To: KTVU General Manager: general.manager@ktvu.com
Rita Williams: rwilliams@ktvu.com
KTVU, 2 Jack London Square, Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 834-1212
By Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
San Francisco, CA
To all who are responsible:
I am writing to express my outrage at your constant airing of the Johannes Mehserle interview that purports to show his regret for his murder of Oscar Grant. Of course he's sorry now! And it is too bad that he did what he did. But why don't you show the sadness of Oscar Grant's friends who had to witness the murder of their friend, Oscar. Why don't you show the photograph of Mehserle with a taser in his hand, that he had to have put away, before pulling out his gun and shooting Oscar in the back while other officers were holding Oscar down on the ground? Why don't you show Mehserle as he stands up and crassly says, "F**k this shit!" as he pulls out his gun, and points it squarely at Oscar's back and shoots? Why don't you show the tears on the cheeks of little Tatiana, Oscar's daughter? His daughter's mother who lost her daughter's father and her fiancé?
What about the message this sends of the total disregard of law enforcement toward the worthiness of the lives of young Black men and women and the poor, in general. How can any of us feel safe in our streets or on our transit system if the police are allowed to shoot you dead and ask questions later?
This kind of rankly biased reporting is not only shameful--it flies in the face of truth--of what we all witnessed with our own eyes thanks to those with cell phones who had the forethought to record what they were witnessing including Oscar himself!
And now, the police are on a campaign to make it illegal for citizens to record such incidents!
What happened to Oscar grant is not unusual. It's just unusual that so many recordings showed the same thing! The blatant murder of an unarmed, young Black man with witnesses all around to watch.
What the hell do BART security need guns for, anyway?
By your repeated airing of the Mehserle interview that is designed to bring pity to him, you are proving your station to be racist and biased in favor of police violence!
It makes you complicit in the police-murders to follow if Mehserle is not made an example of. He needs to receive the maximum sentence!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
San Francisco, CA
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Day to Honor Oscar Grant
On November 5, Johannes Mehserle will be sentenced for the murder of Oscar Grant, III.
Join us as we honor the life that ignited a movement that united our community.
Friday, November 5
Oakland City Hall
14th and Broadway
2:00 P.M. Live Art
4:00 P.M. Program
Please bring flowers or other items to place on the altar we will build for Oscar.
The General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant
The Oscar Grant Foundation
The New Year's Movement
IamOscarGrant.org
Miguel Perez
ANSWER
Contact CAT at 510-703-1500 for more information.
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The next meeting of the United National Antiwar Committee will be Saturday, November 6, 11:00 A.M., at Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street (near 16th Street and Mission BART)
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All Out on November 9th: Mobilize to Free Mumia!
Come to Philadelphia:
An Innocent Man Faces Execution... Again!
Will Mumia Be Killed For No Reason?
PHILADELPHIA, November 9th 2010,
2 PM, Third Circuit Court, 6th & Market
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and a political prisoner who has been on death row for 28 years, faces a new hearing to determine: will he get a new court hearing to finally decide his sentence, or will he be executed immediately? In it's instructions to the Third Circuit, the Supreme Court made immediate execution the likely outcome.
Mountains of evidence, including witness recantations, another man who confessed, and photographic evidence of the crime scene, proves his innocence. Yet state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have slammed the door on Mumia. Most of the evidence that could free him has gone unheard, because...
The cops, courts and politicians want Mumia dead!
A politically motivated conspiracy, led by the Fraternal Order of Police, seeks to silence forever this outspoken opponent of war, racism, police brutality and corruption. We have to stop them in their tracks! The courts aren't going to free Mumia. Only mass mobilizations, as in 1995, when we stopped an earlier execution order, and labor mobilizations like the West Coast port shutdown by longshore workers in 1999, can free Mumia.
All Out on November 9th: Mobilize to Free Mumia!
Come to Philadelphia:
Third Circuit Court of Appeals, 601 Market St (6th & Market).
Hearing starts at 2 PM on Tuesday Nov 9th.
Get there early to demonstrate!
Bus from New York:
Call: 212 330-8029 - leave a message and a number for a return call to reserve a seat on a bus to Philadelphia.
For Mass Action, and Labor Action!
Mumia is innocent! Free Mumia!
End the Racist Death Penalty!
- This message from:
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu_jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • 510 763-2347
www.laboractionmumia.org
Please forward and distribute widely...
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S LIFE IS IN GRAVE DANGER! Come to Philadelphia, or demonstrate in the Bay Area, on November 9th! Details below...
But first... The WBAI Radio (NY) Show "Taking Aim" will help defend Mumia Abu Jamal.
Long time Mumia supporters Mya Shone, host of "Taking Aim," and co-presenter Ralph Schoenman, are planning to offer the new cd, "Mumia On Oscar Grant," as a premium on their show, during WBAI's current fund drive, this Tuesday, the 26th of October 2010, at 5 PM New York time. Listen at 99.5 FM in the New York area, or hook up online at www.wbai.org. Pledge to WBAI to receive the cd.
Both Mumia, and the listener-sponsored Pacifica radio stations such as WBAI, are in need of your support in these trying times. Please consider a generous donation.
The cd "Mumia on Oscar Grant" was produced by the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal in order to help increase awareness of these two case of police violence and frame-ups against the black community in the US. It consists of Mumia Abu-Jamal's audio commentaries on the murder of Oscar Grant by BART cop Johannes Mehserle, and on numerous other important topics.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former member of the Black Panther Party and a journalist who works from behind bars to report and comment on important social issues, is completely innocent of the crime of killing a police officer, for which he was convicted in 1982. Most recently, his innocence has been demonstrated yet again by a dramatic new documentary, JUSTICE ON TRIAL, the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, which premiered in Philadelphia on September 21st, and on the West Coast on October 24th.
Oscar Grant was a young black retail grocery worker and father of a young daughter who was shot in the back by Mehserle and killed, while he was face down on the pavement, in January 2009, in Oakland CA. The ex-BART cop is due to be sentenced on November 5th in LA for the ridiculously light conviction of "involuntary manslaughter." The most time he can get is 14 years.
On Saturday the 23rd of October, Local 10 of the ILWU, the West Coast longshore union, shut down all the ports in the SF Bay Area to support: Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail Killer Cops! Maximum Sentence for Johannes Mehserle! This is the same union that shut down all ports on the West Coast to demand: Free Mumia! in 1999. 1500 rallied in the rain at City Hall in Oakland that day in support of the ILWU's call for justice for Oscar Grant.
COME OUT TO DEFEND MUMIA ON NOVEMBER 9TH 2010!
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL faces his likely last court hearing on November 9th, 2010, at the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia. The US Supreme Court has already thrown out Mumia's last appeal against his kangaroo-court conviction before a racist judge in 1982. Now, the Third Circuit is to decide between reinstatement of Mumia's death sentence, or life in prison without the possibility of parole. These are the only two possible outcomes in the courts at this time. We have no confidence in the corrupt, racist US court system!
We need mass actions, and labor actions, to say: Mumia Is Innocent! Free Mumia Now! End the Racist Death Penalty!
EAST COAST -- PHILADELPHIA: Demonstrate to Free Mumia Now! Come to the Third Circuit Court, 6th and Market, Philadelphia, at 12 Noon on Tuesday November 9th. (The hearing starts at 2 PM.)
EAST COAST -- NEW YORK CITY: Get on the bus to Philadelphia! Call the Mumia hotline at: 212 330-8029. Leave a message to request a seat on the bus to Philadelphia.
BAY AREA -- OAKLAND: 12 Noon on Tuesday November 9th: Come to 14th and Broadway in downtown Oakland. Demonstrate to say: Mumia Is Innocent! Free Mumia! End the Racist Death Penalty! Called by the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and supported by Campaign To End The Death Penalty, Mobilization To Free Mumia, Revolution Books of Berkeley, and Peoples Radio (partial list -- call to endorse). 510 763-2347.
BAY AREA -- SAN FRANCISCO: 7 PM on Tuesday November 9th: Come to Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia St. The new film, JUSTICE ON TRIAL, the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, will be screened. Hans Bennett of Abu-Jamal News, and other speakers. Donation. Called by the Mobilization To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Info: 510 268-9429.
- This message is from:
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal.
www.laboractionmumia.org, 510 763-2347
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PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY!
View/Download the Flyer Here: http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/docs/nov9.pdf
Stop The Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal!
--Emergency Protest Rally & Film Screening of "Justice On Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"
Tuesday, November 9, 7:00 PM
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street, San Francisco
(Between 15th and 16 Streets - near 16th St. BART)
FEATURED SPEAKERS:
Hans Bennett, Co-founder, Journalists for Mumia
Rebecca Doran, Committee to Free Kevin Cooper
Jeff Mackler, West Coast Coordinator, Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Laura Herrera, Co-Coordinator, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Alicia Jrapko, International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five
Tom Lacey, State Committee, California Peace & Freedom Party
Cristina Gutierrez, Barrio Unido
Merle Woo, SF poet
$5 to $20 sliding scale. No one turned away for lack of funds. This is a benefit for Journalists for Mumia. For more information contact: The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, 510-268-9428, www.freemumia.org,jmackler@lmi.net
Wheelchair accessible. Labor donated.
November 9 Oral Arguments in Philadelphia
In Philadelphia, on Nov. 9, the US Third Circuit Court will hear oral arguments concerning whether or not Mumia will be executed without a new sentencing trial, as the District Attorney is seeking to do. The court ruling can be issued anytime after oral arguments. If the ruling is against Mumia, he could then be executed very quickly.
Mumia's lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, says that Mumia is now "in the greatest danger since his 1981 arrest."
In 2001, US District Court Judge William Yohn somewhat overturned the death penalty (Mumia has never left death row) and ruled that if the DA still wants to execute, there must first be a new sentencing-phase jury trial where evidence of innocence can be presented, but the jury can only decide between execution or life in prison without parole. This 2001 ruling by Judge Yohn was affirmed by the US 3rd Circuit in 2008, but in January, 2010, the US Supreme Court vacated the ruling and sent the case back down to the 3rd Circuit for reconsideration.
"Justice on Trial" Film
The new film, "Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal," directed by Kouross Esmaeli and produced by Johanna Fernandez (co-coordinator of Educators for Mumia) premiered in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center on Sept. 21, the same day as the right-wing anti-Mumia film, called "The Barrel of a Gun."
"Barrel" ignores the frame-up nature of Mumia's trial and the "evidence" used to convict him. "Justice," in contrast, fairly presents the arguments made by Mumia's supporters alongside the prosecution's alleged shooting scenario and interviews with others advocating Mumia's execution. Justice's featured interviews include press photographer Pedro Polakoff (whose newly discovered crime scene photos expose police manipulation of evidence) and author J. Patrick O'Connor (whose 2008 book argues that the actual shooter of Officer Daniel Faulkner was a man named Kenneth Freeman). For more about the film, visit:www.emajonline.com, www.abu-jamal-news.com and watch the trailer here: http://bignoisefilms.org/films/tactical-media/114-justice-on-trial
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STOP U.S. IMPERIALIST WARS!
VICTORY TO THE OPPRESSED PEOPLES IN THE U.S. AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD!
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
BLACK IS BACK
blackisbackcoalition.org
Black Is Back: Let's March on White House Again, Nov. 13
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
October 6, 2010
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/black-back-lets-march-white-house-again-nov-13
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NOVEMBER 2010 - CONVERGE ON FORT BENNING, GEORGIA
November 18-21, 2010: Close the SOA and take a stand for justice in the Americas.
www.soaw.org/take-action/november-vigil
The November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia will be held from November 18-21, 2010. The annual vigil is always held close to the anniversary of the 1989 murders of Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Jesuit priests at a the University of Central America in El Salvador.
ORGANIZE YOUR COMMUNITY FOR THE 2010 VIGIL!
November 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the vigil that brings together religious communities, students, teachers, veterans, community organizers, musicians, puppetistas and many others. New layers of activists are joining the movement to close the SOA in large numbers, including numerous youth and students from multinational, working-class communities. The movement is strong thanks to the committed work of thousands of organizers and volunteers around the country. They raise funds, spread the word through posters and flyers, organize buses and other transportation to Georgia, and carry out all the work that is needed to make the November vigil a success. Together, we are strong!
VIGIL AND RALLY AT THE GATES, NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION, TEACH-IN, CONCERTS, WORKSHOPS AND A ANTI-MILITARIZATION ORGANIZERS CONFERENCE
There will be exciting additions to this year's vigil program. Besides the rally at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia with inspiring speakers and amazing musicians from across the Americas, the four day convergence will also include an educational teach-in at the Columbus Convention Center, several evening concerts, workshops and for the first time, the Latin America Solidarity Coalition will stage a one-day Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference on Thursday, November 18, 2010.
SHUT DOWN THE SOA AND RESIST U.S. MILITARIZATION IN THE AMERICAS
Our work has unfortunately not gotten any easier and U.S. militarization in Latin America is accelerating. The SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras, the continuing repression against the Honduran pro-democracy resistance and the expansion of U.S. military bases in Colombia and Panama are grim examples of the ongoing threats of a U.S. foreign policy that is relying on the military to exert control over the people and the resources in the Americas. Join the people who are struggling for justice in Honduras, Colombia and throughout the Americas as we organize to push back.
Spread the word - Tell a friend about the November Vigil:
http://www.SOAW.org/tellafriend
For more information, visit:
www.SOAW.org.
See you at the gates of Fort Benning in November 2010
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
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November 1, 2010
Anonymous BP cleanup worker: The oil "really hasn't even been touched"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vegVKrg84HI&feature=player_embedded
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Roma band GOGOL BORDELLO
Video
"Immigraniada (We Comin' Rougher)"
http://links.org.au/node/1961
GOGOL BORDELLO LYRICS
"Immigraniada (We Comin' Rougher)"
http://links.org.au/node/1961
Immigrada immigraniada
Immigrada immigraniada-da
Immigrada immigraniada
We're coming rougher every time
We're coming rougher
We're coming rougher
We're coming rougher every time
Immigrada immigraniada
Immigrada immigraniada-da
Immigrada immigraniada
We're coming rougher every time
In corridors full of tear gas
Our destinies jammed every day
Like deleted scenes from Kafka
Flushed down the bureaucratic drain
But if you give me the invitation
To hear the bells of freedom chime
To hell with your double standards
We're coming rougher every time
We're coming rougher
We're coming rougher
We're coming rougher every time
Immigrada immigraniada
Immigrada immigraniada-da
Immigrada immigraniada
We're coming rougher every time
All those who made it and quickly jaded
To them we got nothing to say
Our immigrada, immigraniada
For them it's Don Quixote's kind of way
But if you give me the invitation
To hear the bells of freedom chime
To hell with your double standards
We're coming rougher every time
We're coming rougher
We're coming rougher
We're coming rougher every time
We're coming rougher every time
Immigrada immigraniada
Immigrada immigraniada-da
Immigrada immigraniada
We're coming rougher every time
Frozen eyes, sweaty back
My family's sleeping on a railroad track
All my life I pack/unpack
But man I got to earn this buck
I gotta pay representation
To be accepted in a nation
Where after efforts of a hero
Welcome start again from zero
It's a book of our true stories
True stories that can't be denied
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened
We're coming rougher every time
Rougher every time
We're coming rougher every time
Immigrada immigraniada
Immigrada immigraniada-da
Immigrada immigraniada
We're coming rougher every time
Immigrada immigraniada
Immigrada immigraniada-da hey hey
We're coming rougher every time
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From The Ramparts 10-27-10
by Junious Ricardo Stanton plus
Junious Ricardo Stanton's video blog. Today's topic the impact of the economic meltdown on African-Americans. Junious shares data from the US Congress Joint Economic Committee on African-AMerican Unemployment and underemployement and the disproportionate rates of default and foreclosure in the African-American and Latino communities.
http://vimeo.com/16252641
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The Spill
A joint investigation by FRONTLINE and ProPublica into the trail of problems -- deadly accidents, disastrous spills, countless safety violations -- which long troubled the oil giant, BP. Could the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico have been prevented?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-spill/
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Tag-Team Wrestling
"We have Learned who is For Real and who is Frontin'."
Glen Ford speaks in West Haven, CT just before the Oct. 2010 "One Nation Working Together" DC demo. See his scathing comments about the speakers from the main stage at the actual demo at blackagendareport.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIuTM3cK9I
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Video of massive French protest -- inspiring!
http://www.dailymotion.com/Talenceagauchevraiment
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BREAKING NEWS: Fresh Oil Dead Fish Cover Grand Isle As Crews Bury Fish On Public Beach
October 18, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYjlrZgCzsE&feature=player_embedded
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UNPC March to Mosque
The United National Peace Conference concluded with a solidarity march to the Albany Mosque. The activists marched in support of our Muslim brothers and sisters who have been charged, found guilty and are serving jail terms for terrorism. The cases of the Albany 2, the Fort Dix 5 and Lynne Stewart were brought to light during the rally. The peace groups reiterated their opposition to the preemptive prosecution techniques used by the FBI. It was a moving conclusion to an inspiring weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXVUgnufOi4&feature=email
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UAW Workers Picket The UAW Over Two-Tier
http://rustbeltradical.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/uaw-workers-picket-the-uaw/
Rally To End Two-Tier & Stand in Solidarity with GM Lake Orion | UAW HQ, Detroit MI (1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bST5aTYZa00&feature=player_embedded
Rally To End Two-Tier & Stand in Solidarity with GM Lake Orion | UAW HQ, Detroit MI (2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHLb-KMXD9c&feature=player_embedded
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BP Contract Worker "Trenches Dug To Bury Oil On Beaches"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qop9xbGv4&feature=player_embedded
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Dr. Harbut [Dr. Michael Harbut, Professor of Medicine, Wayne State University] spoke with the Navy. Navy asked about training exercises over Gulf with risk of somebody going down into water... should we consider suspending training? Navy then suspended exercises over Gulf.
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/navy-suspended-exercises-over-gulf
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RETHINK Afghanistan: The 10th Year: Afghanistan Veterans Speak Out
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/
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Firefighters Watch As Home Burns:
Gene Cranick's House Destroyed In Tennessee Over $75 Fee
By Adam J. Rose
The Huffington Post -- videos
10- 5-10 12:12 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/firefighters-watch-as-hom_n_750272.html
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NOAA investigating husband & wife that were sprayed with dispersant while sleeping on boat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InnmBRL84Dw&feature=player_embedded
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Dangers Lurk Beneath the Surface of Gulf of Mexico
September 29th, 2010
In spite of what you might have read in the news, the oil in the Gulf of Mexico has not just disappeared. It's lurking on the bottom, destroying marine life and entire ecosystems. On top of that, we are now starting to see adverse health effects from BP's use of the toxic oil dispersant known as Corexit, which is being dumped into the Gulf as we speak. Mike Papantonio talks about some of the effects that we're now seeing as a result of BP's dispersant chemicals with Dr. Riki Ott, one of the leading experts on the impact of oil spills on human health.
http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2010/09/29/dangers-lurk-beneath-the-surface-of-gulf-of-mexico/
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Soldier Describes Murder of Afghan for Sport in Leaked Tape
By ROBERT MACKEY
September 27, 2010, 6:43 pm
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/soldier-describes-murder-of-afghan-for-sport-in-leaked-tape/?ref=world
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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Stephen Colbert's statement before Congress
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39343087#39343087
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PcolaGregg Answers VisitPensacola.com With Truth And Reality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtopYgl9h8Q&feature=player_embedded#!
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Add you name! We stand with Bradley Manning.
"We stand for truth, for government transparency, and for an end to our tax-dollars funding endless occupation abroad... We stand with accused whistle-blower US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning."
Dear All,
The Bradley Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist are launching a new campaign, and we wanted to give you a chance to be among the first to add your name to this international effort. If you sign the letter online, we'll print out and mail two letters to Army officials on your behalf. With your permission, we may also use your name on the online petition and in upcoming media ads.
Read the complete public letter and add your name at:
http://standwithbrad.org/
Courage to Resist (http://couragetoresist.org)
on behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network (http://bradleymanning.org)
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Dear Friend,
On Friday, September 24th, the FBI raided homes in Chicago and Minneapolis, and turned the Anti-War Committee office upside down. We were shocked. Our response was strong however and we jumped into action holding emergency protests. When the FBI seized activists' personal computers, cell phones, and papers claiming they were investigating "material support for terrorism", they had no idea there would be such an outpouring of support from the anti-war movement across this country! Over 61 cities protested, with crowds of 500 in Minneapolis and Chicago. Activists distributed 12,000 leaflets at the One Nation Rally in Washington D.C. Supporters made thousands of calls to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. Solidarity statements from community organizations, unions, and other groups come in every day. By organizing against the attacks, the movement grows stronger.
At the same time, trusted lawyers stepped up to form a legal team and mount a defense. All fourteen activists signed letters refusing to testify. So Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox withdrew the subpoenas, but this is far from over. In fact, the repression is just starting. The FBI continues to question activists at their homes and work places. The U.S. government is trying to put people in jail for anti-war and international solidarity activism and there is no indication they are backing off. The U.S. Attorney has many options and a lot of power-he may re-issue subpoenas, attempt to force people to testify under threat of imprisonment, or make arrests.
To be successful in pushing back this attack, we need your donation. We need you to make substantial contributions like $1000, $500, and $200. We understand many of you are like us, and can only afford $50, $20, or $10, but we ask you to dig deep. The legal bills can easily run into the hundreds of thousands. We are all united to defend a movement for peace and justice that seeks friendship with people in other countries. These fourteen anti-war activists have done nothing wrong, yet their freedom is at stake.
It is essential that we defend our sisters and brothers who are facing FBI repression and the Grand Jury process. With each of your contributions, the movement grows stronger.
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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Deafening Silence, Chuck Africa (MOVE 9)
Check out other art and poetry by prisoners at:
Shujaas!: Prisoners Resisting Through Art
...we banging hard, yes, very hard, on this system...
http://shujaas.wordpress.com/
Peace People,
This poem is from Chuck Africa, one of the MOVE 9, who is currently serving 30-100 years on trump up charges of killing a police officer. After 32 years in prison, the MOVE 9 are repeatly denied parole, after serving their minimum sentence. Chuck wanted me to share this with the people, so that we can see how our silence in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom is inherently an invitation to their death behind prison walls.
Deafening Silence
Don't ya'll hear cries of anguish?
In the climate of pain come joining voices?
But voices become unheard and strained by inactions
Of dead brains
How long will thou Philly soul remain in the pit of agonizing apathy?
Indifference seems to greet you like the morning mirror
Look closely in the mirror and realize it's a period of mourning....
My Sistas, mothers, daughters, wives and warriors
Languish in prisons obscurity like a distant star in the galaxies as does their brothers
We need to be free....
How loud can you stay silence?
Have the courage to stand up and have a say,
Choose resistance and let go of your fears.
The history of injustice to MOVE; we all know so well
But your deafening silence could be my DEATH KNELL.
Chuck Africa
Please share, inform people and get involve in demanding the MOVE 9's freedom! www.MOVE9parole.blogspot.com
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Say No to Islamophobia!
Defend Mosques and Community Centers!
The Fight for Peace and Social Justice Requires Defense of All Under Attack!
http://www.petitiononline.com/nophobia/petition.html
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Kevin Keith Update: Good News! Death sentence commuted!
Ohio may execute an innocent man unless you take action.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-kevin-keith
Ohio's Governor Spares Life of a Death Row Inmate Kevin Keith
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03ohio.html?ref=us
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Please sign the petition to release Bradley Manning
http://www.petitiononline.com/manning1/petition.html (Click to sign here)
To: US Department of Defense; US Department of Justice
We, the Undersigned, call for justice for US Army PFC Bradley Manning, incarcerated without charge (as of 18 June 2010) at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Media accounts state that Mr. Manning was arrested in late May for leaking the video of US Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent people and seriously wounding two children in Baghdad, including those who arrived to help the wounded, as well as potentially other material. The video was released by WikiLeaks under the name "Collateral Murder".
If these allegations are untrue, we call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
If these allegations ARE true, we ALSO call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
Simultaneously, we express our support for Mr. Manning in any case, and our admiration for his courage if he is, in fact, the person who disclosed the video. Like in the cases of Daniel Ellsberg, W. Mark Felt, Frank Serpico and countless other whistleblowers before, government demands for secrecy must yield to public knowledge and justice when government crime and corruption are being kept hidden.
Justice for Bradley Manning!
Sincerely,
The Undersigned:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?manning1
--
Zaineb Alani
http://www.thewordsthatcomeout.blogspot.com
http://www.tigresssmiles.blogspot.com
"Yesterday I lost a country. / I was in a hurry, / and didn't notice when it fell from me / like a broken branch from a forgetful tree. / Please, if anyone passes by / and stumbles across it, / perhaps in a suitcase / open to the sky, / or engraved on a rock / like a gaping wound, / ... / If anyone stumbles across it, / return it to me please. / Please return it, sir. / Please return it, madam. / It is my country . . . / I was in a hurry / when I lost it yesterday." -Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi poet
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Please forward widely...
HELP LYNNE STEWART -- SUPPORT THESE BILLS
These two bills are now in Congress and need your support. Either or both bills would drastically decrease Lynne's and other federal sentences substantially.
H.R. 1475 "Federal Prison Work Incentive Act Amended 2009," Congressman Danny Davis, Democrat, Illinois
This bill will restore and amend the former federal B.O.P. good time allowances. It will let all federal prisoners, except lifers, earn significant reductions to their sentences. Second, earn monthly good time days by working prison jobs. Third, allowances for performing outstanding services or duties in connection with institutional operations. In addition, part of this bill is to bring back parole to federal long term prisoners.
Go to: www.FedCURE.org and www.FAMM.org
At this time, federal prisoners only earn 47 days per year good time. If H.R. 1475 passes, Lynne Stewart would earn 120-180 days per year good time!
H.R. 61 "45 And Older," Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (18th Congressional District, Texas)
This bill provides early release from federal prison after serving half of a violent crime or violent conduct in prison.
Please write, call, email your Representatives and Senators. Demand their votes!
This information is brought to you by Diane E. Schindelwig, a federal prisoner #36582-177 and friend and supporter of Lynne Stewart.
Write to Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY 2-S
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
For further information call Lynne's husband, Ralph Poynter, leader of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Send contributions payable to:
Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
---
Listen to Lynne Stewart event, that took place July 8, 2010 at Judson Memorial Church
Excerpts include: Mumia Abu Jamal, Ralph Poynter, Ramsey Clark, Juanita
Young, Fred Hampton Jr., Raging Grannies, Ralph Schoenman
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
And check out this article (link) too!
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2010/062210Lendman.shtml
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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL GRAVELY CONCERNED THAT RULING PUTS TROY DAVIS ON TRACK FOR EXECUTION; CITES PERSISTING DOUBTS ABOUT HIS GUILT
"Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence."
Amnesty International Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Contact: Wende Gozan Brown at 212-633-4247, wgozan@aiusa.org.
(Washington, D.C.) - Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today expressed deep concern that a federal district court decision puts Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis back on track for execution, despite doubts about his guilt that were raised during a June evidentiary hearing. Judge William T. Moore, Jr. ruled that while executing an innocent person would violate the United States Constitution, Davis didn't meet the extraordinarily high legal bar to prove his innocence.
"Nobody walking out of that hearing could view this as an open-and-shut case," said Larry Cox, executive director of AIUSA. "The testimony that came to light demonstrates that doubt still exists, but the legal bar for proving innocence was set so high it was virtually insurmountable. It would be utterly unconscionable to proceed with this execution, plain and simple."
Amnesty International representatives, including Cox, attended the hearing in Savannah, Ga. The organization noted that evidence continues to cast doubt over the case:
· Four witnesses admitted in court that they lied at trial when they implicated Troy Davis and that they did not know who shot Officer Mark MacPhail.
· Four witnesses implicated another man as the one who killed the officer - including a man who says he saw the shooting and could clearly identify the alternative suspect, who is a family member.
· Three original state witnesses described police coercion during questioning, including one man who was 16 years old at the time of the murder and was questioned by several police officers without his parents or other adults present.
"The Troy Davis case is emblematic of everything that is wrong with capital punishment," said Laura Moye, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. "In a system rife with error, mistakes can be made. There are no do-overs when it comes to death. Lawmakers across the country should scrutinize this case carefully, not only because of its unprecedented nature, but because it clearly indicates the need to abolish the death penalty in the United States."
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia, Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting hundreds of thousands of clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
# # #
For more information visit www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis.
Wende Gozan Brown
Media Relations Director
Amnesty International USA
212/633-4247 (o)
347/526-5520 (c)
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
(A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
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Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501c)3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Fast Track to Inequality
"...the incomes of the very highest earners in the United States, a small group of individuals hauling in more than $50 million annually (sometimes much more), increased fivefold from 2008 to 2009... investors and executives at the nation's 38 largest companies earned a stunning total of $140 billion - a record. The investment firm Goldman Sachs paid bonuses to its employees that averaged nearly $600,000 per person, its best year since it was founded in 1869."
By BOB HERBERT
November 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/opinion/02herbert.html?hp
2) STOP THE KTVU MEHSERLE "PITY PARTY!"
To: KTVU General Manager: general.manager@ktvu.com
Rita Williams: rwilliams@ktvu.com
KTVU, 2 Jack London Square, Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 834-1212
By Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
San Francisco, CA
3) STOP THE KTVU MEHSERLE "PITY PARTY!"
To: KTVU General Manager: general.manager@ktvu.com
Rita Williams: rwilliams@ktvu.com
KTVU, 2 Jack London Square, Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 834-1212
By Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
San Francisco, CA
4) Merely Affluent vs. Truly Rich
By DAVID LEONHARDT
November 2, 2010, 2:49 pm
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/merely-affluent-vs-truly-rich/?src=busln
5) Medical Marijuana Raises Tough Questions for Nursing Homes
By NUSHIN RASHIDIAN AND ALYSON MARTIN
October 27, 2010, 2:01 pm
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/medical-marijuana-raises-tough-questions-in-nursing-homes/?ref=health
6) Why Liberal Justice is not Justice for Oscar Grant
Nick Theodosis
Mon, 1 Nov at 4:14pm
http://oaklandlocal.com/blogs/2010/11/why-liberal-justice-not-justice-oscar-grant
7) Cotton Clothing Price Tags to Rise
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
November 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/business/03cotton.html?hp
8) California Rejects Marijuana Legalization
By MARC LACEY
November 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03ballot.html
9) Spill Cleanup Proceeds Amid Mistrust
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
November 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/03spill.html?ref=us
10) Indiana Braces For Violence, Adds Armed Guards To Unemployment Offices In Anticipation Of 99-Week Jobless Benefits Expiration
By Tyler Durden
Created 11/01/2010 - 10:58
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/indiana-braces-violence-adds-armed-guards-unemplyment-offices-anticipation-99-week-jobless-b?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+surv
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1) Fast Track to Inequality
"...the incomes of the very highest earners in the United States, a small group of individuals hauling in more than $50 million annually (sometimes much more), increased fivefold from 2008 to 2009... investors and executives at the nation's 38 largest companies earned a stunning total of $140 billion - a record. The investment firm Goldman Sachs paid bonuses to its employees that averaged nearly $600,000 per person, its best year since it was founded in 1869."
By BOB HERBERT
November 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/opinion/02herbert.html?hp
The clearest explanation yet of the forces that converged over the past three decades or so to undermine the economic well-being of ordinary Americans is contained in the new book, "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class."
The authors, political scientists Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of the University of California, Berkeley, argue persuasively that the economic struggles of the middle and working classes in the U.S. since the late-1970s were not primarily the result of globalization and technological changes but rather a long series of policy changes in government that overwhelmingly favored the very rich.
Those changes were the result of increasingly sophisticated, well-financed and well-organized efforts by the corporate and financial sectors to tilt government policies in their favor, and thus in favor of the very wealthy. From tax laws to deregulation to corporate governance to safety net issues, government action was deliberately shaped to allow those who were already very wealthy to amass an ever increasing share of the nation's economic benefits.
"Over the last generation," the authors write, "more and more of the rewards of growth have gone to the rich and superrich. The rest of America, from the poor through the upper middle class, has fallen further and further behind."
As if to underscore this theme, it was revealed last week (by David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for The New York Times), that the incomes of the very highest earners in the United States, a small group of individuals hauling in more than $50 million annually (sometimes much more), increased fivefold from 2008 to 2009, even as the nation was being rocked by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Last year was a terrific year for those at the very top. Professors Hacker and Pierson note in their book that investors and executives at the nation's 38 largest companies earned a stunning total of $140 billion - a record. The investment firm Goldman Sachs paid bonuses to its employees that averaged nearly $600,000 per person, its best year since it was founded in 1869.
Something has gone seriously haywire in the distribution of the fruits of the American economy.
This unfortunate shift away from a long period of more widely shared prosperity unfolded steadily, year after year since the late-'70s, whether Democrats or Republicans controlled the levers of power in Washington. "Winner-Take-All Politics" explores the vexing question of how this could have happened in a democracy in which - in theory, at least - the enormous number of voters who are not rich would serve as a check on policies that curtailed their own economic opportunities while at the same time supercharging the benefits of the runaway rich.
The answer becomes clearer when one recognizes, as the book stresses, that politics is largely about organized combat. It's a form of warfare. "It's a contest," said Professor Pierson, "between those who are organized, who can really monitor what government is doing in a very complicated world and bring pressure effectively to bear on politicians. Voters in that kind of system are at a disadvantage when there aren't reliable, organized groups representing them that have clout and can effectively communicate to them what is going on."
The book describes an "organizational revolution" that took place over the past three decades in which big business mobilized on an enormous scale to become much more active in Washington, cultivating politicians in both parties and fighting fiercely to achieve shared political goals. This occurred at the same time that organized labor, the most effective force fighting on behalf of the middle class and other working Americans, was caught in a devastating spiral of decline.
Thus, the counterweight of labor to the ever-increasing political clout of big business was effectively lost.
"We're not arguing that globalization and technological change don't matter," said Professor Hacker. "But they aren't by any means a sufficient explanation for this massive change in the distribution of wealth and income in the U.S. Much more important are the ways in which government has shaped the economy over this period through deregulation, through changes in industrial relations policies affecting labor unions, through corporate governance policies that have allowed C.E.O.'s to basically set their own pay, and so on."
This hyperconcentration of wealth and income, and the overwhelming political clout it has put into the hands of the monied interests, has drastically eroded the capacity of government to respond to the needs of the middle class and others of modest income.
Nothing better illustrates the enormous power that has accrued to this tiny sliver of the population than its continued ability to thrive and prosper despite the Great Recession that was largely the result of their winner-take-all policies, and that has had such a disastrous effect on so many other Americans.
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2) Flood their Phone Lines - KTVU is putting on a sympathy show for a MURDERER!!!! See below for information regarding filing FCC complaints.
Phone: (510) 834-1212
Rita Williams: rwilliams@ktvu.com
KTVU General Manager: general.manager@ktvu.com
KTVU, 2 Jack London Square, Oakland, CA 94607
Hello,
I have a long story to tell here. This is the short, quick and dirty version.
I worked at BART for 15 years as a Station Agent, 10 years a Shop Steward and 3 years Vice-President of ATU Local 1555, just after BART PD officer Fred Crabtree shot Jerrald Hall (late 1992) and later committed suicide. It's absolutely clear to me from personal experience that Crabtree was a troubled person, who became more twisted after he shot Hall. I fought in the union to condemn the shooting and condemn the institutional racism that justified Crabtree's shooting of Hall. Maybe not in the most perfect way, but I did fight it, along with other ATU members, when other people in the union opposed us making a statement about it at all. That's as brief as I can be.
I worked with Rita Williams when she was a reporter at KQED and at KTVU, where I was a trainee film operator and editor at KQED and a video editor and stagehand at KTVU. Williams tends to be sympathetic to people she is interviewing, as it is part of her personality and reporting style.
I made a public statement to the BART Board condemning Mesherle, Dorothy Dugger, Gary Gee and James Fang in 1/2010 for racial profiling and not exercising due diligence in running BART police, for which Dugger and the BART Board, under the leadership of Fang, bares total and absolute responsibility. Even Mesherle expresses some understanding that he was offered up as a sacrificial lamb to get Dugger, Fang and the BART Board off the hook. He says so indirectly in this interview with Rita Williams. He's just not the blunt person I can be.
Mesherle's feelings of remorse, that he made a mistake, that he can't explain why he did what he did and couldn't recognize the difference between a Tazer and a SIG Sauer P226 (his pistol), even after he had unholstered his Tazer two times before he pulled his pistol and shot Grant and other things he said are all reasons that he is guilty and should, to balance the scales of justice just a little, be punished and does not raise sympathy from me. Mesherle does not even say in the interview that he should not go to jail, only that he will keep fighting his sentence, in response to William's direct question about the issue of his doing jail time.
Where was the hard nosed campaign against the re-election of Fang? Consider for one damn minute the following as a question and not an accusation against JRValrey, who was unfairly sentenced and punished simply for reporting on incidents related to community action and anger about the Oscar Grant shooting. Could Valrey have made himself eligible to run for office against Fang, and used the election process to slam home the need for a harsh sentencing and the ousting of Fang and to organize a broader base of support for direct action on all the issues involved?
Recall Fang. Jail Dugger, Gee and Fang too.
Around the whole world, An Injury to One is an Injury to All,
Gene Pepi, retired BART Station Agent, ATU Local 1555 shop steward and former Vice - president ATU Local 1555, member Peace and Freedom Party, and Left Party
Fox 2/KTVU - flood their phone lines/email boxes & File an FCC complaint; COINTELPRO 101 - El Cerrito, Wed. November 10th - 7:15 Sharp
Fox 2/KTVU - flood their phone lines/email boxes & File an FCC complaint
Rita Williams interview with Mehserle
Rita Williams interview with Grant Family
KTVU has been profiling Johannes Mehserle. The interview is offensive, disgusting and a sorry plea to gain sympathy for a murderer before his sentencing. Flood their phone lines and tell them SHAME ON YOU! The victim on January 1, 2009 was OSCAR GRANT!!!
Rally today at 4:00 p.m. to protest KTVU's blatant one-sided "interview" of Johanes Mehserle which is to air 2 times a day for the next 4 days before he is to be sentenced for killing Oscar Grant on Friday, November 5th. Channel 2, Embarcadero, Oakland (across from Amtrak at Jack London Sq.)
By law the family of Oscar Grant will give their statements in court on the day of the sentencing.
Rita Williams has presented Mehserle's statement for all of the KTVU viewing audience to see and hear two times each day for the rest of this week. The "interview" started airing last week after an all too brief interview with the family for one day only.
Ms. Wanda Johnson, Oscar Grant's mother, suffered a stroke very recently; a result of all the stress and pressure the media coverage has caused. Let's keep her in our hearts and prayers for healing of her mind, body and soul.
Flood their Phone Lines - KTVU is putting on a sympathy show for a MURDERER!!!! See below for information regarding filing FCC complaints.
Phone: (510) 834-1212
Rita Williams: rwilliams@ktvu.com
KTVU General Manager: general.manager@ktvu.com
KTVU, 2 Jack London Square, Oakland, CA 94607
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FILING A FCC COMPLAINT
TAKEN FROM THE FCC WEBSITE:
You may submit this form over the Internet at http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm , by e-mail to fccinfo@fcc.gov, by fax to 1-866-418-0232, or by postal mail to:
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Complaints
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20554
In addition, you may submit your complaint over the telephone by calling 1-888-CALL-FCC or 1-888-TELL-FCC (TTY). If you choose to submit your complaint over the telephone, an FCC customer service representative will fill out an electronic version of the form for you during your conversation. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the FCC at 1-888-CALL-FCC or 1-888-TELL-FCC (TTY).
To: Rita Williams and the Management of Fox/Channel 2 KTVU
Re: Acting as publicist for a convicted killer
It has come to my attention that your station is airing an interview with convicted killer Johannes Mehserle, the BART Police officer who took the life of Oscar Grant in Oakland on New Year's Day 2009, and that you plan to broadcast segments of this "interview" twice a day for four days prior to his being sentenced for the crime. I believe you also aired a shorter interview with the Grant family last week.
I write to strongly object to your station serving as publicist for this killer, conducting what amounts to a public relations campaign to whip up public sympathy and perhaps even to try to influence the judge's decision in sentencing Mehserle later this week.
Can you cite one other instance in which Channel 2 played a similar role on behalf of a convicted killer?
What's next - calling on the public to storm the courtroom to demand the judge set him free with a slap on the wrist?
In your sympathetic softball interview, you report that Mehserle apologized to the Grant family in a letter to them, but in the portions of the interview you aired there was no public apology for the life he took. The focus of the interview was on his own plight in the wake of that act. What viewers saw was someone who was preoccupied with his own suffering, not someone who suffered great regret or expressed contrition.
The fact that the killer is a white police officer and the victim is a black youth adds an additional undertone that reinforces all the worst stereotypical images - the heroic but sadly misunderstood white officer and the rebellious out of control young black man he tried to arrest. Who is the victim and who is the criminal?
Your station compounded this bias by then airing an exchange between you and Tori Campbell in which you essentially regurgitated without criticism or skepticism Mehserle's self-serving account, again leaving the impression that he is the victim in this tragic episode. There are links there to the clips of the Mehserle interview but none to the interview you did with the family of Oscar Grant.
And, if that were not sufficient, in your website archive on the page supposedly devoted to the interview with the family, in the "related stories" sidebar, is a list of video clips related to the case. The first is a link to the interview with the family. Sixteen of the next 22 links are openly sympathetic to Mehserle. In the page devoted to your interview with Mehserle, there is also a sidebar. The first link is to the interview that was broadcast, the next two are to raw video from the interview itself. There is no link to the interview with the family, and the raw video is provided without a soundtrack, so even if a view wanted to view the entire interview, that is not available to them.
Your station has been granted use of the public airwaves to serve the whole community. Your biased attempt to affect the outcome of the judicial process and to paint the killer as the victim violates that public trust. By crossing the "thin blue line" to side with the killer, to rally the community in support of this convicted criminal, you forfeit the privilege granted to you by the FCC license.
I hope the FCC conducts a thorough review of this outrageous performance and suspends your company's license to operate. We don't want or need a cheerleader for killer cops in the City of Oakland.
You should immediately suspend these broadcasts, remove the biased articles and video from the station's website, and issue a public apology to the Grant family and the communities your station serves.
Yours for justice and objective journalism,
Michael Eisenscher
Coordinator, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice
Resident of Oakland
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3) STOP THE KTVU MEHSERLE "PITY PARTY!"
To: KTVU General Manager: general.manager@ktvu.com
Rita Williams: rwilliams@ktvu.com
KTVU, 2 Jack London Square, Oakland, CA 94607
Phone: (510) 834-1212
By Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
San Francisco, CA
To all who are responsible:
I am writing to express my outrage at your constant airing of the Johannes Mehserle interview that purports to show his regret for his murder of Oscar Grant. Of course he's sorry now! And it is too bad that he did what he did. But why don't you show the sadness of Oscar Grant's friends who had to witness the murder of their friend, Oscar. Why don't you show the photograph of Mehserle with a taser in his hand, that he had to have put away, before pulling out his gun and shooting Oscar in the back while other officers were holding Oscar down on the ground? Why don't you show Mehserle as he stands up and crassly says, "F**k this shit!" as he pulls out his gun, and points it squarely at Oscar's back and shoots? Why don't you show the tears on the cheeks of little Tatiana, Oscar's daughter? His daughter's mother who lost her daughter's father and her fiancé?
What about the message this sends of the total disregard of law enforcement toward the worthiness of the lives of young Black men and women and the poor, in general. How can any of us feel safe in our streets or on our transit system if the police are allowed to shoot you dead and ask questions later?
This kind of rankly biased reporting is not only shameful--it flies in the face of truth--of what we all witnessed with our own eyes thanks to those with cell phones who had the forethought to record what they were witnessing including Oscar himself!
And now, the police are on a campaign to make it illegal for citizens to record such incidents!
What happened to Oscar grant is not unusual. It's just unusual that so many recordings showed the same thing! The blatant murder of an unarmed, young Black man with witnesses all around to watch.
What the hell do BART security need guns for, anyway?
By your repeated airing of the Mehserle interview that is designed to bring pity to him, you are proving your station to be racist and biased in favor of police violence!
It makes you complicit in the police-murders to follow if Mehserle is not made an example of. He needs to receive the maximum sentence!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
San Francisco, CA
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4) Merely Affluent vs. Truly Rich
By DAVID LEONHARDT
November 2, 2010, 2:49 pm
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/merely-affluent-vs-truly-rich/?src=busln
Most people know that the top income tax rates used to be much higher than they now are. What's much less known is that the top brackets started at much higher income levels than today's top brackets do. In other words, the tax code used to draw sharper distinctions between the merely affluent and the truly rich.
In 1960, the top tax bracket - with a marginal rate of 91 percent - started at $400,000, which is the equivalent of almost $3 million today, as I mentioned in my column this week. These days, the top bracket starts at just a small fraction of $3 million: $373,650.
As Bruce Bartlett has noted, inflation has warped our understanding of just how high those old cutoffs were: "High tax rates in the past that appear to apply to low incomes actually applied to incomes that were much higher in real terms."
In 1970, the top bracket started at $1.1 million in today's terms ($200,000 in 1970 dollars). In 1980, the top threshold was $571,000 in today's terms. Since the early 1990s, the cutoff has been roughly where it is now, adjusted for inflation.
If anything, the argument for having higher tax rates on the very rich is stronger today than it was in the past, given how much larger a share of income they earn.
Here's James Surowiecki, writing in The New Yorker in August:
Between 2002 and 2007, for instance, the bottom 99 percent of incomes grew 1.3 percent a year in real terms - while the incomes of the top 1 percent grew 10 percent a year. That 1 percent accounted for two-thirds of all income growth in those years.... Even within the top 1 percent, income is getting more concentrated: the top 0.1 percent of earners have seen their share of national income triple over the same period...
The current debate over taxes takes none of this into account. At the moment, we have a system of tax brackets well suited to 19th-century New Zealand. Our system sets the top bracket at $375,000, with a tax rate of 35 percent.... This means that someone making $200,000 a year and someone making $200 million a year pay at similar tax rates. LeBron James and LeBron James's dentist: same difference.
A better tax system would have more brackets, so that the super-rich pay higher rates. (The most obvious bracket to add would be a higher rate at a million dollars a year, but there's no reason to stop there.) This would make the system fairer, since it would reflect the real stratification among high-income earners. A few extra brackets at the top could also bring in tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue.
There would be political advantages, too: the reform could actually make tax hikes on top earners more popular.
This Times Magazine article I wrote last year also has more on the topic. The Tax Foundation also lists the income cutoffs for every year, going back to 1913.
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5) Medical Marijuana Raises Tough Questions for Nursing Homes
By NUSHIN RASHIDIAN AND ALYSON MARTIN
October 27, 2010, 2:01 pm
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/medical-marijuana-raises-tough-questions-in-nursing-homes/?ref=health
Alyson Martin Norma Winkler, 82, uses cannabis oil mixed with applesauce to ease pain from a back injury. She would not consider living in a nursing home that did not permit her to use the oil.
Every night before bed, Norma Winkler, 82, opens a small jar of cannabis oil and measures out a quarter-teaspoon to mix with homemade applesauce. Soon after she eats it, she drifts off to sleep.
Ms. Winkler, who lives in Rhode Island, where medical marijuana is legal, has endured chronic back pain since a car accident fractured her skull and spine at age 15. Operations haven't helped, and other medicines don't touch the pain that can keep her up through the night.
"It's really been a lifesaver for me," Ms. Winkler said of her cannabis oil. "I used to walk into the walls sometimes. I was so tired because I didn't sleep."
Today, she's healthy enough to remain independent in her home and to operate the jewelry factory she owns. But she worries about what will happen if she needs institutional care. Would a long-term care facility allow her to use this particular medicine?
"I wouldn't go if they didn't allow me to take it," Ms. Winkler said.
When states began embracing medical marijuana, few anticipated this inevitable scenario: patients using it would grow older, and many would need to enter assisted living and nursing homes. The prospect has just begun to raise difficult questions for administrators and state regulators.
Any patient using medical marijuana breaks federal law. Marijuana is listed as a Schedule 1 drug, which means the federal government considers it to have no medicinal value. Despite this, physicians in 14 states and the District of Columbia are allowed to recommend it. Legalization of medical marijuana is under consideration in eight additional states this year.
Though firm numbers are difficult to come by, experts say elderly patients like Ms. Winkler increasingly use medical marijuana to ease their pain. But many care facilities in which they reside, or will reside, receive federal funding through Medicare and indirectly through Medicaid.
Many facility administrators wonder how they can comply with federal law and preserve their reimbursements and at the same time permit residents to medicate with marijuana. At an American Health Care Association conference in early October, Fred Miles, a Colorado lawyer who represents health care providers, gave a presentation called "Medical Marijuana - Are Nursing Homes Going to Pot?"
The issue is badly in need of federal clarification, he said.
"What do these health care facilities do? Adopt a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy? Somebody is using medical marijuana in the residence and you just close your eyes to it? I don't think that's going to work very well," Mr. Miles said in an interview.
Said Maribeth Bersani, senior vice president of public policy for the Assisted Living Federation of America: "Where do they store [marijuana]? Who assists the residents with it? Do they even want to get involved because it still is not legal federally? It's one of those challenges that we are beginning to confront in the communities."
Such questions prompted the American Medical Directors Association to consider a resolution last spring proposing a discussion with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about how to relax federal regulations with regard to medical marijuana in long-term care facilities. (The resolution did not pass.)
In most states that allow medical marijuana, laws don't explicitly address the possibility that elderly patients in care facilities will want to use it. Alaska's medical marijuana law explicitly states that it does not require accommodation for users of marijuana medical in any facility monitored by the state's Department of Administration, which includes assisted-living facilities.
But Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island do include "agitation of Alzheimer's" as a qualifying condition for legal use of marijuana. And when Maine's medical marijuana law changed last November to allow for the establishment of dispensaries, the state expressly permitted nursing homes and inpatient hospice workers to act as registered medical marijuana caregivers for patients.
Catherine Cobb, director of the state's division of licensing and regulatory services, invited representatives from Maine's nursing homes to a conference where she explained the program.
In order for a nursing home or inpatient hospice to act as a registered medical marijuana caregiver, the facility must obtain medical marijuana from a dispensary. Ms. Cobb is encouraging the state's new dispensaries to measure and package doses to make it easier for care facilities to inventory and administer the medicine.
Dosage, in addition to federal law, is among the most common questions in care facilities wrestling with the prospect of medical marijuana.
In New Mexico, which legalized medical marijuana in 2007, the transition to allowing facility residents to use it has gone fairly smoothly, said the state's long-term care ombudsman, Sondra Everhart. But the lack of dosing direction has caused problems.
"If the marijuana is kept at the nurses' station, it tends to disappear," Ms. Everhart said. "Pills in nursing homes are in what they call vacuum packs: you have to pop a pill out one at a time. They don't do that with marijuana. It's an amount of marijuana in a small plastic bag, so there is no way to track if someone took one or two pinches."
Montana's long-term care ombudsman, Kelly Moorse, said in an e-mail that in one state facility, workers took medical marijuana from a resident's lockbox. She also said there were claims of staff members approaching a resident, seeking to "share" the patient's marijuana.
Another problem perplexing officials: Other residents may object to the use of marijuana at a care facility. A roommate, for instance, might see a medical marijuana patient as a criminal, raising additional questions about patients' rights.
"They have an affirmative right to complain and ask for redress and so forth if there's smoke in the air and it's aggravating their lungs, or they don't like the smell of marijuana," said Joe Greenman, legal counsel with the Oregon Health Care Association. "And there are cultural complaints, because medical marijuana has stigma attached to it."
Valerie Corral, director and co-founder of Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, Calif., said that one local long-term care facility tries to accommodate patients on both sides by designating a garden patio as a marijuana-smoking area.
"In that courtyard, people are allowed to use their medicine with one of the aides that works at the facility," Ms. Corral said. (Smoke-free options do exist for marijuana. Some facilities report patients using vaporizers or consuming cannabis baked into desserts, according to Ms. Moorse.)
Oregon's long-term care ombudsman, Mary Jaeger, believes the emerging controversy highlights the rights of patients to use medical marijuana, whatever the setting.
"Wouldn't any one of us, in our own homes, feel that we have the right to live our lives by our own values and choices, to preserve our own dignity and, frankly, to live pain-free?" Ms. Jaeger asked. "Because typically, that's why a patient gets prescribed medical marijuana."
In January, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or Norml, plans to introduce the Norml Senior Alliance, which will offer to elderly Americans information about the medical uses of marijuana, according to Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the organization.
Next week, voters in California will vote on whether to support the recreational use of marijuana. Ms. Corral said passage of the measure and the changes it would bring would be positive for those living in long-term care facilities by providing wider access to medical marijuana.
"What keeps many elders from using marijuana in the first place, medically, and relieving their suffering, is the stigma that's attached to marijuana," Ms. Corral said.
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6) Why Liberal Justice is not Justice for Oscar Grant
Nick Theodosis
Mon, 1 Nov at 4:14pm
http://oaklandlocal.com/blogs/2010/11/why-liberal-justice-not-justice-oscar-grant
There is a something dangerous about the pervading view of justice for Oscar Grant. It's one that constrains the perception of injustice to the bullet in the back, the soft verdict, and the light sentence. On occasion it may challenge the legitimacy of the conditions under which such events occur, but it remains steadfastly committed to preserving the authority and power to control and coerce from which those conditions arise. It's a view distinguished from conservatism only in that it does not grant the state an outright license to kill. It is the liberal view, the dominant paradigm of justice in our society, and we would do well to find an alternative.
Until we do, we can expect the liberal view to continue to deter justice and to continue promoting the barbaric myth upon which it rests: that our ability to be free from harm is dependent upon the level of threat imposed by the state and its armed apparatus, constituted by our security and protection agencies. At the local level, in our communities, police and other law enforcement agents carry out this threat. So long as this threat remains, there can be no justice for Oscar Grant.
Security and the Structure of a Sentence
According to the liberal view, on November 5th Judge Robert Perry's sentence has an opportunity to ameliorate a series of wrongs: a racially motivated bullet in the back and a lenient verdict for Johannes Mehserle. Some push further, insisting that given these past injustices, Perry is obligated to right prior wrongs by issuing the maximum sentence. This alleged duty obtains of course, only within a given structure, a liberal framework, which grants Perry the power to institute justice. Insofar as this structure is maintained and Perry arrives at a sentence tolerable to those appealing to the state to "jail killer cops," security is preserved and injustice is righted.
In this case, that is, on the liberal view, justice is taken to be inextricably linked proportionally to the state's punishment of Johannes Mehserle. Beginning presumably at a fixed minimum, but somewhere close to the maximum of 14 years, the greater Mehserle's punishment (within normative judicial limits), the greater degree of justice is achieved. This kind of thinking has significant implications for the post-November liberal driven undercurrent of the justice for Oscar Grant movement. If the aim of this aspect[1] of the movement has been focused on retribution by way of the judicial system, i.e., state self-punishment, its perceived progress is subject to collapses at any instance in which the state decides not to continue abusing itself. Of course, to use the term abuse here is to give too much weight to state self-harm. The occasional infliction of punishment on itself is misleadingly. In offering up Mehserle as a sacrificial lamb, the state concedes nothing that would bear systematically on prospects for alternative views of justice.
It may be the case that it is too soon to see the significance, if any, that such appeals to state self-punishment will have on curtailing police violence. But those communities affected most by police violence are not in a privileged position to wait for empirical results. And if the international publicity garnered by supporters of the Oscar Grant case is going to be looked to as a model for organizing against police brutality, its failure to prevent the brutal public police beating of Askia Sabur in West Philadelphia is a counter-example activists should take very seriously.
In any event, this is a hypothetical question regarding effective strategy within the structure of liberal justice, not the proper understanding of justice. The barbaric myth remains, the traditional roles have just been replaced. Our ability to be free from (police) is dependent upon the level of threat (self-imposed) by security and protection agencies, overwhelmingly the state and its armed apparatus. In fact, by focusing our attention on Mehserle and putting cops on trial more generally, we are able to see more clearly the absurdity in adopting the liberal view of justice. That is, we see now, as did both Oscar Grant and Askia Sabur that our ability to be free from harm up is strictly dependent on the whim of the state, or whether they choose to engage in self-restraint.
Not ironically, this sense of justice is consistent with the stance taken by Johannes Mehserle supporters who claim:
It is MANDATORY that our Law Enforcement Officers carry and use lethal and non lethal weapons during the course of their duties and they must make and implement the decision to use those weapons in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving. It is shameful that we require our officers to use lethal and non lethal weapons and when an accident occurs with the same weapons they are ordered to carry, they are charged, convicted, and thrown in jail for trying to do their job... a thankless job that most of us don't have the courage to do!
The liberal view may not chose to stand behind one cop, viz., Johannes Mehserle, but most share the admiration for law enforcement as "a thankless job that most of us don't have the courage to do" and "who daily put their lives on the line for" us. Even though some may shun the admiration while upholding the mandatory privilege for police to do harm.
A Permit to Protest, A Failure to Resist
As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, this is a dangerous view. Clearly it presents no danger to the state. If it did there would be ample evidence of counter-resistance. To illustrate this, we might compare for example, the loosely organized rally on day of the Mehserle verdict and the recent ILWU initiated labor and community rally calling for "Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail for Killer Cops!" in preparation for the November 5th sentencing.
For a variety of reasons, which I won't touch upon here, the verdict rally elicited a major response from Bay Area law enforcement agencies and the U.S. National Guard that drew national headlines. Police were put on mandatory overtime in preparation for "Operation Verdict," "training for the possibility it could get violent." Now, by "get violent," "operation verdict" was not preparing to step in should rally activists being harming one another. By "get violent" police were training to defend themselves and also the ubiquitous capital interests in downtown Oakland. There is an ample documentary record of the events of that night that demonstrate the enormous police presence. Needless to say, the events on the ground were palpable.
This was not the case at the ILWU rally. The Oakland police department was just noticeably present, with only several teams of cops peppering the corners of City Hall where rally organizers had received a permit to be. On the liberal view, it is not ironic to request permission from the City of Oakland, to hold an event that requires Oakland police, and to hire additional private security (Urban Shield), all in order to protest police brutality.
After November
The liberal view is a dangerous view because it seduces us to sacrifice freedom for protection, while insisting that protection is not control and manipulation, but itself a type of freedom: freedom from harm. There is little difference in this respect between the liberal siren and the police siren. Both aim to steer us in a particular direction. It's the presence of this siren that is inconsistent with justice for Oscar Grant. And if, in this respect we are all Oscar Grant, we would do well to resist its call.
The task ahead is markedly different is we adopt a view of justice for Oscar Grant alternative to the liberal view. An emancipatory view, for example, pinpoints injustice for Oscar Grant not from the moment he was pulled from the train or shot in the back, but from the moment Mehserle put on his badge. It was at that moment that Mehserle asserted his authority over Oscar Grant. And it is this relationship that gave rise to the context in which Oscar Grant's safety, indeed his life, was relegated to a series of events beyond his control. This fact, that Oscar Grants life was arbitrarily in the hands of someone else, is the injustice Oscar Grant suffered. And if we take seriously the recent creed that "we are all Oscar Grant," we have much to do even after November.
Nick Theodosis is a graduate student in social and political philosophy at San Francisco State University. He was a member of the ILWU initiated Oscar Grant Rally Organizing Committee. His writing on Justice for Oscar Grant can be found at Oakland Local and the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper. He can be reached at nmtheo@mail.sfsu.edu.
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7) Cotton Clothing Price Tags to Rise
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
November 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/business/03cotton.html?hp
Synthetic linings. Smaller buttons. Less Italian fabric. And yes, even more polyester. Unusually high cotton prices have apparel makers scrambling to keep down costs, but consumers be warned: cotton clothing will be getting more expensive.
"It's really a no-choice situation," said Wesley R. Card, president and chief executive of the Jones Group, the company behind Anne Klein, Nine West and other brands. "Prices have to come up."
The Bon-Ton chain is raising prices on its private-label fashion items by as much as a dollar this spring, and prices will go up further next fall. And it is switching from 100 percent cotton in items like sweaters to more acrylic blends. Levi's says it has already increased prices and may push them further north next year. And Hanesbrands, the maker of Champion, Hanes and Playtex, says price increases will be in place by February, and prices could go up further if cotton prices remain where they are.
Other apparel makers say they have held the line on prices this year, but next year will be different. The V. F. Corporation, the maker of 7 for All Mankind and The North Face, says most brands will probably cost more next year, and its cotton-heavy jeans lines are particularly susceptible to increases. Jones says its increases could be in the high single digits or more.
The problem is a classic supply and demand imbalance, with the price of cotton rising almost 80 percent since July and prices expected to remain high. "World cotton production is unlikely to catch up with consumption for at least two years," said Sharon Johnson, senior cotton analyst with the First Capital Group, in an e-mail.
Cotton inventories had been low because of weak demand during the recession. This summer, new cotton crops were also depleted because of flooding in Pakistan and bad weather in China and India, all major cotton producers.
But demand from China, in particular, was rising. And as the economic recovery in the United States began, apparel makers and retailers placed orders for more inventory, spurring even more demand. As prices rose, speculators entered the market, driving prices even higher.
"So far, it has shocked even the most veteran traders," said Mike Stevens, an independent cotton analyst in Mandeville, La., in an e-mail. "It has resulted in panic buying by mills worldwide in order to ensure that they can keep their doors open."
As of Tuesday morning, the price of cotton (measured by cotton futures for December delivery) had hit a record high on worries that cold weather in China might have damaged some crops.
Cotton's swooping increase has some apparel companies switching production to countries with lower labor costs or milder customs charges. Lululemon Athletica, the sportswear company, is moving some manufacturing from China to Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh, where wages are lower, and Bon-Ton is benefiting from reduced-duty production in Egypt and Nicaragua.
Manufacturers are also thinking smaller, examining whether a button or a thread can be replaced with a cheaper one, or whether the overall material mix can be changed so it is not so cotton heavy.
"They are taking purchase orders from the retailer and having this conversation with them, saying, 'Look, I can't deliver this garment for a dollar this year when it cost me a dollar twenty-five to make it up,' " said Andrew Tananbaum, the chief executive of Capital Business Credit, which finances apparel makers and other importers. " 'So would you take this garment if it had not cotton but acrylic?' "
Mr. Card, of the Jones Group, said the company had "whole teams" looking for more cost-effective materials that did not reduce quality. "That's all they do," Mr. Card said.
Liz Claiborne, which makes brands like Juicy Couture and Kate Spade, said it is also playing with some of the materials it uses. One example, said Jane Randel, a spokeswoman, would be shifting from some imported Italian fabrics to "suppliers who produce their own raw materials or yarns." The company may also reassess its contracts for so-called component materials - like buttons and trims - she said in an e-mail.
At Bon-Ton, retail prices for the private-label clothes have increased about 5 to 8 percent so far this year, said Steve Villa, senior vice president of private brand at the company. Bon-Ton has been turning to different formulations, including sweaters blended with different rayons and synthetic fibers, to avoid further increases.
"At some point, you adopt a different process that maybe will yield some cost savings or you are faced with passing that through," Mr. Villa said.
Of course, as apparel makers increase the price of cotton goods and also try to reduce their reliance on cotton, there are some risks.
For starters, neither the apparel makers nor the retailers are certain that shoppers will be willing to pay more for cotton goods. "It's an unanswered question at this point," said Robert K. Shearer, chief financial officer of the V. F. Corporation.
And - to the disfavor of many fashion purists - with prices unlikely to fall for some time, there could be wider popular acceptance of fabrics like polyester.
"We may be training a new generation to be far more accepting of synthetic fibers, which is likely to hurt cotton's market share in the long run," said Ms. Johnson, the analyst with the First Capital Group.
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8) California Rejects Marijuana Legalization
By MARC LACEY
November 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03ballot.html
OAKLAND - California voters rejected a ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use, but disappointed supporters of the measure lighted up anyway outside their campaign headquarters here and vowed to continue pushing for a day when cannabis is treated like tobacco and alcohol, not heroin and cocaine.
"There will be a few tears shed," said Gregory Lyons, 63, a pastry chef who worked the phones throughout the day on Tuesday to rally support for the measure. "Demonizing a plant doesn't make sense."
Added Jeremy Daw, 30, who was puffing on a lengthy spliff as the returns came in: "I feel deflated."
Across the country, voters in dozens of states weighed in not just on candidates but on all matter of issues large and small, more than 150 of them in all. In Rhode Island, voters decided not to change the name of the state, which is officially "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." Arizona put an end to affirmative action programs. Oklahoma made English its official language. There were municipal initiatives as well, including a zany one in Denver that called on the city to set up a "extraterrestrial affairs committee" to look into UFOs.
The marijuana initiative would have allowed licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time, with no doctor's note required, to those over the age of 21. Advocates of legalization argued that it was already easier for young people to get a marijuana cigarette than a cigarette or beer.
"They can get it more easily than alcohol, more easily than tobacco," said Hanna Dershowitz, a lawyer and mother of two from Southern California who backed the cannabis initiative. "Drug dealers don't ask for ID."
Legalizing marijuana, advocates had argued, would have had the added benefit of generating tax revenue and helping reduce the violence caused by Mexican organizations that traffic in illegal drugs. "When was the last time Coors Lite did a drive-by shooting on Budweiser because they didn't like their marketing?" asked Nate Bradley, a former police officer who supported the measure. But opponents carried the day with their argument that lifting the ban on marijuana would translate into increased usage of the drug. Already, a recent change in the law categorizes possession of small amounts as an infraction, the lowest level of offense.
And even some marijuana smokers did not like the idea of cannabis, long a symbol of the counterculture, being regulated. "I don't want Anheuser-Busch handling pot or to have to buy Marlboro marijuana," said Shaun Ramos, 29, who spent Tuesday morning sticking "No on Prop 19" posters on light posts in downtown Oakland, only to see them quickly removed by supporters of legalization. "This is all about corporate control."
Tuesday's legalization effort was not the first attempt to decriminalize cannabis. California voters had rejected a similar legalization effort in 1972 and over the last decade voters in Alaska, Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota had all said no to marijuana.
Medical marijuana initiatives have fared better, with more than a dozen states allowing cannabis for those who get permission from their doctors. But voters in South Dakota rejected a measure allowing medical marijuana in that state, and Arizona appeared poised to do the same. Voters in Oregon, where about 40,000 people legally use medical marijuana, rejected a measure to set up state-regulated dispensaries.
The vote on legalizing marijuana in California was closely watched, especially in Mexico, where the government is engaged in a violent battle with drug traffickers who grow marijuana and sneak the profitable herb in bales across the border.
Also in California, voters rejected a measure to suspend the state's curbs on greenhouse gas emissions while the economy was in the doldrums. Largely financed by out-of-state oil companies, the initiative sought to tap into voters' economic woes to roll back landmark environmental legislation approved in 2006 that called for the state to curb emissions by 15 percent by 2020.
"This the first time ever that there's been such a huge referendum on climate change and clean energy policy," said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. "This sends a clear message that people want a clean energy future."
In Washington state, voters rejected an initiative creating the state's first income tax, exclusively on individuals who earn more than $200,000. It was backed by Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft founder who is the country's richest man. In Massachusetts, voters endorsed wiping out the sales tax for alcohol, but rejected rolling back the 6.25 percent sales tax to 3 percent.
Three ballot measures in Colorado that would have cut the state income tax and sharply restricted government borrowing and property taxes for schools were overwhelmingly defeated. Voters also rejected an antiabortion amendment to the Colorado Constitution that would have conferred rights "to every human being from the beginning of the biological development."
In Arizona and Oklahoma, voters approved measures aimed at preventing President Obama's health care legislation from going into effect. Colorado voters rejected a similar measure.
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9) Spill Cleanup Proceeds Amid Mistrust
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
November 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/03spill.html?ref=us
SOUTHWEST PASS, La. - A couple of weeks ago, enormous orange-brownish strings of something were seen floating out here in the open water near the mouth of the Mississippi.
The water looked like chocolate syrup in some parts and Coca-Cola in others, said Cindy Cruikshank, who has been fishing for 53 of her 59 years. It smelled like an auto-body shop, and it left stains on the hull of her boat. Along with other fishermen and environmentalists around the country, she had no doubts: this was oil.
"I know what I saw," she said.
Local scientists begged to differ.
"It is not oil; it has none of the properties of oil," said Ed Overton, an environmental science professor at Louisiana State University, who analyzed two samples of the mysterious substance provided by the Coast Guard.
This was an outbreak of algae, scientists concluded, common in this area at this time of year.
"A lot of the oil, when it weathered, ended up with a consistency that wasn't too far from this stuff," Mr. Overton said, though Ms. Cruikshank and many other fishermen who saw the stuff remain unconvinced.
The cleanup of the worst offshore oil spill in United States history continues here on the Gulf Coast, as does some of the contentiousness of the panic-plagued summer: local politicians still rail against the tempo of the response, and many residents and environmentalists still accuse scientists and officials of undue optimism, often speaking of cover-ups and conspiracies (Ms. Cruikshank is not a conspiracy theorist in this case, saying that the Coast Guard simply took samples in the wrong place.)
The cleanup operation itself, however, has settled into a far more routine phase.
More than 11,000 people are still at work, vacuuming up oil, testing seafood and monitoring hundreds of miles of shoreline for the presence of oil. Roughly a thousand fishing boats are still active in BP's Vessels of Opportunity program, helping in the cleanup, and more than 200,000 feet of boom is still deployed, according to Coast Guard officials.
Though wetlands ecologists express relief that relatively little of the marsh was heavily oiled, some marshy areas like Bay Jimmy off Barataria Bay still bear dark smears, patches denuded of marsh grass and the telltale brown ribbon of oil at the water line.
Tar balls continue to wash up on beaches, and oil is still being spotted in areas that were once clean, as oil that came ashore is pulled off again and smeared elsewhere by the tides. Thus while protocols have been developed to determine where to clean and how, there is no protocol yet for declaring an area fully and finally clean.
"Is there a day or a week or a month?" asked Chance McConnell, director of operations for DRC Emergency Services, a contractor in the response. "I don't know."
But despite the debates about where the oil has gone, the most visible effects of the spill are steadily disappearing. Of the roughly 580 miles of oiled shoreline, only about 30 miles are showing "heavy oil" effects, Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft of the Coast Guard said at a recent press conference.
As fishermen keep their eyes peeled for slicks and voice concerns that they may be fishing in contaminated waters, some scientists suggest that these fears may be misplaced. The most serious worries about the spill's damage at this point lie not in lingering surface oil and tainted seafood, they say, but in long-term damage already done to breeding populations of fish, crabs and other commercially important species.
The degree of that damage, at this point and possibly for years, is unknown. Scientists like Caz Taylor, a biologist at Tulane University who found "mysterious orange droplets" in blue crab larvae this summer, are months away from declaring any findings.
But they are apprehensive, as some of Louisiana's most productive estuaries, like Barataria Bay, were heavily affected.
"I'm more concerned about there being fewer crabs out there than in there being polluted crabs out there," said Andrew Nyman, a wetlands ecologist at L.S.U. "My biggest fear is that we're going to overlook the possibility of reduced populations of some of our fish and wildlife."
Studies done during and after the huge Ixtoc I well blowout in 1979, which released an estimated 3.3 million barrels of light Louisiana crude into the Gulf of Mexico, support this view. Researchers found that oil from the spill was tolerated well by adult fish, but was highly toxic to eggs and larvae, as well as to smaller organisms down the food chain.
In areas where oiling was heavy, some crab and crustacean species saw significant population declines. When and if that happens this time around is a crucial question for fishermen and others whose livelihoods are at stake, especially considering the 2013 deadline that Kenneth Feinberg, the overseer of the $20 billion Gulf Coast claims fund, has declared for final settlements.
But for now, there are few hard answers, no matter how trying that may be to those who want them.
At a recent public meeting near the coast, Mr. Overton, the L.S.U. scientist, presented some of his findings and answered questions about the spill. He said he faced a hostile reception afterward.
"They're hollering that the sky is falling," he said. "There's just precious little evidence to talk about massive environmental damage at this time. You can't just make up damage. You've got to call a spade a spade."
Campbell Robertson reported from Southwest Pass, La., and John Collins Rudolf from New York.
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10) Indiana Braces For Violence, Adds Armed Guards To Unemployment Offices In Anticipation Of 99-Week Jobless Benefits Expiration
By Tyler Durden
Created 11/01/2010 - 10:58
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/indiana-braces-violence-adds-armed-guards-unemplyment-offices-anticipation-99-week-jobless-b?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+surv
As America reaches its two year anniversary from the immediate economic collapse that followed the Lehman bankruptcy, punctuated mostly by vast and broad layoffs across every industry, arguably the most relevant topic that few are so far discussing is the expiration of full 99 weeks of maximum claims (EUC + Extended Benefits) for cohort after cohort of laid off Americans. And since these people are certainly not finding jobs in the broader labor market (which continues to contract and thus make the unemployment percentage far better optically than the 10%+ where U-3 should be), their next natural response will be to get very angry at the teat that has suckled them for so long, and is now forcing them to go cold turkey. Which is why we read with little surprise that now in Indiana, and soon everywhere else, unemployment offices are starting to add armed security guards. Of course, the official explanation if a benign one: "Armed security guards will be on hand at 36 unemployment offices around Indiana in what state officials said is a step to improve safety and make branch security more consistent." Why the need to improve safety all of a sudden? The 99 weeks cliff of course. Which means that on your next trek to the unemployment office to collect that last stimulus paycheck from Uncle Sam, you will most likely see the masked fellow below.
More from Indiana news [1]on what is a harbinger of things to come.
No specific incidents prompted the action, Department of Workforce Development spokesman Marc Lotter told 6News' Norman Cox.
Lotter said the agency is merely being cautious with the approach of an early-December deadline when thousands of Indiana residents could see their unemployment benefits end after exhausting the maximum 99 weeks provided through multiple federal extension periods.
"Given the upcoming expiration of the federal extensions and the increased stress on some of the unemployed, we thought added security would provide an extra level of protection for our employees and clients," he said.
Some offices have had guards for nearly two years but those guards were hired on a regional basis, meaning some offices had armed guards while others did not, Lotter said.
The cost of the armed guards varies dramatically around the state. Lotter said the agency is trying to be more consistent and that it plans to employ armed guards in all 36 offices where unemployment insurance benefits are handled.
The overall cost for the security is $1 million, paid for with federal funds designated for administration of the unemployment system, Lotter said.
Other agency offices that provide job training or are not full-service branches will continue to have unarmed guards.
Lotter said state employees in the affected offices have also recently gone through stress-management training in which they learn how to respond appropriately to angry clients.
"This is a stressful time for people in the economy," he said. "That's why we're not only taking this step (of hiring guards), but we're also increasing our training for our staff to be able to help people as they're trying to cope with these changes."
Next up: armed guards at your local social security office, grocery store, and soon, everywhere else.
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