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Troy Anthony Davis Siempre
October 9, 1968 -- September 21, 2011
A Message From Troy Davis
September 21, 2011
"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace. But I will not stop fighting until I've taken my last breath."
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Friday, Sept. 23rd: REMEMBERING TROY DAVIS, March and Rally
14th St. and Broadway, (On park side), Near 12 ST. BART
5:00-6:00pm Community Rally and Speak Out: all welcome to share!
6:00-7:00 March through streets of Oakland (Destination to be determined)
Please help spread the word. Bring drums, song, instruments
Let us mourn together for this horrendous injustice to Troy, his family and all humanity!
Let us share how to take Troy's message.......the struggle does not stop here.
WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND JUSTICE, WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND PEACE!
Bring friends.
REMEMBER TROY: THE EXECUTION OF AN INNOCENT MAN
STATE SANCTIONED MURDER
NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE
REMEMBER OSCAR: STOP POLICE BRUTALITY NOW
TROY AND OSCAR: LET THEM NOT DIE IN VAIN
STOP THE VIOLENCE, STOP THE KILLING
FROM OAKLAND TO GEORGIA
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO DEATH ROW.
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After Troy Davis's Death, Questions I Can't Unask
by Dave Zirin
http://www.thenation.com/blog/163568/after-troy-daviss-death-questions-i-cant-unask
1. Can Troy Davis, who fought to his last breath, actually be dead this morning?
2 - If we felt tortured with fear and hope for the four hours that the Supreme Court deliberated on Troy's case, how did the Davis family feel?
3. Why did the state of Georgia need to leave him strapped to the death-gurney while waiting for the Supreme Court to rule?
4. Why does this hurt so much?
5. Does Judge Clarence Thomas, an impovershed African American son of Georgia, ever acknowledge in quiet moments that he could easily have been Troy Davis?
6. What do people who insist we have to vote for Obama and support the Democrats "because of the Supreme Court" say this morning?
7. Why does the right wing in this country distrust "big government" on everything except executing people of color and the poor?
8. Why were Democrats who spoke out for Troy the utter exception and not the rule?
9. Why didn't the New York Times editorial page say anything until after Troy's parole was denied when their words wouldn't mean a damn?
9. Why does this hurt so much?
10. How can Barack Obama say that commenting on Troy's case is "not appropriate" but it's somehow appropriate to bomb Libya and kill nameless innocents without the pretense of congressional approval?
11. What would he say if Malia asked him that question?
12. How can we have a Black family in the White House and a legal lynching in Georgia?
13. Why does this hurt so much?
14. Can we acknowledge that in our name, this country has created hundreds of thousands of Troy Davises in the Middle East?
15. Can we continue to co-exist peacefully in a country that executes its own?
16. What the hell do I tell my seven year old daughter who has been marching to save Troy since she was in a stroller?
17. If some Troy's last words were, "This movement began before I was born, it must continue and grow stronger under we abolish the death penalty once and for all", then do we not have nothing less than a moral obligation to continue the fight?
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This drawing has come to symbolize the California prison hunger strike and the solidarity it has generated. It was contributed by Rashid Johnson, a prisoner in Red Onion Prison, Virginia.
Pelican Bay SHU prisoners plan to resume hunger strike Sept. 26
by Mutope Duguma (s/n James Crawford)
September 1, 2011
http://sfbayview.com/2011/pelican-bay-shu-prisoners-plan-to-resume-hunger-strike-sept-26/
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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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This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PLEASE FORWARD AND DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
Mumia Abu-Jamal -
Guilty? Or Innocent?
You Be the Judge... Come See
"The Great Debate"
Mumia's supporters take two of his key opponents to the cleaners,
in a November 2010 debate, now on dvd.
DVD Showing:
7 pm • Friday, 23 September 2011
Centro del Pueblo • 474 Valencia, btwn 15 & 16th, San Francisco
BART: exit 16th St.
INFO: 510 763-2347
On the night before Mumia's Third Circuit Court hearing last November, filmmaker Johanna Fernandez (Justice On Trial, the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal), and lawyer Michael Coard, debated Mumia's opponents. Seth Williams, the new Philadelphia District Attorney, and Tigre Hill, a pro-police filmmaker, were roundly defeated in a forum n Philadelphia. Hill left his chair, and DA Williams repeatedly refused to consider any new evidence in the case.
DVD Showing, and Question, Answer & Discussion,
with the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Speaker: Cristina Gutierrez,
Labor, Black, and Brown People United
Against Police Brutality and State Repression
Mumia's Case Hangs By a Thread:
Mumia Abu-Jamal, an innocent man on death row, could be one court decision away from the needle of death. Framed for a crime he didn't commit because of his Black Panther background, and his bold stand against police brutality and racism as a Philadelphia journalist in the 1970's, Mumia has been on death row for nearly 30 years. Now the Supreme Court has an appeal before it, filed by Seth Williams, Philadelphia's first black District Attorney, to reinstate Mumia's death sentence. His sentence was vacated by a federal judge in 2001 because of faulty instructions to the jury, but the Supreme Court has signaled that it wants to weaken that precedent. A negative ruling will lead to an immediate date with death, under Governor Ed Rendell, who is himself complicit in Mumia's frame-up!
In issue after issue, the courts have shown for decades that the fix is in against Mumia. Courts, corrupt politicians and Fraternal Order of Police, all want him dead. Mountains of evidence, including witness recantations, physical evidence, and the confession of another man, show that Mumia is innocent. But he's an outspoken, uncompromising black revolutionary journalist, and the US Jim Crow justice system just wants another lynching.
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has no confidence in the capitalist courts to free Mumia. This is the job of the working class, black, brown and white, through labor actions and mass mobilizations. In 1995, mass actions stopped a death order against Mumia, and in 1999, longshore workers shut down ports on the entire West Coast to free him. Teachers in Rio de Janeiro, Oakland, and other cities also conducted work actions.
Now, we must mobilize again to free Mumia, and end the racist death penalty!
"The Great Debate" DVD Showing • 7 pm • Friday, 23 September 2011
Centro del Pueblo • 474 Valencia, btwn 15 & 16th, San Francisco
BART: exit 16th St.
INFO: 510 763-2347
- Labor Action Committee To Free MumiaAbu-Jamal • www.laboractionmumia.org
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Planning Meeting for Oct. 22nd 16th National Day of Protest
Sunday, September 25th, 3:00 pm
Frisco Fried
5176 3rd St. San Francisco (Between Shafter and Thomas)
Info: 510 206-0742 oct22bayarea@gmail.com
The Call for the 16th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation October 22nd, 2011
Today, when police brutality and murder, in this era of the new Jim Crow, has taken the place of the KKK of the Old Jim Crow; in light of horrendous injustices as in the case of Troy Anthony Davis; in this country of mass racial profiling and mass incarceration; in this era of S-Comm and other vicious anti-immigrant repression; now more than ever we need the emergence of a mass resistance. Come to a planning meeting for O-22, 2011.
Across the U.S., Black, Latino and poor neighborhoods are treated like occupied territory by increasingly militarized armies of law enforcement. People are criminalized and brutalized for their perceived status - socioeconomic, immigration, mental health, and/or racial, gender or sexual identity. People living in our communities, especially youth are routinely stopped, beaten and even killed.
THE VIOLENCE OF THE COPS, THE COURTS, THE FBI, LA MIGRA, AND HOMELAND SECURITY IS INTENSIFYING. OUR RESISTANCE MUST INTENSIFY AS WELL!
Every year, thousands of people nationwide express their outrage, creativity and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. People speak out and perform, As said by the mother of Gil Barber, gunned down by a deputy in High Point, No. Carolina in 2001: "October 22nd is our day". ORGANIZE against these injustices!
BREAK DOWN the barriers between communities in the most visible way, and on October 22, 2011.
WEAR BLACK! FIGHT BACK!
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Protest Obama's Arrival to the Bay Area
10 Years of War and Occupation! We Say No More!
Sunday, Sept. 25th, 2:00pm
Moffett Airfield
Cody Rd and Ellis St (Ellis St. Exit off 101S)
Mountain View, CA
Join CODEPINK, World Can't Wait, ANSWER and others as we protest 10 years of war and occupation in Afghanistan. In the name of the "good" war, the Obama administration's promised troop escalation in Afghanistan has further entrenched our scarce resources into a war that cannot be "won." The close to ten years of illegal military action have failed to create any tangible peace in the country, nor have they brought increased security or a reduction of terrorist groups, let alone any freedom for Afghan women. Instead, thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed in the cross-fire along with a corresponding increase in troop casualties. Haven't the past ten years proved that democracy and peace cannot be built under a foreign military occupation? We Say No More!
Nancy L. Mancias, CODEPINK Women for Peace
3543 18th Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94110 www.codepink.org
PINKTank :: http://codepink.org/blog/
Facebook :: http://www.facebook.com/nancymancias
Twitter :: @WarDronesOn @ExposeWarCrimes
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Anti-Drone Protest: Sept. 25-Sept. 26th
Solidarity Encampment and Sit-In at Beale Air Force Base
(Home of the Global Hawk, Reconnaissance Drone)
Where illegal assassinations are "assisted" in "our own backyard"........1 hour north of Sacramento
We Need YOU!......Please RSVP soon to be updated and help our movement grow:
Contact: Toby Blome, 510-215-5974, ratherbenyckeling@comcast.net
Join us for all or part of this important protest in solidarity with
a Mass Protest in Pakistan on Sept. 25th.........carpooling arranged!
Begins: Sunday, 3:00 pm, Sept. 25th, West Gate on N. Beale Rd. (directions/mapquest below)
Includes pm rush hour vigil/bannering/leafletting, candlelight night protest and encampment
Ends: Monday morning, Sept. 26th, 6:30-10:00 am
Morning rush hour demo as military enter base,
followed by TEACH-IN.....learn more about drones.
Other arrangements possible if you can't "camp".
In the shadow of the 10 year anniversary of the Afghanistan War:
Be part of the movement to resist the brutality and immorality of drone warfare and illegal occupations.
Watch Greg's Amazing Slideshow from Beale Encampment in June:
http://www.flickr.com//photos/chewiephotos/sets/72157626947197473/show/
Creative Visuals:
For Sunday:
Bring your own peace kites and "doves": We'll show the military what to fly!
FLY THE PEACE DOVE, NOT THE GLOBAL HAWK FLY A KITE, NOT A DRONE
For Monday:
Join the CREATE NOT HATE CAMPAIGN: http://codepink.nationbuilder.com/
Bring your own LARGE sign, (fill in the blank), with LARGE letters, with the message:
MAKE _______________ NOT WAR.
(Make Music, Not War.......Make Friendship, Not War, Make......etc.)
We will stretch our signs along the highway as soldiers enter the base....to inspire them to a higher human potential!
Why? In solidarity with the Sept 25th, mass protest planned by tens of thousands in Gujranwala, Pakistan. Pakistanis have been demonstrating in different cities monthly since April, including holding sit-ins and blocking NATO truck supply routes. They are expressing outrage over their government's complicity with the U.S. "War on Terror" and drone assassination programs. These protests in Pakistan are expected to culminate (date not public yet) into a 350 km march from Lahore to Islamabad, the capital. The protesters plan to occupy the capital until their government listens to their demands.
More than 2 thousand Pakistani civilians have been killed and continue to be killed by these egregious unmanned aircraft. In solidarity with the Pakistanis who are subjected to this violence we say ENOUGH!
Please join us. Mark your calendars. Spread this around to all of your lists.
Bring 3 others with you. If you can't come for both days, come for one.
Let the Pakistanis know that their lives are as important as ours!
ONE PEOPLE, ONE PLANET!
Directions to West Gate Beale AFB:
Take I-80 to I-5 north of Sacramento, almost immediately after leaving I-80, take exit 525B to transfer to Hwy 99, continue 12.5. mi. and stay right to transfer onto Hwy 70, cont. about 20 miles, exit at Feather River Blvd. (the exit just passed Erle Rd. exit, note sign to Beale AFB), turn right at end of ramp, immediate right at light (Lindhurst Ave.) and left at 2nd light to get on N. Beale Rd. Continue on N. Beale Rd. for over 6 miles. It dead ends at the Gate Entrance. Parking on left side of Rd. near the gate. Note Burger King at Freeway Hwy 70 exit: a good place to do a bathroom break before heading to base. Note: There are 2 Feather River Blvd exits off hwy 70.....miles apart from each other)
Mapquest to Beale:
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=beale+afb&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Beale+AFB+(BAB),+Marysville,+CA+95901&gl=us&ei=75QXTaGzF4O4sQOIw7nrCg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ8gEwAA
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San Francisco Labor Council Resolution - Save the Public Postal Service
Tuesday, September 27th National Day of Action called by the postal unions
Whereas, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution as a right of the people, the public Post Office has provided universal postal service over many generations, and is continuously rated as the most highly regarded government entity by the American people. Since the 1970 postal strike, which shut down mail service nationwide for four days, postal workers have had good liveable-wage jobs supporting their families in every community, and collective bargaining through their unions; and
Whereas, Postmaster General Donahoe wants to eliminate Saturday delivery, shut 3,700 postal facilities, and fire 120,000 workers [220,000 by 2015], despite a no-layoff clause in union contracts. Rep. Issa, chair of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, wants to void the postal union contracts altogether and open the door to privatization. Their proposals would sabotage and destroy our national treasure - the public Postal Service; and
Whereas, the scheduled service cutbacks will hit seniors, and poor and rural communities the hardest. For example, post offices are being tagged for closing based on the amount of "revenue" they generate, which means that low-income and rural areas, which need their neighborhood post office the most, will no longer have one. San Francisco's Bayview Station is targeted. Also, collection boxes with fewer letters are being removed, hurting service in low-income and rural areas; and
Whereas, just as Governor Scott Walker declared war on Wisconsin workers, what's coming is a war against the 574,000 unionized postal workers and their families - the next target of the big business class and their henchmen in Congress and the media. Like Reagan's attack on PATCO, this is an attack on all of Labor, and Labor needs to close ranks with every community now to defend the postal unions and save the public Postal Service.
Therefore be it Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council will join with postal unions, other central labor bodies, state labor federations, national and local unions, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federation, and community allies, in a campaign including mass demonstrations to defend the postal workers, save Saturday delivery, stop the post office closings and layoffs, and save the public Postal Service; and
Be it finally resolved, specifically, that the council will join the campaign to stop the closing of the Bayview Post Office; that the council will support any demonstrations at local Congressional offices as part of the Tuesday, September 27th National Day of Action called by the postal unions; and that the council will urge Bay Area congress members to co-sponsor HR 137, which calls for maintaining 6-day mail delivery, and HR 1351, which seeks to prevent the Postal Service from defaulting on payments for future retiree health benefits - both measures supported by the postal unions.
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An Evening with Ali Abunimah -- with Special Guest Alice Walker
Wednesday, October 5th, 7:00 PM
First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway
Buy Your Tickets Today:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/194416?
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Alice Walker is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer, including her book Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel. She participated in the US Boat to Gaza, part of the Freedom Flotilla.
Tickets: $15, $10 students/low-income, available at through Brown Paper Tickets, or at local bookstores: (East Bay) Books, Inc.; Diesel; Moe's Books; Walden Pond; (SF) Modern Times. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Benefit for MECA's Maia Project: Clean Water for the Children of Palestine
Wheelchair accessible & ASL interpreted.
Cosponsors: KPFA, Arab Film Festival, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, US Palestinian Community Network, Arab Cultural & Community Center, Jewish Voice for Peace, Bay Area Women in Black, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Global Exchange.
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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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(Please forward widely)
Save the dates of October 6, 15 to protest wars; and May 15-22, 2012--Northern California UNAC will be discussing plans for solidarity actions around the Chicago G-8 here.
United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE (UNAC) CALLS FOR ACTIONS IN OCTOBER
TO MARK 10 YEARS OF WAR ON AFGHANISTAN
On June 22, the White House defied the majority of Americans who want an end to the war in Afghanistan. Instead of announcing the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops, contractors, bases, and war dollars, Obama committed to removing only one twentieth of the US forces on the ground in Afghanistan over the next eight months. Another 23,000 will supposedly be withdrawn just in time to influence the 2012 elections. Even if the President follows thru on this plan, nearly 170,000 US soldiers and contractors will remain in Afghanistan. All veterans and soldiers will be raising the question, "Who will be the last U.S. combatant to die in Afghanistan?"
In truth, the President's plan is not a plan to end the war in Afghanistan. It was, instead, an announcement that the U.S. was changing strategy. As the New York Times reported, the US will be replacing the "counterinsurgency strategy" adopted 18 months ago with the kind of campaign of drone attacks, assassinations, and covert actions that the US has employed in Pakistan.
At a meeting of the United National Antiwar Committee's National Coordinating Committee, held in NYC on June 18, representatives of 47 groups voted to endorse the nonviolent civil resistance activities beginning on October 6 in Washington, D.C. and to call for nationally coordinated local actions on October 15 to protest the tenth anniversary of the US war in Afghanistan. UNAC urges activists in as many cities as possible to hold marches, picket lines, teach-ins, and other events to say:
· Withdraw ALL US/NATO Military Forces, Contractors, and Bases out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya NOW!
· End drone attacks on defenseless populations in Pakistan and Yemen!
· End US Aid to Israel! Hands Off Iran!
· Bring Our War Dollars Home Now! Money for Jobs and Education, Not for War and Incarceration!
Note these dates of upcoming significant events:
· November 11-13 UNAC National Conference - a gathering of all movement activists to learn, share, plan future actions.
· May 15-22, 2012 International Protest Actions against war criminals attending NATO meeting and G-8 summit in Chicago.
Challenge the NATO War Makers in Chicago May 15-22, 2012
NATO and the G8 are coming to Chicago - so are we!
The White House has just announced that the U.S. will host a major international meeting of NATO, the US-commanded and financed 28-nation military alliance, in Chicago from May 15 to May 22, 2012. It was further announced that at the same time and place, there will be a summit of the G-8 world powers. The meetings are expected to draw heads of state, generals and countless others.
At a day-long meeting in New York City on Saturday, June 18, the United National Antiwar Committee's national coordinating committee of 69 participants, representing, 47 organizations, unanimously passed a resolution to call for action at the upcoming NATO meeting.
UNAC is determined to mount a massive united outpouring in Chicago during the NATO gathering to put forth demands opposing endless wars and calling for billions spent on war and destruction be spent instead on people's needs for jobs, health care, housing and education.
CHALLENGE THE NATO WAR MAKERS
Whereas, the U.S. is the major and pre-eminent military, economic and political power behind NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and
Whereas, the U.S. will be hosting a major NATO gathering in the spring of 2012, and
Whereas, U.S. and NATO-allied forces are actively engaged in the monstrous wars, occupations and military attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, the Middle East and elsewhere,
Be it resolved that:
1) UNAC, in conjunction with a broad range of groups and organizations that share general agreement with the major demands adopted at our 2010 Albany, NY national conference, initiate a mass demonstration at the site of the NATO gathering, and
2) UNAC welcomes and encourages the participation of all groups interested in mobilizing against war and for social justice in planning a broad range of other NATO meeting protests including teach-ins, alternative conferences and activities organized on the basis of direct action/civil resistance, and
3) UNAC will seek to make the NATO conference the occasion for internationally coordinated protests, and
4) UNAC will convene a meeting of all of the above forces to discuss and prepare initial plans to begin work on this spring action.
Resolution passed unanimously by the National Coordinating Committee of UNAC on Saturday, June 18, 2011
click here to donate to UNAC:
https://nationalpeaceconference.org/Donate.html
Click here for the Facebook UNAC group.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_157059221012587&ap=1
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Please share this announcement widely
MoveOn.org East Bay Council, Alameda Labor Council, San Francisco Labor Council,
New Priorities Campaign, U.S. Labor Against the War and Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15
1PM Rally at Laney College
2:30 PM March to Federal Building & Frank Ogawa Plaza
Urge you to Rally & March for:
Jobs not Cuts !!!
Education not Incarceration
Work not War
Clean Energy not Climate Change
Social Security not Bank Bailouts
Main St. not Wall St.
Prosperity not Austerity
Hands Off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid!
End the Wars! Invest in Our Communities!
BRING ALL THE TROOPS AND WAR DOLLARS HOME!
We want an economy that supports the rights of all people to jobs at decent pay in safe workplaces, affordable healthcare for all, decent affordable housing, quality education in modern schools, a secure retirement, and a clean sustainable environment. We oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs. The rich, corporations, Wall St. banks and financial speculators should pay to fix the crisis that their irresponsibility and greed created. We have made our sacrifices. Now they should make theirs.
Make your voices heard!
www.jobs-not-cuts.org
For more information and to register endorsements, write to:
MoveOnEastBay@gmail.com
NewPrioritiesCampaign@gmail.com
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MEDICARE IN THE CROSS-HAIRS
SOCIAL SECURITY NEXT?
SAN FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL TEACH-IN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011, 7:30-9PM
Plumbers Union Hall, 1621 Market St., S.F.
(5 blocks from Civic Center BART station)
For more information call Carl, San Francisco Labor Council Education Project
415-829-3816
CUTTING MEDICARE-MEDICAID IS THE POLITICIANS CONSENSUS #1 BUDGET TARGET
• President Obama has just proposed a $248 billion cut in Medicare as a starter & another $72 billion in Medicaid cuts.
• Obama indicated September 19 he will support cutting more than $320 Billion if Republicans agree with him on taxes.
• Vice-President Joe Biden last June offered Republicans to cut $400-$500 billion in Medicare-Medicaid
• Republicans last April proposed to raise out-of-pocket costs for Medicare for seniors by $7,000 per year
• The 'Supercommittee' of 12 in Congress said last week they want to cut even more than Obama has proposed. They will report 'how much' more on November 19.
• Congress will vote on how much more in Medicare-Medicaid cuts before December 23.
How Much Will Your Medicare Be Cut?
How Much More Will You Have to Pay?
Come Hear the Facts
Open Discussion to Follow
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Here is the official statement from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression on the 1-year anniversary of the raids.
Build the Movement Against Political Repression
One year since the September 24 FBI Raids and Grand Jury Subpoenas
Statement of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, 9-22-2011
Please come to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression one-day Conference in Chicago on November 5, 2011.
http://www.stopfbi.net/national-conference-2011
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) is asking you to build the movement against political repression on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 24, 2010 FBI raids on anti-war and international solidarity activists. We need your continued solidarity as we build movements for peace, justice and equality.
The storm of political repression continues to expand and threaten. It is likely to intensify and churn into a destructive force with indictments, trials, and attempts to imprison anti-war activists. The last we knew, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was preparing multiple indictments as he and Attorney General Eric Holder attempt to criminalize the targeted activists and the movements to which we dedicate our lives.
It is one year since the FBI raided two homes in Chicago and five homes plus the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, eventually handing out 23 subpoenas. The anti-war activists' homes were turned upside down and notebooks, cell phones, artwork, computers, passports and personal belongings were all carted off by the FBI. Anyone who has ever been robbed knows the feelings - shock and anger.
The man responsible for this assault on activists and their families, on free speech and the right to organize, is U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago. Fitzgerald has an ugly record of getting powerful Republicans like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove off the hook, while mercilessly pursuing an agenda to scare America into silence and submission with the phony 'war on terror.' Fitzgerald is attempting to criminalize anti-war activists with accusations of 'material support for terrorism,' involving groups in Palestine and Colombia.
First the U.S. government targeted Arabs and Muslims, violating their civil rights and liberties and spying on them. Then they came for the anti-war and international solidarity activists. We refuse to be criminalized. We continue to speak out and organize. We say, "Opposing U.S. war and occupation is not a crime!" We are currently building a united front with groups and movements to defeat Fitzgerald's reactionary, fear mongering assault on anti-war activism and to restore civil liberties taken away by the undemocratic USA PATRIOT Act.
Many people know the developments in the case, but for those who do not, we invite you to read a timeline at stopfbi.net. We think the repression centers on this: During the lead up to the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a federal law enforcement officer, using the phony name of "Karen Sullivan" got involved and joined the Anti-War Committee and Freedom Road Socialist Organization in Minneapolis. She lied to everyone she met and helped the FBI to disrupt many activities in the anti-war, international solidarity and labor movements in Minnesota - and also other states and even over in Palestine. It is outrageous.
In fact, many of those being investigated travelled to Colombia or Palestine to learn firsthand about U.S. government funding for war and oppression. There was no money given to any groups that the U.S. government lists as terrorist organizations. However, we met people who are a lot like most Americans - students, community organizers, religious leaders, trade unionists, women's group leaders and activists much like ourselves. Many of the U.S. activists wrote about their trips, did educational events, or helped organized protests against U.S. militarism and war. In a increasingly repressive period, this is enough to make one a suspect in Fitzgerald's office.
This struggle is far from one-sided however. The response to the FBI raids and the pushback from the movement is tremendous. Minneapolis and Chicago immediately organized a number of press conferences and rallies with hundreds of people. Over the first two weeks after the raids, 60 cities protested outside FBI offices, from New York to Kalamazoo, from traveled to the Bay Area. The National Lawyers Guild convention was in New Orleans the day of the FBI raids and they immediately issued a solidarity statement and got to work on the case. Solidarity poured in from anti-war, civil rights, religious and faith groups, students and unions. Groups and committees began working to obtain letters of support from members of Congress. The solidarity was overwhelming. It was great!
It is possible that U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald thought he was picking on an isolated group of activists. Instead, those raided proved to have many friends and allies from decades of work for social justice and peace. Over the months, all the targeted activists refused to appear at the grand jury dates set by U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office. In November 2010, a large crew of us travelled to New York City to found the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, after the United National Antiwar Committee meeting.
In December 2010, U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office called in three of the Minnesota women and threatened them. We prepared a campaign in case they were jailed for refusing to speak. The FBI also delivered subpoenas to nine more Arab-American and Palestine solidarity activists in December. Their grand jury date was on Jan. 25, 2011, and we organized protests in over 70 American cities, plus a few overseas. The movement was building and expanding, so we organized conferences with over 800 participants in the Midwest, the South, and on the East and West Coasts. While we were organizing a pushback, the FBI was making new plans.
On May 17, 2011, at 5:00 a.m., the Los Angeles, California Sheriff, under the direction of the FBI, busted down the front door of Chicano leader Carlos Montes, storming in with automatic weapons drawn and shouting. The early morning raid was supposedly about weapons and permits, but they seized decades of notes and writings about the Chicano, immigrant rights, education rights and anti-war movements. The FBI attempted to question Carlos Montes while he was handcuffed and in the back of a L.A. sheriff squad car. Montes is going to another preliminary court date on Sept. 29, prepared to face six felony charges, carrying up to three years in prison for each, knowing he is extraordinarily targeted by the FBI. We will walk every step of the way with Carlos Montes, and more. Montes was with us at the Republican National Convention protests; his name was included on the search warrant for the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, and the FBI attempted to question him about this case. We ask you to support Carlos Montes and to organize speaking events with him and local protests on his important court dates, Sept. 29 being the next one.
The same week the FBI raided Carlos Montes in May 2011, the CSFR came back with a big revelation - we released a set of documents, the FBI game plan, which the FBI mistakenly left behind in a file drawer at one of the homes. The FBI documents are on the CSFR website and are fascinating to read. Fitzgerald and company developed 102 questions that come right from a McCarthy witch-hunt trial of the 1950s. It is like turning back the clock five decades.
The whole intention of the raids is clear: They want to paint activists as 'terrorists' and shut down the organizing. They came at a time when the rich and powerful are frightened of not just the masses of people overseas, but of the people in their own country. With a failing U.S. war in Afghanistan, a U.S. occupation of Iraq predicted to last decades, a new war for oil and domination in Libya, a failing immigration policy that breaks up families and produces super-profits for big business, and now a long and deep economic crisis that is pushing large segments of working people into poverty, the highest levels of the U.S. government are turning to political repression.
The only hope for the future is in building stronger, consistent and determined movements. In a principled act of solidarity, the 23 subpoenaed activists refuse to testify before the grand jury. This sets an example for others.
In addition, the outpouring of support and mobilization into the streets from the anti-war, international solidarity, civil rights, labor and immigrant rights movements means that not one of the 24 has spent a single day in jail. That is a victory.
We ask you to stand with us, to stay vigilant and to hold steady as we proceed to organize against wars abroad and injustice at home and as we defend Carlos Montes from the FBI charade in Los Angeles.
Committee to Stop FBI Repression - www.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 55414
Add us to your address book
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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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White House Petition for Leonard Peltier
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
A petition in favor of granting clemency to Leonard Peltier is now on the We the People portion of the White House Web site. We have 30 days (until October 22) to get 5,000 signatures in order for our petition to be reviewed by the White House. This petition may only allow US signatories.
Sign the petition here:
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
Due to heavy site traffic, you may have trouble accessing the petition. Keep trying until you succeed. Try during off-peak hours.
Email our petition to your friends, family and others who care about this issue.
Facebook: Post our petition to your Facebook wall to let folks know about it. Here's a sample message you can cut and paste into your Facebook status: Petition for Leonard Peltier on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Twitter: Tweet about your petition. Here's a sample tweet you can use: Leonard Peltier petition on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Let's do it!
Launched into cyberspace by the
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
The Petition:
we petition the obama administration to:
grant clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier without delay.
10th Circuit Court of Appeals: "...Much of the government's behavior... and its prosecution of Leonard Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."
While others were acquitted on grounds of self defense, Peltier was convicted in connection with the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents. Evidence shows that prosecutors knowingly presented false statements to a Canadian court to extradite Peltier and manufactured the murder weapon (the gun and shell casings entered into evidence didn't match; this fact was hidden from the jury). The number of constitutional violations in this case is simply staggering.
It's time to right this wrong. Mr. President, you can and must free Leonard Peltier.
Created: Sep 22, 2011
Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Human Rights
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/grant-clemency-native-american-activist-leonard-peltier-without-delay/LLWBZq1S
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Troy Davis, Racism, The Death Penalty & Labor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEues_-KoZU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-09-16/911-explosive-evidence-experts-speak-out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw-jzCfa4eQ
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9/11: A Conspiracy Theory
http://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/
[click on above to view the video]
Everything you ever wanted to know about the 9/11 conspiracy theory in under 5 minutes.
TRANSCRIPT: On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.
These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn't handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced "missing" from the Pentagon's coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.
Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI's lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.
The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover up from start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed. It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds, OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening. It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney...well, no one knows what they told it because they testified in secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn't bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of "little practical significance". Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims' family members' questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were "a failure of imagination" because "I don't think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings " except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.
The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that's OK because it probably wasn't important.
The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that's OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.
NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7?s collapse, but that's OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would "jeopardize public safety".
The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that's OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.
This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).
Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away. Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away. Then he lived in Abottabad for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn't recorded on video, in which he didn't resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet. Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team's members died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.
If you have any questions about this story...you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.
This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC, MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. Because Ignorance is Strength.
____________________
(c) 2011 The Corbett Report. All rights reserved.
Hosting generously provided by: EuroVPS.com
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HUNDREDS OCCUPY WALL STREET (LIVE STREAM VIDEO)
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution/share?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=ui-share&utm_campaign=globalrevolution&utm_content=globalrevolution
Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com
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What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war?
Narrated by Tony Benn. Music by Brian Eno
Mass Demonstration October 8, Noon, Trafalgar Square, London
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Bkg8zgoYQ&feature=youtu.be
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LOWKEY OBAMA NATION (BANIDO DA TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFywomdJTM&feature=related
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Remember Building 7 on France 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOaJZr83RJg&feature=share
Sound Evidence for WTC 7 Explosions and NIST Cover Up
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-911-files/sound-evidence-for-wtc-7-explosions.html
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Architects & Engineers - Solving the Mystery of WTC 7 - AE911Truth.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEvA8BCoBw&feature=player_embedded
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Geneva Towers Controlled Demolition -- San Francisco, May 16, 1968
I lived in Geneva Towers in 1967 for about six months. I was married with a six-month-old son when we moved to the Towers. It reminded us of New York (we had just moved to San Francisco in August of 1966 so an apartment building was familiar to us.) But what a difference from New York. I didn't drive at the time and, with a baby, and elevators that often didn't work (we were on the 15th floor--I don't remember which building) I was basically trapped. Mass transit was slow and the distances were long to get downtown. The apartment had heating under the synthetic flooring tiles and the first time we turned it on, the tiles melted where the heating coils were. The electric oven caught fire the first time we used it; and the first time we took a shower the tiles started to pop off the walls. The kitchen cabinets were made of unpainted particle board. The sliding doors to the cabinets were less than a quarter-inch thick and cracked if you slid them too fast! What a pre-fab slum that was!
I was so glad to break the lease and move into the Castro--into a two bedroom, first-floor Victorian flat--in a warm and bustling community close to everything. And the rent was $125.00 a month!
I did make it a point to watch the demolition of the Towers on TV (it was broadcast live.) And I was so glad to see it go. It's the first thing I thought of when I saw the collapse of the World Trade Center. ...Bonnie Weinstein
Geneva Towers Implosion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7XVQ1LE2es&feature=related
The implosion [controlled demolition] of the Geneva Towers near the Cow Palace in San Francisco, CA on May 16, 1998
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Benton Harbor REPEAL RECALL.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woLL-AxOnTk
A few facts from the video:
Whirlpool has been meddling in [Benton Harbor] city politics for 30 years. For every tax break and advantage it can get. As the neighborhoods crumble...
With global sales of $18 Billion Whirpool paid 0% in 2010 federal taxes.
It received a refund of $64 Million.
Whirlpool has received 500 Million in tax breaks just since 2005.
Millions more in the past 3 decades.
Whirlpool took 19 Billion in federal stimulus funds. Then closed plants in the US. Including the plant in BH.
Rep. Fred Upton receives substantial campaign contributions from Whirlpool. And the Koch brothers.
Gov. Rick Snyder signed the Emergency Manager Law. And a budget that taxes pensions and cuts education funding in Michigan.
Then gave corporations (like Whirlpool) a $1.8 Billion tax break."
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Labor Beat: THE PEOPLE'S PUTT PUTT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FkYBneJpds
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The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
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London Riots. (The BBC will never replay this. Send it out)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJgILxGK0o
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Protest which sparked Tottenham riot
Hours before the riot which swept the area demonstrators gather outside Tottenham Police Station in North London demanding "justice" for the killing of a 29-year-old man, Mark Duggan, who was shot dead by police.
By Alastair Good
August 7, 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8687058/Protest-which-sparked-Tottenham-riot.html
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Visualizing a Trillion: Just How Big That Number Is?
"1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years."
Digital Inspiration
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
How Much Is $1 Trillion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfY0q-rEdY&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy the credit crisis and big bailout packages, the figure "trillion" has suddenly become part of our everyday conversations. One trillion dollars, or 1 followed by 12 zeros, is lots of money but have you ever tried visualizing how big that number actually is?
For people who can visualize one million dollars, the comparison made on CNN should give you an idea about a trillion - "if you start spending a million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spend a trillion dollars".
Another mathematician puts it like this: "1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years".
Now if the above comparisons weren't really helpful, check another illustration that compares the built of an average human being against a stack of $100 currency notes bundles.
A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house.
With this background in mind, 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 1000 times bigger than 1 billion and would therefore take up an entire football field - the man is still standing in the bottom-left corner. (See visuals -- including a video -- at website:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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Very reminiscent of Obama...bw
Pat Paulsen 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oiQhhdz8ys
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
The video above documents what I am told is a meeting between Fukushima residents and government officials from Tokyo, said to have taken place on 19 July 2011. The citizens are demanding their government evacuate people from a broader area around the Fukushima nuclear plant, because of ever-increasing fears about the still-spreading radiation. They are demanding that their government provide financial and logistical support to get out. In the video above, you can see that some participants actually brought samples of their children's urine to the meeting, and they demanded that the government test it for radioactivity.
When asked by one person at the meeting about citizens' right to live a healthy and radioactive-free life, Local Nuclear Emergency Response Team Director Akira Satoh replies "I don't know if they have that right."
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Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class [Full Film]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ZS91cqpa8
Narrated by Ed Asner
Based on the book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.
Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy.
Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations. The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people.
Featuring interviews with Stanley Aronowitz, (City University of New York); Nickel and Dimed author, Barbara Ehrenreich; Herman Gray (University of California-Santa Cruz); Robin Kelley (Columbia University); Pepi Leistyna (University of Massachusetts-Boston) and Michael Zweig (State University of New York-Stony Brook). Also with Arlene Davila, Susan Douglas, Bambi Haggins, Lisa Henderson, and Andrea Press.
Sections: Class Matters | The American Dream Machine | From the Margins to the Middle | Women Have Class | Class Clowns | No Class | Class Action
http://www.mediaed.org
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Let's torture the truth out of suicide bombers says new CIA chief Petraeus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sm02UbKNCKQ
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Kim Ives & Dan Coughlin on WikiLeaks Cables that Reveal "Secret History" of U.S. Bullying in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL0Dk21dC-M
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Operation Empire State Rebellion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJvBlQcaaaU&feature=player_embedded#at=10
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20 Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know
Click an image to learn more about a fact!
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php
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Licensed to Kill Video
http://nirs.org/multimedia/video/l2k.htm
Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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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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Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM&feature=player_embedded
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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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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. ...bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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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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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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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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Your help is needed to defend free speech rights
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
We are writing to urge you to send an email letter today that can make a big difference in the outcome of a free speech fight that is vital to all grassroots movements that support social justice and peace.
It will just take a moment of your time but it will make a big difference.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=326
All across the country people and organizations engaged in producing and disseminating leaflets and posters - the classic method of grassroots outreach used by those without institutional power and corporate money - are being faced with bankrupting fines.
This has been happening with ferocity in the nation's capital ever since the ANSWER Coalition was fined over $50,000 in the span of a few weeks for posters advertising the Sept. 15, 2007, protest against the Iraq war.
Attorneys for the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a major lawsuit in August 2007 against the unconstitutional postering regulations in Washington, D.C.
"The District has employed an illegal system that creates a hierarchy of speech, favoring the speech of politicians and punishing grassroots outreach," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF, stated in explaining a basic tenet of the lawsuit. "It's time for that system to end, and it will."
The hard-fought four-year-long lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund against Washington, D.C.'s unconstitutional postering regulations has succeeded in achieving a number of important victories, including the issuance of new regulations after the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia warned just last month of an impending declaration of unconstitutionality against the District.
In July 2011 the federal District Court issued a preliminary opinion regarding one aspect of our lawsuit and suggested that the D.C. government "revise the regulations to include a single, across-the-board durational restriction that applies equally to all viewpoints and subject matters."
But this battle is not finished. The new regulations still contain dissent-crushing "strict liability" provisions (explained below) and remain unconstitutionally vague and ambiguous. Plus the District has never withdrawn the tens of thousands of dollars of fines against ANSWER.
The District of Columbia is required by law to open the new rules to public comment, which it has done with an extremely short comment period that is now open. We need people to send a comment today to the government of Washington, D.C. It just takes a minute using our online Submit a Comment tool, which will send your comment by email.
Send a letter today in support of the right to produce and disseminate leaflets and posters in Washington, D.C. We have included a sample comment but we encourage people to use or add your own language.
An Opportunity for You to Make a Difference
In response to our lawsuit, the District of Columbia has now issued "Emergency Regulations" replacing the current system which the city now admits are a "threat to the public welfare," after the court issued a preliminary opinion that agreed with a basic argument of the lawsuit.
This is an important moment and we need you and others who believe in Free Speech to weigh in during the short 15-day public comment period in response to the proposed Emergency Regulations for postering. Submit an online Comment now that makes one or more of three vital points:
Drop the $70,000 fines that have been applied to the ANSWER Coalition for anti-war posters during the past four years.
End "Strict Liability" fines and penalities. Strict Liability constitutes something of a death penalty for Free Speech activities such as producing leaflets and posters. It means that an organization referenced on posted signs can be held "strictly liable" for any materials alleged to be improperly posted, even if the group never even posted a single sign or poster. The D.C. government is even going further than that - it just levied fines against a disabled Vietnam veteran who didn't put up a single poster but was fined $450 because three posted signs were seen referencing a Veterans for Peace demonstration last December, and the District's enforcement agents researched that his name was on the permit application for the peace demonstration at the White House. Any group or person that leaves literature at a bookstore, or distributes literature, or posts .pdf fliers on the Internet, can be fined tens of thousands of dollars simply for having done nothing more than making political literature available.
Insist that any new regulations be clear, unambiguous and fair. The District's new "Emergency" Regulations are still inadequate because they are vague and ambiguous. Vaguely worded regulations in the hands of vindictive authority can and will be used to punish, penalize and fine grassroots organizations that seek to redress grievances while allowing the powerful and moneyed interests to do as they please. The District's postering regulations must be clear and unambiguous if they are to be fair, uniform and constitutional.
Take two minutes right now, click through to our online comment submission tool.
Thank you for your continued support. After you send your comment today to the District of Columbia please send this email to your friends and encourage them to take action as well. Click here to send your comment to the District.
Sincerely,
ANSWER Coalition
www.AnswerCoalition.org
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
TAKE ACTION: New Punishment Against Rene Gonzalez
On Oct 7, René González, one of the Cuban 5 Patriots will be released from the US prison in Marianna Florida after serving out his 15 year sentence. Rene's crime was defending the security of the Cuban people against terrorist attacks.
The US government is now trying to stop his immediate return to his homeland, and his family, after he serves out the last day of this unjust sentence. And now, in the most cynical and mean spirited fashion, the US court that sentenced him in 2001 is extending his punishment by making him remain in the United States.
Because Rene was born in the US he will now have to spend an additional 3 years of probation here. Seven months ago his lawyer presented a motion asking the court to modify the conditions of his probation so that after he finished his sentence he be allowed to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family for humanitarian reasons.
On March 25, the prosecutor Caroline Heck Miller asked the judge to deny the motion. On September 16 Judge Joan Lenard rejected the defense motion, alleging among other reasons, that the Court needs time to evaluate the behavior of the condemned person after he is freed to verify that he is not a danger to the United States.
We have to remember that this is the same prosecutor that rejected an attempt to try Posada Carriles as a criminal, and this is the same judge that included in the conditions of his release a special point that while Rene is under supervised release that," the accused is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists are known to be or frequent"
By writing this Judge Lenard made the shameful recognition that terrorists groups do exist and enjoy impunity in Miami. Furthermore she is offering them protection from Rene from bothering or denouncing them upon his release.
It was not enough for the US government to make Rene fulfill the complete sentence to the last day; It was not enough to try and blackmail his family by telling them he would not go to trial if he collaborated against his 4 brothers; it was not enough to pressure Rene with what could happen to his family if he did not cooperate with the government, including the detention and deportation of his wife Olga Salanueva; and it was not enough to deny Olga visas to visit her husband repeatedly all these years.
Why does the US government want to continue punishing René and his family?
The prejudice of the Miami community against the Five was denounced by three judges of the Eleventh Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals on August 27, 2005, where it was recognized who the terrorists were, what organizations they belonged to and where they reside. To mandate that Rene Gonzalez stay another 3 years of supervised "freedom" in Florida, where a nest of international terrorists reside and who publicly make their hatred of Cuba and the Cuban 5 known, is to put the life of Rene in serious risk.
Today we are making a call to friends from all over the world to denounce this new punishment and to demand the US government allow René Gonzalez to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family as soon as he get out of prison.
Contact now President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the immediate return of René Gonzalez to his homeland and his family
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE WHITE HOUSE
Write a letter to President Obama
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
EE.UU.
Make a phone call and leave a message for President Barack Obama: 202-456-1111
Send an e-mail message to President Barack Obama
HTTP://WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Write a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder
US Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Make a phone call and leave a message for US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2000
Or call the public commentary line: 202-353-1555
Send an e-mail message to US Attorney General Eric Holder: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
To learn more about the Cuban 5 visit:
www.thecuban5.org
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO/G8 Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
The CSFR Signs Letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The CSFR is working with the United National Antiwar Committee and many other anti-war groups to organize mass rallies and protests on May 15 and May 19, 2012. We will protest the powerful and wealthy war-makers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Group of 8. Mobilize your groups, unions, and houses of worship. Bring your children, friends, and community. Demand jobs, healthcare, housing and education, not war!
Office of the Mayor
City of Chicago
To: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
We, the undersigned, demand that your administration grant us permits for protests on May 15 and 19, 2012, including appropriate rally gathering locations and march routes to the venue for the NATO/G8 summit taking place that week. We come to you because your administration has already spoken to us through Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has threatened mass arrests and violence against protestors.
[Read the full text of the letter here: http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression/full-text]
For the 10s of thousands of people from Chicago, around the country and across the world who will gather here to protest against NATO and the G8, we demand that the City of Chicago:
1. Grant us permits to rally and march to the NATO/G8 summit
2. Guarantee our civil liberties
3. Guarantee us there will be no spying, infiltration of organizations or other attacks by the FBI or partner law enforcement agencies.
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Supporter of Leak Suspect Is Called Before Grand Jury
By SCOTT SHANE
June 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16brfs-Washington.html?ref=world
A supporter of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, was called before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday, but he said he declined to answer any questions. The supporter, David M. House, a freelance computer scientist, said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because he believes the Justice Department is "creating a climate of fear around WikiLeaks and the Bradley Manning support network." The grand jury inquiry is separate from the military prosecution of Private Manning and is believed to be exploring whether the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, or others in the group violated the law by acquiring and publishing military and State Department documents.
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herman-wallace
For nearly four decades, 64-year-old Albert Woodfox and 69-year-old Herman Wallace have been held in solitary confinement, mostly in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison). Throughout their prolonged incarceration in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR) Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have endured very restrictive conditions including 23 hour cellular confinement. They have limited access to books, newspapers and TV and throughout the years of imprisonment they have been deprived of opportunities for mental stimulation and access to work and education. Social interaction has been restricted to occasional visits from friends and family and limited telephone calls.
Louisiana prison authorities have over the course of 39 years failed to provide a meaningful review of the men's continued isolation as they continue to rubberstamp the original decision to confine the men in CCR. Decades of solitary confinement have had a clear psychological effect on the men. Lawyers report that they are both suffering from serious health problems caused or exacerbated by their years of close confinement.
After being held together in the same prison for nearly 40 years, the men are now held in seperate institutions where they continue to be subjected to conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
Take action now to demand that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be immediately removed from solitary confinement
Sign our petition which will be sent to the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, calling on him to:
* take immediate steps to remove Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace from close confinement
* ensure that their treatment complies with the USA's obligations under international standards and the US Constitution.
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Stop Coal Companies From Erasing Labor Union History
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-coal-companies-from-erasing-labor-union-history
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One year after Bradley's detainment, we need your support more than ever.
Dear Friends,
One year ago, 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.
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
"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
Courage to Resist needs your support
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
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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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!
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/
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
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
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
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
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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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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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!
http://lynnestewart.org/
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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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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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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D. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Davis Is Executed in Georgia
By KIM SEVERSON
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/final-pleas-and-vigils-in-troy-davis-execution.html?hp
2) Japan: Progress at Damaged Nuclear Plants
"Also on Monday, about 60,000 anti-nuclear protesters gathered in Tokyo, in Japan's largest demonstration since a huge earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant on March 11."
By MARTIN FACKLER
September 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/world/asia/japan-progress-at-damaged-nuclear-plants.html?ref=world
3) 2010 Data Show Surge in Poor Young Families
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
September 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/poor-young-families-soared-in-10-data-show.html?ref=us
4) Universities Seeking Out Students of Means
By TAMAR LEWIN
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/education/21admissions.html?hp
5) Miss. Teen Indicted for Capital Murder, Hate Crime
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/21/us/AP-US-Fatal-Rundown.html?hp
[Please note that the family of the man who was murdered, James Craig Anderson, 49, has asked prosecutors NOT to pursue the death penalty against anyone accused. Anderson's sister, Barbara Anderson Young, wrote to Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith saying her family doesn't want anyone to face the death penalty. She cited the family's Christian beliefs and opposition to capital punishment. See:
"Slain Man's Kin Ask No Death Penalty in Miss. Case"
By the Associated Press
September 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/14/us/AP-US-Fatal-Rundown.html?ref=us ]
6) Request for Lie Detector Test for Davis Is Denied
By KIM SEVERSON
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/final-pleas-and-vigils-in-troy-davis-execution.html?hp
7) Typhoon Headed for Stricken Japanese Nuclear Plant
By MARTIN FACKLER
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/asia/typhoon-roke-hits-japan-headed-for-stricken-nuclear-plant.html?ref=world
8) After Disclosures by WikiLeaks, Al Jazeera Replaces Its Top News Director
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
September 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/world/middleeast/after-disclosures-by-wikileaks-al-jazeera-replaces-its-top-news-director.html?ref=world
9) Recession Risk Mounts for Developed Markets: Roubini
By REUTERS
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/09/21/business/business-us-recession-roubini.html?src=busln
10) Marijuana Arrests Driving America's 'Drug War,' Latest FBI Report Shows
"According to the report, marijuana arrests now comprise more than one-half (52 percent) of all drug arrests in the United States."
By Paul Armentano
September 19, 2011
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/09/19/marijuana-arrests-driving-america%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98drug-war%E2%80%99-latest-fbi-report-shows/
11) Data Show County's Pain as Economy Plummeted
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/greenwood-sc-had-steepest-economic-decline-in-us.html?hp
12) One in Five New York City Residents Living in Poverty
By SAM ROBERTS
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/nyregion/one-in-five-new-york-city-residents-living-in-poverty.html?hp
13) NATO Extends Libya Bombing Campaign
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/middleeast/nato-extends-libya-role.html?ref=world
14) Ohio Woman Describes Becoming a 'Suspicious' Person
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/ohio-woman-describes-becoming-a-suspicious-person.html?ref=us
15) California: Police Charged in Killing
By IAN LOVETT
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/california-police-charged-in-killing.html?ref=us
16) ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY, WE MUST DO THE WORK!
troy davis' lynching should open all of our eyes!!! open notes on a lynching!
by Zayid Muhammad on Thursday, September 22, 2011 @ 2:17am
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1327118693
17) The Social Contract
By PAUL KRUGMAN
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html?hp
18) In Europe, a Chorus of Outrage Over a U.S. Execution
By SCOTT SAYARE
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/world/europe/davis-execution-leads-to-chorus-of-outrage-in-europe.html?ref=world
19) In Death-Penalty Debate, Execution Offers Little Closure
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/us/in-debate-davis-execution-offers-little-closure.html?ref=us
20) Texas Death Row Kitchen Cooks Its Last 'Last Meal'
"Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington, said the decision to do away with last meals seemed petty. 'If the last meal process has been abused, then maybe it warrants changing, but there are a lot more serious abuses that have gone on in terms of lack of due process in Texas,' Mr. Dieter said. 'Inmates would much prefer a last lawyer to a last meal.'"
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/us/texas-death-row-kitchen-cooks-its-last-last-meal.html?ref=us
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1) Davis Is Executed in Georgia
By KIM SEVERSON
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/final-pleas-and-vigils-in-troy-davis-execution.html?hp
JACKSON, Ga. - Proclaiming his innocence, Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday night, his life - and the hopes of supporters worldwide - prolonged by several hours while the Supreme Court reviewed but then declined to act on a petition from his lawyers to stay the execution.
Mr. Davis, 42, who was convicted of murdering a Savannah police officer 22 years ago, entered the death chamber shortly before 11 p.m., four hours after the scheduled time. He died at 11:08.
This final chapter before his execution had become an international symbol of the battle over the death penalty and racial imbalance in the justice system.
"It harkens back to some ugly days in the history of this state," said the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church, who visited Mr. Davis on Monday.
Mr. Davis remained defiant at the end, according to reporters who witnessed his death. He looked directly at the members of the family of Mark MacPhail, the officer he was convicted of killing, and told them they had the wrong man.
"I did not personally kill your son, father, brother," he said. "All I can ask is that you look deeper into this case so you really can finally see the truth."
He then told his supporters and family to "keep the faith" and said to prison personnel, "May God have mercy on your souls; may God bless your souls."
One of the witnesses, a radio reporter from WSB in Atlanta, said it appeared that the MacPhail family "seemed to get some satisfaction" from the execution.
For Mr. Davis's family and other supporters gathered in front of the prison, the final hours were mixed with hope, tears and exhaustion. The crowd was buoyed by the Supreme Court's involvement, but crushed when the justices issued their one-sentence refusal to consider a stay.
When the news of his death came, the family left quietly and the 500 or so supporters began to pack up and leave their position across the state highway from the prison entrance. Mr. Davis's body was driven out of the grounds about midnight.
During the evening, a dozen supporters of the death penalty, including people who knew the MacPhail family sat quietly, separated from the Davises and their supporters by a stretch of lawn and rope barriers.
The appeal to the Supreme Court was one of several last-ditch efforts by Mr. Davis on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, an official with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said that the vote by the Georgia parole board to deny clemency to Mr. Davis was so close that he hoped there might be a chance to save him from execution.
The official, Edward O. DuBose, president of the Georgia chapter, said the group had "very reliable information from the board members directly that the board was split 3 to 2 on whether to grant clemency."
"The fact that that kind of division was in the room is even more of a sign that there is a strong possibility to save Troy's life," he said.
The N.A.A.C.P said it had been in contact with the Department of Justice on Wednesday, in the hope that the federal government would intervene on the basis of civil rights violations, meaning irregularities in the original investigation and at the trial.
Earlier in the day, his lawyers had asked the state for another chance to spare him: a lie detector test.
But the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole, which on Tuesday denied Mr. Davis's clemency after a daylong hearing on Monday, quickly responded that there would be no reconsideration of the case, and the polygraph test was abandoned.
Mr. Davis's supporters also reached out to the prosecutor in the original case and asked him to persuade the original judge to rescind the death order. Benjamin Jealous, the president of the N.A.A.C.P, also tried to ask President Obama for a reprieve.
The Innocence Project, which has had a hand in the exoneration of 17 death-row inmates through the use of DNA testing, sent a letter to the Chatham County district attorney, Larry Chisolm, urging him to withdraw the execution warrant against Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis was convicted of the 1989 shooting of Officer MacPhail, who was working a second job as a security guard. A homeless man called for help after a group that included Mr. Davis began to assault him, according to court testimony. When Officer MacPhail went to assist him, he was shot in the face and the heart.
Before Wednesday, Mr. Davis had walked to the brink of execution three times.
His conviction came after testimony by some witnesses who later recanted and on the scantest of physical evidence, adding fuel to those who rely on the Internet to rally against executions and to question the validity of eyewitness identification and of the court system itself.
But for the family of the slain officer and others who believed that two decades' worth of legal appeals and Supreme Court intervention was more than enough to ensure justice, it was not an issue of race but of law.
Inside the prison, Officer MacPhail's widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris, said calling Mr. Davis a victim was ludicrous.
"We have lived this for 22 years," she said on Monday. "We are victims."
She added: "We have laws in this land so that there is not chaos. We are not killing Troy because we want to."
Mr. Davis, who refused a last meal, had been in good spirits and prayerful, said Wende Gozan Brown, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International, who visited him on Tuesday. She said he had told her his death was for all the Troy Davises who came before and after him.
"I will not stop fighting until I've taken my last breath," she recounted him as saying. "Georgia is prepared to snuff out the life of an innocent man."
The case has been a slow and convoluted exercise in legal maneuvering and death penalty politics.
The state parole board granted him a stay in 2007 as he was preparing for his final hours, saying the execution should not proceed unless its members "are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused." The board has since added three new members.
In 2008, his execution was about 90 minutes away when the Supreme Court stepped in. Although the court kept Mr. Davis from execution, it later declined to hear the case.
This time around, the case catapulted into the national consciousness with record numbers of petitions - more than 630,000 - delivered to the board to stay the execution, and the list of people asking for clemency included former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 51 members of Congress, entertainment figures like Cee Lo Green and even some death penalty supporters, including William S. Sessions, a former F.B.I. director.
Kim Severson reported from Jackson, and John Schwartz from New York.
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2) Japan: Progress at Damaged Nuclear Plants
"Also on Monday, about 60,000 anti-nuclear protesters gathered in Tokyo, in Japan's largest demonstration since a huge earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant on March 11."
By MARTIN FACKLER
September 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/world/asia/japan-progress-at-damaged-nuclear-plants.html?ref=world
Japan is making progress in cooling the three damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and should be able to shut them down by year's end, at least a month earlier than expected, the minister in charge of the disaster said Monday. Speaking at an international nuclear energy meeting in Vienna, the minister, Goshi Hosono, also promised to strengthen oversight of Japan's nuclear industry by creating a more independent regulatory body by next spring. The Japanese government is responding to growing criticism at home and abroad of its inability to bring the reactors under control, and also of lax oversight that many say played a role in the accident. Also on Monday, about 60,000 anti-nuclear protesters gathered in Tokyo, in Japan's largest demonstration since a huge earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant on March 11.
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3) 2010 Data Show Surge in Poor Young Families
"'The younger you are, the poorer you are, and that's a disgrace,' said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund."
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
September 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/poor-young-families-soared-in-10-data-show.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - More than one in three young families with children were living in poverty last year, according to an analysis of census data by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.
At 37 percent, it was the highest level on record for the group, surpassing the previous peak of 36 percent in 1993, according to the analysis by Ishwar Khatiwada, an economist at the center. By comparison, the rate was about 25 percent in 2000.
The economic distress among the country's youngest families - defined as under the age of 30 - is in contrast to the poverty rate for elderly families, which remained low in 2010, at 5.7 percent, according to the analysis. In the 1970s, poverty was only slightly higher for younger families than for families headed by someone age 65 or over.
The change is evidence of shifting policy priorities that are putting the next generation at risk at a time when competition in the labor market has never been tougher, said Andrew Sum, an economics professor at Northeastern and the director of the center.
"Young families with children are now six times as likely to be poor as elderly families," Professor Sum said. "This is a major generational change. From a public policy standpoint, we should be very deeply troubled by this."
Economists cited several reasons for the rise. First was the economy. College degrees hold greater value now, while opportunities for low-skilled workers have dwindled, as manufacturing and other industries have declined. That has pushed more young families into poverty.
The number of men in their 20s with only a high school degree who worked full time fell by 22 percent from 2007 to 2010, while those with a college degree dropped by just 1 percent, according to census data. Fewer than a third of high school dropouts in their 20s were working full time last year.
"Dropping out of high school in 1970 was much less costly than dropping out of high school now," said Richard Murnane, an economist at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "That's purely a function of changes in the economy."
At the same time, the fortunes of poorer Americans, especially those with children, are more closely tied to the labor market because welfare reform in the 1990s made cash assistance harder to obtain. It was hailed as a success for getting more mothers to work, but now that jobs are scarce, young families have little to fall back on.
Robert Moffitt, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, said there had been a shift of resources from the young to the elderly that dates back to the 1980s.
In an analysis of government transfers over time, Professor Moffitt found that aid to the elderly living on less than half of poverty-level income rose by 13 percent from 1984 to 2004, while aid to single-parent families in the same situation dropped by about 38 percent.
"The worst-off families have been left behind," Professor Moffitt said.
For Margaret Allstrom, a 27-year-old divorced mother of two in Atlanta, being a mother has made it harder to get hired. She lost her full-time job when the recession began and now supports her children with three part-time jobs, as a waitress, a teacher and a freelance print maker.
"Whenever I go to a job interview, that comes up - they're not going to hire a mom," Ms. Allstrom said. "Technically it's not legal. But they ask questions like, 'What's important in your life?' You're going to mention your kids, and then they know."
Children bear more than their share of the burden of poverty, accounting for 35 percent of people who were poor last year, but only 24 percent of the population, according to census data. That lopsided ratio handicaps the next generation of American workers, advocates for children say.
"The younger you are, the poorer you are, and that's a disgrace," said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund. "We need an educated work force, and that starts in the early years."
Some of the highest rates are among black and Hispanic children, who are close to becoming the majority of the child population in the country. About two in five black children were poor last year, according to census data. The ratio was slightly lower for Hispanics.
Greg Duncan, a professor of education at the University of California, Irvine, said young children living in poverty were less likely to succeed in school, in part because stressful and traumatic conditions impeded learning.
Vernae Jones, 22, moved with her three children back into her parents' house in Atlanta after losing her job at Kroger. Almost all the children in her daughter's preschool qualify for reduced price lunches, Ms. Jones said. Most have young parents.
"It's just a hard time to be a parent," she said.
Ms. Jones receives food stamps, a noncash assistance program the census poverty calculation does not count. But out-of-pocket medical and child care costs are not included in the official measure either. Timothy Smeeding, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, estimated that poverty figures scheduled for release by the Census Bureau next month, which include all those adjustments, would probably be higher than those published last week.
Robbie Brown contributed reporting from Atlanta.
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4) Universities Seeking Out Students of Means
By TAMAR LEWIN
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/education/21admissions.html?hp
Money is talking a bit louder in college admissions these days, according to a survey to be released Wednesday by Inside Higher Ed, an online publication for higher education professionals.
More than half of the admissions officers at public research universities, and more than a third at four-year colleges said that they had been working harder in the past year to recruit students who need no financial aid and can pay full price, according to the survey of 462 admissions directors and enrollment managers conducted in August and early September.
Similarly, 22 percent of the admissions officials at four-year institutions said the financial downturn had led them to pay more attention in their decision to applicants' ability to pay.
"As institutional pressures mount, between the decreased state funding, the pressure to raise a college's profile, and the pressure to admit certain students, we're seeing a fundamental change in the admissions process," said David A. Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. "Where many of the older admissions professionals came in through the institution and saw it as an ethically centered counseling role, there's now a different dynamic that places a lot more emphasis on marketing."
In the survey, 10 percent of the admissions directors at four-year colleges - and almost 20 percent at private liberal-arts schools - said that the full-pay students they were admitting, on average, had lower grades and test scores than other admitted applicants.
But they are not the only ones with an edge: the admissions officers said they admitted minority students, athletes, veterans, children of alumni, international students and, for the sake of gender balance, men, with lesser credentials, too.
At many colleges and universities, the survey found, whom you know does matter. More than a quarter of the admissions directors said they had felt pressure from senior-level administrators to admit certain applicants, and almost a quarter got pressure from trustees or development officers.
"If external parties are trying to influence admissions decisions, that's a concern that strikes at the legitimacy of the whole process," Mr. Hawkins said. "We certainly have standards, but there needs to be awareness that when the economy starts to crumble, the standards may start to go out the window."
Lloyd Thacker, executive director of the Education Conservancy, a two-person nonprofit he founded in 2003 to improve college admissions, said the Inside Higher Ed findings were troubling.
"There's always been elements of this behavior, but it seems to me that it's growing," Mr. Thacker said. "I don't know whether to blame it on hard times or lack of courage and leadership."
Mr. Thacker said his own research had found students becoming more cynical about higher education.
"Students say, 'They're cheating us, so we can cheat them,' " he said. "The cheat they see is that colleges are out for themselves, not for them as students. Our research, with 2,500 students, found that of all the sources of information students get about higher education, they thought the least trustworthy sources are the colleges and college reps themselves."
While community colleges said their most important challenge in the near future was reduced state funding, all the other institutions named rising concerns from families about tuition and affordability.
Admissions directors at many public universities said in the survey that recruiting more out-of-state and international students, who pay higher tuition, was their top strategy. At community colleges and private institutions, admissions officers were more likely to say that providing aid for low- and middle- income students was their focus.
More than half the admissions officers from four-year institutions said that coaching by parents or college counselors was making it harder to really learn about applicants.
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5) Miss. Teen Indicted for Capital Murder, Hate Crime
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/21/us/AP-US-Fatal-Rundown.html?hp
[Please note that the family of the man who was murdered, James Craig Anderson, 49, has asked prosecutors NOT to pursue the death penalty against anyone accused. Anderson's sister, Barbara Anderson Young, wrote to Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith saying her family doesn't want anyone to face the death penalty. She cited the family's Christian beliefs and opposition to capital punishment. See:
"Slain Man's Kin Ask No Death Penalty in Miss. Case"
By the Associated Press
September 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/14/us/AP-US-Fatal-Rundown.html?ref=us ]
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A white Mississippi teenager has been indicted for capital murder and a hate crime on charges he intentionally ran over a middle-age black man with a pickup truck.
Deryl Dedmon, 19, was indicted Monday in the June 26 death of James Craig Anderson.
Capital murder in Mississippi is defined as murder committed along with another felony. It carries the sentences of death or life in prison without parole. Dedmon also was charged under Mississippi's hate crime law. This is the first announced indictment in the case.
Authorities say seven white teenagers were partying when Dedmon suggested they go find a black man to "mess with." Prosecutors say Dedmon and another teen beat Anderson before Dedmon ran him down.
It wasn't immediately clear if anyone else was indicted.
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6) Request for Lie Detector Test for Davis Is Denied
By KIM SEVERSON
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/final-pleas-and-vigils-in-troy-davis-execution.html?hp
ATLANTA - As last-minute appeals to spare Troy Davis from execution at 7 p.m. on Wednesday pour in from across the United States and Europe, his lawyers asked the state for one more chance to spare him: a lie detector test.
But the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole, which on Tuesday denied Mr. Davis's clemency after a daylong hearing Monday, quickly responded that there would be no reconsideration of the case, and the polygraph test was abandoned.
Mr. Davis's supporters were also reaching out to the prosecutor in the original case, asking that he persuade the original judge to rescind the death order. Benjamin T. Jealous, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who planned to visit Mr. Davis on Wednesday, was trying to ask President Obama for a reprieve.
The Innocence Project, which has had a hand in the exoneration of 17 death-row inmates through the use of DNA testing, sent a letter to the Chatham County district attorney, Larry Chisolm, urging him to withdraw the execution warrant against Mr. Davis, although there is no DNA evidence at issue in the case.
Meanwhile, vigils are being planned at the prison, in Jackson, and in Paris and London. Fewer than 100 people will be allowed inside the prison gates.
But hundreds more are expected to descend on Jackson, a town of about 4,000 people, where a prayer vigil is scheduled for late afternoon in a church near the prison.
Mr. Davis was convicted of the 1989 shooting of Mark MacPhail, a Savannah police officer who was working a second job as a security guard. A homeless man called for help after a group that included Mr. Davis began to assault him, according to court testimony. When Mr. MacPhail went to assist him, he was shot in the face and the heart.
Since then, Mr. Davis has walked to the brink of execution three other times.
With this most recent execution date, he became an international symbol of the battle over the death penalty and racial imbalance in the justice system.
Regardless of whether those hope-against-hope efforts work, the N.A.A.C.P. and others said they would call for the Department of Justice to investigate the case as a civil rights violation, asking that the original police investigation and the legal process that led to Mr. Davis's conviction be examined.
"It harkens back to some ugly days in the history of this state," said the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church, who visited Mr. Davis on Monday.
But for the family of the slain officer, and countless others who believe that two decades' worth of legal appeals and Supreme Court intervention is more than enough to ensure justice, it is not an issue of race but of law.
Calling Mr. Davis a victim is ludicrous, said Mr. MacPhail's widow, Joan MacPhail-Harris.
"We have lived this for 22 years," she said Monday. "We are victims."
She added, "We have laws in this land so that there is not chaos. We are not killing Troy because we want to."
Her daughter, Madison, 24, along with her brother, Mark, 22, will be at the execution Wednesday. The officer's mother, Anneliese MacPhail, will not. But she welcomes it, saying: "I'm not for blood - I'm for justice. We have been through hell, my family."
Mr. Davis's family, who had gathered in an Atlanta hotel to await the decision, learned that he would be put to death from members of his legal team and Amnesty International. They immediately went to the prison to be with him.
Mr. Davis, who has refused a last meal, was in good spirits and prayerful, said Wende Gozan Brown, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International, who visited Mr. Davis on Tuesday.
He told her that his death was for all the Troy Davises who came before and after him.
"I will not stop fighting until I've taken my last breath," he said in a conversation relayed by Ms. Brown. "Georgia is prepared to snuff out the life of an innocent man."
The case has been a slow and convoluted exercise in legal maneuvering and death penalty politics.
This is the fourth time Mr. Davis has faced the death penalty. The state parole board granted him a stay in 2007 as he was preparing for his final hours, saying the execution should not proceed unless its members "are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused." The board has since added three new members.
In 2008, his execution was about 90 minutes away when the Supreme Court stepped in. Although the court kept Mr. Davis from execution, it later declined to hear the case.
In the week before his third execution date, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit issued a stay to consider his lawyer's arguments that new testimony that could prove his innocence had not been considered.
The appeals court denied the claim but allowed time for Mr. Davis to take his argument directly to the Supreme Court, which ordered a federal court to once again examine new testimony.
But in June, a federal district court judge in Savannah said Mr. Davis's legal team had failed to demonstrate his innocence, setting the stage for the new date.
This time around, the case catapulted into the national consciousness with record numbers of petitions - more than 630,000 - delivered to the board to stay the execution, and a list of people asking for clemency included former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 51 members of Congress, entertainment figures like Cee Lo Green and even some death penalty supporters, including William S. Sessions, a former F.B.I. director.
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7) Typhoon Headed for Stricken Japanese Nuclear Plant
By MARTIN FACKLER
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/asia/typhoon-roke-hits-japan-headed-for-stricken-nuclear-plant.html?ref=world
TOKYO - A powerful typhoon struck Japan's main island on Wednesday, stranding thousands of commuters in Tokyo and threatening to pour heavy rain on the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in the nation's tsunami-ravaged northeast.
Evacuation advisories went out to more than 1 million people across the main island of Honshu as torrential downpours caused flash floods in low-lying areas. As of Wednesday evening, five people had been found dead and four others were missing, according to Japan's national broadcaster, NHK
The storm, called Typhoon Roke, directly hit greater Tokyo, briefly shutting down Japan's commercial and political center. Strong winds and rains brought most subways and commuter trains to at least a temporary halt, stranding tens of thousands at stations. Bullet train and airline service was canceled.
Even so, most of Tokyo continued to have electric power even as the eye of the storm passed through the city on Wednesday evening, a testament to Japan's generally robust basic infrastructure. According to Tokyo Electric Power, about 20,000 homes lost electricity in Tokyo, a city of almost 13 million residents.
Roke was the second powerful typhoon to strike Japan in the last month. Typhoon Talas, which made landfall in western Japan on Sept. 2, left 106 people dead or missing, the worst toll in decades.
Roke's path was expected to take it over the Fukushima plant, which was crippled by the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The storm's approach raised concerns that heavy rains could increase the risk of a leak of contaminated water from the crippled reactor buildings into the nearby Pacific Ocean. But Takeo Iwamoto, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric, the plant's operator, said the plant could weather the storm without further damage or risk of a leak.
The storm also threatened to flood coastal areas damaged by the tsunami and earthquake, which lowered the level of the ground by as much as two or three feet in some areas, and to wash radioactivity from the evacuated area around the plant into the sea.
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8) After Disclosures by WikiLeaks, Al Jazeera Replaces Its Top News Director
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
September 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/world/middleeast/after-disclosures-by-wikileaks-al-jazeera-replaces-its-top-news-director.html?ref=world
CAIRO - Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news network financed by Qatar, named a member of the Qatari royal family on Tuesday to replace its top news director after disclosures from the group WikiLeaks indicating that the news director had modified the network's coverage of the Iraq war in response to pressure from the United States.
Al Jazeera is under intense scrutiny in the Middle East over its varying coverage of the Arab Spring revolts. Although the network is nominally independent - and its degree of autonomy was itself a revolution in the context of the region's state-controlled news media when it began in 1996 - many people contend that its coverage of the region still reflects the views of its Qatari owners.
Al Jazeera played an early and influential role in covering - some would say encouraging - the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt last winter. It was even more aggressive in its focus on the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and the struggles of what it called "freedom fighters" in Libya, where Qatar came to play a major role in supporting the rebellion.
But some people now cite what they see as a double standard in the network's sensational coverage of the unrest in Syria on the one hand, and its relatively negligible coverage of the strife in Bahrain, Qatar's Persian Gulf neighbor.
United States diplomatic cables disclosed recently by WikiLeaks appear to open a new window into the network's interactions with Qatar and other governments.
A cable sent by the American ambassador, Chase Untermeyer, and dated October 2005, describes an embassy official's meeting with Al Jazeera's news director, Wadah Khanfar. According to the cable, the official handed Mr. Khanfar copies of critical reports by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency on three months of Al Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war; Mr. Khanfar said that the Qatari Foreign Ministry had already provided him with two months of the American reports, according to the cable, suggesting a close three-way consultation involving the two governments and the network.
He also urged American officials to keep his behind-the-scenes collaboration a secret.
He objected to an intelligence report's written reference to an "agreement" between the United States and Al Jazeera.
"The agreement was that it was a non-paper," Mr. Khanfar said, according to the cable. "As a news organization, we cannot sign agreements of this nature, and to have it here like this in writing is of concern to us."
Senior United States officials often charged publicly during the Iraq war that Al Jazeera's coverage inflamed anti-American sentiment, but in the cable Mr. Khanfar appeared eager to convince the American official that Al Jazeera was trying to be fair. He said he was preparing a written response to the points raised in the intelligence reports, according to the cable.
In at least one instance, involving a report on the network's Web site, Mr. Khanfar said in the cable that he had changed coverage at the American official's request. He said he had removed two images depicting wounded children in a hospital and a woman with a badly wounded face.
When the official raised other complaints, Mr. Khanfar "appeared to repress a Sigh," according to the cable, "but said he would have the piece removed."
"Not immediately," he reportedly said, "because that would be talked about, but over two or three days."
Mr. Khanfar, a former correspondent in Iraq and elsewhere for Al Jazeera, had been director for eight years before he resigned on Tuesday. He offered no explanation for his departure, but said on his Twitter account, "Entertained by all the rumors of why I have resigned." His successor is Sheik Ahmad bin Jasem bin Muhammad Al-Thani, a businessman and member of the royal family.
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9) Recession Risk Mounts for Developed Markets: Roubini
By REUTERS
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/09/21/business/business-us-recession-roubini.html?src=busln
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Fallout from the euro zone debt crisis and U.S. fiscal problems mean developed economies are more likely to contract than recover in coming months, economist Nouriel Roubini said on Wednesday.
Roubini, a famed market bear closely followed by Wall Street because he predicted the U.S. housing meltdown that precipitated the last global downturn, said emerging economies would feel pain in the event of a recession in the developed world but would avoid a full-fledged slump themselves.
"These shocks are going to keep on occurring. Thinking the problems of the euro zone are going to go away is delusional," Roubini told an investment conference in Johannesburg.
"The risk is actually that there is going be deceleration and the beginning of an economic contraction."
The euro zone debt crisis has spread to French banks, and countries such as Spain and Italy, which were both too big to fail and too big to be bailed out, he said.
Policymakers in advanced economies were also running out of tools to promote stimulus.
Global stocks slipped again on Wednesday as investors awaited the outcome of a Federal Reserve meeting that could offer further stimulus for the ailing U.S. economy, while more uncertainty about Greece's debt crisis pressured the euro.
It is unclear, however, how effective new measures would be in bolstering U.S. growth, given that economic expansion is slowing despite the central bank's $600 billion bond-buying program that ended in June.
Emerging markets are unlikely to undergo the same level of strain if developed economies falter, Roubini said, citing higher potential growth, lower levels of debt and more room for stimulus from policymakers.
(Reporting by David Dolan; Editing by John Stonestreet)
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10) Marijuana Arrests Driving America's 'Drug War,' Latest FBI Report Shows
"According to the report, marijuana arrests now comprise more than one-half (52 percent) of all drug arrests in the United States."
By Paul Armentano
September 19, 2011
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/09/19/marijuana-arrests-driving-america%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98drug-war%E2%80%99-latest-fbi-report-shows/
Police made 853,838 arrests in 2010 for marijuana-related offenses, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The arrest total is among the highest ever reported by the agency and is nearly identical to the total number of cannabis-related arrests reported in 2009.
According to the report, marijuana arrests now comprise more than one-half (52 percent) of all drug arrests in the United States. An estimated 46 percent of all drug arrests are for offenses related to marijuana possession.
"Today, as in past years, the so-called 'drug war' remains fueled by the arrests of minor marijuana possession offenders, a disproportionate percentage of whom are ethnic minorities," NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said in a prepared statement. "It makes no sense to continue to waste law enforcements' time and taxpayers' dollars to arrest and prosecute Americans for their use of a substance that poses far fewer health risks than alcohol or tobacco."
Of those charged with marijuana law violations, 750,591 (88 percent) were arrested for marijuana offenses involving possession only. The remaining 103,247 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes virtually all cultivation offenses.
By region, the percentage of marijuana arrests was highest in the Midwest (63.5 percent of all drug arrests) and southern regions (57 percent of all drug arrests) of the United States and lowest in the west, where pot prosecutions comprised only 39 percent of total drug arrests.
By contrast, the percentage of arrests for heroin and cocaine was lowest in the Midwest (14 percent of all arrests) and highest in the northeast (29 percent of all arrests).
Overall, law enforcement agents nationwide arrested 1,638,846 people last year for drug abuse violations, surpassing arrests for all other crimes.
Since 2000, law enforcement have reported making an estimated 7.9 million arrests for marijuana violations.
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11) Data Show County's Pain as Economy Plummeted
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/greenwood-sc-had-steepest-economic-decline-in-us.html?hp
GREENWOOD, S.C. - The Greenwood Mills Matthews Plant once employed three generations of Frances Flaherty's family. Her grandmother, father and brother made textiles there - denim for jeans and khaki for military uniforms.
But it all but closed in 2007 when the economy soured, pitching dozens of workers into the ranks of the unemployed, and the plant now functions mainly as a bleak backdrop to Ms. Flaherty's restaurant, the Southside Cafe, where diners gaze out at its red brick walls.
"It's what held this town together, all the mills," Ms. Flaherty said, watching another thinly attended lunch hour go by. "They just slowly but surely dwindled out."
The falloff of the economy of Greenwood County, a district of almost 70,000 people that once pulsed with busy factories and mills, was the steepest in the country by two counts.
According to an analysis of Census Bureau figures made public on Thursday, its poverty rate more than doubled to 24 percent from 2007 to 2010, the largest increase for any county in the nation.
The decline also engulfed the middle class. Median household income plunged by 28 percent over the same period, shaving nearly $12,000 off the annual earnings of families here during the recession, according to the analysis, by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College.
The numbers tell the story of a painful decade in Greenwood, which began with poverty levels that were close to the nation's, and ended far above - after layoffs in textile mills, a foundry, restaurants and construction companies pummeled the county's residents.
The number of workers in manufacturing alone fell by a quarter in the county from 2005 to 2009, according to a census survey of employers.
Those new facts are just sharp reminders to people here about what they have lived through.
"There just aren't any jobs in Greenwood anymore," said James Freeman, 58, a former textile mill worker. "My son can't even get a job flipping burgers."
Mr. Freeman worked for years in the textile mills, including the Matthews plant. He lost his last mill job in 2007 and was unable to find another. The work at one of the mills that employed him went to Argentina, he said, because the fabric was cheaper to produce there. Those workers were paid less, he was told, and got no benefits.
"That made me feel kind of bad," said Mr. Freeman, who now collects disability. The mill's closing "hurt a lot of people here in Greenwood."
Disappointment like Mr. Freeman's has welled up in areas of deep economic decline, infusing this election season with a blend of exhaustion and bitterness.
"Until we bring the companies back from overseas and stop protecting the world, we're not going to be anything," said Sam Stevenson, a retired construction worker, who could summon only expletives when asked about President Obama's job plan.
In many ways, Greenwood is a typical American county. More than a quarter of its residents had at least some college education in 2009, roughly the same as the 27 percent nationally. It has a public university, which grants four-year degrees, a museum and a shopping mall.
But education has not seemed to ease the economic pain in an area whose fortunes were tied so closely to the textile industry that is now in such steep decline. Signs with the words "space available" are posted outside vacant factories on the road between here and Columbia, 80 miles to the east.
A red brick Baptist church on the outskirts of town commanded on its marquee, "Have your tools ready, and God will find you work."
Apache Pawn and Gun, a pawn shop in town, is packed with items sold by people trying to make ends meet. Televisions, chain saws, bicycles and guitars are stacked from floor to ceiling. Chris Harris, the owner, said more middle-class people had come in to buy since the recession began.
"They're saying, 'Why should I buy a new chain saw when I could buy a used one?' " Mr. Harris said.
Ms. Flaherty said her cafe -its walls adorned with black-and-white photographs of mill workers and residents from happier times -is barely making it. When she opened in 2007, lunch used to bring lines out the door from workers at the plant and other businesses. Now it draws only a few diners. On Wednesday around 1:30 p.m., there were two.
And while housing prices have picked up - now a median of about $120,000 for the current listings compared with $109,000 in 2009 - the economy this year does not seem to be getting any better.
"It's been bad this year," said Kathy Green, owner of the Garden Grill, who said business was down significantly since the start of the recession. People order less, she said, and come in for the specials - $6 for a hamburger, fries and a drink.
Ms. Green said, "People just don't have the money anymore."
Barclay Walsh contributed reporting from Washington, and Anne McQuary from Greenwood.
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12) One in Five New York City Residents Living in Poverty
By SAM ROBERTS
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/nyregion/one-in-five-new-york-city-residents-living-in-poverty.html?hp
Poverty grew nationwide last year, but the increase was even greater in New York City, the Census Bureau will report on Thursday, suggesting that New York was being particularly hard hit by the aftermath of the recession.
From 2009 to 2010, 75,000 city residents were pushed into poverty, increasing the poor population to more than 1.6 million and raising the percentage of New Yorkers living below the official federal poverty line to 20.1 percent, the highest level since 2000. The 1.4-percentage-point annual increase in the poverty rate appeared to be the largest jump in nearly two decades.
Many New Yorkers were spared the worst of the recession, but the median household income has since shriveled to levels last seen in 1980, adjusted for inflation. Household income declined among almost all groups - by 5 percent over all since the beginning of the recession in 2007, to $48,743 in 2010.
Manhattan continued to have the biggest income gap of any county in the country, with the top fifth of earners (with an average income of $371,754) making nearly 38 times as much as the bottom fifth ($9,845).
Poverty among children under 18 rose 2.9 percentage points to 30 percent. The rate also increased for every other group except people 65 and older. Single mothers, blacks and adults lacking a high school diploma fared worst. Among Hispanic single mothers in the Bronx, the poverty rate was nearly 58 percent.
The bureau's 2010 American Community Survey paints a disturbing portrait of the city. More New Yorkers depended on some form of public assistance than in 2009, and a record 1.8 million residents - nearly one in five households - are now relying on food stamps. Fewer people had health insurance, home ownership declined and housing values plunged; 44 percent of renters were diverting at least 35 percent of their income for housing.
Unemployment rose one percentage point, and more people gave up on finding work, which may be one reason college and graduate school enrollment soared by about 50,000. More living quarters were crowded - from 7.9 percent of all houses and apartments in 2009 to 9.1 percent last year.
Though the poverty rate in the city rose faster than it did nationwide and the Bronx remained the poorest urban county in the country, New York still had a smaller proportion of poor people than many other major cities, including Miami, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Boston.
An influx of immigrants pushed the city's foreign-born population to near-record highs (more than three million, and 37.2 percent). Their ranks swelled by about 50,000. Half of New Yorkers 5 and older now do not speak English at home.
The city's poverty rate had remained about 18 percent since 2007 before climbing from 18.7 percent in 2009. The poverty rate was 20 percent in 1980, 19.3 percent in 1990 and 21.2 percent in 2000, after the dot-com bubble burst.
The 2010 federal poverty threshold for a family of three was $18,310.
Some economists suggested that federal bailout money to prop up failing financial institutions based in New York had spared the city the worst ravages of the recession, which statisticians declared over in 2009.
"The bailout of Wall Street just put off the day of reckoning," said Steven Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative group.
Advocates for the poor said the size of the problem might have been understated. "Increasing poverty is simply a confirmation of what we see every day in ever-longer lines at food pantries and soup kitchens," said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. "It is also latest proof our city and state policies are failing in fundamental ways."
David R. Jones, president of the Community Service Society, an anti-poverty group, said: "Maybe because things looked so good for the well-educated and restaurants are packed, we figured that we missed this bullet. Projecting forward, I don't think it's getting better."
Nationally, the Census Bureau said median household income had declined 2.3 percent to $49,445 from 2009 to 2010, and the poverty rate increased to 15.1 percent from 14.3 percent, the third consecutive annual increase.
In New York City, non-Hispanic whites took the biggest financial hit, according to the figures; their real income fell to $66,330, from $70,627. Median household income among Hispanic New Yorkers inched up to $35,887, from $34,586. Income also rose in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The city computes its own poverty rate, taking into account expenses for health and day care and higher living costs, as well as the benefits of tax credits, food stamps, school lunches and other assistance.
By its measure, the city's poverty rate in 2009 was 19.9 percent. Mark K. Levitan, director of poverty research for the city's Center for Economic Opportunity, said a more current poverty rate would be provided early next year.
"We will certainly see a higher poverty rate citywide as a whole," he said, though he did not foresee as big a rise.
Jilly Stephens, executive director of City Harvest, said its feeding programs "have reported an average increase of 5 percent on top of the rising demand they were already facing."
James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a union-supported research and advocacy group, said the latest figures "paint a disturbingly clear picture of a deteriorating living standard for most New Yorkers."
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13) NATO Extends Libya Bombing Campaign
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/middleeast/nato-extends-libya-role.html?ref=world
TRIPOLI, Libya - With armed loyalists of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the fallen Libyan leader, still ensconced in his hometown and a few other redoubts as the seven-month-old Libyan conflict winds down, NATO announced a three-month extension of its bombing campaign on Wednesday.
"We are determined to continue our mission for as long as necessary, but ready to terminate the operation as soon as possible," the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said in a statement from the alliance's Brussels headquarters.
It is the second 90-day extension, and it was approved less than a week before the campaign was set to end.
NATO's aerial campaign in Libya, authorized under a United Nations Security Council mandate to protect civilians from Colonel Qaddafi's military reprisals, effectively became a major weapon of the rebels who toppled him last month. The Transitional National Council, the interim government of anti-Qaddafi forces that have taken control in much of Libya, has expressed gratitude to NATO for its role.
Colonel Qaddafi, who remained at large, has expressed outrage over the growing international acceptance of the Transitional National Council as the legitimate authority in the country he ruled for more than four decades. In an audio message broadcast Tuesday, Colonel Qaddafi taunted his opponents by predicting that their new government would collapse once NATO ended its attacks on loyalist forces that have yet to surrender.
As if to answer him, Britain's Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that its warplane contingent in the NATO Libya operation had attacked loyalists' military deployments in three areas. Tornado GR4's hit targets in Colonel Qaddafi's hometown, Surt; in the loyalist desert enclave of Bani Walid; and in the north-central town of Hun, the ministry said in a statement.
There was conflicting information about the efforts by anti-Qaddafi forces themselves to eliminate the vestiges of his armed support.
Col. Ahmed Omar Bani, a council military spokesman, said Wednesday that anti-Qaddafi forces had captured Waddan, Hun and Sukna, towns in the Jufrah oasis area about 120 miles south of Surt. Council fighters also captured Awbari, a Tuareg town deep in Libya's south, Colonel Bani said. Those assertions could not be confirmed.
Refugees in Tripoli who fled the Jufrah area in recent days said Wednesday that the oasis towns had come under heavy shelling from anti-Qaddafi forces.
Colonel Bani also said the council had "completely liberated" Sabha, a Qaddafi stronghold deep in the Sahara, though he added that loyalist snipers were still active in the city.
Other news accounts said that Qaddafi loyalists had resisted advances on Surt and that anti-Qaddafi fighters trying to attack Bani Walid were poorly trained, with at least two killing themselves with misfired weapons.
Kareem Fahim reported from Tripoli, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
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14) Ohio Woman Describes Becoming a 'Suspicious' Person
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
September 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/ohio-woman-describes-becoming-a-suspicious-person.html?ref=us
On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Shoshana Hebshi, 35, a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother of 6-year-old twins from a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, was on a plane flying from Denver to Detroit when something she - or another passenger in her row of seats - had done caused the government to scramble F-16 fighter planes and escort Frontier Airlines Flight 623 until it landed safely. The plane was taken to a remote part of the airport, and armed federal authorities handcuffed Ms. Hebshi and her seatmates and took them off the plane. She was placed in a jail cell, strip-searched and interrogated by the F.B.I. before eventually being released. The two men in her row were also allowed to go. Ms. Hebshi says she believes she was detained because she is "dark-skinned" - she is half Arab, half Jewish. She described her seatmates as Indian. The F.B.I. says it was responding to reports that Ms. Hebshi and the men were behaving suspiciously. But Ms. Hebshi said she was never told what about her behavior, or that of her seatmates, had been alarming to others on the plane. Ms. Hebshi discusses:
QUESTION Do you remember having done anything on the plane that might have appeared to be "suspicious" to someone?
ANSWER During the flight I didn't get out of my seat at all. I read, and I slept on and off and I played a game on my phone - in airplane mode. And umm, that's it, really. Looked out the window a couple of times to see where we were.
Q. And your seatmates, did you notice anything "suspicious" about them?
A. I didn't talk to them at all. I don't actually even remember making eye contact with them other than when I was walking to my seat to get on the plane, and they were already there by the time I got there. When I was being questioned, they asked me a lot of questions about whether I noticed the men getting up to go to the bathroom, were they gone for a long period of time, did I notice how many times they were up. I do remember them getting up at least once, definitely one time. You know, it's a little foggy whether they got up other times. I wasn't really paying very close attention. And I don't know how long they were gone. How much attention do you really pay to your seatmates if you're not really engaged with them?
Q. When did you realize there was a problem?
A. We saw outside - it was behind the plane, but we could still see some of it, a lot of different police cars and plainclothes and uniformed officers sort of huddling about. We were not sure what was going on. And then two vans that looked like - I don't know if there were SWAT teams or bomb squad or something that looked very suspicious and possibly not good for us. Was there a bomb on the plane? Was there a fugitive? What was going on? We had no idea. No one was saying anything. And then a big van that had the words "Communication Center" on it, which I thought, you know, gave me a flashback to watching a cop show where people come in and they're having this big standoff, or the cops are outside talking to someone, trying to get them to come out. Anyway, so we were just watching this. And the whole plane was sort of chattering, "What is going on?" And I turned to the two men and said something like, "Do you know what's going on?" One of the men had his phone out and was taking pictures of what was going on outside and he asked me to hold his phone because I had a better angle and could take a better picture. And then in the distance we saw one of the trucks that has the stairs going to an airplane coming and they were coming toward us. I thought, "Oh great, we're going to be able to get off." You know, maybe they're going to let us off and check the plane for whatever. I didn't think it was going to mean they were going to come on board and take us. So all of a sudden they put the stairs up and it looked like about 10 men in all different uniforms and plainclothes came on the plane with their guns. They were big guns. They come charging onto the plane. They told everybody to put their hands up on the seat in front of us with their heads down. And somebody ran down the aisle and stopped at our row and said, "You three, get up." I was like, "What? What is going on here? What did I do?" And you know, I had my phone in my hand [Note: Ms. Hebshi had been posting messages to Twitter about what she had been observing at the airport]. I said, "Can I bring my phone?" And they said, "No." And I dropped it on the seat. They handcuffed me, took me off the plane. I didn't grab my purse or anything. It was just left on the floor.
Q. What happened after you were off the plane?
A. Well, first one of the men said they were waiting for a woman to come in and search me, which, if I was going to be searched, I was glad it was going to be a woman. She told me to move away from where there was a camera over the toilet, and a man at the door who had been watching to make sure I didn't do anything moved so he couldn't see inside and she just said, "Take off your shirt. Take off your pants. Take off your bra, underpants, and turn around." And then she told me to bend over and cough. There wasn't any probing or anything. I was really uncomfortable, like, "Get this over with." Then she also looked in my mouth. She had me lift my tongue up. She made me take my ponytail out, and she looked through my scalp. And then once everything was clear, she gave me back my clothes. I just felt really violated and completely shocked that I was going through this. It just seemed so overboard, over the top. You know when they took us off the plane they frisked us and the officer asked, "Do you have any explosives on you?" and I said, "Of course not." I was thinking, who do they think that I was? I was kind of disgusted and appalled and humiliated. I was glad it was over when it was over.
Q. What happened during the interrogation?
A. It was an interview with an F.B.I. agent and an agent from Homeland Security. They asked me a lot of questions about what I was doing on the plane: What I was doing during the flight? What did I notice the men next to me doing? Did I think they were doing anything suspicious? Did I notice how many times they had gone to the bathroom? Did I talk to them? Did I know them? Did they know each other? They asked me where I was coming from; where I was going. They asked me about my family, my travel history, my education. A lot of questions about my background: Age? Born here? Went to school here? Live here? Parents' names? Where do they live? What do they do?
Q. Did they tell you what you had done wrong?
A. I asked him, "What is going on?" You know, "Why do you want me? What's this all about?" And he said, "I think you can probably gather from my line of questioning what this is about." That's about as clear as he could make it. And they didn't actually tell me what was going on, really ever. They weren't ever completely forthcoming. But when they released me they told me a little bit more, that someone had reported suspicious activity.
Q. Why do you think this happened to you?
A. The first thing that popped into my head when this happened was, "Here I am, sitting next to these two men who are Indian, and I am dark-skinned." And it seemed like there could have been no other reason, because I wasn't doing anything. I know there's heightened suspicion of Arab-looking people after 9/11, and while nobody has ever pulled me aside - I haven't had excessive searches when I've flown before or anything like that - but I always knew it was a possibility because of what I looked like. And so to have this happen was like a confirmation of that.
Q. How do you think similar situations might be avoided in the future?
A. I think there have been some positive effects already that have happened from it, in terms of raising awareness and dialogue. You know, having people talk about where we are now. You know, it's been 10 years since 9/11. That's a long time. Do we continue living like this? So I hope not just continued dialogue will happen, but some action that will address our security concerns and also our civil liberties as Americans, and as humans. Do we want to live in fear of each other? Or do we want to take more compassion so that we can feel more trusting, feel better about the world that we live in, not feel like we have to be so secretive and paranoid about what's going on around us. I think people are ready to talk about this. If it could happen to an innocent bystander who is a citizen and isn't doing anything, maybe people will take a step back and say, "Wow, this is happening, and maybe we should start talking about how we're handling our security issues." There's a lot of people out there who still think that racial profiling is good, and I know it is something that has been going on for a very long time. But I think we've become sort of hyper about it, and there's lots of history out there to show that you cannot make assumptions about people like that. It's dangerous.
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15) California: Police Charged in Killing
By IAN LOVETT
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/california-police-charged-in-killing.html?ref=us
Two Fullerton police officers face felony charges in a beating in July that left a homeless man dead, the Orange County district attorney said Wednesday. Officer Manuel Ramos was charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the beating of Kelly Thomas, 37, a drifter with schizophrenia who died five days after the encounter with the police, who were responding to reports of attempted break-ins to cars. Cpl. Jay Cicinelli was charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force.
The district attorney, Tony Rackauckas, said the primary cause of Mr. Thomas's death was compression of his chest that left him unable to breathe as police officers held him down and beat him. Six officers were placed on leave after the beating, but the four others have not been charged.
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16) ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY, WE MUST DO THE WORK!
troy davis' lynching should open all of our eyes!!! open notes on a lynching!
by Zayid Muhammad on Thursday, September 22, 2011 @ 2:17am
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1327118693
at this dark moment, at this savage hr, let me say how proud i am of so many of u, so many who heard and properly responded to the drum call to save this brave yg man...
how supremely proud i am of so many of u who i may never meet, but with whom i will forever remember and share this incredible moment, in spite of its earth bitter ending!
how especially proud i am at the emergence of so many yg voices and eyes wading in on this critical moment, choosing to act instead of standing by on the sidelines of history and doing nothing the way so many of us have been hoodwinked into being bystanders!
how especially proud i am of those of u who are engaging in this epic age old battle for justice for the 1st time, how u have come forward hot blue heavy and clear with so much love for troy davis, so much love for justice, so much love for our people...
how proud i am of those students at howard who dared to engage in civil disobedience in front of the white house, in front obama' s white house!...
i am ashamed that even though the whole world witnessed and saluted yr heroism, that man didn't...like he wd've gotten there without it!
that his justice department stood by and did nothing...just let it happen...
i am ashamed that my generation was too high to do so many things we shouldve done to better prepare u for this moment and difficult times like this...
i did serve under a great man once who made it plain to us that we are at war, and that in war, u will surely lose people, and in the face of those losses, u mustnt lose heart or focus, u must hold the line and cover down!...that great man was khallid abdul muhammad...
and suddenly on a crisp winter evening in the 1st february of the 21st century, we lost the very man who taught us that, an awesome human being of a man...
in june 2000, george w bush, then governor of texas, killed an innocent shaka sankofa, nightriding his way into the white house.
shaka expressed trememdous courage in the face of death, like troy did this evening, and dared say to us as they began to poison the life out of him, "keep marching, black people...keep marching!"
troy davis looked death dead in the face tonite and prayed for mercy on the souls of his executioners who will twist in torment for the rest their miserable racist lives as a consequence!
his life and death have done some incredible things for us already!...
his incredible case and yr incredible response opened up so many eyes who truly didnt believe that this could happen...its urgency compelled so many of u to truly get involved in something bigger than u when u had not done so before...its truth and its compelling human statement also revealed how barbaric, how backwards, how insensitive and how dangerous this system is at this critical crossroads moment of all our lives and times...his tragedy is for many of u, in very real respects, a rites of passage for this generation, who truly believed that they no longer had to deal with 'this'...
i pray that it is truly a spark for a new movement important to u securing yr future and yr childrens future...
anything less cd prove to be potentially fatal to any freedoms we have left...
we are at war...we will likely lose more people in its ensuing battles...this development puts mumia abu jamal in extreeeemely grave danger!...for real!
but we cant lose heart...we cant lose focus...we must hold the shaka sankofas and the troy davis' up high and use sacrifices like theirs and like other freedom fighters whom weve lost, to deepen our ranks and carry it on!...all the way to freedom...
troy davis, born on oct 9th, the anniversary of the execution of che' guevara, and wrongfully executed on sep 21st, the anniversary of the birth of kwame nkrumah! may he continue to bring us together locally and globally!
troy davis now has a special place in the land of the ancestors and in whirlwind...
may what u did, what we tried do, mark the beginning of us making this time, our time, something special for our generation, for the next generation, and for the beautiful ones not yet born!
death to the death penalty!
free mumia abu jamal!
black power!
all power to the people!
i have the flag!
i have the flag!
i have the flag!
it didnt touch the ground*
baba zayid muhammad,
natl min of culture, yr new black panther party
*from umar bin hassan's malcolm
(C)2011 all rights reserved
baba zayid has an extensive background in civil disobedience and is available for trainings...
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17) The Social Contract
By PAUL KRUGMAN
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html?hp
This week President Obama said the obvious: that wealthy Americans, many of whom pay remarkably little in taxes, should bear part of the cost of reducing the long-run budget deficit. And Republicans like Representative Paul Ryan responded with shrieks of "class warfare."
It was, of course, nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it's people like Mr. Ryan, who want to exempt the very rich from bearing any of the burden of making our finances sustainable, who are waging class war.
As background, it helps to know what has been happening to incomes over the past three decades. Detailed estimates from the Congressional Budget Office - which only go up to 2005, but the basic picture surely hasn't changed - show that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. That's growth, but it's slow, especially compared with the 100 percent rise in median income over a generation after World War II.
Meanwhile, over the same period, the income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income distribution, rose by 480 percent. No, that isn't a misprint. In 2005 dollars, the average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million.
So do the wealthy look to you like the victims of class warfare?
To be fair, there is argument about the extent to which government policy was responsible for the spectacular disparity in income growth. What we know for sure, however, is that policy has consistently tilted to the advantage of the wealthy as opposed to the middle class.
Some of the most important aspects of that tilt involved such things as the sustained attack on organized labor and financial deregulation, which created huge fortunes even as it paved the way for economic disaster. For today, however, let's focus just on taxes.
The budget office's numbers show that the federal tax burden has fallen for all income classes, which itself runs counter to the rhetoric you hear from the usual suspects. But that burden has fallen much more, as a percentage of income, for the wealthy. Partly this reflects big cuts in top income tax rates, but, beyond that, there has been a major shift of taxation away from wealth and toward work: tax rates on corporate profits, capital gains and dividends have all fallen, while the payroll tax - the main tax paid by most workers - has gone up.
And one consequence of the shift of taxation away from wealth and toward work is the creation of many situations in which - just as Warren Buffett and Mr. Obama say - people with multimillion-dollar incomes, who typically derive much of that income from capital gains and other sources that face low taxes, end up paying a lower overall tax rate than middle-class workers. And we're not talking about a few exceptional cases.
According to new estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, one-fourth of those with incomes of more than $1 million a year pay income and payroll tax of 12.6 percent of their income or less, putting their tax burden below that of many in the middle class.
Now, I know how the right will respond to these facts: with misleading statistics and dubious moral claims.
On one side, we have the claim that the rising share of taxes paid by the rich shows that their burden is rising, not falling. To point out the obvious, the rich are paying more taxes because they're much richer than they used to be. When middle-class incomes barely grow while the incomes of the wealthiest rise by a factor of six, how could the tax share of the rich not go up, even if their tax rate is falling?
On the other side, we have the claim that the rich have the right to keep their money - which misses the point that all of us live in and benefit from being part of a larger society.
Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer who is now running for the United States Senate in Massachusetts, recently made some eloquent remarks to this effect that are, rightly, getting a lot of attention. "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody," she declared, pointing out that the rich can only get rich thanks to the "social contract" that provides a decent, functioning society in which they can prosper.
Which brings us back to those cries of "class warfare."
Republicans claim to be deeply worried by budget deficits. Indeed, Mr. Ryan has called the deficit an "existential threat" to America. Yet they are insisting that the wealthy - who presumably have as much of a stake as everyone else in the nation's future - should not be called upon to play any role in warding off that existential threat.
Well, that amounts to a demand that a small number of very lucky people be exempted from the social contract that applies to everyone else. And that, in case you're wondering, is what real class warfare looks like.
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18) In Europe, a Chorus of Outrage Over a U.S. Execution
By SCOTT SAYARE
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/world/europe/davis-execution-leads-to-chorus-of-outrage-in-europe.html?ref=world
PARIS - Even in a region long disdainful of American attitudes toward the death penalty, public officials, editorial writers and activists across Western Europe reacted with fury on Thursday to news that Troy Davis was executed in Georgia on Wednesday night.
Despite the divisive sovereign debt crisis, the sagging economy and conflict in the Middle East, the news media in Britain, France and elsewhere devoted continuous coverage to the Davis case this week, emphasizing that Mr. Davis, a black man, had been convicted of killing a white police officer in a Southern state. Many commentators denounced American justice as brutal and flawed.
More than anything, however, the outcry underlined the profound divergence in opinion concerning capital punishment in the United States and Western Europe, where the death penalty is no longer a topic of debate.
"The United States are a very democratic country, but these are barbaric practices," said Laurent Fabius, a prominent Socialist lawmaker and former French prime minister, speaking on Europe 1 radio.
Robert Badinter, who as justice minister oversaw the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981, called Mr. Davis's execution a "defeat for humanity."
"This affair will remain as a stain on the justice system of the United States," Mr. Badinter said.
Convicted of the 1989 killing of a Savannah, Ga., police officer, Mr. Davis, 42, maintained his innocence until the end. He was put to death by lethal injection after the Supreme Court declined to act on a petition from his lawyers to stay the execution.
Although other American death penalty cases have attracted world attention in recent decades, Mr. Davis's case provoked particular interest, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group in Washington. In part, he said, the outrage reflected Amnesty International's decision to publicize the case several years ago.
Hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the American Embassies in London and Paris on Wednesday to call for a stay of execution. The European Union had repeatedly urged the same, given what Catherine Ashton, the bloc's foreign policy chief, called the "serious and compelling doubts" about Mr. Davis's guilt.
"The E.U. opposes the use of capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances, and calls for a global moratorium as a first step towards its universal abolition," Ms. Ashton said in a statement.
In Germany, Claudia Roth, a leader of the Green Party, said Mr. Davis's death was "a cynical and inhumane spectacle that occasions mourning and horror." Tom Chivers, an editor at The Daily Telegraph in Britain, called capital punishment a "barbaric hangover from an Old Testament morality." Even Americans who support it, he wrote, must "want it to be credible - a terrible judgment passed down upon the guilty, not a savage lottery of murder."
With passage in 2000 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, capital punishment was abolished across the European Union. Germany had ended the practice in 1949, Britain in 1969 and France in 1981. Those decisions were far from universally popular at the time, but a wide-ranging consensus has since emerged that capital punishment is a backward and unjust practice, analysts say. Still, a handful of politicians on the fringes of the right still call for a debate over executions.
Doing away with the death penalty is "seen as an established norm of modern society," said Nicole Bacharan, a French historian and political scientist at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris. Most of the French have come to consider capital punishment as a moral question, Ms. Bacharan said - and one with an unequivocal answer.
It puzzles many Europeans, then, that capital punishment persists in 34 of the 50 American states.
"They don't understand that Americans believe you can lose your right to life," said Andrew Hammel, a former Texas defense lawyer who is now an assistant professor at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The deep cultural influence of the Roman Catholic Church has imbued many Europeans with a belief in "unconditional human dignity," Mr. Hammel said, a belief that the state "must respect human beings whatever they've done." The Protestant tradition of the United States, by contrast, emphasizes individual responsibility, he said.
In further contrast with the United States, most European judicial systems rely on jurists who are appointed rather than elected. Activists working to abolish the death penalty in the United States often suggest that political considerations affect the thinking of judges and prosecutors.
Nicholas Kulish contributed reporting from Berlin, and Ravi Somaiya from London.
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19) In Death-Penalty Debate, Execution Offers Little Closure
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/us/in-debate-davis-execution-offers-little-closure.html?ref=us
After decades of litigation, the final legal ruling allowing the execution of Troy Davis was a one-sentence order from the United States Supreme Court so terse that it could have fit neatly into a Twitter message with room to spare.
But it is hardly the last word on the case, or in the national debate over the death penalty.
The finality of Mr. Davis's sentence, and the outpouring of protest worldwide, leaves in its wake more than its share of questions - many that go beyond the facts of the case to encompass fundamental issues of capital punishment. Because Mark MacPhail, the Savannah, Ga., police officer he was convicted of killing in 1989, was white and Mr. Davis, above, was black, the progress of Mr. Davis's case over two decades widened fault lines on the death penalty and, in particular, over the question of whether a black person in the South could be guaranteed the same justice as a white one.
The nature of those doubts and the arguments for Mr. Davis's innocence could be, and will be, debated endlessly. And while no judge who reviewed the minimal physical evidence and the testimony and witness recantations ever overturned Mr. Davis's conviction - one judge dismissed the defense arguments as "smoke and mirrors" - activists portrayed the case as a symbol of the fallibility of eyewitness identification, of the intransigence of the justice system and of its unwillingness to correct errors - and even as a failure of the nation itself.
"The execution of an innocent man crystallizes in the most sickening way the vast systemic injustices that plague our death penalty system," Denny LeBoeuf, director of the Capital Punishment Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
Amnesty International, which mobilized much of the opposition to the Davis execution, pledged to redouble its efforts against the death penalty in the United States, and the executive committee of the N.A.A.C.P. voted this week to raise the death penalty to the forefront of its list of priorities in future advocacy.
Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, an interfaith advocacy group based in Carrboro, N.C., said his group also planned to use the momentum generated by religious leaders who opposed the Davis execution to galvanize broader opposition. "This has been a teachable moment for America's religious leadership: that the death penalty is so awash with bias and errors that there's no morally acceptable alternative but repealing it," Mr. Dear said.
But can the debate over the death penalty even be called a national conversation, or is it simply two factions shouting past each other? Does it change hearts and minds, or harden advocates in their positions? Brawls, after all, do not persuade.
This execution underscores the uncomfortable relationship Americans have with the death penalty. A Gallup poll last October showed that 64 percent of those surveyed supported it for those convicted of murder, a level that had been relatively consistent for the previous seven years. Support had been higher - 80 percent in 1994 - but it has slipped, in part because of the hundreds of convictions overturned because of DNA evidence.
Gallup has asked whether people favor life imprisonment without parole as an alternative to the death penalty, and those surveyed are almost evenly split, with 49 percent supporting capital punishment and 46 percent preferring life imprisonment.
Jurors have shown a growing reluctance to vote for the ultimate penalty; in 1994, 314 people were placed on death row, but that number has dropped by roughly two-thirds since, according to figures compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that opposes the death penalty.
Even among more casual observers, death penalty politics have become more prominent in light of the questions in the Davis case. Big Boi, a rapper from Savannah who showed up at the state prison in Jackson, Ga., on Wednesday to oppose the death penalty, said the issue was one he and his friends were concerned about. "People are starting to think about this," he said. " 'Thou shalt not kill' should apply to governments and people."
Mr. Davis's execution and the crusade it ignited ultimately bring to bear larger questions of a longing for an end to seemingly endless appeals.
William Otis, a former federal prosecutor and special White House counsel under the first President George Bush, said "there has to be finality for any system that's going to work," but added: "To say that there has to be finality is not to say that things should be rushed. The primary duty of courts is to get it right."
A problem for Mr. Davis's defenders, he said, is that judges tend to look at recantations, especially from witnesses who are in prison, "with a flinty eye."
Mr. Otis added: "The question is not whether you can avoid errors. The only realistic question in an adult mind is which set of errors you're going to accept. You have to be mature and honest about it, and understand there is the risk of executing an innocent person."
Douglas A. Berman, who teaches sentencing law at Ohio State University, said that Mr. Davis was the 1,269th person to be executed since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on the practice in 1976. (The 1,268th prisoner met his death hours before Mr. Davis; Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man, in 1998.) "I'm not sure we're going to have a healthy national dialogue" on the death penalty because of the Davis case, Mr. Berman said.
"Many of the people asserting confidence in his guilt are much more expressing confidence in our legal system and our jury system," he said. "That's why the shouting gets so loud - because what is nominally a factual issue of his guilt is really a dispute over how that issue gets resolved," and by whom.
To Eric M. Freedman, a professor at Hofstra Law School and an expert on the death penalty, the desire for finality is "understandable in some respects," but the process of reversing convictions places too high a bar in front of defendants. At trial, he said, the state has the burden of proving them guilty, and if "one reasonable juror would have had a reasonable doubt, that would have gotten you acquittal."
"After conviction," Professor Freedman said, "the burden shifts to them."
Thus, he said, the process "allows error to justify error" through its efforts to respect the decisions of juries.
"The system does bury its mistakes," he said.
Laurie Goodstein and Kim Severson contributed reporting.
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20) Texas Death Row Kitchen Cooks Its Last 'Last Meal'
"Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington, said the decision to do away with last meals seemed petty. 'If the last meal process has been abused, then maybe it warrants changing, but there are a lot more serious abuses that have gone on in terms of lack of due process in Texas,' Mr. Dieter said. 'Inmates would much prefer a last lawyer to a last meal.'"
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
September 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/us/texas-death-row-kitchen-cooks-its-last-last-meal.html?ref=us
HOUSTON - For decades, Texas inmates scheduled to be executed had at least one thing to look forward to: a last meal. Earl Carl Heiselbetz Jr. ordered two breaded pork chops and three scrambled eggs in 2000. Frank Basil McFarland asked for a heaping portion of lettuce and four celery stalks in 1998. Doyle Skillern ate a sirloin steak in 1985.
But state prison officials decided on Thursday to end the practice of giving last meals to inmates about to be executed, their decision coming the day after they honored an elaborate meal request from Lawrence Russell Brewer, one of the men convicted in the 1998 racially motivated dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper.
Before Mr. Brewer was executed by lethal injection in the Huntsville Unit on Wednesday, he was given the last meal of his request: two chicken-fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions; a triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapeños; a bowl of fried okra with ketchup; one pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread; three fajitas; a meat-lover's pizza; one pint of Blue Bell Ice Cream; a slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts; and three root beers.
The meal outraged State Senator John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. In a phone call and letter to the executive director of the state prison agency, Mr. Whitmire asked that the agency end the practice of last meals or he would get the State Legislature to pass a bill doing so.
The prison agency's executive director, Brad Livingston, responded hours later, telling Mr. Whitmire that the practice had been terminated, effective immediately, and that death row inmates scheduled for execution would receive the same meal served to other inmates in the unit.
"I believe Senator Whitmire's concerns regarding the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their last meal are valid," Mr. Livingston said in a statement.
Mr. Whitmire said his opposition to last meals had little to do with the cost of the meals, when the state budget is stretched thin. He said it was a matter of principle. "He never gave his victim an opportunity for a last meal," Mr. Whitmire said of Mr. Brewer. "Why in the world are you going to treat him like a celebrity two hours before you execute him? It's wrong to treat a vicious murderer in this fashion. Let him eat the same meal on the chow line as the others."
Mr. Brewer did not eat his last meal, and Mr. Whitmire said he felt that the inmate had ordered it in an attempt to "make a mockery out of the process."
Officials with the prison agency, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said they did not have data on how much the last meals cost the state. They said the kitchen staff at the Huntsville Unit, where executions take place, tried to accommodate inmates' requests "within reason," using food in the prison kitchen. The requests are normally made about two weeks before the scheduled execution.
Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington, said the decision to do away with last meals seemed petty. "If the last meal process has been abused, then maybe it warrants changing, but there are a lot more serious abuses that have gone on in terms of lack of due process in Texas," Mr. Dieter said. "Inmates would much prefer a last lawyer to a last meal."
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