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GENERAL STRIKE & MASS DAY OF ACTION -- NOVEMBER 2
Liberate Oakland, Shut Down the 1%
*GENERAL STRIKE & MASS DAY OF ACTION*
Wednesday November 2, 2011
Below is the proposal passed by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on Wednesday October 26, 2011 in reclaimed Oscar Grant Plaza. 1607 people voted. 1484 voted in favor of the resolution, 77 abstained and 46 voted against it, passing the proposal at 96.9%. The General Assembly operates on a modified consensus process that passes proposals with 90% in favor and with abstaining votes removed from the final count.
PROPOSAL:
We as fellow occupiers of Oscar Grant Plaza propose that on Wednesday November 2, 2011, we liberate Oakland and shut down the 1%.
We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.
All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.
While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.
The whole world is watching Oakland. Let's show them what is possible.
The Strike Coordinating Council will begin meeting everyday at 5pm in Oscar Grant Plaza before the daily General Assembly at 7pm. All strike participants are invited. Stay tuned for much more information and see you next Wednesday.
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There is a 24/hr presence/protest at the Federal Reserve, 101 Market St., S.F.
The OccupySF encampment is at Justin Herman Plaza
General Assembly (GA) @ Justin Herman Plaza
For Info contact: sf@worldcantwait.org
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We Are the 99 Percent
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?
OccupyWallSt.org
Occupytogether.org
wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
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Occupy The New York City DOE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbmjMickJMA&feature=player_embedded
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The Banks are Made of Marble
A Song by Les Rice (Written 1948 or 1949)*
I've traveled round this country
From shore to shining shore
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw
I saw the weary farmer
Plowing sod and loam
l heard the auction hammer
A knocking down his home
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the farmer sweated for
l saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore
l heard the bosses saying
Got no work for you no more
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the seaman sweated for
I saw the weary miner
Scrubbing coal dust from his back
I heard his children cryin
Got no coal to heat the shack
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the miner sweated for
I've seen my brothers working
Throughout this mighty land
l prayed we'd get together
And together make a stand
Final Chorus
Then we'd own those banks of marble
With a guard at every door
And we'd share those vaults of silver
That we have sweated for
-Common Dreams, October 22, 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/22-0
*Notes
In the notes to this song on Pete Seeger's 1959 Folkways LP 'American Industrial Songs' Irwin Silber wrote:
Les Rice, the composer of this song, is a New York State apple farmer and one-time president of the Ulster County chapter of the Farmers Union. His songs have made him well-known to farmers throughout the northeast. Perhaps his most well-known composition is "Banks of Marble" which achieved great popularity among union members throughout the country and even in Canada, where new verses have been found.
This song, written around 1948-49. deals with the farmer's perennial problem of "parity" and how it affects the farmer's life.
'I'm sixty per cent an American, I'm sixty per cent a man. That's what parity says I am, That's the law of the land. Now, do I work sixty per cent of each day? Eat sixty per cent of my meals? And does my truck take me into town on sixty per cent of it's wheels?
Now will my chicks be content to eat just sixty per cent of their mash? And will the middleman give my throat just sixty per cent of a slash? Now all you workers in city and town, I know your budget's a mess; But when you get down to that last lousy buck, remember I've forty cents less!'
The song has gained new resonance since the 2008-2009 financial meltdown!
http://unionsong.com/u024.html
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Drop All Charges on the 'Occupy Wall Street' Arrestees!
Stop Police Attacks & Arrests! Support 'Occupy Wall Street'!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://bailoutpeople.org/dropchargesonoccupywallstarrestees.shtml to send email messages to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC City Council, NYPD, the NY Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the NY Legislature, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, members of the media YOU WANT ALL CHARGES DROPPED ON THE 'OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTEES!
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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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For Immediate Release
Howard Petrick's "Rambo" - anti-VietNam activist tells his story-Marsh Berkeleyu-Oct 20-Dec 10
The Little Guy Takes on the Pentagon in Howard Petrick's "Rambo: The Missing Years" at The Marsh-Berkeley, Oct 20-Dec 10
The Hilarious and True Story of the Private Who Protested the Viet Nam War - While Still in the Army!
"Howard's show is proof you can fight bureaucracy and win. How he does so is told with aplomb and a certain sense of mischievousness." - Vancouver Fringe
"The potency of the show...springs from Petrick's first-hand account of his anti-Vietnam activism from within the army...this comes with an intriguing authenticity."- Winnipeg Free Press
"Petrick delivers...For 60 minutes he has you laughing through the fear." - Winnipeg Uptown
San Francisco. September 26, 2011. The Vancouver Sun calls San Francisco's Howard Petrick, "a guy who really knows how to get up the nose of the war machine." Petrick's Rambo: The Missing Years is an hilarious - and true - account of the misadventures of a Vietnam-era draftee who frustrates the military brass by asserting his right to organize his fellow GIs against the war. Petrick's Rambo - not to be confused in the least with the Sylvester Stallone action figure - plays at The Marsh-Berkeley, 2120 Alston Way in Berkeley, October 20 through December 10.
The story begins as Petrick (aka 'Hanoi Howie") reports for the draft and refuses to fill out the forms, befuddling the military bureaucracy for the first of many times to come. Yet, during his time of service he maintains an unblemished military record, breaks no rules, and continues to carry out his military duties.
Directed by Mark Kenward and developed with David Ford, the show plays on Thursday and Friday at 7:00 pm and Saturday at 8:30 pm from October 20 to December 10, 2011 (press opening November 4, no performance on Thanksgiving Day) at The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, near Shattuck. The public may visit www.themarsh.org or call 415-282-3055.
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
La Colmenita, the National Children's Theater of Cuba, US tour 2011
Whether you are 7 or 70, Abracadabra will move you...Come and enjoy!
ABRACADABRA is not a play. It is an act of Justice and Life, written mainly by children who share the dream of freedom. A teacher invites her students to walk the road to the essences, through five very true stories of heroism and virtue.
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Friday October 28, 7:30pm & Saturday October 29, 2pm
Fort Mason Center, Cowell Theater
Entrance at intersection of Marina Blvd. and Buchanan St., San Francisco, CA 94123
Tickets $20, Students & Seniors $15, Children Free
www.fortmason.org/events/events-details?id=2026
Tickets on line: http://lacolmenita.eventbrite.com
For more information about performances in your area, please visit:
www.lacolmenitacuba.com
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OCCUPY HARLEM MOBILIZATION
We stand in solidarity with Occupiers of Wall Street
SAVE THE DATE
Friday, October 28, 2011
6:30 - 9:30 PM
St. Philip's Church
204 West 134th Street
(Adam Clayton Powell Blvd)
A call to Blacks, Latinos, and immigrants to occupy their communities against predatory investors, displacement, privatization and state repression. Let us assert our Dignity! WE MUST DEFEND OUR COMMUNITIES! THIS IS OUR STRUGGLE, THIS IS OUR MOMENT IN HISTORY. THIS IS PEOPLE'S POWER!
We stand in solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters occupying cities, towns and neighborhoods in the United States. We stand in solidarity with poor and working class people across the globe rising up against criminal predatory finance capital that has no regard for humanity, that has no regard for Mother Earth.
Wall Street, the epicenter of international finance capital, began its financial prosperity with slave profiteering firms, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Wachovia Bank and Bank of America. In fact, Wall Street and most of the city's financial district were built on the burial ground of captured Africans forced into genocidal free labor for centuries, a crime against humanity. The legacy of that crime against humanity manifested today in Jim Crow mass incarceration, a crisis of massive Black unemployment and the greatest loss of wealth for people of color from sub prime lending frauds estimated between $164 billion and $213 billion.
Finance capital plutocrats have always controlled the US political system. They threaten and received a $16 trillion bank bailout, the greatest theft of taxpayers' money in modern US history. And it's only the tip of the iceberg because the banks have an estimated $700 trillion of worthless derivatives, the BULL in the china shop that might very well bring down Wall Street.
Let us, the 99 percenters, build a united people's movement of the poor, the working class and the middle class to reign in the one percent. ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!
Join us for this Occupy Harlem mobilization with guest speakers and the occupy site to be announced.
NO MORE BANK BAILOUTS! NO MORE WARS! WE WANT MONEY FOR JOBS, HOUSING, EDUCATION AND MEDICAL CARE.
Harlem Fightback Against War at Home & Abroad
Telephone: 646-812-5188
Email:harlemfightbackagainstwar@gmail.com
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OCTOBER 29 - #ROBINHOOD GLOBAL MARCH
This is a proposal for the general assemblies of the Occupy movement.
Eight years ago, on February 15, 2003, upwards of 15 million people in sixty countries marched together to stop President Bush from invading Iraq ... a huge chunk of humanity lived for one day without dead time and glimpsed the power of a united people's movement. Now we have an opportunity to repeat that performance on an even larger scale.
On October 29, on the eve of the G20 Leaders Summit in France, let's the people of the world rise up and demand that our G20 leaders immediately impose a 1% #ROBINHOOD tax on all financial transactions and currency trades. Let's send them a clear message: We want you to slow down some of that $1.3-trillion easy money that's sloshing around the global casino each day - enough cash to fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world.
Take this idea to your local general assembly and join your comrades in the streets on October 29.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
occupywallstreet.org / occupywallst.org / occupytogether.org
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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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Occupy Education -- Nov. 16, 2011 -- The 99% Say No Fee Hikes, No Cuts, No Privatization!
Meet at 7 am at UCSF Mission Bay Campus,
1555 6th Street, San Francisco
-- Occupy San Francisco
(adopted at the Oct. 19 General Assembly)
Call by Occupy San Francisco
We the 99% commit ourselves to mobilize against the privatization of public education being forced upon California and the country. The 1% -- the bankers, the UC Regents, the CSU Trustees, and the corporate politicians -- are pushing through vicious fee hikes, layoffs, and budget cuts under the pretext of the financial crisis that they created and profited off of.
They say cuts are inevitable because there are no funds -- but we know that if we really taxed the corporations, ended the wars, or took back the bailout funds, there would be no budget shortfall. They say we have to accept-- but we know that if we take mass collective action, we can defeat these attacks.
On November 16th, the UC Regents will be discussing and possibly voting on a proposal to raise fees up to 81% over the next 4 years -- raising tuition to over $22,000. This is a brutal attack against the 99% of California, particularly for communities of color and working families, and on all sectors of public education, from pre-K-12 to higher education.
We call on all the 99%, on all the Occupy general assemblies and camps throughout Northern California, on all student, labor, and community organizations, to come together in a massive display of non-violent civil disobedience to prevent the UC Regents meeting from taking place, to send the strongest message that we will not accept any fee hikes, cuts, or concessions in any level of public education.
We can win this struggle. Join us!
For more info, contact:
occupyeducation@gmail.com
www.occupyed.org
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CALL FOR AN EMERGENCY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Against the wars of occupation; Against the interference in the internal affairs of countries; In defense of the integrity and sovereignty of nations
Algiers, Algeria -- December 3-5, 2011
Ever since the invasion of Afghanistan by NATO troops in 2001, under the pretext of the "War on Terror," and of Iraq in 2003, in the name of a so-called "struggle for democracy," imperialist governments, under the leadership of the U.S. government, have implemented a strategy based on international wars of occupation and plunder. This strategy has also included widespread interference in the internal affairs of nations, the astronomic growth of war budgets, the assault on democratic rights, and the massive cuts in social spending -- particularly in Europe and the United States.
Today, the governments of the imperialist powers -- specifically the U.S., French, British and Italian governments -- have opened a new front in the war; this time in the Maghreb region of Northern Africa. (*)
A new step has been taken with the further implementation of the U.S. government's Greater Middle East Plan, which was first announced by George W. Bush in 2003 at the time of the launching of the war of occupation and looting of Iraq. It's a plan that aims to dismantle nations along ethnic, religious and communitarian lines -- from Pakistan to Mauritania.
At the very moment when the Tunisian and Egyptian workers and peoples are struggling to exercise their full sovereignty by means of democracy, Libya is descending into chaos after a foreign military intervention under the aegis of NATO -- an intervention that threatens its territorial integrity.
By this means, all the countries of the Maghreb region are now facing threats to their integrity. But this is not all: The implications for the SAHEL countries (parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Eritrea) and, more generally, for sub-Saharan Africa are incalculable. This is because the conflict has gone way beyond the Libyan borders in terms of the movement of weapons -- including heavy weapons massively distributed among Libyan civilians and armed terrorist groups who have openly displayed them in the aftermath of the foreign military intervention.
This is not to mention the devastating effects on the economies of these countries, especially when combined with the massive return of hundreds of thousands of migrants who had been working in Libya, as well as more than one million Libyan refugees, mostly in Tunisia.
In reality, through the foreign military intervention in Libya, the U.S., French, British and Italian imperialists seek to terrorize all the peoples of the region and the world.
No political party genuinely committed to the sovereignty of nations and to democracy can condone, under whatever pretext whatsoever, the imperialist war of occupation and plunder in Libya. No labor organization faithful to the traditions of the international labor movement can condone such a war. That is why we the undersigned reject another war on our African continent -- a continent that is already bloodied and torn apart by so-called ethnic conflicts, which are really nothing but the result of foreign plunder of the continent's natural resources, the repayment of foreign debt, and the various manipulations that result therewith.
We reject any foreign military presence in any form whatsoever in our region of the Maghreb, elsewhere across Northern Africa, and, more generally, on our continent of Africa.
We reject any and all attacks upon sovereign nations.
We reject the foreign looting of the riches and resources of the peoples of the Maghreb and of Africa as a whole. Taking control over these resources -- including through the installation of foreign military bases, starting with AFRICOM (United States Africa Command) -- is the real objective of the war of occupation in Libya, under the auspices of NATO. This is what's really at stake.
We denounce the imperialist designs of the governments that are racing to grab the reconstruction deals for the infrastructure of Libya, destroyed by NATO air strikes - another stake of the war.
We deny the imperialist governments, NATO and the mongers of war and chaos the right to decide the fate of the peoples of the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa and all peoples of the world.
We affirm that because there can be no popular sovereignty without national sovereignty, from the standpoint of democracy it is up to sovereign peoples -- and up to them alone -- to define their present and their future without external interference and foreign military intervention.
We call upon organizations and parties around the world and in our own country that oppose the imperialist wars to join us in supporting and participating in an Emergency International Conference in Algiers on December 3-5, 2011, against the wars of occupation, against the interference in the internal affairs of countries, and in defense of the integrity and sovereignty of nations. (**)
signed/
A. Sidi Said
General Secretary
General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA)
Louisa Hanoune
General Secretary
Workers Party of Algeria (PT)
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(*) The five countries that make up the Maghreb region are Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania.
(**) For more information about the conference or how you can get involved, please contact the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples in Paris at
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UNAC Conference: March 23-25, 2012
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) conference originally scheduled for November, 11-13, 2011, has been rescheduled for March 23-25, 2012, in order to tie in to organizing efforts for building massive protests at the NATO/G-8 Summits in Chicago, May 15-22, and to have sufficient time to generate an action program for the next stage of building a mass movement for social change.
Organizations are invited to endorse this conference by clicking here:
http://www.jotform.com/form/12685942513
Donations are needed for bringing international speakers and to subsidize attendance of students and low income participants. Contributions will be accepted at www.UNACpeace.org.
For the initial conference flyer, click here:
http://nepajac.org/conferenceflyer.pdf
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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NATO/G8 protests in Chicago.
United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNAC, along with other organizations and activists, has formed a coalition to help organize protests in Chicago during the week of May 15 - 22 while NATO and G8 are holding their summit meetings. The new coalition was formed at a meeting of 163 people representing 73 different organization in Chicago on August 28 and is called Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANGATE). For a report on the Chicago meeting, click here: http://nepajac.org/chicagoreport.htm
To add your email to the new CANGATE listserve, send an email to: cangate-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
To have your organization endorse the NATO/G8 protest, please click here:
https://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html
Click here to hear audio of the August 28 meeting:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/54145
Click here for the talk by Marilyn Levin, UNAC co-coordinator at the August 28 meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tHQ7ilDJ8&NR=1
Click here for Pat Hunts welcome to the meeting and Joe Iosbaker's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNGcnBGGfI
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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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WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:
Occupy Oakland Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded
Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded
Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded
Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded
KTVU TV Video of Police violence
http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html
Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded
Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded
Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded
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"A Conversation About Democracy," one of hundreds of clips the makers of a collaborative documentary about Occupy Wall Street have received.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/coming-attractions-occupy-wall-st-the-documentary/?hp
a conversation about democracy from rumur on Vimeo.
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Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to "F**k Off"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aaTGsGdp4c&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Chicago - War Protest March to Obama's 2012 HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTkOincM93s
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
On Oct. 10, 2011, a combination of five feeder marches gathered in Chicago's Loop to protest the Futures & Options and American Mortgage Bankers Association expos. The feeders represented constituencies for jobs, housing, and public schools. They generated a combined march of 7,000, and finally ended up at the Art Institute where the banksters were having a reception dinner. Here are selected scenes and comments from a big spectrum of interests affected by the dictatorship of capital being forced upon the workers of Chicago. Includes the march for homes/housing starting from the Hyatt, the Occupy Chicago location where the teachers union gathered, and the final convergence at the Art Institute. Street interviews. Also, interview/speech by Karen Lewis, President of Chicago Teachers Union. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer Labor Beat. For info: mail@laborbeat.org, www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video, YouTube, or blip.tv and search "Labor Beat". Labor Beat has regular cable slots in Chicago, Evanston, Rockford, Urbana, IL; St. Louis, MO; Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; and Rochester, NY. For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org
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Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related
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Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman) - This Land Is Your Land @OccupyLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ImQ7Ylvdo&feature=player_embedded#!
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#Occupy St. Louis: Bank of America refuses to let customers close accounts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KtI85Zc6Oik
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ALL COLORS (Occupy LA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Zh6hDQC8I
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600+ Protesters March on Bank of America - #Occupy Austin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1JOJ3joOA&feature=player_embedded
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Scenes From #Occupy Las Vegas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=olatH3pSvlk
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#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded
[This truly is an amazing thing to see -- no microphones allowed by NYPD yet the crowd is completely engaged with the speakers. The speeches have to be short because the words are repeated and passed along to those furthest away since they can't hear them. Mohammed's speech is great and there's no doubt that the crowd thinks so, too...Bonnie Weinstein]
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#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.
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#Occupy Wall Street Protesters Marching
[Thousands of NYU Students march to OWS...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJpzx9IqU4
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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Supporting Occupy Wall Street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soV79czwzoo&feature=player_embedded
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Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
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PEACEFUL FEMALE PROTESTORS PENNED IN THE STREET AND MACED!- #OccupyWallStreet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moD2JnGTToA
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Police Raid on Occpy Boston 10 11 11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5G9agQjM60&noredirect=1
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Occupy Boston protesters arrested
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/occupy-boston-protesters-arrested/2011/10/11/gIQAsCzWdL_video.html
Boston police have arrested 129 people during Tuesday's Occupy Boston demonstrations. The early morning arrests were mostly for trespassing. (Oct. 11) (/The Associated Press)
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Video of Boston PD attacking veterans at OWS protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s3zFca5znU&feature=relmfu
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Occupy Frankfurt Germany
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxQP2eMdMU&feature=player_embedded
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Occupy Rome - La manifestazione di Roma October 15th OccupyTogether
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25CWyNnJVOI&feature=player_embedded
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
Free Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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LOWKEY OBAMA NATION (BANIDO DA TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFywomdJTM&feature=related
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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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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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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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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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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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It's time to tell the White House that "We the People" support PFC Bradley Manning's freedom and the UN's investigation into alleged torture in Quantico, VA
On September 22nd, the White House launched a new petition website called "We the People." According to the White House blog, if a petition reaches 5,000 signatures in 30 days, "it will be reviewed by policy experts and you'll receive an official response."
Act now! Sign our petition to the White House: LINK
This is our chance to make sure the people in power know that the public still care about the fate of PFC Bradley Manning, and that we won't let this issue go away until PFC Manning is recognized as the whistleblower he is. It is also an opportunity for us to educate fellow Americans who may not have heard of PFC Manning yet, by boosting our petition to the top of the WhiteHouse.gov site.
The same day the White House launched the petition website, it also unveiled an Open Government Action Plan calling to "Strengthen and Expand Whistleblower Protection for Government Personnel." We consider this ironic given the fact that in April of 2011 the UN Chief Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, was forced to issue a rare reprimand to the U.S. for repeatedly denying his request to meet with alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Manning in an official, unmonitored visit to investigation allegations of his torture in the military brig of Quantico, VA.
We submitted the petition to the "We the People" website earlier this week, and we have already gathered over 1,000 signatures. We are relying on your help so that we can reach the 5,000 mark, and then some.
Signing the petition requires a quick and simple registration process. (Should you encounter technical trouble, please check out the link at the bottom of this e-mail.)
Click here to sign the petition now!
Already signed the petition? You can promote it to your friends on facebook and twitter! Copy and paste the following text: Tell the Obama Administration to let UN investigate torture of alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning! http://wh.gov/40y
We petition the obama administration to:
Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/free-pfc-bradley-manning-accused-wikileaks-whistleblower/kX1GJKsD?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Using the information PFC Bradley Manning allegedly revealed, media outlets have published thousands of stories, detailing countless attempts by governments around the world -- including our own -- to illegally conceal evidence of human rights abuses.
According to the President, "employees with the courage to report wrongdoing are a government's best defense against waste, fraud and abuse."
It appears that PFC Manning acted on his conscience, at great personal risk, to answer the President's call.
However, he has been subjected to extreme confinement conditions that US legal scholars have said may amount to torture.
Therefore, we also ask the Obama administration to stop blocking the UN's chief torture investigator, Juan Mendez, from conducting an official visit with PFC Manning.
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Cristian Fernandez is only 12 years old. And if Florida prosecutor Angela Corey has her way, he'll never leave jail again.
Cristian hasn't had an easy life. He's the same age now as his mother was when he was born. He's a survivor of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. In 2010, Cristian watched his stepfather commit suicide to avoid being charged with abusing Cristian.
Last January, Cristian was wrestling with his 2-year-old brother, David, and accidentally broke David's leg. Despite this, their mother left Cristian with his brother again in March. While the two boys were alone, Cristian allegedly pushed his brother against a bookcase, and David sustained a head injury. After their mother returned home, she waited six hours before taking David to the hospital. David eventually died.
Now Cristian is being charged with first degree murder -- as an adult. He's the youngest person in the history of his Florida county to receive this charge, and his next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.
Melissa Higgins works with kids who get caught up in the criminal justice system in her home state of New Hampshire. When she read about Cristian's case, she was appalled -- so she started a petition on Change.org asking Florida State's Attorney Angela Corey to try Cristian as a child. Please sign Melissa's petition immediately before Cristian's hearing tomorrow.
As part of his prosecution, Cristian has been examined by two different forensic psychiatrists -- each of whom concluded that he was "emotionally underdeveloped but essentially reformable despite a tough life."
Cristian has already been through more than most of us can imagine -- and now the rest of his life is in the hands of a Florida prosecutor who wants to make sure Cristian never leaves jail.
The purpose of the juvenile justice system is to reform kids who haven't gotten a fair shake. If Cristian is sent to adult prison, it will be more than a tragedy for him -- it will also be a signal to other prosecutors that kids' lives are acceptable collateral in the quest to be seen as "tough on crime."
Cristian's next hearing is in just 24 hours. State's Attorney Angela Corey needs to know that her actions are being watched -- please sign the petition asking her not to try Cristian as an adult:
http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult
Thanks for being a change-maker,
- Michael and the Change.org team
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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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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) U.S. Agencies Infiltrating Drug Cartels Across Mexico
"Typically, the officials said, Mexico is kept in the dark about the United States' contacts with its most secret informants - including Mexican law enforcement officers, elected officials and cartel operatives - partly because of concerns about corruption among the Mexican police, and partly because of laws prohibiting American security forces from operating on Mexican soil. ...And the United States, hoping to shore up Mexico's stability and prevent its violence from spilling across the border, has expanded its role in ways unthinkable five years ago, including flying drones in Mexican skies."
By GINGER THOMPSON
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/world/americas/united-states-infiltrating-criminal-groups-across-mexico.html?hp
2) Outside Cleveland, Snapshots of Poverty's Surge in the Suburbs
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/suburban-poverty-surge-challenges-communities.html?hp
3) Before Qaddafi's Death, U.S. Debated His Future
By MARK LANDLER
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/politics/before-qaddafis-death-us-debated-his-future.html?ref=world
4) Screen Time Higher Than Ever for Children
By TAMAR LEWIN
October 25, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/screen-time-higher-than-ever-for-children-study-finds.html?ref=us
5) Police Trial Begins for Officers in Bell Shooting; Two Offer to Retire
"Of the five officers who fired a combined total of 50 bullets at Mr. Bell's car, only one, Detective Paul Headley, has left the Police Department, a police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said. But now two more are likely to follow: Detective Oliver and Detective Cooper have recently agreed to retire and forfeit some pay related to accumulated vacation days to settle the department's internal disciplinary case against them, the president of the detectives union, Michael J. Palladino, said."
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/nyregion/police-trial-begins-for-officers-in-sean-bell-shooting-two-offer-to-retire.html?ref=nyregion
6) In Cautious Times, Banks Flooded With Cash
By ERIC DASH and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/business/banks-flooded-with-cash-they-cant-profitably-use.html?ref=business
7) Police Fire Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in Oakland
By MALIA WOLLAN, J. DAVID GOODMAN and SARAH MASLIN NIR
[there are videos and graphic photos at this site of the terrible violence done to demonstrators by the Oakland PD. It's like what they did to the ILWU a few years back also in Oakland. Horrible but everyone should see it...bw]
October 26, 2011, 12:22 am
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/police-said-to-fire-tear-gas-at-protesters-in-oakland-calif/?hp
8) Six First-Hand Observations From Last Night's Chaos in Oakland
By Joshua Holland
AlterNet
October26, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/685959/six_first-hand_observations_from_last_night%27s_chaos_in_oakland/#paragraph6
9) Oakland Occupy Dispersed, but then...
Oakland Erupts!
By Chris Kinder
Police Attack Protestors In the Streets
Oakland, very late on Tuesday the 25th of October 2011
10) "We Are One Hand"
Oakland Commune Enters World Stage
3,000-Strong Assembly Calls for:
General Strike In Oakland Wednesday, November 2!
From Oakland, late on 26th October 2011 --
By Chris Kinder
11) Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center
By Pam Martens, CounterPunch
Posted on October 26, 2011, Printed on October 27, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152875/wall_street_firms_spy_on_protesters_in_tax-funded_center
12) Oakland Police Violence Raises the Stakes for the OWS Movement
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on October 27, 2011, Printed on October 27, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152879/oakland_police_violence_raises_the_stakes_for_the_ows_movement
13) Iraq War veteran critically wounded by Oakland police during Occupy crackdown
_Courage to Resist
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
Veteran shot in the face by police projectile at Occupy Oakland protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lbbWAgBy7E&feature=player_embedded
14) Cities Begin Cracking Down on 'Occupy' Protests
By JESSE McKINLEY and ABBY GOODNOUGH
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/oakland-and-other-cities-crack-down-on-occupy-protests.html?hp
15) Libya's Interim Leader Asks NATO to Stay Through the End of 2011
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and RICK GLADSTONE
October 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/world/middleeast/libya-leader-wants-nato-presence-through-2011.html?ref=world
16) Drone Strike in Pakistan Kills Brother of Militant Commander
[So, if your relative is accused of a crime, the U.S. government has the right to kill you, your cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, mothere or fathers...that's what U.S. "democracy" looks like!!!...bw]
By SALMAN MASOOD
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/asia/drone-strike-in-pakistan-kills-brother-of-taliban-fighter.html?ref=world
17) #OccupyWallSt Roundup, Day 41
By JILLIAN DUNHAM
October 27, 2011, 2:12 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/occupywallst-roundup-day-41/?ref=nyregion
18) Brazilian Amazon Groups Invade Site of Dam Project
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/americas/brazilian-amazon-groups-try-to-stop-dam-project.html?ref=world
19) Outrage Over Veteran Injured at 'Occupy' Protest
By JESSE McKINLEY and MALIA WOLLAN
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/veterans-injury-at-occupy-protest-prompts-outrage.html?ref=us
20) Fire Inspectors Remove Generators and Gasoline at Zuccotti Park
By KATE TAYLOR and AL BAKER
October 28, 2011, 10:09 am
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/index.html
21) Executive Pay Rises 49% at British Companies
By JULIA WERDIGIER
October 28, 2011, 8:42 am
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/board-pay-rises-49-at-british-companies/?ref=business
22) Chrysler CEO Says 2-Class Wage Structure Has to Go
[Of course, the bosses natural next step to two-tier wages is to knock out the top tier and lower everyone's wages! Way to go, Capitalism! ...bw]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/28/business/AP-US-Chrysler-Wages.html?src=busln
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1) U.S. Agencies Infiltrating Drug Cartels Across Mexico
"Typically, the officials said, Mexico is kept in the dark about the United States' contacts with its most secret informants - including Mexican law enforcement officers, elected officials and cartel operatives - partly because of concerns about corruption among the Mexican police, and partly because of laws prohibiting American security forces from operating on Mexican soil. ...And the United States, hoping to shore up Mexico's stability and prevent its violence from spilling across the border, has expanded its role in ways unthinkable five years ago, including flying drones in Mexican skies."
By GINGER THOMPSON
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/world/americas/united-states-infiltrating-criminal-groups-across-mexico.html?hp
WASHINGTON - American law enforcement agencies have significantly built up networks of Mexican informants that have allowed them to secretly infiltrate some of that country's most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations, according to security officials on both sides of the border.
As the United States has opened new law enforcement and intelligence outposts across Mexico in recent years, Washington's networks of informants have grown there as well, current and former officials said. They have helped Mexican authorities capture or kill about two dozen high-ranking and midlevel drug traffickers, and sometimes have given American counternarcotics agents access to the top leaders of the cartels they are trying to dismantle.
Typically, the officials said, Mexico is kept in the dark about the United States' contacts with its most secret informants - including Mexican law enforcement officers, elected officials and cartel operatives - partly because of concerns about corruption among the Mexican police, and partly because of laws prohibiting American security forces from operating on Mexican soil.
"The Mexicans sort of roll their eyes and say we know it's happening, even though it's not supposed to be happening," said Eric L. Olson, an expert on Mexican security matters at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
"That's what makes this so hard," he said. "The United States is using tools in a country where officials are still uncomfortable with those tools."
In recent years, Mexican attitudes about American involvement in matters of national security have softened, as waves of drug-related violence have left about 40,000 people dead. And the United States, hoping to shore up Mexico's stability and prevent its violence from spilling across the border, has expanded its role in ways unthinkable five years ago, including flying drones in Mexican skies.
The efforts have been credited with breaking up several of Mexico's largest cartels into smaller - and presumably less dangerous - crime groups. But the violence continues, as does the northward flow of illegal drugs.
While using informants remains a largely clandestine affair, several recent cases have shed light on the kinds of investigations they have helped crack, including a plot this month in which the United States accused an Iranian-American car salesman of trying to hire killers from a Mexican drug cartel, known as Los Zetas, to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
American officials said Drug Enforcement Administration informants with links to the cartels helped the authorities to track down several suspects linked to the February murder of a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Jaime J. Zapata, who is alleged to have been shot to death by members of Los Zetas in central Mexico.
The D.E.A.'s dealings with informants and drug traffickers - sometimes, officials acknowledged, they are one and the same - are at the center of proceedings in a federal courthouse in Chicago, where one of the highest-ranking leaders of the Sinaloa cartel is scheduled to go on trial next year.
And last month, a federal judge in El Paso sentenced a midlevel leader of the Sinaloa cartel to life in prison after he was found guilty on drug and conspiracy charges. He was accused of working as a kind of double agent, providing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with information about the movements of a rival cartel in order to divert attention from his own trafficking activities.
As important as informants have been, complicated ethical issues tend to arise when law enforcement officers make deals with criminals. Few informants, law enforcement officials say, decide to start providing information to the government out of altruism; typically, they are caught committing a crime and want to mitigate their legal troubles, or are essentially taking bribes to inform on their colleagues.
Morris Panner, a former assistant United States attorney who is a senior adviser at the Center for International Criminal Justice at Harvard Law School, said some of the recent cases involving informants highlight those issues and demonstrate that the threats posed by Mexican narcotics networks go far beyond the drug trade.
"Mexican organized crime groups have morphed from drug trafficking organizations into something new and far more dangerous," Mr. Panner said. "The Zetas now are active in extortion, human trafficking, money laundering, and increasingly, anything a violent criminal organization can do to make money, whether in Mexico, Guatemala or, it appears, the U.S."
Because of the clandestine nature of their communications with informants, and the potential for diplomatic flare-ups between the United States and Mexico, American officials were reluctant to provide any details about the scope of their confidential sources south of the border.
Over the past two years, officials said, D.E.A. agents in Houston managed to develop "several highly placed confidential sources with direct access" to important leaders of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. This paid informant network is a centerpiece of the Houston office's efforts to infiltrate the "command and control" ranks of the two groups.
One of those paid informants was the man who authorities say was approached last spring by a man charged in Iran's alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Law enforcement documents say the informant told his handlers that an Iranian-American, Mansour J. Arbabsiar, had reached out to him to ask whether Los Zetas would be willing to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States and elsewhere.
Authorities would provide only vague details about the informant and his connections to Los Zetas, saying that he had been charged in the United States with narcotics crimes and that those charges had been dropped because he had "previously provided reliable and independently corroborated information to federal law enforcement agents" that "led to numerous seizures of narcotics."
The Justice Department has been more forthcoming about the D.E.A.'s work with informants in a case against Jesús Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as Vicentillo. Officials describe Mr. Zambada-Niebla as a logistics coordinator for the Sinaloa cartel, considered one of the world's most important drug trafficking groups. His lawyers have argued that he was an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, which offered him immunity in exchange for his cooperation.
The D.E.A. has denied that allegation, and the Justice Department took the rare step of disclosing the agency's contacts with him in court documents. The intermediary was Humberto Loya-Castro, who was both a confidant to the cartel's kingpin, Joaquín Guzmán, known as El Chapo, and an informant to the D.E.A.
The documents do not say when the relationship between the agency and Mr. Loya-Castro began, but they indicate that because of his cooperation, the D.E.A. dismissed a 13-year-old conspiracy charge against him in 2008.
In 2009, the documents said, Mr. Loya-Castro arranged a meeting between two D.E.A. agents and Mr. Zambada-Niebla, who was floating an offer to negotiate some kind of cooperation agreement. But on the day of the meeting, the agents' supervisors canceled it, expressing "concern about American agents meeting with a high-level cartel member like Zambada-Niebla."
Mr. Zambada-Niebla and Mr. Loya-Castro showed up at the agents' hotel anyway. The D.E.A. agents sent Mr. Zambada-Niebla away without making any promises, the documents said. A few hours later, Mr. Zambada-Niebla was captured by the Mexican police, and was extradited to the United States in February 2010.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on organized crime at the Brookings Institution, said that while some had criticized the D.E.A. for entertaining "deals with the devil," she saw the Zambada case as an important intelligence coup. Even in an age of high-tech surveillance, she said, there is no substitute for human sources' feeding authorities everything from what targeted traffickers like to eat to where they sleep most nights.
A former senior counternarcotics official echoed that thought.
"A D.E.A. agent's job, first and foremost, is to get inside the body of those criminal organizations he or she is investigating," the former official said, asking not to be identified because he occasionally does consulting work in Mexico. "Nothing provides that microscopic view more than a host that opens the door."
Charlie Savage contributed reporting.
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2) Outside Cleveland, Snapshots of Poverty's Surge in the Suburbs
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/suburban-poverty-surge-challenges-communities.html?hp
PARMA HEIGHTS, Ohio - The poor population in America's suburbs - long a symbol of a stable and prosperous American middle class - rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations.
The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010.
"The growth has been stunning," said Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, who conducted the analysis of census data. "For the first time, more than half of the metropolitan poor live in suburban areas."
As a result, suburban municipalities - once concerned with policing, putting out fires and repairing roads - are confronting a new set of issues, namely how to help poor residents without the array of social programs that cities have, and how to get those residents to services without public transportation. Many suburbs are facing these challenges with the tightest budgets in years.
"The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don't live here anymore," said Edward Hill, dean of the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.
This shift has helped redefine the image of the suburbs. "The suburbs were always a place of opportunity - a better school, a bigger house, a better job," said Scott Allard, an associate professor at the University of Chicago who focuses on social welfare policy and poverty. "Today, that's not as true as the popular mythology would have us believe."
Since 2000, the poverty roll has increased by five million in the suburbs, with large rises in metropolitan areas as different as Colorado Springs and Greensboro, N.C. Over the decade, Midwestern suburbs ranked high; recently, the rise has been sharpest in communities the housing collapse hit the hardest, like Cape Coral, Fla., and Riverside, Calif., according to the Brookings analysis.
Nearly 60 percent of Cleveland's poor, once concentrated in its urban core, now live in its suburbs, up from 46 percent in 2000. Nationwide, 55 percent of the poor population in metropolitan areas is now in the suburbs, up from 49 percent.
Poverty is new in Parma Heights, a quiet suburb of cul-de-sacs and clipped lawns, and asking for help can be hard. The Parma Heights Food Pantry, which began serving several dozen families a month in 2006, and now helps 260, draws a stream of casualties from the moribund economy. Many never needed food relief before.
Like Mary W., 59, who has worked all her life, most recently at a tire company in Cleveland, and was always the one to remind colleagues to donate to charity. Now she is the one who receives it.
When she first came to the pantry, "I cried my eyes out," said Mary, who asked that her last name not be used because she did not want her children to know about her financial troubles.
At Vineyard Community Church in Wickliffe, another Cleveland suburb, Brent Paulson, the pastor, said he had to post an employee in the driveway the day the church's food bank was open to coax people inside, they were so ashamed to ask for help.
In a sign of just how far the economic distress had spread, one volunteer saw his former boss come to the pantry, Mr. Paulson said.
The Cleveland Food Bank, which serves six counties, doubled its distribution between 2005 and 2010. "There's this sense of surprise," said Anne Goodman, the director, "this feeling that this has got to be a mistake. It has got to be a bad dream."
Calls to the United Way social services hot line from suburban areas in northeast Ohio more than doubled from 2005 to 2010, outstripping the increase in cities. "We are seeing a rise in need in places we never expected it," said Stephen Wertheim, director of the hotline, First Call for Help.
Poverty has been growing in the suburbs for years - along with the population. But the 53 percent increase in poverty far outstripped the 14 percent population increase in the past decade, speeding the change in their status as upper-middle-class enclaves. They have been attracting immigrants following construction jobs and families from cities seeking inexpensive housing as suburbs aged.
Federal vouchers to get poor people into private housing also contributed, Ms. Kneebone said. Cleveland was No. 15 among the country's top 100 metropolitan areas for increase in suburban share of vouchers.
Urban problems have appeared. In Penn Hills, a suburb of Pittsburgh where people have always driven, poor residents walking near yards and bus stops have created trouble with litter, said Alexandra Murphy, a Princeton doctoral student studying suburban poverty.
Warrensville Heights, a suburb southeast of Cleveland, was pristine when Fran Matthews moved there in 1987, with good schools, manicured lawns and middle-class neighbors, she said. Now for-sale signs dot overgrown yards. Break-ins are on the rise, though crime is still far lower than in the city. Over all, the suburban poverty rate - 11.4 percent in 2010 - is still far below the city rate of 20.9 percent, according to Ms. Kneebone.
"Now when you come home, you have to look around before you get out of the car," Ms. Matthews said.
The changes have affected the school system, she said, and her grandson now attends a charter school in Cleveland.
The double punch of the recession and the foreclosure crisis - which hit Cleveland and its suburbs particularly hard - has dragged middle-class people down the income ladder. As defined by the Census Bureau, the poverty line for a family of four was $22,314 last year.
"This community is middle class, but right on the line," said Brad Sellers, a retired professional basketball player who grew up in Warrensville Heights and is running for mayor. "Any dramatic downturn can send you over the edge."
The unemployment rate among black Americans was 16 percent in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics - nearly double the national rate, a painful statistic in a suburb that is majority black.
"Where's that 9 percent?" Mr. Sellers asked. "Not here."
Some communities resist the idea that poverty exists. When Ann George, who runs the Parma Heights pantry with stalwart volunteers, speaks at churches and community gatherings, "I see the skepticism on people's faces," she said. "They say, 'This is Parma Heights, not Cleveland.' "
Other suburbs are adapting. In Maple Heights, Mayor Jeffrey Lansky embraced the idea of a food bank, setting aside a space for it in 2008 and having the Fire Department help renovate it. The Cuyahoga County Public Library now runs after-school homework centers with snacks from the food bank, aimed at the growing population of poor children.
Edward FitzGerald, the executive of Cuyahoga County, argued that the increase in the suburban poor population could help lead to a fundamental change in local government. For years Cleveland had most of the population - and resources - but policy should reflect the flip in favor of the county, he said.
And with the state slashing funds, counties and the suburbs they contain will have to ramp up social services and economic development on their own, many for the first time.
"You're talking about governing systems that have never really done this before," Mr. FitzGerald said.
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3) Before Qaddafi's Death, U.S. Debated His Future
By MARK LANDLER
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/politics/before-qaddafis-death-us-debated-his-future.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - Last Wednesday evening, the White House convened a 90-minute meeting to tackle a looming, delicate question: What should be done with the Libyan dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, if he were captured alive, either in Libya or in a neighboring country?
Less than 24 hours later, the debate was moot. Colonel Qaddafi was dead, after being pulled alive from a drain pipe and succumbing later to gunshot wounds. The Libyan authorities have now pledged to investigate how he was killed.
But the White House session - part of an exercise to game out Libya's future - and a meeting two days earlier between Libya's interim leaders and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton attested to the deep sensitivity of the issue and the ambivalence it stirred on both sides.
There were sharp divisions within Libya's Transitional National Council about what to do with Colonel Qaddafi, according to American officials. Some argued that he should be tried in the country; others said it would impose too big a burden on an interim administration dealing with so many other problems.
The ambivalence was mirrored on the American side, with some in the administration concerned that Libya did not have the resources to conduct a proper trial, while others worried that pressuring the Libyans to send him to an international tribunal in The Hague would be viewed as encroaching on their sovereignty.
"The delicate question was how to balance Libyan sovereignty with a frank assessment of their capability to hold a fair trial with international standards," said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "We were trying to walk a fine line."
Mrs. Clinton, officials said, laid out the options for Libya, explaining the principles behind the International Criminal Court, to which the United States does not belong but with which it has worked more closely under President Obama. She told the Libyan officials that the decision of where to hold a trial was up to them.
The United States is offering the Libyans help in putting in place a justice system that could handle a trial of that magnitude. It also made plans for how the international community should react if Colonel Qaddafi obtained sanctuary in a third country, like Chad or Equatorial Guinea.
The administration was drawing on lessons from past cases: Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader accused of war crimes, who was returned to Liberia by Nigeria, where he had fled, and put on trial in The Hague; and Laurent Gbagbo, the deposed leader of Ivory Coast, who is awaiting trial at home.
Putting the colonel on trial, either in Libya or The Hague, was one of a host of situations for which the administration planned; others included securing chemical weapons and portable antiaircraft missiles and preventing a humanitarian disaster if Colonel Qaddafi poisoned the water supply in Tripoli.
Derek Chollet, senior director of strategic planning for the National Security Council, who ran the White House task force, described the challenge as "trying to anticipate things, and see around every corner we possibly could."
Many of the issues were similar to those that followed the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the Obama administration is eager to contrast its approach to that of the Bush administration, where a lack of planning for the aftermath of toppling Mr. Hussein contributed to looting and rampant lawlessness.
"It was unlike Iraq, where we actually owned the process," Mr. Chollet said, alluding to the thousands of American troops and billions of dollars of aid in Iraq. "We had to persuade and push other people."
The national security adviser, Tom Donilon, instituted the planning meetings in March, the same month Mr. Obama decided on a limited role in the NATO air campaign to support the rebels.
The group, consisting of officials from the State Department, Justice Department, the Pentagon and other agencies, broke into smaller teams to focus on specific problems, like the looting of portable antiaircraft missiles, which could be used to shoot down civilian planes, from bunkers seized by the rebels.
When anti-Qaddafi forces swarmed into the capital in late August, Mr. Chollet said, the group had already set out the top 10 decisions that the president needed to make. Though Mr. Obama came under criticism for the length of the Libya campaign, officials said it was helpful to plan for every conceivable outcome.
The killing of Colonel Qaddafi, they said, was one of the three scenarios considered last Wednesday.
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4) Screen Time Higher Than Ever for Children
By TAMAR LEWIN
October 25, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/screen-time-higher-than-ever-for-children-study-finds.html?ref=us
Jaden Lender, 3, sings along softly with the "Five Little Monkeys" app on the family iPad, and waggles his index finger along with the monkey doctor at the warning, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" He likes crushing the ants in "Ant Smasher," and improving his swing in the golf app. But he is no app addict: when the one featuring Grover from Sesame Street does not work right, Jaden says, "Come on, iPad!'" - then wanders happily off to play with his train set.
"I'll lie to myself that these are skill builders,'" said his father, Keith Lender, who has downloaded dozens of tablet and smart phone apps for Jaden and his 1-year-old brother, Dylan. "No, I'm not lying," he said, correcting himself. "Jaden's really learning hand-eye coordination from the golf game, and it beats the hell out of sitting and watching television."
Despite the American Academy of Pediatricians' longstanding recommendations to the contrary, children under 8 are spending more time than ever in front of screens, according to a study scheduled for release Tuesday.
The report also documents for the first time an emerging "app gap" in which affluent children are likely to use mobile educational games while those in low-income families are the most likely to have televisions in their bedrooms.
The study, by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco nonprofit group, is the first of its kind since apps became widespread, and the first to look at screen time from birth. It found that almost half the families with incomes above $75,000 had downloaded apps specifically for their young children, compared with one in eight of the families earning less than $30,000. More than a third of those low-income parents said they did not know what an "app" - short for application - was.
"The app gap is a big deal and a harbinger of the future," said James Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, which had 1,384 parents surveyed this spring for the study. "It's the beginning of an important shift, as parents increasingly are handing their iPhones to their 1 1/2-year-old kid as a shut-up toy. And parents who check their e-mail three times on the way to the bus stop are constantly modeling that behavior, so it's only natural the kids want to use mobile devices too."
The study found that fully half of children under 8 had access to a mobile device like a smartphone, a video iPod, or an iPad or other tablet. Of course, television is still the elephant in the children's media room, accounting for the largest share of their screen time: about half of children under 2 watch TV or DVDs on a typical day, according to the study, and those who do spend an average of almost two hours in front of the screen. Among all children under 2, the average is 53 minutes a day of television or DVDs - more than twice the 23 minutes a day the survey found children are read to.
And almost a third of children under 2 have televisions in their bedrooms, a substantial increase from 2005, when the Kaiser Foundation found that 19 percent of children ages 6 months to 23 months had them. In families with annual incomes under $30,000, the new study found, 64 percent of children under 8 had televisions in their rooms, compared with 20 percent in families with incomes above $75,000.
Computers are common as well: about 12 percent of children 2 to 4 use them every day, and 24 percent at least once a week, the study found; among those 5 to 8, 22 percent use a computer daily, 46 percent more once a week. On average, the children who use computers started doing so at age 3 1/2.
The report found that despite more than a decade of warnings from the American Academy of Pediatricians that screen time offers no benefits for children under 2, "only 14 percent of the parents surveyed said their doctor had ever discussed media use with them," said Vicky Rideout, its author.
"I get the impression that a lot of parents do not take the recommendation that seriously," she said. "Part of it may be wishful thinking. Parents like their media, and it's really tough to resist the lure of putting your kid in front of something that purports to be educational and will keep them occupied."
The media landscape changes so rapidly that up-to-date data can be hard to come by. "The last time we did a study, there were no apps," Ms. Rideout noted.
Some tech-savvy parents use different platforms to tailor their children's screen time.
Jeannie Crowley, who helps faculty members at the Bank Street College of Education integrate technology into teaching, got rid of television at home because of the ads and branding.
But Ms. Crowley hands her iPad over to her 19-month-old daughter, Maggie, to play with the Smule piano app. And at bedtime, the family often watches "30 Rock" on the computer, Maggie dancing to the opening music. The toddler also loves YouTube videos of barking dogs.
And she is also adept with her mother's smartphone.
"She learned how to unlock it, observationally, about two months ago." Ms Crowley said. "About two weeks ago, she was on the train with me, and she popped the slide bar. And I've seen her use the bottom of her sweater to rub the screen clean, because she knows that's something Mommy does."
Most of all, Maggie likes to watch the cellphone videos her parents take of her stomping on leaves, getting sticky sap on her hands or wearing her new pink polka dot pajamas.
"We can look at ducks, and afterwards, we can look at the pictures and talk about ducks," Ms. Crowley said. "It's a way to reinforce her language skills, and let the other parent see what her day was like."
David Wingard downloaded his first baby app when his son, Alexander, was 8 months old.
"It was a free app a friend showed me, doodle something, where the screen is black, but when you move your finger across the screen it changes colors," Mr. Wingard recalled. "Alex thought it was cool for a few seconds, then he tried to put it in his mouth."
Now a more mature 14 months, Alex's attention span for apps has grown. "If we're stuck on the subway, he'll play with them for three, maybe five, minutes," Mr. Wingard said.
He and his wife still don't use them much, he said: "We're scared he'll break the phone."
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5) Police Trial Begins for Officers in Bell Shooting; Two Offer to Retire
"Of the five officers who fired a combined total of 50 bullets at Mr. Bell's car, only one, Detective Paul Headley, has left the Police Department, a police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said. But now two more are likely to follow: Detective Oliver and Detective Cooper have recently agreed to retire and forfeit some pay related to accumulated vacation days to settle the department's internal disciplinary case against them, the president of the detectives union, Michael J. Palladino, said."
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/nyregion/police-trial-begins-for-officers-in-sean-bell-shooting-two-offer-to-retire.html?ref=nyregion
Two detectives who fired their guns in the police fusillade of 50 bullets that killed Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man, in 2006, are offering to retire from the New York Police Department, while two other police officers involved in the shooting defended their actions at a departmental trial that began on Monday.
The shooting, which occurred in the early morning hours of what was supposed to have been Mr. Bell's wedding day as he and two friends were driving away from a strip club in Jamaica, Queens, led to intense criticism of the tactics of undercover officers.
In 2008, three of the five officers who fired at Mr. Bell - Marc Cooper, Gescard F. Isnora and Michael Oliver - were tried on criminal charges in State Supreme Court in Queens. In acquitting the three, the judge hearing the case said, "Questions of carelessness and incompetence must be left to other forums."
Those forums have since included Federal District Court, where Mr. Bell's relatives and two friends injured in the shooting settled a civil lawsuit with the city for more than $7 million, and now the trial rooms on the fourth floor of Police Headquarters, where the department metes out discipline to officers found to have acted outside of internal guidelines.
In the department's trial room on Monday, before an audience that included Mr. Bell's fiancée, two officers, Detective Isnora and Officer Michael Carey, fought for their jobs, which currently involve clerical duties. Detective Isnora's lawyer, Philip E. Karasyk, pursued the same defense that led to the acquittal in 2008: that Detective Isnora believed that Mr. Bell and his friends were planning a drive-by shooting, based on a threat that the detective had heard outside the strip club.
But the police lawyer prosecuting the case, Adam Sheldon, argued that Detective Isnora's subsequent actions - confronting Mr. Bell's car with his gun drawn and shooting 11 times after Mr. Bell tried to peel away, clipping Detective Isnora in the process - constituted a lack of judgment.
"Not only were these actions improper, they were dangerous," said Mr. Sheldon, who called the shooting "one of the most tragic" in the department's history.
As for Officer Carey, Mr. Sheldon said he should not have fired without more evidence that Mr. Bell or his friends, who did not in fact have guns, were firing on the police.
"By his own admission, he never saw a gun," Mr. Sheldon said of Officer Carey, who fired three shots.
But Mr. Carey's lawyer, Stephen C. Worth, said Officer Carey was relying on cues from fellow officers that suggested Mr. Bell and his friends presented a danger. Those indicators, Mr. Worth said, included a report over the police radio of a gun, as well as the fact that Detective Isnora was firing at the car.
"That's an overwhelming amount of reason to fire his weapon," Mr. Worth said in Officer Carey's defense.
Of the five officers who fired a combined total of 50 bullets at Mr. Bell's car, only one, Detective Paul Headley, has left the Police Department, a police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said. But now two more are likely to follow: Detective Oliver and Detective Cooper have recently agreed to retire and forfeit some pay related to accumulated vacation days to settle the department's internal disciplinary case against them, the president of the detectives union, Michael J. Palladino, said. He added that the negotiations were "in the works" and had not been made final.
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6) In Cautious Times, Banks Flooded With Cash
By ERIC DASH and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
October 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/business/banks-flooded-with-cash-they-cant-profitably-use.html?ref=business
Bankers have an odd-sounding problem these days: they are awash in cash.
Droves of consumers and businesses unnerved by the lurching markets have been taking their money out of risky investments and socking it away in bank accounts, where it does little to stimulate the economy.
Though financial institutions are not yet turning away customers at the door, they are trying to discourage some depositors from parking that cash with them. With fewer attractive lending and investment options for that money, it is harder for the banks to turn it around for a healthy profit.
In August, Bank of New York Mellon warned that it would impose a 0.13 percentage point fee on the deposits of certain clients who were moving huge piles of cash in and out of their accounts.
Others are finding more subtle ways to stem the flow. Besides paying next to nothing on consumer checking accounts and certificates of deposit, some giants - like JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo - are passing along part of the cost of federal deposit insurance to some of their small-business customers.
Even some community banks, vaunted for their little-guy orientation, no longer seem to mind if you take your money somewhere else.
"We just don't need it anymore," said Don Sturm, the owner of American National Bank and Premier Bank, community lenders with 43 branches in Colorado and three other states. "If you had more money than you knew what to do with, would you want more?"
Like Mr. Sturm's banks, Hyde Park Savings Bank, a community lender in the Boston suburbs, lowered its C.D. rates this spring to encourage less-profitable customers to move on. As a result, Hyde Park shed about 1,000 of its 35,000 C.D. holders, preferring customers who also had a checking or savings account.
So far, banks have reported a modest increase in lending this year. Critics, however, fault the industry for being too tight-fisted - no matter how much bankers insist that demand is anemic, especially from the most creditworthy borrowers.
But the banks' swelling coffers are throwing a wrench in efforts to get the economy back on track.
Ordinarily, in a more robust environment, an influx of deposits would be used to finance new businesses, expansion plans and home purchases. But in today's fragile economy, the bulk of the new money is doing little to spur growth. Of the $41.8 billion of deposits that Wells Fargo collected in the third quarter, for example, only about $8.2 billion was earmarked to finance new loans.
Normally, banks earn healthy profits by taking in deposits and then investing them or lending them out at substantially higher interest rates than what they pay savers. But that traditional banking model has broken down.
Today, banks are paying savers almost nothing for their deposits. As it turns out, the banks are not minting money on those piles of cash. Lending levels have not bounced back from only a few years ago and the loans going out are not keeping pace with the deposits rushing in.
What's more, the profitability of each new loan has shrunk. Because the Federal Reserve effectively sets the floor off which banks price their lending rates, its decision to lower interest rates to near zero means the banks earn less money on the deposits they lend out.
The banks are also earning less on the deposits left over to invest. They typically park that money overnight at the Fed for a pittance, or invest it in ultra-safe securities, like bonds backed by the government. But with interest rates so low, the yields on those investments have been crushed.
In other words, what bankers call the spread is being squeezed - they are making less money on each dollar they hold. "It's very hard for us to take deposits and make any meaningful spread," said William D. Parent, Hyde Park's chief executive.
In fact, the pressure on spreads poses an even greater threat to the banks' earnings than the new financial regulations. Oliver Wyman, a financial services consulting firm, estimates that the industry's deposit revenue will shrink by more than $55 billion from its precrisis levels, dwarfing the roughly $15 billion in lost fee income from debit card and overdraft restrictions.
In the meantime, retail branch economics are being upended, forcing banks to close branches and lay off thousands of employees. "If you can't put the money to work, what are you going to do with it?" Chris Kotowski, a bank analyst with Oppenheimer, asked. "You're sending monthly statements, you've got people at branches. All that stuff costs money."
Before the financial crisis, banks were desperately scrambling for deposits, offering free iPods and interest rates averaging more than 3 percent. New branches sprouted up to gather that cash.
The banks that survived were flooded with cash as depositors flocked to the relative safety of government-insured accounts. The average one-year C.D. rate today is less than 0.4 percent, according to Bankrate.com.
Even as interest rates have fallen, bank deposits have grown at an impressive clip of almost 5 percent a year, according to Trepp, a financial research firm. This summer, as businesses and consumers withdrew their money from stocks, bonds and money market mutual funds because of fears about the debt crisis in Europe and another downturn in the United States, deposits surged to a record level of more than $8.9 trillion.
Brent Brodeski, an investment adviser in Rockford, Ill., said his clients were leaving more money in cash. "They're only making a quarter percent, but they figure it's better not to make money than to lose it," he said.
Rather than fight this, some bankers insist the avalanche of new money will pay off when the economy improves or if it strengthens customer relationships.
"Having a large number of deposits, and being able to grow them, is a great thing to have," said Timothy J. Sloan, Wells Fargo's chief financial officer.
Conservative even by banker standards, Mr. Sturm said he had pared his banks' portfolio of loans by more than two-thirds to some $500 million over the last few years because of concerns that the loans could go bad. He scaled back new mortgages to home buyers in Aspen, Telluride and other luxury Colorado ski resort areas. And he said fewer businesses in Denver and Colorado Springs were seeking financing.
Yet, his banks remain flush with over $1.55 billion of deposits. He would like to make more loans so that he could earn more money, he said, but there are too few of what he calls "quality borrowers," whose credit record, income and assets suggest they would reliably pay him back.
His next option is to invest those deposits in low-risk securities, like mortgage bonds backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which in recent years paid as much as 3.75 percent. Today, they are paying, on average, less than 1.15 percent. Deposits parked at the Fed fetch a mere quarter of a percentage point. Federal deposit insurance premiums and other account maintenance costs cut deeply into his returns.
As a result, Mr. Sturm is keeping savings rates below 0.15 percent and setting C.D. rates below those of nearby competitors. "I don't want to take deposits in and lose money," he said.
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7) Police Fire Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in Oakland
By MALIA WOLLAN, J. DAVID GOODMAN and SARAH MASLIN NIR
[there are videos and graphic photos at this site of the terrible violence done to demonstrators by the Oakland PD. It's like what they did to the ILWU a few years back also in Oakland. Horrible but everyone should see it...bw]
October 26, 2011, 12:22 am
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/police-said-to-fire-tear-gas-at-protesters-in-oakland-calif/?hp
Last Updated 9:48 a.m. Riot police in Oakland dispersed hundreds of protesters with tear gas on Tuesday night as crowds tried to re-enter a plaza outside of City Hall that the authorities had cleared of an encampment earlier in the day.
After the forceful response to the Occupy Oakland protests, officers in Atlanta moved in early Wednesday morning to clear a similar camp in that city's central Woodruff Park. At least 53 people connected to the protest group Occupy Atlanta were arrested, and the park was cleared by 2 a.m. Eastern time, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
By Wednesday morning in downtown Oakland, a dim cloud of gas still hung in the air over Frank Ogawa Plaza, images broadcast on CNN showed. A small number of police in riot gear stood by barricades around the plaza and a handful of protesters held signs nearby.
"It sounded like bombs," said Joaquin Jutt, 24, a digital animator who was among the protesters on Tuesday night. "There was a stinging and burning in my throat, eyes and nostrils. My eyes burned like there was hot sauce in them."
Protesters, many affiliated with the group Occupy Oakland, can be seen scurrying away from billowing clouds of gas and what appear to be flash grenades in video recorded from a high vantage point in an office nearby.
The clashes on Tuesday night occurred after the police removed about 170 demonstrators who had been staying in the area after being warned that such a camp was illegal and that they faced arrest if they remained, the police said in a statement. City officials said 97 people were arrested in the morning raid.
In the video below, included in a report by the Oakland Tribune, the police can be seen dismantling the camp and making arrests early Tuesday morning, using small amounts of tear gas:
The first scuffle broke out later in the day after hundreds marched back to City Hall in an effort to re-establish a presence in the area of the dispersed camp. The police put the number of protesters at more than 1,000, in a statement released Tuesday night.
The A.P. posted edited video of the scene from the evening until after dusk as the police moved in and crowds thinned:
The crowds dispersed after the first round of tear gas but soon returned in similar numbers, according to protesters on the scene.
At around 9:30 p.m., there was a tense faceoff between protesters and police officers on Broadway at 14th Street. About 100 officers, some appearing to be sheriff's deputies, stood behind a metal barricade in full riot gear and wearing gas masks, while on the other side people pressed against the barricade, waving peace signs and chanting slogans. A few protesters hurled objects - what looked like water bottles - at the police, while over a loud speaker, officers instructed people to disperse or risk "chemical agents."
A video, captured by The New York Times, showed a chaotic scene:
Malia Wollan/The New York Times
Shortly after 9:30 p.m. the announcements stopped. Moments later, the police began firing canisters of tear gas into the crowd. Many people ran, but a few protesters wearing gas masks stayed and continued to throw things at the police. Those who had been affected by the gas coughed repeatedly and appeared to weep. Some stooped before a woman who volunteered to rinse reddened eyes.
This video, also recorded by The New York Times, shows a protester having his eyes rinsed:
Malia Wollan/The New York Times
At a late-night news conference, the city's acting police chief, Howard Jordan, said officers needed to use tear gas after protesters threw rocks and bottles at them. The city has seen multiple clashes between protesters and the police in recent years, particularly in the aftermath of the 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant III, a young, unarmed young black man, by a white transit officer. (Protesters who had occupied the park in front of City Hall had begun calling it Oscar Grant Plaza.)
Protesters posted photos of injuries they said had been sustained during the protests, some said to have been caused by rubber bullets:
View "Oakland" on Storify
The police denied firing flash grenades or rubber bullets at protesters. "The loud noises that were heard originated from M-80 explosives thrown at Police by protesters," the police said in a statement. "In addition, Police fired approximately four bean bag rounds at protesters to stop them from throwing dangerous objects at the officers."
The police also explained their use of tear gas:
The Police used a limited amount of tear gas for a small area as a defense against protesters who were throwing various objects at Police Officers as they approached the area. The objects included glass bottles, rocks, pots, pans, kitchen utensils and plates at Police Officers. In addition, the protesters sprayed a Fire Extinguisher on Police Officers.
Tear gas is regularly used by police departments across the United States to control crowds. The Oakland police have used tear gas to control large protests in January 2009 and threatened to do so in July 2010, when anger over the killing of Mr. Grant spilled over into street violence.
In raw video taken at around 8 p.m. and posted on KGO-TV's Web site, flashes of light and explosions can be heard as people sprint away. Smoke engulfs the scene.
In what may be the most dramatic video of the melee, posted by KTVU, a protester very near the police line can be seen falling hard to the ground after a loud pop and a flash. As a crowd gathers around to help the protester, another loud pop and flash occurs in the middle of the group, scattering them.
A shorter version of the same video was also reposted to YouTube, where the same scene occurs at 0:22. [Warning: Some fleeting profanity.]
It was not immediately clear where the explosive burst originated or if it was a heavy firecracker, as the police indicated, or a non-lethal form of crowd control, as the YouTube title of the video suggests ('Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES') and other activists have claimed:
In the last minute of the video, a woman is knocked unconscious by a concussion grenade and then shot with a beanbag - http://t.co/30gDhDS3Wed Oct 26 07:21:40 via webreclaim UC
reclaimuc
The police said in a statement that attacks against officers had precipitated the use of "less lethal force tactics" against protesters on Tuesday night:
During the evening protest, a number of officers were assaulted, doused with hazardous materials and hit with large rocks and bottles, which resulted in the declaration of an unlawful assembly and the order to disperse. To assist in the dispersal efforts, officers used less lethal force tactics.
The city of Oakland explained its decision to the Occupy encampment early Tuesday morning - which touched off the later protests and lead to the violence - because of unsanitary conditions and "increasing incidents of violence."
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the early hours of the protest Tuesday night:
Early on, the scene outside City Hall was largely peaceful, but it was a different story a few blocks west on Washington Street. Officers in riot gear hemmed in protesters around 6 p.m. and tried to arrest one person, as about 50 more surrounded them shouting, "Let him go, let him go."
Protesters threw turquoise and red paint at the riot police officers' faces and helmets. Some led the crowd in chanting, "This is why we call you pigs."
Others pleaded with the agitators to be peaceful and return to the march, yet some protesters tried to fight with the police and were clubbed and kicked in return.
Almost simultaneous to the events in Oakland, the police in Atlanta arrested more than 50 protesters early Wednesday morning for refusing to leave the downtown city park.
For two weeks, the Occupy protesters had been camping out in tents, despite repeated warnings from the mayor, Kasim Reed, that they were violating a park curfew and other ordinances.
The protesters have drawn strong mixed reactions in Atlanta, a regional banking hub that also has a record of tolerance for civil disobedience tied to its role in the civil rights movement.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the civil rights group the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which is led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, called on Atlantans to oust Mr. Reed from office because of his confrontation of the protesters.
The protesters vowed to continue their demonstrations on Wednesday, rallying at the jail where the arrested protesters were held and marching to the Georgia State Capitol. Among those arrested, the protesters said on their Web site, was a Georgia state senator, Vincent D. Fort, and a former city councilman and radio host, Derrick Boazman.
Malia Wollan reported from Oakland, Calif., and J. David Goodman from New York. Robbie Brown contributed reporting from Atlanta and Sarah Maslin Nir from New York.
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8) Six First-Hand Observations From Last Night's Chaos in Oakland
By Joshua Holland
AlterNet
October26, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/685959/six_first-hand_observations_from_last_night%27s_chaos_in_oakland/#paragraph6
I spent most of yesterday in Oakland bearing witness to a hectic day of protests that featured a good deal of violence. Here are some observations.
Again and Again
I heard this spiel blasted over loud speakers so many times last night that I have it memorized:
This is Sgt. Whatever with the Oakland police department. I hereby declare this to be an unlawful assembly. You must leave the area of such-and-such (mostly 14th Street and Broadway) immediately. You can disperse via X street, heading in X direction (mostly 14th Street heading East). If you do not disperse immediately, you will be subject to arrest, regardless of your purpose. If you do not disperse immediately, chemical agents will be used. If you do not disperse immediately, you will be subject to forcible removal, which may result in serious injury.
The problem is that we're taught from an early age that we have a right to peaceably assemble and protest, and that this right is guaranteed by the Constitution and can't be over-ridden by the city of Oakland. It's not an accurate view of the law, which is more nuanced, but it is pervasive. So protesters did not acknowledge that they were assembling unlawfully, remained, and then the tear gas came flying. And this happened again and again for much of the night.
Missing the point
That's not to say that a few idiots in the crowd didn't throw some objects at police.
In the age of camera phones and Youtube, finger-pointing inevitably follows clashes between police and protesters. Who instigated what? Who provoked whom? Which came first -- that protester throwing a water-bottle at cops, or the cops deploying teargas at protesters. And these debates not only miss the central point, they obscure it entirely.
Long before any act of violence occurs on the streets, a series of command decisions are made, and it is those decisions which ultimately determines whether a protest will be largely peaceful or descend into chaos. Smart crowd control requires letting protesters protest - giving them an outlet. Yesterday evening in Oakland, long before anything bad happened, police decided to deny Occupy Oakland that outlet. A peaceful, if rowdy march was headed from the main library towards Frank Ogawa Plaza - the location from which they'd been forcefully evicted the night before. They were headed off by a hastily assembled line of police clad in riot gear. The protesters decided to change course and head towards the jail where, according to a National Lawyers' Guild legal observer on the scene, 105 protesters were being detained.
Again, the police blocked their route. They made another turn - I don't know what the objective was at that point - and were again blocked. The police did not have the manpower to actually block the many cross-streets that we crossed, but somewhere a commander decided to put 5 or 6 cops on every side street. This was a stupid move, as 5 officers cannot keep 500 protesters, now angrier than they had been at the onset, at bay.
It was only then that I witnessed the first violence. Protesters swarmed around these 5 officers, they started swinging battons, made two arrests and then found themselves completely surrounded. I am certain it was a scary moment for those officers. There was another line of riot police a block away - a thicker line. And at some point they realized their comrades were in a jam, and maybe two dozen came running and responded with extreme force (it was at this point that a flash-bang grenade came flying towards me, gong off about 3 feet away and leaving me shaking for about an hour). One officer, at the front, was firing less-than-lethal projectiles wildly at the crowd - which, at that point, was in full retreat -- until he was physically restrained by another (maybe a supervisor). There were injuries and arrests, and I think none of it would have happened had they decided to let the protesters chant, 'let them go!' for a while in front of the jail instead of forcing them - seemingly arbitrarily-- to walk around in circles facing off against line after line of police blocking their way.
As I mentioned several times on Twitter last night (follow me!), the police response last night was not the most brutal I'd seen, but it was the most inept. By hyper-aggressively boxing in protesters again and again, they just ratcheted up the pressure for no readily apparent purpose.
The Costs of Eviction
You could of course take this a step further: the entire exercise was unnecessary. One can only guess how much resources the cash-strapped city devoted to evicting Occupy Oakland in the first place. And not just Oakland. Various reports have suggested that 10 or 15 different law enforcement agencies were involved - I saw officers from at least 5 agencies myself. I have no idea how much this is costing in overtime, but it must be a fortune. An then there's the opportunity cost - police clad in riot gear standing a line against protesters aren't out catching bad guys, writing speeding tickets, etc.
These protests aren't ending anytime soon, and Oakland finds itself having to guard a small chunk of public property with dozens of riot cops. Protesters appear resolute about reclaiming that space as soon as they can. So this vast drainage of resources may go on indefinitely. I'm not sure City Hall considered what the end game might be, but if they thought the Occupy Movement was going to go away, they made a stunning miscalculation.
Oakland's Justification Rings Hollow
On that point, there have been two justifications given for the eviction: health and safety violations - I've heard a lot about rats - and at least one reported incident of violence at the camp.
Here's irrefutable evidence that these justifications are complete nonsense: Snow Park. Snow Park, on a grassy slope on the side of Lake Merritt, had a small satellite occupation. Whereas the main camp was densely packed with humanity, had a kitchen and was no doubt messy - as campsites tend to be after 3 weeks -- Snow Park was just a few scattered tents on a hill. When I visited it on Saturday, it was clean and neat, and there had certainly been no reports of violence.
The courts have long held that the right to assemble isn't without limits. Communities can determine the time, place and manner of protests. But - and this is a crucial "but" - any limits must be narrowly tailored o achieve a legitimate government purpose. If an act of violence occurred in the camp, they should have dealt with it like an act of violence at a private club - you don't destroy the club, you arrest the perpetrator. If they wanted to clean up the park, they could have done it in shifts, or worked with the occupiers to address sanitation issues or taken any number of less restrictive approaches.
Oakland has effectively banned overnight protests within the city. As I wrote last week, this is, on its face, unconstitutional in the context of a movement whose defining act of political expression is occupying public space over an extended period of time.
Self-policing
Last night in Oakland I saw both law enforcement and protesters policing themselves. It is all but guaranteed that in any crowd - be it a group of protesters of a PTA meeting - there will be a few hot-heads. I saw a number of self-appointed 'marshals' among the protesters intervening - physically-- to prevent damage to property or acts that would provoke police violence. These folks, I imagine, are sophisticated enough to understand that the media are never on the side of protesters, and can only get a semblance of a fair shake by remaining peaceful expression of outrage.
Where Does This End?
"You see all these people here?" asked a protester as we rinsed the residue of tear gas out of our eyes a few blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza. "They're all going home more radicalized than when they arrived." I think that's right - this kind of crowd control doesn't deter protesters, it steels them. I only heard more resolve as the evening progressed. It may, however, intimidate the MoveOn types, leaving a harder core to continue challenging the police.
These Occupiers aren't going away. I'll be out in Oakland tonight to see what unfolds.
By Joshua Holland | Sourced from AlterNet
Posted at October 26, 2011, 10:50 am
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9) Oakland Occupy Dispersed, but then...
Oakland Erupts!
By Chris Kinder
Police Attack Protestors In the Streets
Oakland, very late on Tuesday the 25th of October 2011 --
It all took place under the endlessly circling helicopters, like giant gnats, flapping, buzzing, shining their threatening lights. It made me remember the line from a 1980s song, "I wish I had a rocket launcher."
The Oakland Occupy, a peaceful and well organized encampment of about 200 or so in front of Oakland's City Hall, was violently attacked and dispersed by 500 cops at 4:45 am this (Tuesday)morning. The Oakland police, backed up by cops from 13 other jurisdictions, including UC Berkeley cops and the California Highway patrol, moved in with tear gas, flash grenades, rubber bullets and even armored vehicles. At least three people were injured, including one hospitalized with a head wound.
Approximately 105 people arrested at the dispersal were still being held as of 4 pm, most charged with standard protest charges such as "refusing to leave the scene of a riot," according to representatives from the National Lawyers Guild, who have been acting as legal monitors. These may be cited and released, but some face more serious charges, and could be arraigned this week.
"This Is What A Police State Looks Like," said the Oscar Grant Plaza Gazette, which promises to keep publishing despite the dispersal. But the dispersal was just the beginning, as this evening's events showed. According to news reports, another hundred or so arrests have been added tonight, charges as yet unknown.
After the dispersal, a rally was called for and held at 4 pm on the steps of the main Oakland Public Library on 14th St, several blocks down from the Occupy site (which was now barricaded off and guarded by cops). The library was significant, since the Occupy and other protestors have sharply opposed the recent threats of Oakland's "left" liberal Mayor Jean Quan to close libraries, a threat which was used to force concessions from city workers. On an Occupy support march, which wound its way through Oakland's streets last Saturday to protest the threatened dispersal, marchers stopped in front of the library and chanted, "Shut down OPD, not the public library," to smiles and cheers from library workers. Then today, as the rally formed up, we were told that the the Oakland PD had asked the library to close its doors in advance of the expected rally. Library workers proudly refused to do so, to cheers from the crowd.
As the rally outside the library gained strength, supporters quickly filled 14th St below the library steps. Chants of "Every week, every day, the Occupy is here to stay," rose up from arriving supporters, and the rally vowed to march up 14th to re-take the Occupy site in Oscar Grant (officially Frank Ogawa) Plaza. Using "mic check" repetition, the rally vowed that, "whatever happens tonight, we meet again, every night, at 6 pm, at 14th and Broadway."
On the way to 14th and Broadway tonight, the plan was to wind our way West a few blocks to the local municipal jail at 7th and Broadway, to give some support to our detained comrades inside. As we marched closer to the jail, changing the route at least once to out-flank a major police barricade on Broadway, images of the storming of the Bastille came to mind, and I think the cops were thinking about that as well. They seemed almost desperate to keep us from getting to that jail.
As we rounded the corner at 8th and Washington, now only about two blocks from the jail, there was a thin blue line of 10 or so cops blocking the street. The crowd pushed up and many began to flow around the police line. After some billy-club poking, the line broke up, people poured through, and the cops were quickly surrounded, along with a handful of civilian vehicles that were caught there. Protestors and cops shouted and cops jabbed for a few minutes until all of a sudden three cops were bent over beating and containing someone. Enraged, the crowd surrounding the cops broke into a chant of "let them go." (It turned out it was two arrestees.)
While all this was going on, many marchers had moved on up the block, and once again made a turn to avoid a second and more formidable line of cops, complete with motorcycles and patrol cars, guarding the jail. The Occupyers' principle of consensus and no leaders seemed to alternatively work well, and then break down into disorganization; but then it usually picked up and found a united path again.
In this instance, while some marchers were shouting "let them go" and surrounding the cops, others were trying to get marchers to move on, not realizing that the cops had two prisoners down on the street. For a while marchers were separated into two groups, but then, the second line of cops moved in to rescue their now paint-spattered brethren, and all hell broke loose. This was the first battle of the evening, as police opened fire with flash-bang grenades and tear gas. The police then retreated with their prisoners, and the marchers reconnected and decided to keep moving, this time heading toward Oscar Grant Plaza, as darkness began to fall.
That set the pattern for most of the night. When we arrived at the site of the former encampment, it was barricaded off and guarded by a solid line of cops. (And City Hall was closed, even though tonight would have normally been a council meeting.) Protestors pushed up to the line, but very soon a sergeant was on the horn. "This is an unlawful assembly. If you do not leave the designated area within 5 minutes, you will be arrested. Chemical agents will be used. You could suffer serious injury." Just as the police were about to unleash a barrage of tear gas, protestor consensus worked again, and the march took off up Broadway and then swerved to go up Telegraph Ave. to avoid yet another line of cops.
We marched and marched, seeing no cops, and getting enthusiastic welcome from the drivers whose cars were stuck at intersections that the march was passing through. In the streets the whole way, this march had grown as people heard news reports on KPFA and came down to join it. Very hard to say, but I think its peak could have been 3,000.
After a stop at Snow Park, on the shore of Lake Merritt (the site of a second encampment, which was also removed early Tuesday morning), marchers headed back up to 14th and Broadway. That's when the serious battle erupted. This time, after the usual warning, marchers held their ground, and the cops unleashed a huge barrage of tear gas, which sent most of us off in different directions. At least one demonstrator was struck in the head by a tear gas canister.
The police were later quoted on local TV news as saying that they acted in self-defense, since they were being bombarded with rocks, bottles, and even knives. This is crap. I was watching the whole time from the outer edge of the crowd, and saw exactly one piece of something flying toward the cops. It was now about 8 pm, and my companion and I escaped the tear gas and called it a night. But many marchers, fewer in number each time, kept returning to the scene at 14th and Broadway. According to news reports, three more barrages of tear gas were fired at ever smaller groups of protestors, the last one around 11 pm. And the maddening drone of helicopters never seems to stop, just one price of living in a war zone.
The spirit and determination--and the numbers--of these protestors was impressive. One young marcher said to me, early in the march, that he'd been to several of the other Occupys around the country, but except for New York, Oakland was the only place that could produce a large protest such as this on the very next day after a police dispersal of their encampment.
As for consensus and "99 percent?" Those concepts will inevitably give way to a process of sorting out. The bulk of the Tea Party, the police rank-and-file, and Mayor Jean Quan are all in the 99 percent, as it is being defined. The General Assembly of the Oakland Occupy evolved, in its 2-weeks so far, a view of the police as the enemy who needed to be kept out of the encampment, and a decision-making process that involves a quorum of at least three to present a proposal, and a super majority (but not unanimity) to pass one.
For now though, the great value of this movement is that its aim is quite good. The one percent of Wall Street barons, the financiers who are the very peak of the imperialist ruling class, is exactly the clique that needs to be overthrown in a working class revolution which would expropriate, not just control, the banks. The aim is good, but the revolutionary consciousness is not quite there yet. Still, the consciousness is a bit better than what is suggested by one sign that I saw being held up at the library rally earlier today. It read, "Mayor Quan, and Oakland Police - Which Side Are You On?" I smiled and said to the sign holder, "I think they've already answered that question." He smiled back broadly, but still held the sign.
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10) "We Are One Hand"
Oakland Commune Enters World Stage
3,000-Strong Assembly Calls for:
General Strike In Oakland Wednesday, November 2!
From Oakland, late on 26th October 2011 --
By Chris Kinder
With reference to the Oakland General Strike of 1946, the call rang out from Oscar Grant (City Hall) Plaza in Oakland tonight for a General Strike in Oakland in one week, on Wednesday November 2nd. Police were mostly out of sight for once, as the City gave the protestors access to the plaza in front of City Hall, as long as they were out by 10 pm. Fences surrounded the grassy area where the Occupy Oakland encampment had been until the early morning police raid on the 25th; but protestors removed these barriers after dark, as the General Assembly conducted its deliberations
The 3,000 person General Assembly crammed the amphitheater--a Greek theater-like semi-circle facing City Hall--and successfully conducted a modified-consensus discussion, which culminated in an almost unanimous decision to call a one-day general strike in one week. This assembly was well organized and not leaderless. A small coterie of organizers guided the assembly through various stages of breaking up into groups of 20 for discussion, followed by reports from the different groups, followed by a vote conducted by breaking into groups of 20 once again. Although not all 3,000 participated fully, the achievement of an organized discussion and vote, within a limited time, was quite an accomplishment. "Mic check" repetition was used throughout the evening to make sure everyone in the large crowd could hear.
Strike While the Iron Is Hot
The mostly young, white protestors have their work cut out for them to involve labor and the black and brown community in their plans for an Oakland-wide protest strike. And their plan so far lacks any definite demands. But the desire to strike while the iron was hot overcame all objections. And if just half these folks get out into the unions and the community and build for this, they just might bring it off. More power to them.
Next: Mobilize at 5 pm on Thursday, the 27th, at Oscar Grant Plaza, to discuss and plan logistics for the general strike. Union members: come out for this meeting.
"We Are One Hand": Solidarity from New York City & Cairo to SF
Following the brutal police dispersal of the Oakland Occupy encampment early in the morning of October 25th, and the police attacks on protestors on the streets later that night, the world has taken note of what is going on with the Wall Street protest movement in Oakland.
Aside from the successful vote for the general strike itself, the biggest cheers tonight went up for the report that the New York City Wall Street Occupiers, having been unable to take the streets so far, did so tonight to solidarize with Oakland protestors. They chanted, "We Are Oakland," and "Oakland, Oakland, Fight Police Brutality." The latter chant was taken up in the amphitheater in Oakland tonight.
And from Cairo Egypt, another message of solidarity came in, and protestors chanted, "We Are Tahrir Square." From Cairo came the message, "Cairo, Oakland, We Are One Hand."
Oakland protestors were also informed of an imminent attack on the SF Occupy in Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco. As you read this, the attack on the SF protestors has probably already happened, as cops were mobilized on nearby streets and ready to go before midnight. But when the General Assembly in Oakland was over at 10 pm, people were prevented from entering BART stations to travel to SF to support their Occuoy comrades there! The BART station at Embarcadero in SF was also shut to prevent their arrival!
Oakland Demonstrators Have Been Peaceful... and Creative
Having been prevented from getting on BART to go to SF, protestors marched through the streets of Oakland tonight, without incident. This was mainly due to the fact that the cops were keeping a low profile. But even the local TV news was forced to report that there was no vandalism or other violence from protestors. They should know. Their hovering helicopters showed every move, as protestors revisited 8th and Washington, the site of a police attack yesterday, and then headed back to 14th and Broadway.
Over the two weeks of the Oakland Occupy, during the dispersal of the encampment at Oscar Grant Plaza, and in the protest marches before and after the dispersal, the Oakland protestors have been remarkably disciplined and peaceful. In the Saturday, October 22nd march through Oakland, which was called to protest the threatened dispersal (plans for which were already well underway by the police--see below), 1500 or so took the streets from 14th and Broadway down to Lake Merritt, Grand Avenue and Lakeshore, and back around the lake.
One bank, a Chase branch on Lakeshore, was temporarily invaded, but nothing provocative happened, and protestors left the bank and moved on. Reception from observers was friendly, as the march passed through several neighborhoods, marching in the streets the whole way. Discipline was maintained, and trapped cars were allowed to escape when necessary. Cops stayed on the periphery. At the head of the march was a creative "wall of books:" Several young activists each carried a large placard with a book title on it, including Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, Assata, by Assata Shakur, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, and Caliban and the Witch, by Silvia Federici
Victim of Police Attack Hospitalized
Scot Olsen, a two-tour veteran of the Iraq War, and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was hit in the head and almost killed by a police tear-gas canister during the attack on protestors last night, the 25th. He has a 2-inch skull fracture. Demonstrators were able to move him off to the side during the Tuesday night attack, and get him to Highland Hospital, where he remains today. As of this afternoon (the 26th), he was unconscious, intubated, and reportedly in "stable" condition.
Olsen wasn't the only victim of this brutal and unprovoked police attack on peaceful protestors. Many others dealt with tear gas inhalation and other injuries. Local lawyer Jesse Palmer, interviewed on Flashpoints on KPFA (kpfa.org/flashpoints) reported seeing an older woman in a wheel chair who was somehow stuck under the police barricade at 14th and Broadway and couldn't move. She complained, cops ignored her, and when she complained again, they dragged her out of her chair and threw her on the ground.
For good reports on the cataclysmic police attacks on protestors on October 25th, look up the eyewitness, frontline reports on Hard Knock Radio and Flashpoints on KPFA. Go to kpfa.org to find these two programs for 26 October. While you're at it, subscribe to KPFA. This Pacifica station covers local breaking events such as this, and deserves your support.
Oakland Politics: What a Mess!
The plan to destroy the Oakland Occupy encampment was hatched by interim police chief Howard Jordan and City Administrator Deanna Santana over a week ago, in order to line up the 13 or so other jurisdictions of cops that would (allegedly) be necessary to control the unruly masses in Oakland during the crackdown. Mayor Jean Quan, a former leftist and opponent of the gang injunctions that are all the rage now with the law-and-order nut jobs, only got on board with this plan after it was in motion (see Matier and Ross, Plan To Break Up Oakland Camp Set In Motion Last Week, SF Chronicle, 26 October 2011). Quan has now put her imprimatur on, and is responsible for a brutal attack on peaceful protestors, whose 99 percent, anti-Wall Street message is ringing very loudly around the world.
Quan earned the hatred of the local police when as a supervisor she joined with others in a barrier line to separate cops from protestors over the police murder of Oscar Grant. She then got into the mayor's office as a result of the newly instituted preference voting system, in which voters indicate their second and third preferences on the ballot. Much to the chagrin of the Oakland establishment, Don Perata lost and Quan won because of the redistribution of votes under this system. Already rightists, including former Dellums supporters, are trying to remove her from office.
Thus Quan, like Ron Dellums before her, and like Obama in many respects, is now a former darling of the left who has shown by her actions that holding executive office in this reactionary capitalist system gives no relief and holds no options for the working people. Though you may be attacked from both the right and the left, once in office, that's it: you're a figurehead for the ruling class, even at the local level.
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11) Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center
By Pam Martens, CounterPunch
Posted on October 26, 2011, Printed on October 27, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152875/wall_street_firms_spy_on_protesters_in_tax-funded_center
The following article is original to CounterPunch.
Wall Street's audacity to corrupt knows no bounds and the cooptation of government by the 1 per cent knows no limits. How else to explain $150 million of taxpayer money going to equip a government facility in lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms, serially charged with corruption, get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on law abiding citizens.
According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission's archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs' Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD "is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan...One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders."
At the time, Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor's first born in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman's deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD's Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009.
The surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was eventually dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock. Under the imprimatur of the largest police department in the United States, 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD, are relaying live video feeds of people on the streets in lower Manhattan to the center. Once at the center, they can be integrated for analysis. At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters.
In addition to video analytics which can, for example, track a person based on the color of their hat or jacket, insiders say the NYPD either has or is working on face recognition software which could track individuals based on facial features. The center is also equipped with live feeds from license plate readers.
According to one person who has toured the center, there are three rows of computer workstations, with approximately two-thirds operated by non-NYPD personnel. The Chief-Leader, the weekly civil service newspaper, identified some of the outside entities that share the space: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange. Others say most of the major Wall Street firms have an on-site representative. Two calls and an email to Paul Browne, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, seeking the names of the other Wall Street firms at the center were not returned. An email seeking the same information to City Council Member, Peter Vallone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, was not returned.
In a press release dated October 4, 2009 announcing the expansion of the surveillance territory, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly had this to say:
"The Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative will add additional cameras and license plate readers installed at key locations between 30th and 60th Streets from river to river. It will also identify additional private organizations who will work alongside NYPD personnel in the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, where corporate and other security representatives from Lower Manhattan have been co-located with police since June 2009. The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center is the central hub for both initiatives, where all the collected data are analyzed." [Italic emphasis added.]
The project has been funded by New York City taxpayers as well as all U.S. taxpayers through grants from the Federal Department of Homeland Security. On March 26, 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) wrote a letter to Commissioner Kelly, noting that even though the system involves "massive expenditures of public money, there have been no public hearings about any aspect of the system...we reject the Department's assertion of 'plenary power' over all matters touching on public safety...the Department is of course subject to the laws and Constitution of the United States and of the State of New York as well as to regulation by the New York City Council."
The NYCLU also noted in its letter that it rejected the privacy guidelines for the surveillance operation that the NYPD had posted on its web site for public comment, since there had been no public hearings to formulate these guidelines. It noted further that "the guidelines do not limit police surveillance and databases to suspicious activity...there is no independent oversight or monitoring of compliance with the guidelines."
According to Commissioner Kelly in public remarks, the privacy guidelines were written by Jessica Tisch, the Director of Counterterrorism Policy and Planning for the NYPD who has played a significant role in developing the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. In 2006, Tisch was 25 years old and still working on her law degree and MBA at Harvard, according to a wedding announcement in the New York Times. Tisch is a friend to the Mayor's daughter, Emma; her mother, Meryl, is a family friend to the Mayor.
Tisch is the granddaughter and one of the heirs to the now-deceased billionaire Laurence Tisch who built the Loews Corporation. Her father, James Tisch, is now the CEO of the Loews Corporation and was elected by Wall Street banks to sit on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until 2013 representing the public's interest. (Clearly, the 1 per cent think they know what's best for the 99 per cent.)
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the entity which doled out the bulk of the $16 trillion in bailout loans to the U.S. and foreign financial community. Members of Tisch's family work for Wall Street firms or hedge funds which have prime broker relationships with them. A division of Loews Corporation has a banking relationship with Citigroup.
The Tisch family stands to directly benefit from the surveillance program. In June of this year, Continental Casualty Company, the primary unit of the giant CNA Financial which is owned by Loew's Corp., signed a 19-year lease for 81,296 square feet at 125 Broad Street - an area under surveillance by the downtown surveillance center.
Loews Corporation also owns the Loew's Regency Hotel on Park Avenue in midtown, an area which is also now under round-the-clock surveillance on the taxpayer's dime.
Wall Street is infamous for perverting everything it touches: from the Nasdaq stock market, to stock research issued to the public, to auction rate securities, mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, credit default swaps with AIG, and mortgage securitizations. Had a public hearing been held on this massive surveillance sweep of Manhattan by potential felons, hopefully someone might have pondered what was to prevent Wall Street from tracking its employee whistleblowers heading off to the FBI offices or meeting with a reporter.
One puzzle has at least been solved. Wall Street's criminals have not been indicted or sent to jail because they have effectively become the police.
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years. She spent the last decade of her career advocating against Wall Street's private justice system, which keeps its crimes shielded from public courtrooms. She has been writing on public interest issues for CounterPunch since retiring in 2006. She has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com.
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12) Oakland Police Violence Raises the Stakes for the OWS Movement
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on October 27, 2011, Printed on October 27, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152879/oakland_police_violence_raises_the_stakes_for_the_ows_movement
Editor's note: after this article was published, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan released a statement in which she promised "a minimal police presence at the plaza for the short term," and "a community effort to improve communications and dialogue with the demonstrators." Quan also said the city would investigate certain acts of police violence on October 25. You can read the full statement here.
Occupy Oakland has been the target of a notably vicious smear campaign mounted by the conservative media. They didn't just offer the usual pabulum about how the occupiers hated America or were closet socialists. They painted them as sub-human: mired in filth and gripped by violent anarchy. One right-wing blogger likened it to "The Lord of the Flies." The campaign's racist and classist undertones were none too subtle.
When I first visited the camp on October 22, I found a very different scene. About 150 tents made up a small, self-sufficient community in Frank Ogawa Plaza, located steps away from City Hall. The kernel of truth behind the smears was that it was located in downtown Oakland, a city with some serious problems and a long history of distrust between the community and a police department tasked with serving and protecting it.
"We don't exclude the people at the margins," one occupier told me. "We invite them in and feed them." That may be doing God's work, but it's also provided rich fodder for the Lord of the Flies narrative. In one incident, a homeless man who reportedly had a history of mental illness assaulted several of the protesters. They ejected him from the camp, but didn't involve local police. In other instances, people at the camp insulted, and in one instance reportedly threatened reporters. All of these incidents were the focus of intense media coverage.
The other kernel of truth is the simple fact that camping outdoors for three weeks is always a somewhat messy business.
Mayor Quan Joins the Club
These narratives formed the basis for Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's decision to evict the protesters. In the early morning hours of October 25, a large contingent of police clad in riot gear descended on the camp, throwing tear gas and flash-bang grenades at the protesters within. (Oakland police deny using flash-bang grenades.) Eighty-five were reportedly arrested. A National Lawyers' Guild legal observer told AlterNet they had collected reports of, "rampant excessive force." According to the observer, one protester suffered a head injury in the melee, and two more ended up with broken hands.
In a statement made after the "eviction," Mayor Quan said, "Over the last week it was apparent that neither the demonstrators nor the city could maintain safe or sanitary conditions, or control the ongoing vandalism."
We know that this was simply a flimsy premise for one reason: Snow Park. Snow Park, on a grassy slope on the side of Lake Merritt, had a small satellite occupation. Whereas the main camp was densely packed with humanity, had a kitchen and was no doubt messy, Snow Park was just a few scattered tents on a hill. They hadn't been there long, and when I visited on Saturday, it was clean and neat, and there had been no reports of violence. But Oakland police nevertheless evicted Snow Park as well, putting the lie to the claim that this was a response to health and safety violations or scattered reports of violence.
The courts have long held that the right to assemble isn't without limits. Communities can determine the time, place and manner of protests. But - and this is crucial - any limits must be narrowly tailored to achieve a legitimate government purpose. If an act of violence occurred in the camp, they should have dealt with it like an act of violence at a private club - you don't destroy the club, you arrest the perpetrator. If they wanted to clean up the park, they could have done it in shifts, or worked with the occupiers to address sanitation issues or taken any number of less restrictive approaches.
Oakland has effectively banned overnight protests within the city. As I wrote last week, this is unconstitutional in the context of a movement whose defining act of political expression is occupying public space over an extended period of time.
October 25: Hot Night in Oakland
By and large, the media has reported what happened on the evening of the 25th with its typically lazy, "he-said she-said" reporting. In the age of camera phones and YouTube, fingerpointing inevitably follows clashes between police and protesters. Who instigated what? Who provoked whom? Which came first -- that protester throwing a water bottle at cops, or the cops deploying tear gas at protesters?
There are two problems with that. First, only one side of this "battle" is supposed to be trained professionals doing a difficult job according to established legal guidelines. Only one side is heavily armed, and can use weapons without fear of legal repercussions (within reason).
Second, these debates not only miss the central point, they obscure it entirely. Good, intelligent crowd control tactics aim to defuse tension, while overly aggressive, seemingly arbitrary tactics fuel protesters' frustration and ratchet up the tension. We know that any gathering of protesters is going to be angry. It is the police that determine where, when and how to confront them; they decide how much "tolerance" to bring to bear on the crowd.
Long before any act of violence occurs on the streets, a series of command decisions are made, and it is those decisions that ultimately determine whether a protest will be largely peaceful or descend into chaos. Smart crowd control requires letting protesters protest - giving them an outlet. In Oakland on Tuesday evening, long before anything bad happened, police decided to deny Occupy Oakland that outlet. A peaceful, if rowdy march was headed from the main library toward Frank Ogawa Plaza - the location from which they'd been forcefully evicted the night before. They were headed off by a hastily assembled line of police clad in riot gear. The protesters decided to change course and head toward the jail where, according to a National Lawyers' Guild observer on the scene, 105 protesters were being detained.
Again, the police blocked their route. They made another turn (I don't know what the objective was at that point) and were again blocked. The police did not have the manpower to actually block the many cross-streets we crossed, but somewhere a commander decided to put five or six cops on every side street. This was a stupid move, as five officers cannot keep 500 protesters, now angrier than they had been at the onset, at bay.
It was only then that I witnessed the first violence. Protesters swarmed around these five officers, they started swinging battons, made two arrests and then found themselves completely surrounded. I am certain it was a scary moment for those officers. There was another, thicker line of riot police a block away. At some point they realized their comrades were in a jam, and maybe two dozen came running and responded with extreme force. (It was at this point that a flash-bang grenade came flying toward me, going off about three feet away and leaving me shaking for about an hour.) One officer, at the front, was firing less-than-lethal projectiles at the crowd - which, at that point, was in full retreat -- until he was physically restrained by another (maybe a superviser). There were injuries and arrests. I think none of it would have happened had they decided to let the protesters chant, "let them go!" for a while in front of the jail instead of forcing them - seemingly arbitrarily-- to walk around in circles facing off against line after line of police blocking their way.
After the police assault, similar scenes played out through much of the rest of the night. A group of around 400-500 protesters would approach Frank Ogawa Plaza, and the police would order them to disperse. Here's what they said each time:
This is Sgt X with the Oakland Police Department. I hereby declare this to be an unlawful assembly. You must leave the area of X immediately. You can disperse via X street, heading in X direction. If you do not disperse immediately, you will be subject to arrest, regardless of your purpose. If you do not disperse immediately, chemical agents will be used. If you do not disperse immediately, you will be subject to forcible removal, which may result in serious injury.
The problem is that we're taught from an early age that we have a right to peaceably assemble and protest. This right is guaranteed by the Constitution and can't be over-ridden by the city of Oakland. It's not an accurate view of the law, which is more nuanced, but it is pervasive. So protesters did not acknowledge that they were assembling unlawfully, they remained, and then the tear gas came flying. This happened again and again for much of the night.
As I mentioned several times on Twitter during the rounds of approaches and retreats, the police response last night wasn't the most brutal I've seen (that honor goes to the dozen Florida police agencies that descended on Miami to crush protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2002), but it was the most inept. By aggressively boxing in protesters again and again, law enforcement simply ratcheted up the pressure for no apparent purpose.
A Move Oakland Will Come to Regret
"You see all these people here?" a protester asked, as we rinsed the residue of tear gas out of our eyes a few blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza. "They're all going home more radicalized than when they arrived."
He was probably right - this kind of crowd control doesn't deter protesters, it steels them. On Tuesday, I only heard more resolve as the evening progressed.
These occupiers aren't going away. And that raises a question for which I've seen no answer: what is the supposed end-game here? It took 100 police from a number of different agencies in the Bay Area clad in riot gear who are earning overtime to stand guard over a quarter-acre of public space in downtown Oakland. I have no idea how much it cost in overtime, but it must be a fortune. And then there's the opportunity cost - police standing a line against protesters aren't out catching bad guys, writing speeding tickets, etc.
Meanwhile, a number of protesters said they were steadfast in their goal of reclaiming the space and rebuild when they can. If the city thought they would simply go away after the eviction, they made a grave, and costly, miscalculation. (And this city is cash-strapped - just a day after this series of clashes, the city council was scheduled to vote on a proposal to close a number of Oakland schools.)
Tensions remain high in Oakland. On Monday, a group of Oakland residents filed a recall petition against Jean Quan - the first step in removing the mayor from office. Evicting Occupy Oakland has already proven to be one of the most costly efforts to enforce "health and safety" regulations in history. It may carry a steep political price as well.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America. Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.
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13) Iraq War veteran critically wounded by Oakland police during Occupy crackdown
_Courage to Resist
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
Veteran shot in the face by police projectile at Occupy Oakland protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lbbWAgBy7E&feature=player_embedded
Please donate to Scott Olsen's medical fund: Click here:
https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=9491
Make a donation to Scott Olsen.
To donate to the Scott Olsen support fund, fill in your information below. Donations to Scott will appear as a charge to "Democracy In Action" on your credit card statement.
Mail a check or money order to:
P.O. Box 3565
New York, NY 10008-3565
Attn: Scott Olsen Support Fund
Oakland CA (October 26, 2011) - Scott Olsen, a Marine veteran who did two tours in Iraq, was hit by a police projectile during last night's brutal crackdown of Occupy Oakland (photos right). He is in serious but stable condition at an Oakland hospital. Friends have reported that Scott has a "skull fracture and swelling of the brain."
Scott is 24 years old, and was with 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, before leaving the military last year. He is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, and a Courage to Resist supporter.
It's ironic that days after Obama's announcement of the end of the Iraq War, Scott faced a veritable war zone in the streets of Oakland last night. He and other protesters were surrounded by explosions and smoke (tear gas) going off around him as people nearby carried him injured while yelling for a medic.
Tell Oakland Mayor to end the brutality and investigate this incident:
Email Mayor Jean Quan.
Call the Mayor's office: (510) 238-3141.
Post a message on the mayor's Facebook page.
Photos of the incident (Indybay.org)
Video of the incident (YouTube)
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14) Cities Begin Cracking Down on 'Occupy' Protests
By JESSE McKINLEY and ABBY GOODNOUGH
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/oakland-and-other-cities-crack-down-on-occupy-protests.html?hp
OAKLAND, Calif. - After weeks of cautiously accepting the teeming round-the-clock protests spawned by Occupy Wall Street, several cities have come to the end of their patience and others appear to be not far behind.
Here in Oakland, in a scene reminiscent of the antiwar protests of the 1960s, the police filled downtown streets with tear gas late Tuesday to stop throngs of protesters from re-entering a City Hall plaza that had been cleared of their encampment earlier in the day.
Those protests, which resulted in more than 100 arrests and at least one life-threatening injury, had appeared ready to ignite again on Wednesday night as supporters of the Occupy movement promised to retake the square, where the encampment site was fenced off.
After about an hour of speeches, the crowd removed the fences around the site. The number of protesters swelled to about 3,000 people, but the demonstration remained peaceful. Leaders led a series of call-and-response chants. "Now the whole world is watching Oakland," was one phrase that was repeated as passing cars honked in approval. The police had gone, compared with a heavy presence the night before.
The official protest broke up around 10 p.m. local time, peacefully, with protesters dancing, carrying American flags and generally celebrating what seemed to be a well-attended demonstration.
Shortly after the end of that protest, however, hundreds of demonstrators began to wander down Broadway, Oakland's central thoroughfare, in an unplanned march. The Oakland police, who had been noticeably absent during the protests at City Hall, began donning protective riot gear as demonstrators chanted and tried to board Bay Area Rapid Transit trains. Several entrances to the BART system were closed, agitating protesters and adding to an increasingly tense atmosphere in Oakland, which had exploded in violence a mere 24 hours earlier.
The impromptu march continued west toward Oakland's waterfront as it became more apparent that there was little central organizing structure.
About 10:25 p.m., a crowd of a thousand protesters arrived at Oakland's police headquarters and began milling about. Some tried to put garbage cans in the street, while others beseeched the crowd to remain peaceful. The Oakland police manned the front door of their headquarters and maintained a loose perimeter.
At midnight, a much diminished crowd of perhaps 500 marched back to the City Hall encampment site, Frank Ogawa Plaza, where violence broke out Tuesday night. Some protesters were sitting in intersection, but the police kept their distance.
Across the bay, meanwhile, in the usually liberal environs of San Francisco, city officials there had also seemingly hit their breaking point, and they warned several hundred protesters that they were in violation of the law by camping at a downtown site. Concerns had been raised about unhealthy and often squalid conditions in the camp, including garbage, vermin and human waste.
In Atlanta, Mayor Kasim Reed ordered the police to arrest more than 50 protesters early Wednesday and remove their tents from a downtown park after deciding that the situation had become unsafe, despite originally issuing executive orders to let them camp there overnight.
And like many of his mayoral colleagues nationwide, Mr. Reed openly expressed frustration with the protesters' methods.
"The attitude I have seen here is not consistent with any civil rights protests I have seen in Atlanta," Mr. Reed said in an interview, "and certainly not consistent with the most respected forms of civil disobedience."
Similar confrontations could soon come to pass in other cities, including Providence, R.I., where Mayor Angel Taveras has vowed to seek a court order to remove protesters from Burnside Park, which they have occupied since Oct. 15.
And while other, bigger cities, including New York, Boston and Philadelphia, have taken a more tolerant view of the protests - for now - officials are still grappling with growing concerns about crime, sanitation and homelessness at the encampments. Even in Los Angeles, where the City Council passed a resolution in support of the protesters, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa warned Wednesday that they would not be allowed to remain outside City Hall indefinitely.
Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, echoed that sentiment. "It's a daily assessment for us," Ms. Joyce said.
More and more, mayors across the country say they have found themselves walking a complex and politically delicate line: simultaneously wanting to respect the right to free speech and assembly, but increasingly concerned that the protests cannot stay orderly and safe.
"We can do lots of different things to help them on our end," said Mr. Taveras, who estimated that roughly 200 people had camped out in Providence, despite a city rule forbidding such behavior. "But we cannot allow an indefinite stay there, and we can't allow them to continue to violate the law."
The protests showed little sign of slacking. In Chicago, for example, demonstrators gathered Wednesday outside the office of Mayor Rahm Emanuel requesting 24-hour access to Grant Park and demanding that charges be dropped against the more than 300 protesters arrested there in the past weeks.
"He's denying us our constitutional right to not only free speech, but peaceful continual assembly," said Andy Manos, 32, one of the protesters.
Even in Democratic Chicago, officials seemed to be straining to allow for dissent, while maintaining order. "We've been working hard to strike a balance," said Chris Mather, a spokeswoman for Mr. Emanuel. Ms. Mather added that the mayor's office had tried to set up meetings with protesters, who themselves said they were trying to find a permanent home for their demonstrations.
Indeed, some city officials said the tensions surrounding the Occupy protests have been increased by the fact that many of the groups involved have few recognized leaders.
"It's a significant challenge to deal with their decision-making process," said Richard Negrin, the managing director of Philadelphia, where tents form a protest village outside City Hall.
In Oakland, where one protester - Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran - was in critical condition at a local hospital after being struck in the head with a projectile during the chaotic street battle on Tuesday, city officials defended their actions, saying that the police used tear gas after being pelted with rocks. The police are investigating what happened to Mr. Olsen.
As the protests continued, worries about possible violence percolated.
In Atlanta, Mr. Reed said the last straw came Tuesday, when he said a man with an AK-47 assault rifle joined the protesters in Woodruff Park. On Wednesday, after all protesters who had been arrested were released on bond, some said the man with the assault rifle - who was carrying it legally under Georgia law - was not part of their group and should not have been a factor in shutting them down. "We don't even know that guy," said Candi Cunard, 26.
Protest organizers said many of the troublemakers in Oakland and elsewhere were not part of the Occupy movement, but rather were anarchists or others with simply with a taste for mayhem.
"The people throwing things at police and being violent are not part of our '99 Percent' occupation," said Momo Aleamotua, 19, a student from Oakland. "They're not us, and they're not welcome."
Jesse McKinley reported from Oakland, and Abby Goodnough from Providence, R.I. Reporting was contributed by Malia Wollan from Oakland, Ian Lovett from Los Angeles, Jess Bidgood from Boston, Robbie Brown from Atlanta, Kate Zernike from New York, and Steven Yaccino from Chicago.
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15) Libya's Interim Leader Asks NATO to Stay Through the End of 2011
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and RICK GLADSTONE
October 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/world/middleeast/libya-leader-wants-nato-presence-through-2011.html?ref=world
TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya's interim leader said Wednesday that he had asked NATO to prolong its air patrols through December and add military advisers on the ground, despite his official declaration on Sunday of the country's liberation after the killing of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
"We have asked NATO to stay until the end of the year, and it certainly has the international legitimacy to remain in Libya to protect the civilians from Qaddafi loyalists," the interim leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, chairman of the Transitional National Council, said in an interview with the pan-Arab news channel Al Jazeera.
"Qaddafi still has supporters in neighboring countries, and we fear those loyalists could be launching attacks against us and infiltrating our borders," he said. "We need technical support and training for our troops on the ground. We also need communications equipment, and we need aerial intelligence to monitor our borders."
Mr. Abdel-Jalil was interviewed while attending a Libyan aid conference in Doha, Qatar. He spoke as NATO was preparing within days to formally end its operations in Libya and as the country enters a treacherous new phase in its post-Qaddafi transformation.
NATO's airstrikes enabled a disparate alliance of loosely organized and undisciplined revolutionary militias to defeat Colonel Qaddafi's forces in a bloody, eight-month civil war. But the former rebels' civilian leaders have not yet unified their disparate militias under a single command, and Mr. Abdel-Jalil's request for military advisers on the ground may have been meant to address that challenge.
The credibility of the Transitional National Council has suffered from its implausible explanations for the apparent assassination of Colonel Qaddafi after his capture last week. And the geographic and ideological factions among the revolutionaries have yet to agree on a new interim leadership team even as Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril prepares to step aside within a month.
"I must say it will be difficult for all Libyans to agree on one person for a prime minister," Mr. Abdel-Jalil acknowledged in the interview, though he added that the transitional council had "a number of options."
"I hope we can come up with a name that will have the backing of most Libyans," he said.
NATO ministers last week tentatively set Monday as the end of their military operations in Libya, which were conducted under the auspices of a United Nations Security Council resolution to protect Libyan civilians from reprisals by Colonel Qaddafi's military during the conflict.
The NATO ministers had been scheduled to meet on Wednesday in Brussels to finalize the termination date, but they abruptly postponed that meeting until Friday, presumably to weigh Mr. Abdel-Jalil's request for an extension.
Qatar, one of the first Arab countries to recognize the coalition of anti-Qaddafi rebels, also disclosed for the first time on Wednesday that it had deployed hundreds of soldiers in Libya to help them.
In an interview at the aid meeting in Doha, Qatar's military chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Hamad bin Ali al-Atiya, said that the Qataris had been "running the training and communication operations" of the anti-Qaddafi forces in Libya, Agence France-Presse reported.
Previously, Qatar had said only that it was providing some air support, water, weapons and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of other aid to the rebels. Qatar's willingness to play an aggressive role in the internal Libyan conflict was an unusual departure in Qatari foreign policy.
Many rebels displayed a special gratitude to Qatar, even flying Qatari flags along with their rebel flag in some towns in the western Nafusah Mountains. Some Libyan liberals, however, have harbored suspicions, suggesting that conservatives in the Qatari government may have steered their training and resources toward Islamists among the rebels, like Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a Qatari-trained fighter who emerged as the head of Tripoli's military council.
The interim Libyan government, meanwhile, continued on Wednesday to hunt for Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, one of the colonel's sons and a onetime heir apparent who is now the last member of the former ruling family still on the loose. Among Colonel Qaddafi's other children, Mohammed, Saadi and Aisha have fled to neighboring African countries. Two sons who led militias, Khamis and Muatassim, have been killed.
There was an unconfirmed report Wednesday that an official of Libya's interim government had said Seif al-Islam was preparing to turn himself over to the International Criminal Court, where he is accused of war crimes. But other officials and the court said they had no such information.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of harassment by anti-Qaddafi forces, a person close to the Qaddafi family said Seif al-Islam's surrender at this time was extremely unlikely.
David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Tripoli, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Adam Nossiter contributed reporting from Tripoli.
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16) Drone Strike in Pakistan Kills Brother of Militant Commander
[So, if your relative is accused of a crime, the U.S. government has the right to kill you, your cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, mothere or fathers...that's what U.S. "democracy" looks like!!!...bw]
By SALMAN MASOOD
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/asia/drone-strike-in-pakistan-kills-brother-of-taliban-fighter.html?ref=world
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - An American drone strike on Thursday killed the brother of a top Pakistani Taliban commander and three other aides, officials said, in the latest targeting of militants based in the country's northwestern region.
Two missiles hit a vehicle at 9 a.m. in Tura Gula village in the Azam Warsak district in South Waziristan, according to a security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The strike killed Hazrat Umar, a 20-year-old brother of the commander, Maulvi Nazir Nazir, and Khan Muhammad, another top commander in the group.
Mr. Muhammad was a member of Mr. Nazir's advisory group and an active member of the organization's 120-member peace committee, which negotiates with the Pakistani government. He was also a member the liaison committee between the group and Al Qaeda, the security official said.
Mr. Nazir's group is based in the western part of South Waziristan, a semiautonomous mountainous tribal region straddling the border with Afghanistan. Mr. Nazir is considered one of the most influential Taliban commanders. He leads the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe and his loyalists regularly take part in attacks on American forces across the porous border with Afghanistan. Unlike other Taliban factions, Mr. Nazir's fighters do not attack Pakistani military or government targets and remain focused on the war inside Afghanistan.
The strike also killed a cousin of Mr. Nazir, identified as Meraj Khan, the official said. The identity of the fourth victim was not immediately available.The drone strike came a week after the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the country, where she met with the top military and civilian leadership. Mrs. Clinton urged the Pakistanis to take action against the militant groups that mount attacks on American forces inside Afghanistan and have safe havens on the Pakistani side of the border.
Drone attacks are hugely unpopular in the country and are believed to be responsible for a high number of civilian casualties. Mainstream politicians and Islamic religious parties portray drone strikes as violations of the country's sovereignty and have long demanded that they be halted. Officials of Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani intelligence agency, say they have stopped cooperating with the Central Intelligence Agency's drone strikes and say Americans unilaterally choose their targets.
In recent months, American drone strikes have targeted vehicles instead of houses and compounds in an apparent effort to limit the civilian deaths.
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17) #OccupyWallSt Roundup, Day 41
By JILLIAN DUNHAM
October 27, 2011, 2:12 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/occupywallst-roundup-day-41/?ref=nyregion
A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday found that 86 percent of New York voters agree with the protesters' views, up from 67 percent only a week before. [Quinnipiac University]
Political analysts have begun to speculate on the movement's impact on the 2012 election for both Republicans and Democrats. [Salon, Washington Post]
While the cost of police overtime during Occupy Wall Street is causing strife in the City Council ... [WNYC]
... the city's Independent Budget Office provided some perspective. The bill for police overtime related to Occupy Wall Street: $3.4 million. Police overtime during the last fiscal year: $549 million. [IBO Web Blog]
Prosecutors will meet with Felix Rivera-Pitre, a protester who was punched on video by a police commander. [Daily News]
Wednesday night's march to Union Square in support of the tear-gassed Oakland protesters unfolded, as ever, on video ...
Among their unexpected stops, protesters apparently crossed paths with the one-percenter television drama "Gossip Girl." [Observer]
The book on Occupy Wall Street is being written while the movement is still ... moving. [Christian Science Monitor]
The women of Occupy Wall Street were profiled, and not in a calendar. [The Nation]
Should #OcupyWallSt Roundup be in a bigger font? A comedy troupe offers a thoughtful take on news media coverage of the movement, with occasional profanity. [Jest]
The Observer nominated MC Moneypenney's new single for Official Occupy Wall Street Anthem. [Observer]
On Friday, protesters plan to meet at Bryant Park and march to Morgan Stanley, Chase and other Midtown banks to deliver letters from the 99 percent. [Occupy the Board Room]
And Occupy Wall Street is calling for Friday night vigils for Scott Olsen, the Iraq veteran and protester hospitalized with a fractured skull after the police crackdown in Oakland Tuesday night. [Occupy Wall Street]
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18) Brazilian Amazon Groups Invade Site of Dam Project
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/americas/brazilian-amazon-groups-try-to-stop-dam-project.html?ref=world
BUENOS AIRES - Waving bows and arrows and dressed in war paint, hundreds of members of indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon invaded the construction site of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam on Thursday.
Although they had vowed to permanently occupy the site in their latest attempt to stop the dam from being built, the protest disbanded late Thursday.
About 300 people arrived on seven buses at 6 a.m. and made their way to the site in Pará State where the North Energy consortium is building a workers' camp for the mammoth dam, said Paulo Cunha, an inspector for the Federal Highway Police. The group blocked the Trans-Amazon Highway around the village of Santo Antônio, where it passes the construction site, he said.
Security officials did not try to prevent the demonstrators from entering the property, the police and other officials said.
The indigenous groups demanded the presence of a senior Brazilian official, saying that they wanted to start a new round of negotiations over the dam, Amazon Watch, an organization that works to protect the Amazon region and indigenous people, reported.
"Belo Monte will only succeed if we do nothing about it," Juma Xipaia, an indigenous leader from the Xingu area, said in a statement released by Amazon Watch. "We will not be silent. We will shout out loud, and we will do it now."
The move signaled a change in strategy by indigenous groups in their campaign to stop the dam. Legal challenges by local Amazonian communities - backed by international environmental groups like Amazon Watch - have done little to dissuade the government of President Dilma Rousseff to halt work on the dam, which would be the third largest in the world. Brazilian officials say the dam is badly needed to provide for future energy needs in growing cities like São Paulo.
"This is kind of a last resort," said Atossa Soltani, the founder of Amazon Watch.
Ms. Soltani said indigenous groups were committed to nonviolent action. Last year, at a meeting at a village along the Xingu River, which the movie director James Cameron attended, about 70 indigenous leaders vowed to form a new tribe of 2,500 to occupy the construction site and, if necessary, sacrifice their lives to defend their native lands.
Environmentalists say that the $11 billion dam would flood about 200 square miles of the Amazon region and dry up a 60-mile stretch of the Xingu River, affecting fishing and the indigenous groups' way of life.
Construction of the workers' camp began about three months ago, but this was the first time that the indigenous groups tried to invade the site.
"It has been a process," Ms. Soltani said. "Communities have slowly built enough solidarity where they could sustain it. Now, all of the affected communities are united."
North Energy said in a statement on Thursday that it would not halt construction work. A judge in Altamira, Cristina Collyer Damásio, ordered the demonstrators to leave the site and prohibited any disturbance that would halt construction work. Violators, the judge said in her order, would be fined about $290 a day.
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19) Outrage Over Veteran Injured at 'Occupy' Protest
By JESSE McKINLEY and MALIA WOLLAN
October 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/veterans-injury-at-occupy-protest-prompts-outrage.html?ref=us
OAKLAND, Calif. - For supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose diffuse anger has been a defining and sometimes distracting characteristic, the wounding of an Iraq war veteran here has provided a powerful central rallying point.
The veteran, Scott Olsen, 24, was critically injured on Tuesday night when he was hit in the head with a projectile thrown or shot by law enforcement officers combating protesters trying to re-enter a downtown plaza that had been cleared of an encampment earlier in the day. Mr. Olsen, who served two tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine, suffered a fractured skull.
And while Mr. Olsen's condition has since improved, his injury - and the oddity of a Marine who faced enemy fire only to be attacked at home - has prompted an outpouring of sympathy, as well as calls for solidarity among the scores of Occupy encampments around the nation. On Thursday night, camps in several major cities - including New York, Chicago and Philadelphia - were expected to participate in a vigil for Mr. Olsen, according to Iraq Veterans Against the War, of which he is a member.
"I think people would have been outraged even had this been a civilian," said Jose Vasquez, the group's executive director, "but the fact that he survived two tours of duty and then to have this happen to him, people are really upset about that."
Friends of Mr. Olsen - who worked in computer systems at a Bay Area technology company - said that he had eagerly joined the Occupy movement, heading to the San Francisco camp after work and sleeping on the streets in solidarity with the campers there. He was in Oakland on Tuesday to take part in the demonstration there.
"He was loving it," said Jason Matherne, a fellow Iraq war veteran who met Mr. Olsen several months ago. "I think he believed that corporate greed needs to end, and I think he felt the war economy was part of that."
Video of Mr. Olsen, lying bleeding and stunned, has been shown on the Internet and on television news reports, though what exactly hit him remained unclear. But Joshua Shepherd, 27, another veteran, said there had been a "barrage of police tear gas canisters flying everywhere."
"I did not know Scott had been hit," Mr. Shepherd said. "People dragged him away."
Since the skirmish, which resulted in more than 100 arrests, several liberal groups - including Amnesty International - have condemned the use of tear gas as well as the actions of Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, who said the measures were justified because protesters threw rocks.
The Oakland police have since promised an investigation, and Ms. Quan repeated on Wednesday that Oakland is a "very progressive city" that supports the goals of Occupy Wall Street. But petitions were already circulating calling for the resignation of Oakland's interim police chief, Howard Jordan.
Some 3,000 people gathered peaceably on Wednesday night, debating the merits of calling a general strike in Oakland next week, echoing calls from some Occupy supporters for a national strike. That event was followed by a march through downtown. Unlike Tuesday night, the Oakland police kept their distance.
Outside City Hall on Thursday, meanwhile, several tents had once again sprung up on the contested campground, after protesters removed a police barricade the night before. Nearby, a makeshift tribute to Mr. Olsen had been built around a flagpole, with the words "Pray 4 Scott" chalked onto the pavement.
A handful of protesters also stood guard, including Joann Herr, 60, of Oakland, who said Mr. Olsen's injury had enraged her. "I was mad," Ms. Herr said. "How could you not be?"
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20) Fire Inspectors Remove Generators and Gasoline at Zuccotti Park
By KATE TAYLOR and AL BAKER
October 28, 2011, 10:09 am
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/index.html
Updated, 11:02 a.m. | Firefighters went into Zuccotti Park early Friday morning and removed six generators and 13 cans of gasoline, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program. Protesters handed the materials over voluntarily, and there were no arrests.
The mayor said that 30 or 40 firefighters went through the park and that there was a substantial police presence on hand as well. But the mayor, who said he had not been there but had spoken with both the fire and police commissioners, praised the protesters for being calm and cooperative.
"You can't complain when, notified about the safety hazard, the protesters voluntarily took their generators and cans and turned them in," he said on his program on WOR-AM (710).
The materials were taken away by truck, the mayor said, adding that people would be able to collect them later, when they left the park. Fire officials said the protesters were given receipts.
A Fire Department spokesman, James Long, said, "The concern is that conditions there are unsafe and there is a buildup of tent and debris and combustibles, and then there are generators and fuel containers spread throughout and in violation of fire codes and such."
The mayor also said that for now, the tents that have gone up in the park in recent days would be allowed to stay.
"Unless Brookfield wants us to enforce a regulation that they have a right to impose, saying no tents, they can stay there," the mayor said, referring to Brookfield Properties, the developer that owns the park.
The mayor said the city's top concerns were safety and protecting the protesters' First Amendment rights. Concerning the latter, he said, "So far Brookfield hasn't complained to us and asked us to remove people, so that's not a consideration," he said.
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21) Executive Pay Rises 49% at British Companies
By JULIA WERDIGIER
October 28, 2011, 8:42 am
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/board-pay-rises-49-at-british-companies/?ref=business
LONDON - Executives at Britain's biggest companies received an average pay increase of 49 percent this year, with compensation rising faster than companies' shares.
The annual average pay of executives, including chief executives and finance chiefs, at Britain's 100 largest publicly listed companies rose to £2.7 million, or $4.3 million, according to research by Incomes Data Services published Friday. Chief executives received an average 43.5 percent pay increase, to £3.9 million, the report said. The FTSE 100 share index rose 15.8 percent in the period from February last year to April 2011.
"Britain's economy may be struggling to return to pre-recession levels of output, but the same cannot be said of FTSE 100 directors' remuneration," Steve Tatton, editor of the report, said in a statement. The pay includes salary, benefits, bonuses and long-term incentive plans.
Deborah Hargreaves, chairwoman of the High Pay Commission, an independent group that examines private sector pay, told BBC radio that it was "very hard to justify these sorts of pay increases" and that it was in the interest of the executives to keep the market rate for their positions high.
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22) Chrysler CEO Says 2-Class Wage Structure Has to Go
[Of course, the bosses natural next step to two-tier wages is to knock out the top tier and lower everyone's wages! Way to go, Capitalism! ...bw]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/28/business/AP-US-Chrysler-Wages.html?src=busln
The head of Chrysler says the carmaker's two-class wage system has to go.
CEO Sergio Marchionne says Chrysler needs one wage structure in its next contract with the United Auto Workers. Negotiations for that contract start in 2015.
He says the current system creates two classes of workers. New workers in the bottom tier make about half as much money as longtime UAW members.
Marchionne didn't say how he would come up with one wage. But it's likely he'll try to reduce the pay of top-tier workers. General Motors and Ford could follow and pay could be cut for most of the UAW's 112,000 members.
UAW workers approved a four-year contract with Chrysler on Wednesday. It includes raises for bottom-tier workers.
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