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Rally to protest the indefinite detention of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning
Saturday, June 4 ~ Leavenworth, Kansas
11:30 am - Gather at Bob Dougherty Memorial Park, N 2nd St. and Kickapoo St. (map). Unrestricted street parking is available around the park. Toilets will be available as well.
Noon - Rally
1:00 pm - March to the intersection of Metropolitan Ave. and N 7th St. (map), six blocks north-west of the rally.
2:00 pm - Vigil (until 3:00 pm) along Metropolitan Ave, primarily at N 4th St. and N 7th St. (N 7th St. is the main entrance to Fort Leavenworth. The military stockade, where Bradley is held, is deep inside the base. The federal prison, which is visible from Metropolitan Ave., is a few blocks west at N 13th St.)
3:30 pm - Organizers meeting back at Bob Dougherty Memorial Park (subject to change). Hosted by Bradley Manning Support Network, Courage to Resist, and Veterans for Peace organizers, a discussion regarding future regional and national efforts in support of Bradley Manning.
Please do not bring any weapons, alcohol, or illegal drugs, to our gathering.
For more information, see below, check this page, or call Courage to Resist at 510-488-3559
One year after Bradley's detainment, we need your support more than ever.
Dear Friends,
One year ago today, on May 26, 2010, the U.S. government quietly arrested a humble young American intelligence analyst in Iraq and imprisoned him in a military camp in Kuwait. Over the coming weeks, the facts of the arrest and charges against this shy soldier would come to light. And across the world, people like you and I would step forward to help defend him.
Bradley Manning, now 23 years old, has never been to court but has already served a year in prison- including 10 months in conditions of confinement that were clear violation of the international conventions against torture. Bradley has been informally charged with releasing to the world documents that have revealed corruption by world leaders, widespread civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces, the true face of Guantanamo, an unvarnished view of the U.S.'s imperialistic foreign negotiations, and the murder of two employees of Reuters News Agency by American soldiers. These documents released by WikiLeaks have spurred democratic revolutions across the Arab world and have changed the face of journalism forever.
For his act of courage, Bradley Manning now faces life in prison-or even death.
But you can help save him-and we've already seen our collective power. Working together with concerned citizens around the world, the Bradley Manning Support Network has helped raise worldwide awareness about Manning's torturous confinement conditions. Through the collective actions of well over a half million people and scores of organizations, we successfully pressured the U.S. government to end the tortuous conditions of pre-trial confinement that Bradley was subjected to at the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. Today, Bradley is being treated humanely at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. T hanks to your support, Bradley is given leeway to interact with other pre-trial prisoners, read books, write letters, and even has a window in his cell.
Of course we didn't mount this campaign to just improve Bradley's conditions in jail. Our goal is to ensure that he can receive a fair and open trial. Our goal is to win Bradley's freedom so that he can be reunited with his family and fulfill his dream of going to college. Today, to commemorate Bradley's one year anniversary in prison, will you join me in making a donation to help support Bradley's defense?
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
We'll be facing incredible challenges in the coming months, and your tax-deductible donation today will help pay for Bradley's civilian legal counsel and the growing international grassroots campaign on his behalf. The U.S. government has already spent a year building its case against Bradley, and is now calling its witnesses to Virginia to testify before a grand jury.
What happens to Bradley may ripple through history - he is already considered by many to be the single most important person of his generation. Please show your commitment to Bradley and your support for whistle-blowers and the truth by making a donation today.
With your help, I hope we will come to remember May 26th as a day to commemorate all those who risk their lives and freedom to promote informed democracy - and as the birth of a movement that successfully defended one courageous whistle-blower against the full fury of the U.S. government.
Donate now: bradleymanning.org/donate
In solidarity,
Jeff Paterson and Loraine Reitman,
On behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee
www.bradleymanning.org
P.S. After you have donated, please help us by forwarding this email to your closest friends. Ask them to stand with you to support Bradley Manning, and the rights of all whistleblowers.
Help us rent a billboard for Bradley Manning in Washington DC!
Sign the "I am Bradley Manning" photo petition at iam.bradleymanning.org
Bradley will soon have his own billboard in the Washington DC metro area, if we step up. We're launching this campaign to rent the high-profile ad space to coincide with the soon-expected start of his pre-trial court martial in the DC area.
View the billboards, donate, and help choose the design:
epicstep.com/campaign/239/support-bradley
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
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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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MURDERER MEHSERLE WILL WALK THE STREETS SOON
Johannes Mehserle received two years for the murder of Oscar Grant.
On June 1st, he will go before Judge Perry and COULD WALK OUT FREE.
We don't know the exact date, but we do know that in June, Murderer Mehserle will be back on the streets.
We need to be ready to show them that Oakland has NOT forgotton that justice was NOT served.
On the DAY OF HIS RELEASE: The Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant will hold events at TWO PLACES:
3:00 PM: Gather at Oscar Grant Station (Fruitvale BART)
5:30 PM: Gather on 14th & Broadway
Stay tuned for more details!!!
Click here to view Facebook Event: Mehserle the Murderer is Being Released Soon:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115287888554806
Or call us at (510) 575-9005
The ANSWER Coalition is a member of the Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2969 Mission St.
415-821-6545
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Why We Come (Por Que Venimos)
SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS WATCH - San Francisco Presentation:
An evening about local campaigns for Immigration Rights.
Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:00 pm
First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco
Martin Luther King Room
Why We Come is a short documentary film providing an intimate look at the lives of migrants in San Rafaelâ€(tm)s Canal Area. The film was produced by the Marin Immigrant Rights Coalition Film Group. The first-person stories reveal the risks the migrants took to come to the United States to provide a better life for their families.
Following the film, Hannah Pallmeyer, staff member at La Raza Centro Legal, will provide an overview of local, state, and national campaigns for immigrant rights. She will include how immigration issues are connected to militarization and US foreign policy.
For more information, contact: Dolores Perez Priem at doloresmp@aol.com or
415-595-7306
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[BayArea LC4PJ] Creative Action Sat June 4th in SF - Teachers, Education, Social Services NOT (corporate) Tax Breaks! // Ella Baker Center invites us to Reclaim our Revenue;
Dear Everyone,
I am writing you today because anti-austerity movements are growing all over the world, including here in the U.S., and I believe this is our time to pull together and not only save the programs and services we need most but improve them. I encourage all groups involved in trying to "uncut" the budget cuts to band together and join forces. The next US Uncut creative action in SF is:
Teachers, Textbooks, Education, Public Service s NOT [corporate] Tax Breaks!
Saturday June 4th at 1pm
Meet at Union Square Park in SF
Target: Apple Computers for trying to dodge $4 billion and leading a tax cheat lobbying group (winamericacampaing.org)
This will be a fun, informative, direct action flashmob. For details visit our FB page.
Invite: everyone you know!
Our demands:
Apple: Leave the Tax Cheat Lobbying Group ) and Stop Lobbying Congress for More Tax Loopholes
Congress: No More Budget Cuts - No Multi-Billion Dollar Tax Holiday For Corporate Tax Cheats
$4 billion in tax breaks for Apple OR salaries for 90,000 teachers?
Funding for education, vital social services, job creation, and health care services is being cut on national, state and local levels. The U.S. doesn't have a spending problem (excluding it's insatiable military spending), it has a revenue problem. One of the main reasons is that 2/3 of U.S. corporations use tax loopholes to avoid over $100 billion per year in taxes -- funding that could be used to preserve the programs and services that are being cut.
Let's get creative and do something about this! US Uncut is a 5 month-old grassroots movement taking direct action against corporate tax cheats and unnecessary and unfair public service cuts across the U.S. It is creating ways for individuals and groups to get involved, among other things, by providing fact-checked research and numbers tying the amount of money being dodged by tax cheating corporations to specific cuts, which gives the public tangible ways to understand and address the issue. For example, Bank of America dodged $1.7 billion in 2009, which could have been used to save much of the Head Start and Title 1 programs for early childhood education. Apple Computers wants to dodge $4 billion by lobbying Congress for a "tax holiday" so they can bring back profits that it has stashed in a foreign tax haven -- these funds could save 90,000 teachers' jobs. US Uncut also provides downloadable materials and action plans for individuals and groups to throw an action anywhere in the country.
Apple isn't such a bad apple when compared to the level of tax cheating carried out by the banks, oil companies, GE,... but it definitely doesn't pay its fair share. They present themselves as a social responsible & progressive company, so we are challenging them to stand up to the image they're trying to project and "Pay Up!" As one of the most profitable companies in the US, they do not, in any way, NEED these tax breaks.
We've got the audience: US Uncut's campaign challenging Apple for their tax dodge is being picked up by national press and major tech and business news outlets: The Nation, CNET, Business Insider, Digital Trends, PC World, Mac Observer, 9to5mac, Macnn (ipodnn), MacTech to name a few. We only announced this a few days ago, so our bold tactics are striking a chord. Our video Apple: Tax Cheating Doesn't Sync with My Values is appearing on sites all over the web
Check it out. Join us next Saturday. Dance, shout, hoot 'n holler! We're not going to take these cuts anymore!
Looking forward to making noise with you next weekend and in the future. Let us know if you or those around you are affected by the cuts and if you want to get involved in the movement. If you're already involved, let's join forces!
In solidarity,
US Uncut SF team
find us & join actions: www.facebook.com/USUncutSanFrancisco
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Next UNAC general meeting is Sunday, June 12, 2:00 PM at Redstone Bldg., 16th Street and Capp. (Capp Street is one block or so below Mission Street.) Third Floor Conference Room, San Francisco. MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!
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Save the Date!
NATIONAL LABOR-COMMUNITY CONFERENCE TO DEFEAT THE CORPORATE AGENDA AND FIGHT FOR A WORKING PEOPLE'S AGENDA
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio
June 24-26, 2011
Working people across the country -- from Wisconsin and Ohio to New York, Oregon, and California -- are facing unprecedented attacks by corporations and the rich with the help of the federal, state and local politicians that they fund.
The corporate agenda is clear: It is to bust unions and cut workers' pay and benefits -- both in the private and public sectors. It is to erode and privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It is to dismantle the public sector and social services by denying funds for job creation, education, health care, environmental protection, and rebuilding the infrastructure. It is to ensure that taxes on the wealthy are constantly lowered while the bite on workers and the poor is constantly increased. It is to perpetuate U.S. wars and occupations whenever it serves the interests of the multinationals. It is to divide the working class by race, gender, national origin, religion, and sexual orientation. It is also to limit and restrict constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. The list goes on.
In state capitals, communities and workplaces across the country, workers are fighting back. But if we're going to be successful in pushing back the attacks on collective bargaining, stopping the budget cuts and concessions, creating jobs, and defending social services and education, we need to build unity within our movement, including forging stronger ties with labor's allies: communities of color, students and youth, single-payer advocates, environmentalists, antiwar activists, immigrant rights supporters, and other progressive forces.
Relying on politicians to defend us -- the so-called "friends of labor" -- has proven to be disastrous. During the past three decades, working people have suffered a dramatic decline in their standard of living while the rich have amassed an unprecedented amount of wealth at the top, regardless of which of the major parties was running the government. We have had every combination imaginable: Republicans occupying the White House with a majority in Congress, Democrats occupying the White House with a majority in Congress, or some kind of "divided government." But in each case the result for working people has been the same: conditions got worse for workers while the corporations prospered even more. Why should we continue this vicious cycle?
The working class has the power to put an end to this situation. And as the debate over the debt and the deficit intensifies, the need has never been greater for an organized campaign to demand "No Cuts, No Concessions!" whether in regard to social programs or workers' wages and benefits. We say place the burden for solving the financial crises squarely where it belongs: on the rich. They caused the crisis, let them pay for it!
The Emergency Labor Network (ELN) was initiated earlier this year at a historic meeting of 100 union leaders and activists from around the country. Join us June 24-26, 2011 at Kent State University in Ohio for a national labor-community conference to spur the campaign to build a more militant fight-back movement and to launch a national campaign for an alternative agenda for working people. Together we can move forward on both fronts.
This conference is open to all who agree with its purpose, as explained in this Call. To register for the conference, please go to our website at www.laborfightback.org. If you prefer to register offline, write emergencylabor@aol.com or call 216-736-4715 for a registration form.
For more information, e-mail emergencylabor@aol.com or call 216-736-4715.
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Cultures of Resistance
Thursday June 30 -- 7pm, Berkeley City College, 2050 Center Street, 1/2 block from downtown Berkeley
The Middle East Children's Alliance & the Arab Film Festival present the Berkeley premiere of bay area filmmaker & activist Iara Lee's new feature film Cultures of Resistance.
The film won Best Documentary at the Tiburon International Film Festival and is showing around the globe, from Portugal to China to Ethiopia. Journeying through five continents, it captures creative change-makers using art and activism to turn our upside-down world right-side-up, for peace with justice. Their personal stories and strategies, told in many tongues, broaden our understanding of the geopolitical fault-lines behind modern day conflicts -- inspiring audiences to further engagement and action. Filmmaker Iara Lee will introduce the film and answer questions afterwards.
Tickets $10 general, $8 students. Benefit for clean water for children in Gaza. No one turned away for lack of funds. Wheelchair accessible.
For info: 510-548-0542, www.mecaforpeace.org, events@mecaforpeace.org
Cosponsored by: Global Studies Department/Berkeley City College and more!
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Protest, March & Die-In on 10th Anniversary of Afghanistan War
Friday, Oct. 7, 2011, 4:30-6:30pm
New Federal Building, 7th & Mission Sts, SF
End All the Wars & Occupations-Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Haiti . . .
Money for Jobs, Healthcare & Schools-Not for the Pentagon
Friday, October 7, 2011 will be the exact 10th anniversary of the U.S./NATO war on the people of Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of Afghani people have been killed, wounded and displaced, and thousands of U.S. and NATO forces killed and wounded. The war costs more than $126 billion per year at a time when social programs are being slashed.
The true and brutal character of the U.S. strategy to "win hearts and minds" of the Afghani population was described by a Marine officer, quoted in a recent ANSWER Coalition statement:
"You can't just convince them [Afghani people] through projects and goodwill," another Marine officer said. "You have to show up at their door with two companies of Marines and start killing people. That's how you start convincing them." (To read the entire ANSWER statement, click here)
Mark your calendar now and help organize for the October 7 march and die-in in downtown San Francisco. There are several things you can do:
1. Reply to this email to endorse the protest and die-in.
2. Spread the word and help organize in your community, union, workplace and campus.
3. Make a donation to help with organizing expenses.
Only the people can stop the war!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2969 Mission St.
415-821-6545
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:
http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]
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Licensed to Kill Video
http://nirs.org/multimedia/video/l2k.htm
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Gil Scott-Heron, Poet And Musician, Has Died
by Daoud Tyler-Ameen
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/05/27/136731274/gil-scott-heron-poet-and-musician-has-died
Gil Scott-Heron died Friday afternoon in New York, his book publisher reported. He was 62. The influential poet and musician is often credited with being one of the progenitors of hip-hop, and is best known for the spoken-word piece "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."
Scott-Heron was born in Chicago in 1949. He spent his early years in Jackson, Tenn., attended high school in The Bronx, and spent time at Pennsylvania's Lincoln University before settling in Manhattan. His recording career began in 1970 with the album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, which featured the first version of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." The track has since been referenced and parodied extensively in pop culture.
Scott-Heron continued to record through the 1970s and early '80s, before taking a lengthy hiatus. He briefly returned to the studio for 1994's Spirits. That album featured the track "Message to the Messengers," in which Scott-Heron cautions the hip-hop generation that arose in his absence to use its newfound power responsibly. He has been cited as a key influence by many in the hip-hop community - such as rapper-producer Kanye West, who closed his platinum-selling 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with a track built around a sample of Scott-Heron's voice.
Scott-Heron struggled publicly with substance abuse in the 2000s, and spent the early part of the decade in and out of jail on drug possession charges. He began performing again after his release in 2007, and in 2010 released a new album, I'm New Here, to widespread critical acclaim.
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
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Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS
http://fairewinds.com/updates
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) held a special ACRS meeting Thursday May 26, 2011 on the current status of Fukushima. Arnie Gundersen was invited to speak for 5 minutes concerning the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident as it pertains to the 23 Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors (BWR's) in the US and containment integrity. Mr. Gundersen was the first engineer to brief the NRC on the implication of Main Steam Isolation Valve (MSIV) Leakage in 1974, and he has been studying containment integrity since 1972. The NRC has constantly maintained in all of its calculations and reviews that there is zero probability of a containment leaking. For more than six years, in testimony and in correspondence with the NRC, Mr. Gundersen has disputed the NRC's stand that containment systems simply do not and cannot leak. The events at Fukushima have proven that Gundersen was correct. The explosions at Fukushima show that Mark 1 containments will lose their integrity and release huge amounts of radiation, as Mr. Gundersen has been telling the NRC for many years.
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Guy on wheelchair taken down by officers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdkJxw1mPoM
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The Last Mountain': Appalachia vs. Big Coal
Janet Donovan
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/60-60/6063-qthe-last-mountainq
Actor Woody Harrelson was a surprise guest at D.C. premiere of "The Last Mountain" at E Street Cinema, also attended by Sens. Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Boxer, Director Bill Haney, and Bobby Kennedy Jr. who speaks out on West Virginia's struggle.
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Labor Beat: Save City Colleges Refused Meeting Space at Malcolm X
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PrxVy_QYY8
Part of the "reinvention" plan for Chicago City Colleges is to remove the name of Malcolm X from one of the campuses, and paint over the mural image of Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, there. But these are just symbolic representations of much deeper attacks against public eduction in Chicago at the college level. The Save City Colleges coalition, made up of student groups, faculty members, union locals, and community leaders, arrived at Malcolm X on May 26 expecting to have a hearing with Chairman of the Board of Trustees Martin Cabrera and officials from City Hall, as was previously agreed to. But they found out that it was cancelled. And to add to the insult, Malcolm X security (the irony of it all!) kicked the coalition out of the building. The coalition has stated: "The grassroots organizers point to the dangerously reduced transparency of decision-making for the largest consolidated body of higher education in the state and claim that all of the above decisions had been made by administrators lacking in education experience and credentials and without good-faith consultations with employees, students or grassroots community representatives." Length - 3 min. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer Labor Beat. For info: mail@laborbeat.org, www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video or YouTube and search "Labor Beat". Labor Beat is a regular cable-tv series in Chicago, Evanston, Rockford, Urbana, IL; St. Louis, MO; Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; and Rochester, NY. For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org
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Dear readers,
This episode of Frontline titled, "WikiSecrets" seems to be a comprehensive report based upon the case the government is trying to build against Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. It cleverly plays down the conviction that exposing a crime is not a crime! It also implys that supporters of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are naieve, at best and co-conspirators, at worst. The case against Manning and the one they are trying to establish against Julian Assange as presented here seems to be based on heresay, innuendo and guilt by association. Yet Bradley Manning still faces the death penalty and they're trying their best to make a case against Julian Assange.
They blame Wikileaks for Tunisia and Egypt! As if it was wrong for the people of those countries to oust their crooked dictators! They portray Julian Assange as a criminal for leaking evidence of the stinking corruption to the masses who are struggling and demanding bread, jobs and justice.
No government has the right to murder people and keep it a secret! Unfortunately, however, this has become the common practice of the U.S. bi-partisan government of, by and for the wealthy.
FREE BRADLEY MANNING! HANDS OFF JULIAN ASSANGE! STOP THE FBI GRAND JURY INDICTMENTS AGAINST ANTIWAR AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ACTIVISTS!
--Bonnie Weinstein
WikiSecrets
The inside story of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and the largest intelligence breach in U.S. history.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/wikileaks/?utm_source=FRONTLINE+Bulletin&utm_campaign=2526af6825-WikiSecrets5_23_2011&utm_medium=email
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.
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"Uncle Genpachi and Tama 001 to 005";
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFeVquF84X4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsYFFu2YIb4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9-s17Hn70Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnqurSMYuiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8EEwSvm4I4
PS:
We'd very much appreciate it if you could send us a solidarity message to our decisive rally on June 5th.
http://www.doro-chiba.org/z-undou/pdf/65f.pdf
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RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: May Day Weekend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiitdOiO6kA
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Paradise Gray Speaks At Jordan Miles Emergency Rally 05/06/2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJOLz1EYDYE&feature=player_embedded
Police Reassigned While CAPA Student's Beatdown Investigated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK-6IsP3dUg&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Pittsburgh Student Claims Police Brutality; Shows Hospital Photos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_j_AVsTXZc&feature=relmfu
Justice For Jordan Miles
By jasiri x
http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/
Monday, May 9, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Even though Pittsburgh Police beat Jordan Miles until he looked like this: (Photo at website)
And even though Jordan Miles, an honor student who plays the viola, broke no laws and committed no crimes, the Federal Government decided not to prosecute the 3 undercover Pittsburgh Police officers who savagely beat him.
To add insult to injury, Pittsburgh's Mayor and Police Chief immediately reinstated the 3 officers without so much as a apology. An outraged Pittsburgh community called for an emergency protest to pressure the local District Attorney to prosecute these officers to the fullest extent of the law.
Below is my good friend, and fellow One Hood founding member Paradise Gray (also a founding member of the Blackwatch Movement and the legendary rap group X-Clan) passionately demanding Justice for Jordan Miles and speaking on the futility of a war of terror overseas while black men are terrorized in their own neighborhoods.
For more information on how you can help get Justice For Jordan Miles go to http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/
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Nation Behind Bars Mass Incarceration And Political Prisoners In the U.S. - Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination
Black is Back Conference on the Other Wars, March 26, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBKfFEqaoSs&feature=email
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Tier Systems Cripple Middle Class Dreams for Young Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pQW6TW8m4&feature=youtu.be
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Cindy Sheehan has turned her grief into an anti-war crusade, even questioning the death of Osama bin Laden. From HLN's Dr. DREW Show Thurs. 5/5/11:
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-05-06/cindy-sheehan-mothers-war-war
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Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing, Discusses Global Radiation Exposures and Consequences with Gundersen
Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing and nuclear engineer, Arnie Gundersen, discuss the consequences of the Fukushima radioactive fallout on Japan, the USA, and the world. What are the long-term health effects? What should the government(s) do to protect citizens?
http://vimeo.com/22706805
Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing, Discusses Global Radiation Exposures and Consequences with Gundersen from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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New Video - Lupe Fiasco ft. Skylar Grey - 'Words I Never Said'
Thu, Apr 28 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22l1sf5JZD0
Lupe Fiasco addresses some heavy issues in the latest video for his new single, 'Words I Never Said,' featuring Skylar Grey. In the 5 minute and 45 second dose of reality, Lupe tackles issues such as the war on terrorism, devastation, conspiracy theories, 9/11 and genocide. From the opening lyrics of "I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullsh*t", Lupe doesn't hold back as he voices his socio-political concerns.
"If you turn on TV all you see's a bunch of what the f-ks'
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say s-t
That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either
I'm a part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful."
Skylar Grey (who also lends her vocals to Dirty money's 'Coming Home' and Eminem's 'I Need A Doctor') does an excellent job of complementing the Alex Da Kid produced track.
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BREAKING ALERT: Mass Arrests, Tear Gas, Sound Weapons used Against WIU Students
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKv-5t0t4E
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Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM&feature=player_embedded
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MAY DAY 1886-International Workers Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF-ADtNerPM&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: We Are One - Illinois
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOntwNsWHac
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BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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More troops join anti-government protests in Yemen
More soldiers have been joining anti-government protests on the streets of the capital Sana'a.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6658
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W.E. A.L.L. B.E.: Miss. Medical Examiner Dr. Adel Shaker On Frederick Carter Hanging (4/19/2011)
http://blip.tv/file/5057532
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Egyptian Soldiers Join Protest Demanding End to Military Dictatorship
Adam Hanieh: Class struggle in Egypt enters a new stage
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6626
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Row over Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning treatment (12Apr11)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv8xyHhDKkY&feature=related
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AP writer--State Department on Human Rights Abuse of Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUctxdsKk9Q
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Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
http://youtu.be/eTvUs4rY4to
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Cuba: The Accidental Eden
http://video.pbs.org/video/1598230084/
[This is a stunningly beautiful portrait of the Cuban natural environment as it is today. However, several times throughout, the narrator tends to imply that if it werent for the U.S. embargo against Cuba, Cuba's natural environmet would be destroyed by the influx of tourism, ergo, the embargo is saving nature. But the Cuban scientists and naturalists tell a slightly different story. But I don't want to spoil the delightfully surprising ending. It's a beautiful film of a beautiful country full of beautiful, articulate and well-educated people....bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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VIDEO: SWAT Team Evicts Grandmother
Take Back the Land- Rochester Eviction Defense March 28, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2axN1zsZno&feature=player_embedded
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B. D. S. [Boycott, Divest, Sanction against Israel]
(Jackson 5) Chicago Flashmob
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4tXe2HKqqs&feature=player_embedded
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Afghans for Peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ror0qPcasM&NR=1
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The Kill Team
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
Rolling Stone
March 27, 3011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
Afghans respond to "Kill Team"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3guxWIorhdA
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END THE U.S./UN/NATO KILL TEAM NOW!
WARNING: THESE ARE HORRIFIC, DISGUSTING, VIOLENT CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE U.S. MILITARY MAKING THE UPCOMING APRIL 10 [APRIL 9 IN NEW YORK] MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS A FIRST PRIORITY FOR WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE U.S. WE DEMAND OUT NOW! END THE WARS AGAINST WORKING PEOPLE HERE AND EVERYWHERE! BRING ALL THE TROOPS, UN/NATO/US/ and CONTRACTORS HOME NOW!
The Kill Team Photos More war crime images the Pentagon doesn't want you to see
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/the-kill-team-photos-20110327
'Death Zone' How U.S. soldiers turned a night-time airstrike into a chilling 'music video'
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/death-zone-20110327
'Motorcycle Kill' Footage of an Army patrol gunning down two men in Afghanistan
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/motorcyle-kill-20110327
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BOB MARLEY - WAR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73zaNwyhXn0&playnext=1&list=PLA467527F8DD7DE1F
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LOWKEY - TERRORIST? (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBnvajSfWU
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Frederick Alexander Meade on The Prison Industrial Complex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vqzfEYo6Lo
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BP Oil Spill Scientist Bob Naman: Seafood Still Not Safe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3VdxvMnDls
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Exclusive: Flow Rate Scientist : How Much Oil Is Really Out There?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsHl3kn63ZA&NR=1
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Iraq Veterans Against the War in Occupied Capitol, Madison, WI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7K0wn73uJU
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Stop LAPD Stealing of Immigrant's Cars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0lf4kENkxo
On Februrary 19, 2011 Members of the Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC) organized and engaged in direct action to defend the people of Los Angeles, CA from the racist LAPD "Sobriety" Checkpoints that are a poorly disguised trap to legally steal the cars from working class people in general and undocumented people in particular. Please disseminate this link widely.
Venceremos,
SCIC
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WikiLeaks Mirrors
Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.
In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, you will find below a list of mirrors of Wikileaks website and CableGate pages.
Go to
http://wikileaks.ch/Mirrors.html
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Oil Spill Commission Final Report: Catfish Responds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ZRdsccMsM
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Free Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eNzokgRIw&feature=player_embedded
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Domestic Espionage Alert - Houston PD to use surveillance drone in America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpstrc15Ogg
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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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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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Drop the Charges Against Carlos Montes, Stop the FBI Attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movement, and Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!Call Off the Expanding Grand Jury Witchhunt and FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!
Cancel the Subpoenas! Cancel the Grand Juries!
Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Chicano, Immigrant Rights, Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists!
Tell US Attorney Fitzgerald, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, DOJ Inspector General Fine, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders, U.N. Secy Gen Ban, and members of the media to STOP THE FBI CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHICANO, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, ANTI-WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS NOW!
Initiated by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression stopfbi.net stopfbi@gmail.com
http://iacenter.org/stopfbi/
Petition Text:
To: U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder,
cc: Vice President Biden, DOJ Inspector General Fine, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders, the Congressional Black Caucus, U.N. Secy Gen Ban, and members of the media
** Drop All Charges against Carlos Montes, and immediately return all of his property!
** Stop the attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movements!
** Call Off the Chicago Grand Jury and Stop the Expanding Witchhunt against Anti-war and International Solidarity Activists!
** Hands Off Palestine Solidarity Activists!
** Throw Out the reactiviated subpoenas against Tracy Molm, Ann Pham and Sarah Martin in Minneapolis, and ALL of the 14 subpoenas from the September 24 FBI raids of homes of anti-war and international solidarity activists.
**Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, etc.
**End the grand jury proceedings against anti-war activists.
I am writing to oppose the continuation and expansion of the FBI campaign of harassment of immigrant rights, anti-war and Palestine and other International Solidarity Activists, including the raid on the home of Carlos Montes and his arrest and the confiscation of his property, the 9 added subpoenas in the Chicago area, and reactivation of 3 of the original 14 subpoenas from the September 24 FBI raids of anti-war and international solidarity activists' homes.
These activists are guilty of no crime but opposition to U.S. foreign policy. On Friday, September 24, 2010 the FBI raided seven houses and an office in Chicago and Minneapolis. The FBI served subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to 13 activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. The FBI also attempted to intimidate activists in California, Wisconsin and North Carolina. This is not the action of a lone prosecutor. The raids were coordinated nationally, spanned several cities, and many other activists have been visited and personally threatened by the FBI.
The FBI confiscated computers, email and mailing lists, cell phones , cameras, videos, books, and passports. This is a dangerous attack on the constitutional rights of free speech of every social justice, antiwar and human rights activist and organization in the U.S. today. The right to speak, meet and write opinions is guaranteed under the constitution.
This suppression of civil rights is aimed at those who dedicate their time and energy to supporting the struggles of the Palestinian and Colombian peoples against U.S. funded occupation and war. Grand Jury subpoenas investigating material support of terrorism are being used to silence highly respected and well known human rights activists. This is a dangerous national effort to shut down growing opposition to U.S. wars. It cannot be allowed.
The FBI and the Grand Jury are threatening courageous individuals who have written and spoken publicly to broaden understanding of social justice issues of war and occupation. The activists are involved with many groups, including: the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. These activists came together with many others to organize the 2008 anti-war marches on the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
The FBI and the U.S. government must end this campaign of intimidation against anti-war and international solidarity activists. I am outraged at this disrespect of democratic rights. I ask that you intervene immediately to:
**Stop the Grand Jury Witchhunt!
**Stop the expanded repression against anti-war and international solidarity activists.
**Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, etc.
**End the grand jury proceedings against anti-war activists.
Sincerely,
(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter in the form above)
You can also call the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 or write an email to: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov demanding an end to the FBI raids, return of all confiscated materials and an end to the Grand Jury witchhunt. Fitzgerald is in charge of the Northern District of Illinois and responsible for the FBI raids and Grand Jury investigation.
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But...
The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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ELLA BAKER CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
CLOSE PRISONS NOT SCHOOLS!
https://secure3.convio.net/ebc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=164&utm_campaign=bnb_close_prisons_not_schools&utm_source=email-action&utm_medium=email&s_src=bnb_close_prisons_not_schools&s_subsrc=email-action&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr004=k3sp4vh2j4.app332b
Carlos* was only 14 years when he was locked up in a California youth prison. Growing up in a rough neighborhood in Northern CA, there were few resources for him or his younger brothers. Carlos was swept up by gangs and ended up serving a 10 year sentence in Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), leaving his siblings and childhood behind.
For 10 long years, our state spent millions of dollars to lock him up in a cell. Meanwhile, the state spent a tiny fraction of that amount providing an inadequate education to his younger brothers.
When Carlos was finally released earlier this year, he returned to a neighborhood that hasn't changed. Resources for youth are still scarce. He worries about his little brothers growing up in a society that would rather lock them up than invest in their educations and future.
Carlos' experience is only one example of why California ranks near the bottom in education spending and performance, but we're #1 in prison spending. DJJ drains much-needed resources from California's schools and the vital community programs that would help our State thrive. It's time to close the expensive, abusive DJJ and redirect those resources into our schools.
Join Books Not Bars in calling on Governor Brown to protect our schools by closing the Division of Juvenile Justice.
On May 10, join Books Not Bars, teachers, students, and other concerned Californians at the Capitol to save our schools. For more information or if you plan on attending, please contact Jennifer Kim at Jennifer@ellabakercenter.org, or (510) 285-8234.
If you can't join us in person, take action now, then sign up for join our online rally next Tuesday by sending Gov. Brown an email now.
Justice for families.
Sumayyah Waheed
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
*Carlos' name has been changed to protect his privacy.
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
www.ellabakercenter.org | 510.428.3939
1970 Broadway, Suite 450 | Oakland, CA | 94612
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U.S. Attorney Escalates Attacks on Civil Liberties of Anti-War,
Palestinian Human Rights Activists
Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald first thing Monday morning! (contact info at bottom of this email)
On Friday, May 6, the U.S. government froze the bank accounts of Hatem Abudayyeh and his wife, Naima. This unwarranted attack on a leading member of the Palestinian community in Chicago is the latest escalation of the repression of anti-war and Palestinian community organizers by the FBI, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Hatem Abudayyeh is one of 23 activists from Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Chicago, and his home was raided by the FBI in September of last year. Neither Hatem Abudayyeh nor Naima Abudayyeh have been charged with any crime.
One of the bank accounts frozen was exclusively in Naima Abudayyeh's name. Leaders of the national Committee to Stop FBI Repression, as well as Chicago's Coalition to Protect People's Rights are appalled at the government's attempt to restrict the family's access to its finances, especially so soon before Mothers' Day. Not only does the government's action seriously disrupt the lives of the Abudayyehs and their five-year-old daughter, but it represents an attack on Chicago's Arab community and activist community and the fundamental rights of Americans to freedom of speech.
The persecution of the Abudayyeh family is another example of the criminalization of Palestinians, their supporters, and their movement for justice and liberation. There has been widespread criticism of the FBI and local law enforcement for their racial profiling and scapegoating of Arab and Muslim Americans. These repressive tactics include infiltration of community centers and mosques, entrapment of young men, and the prominent case of 11 students from the University of California campuses at Irvine and Riverside who have been subpoenaed to a grand jury and persecuted for disrupting a speech by Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the US. The government's attempt to conflate the anti-war and human rights movements with terrorism is a cynical attempt to capitalize on the current political climate in order to silence Palestinians and other people of conscience who exercise their First Amendment rights in a manner which does not conform to the administration's foreign policy agenda in the Middle East.
The issuance of subpoenas against the 23 activists has been met with widespread opposition and criticism across the country. Six members of the U.S. Congress, including five in the past month, have sent letters to either Holder or President Obama, expressing grave concern for the violations of the civil liberties and rights of the 23 activists whose freedom is on the line. Three additional U.S. representatives have also promised letters, as thousands of constituents and other people of conscience across the U.S. have demanded an end to this assault on legitimate political activism and dissent. Over 60 Minnesota state legislators also issued a resolution condemning the subpoenas.
The Midwest activists have been expecting indictments for some time. The freezing of the Abudayyeh family's bank accounts suggests that the danger of indictments is imminent.
Take action:
Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300.
Then dial 0 (zero) for the operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
Demand Fitzgerald
-- Unfreeze the bank accounts of the Abudayyeh family and
-- Stop repression against Palestinian, anti-war and international solidarity activists.
In solidarity,
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression and
The Coalition to Protect People's Rights
For more info go to StopFBI.net
follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
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Abolish the Death Penalty Blog
http://www.ncadp.org/blog.cfm?postID=165
Abolish the Death Penalty is a blog dedicated to...well, you know. The purpose of Abolish is to tell the personal stories of crime victims and their loved ones, people on death row and their loved ones and those activists who are working toward abolition. You may, from time to time, see news articles or press releases here, but that is not the primary mission of Abolish the Death Penalty. Our mission is to put a human face on the debate over capital punishment.
You can also follow death penalty news by reading our News page and by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
1 Million Tweets for Troy! April 12, 2011
Take Action! Tweet for Troy!
The state of Georgia is seeking to change the drugs they use to carry out executions so they can resume scheduling execution dates, including that of Troy Davis, a man with a strong claim of innocence. Doubts in the case persist, including the fact that no physical evidence links him to the murder, most of the witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony and newer testimony implicates a different person (including an eyewitness account).
The Davis case has already generated hundreds of thousands of emails, calls, and letters in support of clemency, including from leaders such as the Pope, Jimmy Carter and former FBI chief Bill Sessions. We need to continue to amass petitions in support of clemency, demonstrating the widespread concern about this case and what it represents.
Please help us send a message to Georgia officials that they can do the right thing - they can intervene as the final failsafe by commuting Davis' sentence. Please help us generate 1 million tweets for Troy Davis!
Share this tweet alert with your friends and family that care about justice and life as soon as you can.
More information about the case is available at www.justicefortroy.org
Here are some sample tweets:
When in doubt, don't execute!! Sign the petition for #TroyDavis! www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
Too much doubt! Stop the execution! #TroyDavis needs us! www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
No room for doubt! Stop the execution of #TroyDavis . Retweet, sign petition www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
Case not "ironclad", yet Georgiacould execute #TroyDavis ! Not on our watch! Petition: www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
No murder weapon. No physical evidence. Stop the execution! #TroyDavis petition: www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
7 out of 9 eyewitnesses recanted. No physical evidence. Stop the execution of Troy Davis www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition #TroyDavis
Thanks!
Exonerated Death Row Survivors Urge Georgia to:
Stop the Execution of Troy Davis
Chairman James E. Donald
Georgia State Board of Pardons & Paroles
2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE
Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower
Atlanta, GA 30334
May 1, 2011
Dear Chairperson Donald and Members of the Board:
We, the undersigned, are alive today because some individual or small group of individuals decided that our insistent and persistent proclamations of innocence warranted one more look before we were sent to our death by execution. We are among the 138 individuals who have been legally exonerated and released from death rows in the United States since 1973. We are alive because a few thoughtful persons-attorneys, journalists, judges, jurists, etc.-had lingering doubts about our cases that caused them to say "stop" at a critical moment and halt the march to the execution chamber. When our innocence was ultimately revealed, when our lives were saved, and when our freedom was won, we thanked God and those individuals of conscience who took actions that allowed the truth to eventually come to light.
We are America's exonerated death row survivors. We are living proof that a system operated by human beings is capable of making an irreversible mistake. And while we have had our wrongful convictions overturned and have been freed from death row, we know that we are extremely fortunate to have been able to establish our innocence. We also know that many innocent people who have been executed or who face execution have not been so fortunate. Not all those with innocence claims have had access to the kinds of physical evidence, like DNA, that our courts accept as most reliable. However, we strongly believe that the examples of our cases are reason enough for those with power over life and death to choose life. We also believe that those in authority have a unique moral consideration when encountering individuals with cases where doubt still lingers about innocence or guilt.
One such case is the case of Troy Anthony Davis, whose 1991 conviction for killing Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail rested almost solely on witness testimony. We know that today, 20 years later, witness evidence is considered much less reliable than it was then. This has meant that, even though most of the witnesses who testified against him have now recanted, Troy Davis has been unable to convince the courts to overturn his conviction, or even his death sentence.
Troy Davis has been able to raise serious doubts about his guilt, however. Several witnesses testified at the evidentiary hearing last summer that they had been coerced by police into making false statements against Troy Davis. This courtroom testimony reinforced previous statements in sworn affidavits. Also at this hearing, one witness testified for the first time that he saw an alternative suspect, and not Troy Davis, commit the crime. We don't know if Troy Davis is in fact innocent, but, as people who were wrongfully sentenced to death (and in some cases scheduled for execution), we believe it is vitally important that no execution go forward when there are doubts about guilt. It is absolutely essential to ensuring that the innocent are not executed.
When you issued a temporary stay for Troy Davis in 2007, you stated that the Board "will not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused." This standard is a welcome development, and we urge you to apply it again now. Doubts persist in the case of Troy Davis, and commuting his sentence will reassure the people of Georgia that you will never permit an innocent person to be put to death in their name.
Freddie Lee Pitts, an exonerated death row survivor who faced execution by the state of Florida for a crime he didn't commit, once said, "You can release an innocent man from prison, but you can't release him from the grave."
Thank you for considering our request.
Respectfully,
Kirk Bloodsworth, Exonerated and freed from death row Maryland; Clarence Brandley, Exonerated and freed from death row in Texas; Dan Bright, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Albert Burrell, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Perry Cobb, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Gary Drinkard, Exonerated and freed from death row in Alabama; Nathson Fields, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Gary Gauger, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Michael Graham, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Shujaa Graham, Exonerated and freed from death row in California; Paul House, Exonerated and freed from death row in Tennessee; Derrick Jamison, Exonerated and freed from death row in Ohio; Dale Johnston, Exonerated and freed from death row in Ohio; Ron Keine, Exonerated and freed from death row in New Mexico; Ron Kitchen, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Ray Krone, Exonerated and freed from death row in Arizona; Herman Lindsey, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Juan Melendez, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Randal Padgett, Exonerated and freed from death row in Alabama; Freddie Lee Pitts, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Randy Steidl, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; John Thompson, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Delbert Tibbs, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; David Keaton, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Greg Wilhoit, Exonerated and freed from death row in Oklahoma; Harold Wilson, Exonerated and freed from death row in Pennsylvania.
-Witness to Innocence, May 11, 2011
http://www.witnesstoinnocence.com/view_news.php?Exonerated-Death-Row-Survivors-Urge-George-to-Stop-the-Execution-of-Troy-Davis-181
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING! HANDS OFF JULIAN ASSANGE!
In a recent New York Daily News Poll the question was asked:
Should Army pfc Bradley Manning face charges for allegedly stealing classified documents and providing them for WikiLeaks?
New York Daily News Poll Results:
Yes, he's a traitor for selling out his country! ...... 28%
No, he's a hero for standing up for what's right! ..... 62%
We need to see more evidence before passing judgment.. 10%
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/03/05/2011-03-05_wikileaks_private_loses_his_underwear.html?r=news
Sign the Petition:
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
Stand with Bradley!
A 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst, Pfc. Manning faces decades in prison for allegedly leaking a video of a US helicopter attack that killed at least eleven Iraqi civilians to the website Wikileaks. Among the dead were two working Reuters reporters. Two children were also severely wounded in the attack.
In addition to this "Collateral Murder" video, Pfc. Manning is suspected of leaking the "Afghan War Diaries" - tens of thousands of battlefield reports that explicitly describe civilian deaths and cover-ups, corrupt officials, collusion with warlords, and a failing US/NATO war effort.
"We only know these crimes took place because insiders blew the whistle at great personal risk ... Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal," noted Barack Obama while on the campaign trail in 2008. While the President was referring to the Bush Administration's use of phone companies to illegally spy on Americans, Pfc. Manning's alleged actions are just as noteworthy. If the military charges against him are accurate, they show that he had a reasonable belief that war crimes were being covered up, and that he took action based on a crisis of conscience.
After nearly a decade of war and occupation waged in our name, it is odd that it apparently fell on a young Army private to provide critical answers to the questions, "What have we purchased with well over a trillion tax dollars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan?" However, history is replete with unlikely heroes.
If Bradley Manning is indeed the source of these materials, the nation owes him our gratitude. We ask Secretary of the Army, the Honorable John M. McHugh, and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General George W. Casey, Jr., to release Pfc. Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him.
http://standwithbrad.org/
Bulletin from the cause: Bradley Manning Support Network
Go to Cause
Posted By: Tom Baxter
To: Members in Bradley Manning Support Network
A Good Address for Bradley!!!
We have a good address for Bradley,
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=207100509321891
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The Arab Revolutions:
Guiding Principles for Peace and Justice Organizations in the US
Please email endorsement to ekishawi@yahoo.com
We, the undersigned, support the guiding principles and demands listed in this statement. We call on groups who want to express solidarity with the Arab revolutions to join our growing movement by signing this statement or keeping with the demands put forward herewith.
Background
The long-awaited Arab revolution has come. Like a geologic event with the reverberations of an earthquake, the timing and circumstances were unpredictable. In one Arab country after another, people are taking to the street demanding the fall of monarchies established during European colonial times. They are also calling to bring down dictatorships supported and manifested by neo-colonial policies. Although some of these autocratic regimes rose to power with popular support, the subsequent division and subjugation of the Arab World led to a uniform repressive political order across the region. The Arab masses in different Arab countries are therefore raising a uniform demand: "The People Want to Topple the Regimes!"
For the past two decades, the Arab people witnessed the invasion and occupation of Iraq with millions killed under blockade and occupation, Palestinians massacred with the aim to crush the anti-Zionist resistance, and Lebanon repeatedly invaded with the purposeful targeting of civilians. These actions all served to crush resistance movements longing for freedom, development, and self-determination. Meanwhile, despotic dictatorships, some going back 50 years, entrenched themselves by building police states, or fighting wars on behalf of imperialist interests.
Most Arab regimes systematically destroyed the social fabric of civil society, stifled social development, repressed all forms of political dissent and democratic expression, mortgaged their countries' wealth to foreign interests and enriched themselves and their cronies at the expense of impoverishing their populations. After pushing the Arab people to the brink, populations erupted.
The spark began in Tunisia where a police officer slapped and spat on Mohammad Bou Azizi, flipping over his produce cart for not delivering a bribe on time. . Unable to have his complaint heard, he self-immolated in protest, igniting the conscience of the Tunisian people and that of 300 million Arabs. In less than a month, the dictator, Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, was forced into exile by a Tunisian revolution. On its way out, the regime sealed its legacy by shooting at unarmed protestors and burning detention centers filled with political prisoners. Ben Ali was supported by the US and Europe in the fight against Islamic forces and organized labor.
Hosni Mubarak's brutal dictatorship fell less than a month after Tunisia's. The revolution erupted at a time when one half of the Egyptian population was living on less than $2/day while Mubarak's family amassed billions of dollars. The largest population recorded in Egyptian history was living in graveyards and raising their children among the dead while transportation and residential infrastructure was crumbling. Natural gas was supplied to Israel at 15% of the market price while the Rafah border was closed with an underground steel wall to complete the suffocation of the Palestinians in Gaza. Those who were deemed a threat swiftly met the fate of Khalid Said. 350 martyrs fell and 2,000 people were injured.
After Egypt and Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan exploded in protest. Some governments quickly reshuffled faces and ranks without any tangible change. Some, like Bahrain and Yemen, sent out their security forces to massacre civilians. Oman and Yemen represent strategic assets for the US as they are situated on the straits of Hormuz and Aden, respectively. Bahrain is an oil country that hosts a US military base, situated in the Persian Gulf. A new round of US funded blood-letting of Arab civilians has begun!
Libyan dictator Qaddafi did not prove to be an exception. He historically took anti-imperialist positions for a united Arab World and worked for an African Union. He later transformed his regime to a subservient state and opened Libya to British Petroleum and Italian interests, working diligently on privatization and political repression. He amassed more wealth than that of Mubarak. In the face of the Libyan revolution, Qaddafi exceeded the brutality of Ben Ali and Mubarak blind-folding and executing opponents, surrounding cities with tanks, and bombing his own country. Death toll is expected to be in the thousands.
Qaddafi's history makes Libya an easy target for imperialist interests. The Obama administration followed the Iraq cookbook by freezing Libyan assets amounting to 30% of the annual GDP. The White House, with the help of European governments, rapidly implemented sanctions and called for no-fly zones. These positions were precipitated shortly after the US vetoed a resolution condemning the illegal Israeli colonization of the West Bank. Special operations personnel from the UK were captured by the revolutionary commanders in Ben Ghazi and sent back. The Libyan revolutionary leadership, the National Council clearly stated: "We are completely against foreign intervention. The rest of Libya will be liberated by the people ... and Gaddafi's security forces will be eliminated by the people of Libya."
Demands of the Solidarity Movement with Arab Revolutions
1. We demand a stop to US support, financing and trade with Arab dictatorships. We oppose US policy that has favored Israeli expansionism, war, US oil interest and strategic shipping routes at the expense of Arab people's freedom and dignified living.
2. We support the people of Tunisia and Egypt as well as soon-to-be liberated nations to rid themselves of lingering remnants of the deposed dictatorships.
3. We support the Arab people's right to sovereignty and self-determination. We demand that the US government stop its interference in the internal affairs of all Arab countries and end subsidies to wars and occupation.
4. We support the Arab people's demands for political, civil and economic rights. The Arab people's movement is calling for:
a. Deposing the unelected regimes and all of its institutional remnants
b. Constitutional reform guaranteeing freedom of organizing, speech and press
c. Free and fair elections
d. Independent judiciary
e. National self-determination.
5. We oppose all forms of US and European military intervention with or without the legitimacy of the UN. Standing in solidarity with the revolution against Qaddafi, or any other dictator, does not equate to supporting direct or indirect colonization of an Arab country, its oil or its people. We therefore call for:
a. Absolute rejection of military blockades, no-fly zones and interventions.
b. Lifting all economic sanctions placed against Libya and allowing for the formation of an independent judiciary to prosecute Qaddafi and deposed dictators for their crimes.
c. Immediately withdrawing the US and NATO troops from the Arab region.
6. We support Iraq's right to sovereignty and self determination and call on the US to immediately withdraw all occupation personnel from Iraq.
7. We recognize that the borders separating Arab nations were imposed on the Arab people by the colonial agreements of Sykes-Picot and the Berlin Conference on Africa. As such, we support the anti-Zionist nature of this revolution in its call for:
a. Ending the siege and starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza
b. Supporting the right of the Palestinian people to choose their own representation, independent of Israeli and US dictates
c. Supporting the right of the Lebanese people to defend their country from Israeli violations and their call to end vestiges of the colonial constitution constructed on the basis of sectarian representation
d. Supporting the right of the Jordanian people to rid themselves of their repressive monarchy
e. Ending all US aid to Israel.
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY -- ANY DAY
to Fitzgerald, Holder and Obama
The Grand Jury is still on its witch hunt and the FBI is still
harassing activists. This must stop.
Please make these calls:
1. Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 . Then dial 0
(zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
2. Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
3. Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
Suggested text: "My name is __________, I am from _______(city), in
______(state). I am calling _____ to demand he call off the Grand Jury
and stop FBI repression against the anti-war and Palestine solidarity
movements. I oppose U.S. government political repression and support
the right to free speech and the right to assembly of the 23 activists
subpoenaed. We will not be criminalized. Tell him to stop this
McCarthy-type witch hunt against international solidarity activists!"
If your call doesn't go through, try again later.
Update: 800 anti-war and international solidarity activists
participated in four regional conferences, in Chicago, IL; Oakland,
CA; Chapel Hill, NC and New York City to stop U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald's Grand Jury repression.
Still, in the last few weeks, the FBI has continued to call and harass
anti-war organizers, repressing free speech and the right to organize.
However, all of their intimidation tactics are bringing a movement
closer together to stop war and demand peace.
We demand:
-- Call Off the Grand Jury Witch-hunt Against International Solidarity
Activists!
-- Support Free Speech!
-- Support the Right to Organize!
-- Stop FBI Repression!
-- International Solidarity Is Not a Crime!
-- Stop the Criminalization of Arab and Muslim Communities!
Background: Fitzgerald ordered FBI raids on anti-war and solidarity
activists' homes and subpoenaed fourteen activists in Chicago,
Minneapolis, and Michigan on September 24, 2010. All 14 refused to
speak before the Grand Jury in October. Then, 9 more Palestine
solidarity activists, most Arab-Americans, were subpoenaed to appear
at the Grand Jury on January 25, 2011, launching renewed protests.
There are now 23 who assert their right to not participate in
Fitzgerald's witch-hunt.
The Grand Jury is a secret and closed inquisition, with no judge, and
no press. The U.S. Attorney controls the entire proceedings and hand
picks the jurors, and the solidarity activists are not allowed a
lawyer. Even the date when the Grand Jury ends is a secret.
So please make these calls to those in charge of the repression aimed
against anti-war leaders and the growing Palestine solidarity
movement.
Email us to let us know your results. Send to info@StopFBI.net
**Please sign and circulate our 2011 petition at http://www.stopfbi.net/petition
In Struggle,
Tom Burke,
for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
FFI: Visit www.StopFBI.net or email info@StopFBI.net or call
612-379-3585 .
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights
reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
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Call for EMERGENCY RESPONSE Action if Assange Indicted,
Dear Friends:
We write in haste, trying to reach as many of you as possible although the holiday break has begun.......This plan for an urgent "The Day After" demonstration is one we hope you and many, many more organizations will take up as your own, and mobilize for. World Can't Wait asks you to do all you can to spread it through list serves, Facebook, twitter, holiday gatherings.
Our proposal is very very simple, and you can use the following announcement to mobilize - or write your own....
ANY DAY NOW . . . IN THE EVENT THAT THE U.S. INDICTS JULIAN ASSANGE
An emergency public demonstration THE DAY AFTER any U.S. criminal indictment is announced against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Spread the word and call people to come out, across the whole range of movements and groups: anti-war, human rights, freedom of information/freedom of the press, peace, anti-torture, environmental, students and youth, radicals and revolutionaries, religious, civil liberties, teachers and educators, journalists, anti-imperialists, anti-censorship, anti-police state......
At the Federal Building in San Francisco, we'll form ourselves into a human chain "surrounding" the government that meets the Wikileaked truth with repression and wants to imprison and silence leakers, whistleblowers and truthtellers - when, in fact, these people are heroes. We'll say:
HANDS OFF WIKILEAKS! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Join the HUMAN CHAIN AROUND THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
New Federal Building, 7th and Mission, San Francisco (nearest BART: Civic Center)
4:00-6:00 PM on The Day FOLLOWING U.S. indictment of Assange
Bring all your friends - signs and banners - bullhorns.
Those who dare at great risk to themselves to put the truth in the hands of the people - and others who might at this moment be thinking about doing more of this themselves -- need to see how much they are supported, and that despite harsh repression from the government and total spin by the mainstream media, the people do want the truth told.
Brad Manning's Christmas Eve statement was just released by his lawyer: "Pvt. Bradley Manning, the lone soldier who stands accused of stealing millions of pages secret US government documents and handing them over to secrets outlet WikiLeaks, wants his supporters to know that they've meant a lot to him. 'I greatly appreciate everyone's support and well wishes during this time,' he said in a Christmas Eve statement released by his lawyer...." Read more here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mannings-message-christmas-eve-i-gr/
Demonstrations defending Wikileaks and Assange, and Brad Manning, have already been flowering around the world. Make it happen here too.
Especially here . . .
To join into this action plan, or with questions, contact World Can't Wait or whichever organization or listserve you received this message from.
World Can't Wait, SF Bay
415-864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
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DEFEND LYNNE STEWART!
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
Visiting Lynne:
Visiting is very liberal but first she has to get people on her visiting list; wait til she or the lawyers let you know. The visits are FRI, SAT, SUN AND MON for 4 hours and on weekends 8 to 3. Bring clear plastic change purse with lots of change to buy from the machines. Brief Kiss upon arrival and departure, no touching or holding during visit (!!) On visiting forms it may be required that you knew me before I came to prison. Not a problem for most of you.
Commissary Money:
Commissary Money is always welcome It is how Lynne pay for the phone and for email. Also for a lot that prison doesn't supply in terms of food and "sundries" (pens!) (A very big list that includes Raisins, Salad Dressing, ankle sox, mozzarella (definitely not from Antonys--more like a white cheddar, Sanitas Corn Chips but no Salsa, etc. To add money, you do this by using Western Union and a credit card by phone or you can send a USPO money order or Business or Govt Check. The negotiable instruments (PAPER!) need to be sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons, 53504-054, Lynne Stewart, PO Box 474701, Des Moines Iowa 50947-001 (Payable to Lynne Stewart, 53504-054) They hold the mo or checks for 15 days. Western Union costs $10 but is within 2 hours. If you mail, your return address must be on the envelope. Unnecessarily complicated? Of course, it's the BOP !)
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please make a generous contribution to her defense.
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Help end the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning!
Bradley Manning Support Network.
Contact the Marine Corps officers above and respectfully, but firmly, ask that they lift the extreme pre-trial confinement conditions against Army PFC Bradley Manning.
Forward this urgent appeal for action widely.
Sign the "Stand with Brad" public petition and letter campaign at www.standwithbrad.org - Sign online, and we'll mail out two letters on your behalf to Army officials.
Donate to Bradley's defense fund at www.couragetoresist.org/bradley
References:
"The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention", by Glenn Greenwald for Salon.com, 15 December 2010
"A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning", by attorney David E. Coombs, 18 December 2010
"Bradley Manning's Life Behind Bars", by Denver Nicks for the Daily Beast, 17 December 2010
Bradley Manning Support Network
Courage To Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
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In earnest support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:
http://readersupportednews.org/julian-assange-petition
rsn:Petition
We here undersigned express our support for the work and integrity of Julian Assange. We express concern that the charges against the WikiLeaks founder appear too convenient both in terms of timing and the novelty of their nature.
We call for this modern media innovator, and fighter for human rights extraordinaire, to be afforded the same rights to defend himself before Swedish justice that all others similarly charged might expect, and that his liberty not be compromised as a courtesy to those governments whose truths he has revealed have embarrassed.
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
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Free the Children of Palestine!
Sign Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41467.html
Published by Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition on Dec 16, 2010
Category: Children's Rights
Region: GLOBAL
Target: President Obama
Web site: http://www.al-awda.org
Background (Preamble):
According to Israeli police, 1200 Palestinian children have been arrested, interrogated and imprisoned in the occupied city of Jerusalem alone this year. The youngest of these children was seven-years old.
Children and teen-agers were often dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night, taken in handcuffs for questioning, threatened, humiliated and many were subjected to physical violence while under arrest as part of an ongoing campaign against the children of Palestine. Since the year 2000, more than 8000 have been arrested by Israel, and reports of mistreatment are commonplace.
Further, based on sworn affidavits collected in 2009 from 100 of these children, lawyers working in the occupied West Bank with Defense Children International, a Geneva-based non governmental organization, found that 69% were beaten and kicked, 49% were threatened, 14% were held in solitary confinement, 12% were threatened with sexual assault, including rape, and 32% were forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not understand.
Minors were often asked to give names and incriminate friends and relatives as a condition of their release. Such institutionalized and systematic mistreatment of Palestinian children by the state of Israel is a violation international law and specifically contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Israel is supposedly a signatory.
Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41467.html
We, the undersigned call on US President Obama to direct Israel to
1. Stop all the night raids and arrests of Palestinian Children forthwith.
2. Immediately release all Palestinian children detained in its prisons and detention centers.
3. End all forms of systematic and institutionalized abuse against all Palestinian children.
4. Implement the full restoration of Palestinian children's rights in accordance with international law including, but not limited to, their right to return to their homes of origin, to education, to medical and psychological care, and to freedom of movement and expression.
The US government, which supports Israel to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars a year while most ordinary Americans are suffering in a very bad economy, is bound by its laws and international conventions to cut off all aid to Israel until it ends all of its violations of human rights and basic freedoms in a verifiable manner.
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"Secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a propertied minority, which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests."..."Publishing State Secrets" By Leon Trotsky
Documents on Soviet Policy, Trotsky, iii, 2 p. 64
November 22, 1917
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/foreign-relations/1917/November/22.htm
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING! STOP THE FBI RAIDS NOW!
MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
To understand how much a trillion dollars is, consider looking at it in terms of time:
A million seconds would be about eleven-and-one-half days; a billion seconds would be 31 years; and a trillion seconds would be 31,000 years!
From the novel "A Dark Tide," by Andrew Gross
Now think of it in terms of U.S. war dollars and bankster bailouts!
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For Immediate Release
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
12/2/2010
For more information: Joe Lombardo, 518-281-1968,
UNACpeace@gmail.org, NationalPeaceConference.org
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
The United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC) calls for the release of Bradley Manning who is awaiting trial accused of leaking the material to Wikileaks that has been released over the past several months. We also call for an end to the harassment of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks and we call for an independent, international investigation of the illegal activity exposed through the material released by Wikileaks.
Before sending the material to Wikileaks, Bradley Manning tried to get his superiors in the military to do something about what he understood to be clear violations of international law. His superiors told him to keep quiet so Manning did the right thing; he exposed the illegal activity to the world.
The Afghan material leaked earlier shows military higher-ups telling soldiers to kill enemy combatants who were trying to surrender. The Iraq Wikileaks video from 2007 shows the US military killing civilians and news reporters from a helicopter while laughing about it. The widespread corruption among U.S. allies has been exposed by the most recent leaks of diplomatic cables. Yet, instead of calling for change in these policies, we hear only a call to suppress further leaks.
At the national antiwar conference held in Albany in July, 2010, at which UNAC was founded, we heard from Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers on the ground during the helicopter attack on the civilians in Iraq exposed by Wikileaks (see: http://www.mediasanctuary.org/movie/1810 ). He talked about removing wounded children from a civilian vehicle that the US military had shot up. It affected him so powerfully that he and another soldier who witnessed the massacre wrote a letter of apology to the families of the civilians who were killed.
We ask why this material was classified in the first place. There were no state secrets in the material, only evidence of illegal and immoral activity by the US military, the US government and its allies. To try to cover this up by classifying the material is a violation of our right to know the truth about these wars. In this respect, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange should be held up as heroes, not hounded for exposing the truth.
UNAC calls for an end to the illegal and immoral policies exposed by Wikileaks and an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an end to threats against Iran and North Korea.
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Courage to Resist needs your support
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist.
It's been quite a ride the last four months since we took up the defense of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Since then, we helped form the Bradley Manning Support Network, established a defense fund, and have already paid over half of Bradley's total $100,000 in estimated legal expenses.
Now, I'm asking for your support of Courage to Resist so that we can continue to support not only Bradley, but the scores of other troops who are coming into conflict with military authorities due to reasons of conscience.
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Iraq War over? Afghanistan occupation winding down? Not from what we see. Please take a look at, "Soldier Jeff Hanks refuses deployment, seeks PTSD help" in our December newsletter. Jeff's situation is not isolated. Actually, his story is only unique in that he has chosen to share it with us in the hopes that it may result in some change. Jeff's case also illustrates the importance of Iraq Veterans Against the War's new "Operation Recovery" campaign which calls for an end to the deployment of traumatized troops.
Most of the folks who call us for help continue to be effected by Stoploss, a program that involuntarily extends enlistments (despite Army promises of its demise), or the Individual Ready Reserve which recalls thousands of former Soldiers and Marines quarterly from civilian life.
Another example of our efforts is Kyle Wesolowski. After returning from Iraq, Kyle submitted an application for a conscientious objector discharge based on his Buddhist faith. Kyle explains, "My experience of physical threats, religious persecution, and general abuse seems to speak of a system that appears to be broken.... It appears that I have no other recourse but to now refuse all duties that prepare myself for war or aid in any way shape or form to other soldiers in conditioning them to go to war." We believe he shouldn't have to walk this path alone.
Sincerely,
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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Add your 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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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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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 (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) A New Flood, Some Old Truths
New York Times Editorial
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/opinion/28sat1.html?hp
2) Shale Boom in Texas Could Increase U.S. Oil Output
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/energy-environment/28shale.html?hp
3) Aid Pledge by Group of 8 Seeks to Bolster Arab Democracy
"That challenge has grown acute in Egypt since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Revenues from tourism, a mainstay of the economy, have plummeted by 40 percent, the new military government says. Foreign investment has dried up. Factories are paralyzed by strikes. Meanwhile, prices for food and energy have surged, leaving people feeling deeply insecure ahead of crucial parliamentary and presidential elections in the fall."
By LIZ ALDERMAN
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/world/europe/28g8.html?ref=world
4) At a Protest In Cairo, One Group Is Missing
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html?ref=world
5) Officials in Germany Support Closing 7 Nuclear Plants
By JACK EWING
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/global/28nuclear.html?ref=world
6) U.S. Declines to Protect the Overfished Bluefin Tuna
By FELICITY BARRINGER
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/science/earth/28tuna.html?ref=us
7) Reacting to Police Rape Case With Anger, but Little Surprise
"Amid the anger, many expressed little surprise that in a trial without physical evidence, the jury believed the officers over the woman accusing them, who testified that she was too drunk to remember much of what happened. ...'New York City cops can get away with anything,' Ms. White said, sitting in front of her home on 117th Street in Harlem. 'This is the only place I know where there are certain rules for police officers and certain rules for civilians. Acquitting those two today is totally out of line. They should put those cops in jail where they belong.'"
By JOHN LELAND
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/nyregion/reacting-to-police-rape-case-with-anger-but-little-surprise.html?ref=nyregion
8) High School Student Stands Up Against Prayer at Public School and Is Ostracized, Demeaned and Threatened
By Greta Christina, AlterNet
Posted on May 25, 2011, Printed on May 28, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151086/high_school_student_stands_up_against_prayer_at_public_school_and_is_ostracized%2C_demeaned_and_threatened
9) Michigan Superintendent's Sarcastic Plan to Save Schools from Gov's Ax: Make Them Prisons
By Meteor Blades, Daily Kos
Posted on May 28, 2011, Printed on May 28, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/601767/michigan_superintendent%5C%27s_sarcastic_plan_to_save_schools_from_gov%5C%27s_ax%3A_make_them_prisons
10) Despite Mining Disaster, Report Says Coal Giant Massey 'Has Not Changed' and Execs Stay on
by Marian Wang
ProPublica, May 20, 2011
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/despite-mining-disaster-report-says-coal-giant-massey-has-not-changed-execs
11) The Nuclear Review, Issue#68, May 27,2011, Japan...
by Arn Specter, Phila. Pa. USA
This issue provides a singular focus on NIRS with their many
forms of activism on the Japan Nuclear Crisis...
Please look over their website and join the activism efforts
and review the many informative articles and reports from
nuclear experts in the U.S. and in other countries.
NIRS Executive Director is Michael Mariotte.
Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD
http://nirs.org/fukushima/crisis.htm
12) For Anarchist, Details of Life as F.B.I. Target
By COLIN MOYNIHAN and SCOTT SHANE
May 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/us/29surveillance.html?hp
13) Afghan Official Says NATO Airstrike Killed 14 Civilians
By RAY RIVERA
May 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/world/asia/30afghanistan.html?hp
14) UK Long-Term Jobless Highest Since 1997-Thinktank
By REUTERS
May 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/05/29/business/business-us-britain-jobless-thinktank.html?src=busln
15) Greenpeace Activists Climb Greenland Oil Rig
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/05/29/business/AP-EU-Greenland-Oil.html?src=busln
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1) A New Flood, Some Old Truths
New York Times Editorial
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/opinion/28sat1.html?hp
The thousands of people forced to abandon their homes in recent weeks to floodwaters are victims not just of nature but of human error as well. Years of mismanagement of the vast Mississippi River ecosystem - the relentless and often inadvisable construction of levees and navigation channels, the paving over of wetlands, the commercial development of flood plains - have made the damage worse than it might otherwise have been.
The Obama administration is now completing an overhaul of the guidelines governing dams, levees and other water-related projects built with federal money. In 2007, Congress ordered the guidelines, unchanged since 1983, rewritten to require federal agencies to take environmental as well as economic concerns into account.
Historically, projects had been shaped by two main factors: the Army Corps of Engineers' conviction that nature can be subdued by levees and dams, and its reflexive green-lighting of any flood control project that encouraged commercial or agricultural development. The new rules, Congress said, should require the Corps and other federal agencies to give equal weight to less easily measurable benefits like wildlife habitat and to "nonstructural" solutions to flood control like preserving wetlands, flood plains and other "natural systems."
To give the Corps its due, it has performed nobly in the present emergency. Its main-stem levees have held. Its decision to blow holes in levees guarding the New Madrid floodway in Missouri clearly saved Cairo, Ill., and other places downstream; similar maneuvers in Louisiana helped protect New Orleans. These tactics had long been part of Corps emergency plans, and they worked.
The question the environmental community and many in Congress are asking is whether this would have been necessary if the river had been better managed. In populated areas, levees were a necessary response to the cataclysmic floods of the 1920s. But some were built solely to attract more development, while others closed off flood plains that could have acted as a natural safety valve.
Meanwhile, over the years, the upper Mississippi watershed has lost millions of acres of wetlands that could have served as a natural sponge for floodwaters. Some experts also believe that dikes, jetties and other structures designed to channel the river and speed navigation have also helped raise water levels to dangerous levels.
So-called 100-year floods seemed to be hitting the Mississippi with scary regularity - a $16 billion flood in 1993, a bad one in 2001, another in 2008, and now this one. Climate change, which some suspect of causing torrential downpours, may be part of the problem, though the connection is unclear. What is clear is that we should learn from our mistakes, let nature help out where it can, and not build or farm in places where it makes no sense to do so. As the saying goes: Nobody ever beats the river.
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2) Shale Boom in Texas Could Increase U.S. Oil Output
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/energy-environment/28shale.html?hp
CATARINA, Tex. - Until last year, the 17-mile stretch of road between this forsaken South Texas village and the county seat of Carrizo Springs was a patchwork of derelict gasoline stations and rusting warehouses.
Now the region is in the hottest new oil play in the country, with giant oil terminals and sprawling RV parks replacing fields of mesquite. More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months.
The Texas field, known as the Eagle Ford, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation's oil output by 25 percent within a decade - without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska.
There is only one catch: the oil from the Eagle Ford and similar fields of tightly packed rock can be extracted only by using hydraulic fracturing, a method that uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and hazardous chemicals to blast through the rocks to release the oil inside.
The technique, also called fracking, has been widely used in the last decade to unlock vast new fields of natural gas, but drillers only recently figured out how to release large quantities of oil, which flows less easily through rock than gas. As evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies, the federal government and regulators in various states are considering tighter regulations on it.
The oil industry says any environmental concerns are far outweighed by the economic benefits of pumping previously inaccessible oil from fields that could collectively hold two or three times as much oil as Prudhoe Bay, the Alaskan field that was the last great onshore discovery. The companies estimate that the boom will create more than two million new jobs, directly or indirectly, and bring tens of billions of dollars to the states where the fields are located, which include traditional oil sites like Texas and Oklahoma, industrial stalwarts like Ohio and Michigan and even farm states like Kansas.
"It's the one thing we have seen in our adult lives that could take us away from imported oil," said Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, one of the most aggressive drillers. "What if we have found three of the world's biggest oil fields in the last three years right here in the U.S.? How transformative could that be for the U.S. economy?"
The oil rush is already transforming this impoverished area of Texas near the Mexican border, doubling real estate values in the last year and filling restaurants and hotels.
"That's oil money," said Bert Bell, a truck company manager, pointing to the new pickup truck he bought for his wife after making $525,000 leasing mineral rights around his family's mobile home. "Oil money just makes life easier."
Based on the industry's plans, shale and other "tight rock" fields that now produce about half a million barrels of oil a day will produce up to three million barrels daily by 2020, according to IHS CERA, an energy research firm. Oil companies are investing an estimated $25 billion this year to drill 5,000 new oil wells in tight rock fields, according to Raoul LeBlanc, a senior director at PFC Energy, a consulting firm.
"This is very big and it's coming on very fast," said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of IHS CERA. "This is like adding another Venezuela or Kuwait by 2020, except these tight oil fields are in the United States."
In the most developed shale field, the Bakken field in North Dakota, production has leaped to 400,000 barrels a day today from a trickle four years ago. Experts say it could produce as much as a million barrels a day by the end of the decade.
The Eagle Ford, where the first well was drilled only three years ago, is already producing more than 100,000 barrels a day and could reach 420,000 by 2015, almost as much as Ecuador, according to Bentek Energy, a consultancy.
The shale oil boom comes as production from Prudhoe Bay is declining and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is being more closely scrutinized after last year's Deepwater Horizon disaster.
What makes the new fields more remarkable is that they were thought to be virtually valueless only five years ago. "Everyone said the oil molecules are too large to flow in commercial quantities through these low-quality rocks," said Mark G. Papa, chief executive of EOG Resources.
EOG began quietly buying the rights to thousands of acres in the Bakken and Eagle Ford after an EOG engineer concluded that the techniques used to extract natural gas from shale - fracking, combined with drilling horizontally through layers of rocks - could be used for oil. Chesapeake and a few other independents quickly followed. Now the biggest multinational oil companies, as well as Chinese and Norwegian firms, are investing billions of dollars in the fields.
The new drilling makes economic sense as long as oil prices remain above $60 a barrel, according to oil companies. At current oil prices of about $100 a barrel, shale wells can typically turn a profit within eight months - three times faster than many traditional wells.
But water remains a key issue. In addition to possible contamination of surface and underground water from fracking fluids, the sheer volume of water required poses challenges, especially in South Texas, which faces a severe drought and rapidly diminishing water levels in the local aquifer.
At the rate wells are being drilled, "there's definitely going to be a problem," said Bay Laxson, a local water official.
Dave Thompson, regional production superintendent for the oil company SM Energy said the industry knew that water issues were "an Achilles heel." He said his company was building a system to reuse water in the field.
But unlike Pennsylvania and New York, where fracking for natural gas has produced organized opposition, the oil industry has been mostly welcomed in western and southern states.
Thanks to the drilling boom, the recession bypassed North Dakota entirely. Here in Dimmit County, Tex., the unemployment rate has fallen in half, and sales tax receipts are up 70 percent so far this year, allowing the county to hire more police officers and buy sanitation and road repair equipment.
"In my lifetime, this is the biggest thing I've ever seen," said Jose Gonzalez, 78, a retired teacher and son of migrant farm workers, who leased mineral rights to Chesapeake for $27,000 and sold another plot for $100,000 to a company building an RV park for oil workers. "You can see I'm happy."
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3) Aid Pledge by Group of 8 Seeks to Bolster Arab Democracy
"That challenge has grown acute in Egypt since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Revenues from tourism, a mainstay of the economy, have plummeted by 40 percent, the new military government says. Foreign investment has dried up. Factories are paralyzed by strikes. Meanwhile, prices for food and energy have surged, leaving people feeling deeply insecure ahead of crucial parliamentary and presidential elections in the fall."
By LIZ ALDERMAN
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/world/europe/28g8.html?ref=world
DEAUVILLE, France - Leaders of the Group of 8 wealthiest industrialized nations pledged on Friday to send billions of dollars in aid to Egypt and Tunisia, hoping to reduce the threat that economic stagnation could undermine the transition to democracy.
At a series of working sessions that lasted until the early morning hours Friday, representatives of the Group of 8 expressed concern that the democracy movement in the Arab world could be "hijacked" by Islamic radicals if the West did not help stabilize the economies of the two countries that touched off the Arab Spring, according to two European diplomats who were present during the discussions.
Comparing the uprisings that are sweeping the region to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which eventually paved the way for a historic shift to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, the group said in a communiqué that its aim was "to ensure that instability does not undermine the process of political reform."
How much aid the Western powers would ultimately provide, and how effective any aid would be during volatile political transitions in the two countries, remained uncertain. The group's official communiqué promised $20 billion, which would be a major infusion of funds.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the meeting's host, said the total could be double that. But he and other officials did not specify how much each country and international development agency would provide, and the Group of 8 countries have in the past made commitments that they did not ultimately fulfill.
Even so, the incomplete transition in the Middle East was a dominant worry at the meeting. Democracy, the leaders said, could be rooted only in economic reforms that created open markets, equal opportunities and jobs to lower staggeringly high unemployment rates, especially among restless youths.
"We're seeing growth slow, budget deficits rise, in the case of Egypt, some foreign exchange reserves being lost," said David Lipton, a senior director for international economic affairs at the National Security Council. "We and the countries both see the very high priority of keeping the countries stable so that the backdrop of democratization is one of economic stability rather than instability and chaos."
That challenge has grown acute in Egypt since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Revenues from tourism, a mainstay of the economy, have plummeted by 40 percent, the new military government says.
Foreign investment has dried up. Factories are paralyzed by strikes. Meanwhile, prices for food and energy have surged, leaving people feeling deeply insecure ahead of crucial parliamentary and presidential elections in the fall.
"We members of the G-8 strongly support the aspirations of the Arab Spring, as well as those of the Iranian people," the leaders, who discussed the situation with the prime ministers of Egypt and Tunisia here, said in the communiqué.
Officials said the aid would come from the member states of the Group of 8, which includes the United States, Japan, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, and from international organizations, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Investment Bank.
Officials cautioned that the projected $20 billion in aid from international financial institutions would come in phases and be contingent on democratic and economic reforms. The pledge, an aide to President Obama said, was "not a blank check" but "an envelope that could be achieved in the context of suitable reform efforts."
There is a fear, shared by both the American administration and democracy activists, that plunking down large dollar pledges upfront would risk funneling money into the hands of institutions, including the Egyptian military, which could misuse or simply siphon it off.
Even such a large infusion is dwarfed by the scale of the two economies - $500 billion in Egypt and $100 billion in Tunisia. Mr. Sarkozy said that he hoped the total aid package would eventually reach $40 billion, including $10 billion from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.
Qatar is also urging its Persian Gulf partners to consider creating a Middle East development bank to help Arab states making a transition to democracy.
The economies of the Middle East and North Africa have been weak for years, and per capita growth over the past three decades was only half a percent, a fraction of the average for emerging economies, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Weak growth and poor job opportunities are among the major factors that prompted the outpouring of unrest among young people in Egypt and Tunisia.
But political change has, if anything, brought more economic pain. In Egypt, many people are again complaining of soaring food prices, just as they did last fall before the revolution. Many are now also wrestling with exaggerated expectations about how much the revolution will lift their personal fortunes.
Labor unrest has swept the country as workers everywhere demand more pay. Newspapers report rumors of vast illicit fortunes to be recovered from Mr. Mubarak and his associates that many mistakenly believe will change the Egyptian economy.
Old leftist political parties are re-emerging as though they have been frozen in time for the 30 years of the Mubarak police state to demand that the government again expand its role in the economy to help the poor, even at the price of discouraging foreign investors.
In Tunisia, the revolution that ousted former President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali began in the country's impoverished interior as a revolt against dismal economic conditions; it only later took on demands for political democracy and freedom as it reached the more affluent, educated and Westernized coast.
Now many inlanders are complaining that the resulting upheaval has not brought development or opportunity.
Resentment of the coastal elite runs high, and some say they feel so disappointed they have soured on participating in the democratic process.
In Tunisia, too, old leftist parties are trying to come back, and parts of the country's strong labor movement are stepping up their demands or returning to radical roots.
In both countries, unrest has led to security problems that have scared away tourists, an important source of revenue. Tourist demand has fallen so much that many airlines have canceled or scaled back flights.
The Group of 8 leaders want their aid to help address those issues by broadening economic opportunity and breaking down trade barriers; Egypt, seeking to protect state industries, has some of the highest in the world.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development developed expertise in overhauling centrally planned economies in Eastern and Central Europe, which is why officials said its role would be central in the Arab world.
Masood Ahmed, the Middle East director of the International Monetary Fund, said that to ensure stability Egypt needed to generate up to 10 million jobs over the next decade and Tunisia about 1 million.
Turning to Libya, the Group of 8 leaders reiterated calls for its leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, to step aside, saying he and his government "have failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go."
The leaders also backed Mr. Obama's call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, but conspicuously left out a mention of his call for negotiations to be based on the 1967 borders. The group generally operates by consensus, and Canada opposed a reference to the borders.
If the statement was going to mention the 1967 border, said Stephen Harper, Canada's conservative prime minister, it should also cite other elements of Mr. Obama's speech, including that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state and that the Palestinian state be demilitarized.
"I would support any statement on finding peace in the Middle East that was balanced," he told reporters. "I would not support any statement that was not balanced."
David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo, Mark Landler from Warsaw and Ian Austen from Ottawa, Canada.
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4) At a Protest In Cairo, One Group Is Missing
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html?ref=world
CAIRO - Tens of thousands of mostly liberal protesters again filled Tahrir Square on Friday to press for an assortment of demands in a demonstration billed as "The Revolution Part II, " but perhaps most notable for the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The protesters called on the military council now ruling Egypt to end the practice of sending civilians to military trials, to expedite legal action against former President Hosni Mubarak and his associates, and to start governing with some civilian presidential council.
But the rally may have been most significant as a display of the liberal factions' strength in Egyptian politics. It was the first time since the Jan. 25 day of protests that kicked off the revolution that the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best-organized political force, did not support a major street protest.
In the emerging battle lines of post-revolutionary Egyptian politics, many liberal activists and observers abroad say they fear that the Brotherhood's organizational strength will give it an edge in the elections for Parliament this fall, which could, in turn, enable Islamists to put their stamp on Egypt's Constitution when the new Parliament sets out a process for revising it. "Constitution First," declared a banner at the center of the square on Friday, expressing the liberal demand for the establishment of rules protecting individual freedoms and minority rights before elections begin.
The Brotherhood, aware of its organizational edge, campaigned hard for a referendum setting the election for this fall. The group, outlawed under Mr. Mubarak, has just moved from small and dingy offices to imposing, gleaming headquarters befitting a modern political party, and its satisfaction with the election timetable may have been a reason it did not support Friday's protest.
"Where is the Brotherhood? Tahrir is here," went one chant, referring to the square at the center of the revolution, whose name means "liberation" in Arabic.
"People liked the Brotherhood more under Mubarak because we knew the government attacked them for no reason," Hossam Eddin Mohamed, 21, said. "But now, after the revolution, people know 'O.K., there is the Brotherhood, but now there are a lot of other parties too.' "
There were also signs that the Brotherhood's new prominence was bringing its own internal divisions to the fore. The youth wing of the Brotherhood, which is close to many of the young liberal activists, defied their elders to join the demonstration. The Brotherhood youth had also played a key role in the coalition of young activists who began the protests days before their Islamist elders fell in behind them.
Some liberal activists, however, worried that the impact of the demonstration itself might have been dulled by the internal divisions evident in the profusion of miscellaneous demands. Many speakers and signs called for goals that included economic measures like an increase in the minimum wage, and long-term political reforms like ensuring the independence of the judiciary.
In a statement on Thursday, Egypt's military affirmed the right to peaceful protest and said its forces would stay away from the square, suggesting that some groups might be seeking to prompt a confrontation.
Liam Stack contributed reporting.
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5) Officials in Germany Support Closing 7 Nuclear Plants
By JACK EWING
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/global/28nuclear.html?ref=world
FRANKFURT - Seven nuclear power plants in Germany that were shut down after the Fukushima disaster in Japan are likely to be closed permanently after a decision Friday by state environment ministers.
A government agency warned, however, that without the seven plants Germany could have trouble coping with a failure in some part of the national power grid.
The shutdown "brings networks to the limit of capacity," the Federal Network Agency, which regulates utilities, said in a report published Friday.
Meeting in Wernigerode, in eastern Germany, the state environment ministers recommended that the seven plants be closed. The decision rests with Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet, which will consider the issue on June 6.
Mrs. Merkel is under heavy political pressure to speed Germany's exit from nuclear power after public alarm about the nuclear disaster in Japan cost her party votes in recent elections. In late March, a few weeks after the tsunami and earthquake hit Japan and led to the crisis at Fukushima, the Green Party, representing environmentalists, drove Mrs. Merkel's Christian Democrats from power in Baden-Württemberg, a state the conservatives had dominated for decades.
The Green Party is pushing for Germany to close all of its plants by 2020 if not sooner. "An exit during this decade is very doable," Franz Untersteller, the environment minister in Baden-Württemberg, said in a statement Friday.
But businesses have expressed concern that the price of electricity could rise because Germany does not yet have enough other sources of energy to compensate.
The Federal Network Agency, in its report Friday, said Germany had transformed from energy exporter to energy importer since the nuclear plants were shut down.
When weather is ideal, Germany can generate almost as much power from wind and solar energy as 28 nuclear reactors, the agency said. The renewable energy fluctuates significantly, however, often requiring German utilities to buy power from other countries and creating problems for neighbors that had depended on German power.
The Federal Network Agency acknowledged that so far there had been no serious power failures since the seven plants were closed.
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6) U.S. Declines to Protect the Overfished Bluefin Tuna
By FELICITY BARRINGER
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/science/earth/28tuna.html?ref=us
The Obama administration said on Friday that it had declined to grant Endangered Species Act protections to the Atlantic bluefin tuna, whose numbers have declined precipitously because of overfishing on both sides of the ocean.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the fish, whose fatty flesh is prized by sushi aficionados, would be classified as a species of concern, however, effectively placing bluefin on a watch list as the agency awaits new data on the impact of a stricter international management regimen.
"The future of this species relies on sound international management," said Larry Robinson, NOAA's assistant secretary for conservation and management. The agency's scientists are also continuing to assess the effect of last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill on bluefin spawning grounds in the Gulf of Mexico, officials said, and the agency will revisit its decision by early 2013.
Mr. Robinson said the bluefin tuna did not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act because it was "not likely to become extinct."
The decision drew sharp criticism from the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Arizona that filed the petition requesting endangered species protection. "The Obama administration is kowtowing to the fears of the U.S. fishing industry instead of following the science on this," said Kieran Suckling, the center's executive director.
Several other environmental groups have questioned the wisdom of unilaterally listing the bluefin tuna as an endangered species, saying that coordinated international action is preferable.
Last year the United States backed an international effort to have the Atlantic bluefin protected under the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, but the move was blocked by aggressive lobbying by Japan, where a single adult fish, weighing more than 300 pounds and measuring more than six feet long, can be sold for thousands of dollars.
Asked to reconcile Friday's decision with the push for a listing by the convention, known as Cites (pronounced SIGH-tees), Eric Schwaab, assistant administrator for NOAA's fisheries service, said that another global body, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or Iccat, had established stricter fishing quotas and more rigorous monitoring over the last year and that his agency planned to study the results.
He added that a listing under the Endangered Species Act required a different standard from a Cites listing; under the American law, there must be compelling evidence of the likelihood of the fish's extinction, he said.
No one disputes that the bluefin population has plummeted in recent decades. The most recent analysis of the decline, prepared last year by Iccat, found that the eastern Atlantic's stocks of fish old enough to reproduce declined by 80 percent between 1970 and 1992 and have since fluctuated between 21 percent and 29 percent of the 1970 level.
In the western Atlantic, bluefin stocks declined more than 70 percent from 1970 through the mid-1990s, after which the "spawning stocks" remained relatively stable.
Lee Crockett, director of federal fisheries policy for the Pew Environment Group, another conservation organization, said that multilateral efforts to protect the bluefin tuna were crucial but that "international tools are not being used effectively." Fishermen in the Mediterranean catch "twice the legal quota illegally," he said.
Nor does the United States do enough, he added. Mr. Crockett said that additional steps were needed to protect the bluefin tuna's spawning areas in the Gulf of Mexico and to end log-line fishing there, which causes the bluefin to be caught accidentally by commercial fishermen in pursuit of other fish.
The American fishing industry welcomed NOAA's decision, while assigning most of the blame for overfishing to fishermen on the other side of the Atlantic. "We're glad that the leadership paid special attention," said Rich Ruais, executive director of the American Bluefin Tuna Association.
Overfishing in the east has affected stocks in the west, Mr. Ruais said, because the fish is wide-ranging and can swim across the Atlantic in less than two months.
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7) Reacting to Police Rape Case With Anger, but Little Surprise
"Amid the anger, many expressed little surprise that in a trial without physical evidence, the jury believed the officers over the woman accusing them, who testified that she was too drunk to remember much of what happened. ...'New York City cops can get away with anything,' Ms. White said, sitting in front of her home on 117th Street in Harlem. 'This is the only place I know where there are certain rules for police officers and certain rules for civilians. Acquitting those two today is totally out of line. They should put those cops in jail where they belong.'"
By JOHN LELAND
May 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/nyregion/reacting-to-police-rape-case-with-anger-but-little-surprise.html?ref=nyregion
It was a trial that bared some anxieties that run just below the city's surface: the weakness of a drunken memory; the vulnerability of ordinary residents to abuse from the powerful, especially in a police uniform. For nearly two months, New Yorkers followed a courtroom drama that held all the fascination of a television crime series, with intimate sexual detail and a haunting void at its center into which they could project their own fears or anger.
Those emotions poured forth with surprising gusto when a variety of New Yorkers, from civil servants to night-life denizens, were asked about the acquittal on Thursday of two police officers accused in the rape of a woman they had been called to help get home to her East Village apartment after she had been spent a night out celebrating a job promotion.
Some people talked eagerly about a topic they seemed to have mulled for weeks; others chose every word, carefully moderating emotions that included outrage, cynicism and resignation at what some called business as usual.
"It's scary because I feel there are less and less people you can trust," said Erin Walsh, 31, an English teacher who lives in Astoria, Queens. "It's hard to wrap my brain around the situation. People in positions of power should do the right thing."
In interviews around the city on Thursday and Friday, reactions to the verdict revealed the simple terror elicited by the case - that the very people sworn to protect you can take advantage of you. Amid the anger, many expressed little surprise that in a trial without physical evidence, the jury believed the officers over the woman accusing them, who testified that she was too drunk to remember much of what happened.
"It's disgusting," said Annie White, a retired home health care aide, who said she had to shut off her television after watching the verdict.
"New York City cops can get away with anything," Ms. White said, sitting in front of her home on 117th Street in Harlem. "This is the only place I know where there are certain rules for police officers and certain rules for civilians. Acquitting those two today is totally out of line. They should put those cops in jail where they belong.
"Right is right, wrong is wrong. To take advantage of a drunk woman? If you're a woman in this city you don't have a chance; you can't even call the police. If they were civilians, they would be in jail."
The trial of the two officers, Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata, featured spirited courtroom confrontations and a steady drip of intimate revelations, including the woman's familiarity with various sexual positions and the song that Mr. Moreno testified that he sang to her when he cuddled her in her bed (Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer").
The officers were found guilty of official misconduct and fired from the force - an inadequate punishment, several people said, for officers who took advantage of a woman at her most vulnerable.
"It isn't the first time police officers get away with doing something they shouldn't be doing, and it's getting to be normal and that's a problem," said Sharlene Lynch, 23, who works in retail. "I'm glad it wasn't me. I'm sad for her. Police are supposed to serve and protect, but they get away with everything."
Responses did not seem to divide along lines of gender, age or ethnicity - or even, in some instances, connection to police officers.
"It's ridiculous," said Lavaba Wilson, 45, whose brother is a police officer. "First of all, she was drunk and unable to consent. In the state of New York, that's rape. But they're officers, and it's the natural inclination to side with law enforcement."
For Ursula Deljanin, 36, a legal assistant who said she had been following the trial closely in two newspapers, the case sounded a warning about the dangers of being a woman in New York. Ms. Deljanin said she went out one or two nights a week and liked to drink, though not to excess. She said she saw many women who drank themselves into very dangerous situations.
"People are just thinking this is Disneyland," she said. "It's still New York. You have to be aware."
Ms. Deljanin said the case had made her more cautious about her own behavior and affirmed her suspicions about the police. "Human beings are human beings, and if they see a moment of weakness, they take advantage of it," she said. "If I was in the same situation with a girlfriend and I saw she was in that condition, I would've called an ambulance before I called the cops."
She emphasized that she was not blaming the woman, but that she herself always used a "buddy system" when she went out. Many women at clubs, she said, seemed to believe that the city's ugly side had disappeared.
"The danger just has a prettier face these days," she said. "It's not the guy in the overcoat hanging in the corner. It could be just a regular-looking guy."
Sarah Lewitinn, 31, also said the case made her more wary of the police, whom she had previously considered "the last person I'd expect this from."
Ms. Lewitinn, who works as a D.J. around town under the name Ultragrrrl, said she had watched intoxicated women get into police cars, trusting that the officers would get them home safely. "I think I've even had a cop take me home," she said. "When I'm walking by myself at 4 a.m. in heels, it's hard to get a cab among the hooligans. Once or twice I've gone to a cop, and said, 'I hate to be a bother, but could you take me home?' "
Ms. Lewitinn said she had followed the trial "like an episode of 'Law & Order.' " The rape accusations, she said, "definitely made me rethink getting into anyone's car that I don't know."
Many found themselves torn - convinced that the officers were guilty of rape, but that the accuser's haziness made it hard for the jury to convict.
"I guess the jury used whatever facts they had to make that decision," said Jon Gustafson, 67, a dog walker who lives in Yonkers. "My gut reaction? Where there's smoke, there's fire.
"It's hard to believe a woman would manufacture a story like this. I'm sure their lives will be different after this and her life will be different."
Reporting was contributed by Juliet Linderman, Jed Lipinski, Ashley Parker and Rebecca White.
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8) High School Student Stands Up Against Prayer at Public School and Is Ostracized, Demeaned and Threatened
By Greta Christina, AlterNet
Posted on May 25, 2011, Printed on May 28, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151086/high_school_student_stands_up_against_prayer_at_public_school_and_is_ostracized%2C_demeaned_and_threatened
Whatever you think about atheists -- good, bad, mixed, indifferent -- this story should seriously trouble you.
Damon Fowler, an atheist student at Bastrop High School in Louisiana, was about to graduate. His public school was planning to have a prayer as part of the graduation ceremony: as they traditionally did, as so many public schools around the country do every year. But Fowler -- knowing that government-sponsored prayer in the public schools is unconstitutional and legally forbidden -- contacted the school superintendent to let him know that he opposed the prayer, and would be contacting the ACLU if it happened. The school -- at first, anyway -- agreed, and canceled the prayer.
Then Fowler's name, and his role in this incident, was leaked. As a direct result:
1) Fowler has been hounded, pilloried, and ostracized by his community.
2) One of Fowler's teachers has publicly demeaned him.
3) Fowler has been physically threatened. Students have threatened to "jump him" at graduation practice, and he has received multiple threats of bodily harm, and even death threats.
4) Fowler's parents have cut off his financial support, kicked him out of the house, and thrown his belongings onto the front porch.
Oh, and by the way? They went ahead and had the graduation prayer anyway.
Before we get into the details, let's be clear about the facts and the law: Nobody -- not Fowler, not the ACLU, nobody -- is telling anybody at Bastrop High School that they can't pray. People can pray at graduations and other school events all they want. The sole issue here is whether a public school can have a prayer at a graduation or other school event as an official, school-sponsored part of the program. Individual prayer? Hunky dory. Off-campus prayers at churches or private events? Knock yourself out. Government promotion of a religious agenda? Not so much. What with the First Amendment and the "establishment of religion" bit and all.
It's a law and a Constitution that protects everybody, not just atheists. If you wouldn't want to be subjected to a government-sponsored Buddhist prayer, you ought not to be subjecting others to a government-sponsored Christian prayer.
Okay. I hope that's clear.
So here's a little more detail about what exactly happened with Damon Fowler.
1) Fowler has been hounded, pilloried, and ostracized by his community. He's become the center of what he terms a "shitstorm": he has been harassed, vilified, targeted with insults and name-calling and hateful remarks. He's been told t he's the Devil. He's been told, "Go cry to your mommy... oh, wait. You can't." (A reference to him being disowned by his parents.) He's been told that he's only doing this to get attention. A student's public prayer at a pre-graduation "Class Night" event was turned into an opportunity for the school and community to gang up on Fowler and publicly close ranks against him -- teachers as well as students. (Here's video). And people seen defending him have been targeted as well.
As just a taste, here are a few comments on the Bastrop Enterprise news story about the controversy: "I personally see him as a coward." "I hope they [Christians] put enough pressure on this kid to convert him and save his soul from the fire of hell." "The kid was likely a recluse and apathetic about most everything until now." "If he don't want prayer at graduation he can stay at home and not come to graduation." "Afterall, that's what she or he wants isn't it to be singled out! This just makes me ill." "I hope that the little athiest is offended." "What he is really doing is trying to shove his views down people's throats." "Why does this student only now decide to get engaged in what is happening at the school? Is it nothing more than our own self-destructive human nature to break down anything of which we may not approve?" "That student should just have to have his/her one man graduation ceremony all alone." "Satan continues to prowl and is deceiving many in this world."
2) One of Fowler's teachers has publicly demeaned him. From the story in the Bastrop Enterprise:
Mitzi Quinn has been on the staff at BHS for almost 25 years, much of that time as a senior advisor. In the past, Quinn said there have been students who were atheist, agnostic and other non-Christian religions who "had no problems" with the prayer.
"They respected the majority of their classmates and didn't say anything," Quinn said. "We've never had this come up before. Never."
Throughout her time working with the student, Quinn said they never expressed their personal beliefs or that they had any problems with other students' Christian faiths.
"And what's even more sad is this is a student who really hasn't contributed anything to graduation or to their classmates," Quinn said. (emphasis mine)
In other words: Because the majority of students want an unconstitutional prayer at their graduation, therefore they're in the right. Because nobody's ever had the courage to speak up about this before, therefore the law was not being broken, and everything was okay. (After all, it's not like anything bad happened when Fowler spoke up...right?) And because Fowler hasn't "contributed anything" -- other than, you know, a model of risking safety and security to stand up for a principle he believed in -- therefore his basic legal right to not be targeted with religious proselytization by his public school is irrelevant... and he deserves to be publicly derided by one of his teachers.
3) Fowler has been physically threatened. Students have threatened to "jump him" at graduation practice, and he has received multiple threats of bodily harm, and even death threats.
Enough said.
4) Fowler's parents have cut off his financial support, kicked him out of the house, and thrown his belongings onto the porch.
Let's be very, very clear about this one. At a time when their son was being bullied, threatened, publicly pilloried, and ostracized from his school and his community, his parents joined the party. Their initial response was to hold him in their house against his will, take his cell phone and cut off his contact with the outside world, and even cut him off from contact with his older brother, Jerrett. Their more recent response has been to cut off financial support, kick him out of the house, and throw his belongings onto the porch.
Fortunately, Damon isn't entirely alone. His brother Jerrett is bringing Damon into his own home in Texas, and will help put him through college. And Damon is fortunate enough to have the backing of the atheist community, who are providing encouragement, emotional support, practical assistance, and even a scholarship fund.
More on that in a moment.
Since that's a lot of what this story is really about.
There are a lot of hot-button issues in Damon Fowler's story. There's the depressing fact of how common this kind of story is: the fact that, despite the law being unambiguous on the subject, public schools around the country are continuing to sponsor prayers and otherwise promote theocracy, in flagrant violation of the law... apparently in the hopes that nobody will want to make waves and speak out against it. There's the lack of understanding in the United States about fundamental civics: the all-too-common belief that "majority rules" in every situation, and the all-too-common failure to comprehend the principle that the minority has basic civil rights.
There's the ugly reality of anti-atheist bigotry and discrimination across the country -- especially in high schools. According to JT Eberhard, high school specialist for the Secular Student Alliance, "In Alabama, Auburn High School is refusing to allow an SSA affiliate. In Cranston, Rhode Island, a public school is facing an ACLU suit for refusing to take down a sectarian prayer [a banner posted in the school gym]. In Texas we had a student who was told he could have a secular club if he called it a philosophy club and didn't affiliate with the SSA. The list of similar situations is a mile long and these are only the ones I've become aware of in my first four and a half months on the job. The Fowler incident is much closer to being the norm than the exception."
There are rants about religion to be had here as well. There's the level of not only hostility, but panicked hostility, when entrenched religion gets its privileged status threatened. There's the way that religion relies on social consensus to perpetuate itself -- and how, when that consensus is threatened, it commonly reacts by smacking down dissent and expelling dissenters. There's the idea that the unverifiability of religion -- the beliefs in invisible, inaudible, intangible gods promising an afterlife nobody can know anything about -- means that the harm done in its name has the unique capacity to spin off into the stratosphere... since there's no reality check. There's the image of religion as a colossal fortress protecting a house of cards: powerful, massive structures and institutions staunchly buttressed and hotly defended to ensure that nobody ever examines the ideas inside and sees how flimsy they are.
And of course -- duh -- there's separation of church and state. There's the principle that a public school should not be sponsoring prayers at graduations. What with that being a government establishment of religion and all, and thus being -- oh, what's that word? -- unconstitutional.
All of that is important.
But there's something else important going on here.
And that's the way the atheist community has stepped up to the plate.
Damon Fowler has been embraced and welcomed by the atheist community. Atheist writers have been all over this story from the moment it broke: it's been covered on Friendly Atheist, Pharyngula, BlagHag, the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Atheist Revolution, The Thinking Atheist, Atheist Underworld, WWJTD, Rock Beyond Belief... the list goes on. Several atheist organizations are applauding Fowler for his courage.
American Atheists said of Fowler, "This kid deserves mad props for letting his principal know on no uncertain terms that ACLU would be contacted if the prayer wasn't canceled. Good job, Damon, you speak for the freedoms of people who are trapped in the bible-belt!" JT Eberhard, high school specialist for the Secular Student Alliance, said, "Despite the vile threats, bullying, and hatred his community has given him, we recognize Damon for what he is: a brave student speaking up for religious liberty and inclusion." Freedom From Religion Foundation spoke about "his courage in speaking out for his and other students' rights."
And it's not just the atheist thought leaders. It's the on-the-ground community. Fowler has received an outpouring of support from atheists around the country and around the world. The "Support Damon" group on Facebook has over 10,000 members as of this writing. The Reddit post from Damon and his brother Jerrett discussing these events has been loaded with expressions of empathy and outrage. Atheist forums and blog comment threads about Fowler all over the Internet have been extensive and passionate. And many atheists have written letters to the Bastrop High School administration expressing their support for Fowler's position and their opposition to the prayer.
This support isn't only emotional, either. Emotional support is not trivial, of course; it's hugely important, especially when you're being ostracized, targeted with a hateful smear campaign, and driven from your home. But a tremendous amount of practical and financial support is coming from the atheist community as well. Many atheists have offered Fowler transportation, legal advice, meetup groups, places to stay, physical protection, connections with others who could provide additional practical help, and more. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has given Fowler a $1,000 college scholarship.
And perhaps most dramatically, Friendly Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta has established a scholarship fund for Fowler, so he can attend college despite being cut off financially by his parents -- and the response has been overwhelming. As of this writing, the atheist community has donated over $15,000. Essentially filling the role that his parents have abandoned.
Why am I bringing this up?
One of the chunks of mud that's most commonly slung at atheists is that we're selfish. Amoral. That without a belief in God and the afterlife, people would have no moral compass, and would just act to please themselves, without any consideration for others. That without a belief in eternal punishment in the afterlife for bad behavior, eternal reward in the afterlife for good behavior, and a supernatural authority figure refereeing it all, people would have no reason to be good people, and no reason to avoid doing terrible things. That without religion, people would have no compassion, no sense of justice, no empathy, no desire to see society running smoothly... and would just do whatever we wanted to do.
But when Damon Fowler was suffering and in need, the atheist community stepped up. It provided compassion. It demanded justice. It offered emotional support. It offered practical support. It opened its wallets. It made it unassailably clear to Damon Fowler that he was not alone: that although his school, his community, even his parents, had all turned their backs on him, atheists would take care of him, as best they could, until he could take care of himself. It made it clear that, even though he no longer had a home in Bastrop, he had a home in this movement. When Damon Fowler was suffering and in need, the atheist community proved itself to be a real community.
If atheism means we just do whatever we want to do... then apparently, what we want to do is take care of each other. Apparently, what we want to do is help people who have been injured. Apparently, what we want to do is speak out against wrongdoing. Apparently, what we want to do is put a stop to injustice. Apparently, what we want to do is make sacrifices for people in need.
A whole lot more than the Christians in Bastrop, Louisiana.
I'm not saying that atheists are morally superior to religious believers. I don't think that, and I'm not saying it. I'm aware that many religious believers are good, compassionate people with a strong sense of justice. I'm even aware that many religious believers, indeed many Christians, are appalled by what's happening to Damon Fowler, and oppose it with every breath in their bodies. And I'm aware that many atheists are hostile, self-involved schmucks. (Believe me... I'm aware of that.) That's not my point.
My point is this: Human beings don't need God to be good. Human ethics seem to be wired into our brains, through millions of years of evolution as a social species, and every human being who isn't a sociopath has them. Some of us act on them better than others... but we all have them. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Rastafarian, Wiccan -- and atheist.
And my point is this: The next time someone tells you that atheists are selfish and amoral? Remember Damon Fowler. Remember the religious community that bullied him, harassed him, ostracized him, and drove him out.
And remember the atheist community that took him in.
If you want to support Damon Fowler's scholarship fund, you can do so with the ChipIn widget at the Friendly Atheist blog. The widget closes on May 31.
Read more of Greta Christina at her blog.
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9) Michigan Superintendent's Sarcastic Plan to Save Schools from Gov's Ax: Make Them Prisons
By Meteor Blades, Daily Kos
Posted on May 28, 2011, Printed on May 28, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/601767/michigan_superintendent%5C%27s_sarcastic_plan_to_save_schools_from_gov%5C%27s_ax%3A_make_them_prisons
Financially pinched states across the nation are making draconian cuts in spending for social services and public education. But there\'s one area that gets gentler treatment under Republican governors and legislators: prisons. In fact, while Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and the GOP-controlled legislature were whacking $300 per student from the state\'s K-12 school budget, he was simultaneously moving some of the "savings" over to corrections and prisons.
That prompted Nathan Bootz,_superintendent_of public schools in the small town of Ithaca in central Michigan, to pen a letter to the local Gratiot County Herald suggesting a modest proposal:
Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.
This is why I'm proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!
I don\'t know how strict the English teachers of the 1350 students in the Ithaca schools are about combining question marks and exclamation points, but surely this is one instance when they would not knock a point off Mr. Bootz\'s grade. As the superintendent writes, adequately funding schools would give them "the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison."
To be fair, prison spending was also cut in the budget the Michigan legislature approved without a single Democratic vote Thursday. But, proportionately it was half the cut inflicted on public schools.
What\'s particularly galling about Synder\'s caterwauling on the need to hack nearly a billion out of K-12 spending, reduce spending for universities and community colleges and cut already meager welfare payments? He simultaneously got the legislature to lower business taxes by $1.8 billion and raise taxes on pensions for seniors.
Resistance to Snyder is building, and an active recall campaign is under way. If you live in Michigan, you can sign up to volunteer at FireRickSnyder.org. As Chris Bowers wrote Thursday, Daily Kos is part of this campaign and will be running ads to promote the recall campaign. If you have a spare $6, please contribute here.
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10) Despite Mining Disaster, Report Says Coal Giant Massey 'Has Not Changed' and Execs Stay on
by Marian Wang
ProPublica, May 20, 2011
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/despite-mining-disaster-report-says-coal-giant-massey-has-not-changed-execs
Buried within the damning report released yesterday [1] on the Upper Big Branch coal mine disaster that killed 29 workers last year were some interesting details about what could lie ahead for Massey Energy, its executives, and the safety of its operations.
The report, which was commissioned by West Virginia's former governor, noted that 18 current and former executives [2] invoked their Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination and refused to cooperate with investigators. Nonetheless, investigators concluded that the preventable disaster was a result of a "total and catastrophic systemic failure" by Massey Energy.
"It is only in the context of a culture bent on production at the expense of safety that these obvious deviations from decades of known safety practices make sense," the report said. It also noted that the company's practices haven't improved much-if at all-since the disaster occurred.
"More than a year after 29 men died in the Upper Big Branch mine, there is strong evidence that Massey has not changed [3] the manner in which it operates its mines," the report said.
Investigators said the coal giant had "used the leverage of jobs it provided to attempt to control West Virginia's political system [4]," casting inspectors, regulators, and even politicians and community residents as enemies. According to the report, the company's former CEO, Don Blankenship instilled fear in local politicians by spending "vast amounts of money to influence elections."
As we have noted [5], Blankenship received $2 million when he retired at the end of last year, and is scheduled to receive another $10 million in July. He's expected to stay on as a consultant.
Other top executives are faring just fine too, it seems. Shortly after Blankenship's retirement, another company, Alpha Natural Resources, announced an agreement to buy Massey Energy [6], but Massey executives still scored some key management roles [7].
Notably, Massey's Chief Operating Officer, Chris Adkins, will oversee Alpha's main safety program along with another Alpha executive. According to the report, "Adkins' history makes him a questionable choice to run a safety program. One need look no further than [Upper Big Branch]," investigators said.
NPR notes a few others:
Massey executives slated for the new Alpha management team include Shane Harvey, Massey's vice president and general counsel. He becomes senior vice president of legal in the new executive structure. Harvey has also acted as Massey's chief spokesman. Massey CEO Baxter Phillips "will continue on in a senior advisory capacity.
An Alpha Natural Resources spokesman told West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the company feels good about its vetting process [8] of Massey employees.
Both criminal and civil investigations are ongoing-those will "undoubtedly" result in penalties against the company and its managers, the report said. So far, only one Massey official has faced criminal charges [9] in connection with the disaster. He's charged with lying to federal investigators.
The report also revealed that autopsies of the miners' remains showed that most of them-even those with less than 10 years of experience in mining-had black lung [10], a deadly disease that's preventable if coal dust is kept under control with the appropriate safety measures.
According to the report, the prevalence rate of black lung among miners is 3.2 percent nationally and 7.6 percent within West Virginia. It was 71 percent among the Upper Big Branch victims. (iWatch has more [11] on this.)
Last month Massey informed the families of victims that come June 1, the company's $3 million settlement offer will expire [12], NPR reported. The company warned: "Massey does not know and cannot predict what approach Alpha will take with respect to settlement" after the merger occurs.
Follow on Twitter: @mariancw
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11) The Nuclear Review, Issue#68, May 27,2011, Japan...
by Arn Specter, Phila. Pa. USA
This issue provides a singular focus on NIRS with their many
forms of activism on the Japan Nuclear Crisis...
Please look over their website and join the activism efforts
and review the many informative articles and reports from
nuclear experts in the U.S. and in other countries.
NIRS Executive Director is Michael Mariotte.
Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD
http://nirs.org/fukushima/crisis.htm
UPDATE, 11:30 am, Thursday, May 26, 2011. Evidence is growing that the March 11 earthquake itself caused major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors even before the accompanying tsunami knocked out offsite power and ensured the subsequent meltdowns.
According to Keiji Miyazaki, professor emeritus of nuclear reactor engineering at Osaka University, the earthquake likely damaged the high pressure coolant injection system, part of the emergency core cooling system at Unit 3 (as we reported below, it already has been believed that Unit 1 suffered severe damage from the earthquake). This system is supposed to work to cool the reactor even if power is lost, but at Unit 3, it didn't. A review of pressure readings at Unit 3 indicate that there likely was a major steam leak that ultimately led to the speedy meltdown there. Article from Asahi.com here.
A rough translation of remarks by seismologist Katsuhiko Ishibashi (Emeritus Professor, Kobe University, which also suggest the earthquake itself heavily damaged the reactors, is available here.
Tomio Kawata, a research fellow of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said this week that the soil of a large area of northwest Japan-about 600 square kilometers-is contaminated with Cesium-137 at levels higher than prompted compulsory evacuation orders in the Soviet Union after Chernobyl (1.48 million becquerels per square meter). 700 square kilometers is contaminated with levels from 555,000-1.48 million becquerels per square meter.
Today, Tepco said that some 60 tons of radioactive water in one of its makeshift storage tanks-where it has been putting radioactive water gathered from the reactors and turbine buildings-has leaked out. The leak is apparently continuing.
Greenpeace is continuing its testing of marine life 12 miles and more from the Daiichi site, this week finding seaweed with contamination levels as high as 60 times legal limits.
UPDATE, 2:30 pm, Friday, May 20, 2011. The world's media are shocked (shocked, we tell you...) that three Fukushima reactors melted down. Where have they been the past 10 weeks? Where did they think all that radiation was coming from? You know, that radiation that has caused the evacuation/relocation of people as far as 25 miles from the reactor site? Not to mention contamination of food, seawater, etc.....
Even Tepco admitted weeks ago that 35-50% of the fuel had melted at the three reactors (U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu had estimated 70% melt at Unit 1); the big difference now is that it seems as if all the fuel has melted and is now a large glop at the bottom of each reactor building.
We expect the media to be equally shocked when they finally realize that the evacuees will never be returning home and that the world now has another piece of itself rendered uninhabitable by nuclear power.
In actual news, evidence is growing that Unit 1's meltdown was initiated by the earthquake and only exacerbated by the ensuing tsunami. Bloomberg reports that a radiation alarm inside Unit 1 went off before the tsunami even arrived, indicating coolant already had been lost and fuel melting had begun. If true, this could also require a re-assessment of how quickly reactors can melt down-that would mean meltdown had begun less than an hour after loss-of-coolant.
Masataka Shimizu, President of Tepco, resigned today after leading the company into the largest financial loss in Japanese history-about $15 Billion, and that's before any compensation has been paid to the tens of thousands of people who have lost their homes and livelihoods.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says that the impact on the world's oceans by Fukushima exceeds the impact of Chernobyl-in fact, the impact is 10 times higher. Woods Hole has received an emergency grant from the National Science Foundation to set baseline radionuclide levels in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and to monitor the impact of Fukushima fallout.
Recently released photos of the tsunami hitting Fukushima Daiichi are here.
UPDATE, 12:30 pm, Monday, May 16, 2011. On March 27, we reported on a press conference by a Japanese nuclear engineer who believed that the meltdown at Unit 1 was caused by a loss-of-coolant accident initiated by the earthquake itself, which was exacerbated by the ensuing tsunami and loss of power. It now appears that assessment was correct. Tepco said today that radiation levels inside Unit 1 were measured at 300 MilliSieverts/hour within hours of the earthquake-meaning that fuel melting already had begun. For melting to have begun that early, coolant must have been lost almost immediately. It's now believed that fuel melted and dropped to the bottom of the containment-melting a hole into it, within 16 hours. Most likely, a major pipe carrying cooling water to the core was damaged by the earthquake, which should lead to a new evaluation of the ability of key reactor components to withstand seismic events.
Tepco also said today that an Olympic pool sized pond of highly radioactive water-some 3,000 tons of water--was discovered in the basement of Unit 1 over the weekend. This at least answers some of the question about where all the water that has been pumped into the Unit has been going...
Meanwhile, a robot placed on the second floor of Unit 1 measured radiation levels up to 2,000 MilliSieverts/hour-or 200 rems/hour-far too high for people to work in. And Tepco now acknowledges that the containments of Units 2 and 3 also almost certainly have been breached by molten fuel, which indicates a similar scenario to Unit 1-thousands of tons of water that have been pumped in to keep the reactors cool has become highly radioactive water leaking back out. There is likely far less water in the pressure vessels than Tepco previously believed.
All of this means that Tepco's 6-9 month plan to bring the reactors to "stability" will undergo major changes, and likely will be extended much into the future. Their plan has been scheduled for a public revision tomorrow.
Relocation of people in Iitate and other highly contaminated villages to the northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi but outside the original 20 kilometer exclusion zone finally began over the weekend, although it has now been more than a month since the intent of their relocation was announced. Why this necessary step wasn't taken sooner is beyond us....
For people looking for some more positive news, today's Climate Progress blog contains an excellent piece on Germany's accelerating transition away from nuclear power and toward a sustainable energy future.
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12) For Anarchist, Details of Life as F.B.I. Target
By COLIN MOYNIHAN and SCOTT SHANE
May 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/us/29surveillance.html?hp
AUSTIN, Tex. - A fat sheaf of F.B.I. reports meticulously details the surveillance that counterterrorism agents directed at the one-story house in East Austin. For at least three years, they traced the license plates of cars parked out front, recorded the comings and goings of residents and guests and, in one case, speculated about a suspicious flat object spread out across the driveway.
"The content could not be determined from the street," an agent observing from his car reported one day in 2005. "It had a large number of multi-colored blocks, with figures and/or lettering," the report said, and "may be a sign that is to be used in an upcoming protest."
Actually, the item in question was more mundane.
"It was a quilt," said Scott Crow, marveling over the papers at the dining table of his ramshackle home, where he lives with his wife, a housemate and a backyard menagerie that includes two goats, a dozen chickens and a turkey. "For a kids' after-school program."
Mr. Crow, 44, a self-described anarchist and veteran organizer of anticorporate demonstrations, is among dozens of political activists across the country known to have come under scrutiny from the F.B.I.'s increased counterterrorism operations since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Other targets of bureau surveillance, which has been criticized by civil liberties groups and mildly faulted by the Justice Department's inspector general, have included antiwar activists in Pittsburgh, animal rights advocates in Virginia and liberal Roman Catholics in Nebraska. When such investigations produce no criminal charges, their methods rarely come to light publicly.
But Mr. Crow, a lanky Texas native who works at a recycling center, is one of several Austin activists who asked the F.B.I. for their files, citing the Freedom of Information Act. The 440 heavily-redacted pages he received, many bearing the rubric "Domestic Terrorism," provide a revealing window on the efforts of the bureau, backed by other federal, state and local police agencies, to keep an eye on people it deems dangerous.
In the case of Mr. Crow, who has been arrested a dozen times during demonstrations but has never been convicted of anything more serious than trespassing, the bureau wielded an impressive array of tools, the documents show.
The agents watched from their cars for hours at a time - Mr. Crow recalls one regular as "a fat guy in an S.U.V. with the engine running and the air-conditioning on" - and watched gatherings at a bookstore and cafe. For round-the-clock coverage, they attached a video camera to the phone pole across from his house on New York Avenue.
They tracked Mr. Crow's phone calls and e-mails and combed through his trash, identifying his bank and mortgage companies, which appear to have been served with subpoenas. They visited gun stores where he shopped for a rifle, noting dryly in one document that a vegan animal rights advocate like Mr. Crow made an unlikely hunter. (He says the weapon was for self-defense in a marginal neighborhood.)
They asked the Internal Revenue Service to examine his tax returns, but backed off after an I.R.S. employee suggested that Mr. Crow's modest earnings would not impress a jury even if his returns were flawed. (He earns $32,000 a year at Ecology Action of Texas, he said.)
They infiltrated political meetings with undercover police officers and informers. Mr. Crow counts five supposed fellow activists who were reporting to the F.B.I.
Mr. Crow seems alternately astonished, angered and flattered by the government's attention. "I've had times of intense paranoia," he said, especially when he discovered that some trusted allies were actually spies.
"But first, it makes me laugh," he said. "It's just a big farce that the government's created such paper tigers. Al Qaeda and real terrorists are hard to find. We're easy to find. It's outrageous that they would spend so much money surveilling civil activists, and anarchists in particular, and equating our actions with Al Qaeda."
The investigation of political activists is an old story for the F.B.I., most infamously in the Cointel program, which scrutinized and sometimes harassed civil rights and antiwar advocates from the 1950s to the 1970s. Such activities were reined in after they were exposed by the Senate's Church Committee, and F.B.I. surveillance has been governed by an evolving set of guidelines set by attorneys general since 1976.
But the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 demonstrated the lethal danger of domestic terrorism, and after the Sept. 11 attacks, the F.B.I. vowed never again to overlook terrorists hiding in plain sight. The Qaeda sleeper cells many Americans feared, though, turned out to be rare or nonexistent.
The result, said Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent now at the American Civil Liberties Union, has been a zeal to investigate political activists who pose no realistic threat of terrorism.
"You have a bunch of guys and women all over the country sent out to find terrorism. Fortunately, there isn't a lot of terrorism in many communities," Mr. German said. "So they end up pursuing people who are critical of the government."
Complaints from the A.C.L.U. prompted the Justice Department's inspector general to assess the F.B.I.'s forays into domestic surveillance. The resulting report last September absolved the bureau of investigating dissenters based purely on their expression of political views. But the inspector general also found skimpy justification for some investigations, uncertainty about whether any federal crime was even plausible in others and a mislabeling of nonviolent civil disobedience as "terrorism."
Asked about the surveillance of Mr. Crow, an F.B.I. spokesman, Paul E. Bresson, said it would be "inappropriate" to discuss an individual case. But he said that investigations are conducted only after the bureau receives information about possible crimes.
"We do not open investigations based on individuals who exercise the rights afforded to them under the First Amendment," Mr. Bresson said. "In fact, the Department of Justice and the bureau's own guidelines for conducting domestic operations strictly forbid such actions."
It is not hard to understand why Mr. Crow attracted the bureau's attention. He has deliberately confronted skinheads and Ku Klux Klan members at their gatherings, relishing the resulting scuffles. He claims to have forced corporate executives to move with noisy nighttime protests.
He says he took particular pleasure in a 2003 demonstration for Greenpeace in which activists stormed the headquarters of ExxonMobil in Irving, Tex., to protest its environmental record. Dressed in tiger outfits, protesters carried banners to the roof of the company's offices, while others wearing business suits arrived in chauffeured Jaguars, forcing frustrated police officers to sort real executives from faux ones.
"It was super fun," said Mr. Crow, one of the suits, who escaped while 36 other protesters were arrested. "They had ignored us and ignored us. But that one got their attention."
It got the attention of the F.B.I. as well, evidently, leading to the three-year investigation that focused specifically on Mr. Crow. The surveillance documents show that he also turned up in several other investigations of activism in Texas and beyond, from 2001 to at least 2008.
For an aficionado of civil disobedience, Mr. Crow comes across as more amiable than combative. He dropped out of college, toured with an electronic-rock band and ran a successful Dallas antiques business while dabbling in animal rights advocacy. In 2001, captivated by the philosophy of anarchism, he sold his share of the business and decided to become a full-time activist.
Since then, he has led a half-dozen groups and run an annual training camp for protesters. (The camps invariably attracted police infiltrators who were often not hard to spot. "We had a rule," he said. "If you were burly, you didn't belong.") He also helped to found Common Ground Relief, a network of nonprofit organizations created in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Anarchism was the catchword for an international terrorist movement at the turn of the 20th century. But Mr. Crow, whose e-mail address contains the phrase "quixotic dreaming," describes anarchism as a kind of locally oriented self-help movement, a variety of "social libertarianism."
"I don't like the state," he said. "I don't want to overthrow it, but I want to create alternatives to it."
This kind of talk appears to have baffled some of the agents assigned to watch him, whose reports to F.B.I. bosses occasionally seem petulant. One agent calls "nonviolent direct action," a phrase in activists' materials, "an oxymoron." Another agent comments, oddly, on Mr. Crow and his wife, Ann Harkness, who have been together for 24 years, writing that "outwardly they did not appear to look right for each other." At a training session, "most attendees dressed like hippies."
Such comments stand out amid detailed accounts of the banal: mail in the recycling bin included "a number of catalogs from retail outlets such as Neiman Marcus, Ann Taylor and Pottery Barn."
Mr. Crow said he hoped the airing of such F.B.I. busywork might deter further efforts to keep watch over him. The last documents he has seen mentioning him date from 2008. But the Freedom of Information Act exempts from disclosure any investigations that are still open.
"I still occasionally see people sitting in cars across the street," he said. "I don't think they've given up."
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13) Afghan Official Says NATO Airstrike Killed 14 Civilians
By RAY RIVERA
May 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/world/asia/30afghanistan.html?hp
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials said Sunday that a NATO airstrike targeting Taliban fighters killed 14 civilians, all of them women and children, in the southern province of Helmand on Saturday night.
NATO said it was investigating.
Witnesses said an unknown number of bombs fell around 11 p.m., landing on two family compounds in the Salam Bazaar area of Nawzad district, a small farming community about 50 miles north of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
Five girls, seven boys and two women were killed as they slept, the provincial governor's office said in a statement. Another six people were wounded.
Grieving friends and relatives drove through the night transporting eight bodies to the provincial hospital in Lashkar Gah, a resident of the village, Haji Janan, said. The other bodies remained buried under the rubble as villagers tried to dig them out, he said.
The governor's office released photographs of men carrying the dusty, bruised bodies of dead children swaddled in sheets into the hospital.
"We brought the dead bodies to show it to the officials, to show that the dead are innocent civilians, not the Taliban," Mr. Janan said.
Lt. Tyler Balzer, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistant Force, said several bombs were dropped but said he could not provide more specifics - including whether helicopters or other aircraft were used - until the investigation was complete.
"We are aware of the governor's claims and there were airstrikes in the area," he said, "And right now we have an assessment team on the ground working with the Afghan government."
Local officials said the airstrike came in response to an insurgent attack on a nearby Marine base earlier in the night, but that the strike hit the wrong homes.
"The office of the provincial governor strongly condemns this deep sorrow incident," the office said in an English version of its statement. The statement also requested NATO to stop "air strikes that result in civilian casualties."
NATO was also investigating an air assault last week in Nuristan province that drove out Taliban fighters after they had overrun part of a district center. The joint assault of NATO soldiers and Afghan commandos called in airstrikes as they came under fire in the district center of Do Ab, killing more than 10 insurgents, NATO said at the time.
But provincial officials say NATO helicopters also killed more than 20 police officers dressed in civilian clothes. Qazi Anayatullah, head of the provincial council, said that as coalition forces arrived, the Taliban fled, leaving their white flags flying over police checkpoints they had overrun. When the officers dressed in civilian clothes re-entered the checkpoints, the flags were still flying, and NATO helicopters bombed them, he said.
"They mistakenly thought they were Taliban because the police were wearing local dress," Mr. Anayatullah said.
Lt. Balzer said a NATO assessment team had been on the ground several days now. "We're hoping a clearer picture will come out soon and we'll be able to release the findings," he said. But the incident points to the murky nature of the war and the difficulty distinguishing between Taliban fighters and armed officers or civilians dressed in traditional garb.
In February, Afghan investigators accused NATO of killing 65 civilians in airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan in what, if true, would have been one of the worst cases of civilian casualties in the war. But NATO maintained that the people were killed were insurgents, and there were conflicting reports, even among the Afghan investigators, about the number of casualties.
Civilian deaths have been one of the most sensitive issues in the war - and NATO has made efforts to reduce them. According to the United Nations, insurgents caused about 75 percent of all civilian casualties last year, the deadliest year for civilians in the country.
The latest episode came at an emotionally turbulent time. As images of the children killed in the Salam Bazaar attack were broadcast on television Sunday, the nation was still reeling from a suicide attack a day earlier at the governor's compound in the northern province of Takhar. The attack killed six, including the northern region's senior police commander, Gen. Daoud Daoud, a revered figure in the region from his days as an anti-Taliban fighter.
His death complicates transition efforts as NATO forces begin transferring security responsibilities to Afghan forces in seven areas of the country this July. One of those areas is Mazar-i-Sharif, where General Daoud was based.
In a statement Sunday, the United States Embassy in Kabul said General Daoud "was in the forefront of his country's efforts to defeat the insurgents and bring peace and stability to Afghanistan."
His death could further fuel sentiment among northern leaders opposed to President Hamid Karzai's fledgling efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban.
Sensitive to that concern, the president's spokesman, Wahid Omar, blamed foreign fighters for planning and carrying out the string of terrorist-style attacks that have jolted the country in recent months, trying to deflect blame from Afghan Taliban, even though the Taliban have claimed credit for most of the attacks.
"No one from Afghanistan carries out such attacks," he said. "All evidence shows these operations are planned outside Afghanistan and led form outside Afghanistan."
An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan.
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14) UK Long-Term Jobless Highest Since 1997-Thinktank
By REUTERS
May 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/05/29/business/business-us-britain-jobless-thinktank.html?src=busln
LONDON (Reuters) - The number of Britons out of work for more than a year has jumped to its highest level since 1997, with men and the over 50s hit hardest, a leading thinktank said in a report on Sunday.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said analysis of official government data showed there were 850,000 people in the workforce unemployed for more than a year -- up 20,000 in recent months, taking the total to "worryingly high" levels.
"Headline figures suggest that unemployment levels are stable, but these mask underlying trends," said IPPR director Nick Pearce.
"Many people are experiencing long spells of unemployment and long-term unemployment is rising steeply," he said adding it had a scarring effect having a negative impact on one's health and well-being.
Opposition politicians have criticised Britain's governing coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for pressing ahead with rapid public spending cuts to tame a record budget deficit at a time when private sector demand is not secure.
The opposition Labour Party believes such a programme will derail the recovery, hit growth and cause unemployment to rise.
After significant falls through the late 1990s and 2000s, the rate of long-term unemployment began rising steeply again from the start of 2009, the IPPR said.
The proportion of men who have been out of work for more than a year rose from 25 percent -- 338,000 -- in 2009 to almost 40 percent it said. For women, the number increased from 169,000 to 282,000.
The IPPR showed that while there had been major concern about the impact of unemployment on young people, the increase had been steepest among the over-50s.
Figure for the first three months of this year revealed nearly half of all unemployed over-50s have been out of work for more than a year, compared with less than a third only two years ago. Comparatively, only 27 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds have been jobless for a year or more, the study found.
(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)
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15) Greenpeace Activists Climb Greenland Oil Rig
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/05/29/business/AP-EU-Greenland-Oil.html?src=busln
STOCKHOLM (AP) - Three Greenpeace activists on Sunday climbed up an oil rig off Greenland's coast in an attempt to stop a Scottish oil company from starting deepwater drilling in the arctic waters, the environmental group said.
Greenpeace said the activists scaled the 53,000-ton rig Leiv Eiriksson, run by Cairn Energy, and are now hanging under it in a pod.
It said the activists arrived at the rig in inflatable speedboats launched from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, which had avoided a Danish warship shadowing them for days.
The group has enough food and water to stay for 10 days in the pod, hanging a few meters from the drill-bit that would be used to strike oil, Greenpeace said.
Cairn won permission this month to drill up to seven oil exploration wells off the Arctic island's west coast.
Greenpeace has criticized Cairn, which is the only company drilling in the area, for not taking the extra precautions needed to avoid accidents such as the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Cairn confirmed activists were attempting to disrupt the rig's journey to its exploration site offshore Greenland.
The company said it "seeks to operate in a safe and prudent manner" and pointed out that authorities in Greenland have established stringent operating regulations, similar to those applied in the Norwegian North Sea.
Greenpeace said it hopes the action can stall Cairn's plans to complete the exploration before winter, forcing the company to abandon the search for oil for another year.
While Cairn is currently the only company drilling in the area, Greenpeace warned an arctic oil rush could be set off if the company strikes oil this summer.
"We are preventing it from drilling because an oil spill up here would be nearly impossible to deal with due to the freezing conditions and remote location," Greenpeace campaigner Ben Ayliffe said. "A BP-style blow-out off the Greenland coast would make the Deepwater Horizon clean-up look simple."
Greenpeace activists also climbed aboard the Leiv Eiriksson rig when it left a port in Istanbul in April, but were forced to abandon that protest due to bad weather.
Last year, activists also tried to stop drilling in the area by climbing onto Cairn's Stena Don rig.
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Malin Rising can be reached at http://twitter.com/malinrising
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