is, added value—or what Marx calls, “surplus value.”
On the other hand, variable capital—the portion spent on labor power (wages), both reproduces itself and adds new value to the commodities produced — surplus value.
In other words, even fully “automatic” machines cannot produce commodities without the human labor that may be required to maintain, repair, adjust, and turn them on and off. This is the hidden reason why the rate of profit is doomed to fall at the same pace as the rate at which new labor-saving machines replaces human labor power!
Thus, when completely or almost completely automatic factories are eventually created—as they must, logically, do—the rate of profit falls close to zero. In other words, if machines do away entirely with the need for human labor power, then zero workers, equals zero surplus value and zero profit!
After all, if surplus value is zero, it means that there are close to no workers receiving paychecks. This leaves nearly no one with money enough to pay for the product of automatic factories—no one, that is, except capitalists themselves. But that, of course is an absurdity. More practically speaking, it means that close to no money is in circulation to pay for the great mass of goods produced “for sale.” And that, in turn, will end capitalist production along with society divided by class. That too proves that capitalist economy must die either naturally or unnaturally.
But long before such a contradiction becomes a reality, something far more important must be set into motion. And that,is as German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg predicted, capitalism must be forcibly overthrown by an increasingly rebellious working class, followed by either successful socialist revolution or the end of civilization as we know it.
In other words, as Rosa sloganized it, it must end either in “Socialism or Barbarism!”
1 “Sixteen Tons,” hit song made famous by country singer, Tennessee Ernie Ford, was written by Merle Travis.
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4) Poverty and Militarism—A Deadly Combo
Vote No on V
By Bonnie Weinstein
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_08/sepoct_08_06.html
Voters in San Francisco this November will again be asked to vote NO on war. Proposition V—to keep the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) in our schools—has been put on the ballot because in 2006 the San Francisco Board of Education voted to end the JROTC military recruitment program in San Francisco schools. While it did extend the deadline for a phase-out of the program from June 2008 to June 2009, the Board voted late this spring to end Physical Education (PE) credits for the program.
Since many students enrolled in the program to avoid regular PE classes and still earn PE credits, and, since at least 15.6 percent of students were involuntarily enrolled because there were not enough PE courses to meet their graduation requirements, the decision by the Board to end PE credits for JROTC will significantly reduce the number of students who would have enrolled in the military recruitment program in its final year.
This is what propelled supporters of JROTC to place the pro-military recruitment Proposition V on the ballot.
San Francisco says no to war and military recruitment in the schools
But San Francisco is an antiwar city. In 2004, Proposition N (U.S. Out of Iraq Now) passed with 63 percent of the vote. And in 2005, Proposition I (College Not Combat—No Military in our Schools) passed with 60 percent of the vote.
These votes gave the antiwar members of the San Francisco Board of Education the extra incentive they needed to vote to phase out the JROTC recruitment program which is operated and controlled solely by the military and which targets children as young as 14-years-old.
The outcome of this November’s vote on the Pro-JROTC-Pro-recruitment initiative, Proposition V, will have ramifications across the country and it is crucial that the antiwar movement unite to defeat it.
Poverty leaves few choices for poor youth
Escalating poverty and military presence in our schools will certainly steer students toward the military. In fact, the military now recruits 30 to 50 percent of the students that complete the JROTC program. And those who enlist outside of JROTC are propelled to join the military because of the lack of other opportunities available to them—in effect, creating an “economic draft.”
That youth today are facing severe economic hardship is undeniable. According to a September 1, 2008 New York Times article entitled, “Hard Times Hitting Students and Schools,” by Sam Dillon,
“With mortgage foreclosures throwing hundreds of families out of their homes here each month, dismayed school officials say they are feeling the upheaval: record numbers of students turning up for classes this fall are homeless or poor enough to qualify for free meals... As 50 million children return to classes across the nation, crippling increases in the price of fuel and food, coupled with the economic downturn, have left schools from California to Florida to Maine cutting costs.... And as many districts are forced to cut back, the number of poor and homeless students is rising...
“‘The big national picture is that food and fuel costs are going up and school revenues are not,’ said Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association. ‘We’re in a recession, and it’s having a dramatic impact on schools.’... Districts in Louisiana, Minnesota and elsewhere have taken a more radical measure and adopted four-day school weeks. Hundreds of districts, responding to higher food prices, are charging more for cafeteria meals... foreclosure statistics from the Metropolitan Housing Coalition in Louisville that about 10 families were evicted every day here....”
So, not only are working people suffering the loss of their jobs, benefits and homes, but they and their children have to pay more through increased taxes, pay cuts, higher school costs, higher fuel, food, housing costs—higher living costs across the board!
And if you thought your child could rise above these overwhelming obstacles through getting a college education, think again! Increased college tuition costs—textbooks in excess of $100.00 each, the need for personal laptops and scientific calculators not to speak of notebooks and other supplies, combined with the fact that student loans are no longer available to community college students who have the least money—makes the option of college virtually unattainable to most poor youth today.
Add to this the reality that the majority of our youth have only second-tier jobs and second-tier lives to look forward to. This is the first generation to believe they will neither live as long as their parents nor earn as much in their lifetimes. They see their parents struggling right now!
No wonder the slick military propaganda with its promises of high-paying career opportunities, college scholarships and instant “bonus money” appears to be a better choice to some students!
Recruiters’ lies deceive students
The proponents of Proposition V—to keep JROTC in S.F. schools—have been circulating lies that JROTC is not a military recruitment program; that it’s a youth “leadership” program; that it offers educational and job opportunities; that it doesn’t discriminate against gay youth; that it doesn’t cost the school district money; and that it steers students away from gangs and drugs, and that’s why students need this “choice” available to them at school. But nothing could be further from the truth.
JROTC is a military recruitment tool
According to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) School Recruiting Program Handbook, point 1.1, with regard to all military presence in the schools:
“...The purpose of this handbook is: ...to assist staff and recruiters in building and maintaining an effective School Recruiting Program...and ensure an Army presence in all secondary schools. School ownership is the goal.”
Further, according to a United States Army Cadet Command Policy Memorandum from Fort Monroe, Virginia, dated March 20, 1999:
“6. JROTC SAI and AI will:
“a. Actively assist cadets who want to enlist in the military. Emphasize service in the U.S. Army (all components).
“b. Facilitate recruiter access to cadets in JROTC program and to the entire student body.
“c. Encourage College bound cadets to enroll in SROTC.
“d. Work closely with high school guidance counselors to sell the Army story. Encourage them to display RPIs and advertising material and make sure they know how to obtain information on Army opportunities, including SROTC scholarships.
“7. The intent of these partnership initiatives is to promote a synergistic effort of all Army assets, maximize recruiting efforts, exchange quality referrals, and educate all on both recruiting and ROTC programs and benefits.
U.S. chiefs-of-staff testify to the success of JROTC as a recruitment tool
In February 2000, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, the armed service chiefs-of-staff testified that 30–50 percent of graduating JROTC cadets join the military:
“General James L. Jones, then Commandant of the Marine Corps, testified that the value of the Marine JROTC program ‘is beyond contest. Fully one-third of our young men and women who join a Junior ROTC program wind up wearing the uniform of a Marine.’
“General Eric K. Shinseki, then Chief of Staff of the United States Army, testified that ‘Our indications are about 30 percent of those youngsters—we don’t recruit them, as you know. We are not permitted to do that. But by virtue of the things that they like about that experience, about 30 percent of them end up joining the Army, either enlisting or going on to ROTC and then joining the officer population.’
“General Michael E. Ryan, then Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, testified that ‘almost 50 percent of the folks that go [...] out of the Air Force Junior ROTC go into one of the Services by enlisting or going to ROTC or going to one of the academies.’
“Admiral Jay L. Johnson, then Chief of Naval Operations, testified that ‘Even if the number is only 30 percent, that is a good number. But think about what we get out of the other 70 percent. They have exposure to us. They have exposure to the military. And the challenge of the education mandate that we all share in principals and school counselors and school districts that won’t let us in, that is a powerful tool I think to educate whether or not they end up in the service. So it is a long way around saying it is well worth the investment for lots of different reasons.”
“General Colin Powell admitted in his 1995 autobiography that ‘the armed forces might get a youngster more inclined to enlist as a result of Junior ROTC,’ but added that ‘Inner-city kids, many from broken homes, found stability and role models in Junior ROTC.’ U.S. Congress found in the Recruiting, Retention, and Reservist Promotion Act of 2000 that JROTC and similar programs ‘provide significant benefits for the Armed Forces, including significant public relations benefits.’” (Source: Wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JROTC)
That JROTC is a school recruitment tool for the military is clearly shown by the 2007 Department of Defense expenditure of $340 million for the program!
Learning to follow orders is not learning leadership skills
Pro-war recruiters claim that JROTC teaches leadership skills. But according to the American Friends Service Committee’s “Review of the JROTC Curriculum” on line at www.afsc.org:
“While it claims to provide leadership training with broad relevance, in fact, the JROTC curriculum defines leadership as respect for constituted authority and the chain of command, rather than as critical thinking and democratic consensus-building, and it consistently conflates leadership and follower-ship. Finally, the text encourages the reader to rely uncritically on the military as a source of self-esteem and guidance.”
JROTC is not a road to college or job training
And while they say that JROTC provides educational and job benefits, the facts are that only 12 percent of male veterans and six percent of female veterans use skills learned in the military in their current jobs. Soldiers must make a $1,200 non-refundable deposit to be eligible for G.I. Bill-money starting the first year of service. And according to the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, “From 1986-93 the military took in $720 million more from G.I.s in non-refundable deposits than it paid out in college benefits. Only 15 percent of those who pay into the G.I. Bill graduate with four-year degrees.”(Source: Myths of Military Opportunity, “Before You Enlist,” Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, http://www.objector.org/before-you-enlist/myths.html)
JROTC is no freebee!
Another claim of JROTC proponents is that it does not cost the district monies. But actually, JROTC costs the schools almost one million dollars per year in S.F. taxpayers’ monies. Taxpayers kick in another $750,000 each year through the Department of Defense subsidy. And this $1.75 million goes to a handful of high schools with JROTC programs, causing a funding inequity in the District. Funds spent on military programs deprive schools and other social programs of the public funding they need.
JROTC is not the only military presence in our schools
In addition to JROTC, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act requires that, in order for schools to receive Federal funds, the military must be allowed access to students. And while parents, and students who are 17-years-of-age and older may “opt out” of military contact by disallowing the school from releasing their names and contact information to the military, each school receiving NCLB funds must allow two representatives from each branch of the military to visit the schools on a regular basis.
This means military recruiters are allowed to dog students in school counseling offices, cafeterias, in hallways and even in classrooms.
At “Career Day” fairs at San Francisco high schools, according to NCLB rules, ten military recruiters are allowed on school grounds at one time (that’s two recruiters each from the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and Marines)—overwhelming “Career Day” events and marginalizing the colleges and universities who go there to offer students real higher education or job-training opportunities.
Military recruiters, with their access to a virtually unlimited budget, routinely send students home with shopping bags full of military-emblem-bedecked whips-and-jingles, such as notebooks, key chains, even video games, that are handed out free to attract students to them. They also invite students to join them for free pizza at restaurants off-campus, where the recruiters can collect names and contact information from those who show up whether or not they have an “opt out” form on record at their school.
They set up Humvee combat vehicles for students to climb on, target practice booths, and rock walls in schoolyards to attract students—portraying military life as an action-packed video game divorced from the real-life blood and death of war.
They hand out slick brochures that promise students they can become anything from an electrician to an electric guitar player by joining the military. (Just check out goarmy.com to get the full impact of their propaganda.)
Schools, jobs, housing, healthcare! Not war!
The plunging of our educational system into poverty by robbing schools to pay for wars and military recruitment programs work together to produce the cannon fodder the U.S. needs to carry out their wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their goal is to secure U.S. military hegemony in the world insuring access to the world’s most valuable resources for U.S. big business interests at any cost.
The trillions of dollars spent on the U.S. wars and occupations and military bases (over 750 of them worldwide, not counting the flying, floating and submerged bases capable of delivering nuclear warheads anywhere in the world) are taking a terrible toll on the things most important to ordinary working people like schools, jobs, housing, healthcare, natural disaster relief, roads, bridges, etc.
The costs of war effects every aspect of our social infrastructure as well as the jobs, working conditions, pay rates and benefits for working people here in this country and the world over; and it’s causing huge hardships on all the world’s children.
No to war and militarization
None of the candidates of the two war parties are addressing the issues consuming working people today—issues that doubly effect our youth who have been relegated to second-tier pay scales and second-tier lives and the militarization of their schools. The future looks anything but bright to a great majority of our children.
Bringing an end to the militarization of our schools and the militarization of our society is an imperative issue for the working class to unite around.
Of course, the main argument given to rationalize supporting the military is that every country needs a standing army. But the U.S. standing army is not of, by and for the people; it is a plundering, deadly, oppressive, torturing, murdering and totally undemocratic military consuming our youth and turning them into cannon fodder.
The JROTC program is designed to conceal this truth—to minimize the risks of war and to falsify the “benefits” of military experience as “leadership and character-building.”
That your military experience will more likely send you home in a coffin or with catastrophic mental or physical injuries than with a college degree or a good-paying career is kept hidden by military recruiters and the JROTC program. Nothing is said about the horrifying effects that so much killing and dying has on the consciences and lives of returning troops.
Only a peaceful world can offer hope to the future
The antiwar movement has a great responsibility to offer hope to our children and to all working people by organizing independent opposition to the war and championing the counter-recruitment and anti-JROTC movement and by adopting slogans such as “money for books not bombs,” “college not combat” and “fund schools not war.” The movement needs to organize students and their parents to demand that all children get the kind of education they need and deserve to live happy, productive and peaceful lives!
Such a forward-looking antiwar campaign can reach out to the most powerful forces for change—to the over 70 percent of working people who are opposed to the wars, and in solidarity with those who have the greatest interest in seeing them brought to an end, i.e., the troops themselves and the people under their gun!
An injury to one is an injury to all!
To achieve this will take the unity and mass-struggle of workers throughout the world in defense of their very lives and in defense of their common human interests for peace and justice.
The power of this unity, in turn, will lead inevitably toward the victory of the final conflict—toward the end of capitalism and its never-ending wars of conquest—and the transformation of society into a world that puts human needs before profit!
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5) The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Book Review By Carole Seligman
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_08/sepoct_08_24.html
The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal
By J. Patrick O’Connor
Lawrence Hill Books
Chicago Review Press, 2008, 259 pages.
In a recent interview about this book, Patrick O’Connor offers an important insight about wrongful convictions, like that of Mumia Abu-Jamal, resulting in the death penalty:
“Several states, including Florida, have recently suspended executions due to so many lethal injections being botched. Capital punishment is a stain on the United States justice system. Second, DNA exonerations now amount to more than 200 cases, casting grave doubt on the way prosecutors do their jobs. John Grisham’s book put the subject of wrongful convictions before a broad portion of the U.S. public. The public is finally getting used to the notion that justice in the United States depends a great deal on how much a person can pay for it. Most of the DNA exonerations, for example, involved indigent, often black, men represented by court-appointed attorneys.”
The best development in the struggle for freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal came in the form of this new book, “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” by O’Connor. The author is the editor and publisher of Crime Magazine, a publication that focuses attention and careful research on wrongful convictions. While O’Connor speaks quite passionately on the subject of Mumia’s innocence in video interviews, his book is a calm, methodical, factual account of the killing of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia on December 9, 1981, and the subsequent frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal was already, at the time this frame-up began, a well-respected, outspoken journalist, who exposed police brutality, corruption, and racism; and defended John Africa and the members of the MOVE organization against the Philadelphia power structure arrayed against them.
Millions of words have been written about this case and Mumia Abu-Jamal is probably the most well-known death row prisoner in the world. After all, he is a working journalist and author who publishes regular columns on world events (from the point of view of the exploited and oppressed) and has written several books, from his cell on Pennsylvania’s death row, continuing his role as “voice of the voiceless”(so named when he was a radio journalist in Philadelphia in the late 1970s, partly for his beautiful voice, and mostly for what he said).
But, O’Connor’s book is a new, detailed, serious account of the crime, and the frame up of Abu-Jamal. O’Connor reconstructs the crime scene, names the real shooter of Faulkner—Kenneth Freeman—and details every step in the elaborate frame up. And the book is highly readable. Actually, it’s hard to put down.
And that’s because you have the combination of a good writer and researcher who tells the truth and has the character to buck the established powers-that-be. O’Connor skewers all the powerful players in the frame-up—Judge Sabo (who maintained the atmosphere in his courtroom of a Jim Crow court), Prosecutor McGill (who had a “palpable, sneering loathing of the former Black Panther,” [Mumia]), Mayor Frank Rizzo (who built his career by being a “lightning rod for racial strife”), and others. He also has a very full explanation of the failure of Mumia’s original defense attorney, Anthony E. Jackson, to conduct an adequate defense, and criticism of Abu-Jamal’s own role in sabotaging his own defense.
The first chapter of O’Connor’s book reconstructs the crime scene. Important facts are presented here which have not been widely known before, including a statement and an interview with Philadelphia Police by Robert Harkins who was an eyewitness to the killing of Daniel Faulkner and who described the killer. The description did not fit Mumia Abu-Jamal, but it did fit Kenneth Freeman, who was on the scene and ran away. O’Connor also writes about the driver identification papers of an Arnold Howard found in Officer Faulkner’s pocket. Howard had lent those papers to Freeman. O’Connor also mentions in a later chapter, another witness, William Singletary, who identified someone other than Abu-Jamal, as the shooter. And, something new to me, O’Connor writes that there were many eyewitnesses present during most of the whole chain of events, including the shooting of Faulkner! All the more amazing then that the only witnesses who substantiated the prosecution’s case were liars. And O’Connor proves it, and fully documents it, in several chapters!
In a chapter called “The Free Mumia Movement,” O’Connor nails the importance of Abu-Jamal’s case:
“Two things account for the unprecedented national and international interest in this case. First and foremost is the man himself. Despite 25 years of the bleakest existence possible in isolation on death row, Mumia Abu-Jamal remains what he has always been: an articulate, compassionate righter of wrongs. When he eventually walks free, it will be in large part because he wrote his way out, one essay at a time. The second thing that makes his case so compelling to such a wide audience is that his trial represents such a monumental abuse of government power to frame one man that it really says no citizen is truly free until this wrong has been undone.” [The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, page 199].
This is exactly the approach the Free Mumia movement should have: an injury to one is an injury to all. None of us working people are free as long as Mumia is not!
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6) I’m a Slave!
By Kevin Cooper
Socialist Viewpoint
September/October 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_08/sepoct_08_25.html
I have spent all of my adult life fighting in truth, in words, and within America’s unjust criminal justice system, to prove my innocence concerning my wrongful conviction for the Ryen/Hughes murders.
My truth, my words, and my innocence have fallen for the most part on deaf ears, especially inside the mainstream society of this country. After all, they are the ones who convicted me and sent me to death row in 1985.
While I am still fighting for my life, I and the many different people who have fought, and still are fighting, with me have managed to prove many things in this case which point to my innocence; things which some judges have acknowledged, such as the corruption that has happened and still is happening to me within this case.
While I am here on death row, I am just two decisions away from being tortured and murdered by this state. This is my reality, or one of them. Recently I read a very interesting article by Curtis Ray Davis entitled “Humanitarian Exercise or Slavery?” Within that article he spoke about the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And that is when my other reality came to life.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution says this: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ‘except as punishment for a crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted’ shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction....”
Even though I am an innocent man, and even though I was wrongfully convicted, in the eyes and mind of this society, I was duly convicted, and that amounts to me being reduced to the level of a modern day slave!
Not long ago a federal circuit court judge acknowledged that this case against me has fraud in it, tampering with evidence within it, destruction of evidence throughout it, withholding of exculpatory evidence at its core, lying and all the other things that we have proved.
As a 21st century slave, not only do I need emancipating, as one on death row I need abolition as well! Just like my ancestors.
Note: Kevin Cooper’s petition for an en banc (full court) hearing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is pending. Last December a 3-judge panel of the court upheld Cooper’s conviction, (for which he faces the death penalty) despite “serious issues of mishandled, lost and destroyed evidence” by the prosecution which would have led to a not guilty verdict.
—The Editors
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7) Subject: Rosenberg Case News: Robert Meeropol's Reaction / Karen Wald / 17 Sept, 08
howardkeylor@comcast.net
It might be a good idea to pass this on to those still in doubt as to the lengths to which our government is willing to go to achieve its own ends. The execution in the electric chair of an innocent woman, mother of two young sons, whom the prosecution KNEW to be innocent, seems far beyond what one would expect from even the most ambitious and unethical prosecutor. Yet it happened, and it has certainly happened in other, less-known cases...
klw
Dear Friends,
By now many of you have heard that last week, on September 11th, the transcript covering testimony of 43 of the 46* witnesses who appeared in front of the Grand Jury investigating my parents in 1950-1951, was made public. (*Only a portion of the testimony of Harry Gold, a key prosecution witness, was made available, and legal efforts to date have failed to win the release of testimony of three other witnesses, including Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, the most crucial player in the case.)
This historic release of information coincided with an article that appeared on the same date in the New York Times, interviewing Morton Sobell, my parents’ co-defendant. Ever since his arrest more than 50 years ago, Mort has maintained his innocence. But in last week’s interview he admitted that he, along with Julius Rosenberg, passed non-atomic military intelligence to the Soviets during World War II in an effort to help them defeat the Nazis.
Over the last week I have read all 930 pages of Grand Jury testimony that have been released, and my brother has spoken to Mort directly to clarify Mort’s statement. Many of you are wondering about my reaction to these revelations.
Here are my initial thoughts after integrating the information from this last week with the rest of the historical record.
1) Since the 1980’s I have maintained that it is possible that my father engaged in non-atomic espionage, but that he did NOT participate in ANY activities that resulted in him obtaining or passing the “secret of the Atomic Bomb” to the Soviets. Mort’s statement moves me to acknowledge that it is virtually certain, that Julius did, in fact, participate with others in passing along military information. But at the same time, I believe the still-evolving record makes it even clearer that Julius did not “steal” or transmit the “secret of the Atomic Bomb,” the crime for which he was executed.
2) Ruth Greenglass’s Grand Jury testimony provides several bombshells, but I will only highlight one here. Ruth and her husband David, (my mother’s sister-in-law and brother), cooperated with the prosecution in exchange for a comparatively light sentence for David, and for no charges being brought against Ruth. It was Ruth’s trial testimony that provided the one, key piece of evidence that led to my mother’s conviction. Ruth stated at trial that Ethel typed David’s handwritten notes describing the Atomic Bomb, an act that would have made Ethel an active participant in the alleged spy ring. However, despite being a cooperative witness trying to remain in the prosecutor’s good graces, Ruth’s Grand Jury testimony included NOTHING about Ethel ever typing any notes; included NOTHING about Ethel even being present at the meeting involving the notes; and in a damning contradiction to her later trial testimony, stated that RUTH hand-wrote the only notes and they described the buildings at Los Alamos not the Atomic Bomb.
3) All that I have learned in the last week, coupled with all that I have gleaned from the information already available, reinforces the biggest lesson to be taken from my parents’ case- that the U.S. Government abused its power in truly dangerous ways that are still very relevant today. Those in power who were involved in my parents’ case:
• Created and fueled anti-communist hysteria
• Capitalized on that political climate by targeting my parents, then making them the focus of the public’s Cold War-era fear and anger
• Manufactured testimony and evidence
• Facilitated judicial misconduct
• Hounded witnesses for their political beliefs and associations rather than about any alleged illegal activities
• Arrested Ethel simply as leverage to try to get Julius to cooperate with the prosecution
• Used the ultimate weapon— the threat of death—to try extort a confession from my parents and to force them to name and testify against others
• Created the myth that there was a key “secret” of the Atomic Bomb, and then devised a strategy to make it appear that Julius had sought out and passed on that “secret”
• Executed Julius when he refused to cooperate. despite knowing that the “secret” used to justify the death penalty, was a prosecution-created fallacy
• Executed Ethel when she refused to cooperate, despite knowing that she was not guilty of ANY charges against her and was not an active participant in ANY espionage activities.
And finally, the agencies and individuals involved in my parents’ case, systematically and emphatically covered-up and denied all these abuses.
Ultimately, these new revelations have made me even more steadfast in my commitment to helping those whom the Rosenberg Fund for Children supports: today’s families experiencing similar targeting and suffering similar personal tragedies.
I thank you all for the many messages of support and solidarity you have sent to me and my family, and I invite any of you who would like more information, (including details on how to view the Grand Jury transcripts yourselves), to visit the RFC website at www.rfc.org.
Robert Meeropol
Executive Director
Rosenberg Fund for Children
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8) Irresistible force?
Thanks to No Child Left Behind, military recruiters swoop into schools
By J. Adrian Stanley
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 18, 2008:
http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A30182
The U.S. Army wants Chris.
So do the Navy, the Marines and the Air Force.
Chris, an average 17-year-old who is "not really that interested in the military," has lately been living the life of a celebrity — going to extraordinary lengths to dodge unwanted attention. He recently dropped out of high school rather than face yet another military recruiter in the classroom, and says his family (which didn't want his name used in this story) is frazzled after fielding constant calls from the Armed Forces.
The barrage of solicitations began when Chris' school, Colorado Springs School District 11's Doherty High, released his personal information to military recruiters. Then Chris entered one of the last classes he needed to graduate, only to find that military recruiters made regular presentations there — presentations he was expected to watch closely unless he wanted his grades to suffer.
Pretty soon, Chris was being asked to fill out military paperwork and was told that later in the year, he would be taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) — a test given by the military to determine eligibility for service.
Chris feared he'd sign up for the service without realizing it.
Sound illegal? Apparently, it's not.
The No Child Left Behind Act, the 2002 legislation most famous for imposing testing on students, was also a gift to military recruiters. It forces high schools that receive federal funding to provide upperclassmen's contact information to the Armed Forces — unless a parent specifically has opted out. The law also requires that military recruiters be given the same access to public schools afforded to college recruiters and potential employers.
In response, some school districts limited the access of all recruiters to high schools, rather than see classrooms turn into auction houses. Other districts rolled out the camouflage carpet.
Parents and kids haven't had much say in the matter, though University of Colorado at Boulder law professor Alan Canner says Chris might have had a right to object to the release of his information, and to his being required to fill out military paperwork, if his parent had filled out a district form protecting Chris' personal information. The district is required to issue such a form under No Child, and D-11 representatives say they mail one to parents annually. Chris' mom, however, says she's never seen it.
Meanwhile, D-11 has chosen not to set any policy, leaving details up to individual schools. Kathryn Fruh, a Doherty counselor, says she allows recruiters to set up booths during some lunch periods to answer questions, and she lets recruiters make presentations to Chris' old class, a vocational course designed for kids already in the workforce. Fruh says the class, which aims to transition kids into adulthood, presents various post-graduation options to kids, including college.
"Some of this is being respectful of these ... different opportunities that are available to kids," she says.
The counselor also encourages students to take ASVAB because of its value as a general aptitude test. But she says no military paperwork filled out in school would obligate students to the military in any way — a claim confirmed by the U.S. Defense Department.
Of course, none of this was clear to Chris, who says that at this point, he'd rather get a GED.
— stanley@csindy.com
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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California: Chief Wants Officers Fired for Misconduct
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | West
Police Chief William J. Bratton of Los Angeles has recommended that four officers be fired for misconduct when force was used to clear a park in a 2007 immigration rally. He also recommended that 11 other officers face discipline ranging from reprimands to suspensions of up to 10 days without pay. The rally ended when the police formed a skirmish line and swept through the crowd in MacArthur Park. Some officers struck peaceful rallygoers and journalists with batons and bean-bag rounds. A personnel investigation led to 80 accusations against 29 officers. The chief sustained 31 accusations against 15 officers.
September 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/us/17brfs-CHIEFWANTSOF_BRF.html?ref=us
Health Costs: More Burden on the Worker
By PHYLLIS KORKKI
The Count
Don’t cheer when you hear that health care cost increases are expected to ease slightly for employers in 2009. This is not a sign that medical costs are beginning to stabilize. Rather, it means that businesses are moving aggressively to shift the burden to their employees.
Mercer, the consulting firm, expects employers’ health benefit costs to rise 5.7 percent in 2009, based on preliminary results of a survey. Increases have hovered at about 6 percent a year since 2005.
If you are on your company’s health plan, you might want to brace yourself for higher deductibles, as well as higher co-payments, higher premiums or both. You might also end up joining a consumer-directed plan, in which, for example, you would pay a lower premium in exchange for a higher upfront deductible.
Businesses also say they intend to improve their health and wellness programs so that their employees don’t stay sick as long and — in the best-case situation — don’t become sick in the first place.
September 14, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/business/14count.html?ref=business
Bishops Want Immigration Raids to End
By JULIA PRESTON
National Briefing | Immigration
Roman Catholic bishops urged the Bush administration to halt workplace immigration raids, saying the “humanitarian cost” was “unacceptable in a civilized society.” Speaking on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, John C. Wester, the bishop of Salt Lake City said that the escalating number of worksite raids over the past year had spread fear in immigrant communities and had made it difficult for detained immigrants to obtain legal representation. Bishop Wester also called on the Department of Homeland Security to refrain from conducting raids in churches, health centers and schools.
September 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/us/12brfs-001.html?ref=us
Mississippi: Conviction Overturned
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a reputed Ku Klux Klan member serving three life sentences for his role in the 1964 abduction and killing of two black teenagers in southwest Mississippi. The man, James Ford Seale, 73, was convicted in June 2007 on kidnapping and conspiracy charges related to the abductions of the teenagers, Charles E. Moore and Henry H. Dee. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the statute of limitations for kidnapping had expired in the decades between the crimes and the charges.
September 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/us/11brfs-CONVICTIONOV_BRF.html?ref=us
Utah: Mine Collapse Case Goes to Prosecutors
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Rockies
Federal mining officials have asked prosecutors to decide whether criminal charges are warranted in the deaths of nine people in last year’s collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine. The Mine Safety and Health Administration has been investigating two cave-ins at the mine in August 2007 that killed six miners and three rescuers. The safety agency has already fined the operator $1.34 million for violations that it says directly contributed to the deaths. Richard Stickler, an acting assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, said the mine’s operator and its engineering consultants demonstrated reckless disregard for safety. Mr. Stickler said the safety agency had referred the case to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges.
September 4, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/us/04brfs-MINECOLLAPSE_BRF.html?ref=us
National Briefing | Immigration
Rabbis Endorse Certification Plan
By JULIA PRESTON
The organization of Reform rabbis endorsed a movement led by Conservative Jews to create an additional certification for kosher food that would show that the producer met ethical standards for the treatment of workers. In a resolution, the Central Conference of American Rabbis promised to work cooperatively with the movement known as Hekhsher Tzedek, meaning “justice certification,” to develop the new seal of approval, which would be applied only to food certified as kosher according to traditional Jewish dietary laws. It would confirm that the producer met certain standards for wages and employee safety. The resolution was evidence of a new interest in kosher practice by Reform Jews, who do not generally follow strict dietary laws. The Reform rabbis said reports of “abusive and unethical treatment of workers” at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, were “particularly distressing.”
September 4, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/us/04brfs-RABBISENDORS_BRF.html?ref=us
Illinois: School Financing Protest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
More than 1,000 Chicago public school students boycotted the first day of classes in a protest over school financing and instead rode buses more than 30 miles north to try to enroll in a wealthy suburban district. About 1,100 elementary students and 150 high school students from Chicago filled out enrollment applications in the New Trier district in Northfield, said the New Trier superintendent, Linda Yonke. Boycott organizers acknowledged the move was largely symbolic: Students would have to pay tuition to attend a school outside their home district. In Illinois, property taxes account for about 70 percent of school financing, meaning rural and inner-city schools generally end up with less to spend per student than suburban schools.
September 3, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/03brfs-SCHOOLFINANC_BRF.html?ref=education
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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Labor Beat: National Assembly to End the War in Iraq and Afghanistan:
Highlights from the June 28-29, 2008 meeting in Cleveland, OH. In this 26-minute video, Labor Beat presents a sampling of the speeches and floor discussions from this important conference. Attended by over 400 people, the Assembly's main objective was to urge united and massive mobilizations in the spring to “Bring the Troops Home Now,” as well as supporting actions that build towards that date. To read the final action proposal and to learn other details, visit www.natassembly.org. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is affiliated with IBEW 1220. Views expressed are those of the producer, not necessarily of IBEW. For info: mail@laborbeat.org,www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video or YouTube and search "Labor Beat".
http://blip.tv/file/1149437/
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12 year old Ossetian girl tells the truth about Georgia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5idQm8YyJs4
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SAN FRANCISCO IS A SANCTUARY CITY! STOP THE MIGRA-ICE RAIDS!
Despite calling itself a "sanctuary city", S.F. politicians are permitting the harrassment of undocumented immigrants and allowing the MIGRA-ICE police to enter the jail facilities.
We will picket any store that cooperates with the MIGRA or reports undocumented brothers and sisters. We demand AMNESTY without conditions!
BRIGADES AGAINST THE RAIDS
project of BARRIO UNIDO
(415)431-9925
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Canada: American Deserter Must Leave
By IAN AUSTEN
August 14, 2008
World Briefing | Americas
Jeremy Hinzman, a deserter from the United States Army, was ordered Wednesday to leave Canada by Sept. 23. Mr. Hinzman, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, left the Army for Canada in January 2004 and later became the first deserter to formally seek refuge there from the war in Iraq. He has been unable to obtain permanent immigrant status, and in November, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal of his case. Vanessa Barrasa, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency, said Mr. Hinzman, above, had been ordered to leave voluntarily. In July, another American deserter was removed from Canada by border officials after being arrested. Although the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not backed the Iraq war, it has shown little sympathy for American deserters, a significant change from the Vietnam War era.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/americas/14briefs-canada.html?ref=world
Iraq War resister Robin Long jailed, facing three years in Army stockade
Free Robin Long now!
Support GI resistance!
Soldier Who Deserted to Canada Draws 15-Month Term
By DAN FROSCH
August 23, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/us/23resist.html?ref=us
What you can do now to support Robin
1. Donate to Robin's legal defense
Online: http://couragetoresist.org/robinlong
By mail: Make checks out to “Courage to Resist / IHC” and note “Robin Long” in the memo field. Mail to:
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave #41
Oakland CA 94610
Courage to Resist is committed to covering Robin’s legal and related defense expenses. Thank you for helping make that possible.
Also: You are also welcome to contribute directly to Robin’s legal expenses via his civilian lawyer James Branum. Visit girightslawyer.com, select "Pay Online via PayPal" (lower left), and in the comments field note “Robin Long”. Note that this type of donation is not tax-deductible.
2. Send letters of support to Robin
Robin Long, CJC
2739 East Las Vegas
Colorado Springs CO 80906
Robin’s pre-trial confinement has been outsourced by Fort Carson military authorities to the local county jail.
Robin is allowed to receive hand-written or typed letters only. Do NOT include postage stamps, drawings, stickers, copied photos or print articles. Robin cannot receive packages of any type (with the book exception as described below).
3. Send Robin a money order for commissary items
Anything Robin gets (postage stamps, toothbrush, shirts, paper, snacks, supplements, etc.) must be ordered through the commissary. Each inmate has an account to which friends may make deposits. To do so, a money order in U.S. funds must be sent to the address above made out to "Robin Long, EPSO". The sender’s name must be written on the money order.
4. Send Robin a book
Robin is allowed to receive books which are ordered online and sent directly to him at the county jail from Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. These two companies know the procedure to follow for delivering books for inmates.
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Yet Another Insult: Mumia Abu-Jamal Denied Full-Court Hearing by 3rd Circuit
& Other News on Mumia
This mailing sent by the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PLEASE FORWARD AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
1. Mumia Abu-Jamal Denied Full-Court Hearing by 3rd Circuit
2. Upcoming Events for Mumia
3. New Book on the framing of Mumia
1. MUMIA DENIED AGAIN -- Adding to its already rigged, discriminatory record with yet another insult to the world's most famous political prisoner, the federal court for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia has refused to give Mumia Abu-Jamal an en banc, or full court, hearing. This follows the rejection last March by a 3-judge panel of the court, of what is likely Mumia's last federal appeal.
The denial of an en banc hearing by the 3rd Circuit, upholding it's denial of the appeal, is just the latest episode in an incredible year of shoving the overwhelming evidence of Mumia's innocence under a rock. Earlier in the year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court also rejected Jamal's most recent state appeal. Taken together, state and federal courts in 2008 have rejected or refused to hear all the following points raised by Mumia's defense:
1. The state's key witness, Cynthia White, was pressured by police to lie on the stand in order to convict Mumia, according to her own admission to a confidant (other witnesses agreed she wasn't on the scene at all)
2. A hospital "confession" supposedly made by Mumia was manufactured by police. The false confession was another key part of the state's wholly-manufactured "case."
3. The 1995 appeals court judge, Albert Sabo--the same racist who presided at Mumia's original trial in 1982, where he said, "I'm gonna help 'em fry the n....r"--was prejudiced against him. This fact was affirmed even by Philadelphia's conservative newspapers at the time.
4. The prosecutor prejudiced the jury against inn ocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, by using a slimy tactic already rejected by the courts. But the prosecutor was upheld in Mumia's case!
5. The jury was racially skewed when the prosecution excluded most blacks from the jury, a practice banned by law, but, again, upheld against Mumia!
All of these defense claims were proven and true. But for the courts, these denials were just this year’s trampling on the evidence! Other evidence dismissed or ignored over the years include: hit-man Arnold Beverly said back in the 1990s that he, not Mumia, killed the slain police officer (Faulkner). Beverly passed a lie detector test and was willing to testify, but he got no hearing in US courts! Also, Veronica Jones, who saw two men run from the scene just after the shooting, was coerced by police to lie at the 1982 trial, helping to convict Mumia. But when she admitted this lie and told the truth on appeal in 1996, she was dismissed by prosecutor-in-robes Albert Sabo in 1996 as "not credible!" (She continues to support Mumia, and is writing a book on her experiences.) And William Singletary, the one witness who saw the whole thing and had no reason to lie, and who affirmed that someone else did the shooting, said that Mumia only arriv ed on the scene AFTER the officer was shot. His testimony has been rejected by the courts on flimsy grounds. And the list goes on.
FOR THE COURTS, INNOCENCE IS NO DEFENSE! And if you're a black revolutionary like Mumia the fix is in big-time. Illusions in Mumia getting a "new trial" out of this racist, rigged, kangaroo-court system have been dealt a harsh blow by the 3rd Circuit. We need to build a mass movement, and labor action, to free Mumia now!
2. UPCOMING EVENTS FOR MUMIA --
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA -- Speaking Tour by J Patrick O'Connor, the author of THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, in the first week of October 2008, sponsored by the Mobilization To Free Mumia. Contributing to this tour, the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia will hold a public meeting with O'Connor on Friday October 3rd, place to be announced. San Francisco, South Bay and other East Bay venues to be announced. Contact the Mobilization at 510 268-9429, or the LAC at 510 763-2347, for more information.
3. NEW BOOK ON MUMIA
Efficiently and Methodically Framed--Mumia is innocent! That is the conclusion of THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, by J Patrick O'Connor (Lawrence Hill Books), published earlier this year. The author is a former UPI reporter who took an interest in Mumia's case. He is now the editor of Crime Magazine (www.crimemagazine.com).
O'Connor offers a fresh perspective, and delivers a clear and convincing breakdown on perhaps the most notorious frame-up since Sacco and Vanzetti. THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is based on a thorough analysis of the 1982 trial and the 1995-97 appeals hearings, as well as previous writings on this case, and research on the MOVE organization (with which Mumia identifies), and the history of racist police brutality in Philadelphia.
While leaving some of the evidence of Mumia's innocence unconsidered or disregarded, this book nevertheless makes clear that there is a veritable mountain of evidence--most of it deliberately squashed by the courts--that shows that Mumia was blatantly and deliberately framed by corrupt cops and courts, who "fixed" this case against him from the beginning. This is a case not just of police corruption, or a racist lynching, though it is both. The courts are in this just as deep as the cops, and it reaches to the top of the equally corrupt political system.
"This book is the first to convincingly show how the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney's Office efficiently and methodically framed [Mumia Abu-Jamal]." (from the book jacket)
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has a limited number of THE FRAMING ordered from the publisher at a discount. We sold our first order of this book, and are now able to offer it at a lower price. $12 covers shipping. Send payment to us at our address below:
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • 510.763.2347
www.laboractionmumia.org • LACFreeMumia@aol.com
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Sami Al-Arian Subjected to Worst Prison Conditions since Florida
Despite grant of bail, government continues to hold him
Dr. Al-Arian handcuffed
Hanover, VA - July 27, 2008 -
More than two weeks after being granted bond by a federal judge, Sami Al-Arian is still being held in prison. In fact, Dr. Al-Arian is now being subjected to the worst treatment by prison officials since his stay in Coleman Federal Penitentiary in Florida three years ago.
On July 12th, Judge Leonie Brinkema pronounced that Dr. Al-Arian was not a danger to the community nor a flight risk, and accordingly granted him bail before his scheduled August 13th trial. Nevertheless, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) invoked the jurisdiction it has held over Dr. Al-Arian since his official sentence ended last April to keep him from leaving prison. The ICE is ostensibly holding Dr. Al-Arian to complete deportation procedures but, given that Dr. Al-Arian's trial will take place in less than three weeks, it would seem somewhat unlikely that the ICE will follow through with such procedures in the near future.
Not content to merely keep Dr. Al-Arian from enjoying even a very limited stint of freedom, the government is using all available means to try to psychologically break him. Instead of keeping him in a prison close to the Washington DC area where his two oldest children live, the ICE has moved him to Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, VA, more than one hundred miles from the capital. Regardless, even when Dr. Al-Arian was relatively close to his children, they were repeatedly denied visitation requests.
More critically, this distance makes it extremely difficult for Dr. Al-Arian to meet with his attorneys in the final weeks before his upcoming trial. This is the same tactic employed by the government in 2005 to try to prevent Dr. Al-Arian from being able to prepare a full defense.
Pamunkey Regional Jail has imposed a 23-hour lock-down on Dr. Al-Arian and has placed him in complete isolation, despite promises from the ICE that he would be kept with the general inmate population. Furthermore, the guards who transported him were abusive, shackling and handcuffing him behind his back for the 2.5-hour drive, callously disregarding the fact that his wrist had been badly injured only a few days ago. Although he was in great pain throughout the trip, guards refused to loosen the handcuffs.
At the very moment when Dr. Al-Arian should be enjoying a brief interlude of freedom after five grueling years of imprisonment, the government has once again brazenly manipulated the justice system to deliver this cruel slap in the face of not only Dr. Al-Arian, but of all people of conscience.
Make a Difference! Call Today!
Call Now!
Last April, your calls to the Hampton Roads Regional Jail pressured prison officials to stop their abuse of Dr. Al-Arian after only a few days.
Friends, we are asking you to make a difference again by calling:
Pamunkey Regional Jail: (804) 365-6400 (press 0 then ask to speak to the Superintendent's office). Ask why Dr. Al-Arian has been put under a 23-hour lockdown, despite the fact that a federal judge has clearly and unambiguously pronounced that he is not a danger to anyone and that, on the contrary, he should be allowed bail before his trial.
- If you do not reach the superintendent personally, leave a message on the answering machine. Call back every day until you do speak to the superintendent directly.
- Be polite but firm.
- After calling, click here to let us know you called.
Don't forget: your calls DO make a difference.
FORWARD TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS!
Write to Dr. Al-Arian
For those of you interested in sending personal letters of support to Dr. Al-Arian:
If you would like to write to Dr. Al-Arian, his new
address is:
Dr. Sami Al-Arian
Pamunkey Regional Jail
P.O. Box 485
Hanover, VA 23069
Email Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace: tampabayjustice@yahoo.com
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Video: The Carbon Connection -- The human impact of carbon trading
[This is an eye-opening and important video for all who are interested in our environment...bw]
Two communities affected by one new global market – the trade in carbon
dioxide. In Scotland, a town has been polluted by oil and chemical
companies since the 1940s. In Brazil, local people's water and land is
being swallowed up by destructive monoculture eucalyptus tree
plantations. Both communities now share a new threat.
As part of the deal to reduce greenhouse gases that cause dangerous
climate change, major polluters can now buy carbon credits that allow
them to pay someone else to reduce emissions instead of cutting their
own pollution. What this means for those living next to the oil industry
in Scotland is the continuation of pollution caused by their toxic
neighbours. Meanwhile in Brazil, the schemes that generate carbon
credits give an injection of cash for more planting of the damaging
eucalyptus plantations.
40 minutes | PAL/NTSC | English/Spanish/Portuguese subtitles.The Carbon Connection is a Fenceline Films presentation in partnership with the Transnational Institute Environmental Justice Project and Carbon Trade Watch, the Alert Against the Green Desert Movement, FASE-ES, and the Community Training and Development Unit.
Watch at http://links.org.au/node/575
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Torture
On the Waterboard
How does it feel to be “aggressively interrogated”? Christopher Hitchens found out for himself, submitting to a brutal waterboarding session in an effort to understand the human cost of America’s use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo and elsewhere. VF.com has the footage. Related: “Believe Me, It’s Torture,” from the August 2008 issue.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/video/2008/hitchens_video200808
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Alison Bodine defense Committee
Lift the Two-year Ban
http://alisonbodine.blogspot.com/
Watch the Sept 28 Video on Alison's Case!
http://alisonbodine.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-post.html
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The Girl Who Silenced the World at the UN!
Born and raised in Vancouver, Severn Suzuki has been working on environmental and social justice issues since kindergarten. At age 9, she and some friends started the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They traveled to 1992's UN Earth Summit, where 12 year-old Severn gave this powerful speech that deeply affected (and silenced) some of the most prominent world leaders. The speech had such an impact that she has become a frequent invitee to many U.N. conferences.
[Note: the text of her speech is also available at this site...bw]
http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=433
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MINIATURE EARTH
http://www.miniature-earth.com/me_english.htm
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"Dear Canada: Let U.S. war resisters stay!"
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/499/89/
Russell Means Speaking at the Transform Columbus Day Rally
"If voting could do anything it would be illegal!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Lri1-6aoY
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Stop the Termination or the Cherokee Nation
http://groups.msn.com/BayAreaIndianCalendar/activismissues.msnw?action=get_message&mview=1&ID_Message=5580
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We Didn't Start the Fire
http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html
I Can't Take it No More
http://lefti.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html#9214483115237950361
The Art of Mental Warfare
http://artofmentalwarfare.com/pog/artofmentalwarfarecom-the-warning/
MONEY AS DEBT
http://video. google.com/ videoplay? docid=-905047436 2583451279
http://www.moneyasd ebt.net/
UNCONSTITUTIONAL
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6582099850410121223&pr=goog-sl
IRAQ FOR SALE
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6621486727392146155
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Port of Olympia Anti-Militarization Action Nov. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOkn2Fg7R8w
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"They have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: 'Look how much progress we're making. I'm in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I'm your spokesman, I'm your leader.' While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education.
"But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can't identify with that, you step back.
"It's easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it's hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you'll fold though."
—MALCOLM X, 1965
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=987
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A little gem:
Michael Moore Faces Off With Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/57492/
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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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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King
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YouTube clip of Che before the UN in 1964
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtATT8GXkWg&mode=related&search
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The Wealthiest Americans Ever
NYT Interactive chart
JULY 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html
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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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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]
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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY
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My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
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Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE
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Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o
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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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"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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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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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker Donald L. Vasicek Launches New Sand
Creek Massacre Website"
May 21, 2008 -- CENTENNIAL, CO -- Award-winning filmmaker, Donald L.
Vasicek, has launched a new Sand Creek Massacre website. Titled,
"The Sand Creek Massacre", the site contains in depth witness
accounts of the massacre, the award-winning Sand Creek Massacre
trailer for viewing, the award-winning Sand Creek Massacre
documentary short for viewing, the story of the Sand Creek Massacre,
and a Shop to purchase Sand Creek Massacre DVD's and lesson
plans including the award-winning documentary film/educational DVD.
Vasicek, a board member of The American Indian Genocide Museum
(www.aigenom.com)in Houston, Texas, said, "The website was launched
to inform, to educate, and to provide educators, historians, students
and all others the accessibility to the Sand Creek Massacre story."
The link/URL to the website is sandcreekmassacre.net.
###
Contact:
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
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