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SAVE TROY DAVIS!
This article is reprinted below. It's number 15 on the list of "Articles in Full."
This is sad, sad news.
Justices Clear Way for Execution in Georgia
By ROBBIE BROWN
October 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/washington/15execute.html?hp
Amnesty International is still collecting signatures in a last-ditch attempt to save Troy Davis. Troy is innocent.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis
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WHAT ALL HUMANITY IS UP AGAINST (FROM "60 MINUTES")
[THIS IS TRULY TERRIFYING!...BW]
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4516319n
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"Meditating on the current U.S. public debt—$10,266 trillions—that President Bush is laying on the shoulders of the new generations in that country, I took to calculating how long it would take a man to count the debt that he has doubled in eight years.
"A man working eight hours a day, without missing a second, and counting one hundred one-dollar bills per minute, during 300 days in the year, would need 710 billion years to count that amount of money." —Fidel Castro Ruz, October 11, 2008
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Check out this video of the Oct. 11 protest in Boston:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pPB5IR_hEg
Video: Peace Rally in Providence
October 11th, 2008
Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace held an anti-war and pro immigration rally at Dexter Training Grounds, beside the Cranston Armory, followed by a march that ended up at Burnside Park around 4:30 p.m. There were 200 people at the rally and more joined the march along the way. Providence Journal video by Kathy Borchers
http://www.projo.com/video/?z=y&nvid=291998
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OCTOBER 11 COMMUNITY ANTIWAR OUTREACH DAY ROUND-UP
Next NO ON V antiwar community outreach day:
Saturday, October 18, 12:00 Noon
24th Street between Noe and Sanchez Streets in front of the supermarket.
As the Navy Blue Angels took to the skies in San Francisco on this past Saturday, October 11, a group of folks gathered at 11:00 A.M. on 24th and Mission Streets and spread out to four different communities--including a teacher's conference, Dolores Park, Mission Street and the Tenderloin--and handed out hundreds of campaign flyers urging voters to vote No on the pro-Military recruiting and pro-JROTC school recruitment program initiative--Proposition V. In fact, we ran out of campaign material early—underscoring the need for the whole antiwar movement to join together to raise the resources necessary to cover the city with No on Proposition V campaign material and get them into the hands of every voter in San Francisco!
What attracted the attention of passers-by was the phrase, "Get the military out of our schools!" That phrase sparked a real response--especially from parents with children walking by. And, as we suspected, many people were unaware that the pro-military school recruitment initiative was even on the ballot. But when explaining just what the initiative was, it became clear that the majority sentiment, indeed, is opposed to JROTC and all military recruitment in our schools.
In one conversation I had with a woman and her teenage daughter, the real-life experience of the result of this school recruiting program was pointed out to me when this mother told me of her niece who was recruited from high school JROTC, served in Iraq for a year, got injured, and was sent home to fend for herself. She was left without any benefits or any re-entry help to begin her life again. Her family noticed a sharp change in her personality--from an outgoing and happy young woman to a severely disturbed, depressed and cynical young woman living in constant fear and anguish with no professional support to overcome her war experiences--let alone find a job--and a fierce, new chain-smoking habit. Her aunt said her only alternative was to re-enlist in the hopes of being stationed on a Navy base in Japan doing clerical work! At least, that's what the Navy promised her!
The woman and her daughter took flyers against Proposition V to give to family members who, along with the both of them, were outraged by the indifferent treatment the niece received from the military and the government after the sacrifice she had made for the military. The daughter commented, “That’s why you won’t see me join the military!” “They lied to my niece over and over again and then left her to deal with everything herself as if they owed nothing to her,” said her aunt. And while this mother and daughter were on their way to watch the acrobatics of the Navy Blue Angels, they went with the conviction of ending military recruitment in our schools. They were already convinced of their opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!
But what is also abundantly clear, is that the antiwar movement in San Francisco is far from unified and is not acting cohesively to oppose the war or military recruiting or to explain the economic crisis and its ties to the vast military expenditures of the Pentagon and the U.S. war machine--including their massive school recruitment program to gather cannon fodder for U.S. military assaults on innocent people in the unjust, illegal and immoral wars against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead of organizing united, independent actions against the wars in the streets during this severe economic crisis, antiwar, social justice and even radical groups are busy campaigning for various liberal candidates who promise to address these issues when and if they are elected. But they are failing to build the kind of independent mass movement in the streets that would be most effective to keep the pressure on candidates to live up to their promises no matter who gets elected!
Again, what needs to be shown to the world—clearly and on a massive scale—is the truth that the American people are opposed to these wars; to the massive military spending; to the cuts across the board on all social services including help for returning veterans; and to the massive economic bailout of the warmongers themselves! The antiwar movement is remiss in its obligation to come together in unity and solidarity to organize independent, massive, peaceful opposition in the streets to the U.S. war machine and those who control it. Instead of begging liberal candidates to carry out an antiwar agenda when elected, the antiwar movement should be out in the streets gathering the opposition forces necessary to be able to bring this country to a halt if they do not!
The only power strong enough to bring all this insanity to an end is the unified power of independent political protest and massive, peaceful actions in the streets uniting all those opposed to the war, to military spending and the economic bailout of the warmongers--no matter which one of them is elected!
We will continue to target different neighborhoods in San Francisco each Saturday until Election Day with material urging voters to Vote NO on V! Get the military out of our schools!
We are also still committed to trying to unite the antiwar movement into a real, independent, powerful force for peace and justice for all and an end to poverty and war and for united, independent, massive antiwar actions in the streets on the sixth anniversary of the war and on into the spring of 2009!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Bay Area United Against War
P.O. Box 318021, San Francisco, CA 94131-8021, 415-824-8730, www.bauaw.org
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STOP THE WAR
JOIN IRAQ MORATORIUM
FRI. OCT. 17 2 to 4 pm
UNIVERSITY & ACTON
We gather at the same time & place on the 3rd Friday of every month ...
Demand our tax $s be used for social uplift, not for death, destruction, and bailing out Wall St greed. Bring your signs, music, drums, guitars and ...
DETERMINATION TO END THE MADNESS OF WAR CREATE THE SANITY OF PEACE
STOP THE OCCUPATION NO ATTACK ON IRAN BRING TROOPS HOME
Sponsors: Berkeley Gray Panthers & Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenants Information: 510 548-9696 or 510 841-4143
Take the Iraq Moratorium Pledge at our New Web Site:
www.iraqmoratorium.com
labor donated
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Protest at mortgage bankers associates annual conference in SF
No foreclosures - No evictions
No bank bailouts - Housing is a right!
Sun. Oct. 19, 3pm Protest at opening ceremony of conference, Moscone West, 4th St. and Howard, SF
Mon. Oct. 20, 8am - Protest during Opening General Session, Moscone West, 4th St. and Howard, SF
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Chairmen headline Opening General Session and Annual Business Meeting from 8:30am-10:30am.
Initiated by ANSWER Coalition. To co-sponsor, please reply to this email or call 415-821-6545. http://www.votenobailout.org/
"Piggies"
By George Harrison
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt?
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse,
Always having dirt
To play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts?
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt,
Always have clean shirts
To play around in.
In their sties, with all their backing,
They don't care what goes on around.
In their eyes, there's something lacking;
What they need's a damn good whacking!
Everywhere there's lots of piggies,
Living piggy lives.
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives,
Clutching forks and knives
To eat their bacon.
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The Howard Thurman Convocation presents:
Chaplain James Yee, Former U.S. Army Chaplain, Guantanamo Bay
Sunday, October 19, 2008, 3:00 PM
The Church for The Fellowship of All Peoples
2041 Larkin Street/Broadway, SF 94109
www.fellowshipsf.org, (415) 776-4910
“The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men often call them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate the spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication, they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires.”
~ Howard Thurman, Footprints of a Dream, 1959
Captain James J. Yee is a former US Army Chaplain and graduate of West Point who served as the Muslim Chaplain for the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that became controversial for its treatment of detainees designated as "enemy combatants" by the U.S. government. While ministering to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Captain Yee objected to the cruel and degrading abuses to which the prisoners were subjected. This outspokenness led to his arrest and imprisonment, while being falsely accused of spying and espionage. After months of government investigation, all criminal charges were dropped. With his record wiped clean, Chaplain Yee resigned from the U.S. Army receiving an Honorable Discharge and was later awarded a second Army Commendation Medal for "exceptionally meritorious service."
Chaplain Yee's gripping account of his Guantanamo experience and struggle for justice has been recently published and is entitled For God And Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire. The Washington Post called it "required reading for all U.S. officials waging war on Islamic terrorists." Chaplain Yee will deliver the keynote address, “Faith in a time of Crisis.”
For faithful courage in pursuit of justice, Chaplain James J. Yee will receive the 2008 Howard Thurman Award.
A reception and book signing will immediately follow the 3pm program, downstairs in Thurman Hall. This is a free event and donations are greatly appreciated. Persons with special needs should contact the church office in advance, at (415) 776-4910. Public transportation is advised as street parking is quite limited.
To learn more about Dr. Howard Thurman, The Howard Thurman Center and the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, please visit our website at www.fellowshipsf.org.
joyce umamoto
nohid@mac.com
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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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National Assembly
Announcements:
UPDATED: September 26, 2008
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 July13, 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
National Assembly’s Continuations Body (in formation):
Beth Adams, Connecticut River Valley Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; Zaineb Alani, Author of The Words of an Iraqi War Survivor & More; Alexis Baden-Mayer, Grassroots Netroots Alliance; Steve Bloom, Solidarity; Michael Carano, Progressive Democrats of America/Ohio Branch; Jim Ciocia, AFSCME Staff Representative; Colia Clark, Chair, Richard Wright Centennial Committee; Grandmothers for Mumia Abu-Jamal; Greg Coleridge, Coordinator, Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition (NOAC) and Economic Justice and Empowerment Program Director, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Victor Crews, Wasatach Coalition for Peace and Justice (of Northern Utah); Alan Dale, Iraq Peace Action Coalition (MN); Donna Dewitt, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO*, Representing U.S. Labor Against the War on the Continuations Body; Jamilla El-Shafei, Founder, Kennebunks Peace Department; Co-Founder and Organizer, Stop-Loss Congress; Mike Ferner, Secretary, Veterans for Peace; Paul George, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center; Jerry Gordon, Former National Co-Coordinator of the Vietnam-era National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) and Member, U.S. Labor Against the War Steering Committee; John Harris, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition; Jonathan Hutto, Navy Petty Officer; Author of Anti-War Soldier; Co-Founder of Appeal for Redress; Tom Lacey, California Peace and Freedom Party; Marilyn Levin, Coordinating Committee, Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace, Middle East Crisis Coalition; Joe Lombardo, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, Northeast Peace and Justice Coalition; Jeff Mackler, Founder, San Francisco Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice; Christine Marie, Socialist Action; Logan Martinez, Green party of Ohio; Fred Mason, President, Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO and Co-Convenor, U.S. Labor Against the War; Atlee McFellin, Students for a Democratic Society, New School University Chapter, New York; Mary Nichols-Rhodes, Progressive Democrats of America/Ohio Branch; Northland Anti-War Coalition; Bill Onasch, Kansas City Labor Against the War; John Peterson, National Secretary, Workers International League; Dan Piper, CT United for Peace; Millie Phillips, Socialist Organizer; Thea Paneth, Arlington/Lexington United for Justice with Peace; Andy Pollack, Adalah/NY; Adam Ritscher, United Steelworkers Local 9460*; Vince Scarich, Los Altos Voices for Peace; Carole Seligman, Active in Campaign to Get Junior ROTC Out of San Francisco Schools; Peter Shell, Thomas Merton Center Antiwar Committee, Pittsburgh; Mark Stahl, Rhode Island Mobilization Committee to Stop War and Occupation; Lynne Stewart, Lynne Stewart Organization/Long Time Attorney and Defender of Constitutional Rights; Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War
Other endorsers (list in formation):
Haidar Abushaqra, Palestine American Congress,* CT; Adalah-NY; Campus Antiwar Network; Andy Anderson, Veterans for Peace, Duluth, MN; Jeff Anderson, Duluth, MN City Councilor; Kathy Anderson, Cuba Solidarity Committee, Duluth, MN; Arlington/Lexington (MA) United for Justice with Peace; Bay Area United Against War; Prof. Hal Bertilson, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Network of Spiritual Progressives; Scott Bol, Northeast Minnesota Citizens Federation; Heather Bradford, Co-Founder, College of St. Scholastica Students Against War, Superior, WI; Chicago Labor against the War; Coalition for Justice in the Middle East; Connecticut Coalition for Peace and Justice; CT River Valley Chapter, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; CT United for Peace; Duluth Area Green Party; Every Church a Church of Peace; Sharla Gardner, Duluth, MN City Councilor; Sam Goodall, Positively 3rd Street Bakery, Duluth, MN; Grandmothers for Peace, Duluth, MN; Greater Boston Stop the War Coalition; Sadie Green, Teamsters Local 391, Duluth, MN; Jeannie Gugliermino, Middletown Alliance for Peace,* Middletown, CT; Rose Helin, Founder, University of Wisconsin-Superior Students Against War; Melissa Helman, former School of the Americas (SOA) protest prisoner of conscience, Ashland, WI; Donna Howard, Co-Chair, Nonviolent Peaceforce; Iraq Peace Action Coalition (MN); Jeni Johnson, former news editor, Promethean newspaper, Superior, WI; Laurie Johnson, AFSCME Council 5 Business Representative, Duluth, MN; Kansas City Labor Against War; Lake Superior Greens, Superior, WI; Joan Linski, UNITE HERE Local 99; Loaves and Fishes, Catholic Worker Community; Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO; Dorotea Manuela -- Chair, New Mission High School Governing Board*, Co-Chair Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Committee*; Co-Coordinator Rapid Response Network/Boston May Day Coalition*; Ronald Miller, Progressive Action; Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal/Northern California; Tess Moren, University of Wisconsin -Superior International Peace Studies Student Association; Michelle Naar-Obed, Christian Peacemakers Team; Network of Spiritual Progressives, Duluth, MN Chapter; Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition (NOAC); Northland Anti-War Coalition, Duluth, MN; Frank O'Gorman, People of Faith,* Hartford, CT; Ohio State Labor Party; Cheryl Olson, Grandmothers for Peace, Superior, WI; Lyn Clark Pegg, Witness for Peace, Duluth, MN; Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, Palo Alto, CA.; June Pinken, Manchester Peace Coalition,* Manchester, CT; Helen Raisz, Womens' International League for Peace and Freedom,* Hartford, CT; Rhode Island Committee to Stop War and Occupation; Lorena Rodriguez, International Partnership Coordinator of the Student Trade Justice Campaign, Chicago, IL; Mike Rogge, Co-Founder, College of St. Scholastica Students Against War, Superior, WI; Lucy Rosenblatt, We Refuse to Be Enemies,* Hartford, CT; Arielle Schnur, Students for Peace; Ahlam Shalhout, author, Recovering Stolen Memories, New London, CT; Socialist Organizer; Socialist Party of Connecticut; Solidarity; Troops Out Now Coalition (TONC); U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW); Veterans for Peace, Chapter 80, Duluth, MN; Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice of Northern Utah; Steve Wick, President, University of Minnesota- Duluth Students for Peace; Mike Winterfield, We Refuse to Be Enemies,* Hartford, CT; Women's International League for Peace and Freedom/Pittsburgh; Workers International League
* indicates for identification only
National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
http://natassembly.org/members/index.php?org-id=2
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The NO on Proposition V website is now up and running, at:
http://www.NoMilitaryRecruitmentInOurSchools.org
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San Francisco Proposition U is on the November ballot.
Shall it be City policy to advocate that its elected representatives in the
United States Senate and House of Representatives vote against any further
funding for the deployment of United States Armed Forces in Iraq, with the
exception of funds specifically earmarked to provide for their safe and
orderly withdrawal.
If you'd like to help us out please contact me. Donations would be wonderful, we need them for signs and buttons. Please see the link on our web site.
Thank you.
Rick Hauptman
Prop U Steering Commiittee
http://yesonpropu.blogspot.com/
tel 415-861-7425
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) More Con Ed Customers Having Power Turned Off
By Ken Belson
"All ratepayers ultimately pick up the tab for those who stop paying for their electricity. Buried on monthly electric bills is a “merchant function charge,” which covers Con Ed’s administrative costs of doing business." [So why are they cutting off the electricity to those who can't pay for it?...bw]
October 9, 2008, 3:08 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/con-ed/
2) Sharpton and 7 Others Guilty in Sean Bell Protest
By JOHN ELIGON
October 9, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/nyregion/09bell.html?ref=nyregion
3) Sheriff in Chicago Ends Evictions in Foreclosures
By JOHN LELAND
Published: October 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/09chicago.html
4) Moment of Truth
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
October 10, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp
5) Building a Better Bailout
Editorial
October 10, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10fri1.html?hp
6) High & Low Finance
Plan B: Flood Banks With Cash
By FLOYD NORRIS
October 10, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/business/10norris.html?hp
7) NATO to Hit Drug Trade in Afghanistan
By JUDY DEMPSEY
October 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/world/asia/11nato.html?hp
8) A Power That May Not Stay So Super
By DAVID LEONHARDT
October 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/weekinreview/12leonhardt.html?hp
9) Gordon Does Good
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
10) Abortion Rights on the Ballot, Again
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13mon1.html?hp
11) General Says He’s Hopeful About Taliban War
By JOHN F. BURNS
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/world/asia/13afghan.html?ref=world
12) Under ‘No Child’ Law, Even Solid Schools Falter
By SAM DILLON
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/education/13child.html?ref=us
13) More Schools Miss the Mark, Raising Pressure
By KRISTIN HUSSEY
Education
October 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/nyregion/connecticut/12nochildct.html?ref=education
14) Teachers Sue Over Right to Politic
By JENNIFER MEDINA
October 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/nyregion/11button.html?ref=education
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1) More Con Ed Customers Having Power Turned Off
By Ken Belson
October 9, 2008, 3:08 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/con-ed/
One of the most reliable indicators of when times are tough is how many people have their power turned off because they failed to pay their bill.
According to the latest figures from Con Edison, times seem to be tough. The utility said that for the year through the end of September, 9,639 residential customers had their electricity turned off because they failed to pay their bills, 13 percent more than in the same period in 2007. The value of those unpaid bills jumped faster — 28.3 percent — to $8.9 million, a reflection of the rise in energy prices.
During the same period, 1,600 nonresidential customers (shops, offices, factories and so on) had their power turned off, an 8 percent increase.
The numbers provide a good indication that consumers are having trouble because electricity is so crucial to everyday life and families and businesses often do whatever it takes to keep the lights on.
Con Ed also jumps through a lot of hoops to warn customers that their electricity is in danger of being turned off. The company sends as many as five warning letters over a 90-day period before ultimately turning a customer’s electricity off, according to Michael Clendenin, a spokesman for Con Ed, The company also calls customers and will occasionally visit a residence or business.
During this time, Con Ed gives customers in arrears a chance to work out a payment plan, which heads off disaster more often than not.
“Most people get their lights turned off are back on with a month, because they’ve entered a payment plan or made a payment,” Mr. Clendenin said.
Between January and the end of September, 342,073 residential customers were in arrears for more than 60 days, an 18 percent jump.
All ratepayers ultimately pick up the tab for those who stop paying for their electricity. Buried on monthly electric bills is a “merchant function charge,” which covers Con Ed’s administrative costs of doing business.
The line item was added in April to help customers compare costs with those of other power providers. In May, the total charge was 0.5221 cents per kilowatt hour used. Of that amount, 0.1148 cents is set aside to cover the uncollectible bills that delinquent customers leave behind.
Part of the money also goes to hiring collection agencies that try to track down the customers.
Wendell F. Holland, a partner at Saul Ewing, a firm that represents utilities and energy companies, said that utilities usually could not collect 1 percent to 1.5 percent of their bills, an amount he called “the cost of doing business.”
Even when customers are well behind in paying the bills, utilities typically wait until after the winter is over to turn off their power and heat for nonpayment. The slowing economy, however, may lead to more customers’ losing power.
“This problem is not just in New York State, but national,” said Mr. Holland, a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. “Unfortunately for all involved, the timing couldn’t be worse in light of the bank collapses.”
Some nonprofit groups step in to help families who lose their power and heat. But they have been running short of funds as well, according to Gerald A. Norlander, the director of the Public Utility Law Project.
“Catholic Charities, the Red Cross and other charities are not able to meet the need,” Mr. Norlander said. “Utility ‘fuel fund’ charities use customer donations matched by the utility, but they are a drop in the bucket, often exhausted, and some have very restrictive eligibility conditions, limiting aid to the elderly and disabled.”
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2) Sharpton and 7 Others Guilty in Sean Bell Protest
By JOHN ELIGON
October 9, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/nyregion/09bell.html?ref=nyregion
In some ways, it was reminiscent of another cool, sunny day six months ago.
There was a packed courtroom held rapt by a judge’s words. The Rev. Al Sharpton was among those front and center. And Sean Bell, the Queens man who was killed in a hail of 50 police bullets on his wedding day two years ago, was the primary reason anyone was there.
Mr. Sharpton and seven others were facing disorderly conduct charges after they blocked several bridges and tunnels around the city in May during a protest of the April 25 acquittal of three detectives charged in Mr. Bell’s death. More than 200 people were arrested, and all but eight cases were dismissed.
And so, after two days of court proceedings, Judge Larry R. Stephen of Manhattan Criminal Court rendered his verdict on Wednesday. He found Mr. Sharpton and his co-defendants guilty of disorderly conduct, which is a violation and does not result in a criminal record.
Although Judge Stephen said he was “sympathetic to the underlying causes which gave rise to the protests and demonstrations,” he added, “The evidence is overwhelming.”
“My view is, if you decide to take a bullet for the team, you should not complain about the consequences that flow from that act,” Judge Stephen said.
The consequences in this case were negligible.
Although prosecutors asked that the defendants be fined $250 each and be ordered to perform community service, Judge Stephen spared them additional jail time (they were all locked up for a couple of hours at most after their arrests), and simply ordered them to pay $95 in court fees. (Mr. Sharpton said he would pick up the tab for each defendant and would pay with $50 bills to represent the number of shots fired at Mr. Bell’s car in November 2006.)
Michael A. Hardy, a lawyer for the defendants, said he would consult with them before deciding whether to appeal.
After the judge rendered his verdict and sentence, Wylie M. Stecklow, another lawyer for the defendants, reminded the judge that they were supposed to make statements before sentencing. Judge Stephen gave each of them three minutes, but did not budge on his decision.
In April, when a Supreme Court judge in Queens acquitted the three detectives, many Bell supporters were in tears, and an angry Mr. Sharpton left the courthouse without saying a word. He blasted Justice Arthur J. Cooperman’s verdict on his radio show later that day. Some Bell supporters got into a confrontation with photographers outside the courthouse.
The reaction on Wednesday was a stark contrast.
Mr. Sharpton seemed to welcome the verdict. He stood before Judge Stephen and thanked him for acknowledging that his protests were peaceful. He also apologized to anyone whom his protests might have inconvenienced, but said he hoped that the civil disobedience made an impression on them.
“I hope the city would think about how the pedestrians who couldn’t walk that day, and the drivers who couldn’t drive, were no different than the three young men who sat in the car that day and were shot at,” Mr. Sharpton said.
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Sharpton, flanked by Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, the men who were in the car with Mr. Bell the night they were shot outside a Queens strip club, spoke of the differences between the verdict on Wednesday and the one rendered six months ago.
“It feels a lot better hearing this judge in Manhattan at least respect the outrage and the feeling of the people, rather than act like we’re criminals because we don’t understand why three unarmed men were shot at 50 times,” Mr. Sharpton said.
After Mr. Bell left his bachelor party at the club in Queens early on Nov. 25, 2006, he and his friends exchanged words with a man outside, according to testimony at the trial of the detectives. The detectives said they thought someone with Mr. Bell had a gun, so they followed them to a car around the corner. They said they fired after Mr. Bell refused orders to stop and tried to speed off in his car. Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield were wounded.
In some ways, Wednesday’s guilty verdict further emboldened Mr. Sharpton’s cause. He and several co-defendants were quick to point out that while they were convicted, the detectives who fired at Mr. Bell’s car were not.
“For the judge to find us guilty of any crime when the police were found not guilty of anything, there’s no justice,” said Sara Flounders, one of the people convicted on Wednesday.
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3) Sheriff in Chicago Ends Evictions in Foreclosures
By JOHN LELAND
Published: October 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/09chicago.html
Law enforcement officers in Chicago will no longer evict residents
from foreclosed properties, Sheriff Thomas J. Dart of Cook County
announced Wednesday.
The department was on pace to conduct 4,700 foreclosures this year,
nearly triple the number from two years ago, Sheriff Dart said.
Housing advocates said that they thought the measure was the first of
its kind, but that in recent years, several sheriffs and judges around
the country had taken other steps to slow foreclosure proceedings,
like requiring lenders to produce titles proving they owned the
properties in question. In Philadelphia this year, Sheriff John D.
Green temporarily suspended sales of foreclosed properties.
Sheriff Dart said he took the measure because an increasing number of
the residents being evicted were renters who might have been dutifully
paying their rent, and might have had no knowledge that the owner was
behind on the mortgage.
Under a new Chicago law, renters are entitled to a 90-day grace
period, starting at the time a foreclosure sale is confirmed, before
they can be evicted.
Sheriff Dart said the families in foreclosed properties were often not
notified that they would have to leave, and were not given this grace
period. Sometimes their first sign of trouble was the appearance of
deputies at the door, demanding that they leave.
"It started with just a couple cases like that, but they kept
multiplying," Sheriff Dart said. "Just in the past month, about a
third of the people we were asked to evict were under very
questionable circumstances. It got to the point that enough was
enough."
Officials at the national Mortgage Bankers Association were
unavailable for comment, a spokesman said. Officials at the Illinois
Mortgage Bankers Association did not return calls seeking comment.
On a recent case, deputies were called to evict residents at a
foreclosed building on North Spaulding Avenue, and arrived to find six
families who were all paying rent to the landlord.
"All the time we paid every month, he never said nothing," said Alma
Aquino, who lived in one unit with her husband, their two children,
and Mrs. Aquino's mother and sister, for a rent of $850. "My husband
tried to explain, but the sheriffs said we can't talk, we need to
evacuate."
The family ended up staying, and Sheriff Dart, who has supported
legislation to protect residents in foreclosures, soon stopped
evictions.
Sheriff Dart said the evictions had taken an emotional toll on his
staff. "It's one of most gut-wrenching things we do, seeing little
children put out on the street with their possessions. And the hard
part is that the parent played by all the rules, and they're being
traumatized."
Nationally, only about 10 percent of residents in properties with
subprime mortgages - the ones most likely to go into foreclosure - are
renters, said Eric Halperin, director of the Washington office of the
Center for Responsible Lending, an advocacy group. But in some cities
the figure is much higher. Daniel Lindsey of the Home Ownership
Preservation Project run by Legal Assistance of Chicago, estimated
that half of the city's foreclosures involved renters.
"This is a big deal in the sense that it shows the pressures local
governments are under when they're forced to carry out those
foreclosures and evictions," Mr. Halperin said. "It's another example
of how the foreclosure crisis is overwhelming our institutions.
Homeowners and renters can't get the relief they're entitled to under
the law."
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4) Moment of Truth
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
October 10, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp
Last month, when the U.S. Treasury Department allowed Lehman Brothers to fail, I wrote that Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was playing financial Russian roulette. Sure enough, there was a bullet in that chamber: Lehman’s failure caused the world financial crisis, already severe, to get much, much worse.
The consequences of Lehman’s fall were apparent within days, yet key policy players have largely wasted the past four weeks. Now they’ve reached a moment of truth: They’d better do something soon — in fact, they’d better announce a coordinated rescue plan this weekend — or the world economy may well experience its worst slump since the Great Depression.
Let’s talk about where we are right now.
The current crisis started with a burst housing bubble, which led to widespread mortgage defaults, and hence to large losses at many financial institutions. That initial shock was compounded by secondary effects, as lack of capital forced banks to pull back, leading to further declines in the prices of assets, leading to more losses, and so on — a vicious circle of “deleveraging.” Pervasive loss of trust in banks, including on the part of other banks, reinforced the vicious circle.
The downward spiral accelerated post-Lehman. Money markets, already troubled, effectively shut down — one line currently making the rounds is that the only things anyone wants to buy right now are Treasury bills and bottled water.
The response to this downward spiral on the part of the world’s two great monetary powers — the United States, on one side, and the 15 nations that use the euro, on the other — has been woefully inadequate.
Europe, lacking a common government, has literally been unable to get its act together; each country has been making up its own policy, with little coordination, and proposals for a unified response have gone nowhere.
The United States should have been in a much stronger position. And when Mr. Paulson announced his plan for a huge bailout, there was a temporary surge of optimism. But it soon became clear that the plan suffered from a fatal lack of intellectual clarity. Mr. Paulson proposed buying $700 billion worth of “troubled assets” — toxic mortgage-related securities — from banks, but he was never able to explain why this would resolve the crisis.
What he should have proposed instead, many economists agree, was direct injection of capital into financial firms: The U.S. government would provide financial institutions with the capital they need to do business, thereby halting the downward spiral, in return for partial ownership. When Congress modified the Paulson plan, it introduced provisions that made such a capital injection possible, but not mandatory. And until two days ago, Mr. Paulson remained resolutely opposed to doing the right thing.
But on Wednesday the British government, showing the kind of clear thinking that has been all too scarce on this side of the pond, announced a plan to provide banks with £50 billion in new capital — the equivalent, relative to the size of the economy, of a $500 billion program here — together with extensive guarantees for financial transactions between banks. And U.S. Treasury officials now say that they plan to do something similar, using the authority they didn’t want but Congress gave them anyway.
The question now is whether these moves are too little, too late. I don’t think so, but it will be very alarming if this weekend rolls by without a credible announcement of a new financial rescue plan, involving not just the United States but all the major players.
Why do we need international cooperation? Because we have a globalized financial system in which a crisis that began with a bubble in Florida condos and California McMansions has caused monetary catastrophe in Iceland. We’re all in this together, and need a shared solution.
Why this weekend? Because there happen to be two big meetings taking place in Washington: a meeting of top financial officials from the major advanced nations on Friday, then the annual International Monetary Fund/World Bank meeting Saturday and Sunday. If these meetings end without at least an agreement in principle on a global rescue plan — if everyone goes home with nothing more than vague assertions that they intend to stay on top of the situation — a golden opportunity will have been missed, and the downward spiral could easily get even worse.
What should be done? The United States and Europe should just say “Yes, prime minister.” The British plan isn’t perfect, but there’s widespread agreement among economists that it offers by far the best available template for a broader rescue effort.
And the time to act is now. You may think that things can’t get any worse — but they can, and if nothing is done in the next few days, they will.
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5) Building a Better Bailout
Editorial
October 10, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10fri1.html?hp
Last month, when he defended his bailout plan before Congress, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was reluctant to have the government take an ownership stake in the banks that taxpayers are going to rescue. It came as a relief on Wednesday when he executed an about-face and said that the Treasury was now considering doing just that.
In the weeks since the bailout was announced, the financial markets and broader economy have continued to deteriorate, with credit still in a deep freeze and the stock market plunging anew in the last two hours of trading on Thursday.
Injecting cash directly into banks in exchange for an ownership share would provide a quicker and more powerful boost to the financial system than the measures proposed in the original bailout plan. It would also be a better deal for taxpayers, because it would give them a direct claim on any postbailout profits earned by the bank.
Mr. Paulson’s original plan, which was modified by Congress to include the possibility of the government taking equity positions, envisioned a complex process in which taxpayer money would be used to buy banks’ bad assets. That would enable the banks to start lending again and would drain a lot of the poison that is ruining their health. Once taxpayers graciously put the banks on the road to recovery, the original plan assumed that private equity firms and other investors would invest loads of fresh capital in them and reap, for themselves, the subsequent gains.
Workable, perhaps, but infuriating. Investing money in exchange for equity is more efficient and — not incidentally — more fair.
It’s still unclear how and to what extent the Treasury would inject capital and assume ownership. But it is clear that the new approach would be more than a tactical shift, although President Bush and Mr. Paulson are unlikely to ever admit as much.
Under the original plan, the government’s role was to pave the way for private investors to regain control of the financial system as soon as possible.
In essence, that plan adhered to the prevailing Republican ideology that the government’s primary aim should be to help the markets to pursue profits, and that markets, in turn, best provide for the public interest. Clearly, if that were the case, we would not be in this mess. Taking ownership in return for taxpayer money is an admission that government is the only force that can pull us out of this crisis — by asserting the public interest.
Even with a better bailout, it will take years, not months, to repair the damage. It is now obvious that Wall Street spent most of the Bush years trafficking in bad debt, a profitable enterprise while it lasted, but a destructive force that is now wreaking new havoc daily.
At last count, 12 million homeowners had zero or negative equity in their homes. Millions are in some stage of foreclosure. Retirement and other savings, for those Americans who have them, are being decimated, and unemployment is rising. Consumers are recoiling, an understandable reaction, but one that will reinforce the downward economic trend. There surely are more economic shocks in store, among them, corporate defaults and state-government budget emergencies.
How we will emerge from this crisis is not yet known. But we know how we got into it. The question — which is about to be put to the voters in November — is whether the nation will learn from its mistakes, or whether the deregulatory, anti-government ethos of the last several decades will be alllowed to reassert itself when the economy begins to recover.
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6) High & Low Finance
Plan B: Flood Banks With Cash
By FLOYD NORRIS
October 10, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/business/10norris.html?hp
Banks are supposed to lend money, but they aren’t doing very much of it these days. That is not the only cause of the global recession that is unfolding, but it is hard to see how economies can begin to recover without functioning financial systems.
The American government has responded by taking over more and more of the lending itself, while using indirect means to shore up the banking system. It has not worked.
Never in history have the Federal Reserve and the Treasury announced more plans to try to fix the financial system within a span of a few months — and rarely have investors been less impressed.
The Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks is down 22 percent since the end of September, and 42 percent since it peaked a year ago.
It may be time to try a new approach, and perhaps to abandon the announced details of the bailout plan passed by Congress with such difficulty only a week ago. The government needs to decide which banks it is sure are worth saving, and pump capital into them directly.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. indicated this week that he was considering such an approach, which would be much simpler and could be much more effective.
The announced plan for the bailout package was for the government to buy up dubious assets from banks, paying more than they are worth now but less than they are expected to be worth later.
If that is completed, banks will get cash — $700 billion or more. But their net worth will rise only to the extent the government overpays for the assets. Pricing those assets will be anything but easy, and the expectation of the government program has further frozen those markets. No one wants to sell until they can find out what the government will offer.
The alternative is to go in the direction Britain went this week. The government could use the $700 billion, or at least a large part of it, to buy preferred stock in banks.
The government could be selective in deciding which banks get the cash, and it could impose conditions on those that seek the money. Those banks could be required to come clean about the risks that they have taken in dubious assets, and to write those assets down to what a willing buyer would pay now.
With that information, the government may decide to let some banks fail. But the others, in which the government does invest, would have a government seal of approval that was backed up by cash.
And a lot of cash. A rule of thumb might be that if the government thinks a bank needs $4 billion in additional capital, it gets $8 billion.
The terms could be arranged so that the government gets a reasonable profit if the bank can pay the money back within five years, and can convert its stake into common stock only if that deadline is not met. That would give the current shareholders hope that their stock will be worth something someday, and perhaps avoid the further sell-offs that could otherwise arrive with the plan.
For much of the 14 months this crisis has been growing, the government has believed it was one of illiquidity — a temporary inability to raise cash — rather than insolvency — the issue when a financial institution is broke. The assumption was that the banks really would be fine when worries went away, and they had to be helped over that temporary hump. The Federal Reserve expanded both the amount it was willing to lend and the collateral it would take to back up loans.
The crisis, it turns out, is one of a lack of solvency, not just liquidity, and that is why banks fear to lend to one another. Each bank knows the games it has played in valuing assets — or at least could have played — and is loath to believe the balance sheets of other banks. That suspicion has chilled the interbank lending market.
The sad saga of the American International Group is one reason for that chill. When A.I.G. first said it needed help, $40 billion was said to be all it needed. Now the total is over $120 billion, as more problems are found.
One European precedent that the Treasury could study was used this week when the government of Denmark guaranteed both deposits in Danish banks and all interbank loans. The banks were ordered to halt dividend payments and share buybacks.
Given their need for capital, it is odd that most American banks are paying any dividends at all. Even after reductions, most big American bank shares now yield more than 3 percent, and some more than 7 percent.
Yet few of the banks are confident they have enough capital, or that their competitors do, which is why they are reluctant to lend. In that atmosphere, does it make any sense to reduce capital by paying dividends? Should the government funnel money to companies whose owners are getting big payouts while the banks report large losses?
In the absence of a functioning financial system, the Federal Reserve announced plans this week to lend money to companies that cannot get credit in the free market. Those loans will be made at low interest rates, with no equity for the government and no controls over how the money is spent.
It ought to make anyone nervous to have the government allocating capital, which in this environment could mean it is making the decision to let companies live or fail.
How will the Federal Reserve deal with that quandary? What interest rate will it charge if it is the only lender willing to put up cash to buy a company’s commercial paper? There are no answers available.
The Fed does say it will not buy more commercial paper from a company than the company had outstanding in August. And it will cut off a company if one of the rating agencies downgrades it.
Doesn’t it make you feel better to know that the Fed has subcontracted its investment decisions to Moody’s and its competitors?
Ideologically, this is not what either Republicans or Democrats would have proposed a few months ago. But desperate times produce desperate tactics.
“The central bankers all learned the lesson of the 1930s,” said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, a Wall Street firm. That lesson was that if the choice is between allowing the system to collapse and writing a lot of checks, you write the checks and forget about ideology.
Unfortunately, none of them learned the lesson of the 1920s, which is that when asset prices soar, it is not a good idea to sit around doing nothing, as the Fed did for most of the housing boom. Cheerleading, which it sometimes did, is even worse.
One aspect of this crisis is that the people in charge of the financial system — in the banks, at the Fed and other central banks and at the Treasury Department and other finance ministries — consistently underestimated the damage, both to the system and to the world economies. At first, many thought the damage would be limited to losses from a small group of mortgages. Banks raised a little capital, but not nearly enough.
As the problems spread, they kept offering reassuring words, which they might well have believed. Those words provided brief comfort for some, but destroyed a lot of credibility.
As recently as Sept. 18, after Lehman Brothers had gone broke and it was clear that consumers were cutting back, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee thought the economy could come through. “Participants agreed that economic growth was likely to be sluggish in the second half of 2008,” said the minutes of the meeting. “Several participants had marked down their near-term outlook for economic activity and some judged that downside risks had increased, but most continued to expect a gradual recovery in 2009.”
We should be so lucky as to get sluggish growth for the remainder of 2008. The gross domestic product seems likely to show significant declines, and those declines may continue into 2009.
The real problem, which many preferred to ignore because they had no ready answer, was that the financial system was breaking down. The excesses of lending and gambling had destroyed the new financial system — the one built on securities as an alternative to bank lending — and left the old commercial banks too weakened to step in.
Or, in the words of Paul A. Volcker, the former Fed chairman, “In the U.S., the market took over. The market has flopped.”
Now, added Mr. Volcker, “everybody is running back to Mother, the commercial banking system.”
Unfortunately, Mother is very ill. Even worse, her children do not trust one another, and that is why the system is frozen.
In 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt became president amid a panic, he declared a bank holiday that closed the banks while federal examiners went over their books. When the holiday was over, the government closed some banks and declared the rest were healthy.
In reality, there was no way the government could be sure of that. But the public accepted it, and the bank runs stopped.
This time, the government has offered too many assurances that turned out to be false. It will take cash to convince the public — and the other banks — that the survivors are safe.
Floyd Norris’s blog on finance and economics is at nytimes.com/norris.
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7) NATO to Hit Drug Trade in Afghanistan
By JUDY DEMPSEY
October 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/world/asia/11nato.html?hp
BUDAPEST, Hungary — NATO defense ministers agreed Friday to allow attacks on Afghanistan’s drug trade, after the United States reached a compromise with its other 25 allies in a major shift in strategy for the alliance.
The accord, accepted with some misgivings by several European countries, including Germany and Spain, means that troops will be able to attack facilities connected to opium production but that they must obtain authorization from their own national governments.
A spokesman for the head of the alliance, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said the ministers agreed that the NATO-led security force “can act in concert with the Afghans against facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency, subject to the authorization of respective nations,” Agence France-Presse reported.
NATO officials stressed that only drug producers known to be supporting the insurgency would be singled out. The operation will not be open-ended and will end when the Afghan security forces are able to take on the task themselves.
The decision, which could include bombing laboratories that convert opium to heroin, was reached under considerable pressure from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and NATO’s Supreme commander, General John Craddock. Throughout the two-day meeting in Budapest, they had stressed that the drug trade was helping to finance the Taliban insurgency. Drug barons are estimated to provide $100 million a year to the Taliban, according to The Associated Press.
“Secretary Gates is extremely pleased that, after two days of thoughtful discussion, NATO has decided to allow ISAF forces to take on the drug traffickers who are fueling the insurgency, destabilizing Afghanistan and killing our troops,” said the Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell. NATO’s 37,000 troops are part of the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF.
Germany and Spain agreed to the antidrug mission after an appeal for help from Afghanistan’s defense minister, The Associated Press said.
“We’ve asked NATO to please support us, support our effort in destroying the labs and also the interdiction of the drugs and the chemical precursors that are coming from outside the country for making heroin,” said the minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak.
Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the heroin on world markets.
NATO’s troops, particularly those in the south of Afghanistan, have come under such sustained attack from the insurgents over the past few months that the British commander, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, warned it would be impossible to defeat the Taliban.
NATO defense ministers will review the success of the mission when they next meet February in Poland.
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8) A Power That May Not Stay So Super
By DAVID LEONHARDT
October 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/weekinreview/12leonhardt.html?hp
AT the turn of the 20th century, toward the end of a brutal and surprisingly difficult victory in the Second Boer War, the people of Britain began to contemplate the possibility that theirs was a nation in decline. They worried that London’s big financial sector was draining resources from the industrial economy and wondered whether Britain’s schools were inadequate. In 1905, a new book — a fictional history, set in the year 2005 — appeared under the title, “The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.”
The crisis of confidence led to a sharp political reaction. In the 1906 election, the Liberals ousted the Conservatives in a landslide and ushered in an era of reform. But it did not stave off a slide from economic or political prominence. Within four decades, a much larger country, across an ocean to the west, would clearly supplant Britain as the world’s dominant power.
The United States of today and Britain of 1905 are certainly more different than they are similar. Yet the financial shocks of the past several weeks — coming on top of an already weak economy and an unpopular war — have created their own crisis of national confidence.
On Friday, as the stock market finished one of its worst weeks by falling yet again, to roughly half of its level just one year ago, the Gallup Poll reported that Americans were substantially more pessimistic about the economy than they have been in more than two decades of polling. Nearly 60 percent say the economy is in poor shape, and 90 percent say it’s still getting worse.
“One thing seems probable to me,” Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said recently. “The U.S. will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system.” At another time, that remark might have sounded like mere nationalist bluster. Right now, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to ask whether 2008 will come to be seen as the first year of a distinctly non-American century.
At the heart of the troubles, both short term and long term, is debt. Debt helped create the housing bubble and has now left almost one of every six homeowners with a mortgage larger than the value of their home. Debt built up, and then laid low, modern Wall Street, where firms borrowed $30 for every $1 they owned. And in the coming years, debt will constrain the United States government, as it copes with the combined deficits created by the Bush administration’s policies, the ever-more expensive financial rescue and the biggest item of all, Medicare for the baby boomers.
In essence, households, banks and the government have already spent some of their future earnings. The current crisis marks the point at which the bills begin to get paid. Whereas Britain lumbered under the weight of imperial overreach, as the historian Niall Ferguson has written, the United States will be shackled primarily by its financial overreach.
“Given the burden of debt that has accumulated, it’s hard to see the U.S. economy growing as fast as it did over the past few decades,” Mr. Ferguson said. “There is a profound mood shift occurring.”
But he added two caveats. The political language of both presidential campaigns makes clear that many voters, for all the current pessimism, still believe in the idea of American pre-eminence. So, apparently, do many of the world’s investors.
In recent weeks, the dollar has held its own. Stocks in every other major country are down about as much over the last year as they are in the United States, if not much more. America may not be a safe haven anymore, but it does seem to be safer haven.
Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, said that he was recently speaking to a senior Chinese economist, who said that people in his home country — today’s rising economic power — don’t see the sky falling on the American economy. “They know its ability to turn around problems is really unmatched, historically,” Mr. Zoellick said, quoting the economist about the United States. “At the same time, they ask themselves, Will the United States get at some of the root causes that could determine its real strength over the next 10 or 20 or 30 years?”
This is not the first time in recent history that the economic position of the United States has appeared precarious. At various points between the mid-1970s and early 1990s, Europe and Japan each looked like the next great power. Neither turned out to be.
Japan suffered through its own burst bubble and spent years denying the depth of its problems. Europe proved unable to create engines of growth that could match the software, biotechnology or entertainment industries in the United States.
Taken to its extreme, the American preference for a faster, riskier capitalism led directly to the current crisis. But that preference also helps explain why America is weathering the crisis at least as well as other countries.
Compared with many banks elsewhere, American banks uncovered their problems fairly quickly. Consider the case of Mr. Steinbrück, the German finance minister. Only two weeks ago, around the time that he was predicting the end of American financial dominance, he rejected calls for a Europe-wide bailout. The crisis, he said, was largely American. Last Sunday, Mr. Steinbrück and Chancellor Angela Merkel had to go before television cameras to assure Germans that their government was guaranteeing their savings.
(On Friday, Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, seemed to deliver a message to the Germans in an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal: “The days of finger pointing and schadenfreude are over.”)
Policy makers in this country have also seemed behind the curve for much of the last year. On Friday, only a week after Ben S. Bernanke, the current Fed chairman, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, dismissed the idea as unwise, Mr. Paulson said the government would buy stock in financial firms. The British government announced a similar plan on Tuesday.
On the whole, though, American officials have been more aggressive than their overseas counterparts, and that has served as a reminder of the American economy’s durable flexibility.
It is possible, then, that the main legacy of the crisis will be some form of corrective to the country’s recent excesses. The economy looks to be heading into a period of more regulated, but still American-style, capitalism, more along the lines of how it operated in the 1950s, 1960s and 1990s. Those three decades happen to have produced the biggest and most widely shared economic gains since World War II.
But if that outcome is possible, it’s not inevitable, and many economists say it isn’t even likely. The debts run up in recent years are particularly unfortunate, because they stole resources from the future without laying the groundwork for future growth. “If you told me we were spending like crazy to build schools and send everyone to college, that would have infinitely different implications than borrowing like crazy to finance current consumption,” said Christina Romer, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley.
Schools, roads, airports and the medical system, as well as the country’s energy policy, all appear to need significant fixing, and yet there will be less money to fix them than there was 5 or 10 years ago. With the coming explosion in Medicare costs, the federal budget deficit could eventually get so large that foreign investors would get spooked. They might then decide that other economies were safer bets and shift more of their lending there. Were that to happen, and the United States struggled to attract financing, the country would face a whole new crisis.
As it is, the Chinese economy has grown so quickly in recent years that it could overtake the American economy as the world’s largest by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs. Just three years ago, Goldman predicted that China was unlikely to become No. 1 until at least 2040.
Some of this catch-up is inevitable. As in the British Empire’s day, poorer countries are able to attract investment thanks to their low wages and also copy the successes of their richer rivals, notes Benjamin Polak, an economic historian at Yale. China still seems considerably less advanced, relative to its rivals, than the United States was in 1905. China remains a politically insecure, deeply unequal country.
But it is indeed making enormous progress, and that progress has consequences. Economic might translates quite directly into political and military might.
Will that prospect be enough to galvanize a serious response to the long-term economic problems in the United States? Or are there still more crises to come?
“The political system does not deal well with gradual, long-term problems,” Peter Orszag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, said. “It deals with crises, often imperfectly, but it does deal with them. The current experience makes the case.”
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9) Gordon Does Good
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?
O.K., the question is premature — we still don’t know the exact shape of the planned financial rescues in Europe or for that matter the United States, let alone whether they’ll really work. What we do know, however, is that Mr. Brown and Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to our Treasury secretary), have defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up.
This is an unexpected turn of events. The British government is, after all, very much a junior partner when it comes to world economic affairs. It’s true that London is one of the world’s great financial centers, but the British economy is far smaller than the U.S. economy, and the Bank of England doesn’t have anything like the influence either of the Federal Reserve or of the European Central Bank. So you don’t expect to see Britain playing a leadership role.
But the Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own.
What is the nature of the crisis? The details can be insanely complex, but the basics are fairly simple. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to large losses for anyone who bought assets backed by mortgage payments; these losses have left many financial institutions with too much debt and too little capital to provide the credit the economy needs; troubled financial institutions have tried to meet their debts and increase their capital by selling assets, but this has driven asset prices down, reducing their capital even further.
What can be done to stem the crisis? Aid to homeowners, though desirable, can’t prevent large losses on bad loans, and in any case will take effect too slowly to help in the current panic. The natural thing to do, then — and the solution adopted in many previous financial crises — is to deal with the problem of inadequate financial capital by having governments provide financial institutions with more capital in return for a share of ownership.
This sort of temporary part-nationalization, which is often referred to as an “equity injection,” is the crisis solution advocated by many economists — and sources told The Times that it was also the solution privately favored by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman.
But when Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury secretary, announced his plan for a $700 billion financial bailout, he rejected this obvious path, saying, “That’s what you do when you have failure.” Instead, he called for government purchases of toxic mortgage-backed securities, based on the theory that ... actually, it never was clear what his theory was.
Meanwhile, the British government went straight to the heart of the problem — and moved to address it with stunning speed. On Wednesday, Mr. Brown’s officials announced a plan for major equity injections into British banks, backed up by guarantees on bank debt that should get lending among banks, a crucial part of the financial mechanism, running again. And the first major commitment of funds will come on Monday — five days after the plan’s announcement.
At a special European summit meeting on Sunday, the major economies of continental Europe in effect declared themselves ready to follow Britain’s lead, injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into banks while guaranteeing their debts. And whaddya know, Mr. Paulson — after arguably wasting several precious weeks — has also reversed course, and now plans to buy equity stakes rather than bad mortgage securities (although he still seems to be moving with painful slowness).
As I said, we still don’t know whether these moves will work. But policy is, finally, being driven by a clear view of what needs to be done. Which raises the question, why did that clear view have to come from London rather than Washington?
It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Paulson’s initial response was distorted by ideology. Remember, he works for an administration whose philosophy of government can be summed up as “private good, public bad,” which must have made it hard to face up to the need for partial government ownership of the financial sector.
I also wonder how much the Femafication of government under President Bush contributed to Mr. Paulson’s fumble. All across the executive branch, knowledgeable professionals have been driven out; there may not have been anyone left at Treasury with the stature and background to tell Mr. Paulson that he wasn’t making sense.
Luckily for the world economy, however, Gordon Brown and his officials are making sense. And they may have shown us the way through this crisis.
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10) Abortion Rights on the Ballot, Again
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13mon1.html?hp
Once again this year, opponents of women’s reproductive rights have managed to get initiatives aimed at ending or limiting abortion rights on ballots — in South Dakota, Colorado and California. These measures, which violate women’s privacy and threaten their health, have implications far beyond those states. If voters approve them, they will become a weapon in the right-wing campaign to overturn Roe v Wade.
The South Dakota initiative is a near twin of the sweeping abortion ban handily rejected by South Dakota voters just two years ago. To make the ban seem less harsh, its backers have included language purporting to make exceptions for incest, rape or the life and health of the mother. But no one should be fooled. The exceptions were drafted to make it nearly impossible to get an abortion, even during the first trimester of pregnancy.
The measure is clearly unconstitutional under existing Supreme Court rulings, and that’s just the point. The underlying agenda is to provide a vehicle for challenging Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion.
The Colorado ballot proposal attacks Roe v. Wade by a different route. Known as Amendment 48, this preposterous measure would redefine the term “person” in the state’s Constitution to include fertilized human eggs — in effect bestowing on fertilized eggs, prior to implantation in the womb and pregnancy, the same legal rights and protections that apply to people once they are born.
The amendment, which has split anti-abortion groups, carries broad implications, ranging from harmful to downright ridiculous. Potentially, it could ban widely used forms of contraception, curtail medical research involving embryos, criminalize necessary medical care and shutter fertility clinics. A damaged fertilized egg might be eligible for monetary damages.
Noting the “legal nightmare” the amendment would create, and its potential to endanger the health of women, Gov. Bill Ritter, a self-described “pro-life” Democrat, has joined the opposition to Amendment 48.
In California, meanwhile, abortion opponents have put the issue of parental notification on the ballot for the third time in four years. The proponents of Proposition 4 say mandating notification is necessary to safeguard underage girls. But most 15-year-olds who find themselves pregnant instinctively turn to a parent for support and guidance. Far from protecting vulnerable teens, Proposition 4 would make it difficult for young women caught in abusive situations to obtain an abortion without notifying their parents, even in cases where the father or stepfather is responsible for the pregnancy.
If approved, Proposition 4 would inevitably drive some to attempt a self-induced abortion or to seek the procedure later in pregnancy. California voters were right to reject this damaging approach on the first two attempts. They should do so again.
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11) General Says He’s Hopeful About Taliban War
By JOHN F. BURNS
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/world/asia/13afghan.html?ref=world
KABUL, Afghanistan — Less than 12 hours after NATO troops in Afghanistan defeated an ambitious attempt by the Taliban to storm a provincial capital in the far southwest, killing dozens of the fighters, the top American commander in the country urged doubters Sunday to believe that the war against the Taliban would be won.
The commander, Gen. David D. McKiernan, who leads more than 65,000 troops from about 40 foreign countries, including 33,000 Americans, said at a news conference in Kabul that there had been “too many” reports in the media recently asserting that the foreign forces and their Afghan allies were losing the war.
“I absolutely reject that idea, I don’t believe it,” the general said, adding: “It is true that there are many places in this country that don’t have an adequate level of security. We don’t have progress as even and as fast as any of us would like. But we are not losing in Afghanistan.”
At another point, he was more emphatic. There are major challenges facing the war effort, he said, “But we will win.”
The news conference was held on the general’s return from Washington, where he participated in a wide-ranging review of war strategy in Afghanistan. Earlier, the NATO command confirmed that its forces battled several hundred Taliban fighters at nightfall on Saturday as they prepared to attack Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, the center of Afghanistan’s opium trade and one of the most heavily contested battlefields of the war.
A statement by the International Security Assistance Force, the official name of the NATO operation commanded by General McKiernan, said it had attacked the Taliban fighters at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, when the Taliban were preparing to launch a mortar attack on the city. At his news conference, General McKiernan said that fighting had continued until daybreak on Sunday, and that “a large number of Taliban” had been killed.
Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said by telephone that 62 Taliban fighters had been killed.
The spokesman said that a separate battle by Afghan and NATO troops to regain control of Nadali District, 15 miles west of Lashkar Gah, had ended Saturday after two days and that 40 Taliban fighters had been killed there.
If accurate, the figures would make the fighting among the most intensive that NATO forces have experienced with the resurgent Taliban. Lt. Col. Woody Page, a spokesman for the British forces in Helmand, said that about 50 Taliban were killed at Lashkar Gah, according to Agence France-Presse. He also confirmed that the Taliban had been driven out of Nadali, but he did not give a Taliban death toll there.
The NATO command statement said that its forces at Lashkar Gah had reacted to the sighting of Taliban fighters assembling outside the city by conducting an airstrike “in which multiple enemy forces were killed,” and that the strike was combined with a ground assault involving NATO and Afghan forces.
The wording of the statement suggested that the command viewed the Lashkar Gah attack as another in a series of so-called spectacular strikes by the Taliban in recent months in which the Taliban have aimed to demoralize NATO forces and Afghanistan’s roughly 30 million people and create a groundswell of opinion here that the American-led forces are heading for the same dismal fate that met the Soviet occupation force in the 1980s.
NATO officers had warned that major Taliban strikes might be launched before winter, when fighting in Afghanistan has usually declined. In its statement on the Lashkar Gah attack, the command quoted Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, the Canadian who is the principal command spokesman, as saying, “If the insurgents planned a spectacular attack prior to the winter, this was a spectacular failure.”
All the same, the Taliban, even in defeat, appeared to have served notice that as they neared the seventh anniversary of the collapse of Taliban rule in Kabul, the nation’s capital, they have reorganized into a formidable fighting force. Several times this year, they have shown that they are capable of massing hundreds of fighters for attacks in the east, south and southwest of Afghanistan that are within a few days’ trek of militant sanctuaries in the border areas of Pakistan.
In July, a large force of Taliban fighters carried out a bold assault on a remote American base in Kunar Province, close to the Pakistan border. Nine American soldiers were killed. That attack followed another daring attempt to threaten a major southern city, Kandahar. After a prolonged Taliban buildup in the Arghandab district, just outside Kandahar, Afghan and NATO forces struck in late June, clearing hundreds of Taliban fighters from 18 villages in the area and killing 56, according to NATO statements at the time.
American commanders have said that overall violence across the country has risen about 30 percent in the past year, with record numbers of casualties among American and other NATO troops. The United Nations has put the number of Afghan civilians killed so far in 2008 at nearly 4,000.
Confidence among Afghan citizens has plummeted, contributing to urgent calls by Western commanders and diplomats for a new war-fighting strategy that can put the effort here back on an ascending path.
At his news conference, General McKiernan appeared concerned about stemming the tide of pessimism. The general took command here in June, and he introduced a note of concern early on by saying that he did not believe NATO troops were winning, but that they could with a more effective approach. The message he appeared to have brought back from Washington was that doubts about the war had gone too far.
But he issued a new warning about inadequate NATO troop levels, a point made insistently in recent weeks by Robert M. Gates, the American defense secretary, and General McKiernan and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the two four-star American commanders who will now oversee the war here.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
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12) Under ‘No Child’ Law, Even Solid Schools Falter
By SAM DILLON
October 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/education/13child.html?ref=us
SACRAMENTO — Prairie Elementary School had not missed a testing target since the federal No Child Left Behind law took effect in 2002. Until now.
The school, perched on a tidy, oak-shaded campus in a working-class neighborhood here, has moved each of its student groups — Hispanics, blacks, Asians, whites, American Indians, Filipinos, Pacific Islanders, English learners, the disabled — toward higher proficiency in recent years.
Over all, the number of its students passing tough statewide tests had increased by more than three percentage points annually, a solid record.
But this year, California schools were required to make what experts call a gigantic leap, increasing the students proficient in every group by 11 percentage points. For the first time, Prairie, and hundreds of other California schools, fell short, a failure that results in probation and, unless reversed, federal sanctions within a year.
“And they’re asking for another 11 percent increase next year and the next, and that’s where I’m saying I just don’t know how,” Fawzia Keval, the school’s principal, said. “I’m spending sleepless nights.”
Across the nation, far more schools failed to meet the federal law’s testing targets than in any previous year, according to new state-by-state data. And in California and some other states, the problem traces in part to the fact that officials chose to require only minimal gains in the first years after the law passed and then very rapid annual gains later. One researcher likens it to the balloon payments that can sink homebuyers.
Part of the reason for the troubles was that the states gambled the law would have been softened when it came up for reauthorization in 2007, but efforts to change it stalled. This year Congress made no organized attempt to reconsider the law. With the nation facing urgent challenges, including two wars and economic turmoil, it could be a year or more before the new president can work with Congress to rewrite the law.
The law requires every American school to bring all students to proficiency in reading and math by 2014. When it was first implemented six years ago, it required states to outline the statistical path they would follow on their way to 100 percent proficiency, and about half set low rates of achievement growth for the first few years and steeper rates thereafter.
Here in California, which in 2002 had only 13.6 percent of students proficient in reading, officials promised to raise that percentage on average by 2.2 points annually from 2002 to 2007, but starting this year greatly accelerate the progress, raising the percentage of proficient students by 11 points per year through 2014.
Now that the time has come for that accelerated improvement, California schools are not keeping up. This year, about half the state’s 9,800 schools fell short.
“We’re hitting a balloon payment scenario, to use a housing analogy, where the expectations set forth in the federal law are far higher than recent performance levels,” said Richard Cardullo, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, who led an analysis of the performance of state elementary schools.
His study, published Sept. 26 in the journal Science, found that the proportion of students scoring at or above proficiency increased, on average, less than four percentage points annually from 2003 to 2007, far short of the 11 percentage points of annual growth required starting this year.
“Lots of schools are no longer going to be able to meet the law’s requirements,” Dr. Cardullo said. His study predicted that virtually every elementary school in California would fall short of the federal law’s expectations before 2014.
Why did California decide on six years of relatively slow achievement growth, followed by six years of extraordinary gains? Officials from many states told the Bush administration in 2002 that they needed time to write new tests and accustom teachers to them.
But the California state school superintendent, Jack O’Connell, said he also bet that Congress might change the law in 2007, perhaps by removing its 100 percent proficiency goal. “It’s true that was in the back of my mind when we negotiated our plan with the feds,” Mr. O’Connell said. “And I’d do the same thing again. I’m still hoping a new administration will change the law.”
Meanwhile, the law has had other unintended consequences — including its tendency to punish states, like California, that have high academic standards and rigorous tests, which have contributed to an increasing pileup of failed schools.
A state-by-state analysis by The New York Times found that in the 40 states reporting on their compliance so far this year, on average, 4 in 10 schools fell short of the law’s testing targets, up from about 3 in 10 last year. Few schools missed targets in states with easy exams, like Wisconsin and Mississippi, but states with tough tests had a harder time. In Hawaii, Massachusetts and New Mexico, which have stringent exams, 60 to 70 percent of schools missed testing goals. And in South Carolina, which has what may be the nation’s most rigorous tests, 83 percent of schools missed targets.
“The law is diagnosing schools that just have the sniffles with having pneumonia,” said Jim Rex, the South Carolina schools superintendent.
Under the law, all public schools must test students every year and if those in any group fall short, the school misses its targets and is put on probation. All states adopt their own curriculums and testing standards, and the rigor of the tests varies greatly.
Schools that miss targets for two consecutive years are labeled “needing improvement” and face escalating sanctions that can include staff changes or closings. Partly because the law is identifying thousands of schools, however, few states have tried to radically restructure more than a few.
Margaret Spellings, the federal education secretary, acknowledged in an interview that the law’s mechanism for holding schools accountable needed refinement because it works as a pass-fail system in which schools with only minor problems are in the same category as chaotic institutions with students running the halls.
“We passed the best law we could seven years ago,” Ms. Spellings said. “There’s wide recognition that this is something we need to address.”
Under a pilot program known as differentiated accountability, Ms. Spellings has given six states — Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio — permission to treat schools labeled for improvement that have missed targets for only one group differently than those needing sweeping intervention.
But the rate at which schools have been identified as needing improvement has not yet become worrisome, she said. “Pretty much every organization needs improvement,” she said.
Ms. Spellings has fiercely defended the law’s requirement that all students achieve proficiency by 2014.
Among that provision’s most tenacious critics has been Robert Linn, a University of Colorado professor emeritus who is one of the nation’s foremost testing experts. He argued, almost from the law’s passage, that no society anywhere has brought 100 percent of students to proficiency, and that the annual gains required to meet the goal of universal proficiency were unrealistically rapid, since even great school systems rarely sustain annual increases in the proportion of students demonstrating proficiency topping three to four percentage points.
“If, no matter how hard teachers work, the school is labeled as a failure, that’s just demoralizing,” Dr. Linn said.
Ms. Keval, the principal at Prairie Elementary, has been fighting demoralization herself since learning of this year’s test results, she said.
Educated in British schools in Kenya, she speaks Urdu, Swahili and five other languages, and several teachers said she was an inspirational leader. Ms. Keval described her staff as qualified, hard-working and dedicated to student progress.
Eight out of 10 children at the school are poor — the children of gardeners and maids, retail clerks and short-order cooks, the unemployed — yet all groups have made progress.
When the law took effect in 2002, 22 percent of all students and 19 percent of blacks were proficient in reading. Ms. Keval has for several years used federal money to hire extra reading teachers and to organize additional instructional time for low-scoring students after school and during vacation periods.
As a result, reading proficiency has increased on average by nearly four percentage points each recent year, although black students have improved more slowly. On California’s state tests this year, 42 percent of Prairie’s students schoolwide and 40 percent of Hispanics demonstrated reading proficiency. But only 29 percent of blacks demonstrated proficiency, and since California schools were required to raise the proportion of proficient students in every group from 24 percent to 35 percent this year, that was not good enough. The school has been put on probation.
“I know we’ll continue to make gains with our students, but whether we can meet the next No Child target remains to be seen,” she said. “In one year, its hard to make an 11 percent impact.”
Dr. Linn said Ms. Keval had good reason to worry.
“An 11 percent increase from one year to the next, that is pretty gigantic,” Dr. Linn said, “compared to how most schools improve from one year to the next.”
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13) More Schools Miss the Mark, Raising Pressure
By KRISTIN HUSSEY
Education
October 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/nyregion/connecticut/12nochildct.html?ref=education
SINCE 2001, when President Bush signed the federal No Child Left Behind law, schools in Connecticut have scrambled to revamp curriculums, step up professional development for teachers and continually assess students’ test scores to comply with the law’s requirements. It is an effort that has dominated the agendas of school officials not just in Connecticut, but all over the nation, and not everyone is happy that test results have become such a focus.
When results of the latest test scores were announced a few weeks ago, about 40 percent, or 408, of the public schools in Connecticut did not make the grade under the federal law, state officials said. The state added 100 schools to its list of schools that failed to meet the federal benchmarks.
Mark K. McQuillan, commissioner of education for Connecticut, said he does not believe the federal goals are attainable for Connecticut schools.
“I think they’re just unrealistic,” he said in an interview last week. “And the evidence shows that’s true everywhere in the country.
“It’s too much to expect of the country to do that kind of fundamental changing in the time frame and with the dollars they’ve provided,” he said, referring to the federal government.
The law calls for all students in the United States, including English language learners and students with special needs, to perform at grade level by 2014. Some officials complain that because the standards are raised every two years, more and more schools are failing to fulfill the law’s requirements.
But that does not mean the state will not keep working hard to meet the goals, Mr. McQuillan said.
The State Department of Education has introduced a new accountability system that assigns teams and support personnel to struggling districts, and helps districts put improvement plans into action, state officials said.
And the strategy is working in some districts. Two elementary schools in Norwalk found out that they had finally come off the list of schools “in need of improvement.”
Brookside Elementary and Kendall Elementary schools were in a group of only five elementary schools statewide that improved enough to meet this year’s standards.
Salvatore J. Corda, superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools, said the improvements came after systemic shifts in teaching and methodology that the district had been working on for a couple of years. “When you try to move an entire system, it takes a while for things to take hold,” he said.
When Tony Ditrio took over as principal of Kendall Elementary School 10 years ago, his first piece of business was getting order in the building. “There wasn’t any,” he said. “That took a few years. Once we had a safe, orderly environment, we started to tackle the curriculum.”
All of the most recent data is based on scores from testing of 230,000 third through eighth graders and 50,000 tenth graders last spring. The latest results show that keeping children reading at grade level is “a real and growing challenge,” Mr. McQuillan said. At the high school level, he said, “mathematics is the greater issue.”
This year, for the first time, the Greenwich school district as a whole did not make adequate yearly progress. The district is one of 44 of the state’s 171 districts that did not meet this year’s standards.
Districts are considered not making adequate progress when certain student groups fail to meet benchmarks in the same category on both the elementary and high school tests. Students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students in Greenwich did not score at grade level in both reading and math.
“Does this mean we have a bad school system?” said Betty J. Sternberg, superintendent of Greenwich Public Schools. “The strength of a school system does lie in meeting the needs of each child, no matter what their background is. So to that extent if I’m a parent of a child in a subgroup that hasn’t met it,” she said, referring to the standards, “I would be concerned.”
Special education students should not be expected to perform at grade level, Dr. Sternberg said. “We’ve had reports of special ed students sitting in front of tests and they’re crying. They can’t possibly do it,” she said.
Additionally, testing students every year between third and eighth grade leaves schools inundated with data that needs to be analyzed and reported, said Dr. Sternberg, who served as Connecticut’s commissioner for education from 2003 to 2006. While some teachers and school administrators complain about the tests, others say the law has forced them to take action.
“No Child Left Behind has been a really good kick in the pants for us,” said Joshua P. Starr, superintendent of schools in Stamford. “It was too easy to sweep some kids under the rug. We’re not allowed to do that anymore, and that’s a good thing.”
Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, sued the Bush administration in 2005, charging that No Child Left Behind illegally requires states to spend their own money to meet the law’s standards. A federal judge threw out the case last April, and Mr. Blumenthal is appealing that decision. The state’s appeal is likely to be argued next spring, according to Mr. Blumenthal’s staff.
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14) Teachers Sue Over Right to Politic
By JENNIFER MEDINA
October 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/nyregion/11button.html?ref=education
The New York City teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit on Friday claiming that a policy banning political pins and signs in schools violates teachers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them from political expression.
The lawsuit comes nearly two weeks after the Department of Education sent a memo to principals directing them to enforce the longstanding regulation, which requires that all school staff members show “complete neutrality” while on duty. The policy also prohibits teachers from using school property to promote a candidate.
Randi Weingarten, president of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, said that while the policy has been on the books for more than two decades, it has rarely been enforced, and that teachers have routinely worn political buttons as recently as this year’s presidential primaries.
But in the lawsuit, the union — which has endorsed Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee — states that the principal of Community School 134 in the Bronx removed an Obama poster that a teacher placed on the union bulletin board, and that a teacher at another school who wore political buttons was warned against it.
Ms. Weingarten, who is also president of the American Federation of Teachers, and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, said that for a quarter of a century she had watched teachers “balance their obligations as professionals and their responsibilities as citizens.” She added that “teachers, maybe more than others, understand how important democracy is and how important the Constitution is, particularly the Bill of Rights.”
The conflict over political buttons appears to have begun with a Sept. 23 e-mail message Ms. Weingarten sent to union leaders at each city school, advising them how to distribute campaign materials on Mr. Obama’s behalf. Education Department officials soon contacted the union, stating that the chancellor’s regulation prohibited such activity, and Chancellor Joel I. Klein sent a memo to principals on Oct. 1 saying that “it is important that schools comply” with the policy.
The regulation, whose origin officials could not pinpoint on Friday, states that “while on duty or in contact with students, all school personnel shall maintain a posture of complete neutrality with respect to all candidates.” Mr. Klein’s memo added: “Therefore, school staff may not wear buttons or apparel in support of a political candidate while in school or during school activities.”
Ann Forte, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said that courts have ruled that teachers do not have an “unfettered right to express their personal views at school.”
“We don’t want a school or school staff advocating for any political position or candidate to students, and we don’t want students feeling intimidated because they might hold a different belief or support a different candidate than their teachers,” Ms. Forte said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that the U.F.T. wants to inject politics into our schools.”
But Norman Siegel, a civil liberties lawyer who is helping with the case, said that several courts had ruled in favor of teachers’ expressing political and personal viewpoints when it did not interfere with learning.
At a news conference on Friday afternoon, Ms. Weingarten said: “We are just weeks away from a landmark presidential election that is being discussed in classrooms and at dinner tables across the nation,” and added, “Students can only benefit from being exposed to and engaged in a dialogue about current events.”
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15) Justices Clear Way for Execution in Georgia
Take New Action Today!
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=11330
By ROBBIE BROWN
October 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/washington/15execute.html?hp
ATLANTA — Two weeks after it temporarily spared a Georgia inmate from the death penalty, the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday declined the inmate’s appeal, a decision that will probably lead to a quick execution.
The inmate, Troy A. Davis, was convicted in 1991 of murdering Mark Allen MacPhail, a Savannah police officer. The court’s decision, made without comment or explanation, allows Georgia officials to obtain a new death warrant and schedule a new date of execution, probably in the next few days or weeks.
The case has led to an outpouring of support for Mr. Davis, largely because seven of nine witnesses against him have recanted their testimony, with two claiming police pressured them to testify against him. Prosecutors presented no physical evidence and no murder weapon, and three witnesses have said another man admitted to the murder.
World leaders including former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI have challenged the fairness of his conviction.
“Georgia is willing to risk the credibility of its whole death penalty system in carrying out this one very questionable execution,” said Steven B. Bright, a professor at Yale Law School. “The death penalty should really only be enforced in cases where there is no question about guilt, and that just cannot be said about this case.”
Prosecutors have rejected the claims of the recanting witnesses, and both the Georgia Supreme Court and the state Board of Paroles and Pardons have denied Mr. Davis’s requests for new trials and clemency. Members of the family of the slain police officer expressed relief at the Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday.
“My son will always be missed in our hearts,” said Anneliese MacPhail, the mother of Officer MacPhail. “But at least we can relax now and don’t have to worry about whether justice will be served.”
The Supreme Court had granted a stay of execution last month, two hours before Mr. Davis was scheduled to die by lethal injection.
Mr. Davis’s lawyers had asked the court to determine whether the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of the innocent. They wrote in a petition in July that the case “allows this court an opportunity to determine what it has only before assumed: that the execution of an innocent man is constitutionally abhorrent.”
Jared Feuer, southern regional director for Amnesty International, said he was “shocked and saddened.”
“This decision shows how flawed and immoral the death penalty is,” he said. “The court had been asked to rule on the basic question of guilt and innocence and the constitutional right of an individual to not be executed when there is doubt of his guilt. The court ducked its obligation.”
Officer MacPhail was shot and killed on Aug. 19, 1989 as he tried to break up a fight in a Burger King parking lot. Mr. Davis testified he was at a nearby pool hall and left before Officer MacPhail arrived.
Ms. MacPhail said she is confident that Mr. Davis committed the murder. “He didn’t give my son a chance,” she said. “He just shot him down in cold blood.”
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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES
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Zimbabwe: Inflation Rate Spirals Higher Still
By CELIA W. DUGGER
World Briefing | Africa
Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, already one of the highest in world history, rose from an annual rate of 11 million percent in June to 231 million percent in July, according to official statistics reported by the state media. Rising prices for staple foods are driving the price increases, making it increasingly difficult for people to afford food. Talks on details of a power-sharing deal involving the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai that might halt the economic decline are deadlocked, Mr. Tsvangirai said.
October 10, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/world/africa/10briefs-INFLATIONRAT_BRF.html?ref=world
Germany Seeks Wider Role for Army
By REUTERS
BERLIN - The German government said Monday that it would seek to change the Constitution to give a larger domestic role to the army in the fight against terrorism, including powers to shoot down hijacked passenger planes as a last resort.
Two years ago, the nation’s top court threw out a law that permitted the shooting down of hijacked planes, and the issue has set off a heated debate within the governing coalition over the role of the military in defending Germany against terrorism.
The government is proposing a constitutional change that would allow the German Army to be deployed at home “if police measures do not suffice for protection against very serious disasters,” a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry said.
Asked whether such circumstances could also imply that the army would have to fend off an attack from the air, the spokeswoman said, “That’s what this is about.”
October 7, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/world/europe/07germany.html?ref=world
Louisiana: FEMA Not Immune From Trailer Suits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
A federal judge in New Orleans says the government is not immune from lawsuits claiming that many Gulf Coast hurricane victims were exposed to potentially dangerous fumes while living in trailers it had provided. The ruling says there is evidence that the Federal Emergency Management Agency delayed its response to concerns about formaldehyde levels in its trailers because of liability concerns.
October 4, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/04brfs-002.html?ref=us
Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations
Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/22/headlines
Wisconsin: A Gloomy Assessment for Milwaukee Public Schools
By CATRIN EINHORN
National Briefing | Midwest
Members of the Milwaukee Public Schools board passed a resolution to explore dissolving the school system, but state education officials said the board did not have the authority to actually do so. The board’s 6-to-3 vote to research the possibility came after Superintendent William G. Andrekopoulos described the city’s school financing structure as “broken,” painting a bleak picture of steep property tax increases and deep budget cuts. But dissolving the public school system would require action in the Legislature, or else the City Council would have to change Milwaukee’s city classification, sparking other changes in governance, said Patrick Gasper of the Wisconsin Department of Education. While the full nine-member school board voted, it was a committee vote, and the proposal faces a final vote on Thursday.
September 20, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/us/20brfs-AGLOOMYASSES_BRF.html?ref=us
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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION
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"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel."
– Abraham Lincoln, speech to Illinois legislature, January 1837
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Subprime crisis explanation by The Long Johns
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=z-oIMJMGd1Q
Wanda Sykes on Jay Leno: Bailout and Palin
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=tco5h_ZprMY
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Stop the Carnage, Ban the Cluster Bomb!
Only 20 percent of the hundreds of thousands of unexploded cluster munitions that Israel launched into Lebanon in the summer of 2006 have been cleared. You can help!
1. See the list of more than thirty organizations that have signed a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling for Israel to release the list of cluster bomb target sites to the UN team in charge of clearing the sites in Lebanon:
http://www.atfl.org/orgs.htm
2. You can Learn more about the American Task Force for Lebanon at their website:
http://www.atfl.org/
3. Send a message to President Bush, the Secretary of State, and your Members of Congress to stop the carnage and ban the cluster bomb by clicking on the link below:
http://action.atfl.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6644&track=spreadtheword
Take action now at:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ATFL/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6644&t=
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SAVE TROY DAVIS
U.S. Supreme Court stays Georgia execution
"The U.S. Supreme Court granted a last-minute reprieve to a Georgia man fewer than two hours before he was to be executed for the 1989 slaying of an off-duty police officer.
"Troy Anthony Davis learned that his execution had been stayed when he saw it on television, he told CNN via telephone in his first interview after the stay was announced."
September 23, 2008
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/23/davis.scheduled.execution/
Dear friend,
Please check out and sign this petition to stay the illegal 9-23-08 execution of innocent Brother Mr. Troy Davis.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis
Thanks again, we'll continue keep you posted.
Sincerely,
The Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International, USA
Read NYT Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert's plea on behalf of Troy Davis:
What’s the Rush?
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
September 20, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/opinion/20herbert.html?hp
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New on the Taking Aim Program Archive:
"9/11: Blueprint for Truth: The Architecture of Destruction" part 2 is
available on the Taking Aim Program Archive at
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
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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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