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President Obama In San Francisco
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011, 11:00 a.m.
3rd & Howard Streets, San Francisco
President Obama is schedule to speak in S.F. at an exclusive luncheon for 200 large donors ($7500/plate) The public is not invited.
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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"If corporations are people, why can't we put them in jail?"
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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Bay Area folks - Please come see Jess Sundin and other folks fighting repression THIS WEEK
Please join the
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
this week at these Bay Area events!
8 events remaining
See below for more info
Monday, Oct 17 - Mill Valley
Tuesday, Oct 18 - Napa
Tuesday, Oct 18 - Sacramento
Wednesday, Oct 19 - Stanford
Thursday, Oct 20 - Berkeley
Friday, Oct 21 - Rohnert Park
Saturday, Oct 22 - San Jose
Saturday, Oct 22, 7pm - San Francisco
See below for more info
Fight Back: No to FBI Repression, Islamophobia and War!
October 15 - 22
Antiwar week of solidarity and in defense of civil liberties
Marking the 10th year of the U.S. war against the people of Afghanistan
Bring the Troops Home Now! Civil Liberties for all!
Featuring
Stephen Downs, Albany, NY civil liberties attorney; Legal Counsel, Project Salam (Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims); Leading national spokesman against government-promoted Islamophobia and repression against the Islamic-American communities
Jess Sundin, Chicago Grand Jury subpoena victim and solidarity/antiwar activist facing, along with 23 others, felony charges of conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism. Twin Cities antiwar activist; Leader, Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Andrew Phillips, General Manager KPFA Radio
Michael Thurman, Bradley Manning Support Network
Dalia Marina, Palestinian-American performing artist
Other tour speakers participating in some of the meetings listed below include:
Zarah Billoo, Executive Director, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations)
Hatem Bazian, Palestinian-American UC Berkeley Professor of Near Eastern Studies
Carlos Villarreal, Exec. Dir., National Lawyers Guild
Rep., United National Antiwar Coalition
Michael Thurman, Bradley Manning
Support Network
Laura Herrera, Mobilization to Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Rep., Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Rep., Immigrant rights community
Rep., Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Detailed Schedule
Monday, October 17, 7-9PM
The Redwoods Auditorium, 40 Camino Alto, Mill Valley, CA, Sponsor, Mill Valley Seniors for Peace; Marin Peace and Justice Coalition warrenut@aol.com 415-389-9040 Free
Tuesday, Oct 18, 12:30PM
Napa Valley College, Room 836, 800 Building, 2277 Napa Vallejo Highway, Napa, CA. Free. Sponsors: Sacramento Valley Campus Greens, Napa Muslim Association.
Tuesday, Oct 18, 7PM
909 12th St, Sacramento. Free/donation requested. Sponsors: Sacramento Valley Chapter, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, 916-369-5510 & Sacramento Area Peace Action
Wednesday, Oct 19, 8:15pm
Stanford Law School Lounge
Thursday, October 20, 7:30PM
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar Street at Bonita, Berkeley, Free/donation requested.
Friday, October 21, 7:00PM
Sonoma State University, Warren Auditorium in Ives Hall (Directions to Warren Auditorium: At the Main Entrance to the University, turn left off of E. Cotati Avenue onto Sequoia Drive. Take the first right at the Information Booth onto Redwood Drive. Turn left into parking lot E. Ives Hall is the building on the North side of the parking lot. Parking free after 5:00 pm), 707-874-2695. Sponsor: Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action and Santa Rosa Peace and Justice Center
Saturday, October 22, 2- 4 PM
San Jose Peace and Justice Center, 48 S. Seventh Street, San Jose, Sponsors: San Jose Peace and Justice Center and San Jose Committee to Stop FBI Repression. Donations accepted. 408-373-0817
Saturday, October 22, 7pm
Celebrate a People's Victory with the San Francisco 8 at African American Art & Culture Center, 762 Fulton St (at Webster), San Francisco.
Initial Tour Co-Sponsors
United National Antiwar Coalition • National Lawyers Guild SF Bay Area Chapter Committee to Stop FBI Repression • Project Salam • San Jose Peace and Justice Center • Mill Valley Seniors for Peace • Marin Peace and Justice Center • Green Party of Alameda County • Oakland Education Association Peace and Justice Caucus • Peninsula Peace and Justice Center • Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists • International Action Center • International Socialist Organization • BAYAN/USA • Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal • Lynne Stewart Defense Committee • Code Pink San Francisco • Socialist Viewpoint • Solidarity • Sacramento Area Peace Action • Socialist Action • Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action • Santa Rosa Peace and Justice Center • Sacramento Valley Chapter Women's International League for Peace and Freedom • Veterans for Peace Chapter 162 East Bay • Afghans for Peace • California Peace and Freedom Party • Michel Shehadeh, Case of the Los Angeles 8
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 5541
All meetings wheelchair accessible. All meetings co-sponsored by United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC), 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
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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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UNAC Conference.
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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The Call for the 16th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation
Saturday, October 22,2011
12:00 NOON
3rd Street and Palou
San Francisco
(Endorse this call, forward to others. Return endorsements to oct22bayarea@gmail.com or call 510 206-0742)
Across the U.S., Black, Latino, and poor neighborhoods are treated like occupied territory by increasingly militarized armies of law enforcement. People are criminalized and brutalized for their perceived status - socioeconomic, immigration, mental health, and/or racial, gender, or sexual identity. People living in our communities, especially youth, are routinely stopped, harassed, beaten, and even killed.
--In Chicago, the home of the first Black president, police have shot 44 people so far this year, mostly youth of color, including 13-year-old Jimmell Cannon, who was shot eight times.
--NYPD continues to stop hundreds of thousands of youth of color every year for the most minimal suspicion, fewer than 10 percent of which result in arrest, and far fewer in charges or conviction.
--Police nationwide continue to kill with very little consequence. Twelve Miami cops shot at 22-year-old Raymond Herisse 100 times, then threatened those who recorded the incident, destroying their cellphones. A Tucson SWAT team shot at 26-year-old Iraq War veteran Jose Guerena over 70 times, claiming that he fired at them and then leaving him to bleed to death in his home. Both their allegations of gunfire and drug-dealing were later revealed to be false. In New York and New Jersey, at least 27 people have been killed by police since October 22 of last year, while at least 35 people have been killed by law enforcement in Washington State in the last 12 months. The killing of 22-year old Oscar Grant in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009 resulted in a rare conviction for the officer who shot him; however, he was freed after mere months in prison, while people protesting the outrageous verdict were met with police violence and mass arrests. In the weeks following that cop's release, SF cops killed Charles Hill, a 45-year-old homeless man, on a subway platform and 19-year old Kenneth Harding after he supposedly failed to pay a $2 train fare, then left him dying on the pavement in front of dozens of outraged witnesses.
--Police routinely abuse the mentally ill and disabled. Fullerton, CA cops beat to death homeless and mentally ill 27-year-old Kelly Thomas, described by many in the community as "a gentle, childlike soul." In Fresno, CA, 28-year-old Raul Rosas, Jr. died after being tasered by police. His girlfriend said "I didn't call the Fresno County Sheriff to kill him. I called because he needed help with his mental illness." Raul went into cardiac arrest and was denied access to three medical ambulances that showed up to assist.
--Recently enacted anti-immigrant laws have given police in the states of Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama sweeping powers to stop people "suspected" of being undocumented on no other basis than appearance. The hostility and racism stoked by these policies have already culminated in violence, as seen in the killing of 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereka by a border patrol agent and the beating death of 42-year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas at the hands of La Migra. More than one million have been deported under the Obama administration.
--Racially targeted mass incarceration exacerbates the criminalization and marginalization of Black people, playing the same role as the Jim Crow laws that sprang from the Virginia slave codes of 1705. In 1954, 90,000 Black people were incarcerated. Now, over 900,000 Black people are imprisoned, a tenfold increase, while the total U.S. Black population has merely doubled in the same period. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate worldwide, with 2.4 million people in prison.
--Law enforcement continues to harass and sexually assault people, most especially women and the transgendered. According to the website InjusticeEverywhere.com, sexual misconduct was the second most common complaint (following excessive force) against police in 2010, involving 618 cops.
--Young schoolchildren are increasingly labeled and treated as criminals by school security and local police. Eight-year-old Aidan Elliot was peppersprayed and handcuffed by Colorado police, and ten-year-old Sofia Bautista was removed from her elementary school, then taken to a NYPD precinct, handcuffed, and interrogated for hours, while police nationwide continue to use tasers on students as young as six.
Meanwhile, repression against those who take action against injustices continues to escalate. Over a dozen activists with Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for feeding the homeless in public parks. The killings of Oscar Grant, Kenneth Harding, Kelly Thomas, Raymond Herisse, and John T. Williams in Seattle were all caught on video. Now, as if in retaliation against the subsequent public outrage, police in cities and towns nationwide have attacked and arrested people merely for recording their activity, while in Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts, video-recording the police is now explicitly illegal. Cops haven't stopped killing and brutalizing people--they're just making it a crime to record them while they do. Repression against progressive and antiwar activism has intensified: simultaneous FBI raids on activists from numerous antiwar and international solidarity organizations in three U.S. cities took place on September 24, 2010. Twenty-three activists now face serious jail time for refusing to participate in the ensuing grand jury witch hunts that clearly intend to discourage and intimidate would-be dissenters.
These vicious attacks are not going down without opposition. Whether standing up to police violence when it happens, as we saw in the video of Kenneth Harding's shooting, or organizing inspiring prison strikes in Georgia and California, people are uniting to fight back. Determined outcry from people nationwide against the shooting of unarmed men crossing the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has finally brought convictions of the guilty cops and exposed the sort of extensive cover-ups that are routine with police shootings. More and more crimes against the people are being revealed, as we have seen with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' Operation Fast and Furious, which intentionally provided weapons to Mexican drug cartels, and the overturning of over 4,000 convictions of youth in Pennsylvania after it was found that juvenile judge Mark Ciavarella received kickbacks from private for-profit detention centers.
Once we have seen the man behind the curtain, how can we pretend he is not there? One thing we know from years of experience is that when this system has to answer to organized people, it can't easily get away with all the things it's used to doing. Resistance matters.
THE VIOLENCE OF THE COPS, THE COURTS, THE FBI, LA MIGRA, AND HOMELAND SECURITY IS INTENSIFYING. OUR RESISTANCE MUST INTENSIFY AS WELL! Every year, thousands of people nationwide express their outrage, creativity, and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. People speak out and perform, they march in the streets, and more. The October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation embraces and encourages any and all such expressions of people's righteous outrage.
As said by the mother of Gil Barber, gunned down by a deputy in High Point, NC in 2001, "October 22nd is our day." ORGANIZE against these injustices! BREAK DOWN the barriers between communities that these crimes seek to strengthen! MOBILIZE people of all communities in the most visible way...and on October 22, 2011, WEAR BLACK! FIGHT BACK!
JOIN US if there is already an October 22nd event in your area. CREATE one if you are in an area where there is currently no group organizing. For listings of activities in your area, check the websitewww.october22.org.
To start building for an event in your area, email info@october22.org
TO ENDORSE THIS CALL, SIGN BELOW AND MAIL TO: October 22, P.O. Box 2627, New York, NY 10009, along with your tax-deductible donation to the national organizing effort. Suggested donation $15.00 (paid to "IFCO/October 22")
Name: ___________________________________________
Email: ____________________________________________
Organization: __________________________________________________________* (note if for identification purposes only)
Signature: __________________________________________________________
You may also make this endorsement directly on the website www.october22.org
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MEDICARE IN THE CROSS-HAIRS
SOCIAL SECURITY NEXT?
SAN FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL TEACH-IN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011, 7:30-9PM
Plumbers Union Hall, 1621 Market St., S.F.
(5 blocks from Civic Center BART station)
For more information call Carl, San Francisco Labor Council Education Project
415-829-3816
CUTTING MEDICARE-MEDICAID IS THE POLITICIANS CONSENSUS #1 BUDGET TARGET
• President Obama has just proposed a $248 billion cut in Medicare as a starter & another $72 billion in Medicaid cuts.
• Obama indicated September 19 he will support cutting more than $320 Billion if Republicans agree with him on taxes.
• Vice-President Joe Biden last June offered Republicans to cut $400-$500 billion in Medicare-Medicaid
• Republicans last April proposed to raise out-of-pocket costs for Medicare for seniors by $7,000 per year
• The 'Supercommittee' of 12 in Congress said last week they want to cut even more than Obama has proposed. They will report 'how much' more on November 19.
• Congress will vote on how much more in Medicare-Medicaid cuts before December 23.
How Much Will Your Medicare Be Cut?
How Much More Will You Have to Pay?
Come Hear the Facts
Open Discussion to Follow
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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
Wednesday October 26, 7pm
East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
339 11th Street, Richmond, CA 94801-3105
Suggested donation at the door $10, Children Free
http://eastbaycenter.org/Events/EventsbyDate/tabid/261/Default.aspx
Thursday October 27, 1pm
Esperanza Elementary School, Oakland
Private Presentation
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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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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White House Petition for Leonard Peltier - October 22 deadline
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
A petition in favor of granting clemency to Leonard Peltier is now on the We the People portion of the White House Web site. We have 30 days (until October 22) to get 5,000 signatures in order for our petition to be reviewed by the White House. This petition may only allow US signatories.
Sign the petition here:
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
Due to heavy site traffic, you may have trouble accessing the petition. Keep trying until you succeed. Try during off-peak hours.
Email our petition to your friends, family and others who care about this issue.
Facebook: Post our petition to your Facebook wall to let folks know about it. Here's a sample message you can cut and paste into your Facebook status: Petition for Leonard Peltier on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Twitter: Tweet about your petition. Here's a sample tweet you can use: Leonard Peltier petition on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Let's do it!
Launched into cyberspace by the
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
The Petition:
we petition the obama administration to:
grant clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier without delay.
10th Circuit Court of Appeals: "...Much of the government's behavior... and its prosecution of Leonard Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."
While others were acquitted on grounds of self defense, Peltier was convicted in connection with the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents. Evidence shows that prosecutors knowingly presented false statements to a Canadian court to extradite Peltier and manufactured the murder weapon (the gun and shell casings entered into evidence didn't match; this fact was hidden from the jury). The number of constitutional violations in this case is simply staggering.
It's time to right this wrong. Mr. President, you can and must free Leonard Peltier.
Created: Sep 22, 2011
Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Human Rights
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/grant-clemency-native-american-activist-leonard-peltier-without-delay/LLWBZq1S
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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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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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'Occupy Wall Street' NYPD runs over a protester with motorcycle 14/10/2011
http://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DVrzQedHM6SY%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded
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OWS_PoliceScooter
by The Local East Village
http://vimeo.com/30550909
OWS_PoliceScooter from The Local East Village on Vimeo.
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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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Could Occupy Wall Street be infiltrated by political groups?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D983q4xOnZg
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Make Revolution, Not Reform: A Warning to the 'Occupy' Movement
andrewgavinmarshall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oneVFYeMHjU#!
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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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#Occupy Wall Street Begins To Go National!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDnFbIwZUWQ
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OCCUPY-WALL-STREET-PROTESTERS-ARRESTS( Sept 20, 2011) Spread This Video Please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyvbI6Eq-qA
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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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UNEDITED - COP KNEE ON THROAT 9/24/2011 #OCCUPYWALLSTREET
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbXfelyIoM&NR=1
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9/24/2011 COPS KETTLING AT UNION SQUARE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaQvh80L-g&NR=1
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Empire State Rebellion: An Idea Whose Time Has Come - OpESR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIlfV1pCZY&feature=player_embedded
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Protesters pepper sprayed at the National Air & Space Museum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc9OSFLnyUI&feature=youtu.be
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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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A Familiar Figure Begs on the Street, but Not for Himself
97-year-old "Professor Irwin Corey" collects money for medical aid for children in Cuba.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/10/11/nyregion/100000001099057/hes-97-and-famous-spare-some-change.html
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AlphaDog Proto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbZrQp-HOk&feature=player_embedded
The AlphaDog Proto is a lab prototype for the Legged Squad Support System, a robot being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA and the US Marine Corps. When fully developed the system will carry 400 lbs of payload on 20-mile missions in rough terrain. The first version of the complete robot will be completed in 2012. This video shows early results from the control development process. In this video the robot is powered remotely. AlphaDog is designed to be over 10x quieter than BigDog. For more information visit us at www.BostonDynamics.com.
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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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Troy Davis, Racism, The Death Penalty & Labor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEues_-KoZU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war?
Narrated by Tony Benn. Music by Brian Eno
Mass Demonstration October 8, Noon, Trafalgar Square, London
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Bkg8zgoYQ&feature=youtu.be
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LOWKEY OBAMA NATION (BANIDO DA TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFywomdJTM&feature=related
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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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Very reminiscent of Obama...bw
Pat Paulsen 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oiQhhdz8ys
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
The video above documents what I am told is a meeting between Fukushima residents and government officials from Tokyo, said to have taken place on 19 July 2011. The citizens are demanding their government evacuate people from a broader area around the Fukushima nuclear plant, because of ever-increasing fears about the still-spreading radiation. They are demanding that their government provide financial and logistical support to get out. In the video above, you can see that some participants actually brought samples of their children's urine to the meeting, and they demanded that the government test it for radioactivity.
When asked by one person at the meeting about citizens' right to live a healthy and radioactive-free life, Local Nuclear Emergency Response Team Director Akira Satoh replies "I don't know if they have that right."
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Let's torture the truth out of suicide bombers says new CIA chief Petraeus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sm02UbKNCKQ
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Kim Ives & Dan Coughlin on WikiLeaks Cables that Reveal "Secret History" of U.S. Bullying in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL0Dk21dC-M
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Operation Empire State Rebellion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJvBlQcaaaU&feature=player_embedded#at=10
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20 Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know
Click an image to learn more about a fact!
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php
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Licensed to Kill Video
http://nirs.org/multimedia/video/l2k.htm
Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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Tier Systems Cripple Middle Class Dreams for Young Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pQW6TW8m4&feature=youtu.be
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Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM&feature=player_embedded
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BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
http://youtu.be/eTvUs4rY4to
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Cuba: The Accidental Eden
http://video.pbs.org/video/1598230084/
[This is a stunningly beautiful portrait of the Cuban natural environment as it is today. ...bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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The Kill Team
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
Rolling Stone
March 27, 3011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
Afghans respond to "Kill Team"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3guxWIorhdA
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WikiLeaks Mirrors
Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.
In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, you will find below a list of mirrors of Wikileaks website and CableGate pages.
Go to
http://wikileaks.ch/Mirrors.html
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Domestic Espionage Alert - Houston PD to use surveillance drone in America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpstrc15Ogg
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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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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Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Resumes
By Erin Sherbert
September 26 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/pelican_bay_hunger_strike_resumes.php
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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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Your help is needed to defend free speech rights
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
We are writing to urge you to send an email letter today that can make a big difference in the outcome of a free speech fight that is vital to all grassroots movements that support social justice and peace.
It will just take a moment of your time but it will make a big difference.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=326
All across the country people and organizations engaged in producing and disseminating leaflets and posters - the classic method of grassroots outreach used by those without institutional power and corporate money - are being faced with bankrupting fines.
This has been happening with ferocity in the nation's capital ever since the ANSWER Coalition was fined over $50,000 in the span of a few weeks for posters advertising the Sept. 15, 2007, protest against the Iraq war.
Attorneys for the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a major lawsuit in August 2007 against the unconstitutional postering regulations in Washington, D.C.
"The District has employed an illegal system that creates a hierarchy of speech, favoring the speech of politicians and punishing grassroots outreach," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF, stated in explaining a basic tenet of the lawsuit. "It's time for that system to end, and it will."
The hard-fought four-year-long lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund against Washington, D.C.'s unconstitutional postering regulations has succeeded in achieving a number of important victories, including the issuance of new regulations after the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia warned just last month of an impending declaration of unconstitutionality against the District.
In July 2011 the federal District Court issued a preliminary opinion regarding one aspect of our lawsuit and suggested that the D.C. government "revise the regulations to include a single, across-the-board durational restriction that applies equally to all viewpoints and subject matters."
But this battle is not finished. The new regulations still contain dissent-crushing "strict liability" provisions (explained below) and remain unconstitutionally vague and ambiguous. Plus the District has never withdrawn the tens of thousands of dollars of fines against ANSWER.
The District of Columbia is required by law to open the new rules to public comment, which it has done with an extremely short comment period that is now open. We need people to send a comment today to the government of Washington, D.C. It just takes a minute using our online Submit a Comment tool, which will send your comment by email.
Send a letter today in support of the right to produce and disseminate leaflets and posters in Washington, D.C. We have included a sample comment but we encourage people to use or add your own language.
An Opportunity for You to Make a Difference
In response to our lawsuit, the District of Columbia has now issued "Emergency Regulations" replacing the current system which the city now admits are a "threat to the public welfare," after the court issued a preliminary opinion that agreed with a basic argument of the lawsuit.
This is an important moment and we need you and others who believe in Free Speech to weigh in during the short 15-day public comment period in response to the proposed Emergency Regulations for postering. Submit an online Comment now that makes one or more of three vital points:
Drop the $70,000 fines that have been applied to the ANSWER Coalition for anti-war posters during the past four years.
End "Strict Liability" fines and penalities. Strict Liability constitutes something of a death penalty for Free Speech activities such as producing leaflets and posters. It means that an organization referenced on posted signs can be held "strictly liable" for any materials alleged to be improperly posted, even if the group never even posted a single sign or poster. The D.C. government is even going further than that - it just levied fines against a disabled Vietnam veteran who didn't put up a single poster but was fined $450 because three posted signs were seen referencing a Veterans for Peace demonstration last December, and the District's enforcement agents researched that his name was on the permit application for the peace demonstration at the White House. Any group or person that leaves literature at a bookstore, or distributes literature, or posts .pdf fliers on the Internet, can be fined tens of thousands of dollars simply for having done nothing more than making political literature available.
Insist that any new regulations be clear, unambiguous and fair. The District's new "Emergency" Regulations are still inadequate because they are vague and ambiguous. Vaguely worded regulations in the hands of vindictive authority can and will be used to punish, penalize and fine grassroots organizations that seek to redress grievances while allowing the powerful and moneyed interests to do as they please. The District's postering regulations must be clear and unambiguous if they are to be fair, uniform and constitutional.
Take two minutes right now, click through to our online comment submission tool.
Thank you for your continued support. After you send your comment today to the District of Columbia please send this email to your friends and encourage them to take action as well. Click here to send your comment to the District.
Sincerely,
ANSWER Coalition
www.AnswerCoalition.org
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
TAKE ACTION: New Punishment Against Rene Gonzalez
On Oct 7, René González, one of the Cuban 5 Patriots will be released from the US prison in Marianna Florida after serving out his 15 year sentence. Rene's crime was defending the security of the Cuban people against terrorist attacks.
The US government is now trying to stop his immediate return to his homeland, and his family, after he serves out the last day of this unjust sentence. And now, in the most cynical and mean spirited fashion, the US court that sentenced him in 2001 is extending his punishment by making him remain in the United States.
Because Rene was born in the US he will now have to spend an additional 3 years of probation here. Seven months ago his lawyer presented a motion asking the court to modify the conditions of his probation so that after he finished his sentence he be allowed to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family for humanitarian reasons.
On March 25, the prosecutor Caroline Heck Miller asked the judge to deny the motion. On September 16 Judge Joan Lenard rejected the defense motion, alleging among other reasons, that the Court needs time to evaluate the behavior of the condemned person after he is freed to verify that he is not a danger to the United States.
We have to remember that this is the same prosecutor that rejected an attempt to try Posada Carriles as a criminal, and this is the same judge that included in the conditions of his release a special point that while Rene is under supervised release that," the accused is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists are known to be or frequent"
By writing this Judge Lenard made the shameful recognition that terrorists groups do exist and enjoy impunity in Miami. Furthermore she is offering them protection from Rene from bothering or denouncing them upon his release.
It was not enough for the US government to make Rene fulfill the complete sentence to the last day; It was not enough to try and blackmail his family by telling them he would not go to trial if he collaborated against his 4 brothers; it was not enough to pressure Rene with what could happen to his family if he did not cooperate with the government, including the detention and deportation of his wife Olga Salanueva; and it was not enough to deny Olga visas to visit her husband repeatedly all these years.
Why does the US government want to continue punishing René and his family?
The prejudice of the Miami community against the Five was denounced by three judges of the Eleventh Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals on August 27, 2005, where it was recognized who the terrorists were, what organizations they belonged to and where they reside. To mandate that Rene Gonzalez stay another 3 years of supervised "freedom" in Florida, where a nest of international terrorists reside and who publicly make their hatred of Cuba and the Cuban 5 known, is to put the life of Rene in serious risk.
Today we are making a call to friends from all over the world to denounce this new punishment and to demand the US government allow René Gonzalez to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family as soon as he get out of prison.
Contact now President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the immediate return of René Gonzalez to his homeland and his family
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE WHITE HOUSE
Write a letter to President Obama
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
EE.UU.
Make a phone call and leave a message for President Barack Obama: 202-456-1111
Send an e-mail message to President Barack Obama
HTTP://WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Write a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder
US Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Make a phone call and leave a message for US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2000
Or call the public commentary line: 202-353-1555
Send an e-mail message to US Attorney General Eric Holder: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
To learn more about the Cuban 5 visit:
www.thecuban5.org
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO/G8 Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
The CSFR Signs Letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The CSFR is working with the United National Antiwar Committee and many other anti-war groups to organize mass rallies and protests on May 15 and May 19, 2012. We will protest the powerful and wealthy war-makers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Group of 8. Mobilize your groups, unions, and houses of worship. Bring your children, friends, and community. Demand jobs, healthcare, housing and education, not war!
Office of the Mayor
City of Chicago
To: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
We, the undersigned, demand that your administration grant us permits for protests on May 15 and 19, 2012, including appropriate rally gathering locations and march routes to the venue for the NATO/G8 summit taking place that week. We come to you because your administration has already spoken to us through Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has threatened mass arrests and violence against protestors.
[Read the full text of the letter here: http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression/full-text]
For the 10s of thousands of people from Chicago, around the country and across the world who will gather here to protest against NATO and the G8, we demand that the City of Chicago:
1. Grant us permits to rally and march to the NATO/G8 summit
2. Guarantee our civil liberties
3. Guarantee us there will be no spying, infiltration of organizations or other attacks by the FBI or partner law enforcement agencies.
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Supporter of Leak Suspect Is Called Before Grand Jury
By SCOTT SHANE
June 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16brfs-Washington.html?ref=world
A supporter of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, was called before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday, but he said he declined to answer any questions. The supporter, David M. House, a freelance computer scientist, said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because he believes the Justice Department is "creating a climate of fear around WikiLeaks and the Bradley Manning support network." The grand jury inquiry is separate from the military prosecution of Private Manning and is believed to be exploring whether the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, or others in the group violated the law by acquiring and publishing military and State Department documents.
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herman-wallace
For nearly four decades, 64-year-old Albert Woodfox and 69-year-old Herman Wallace have been held in solitary confinement, mostly in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison). Throughout their prolonged incarceration in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR) Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have endured very restrictive conditions including 23 hour cellular confinement. They have limited access to books, newspapers and TV and throughout the years of imprisonment they have been deprived of opportunities for mental stimulation and access to work and education. Social interaction has been restricted to occasional visits from friends and family and limited telephone calls.
Louisiana prison authorities have over the course of 39 years failed to provide a meaningful review of the men's continued isolation as they continue to rubberstamp the original decision to confine the men in CCR. Decades of solitary confinement have had a clear psychological effect on the men. Lawyers report that they are both suffering from serious health problems caused or exacerbated by their years of close confinement.
After being held together in the same prison for nearly 40 years, the men are now held in seperate institutions where they continue to be subjected to conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
Take action now to demand that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be immediately removed from solitary confinement
Sign our petition which will be sent to the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, calling on him to:
* take immediate steps to remove Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace from close confinement
* ensure that their treatment complies with the USA's obligations under international standards and the US Constitution.
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Stop Coal Companies From Erasing Labor Union History
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-coal-companies-from-erasing-labor-union-history
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One year after Bradley's detainment, we need your support more than ever.
Dear Friends,
One year ago, on May 26, 2010, the U.S. government quietly arrested a humble young American intelligence analyst in Iraq and imprisoned him in a military camp in Kuwait. Over the coming weeks, the facts of the arrest and charges against this shy soldier would come to light. And across the world, people like you and I would step forward to help defend him.
Bradley Manning, now 23 years old, has never been to court but has already served a year in prison- including 10 months in conditions of confinement that were clear violation of the international conventions against torture. Bradley has been informally charged with releasing to the world documents that have revealed corruption by world leaders, widespread civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces, the true face of Guantanamo, an unvarnished view of the U.S.'s imperialistic foreign negotiations, and the murder of two employees of Reuters News Agency by American soldiers. These documents released by WikiLeaks have spurred democratic revolutions across the Arab world and have changed the face of journalism forever.
For his act of courage, Bradley Manning now faces life in prison-or even death.
But you can help save him-and we've already seen our collective power. Working together with concerned citizens around the world, the Bradley Manning Support Network has helped raise worldwide awareness about Manning's torturous confinement conditions. Through the collective actions of well over a half million people and scores of organizations, we successfully pressured the U.S. government to end the tortuous conditions of pre-trial confinement that Bradley was subjected to at the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. Today, Bradley is being treated humanely at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. T hanks to your support, Bradley is given leeway to interact with other pre-trial prisoners, read books, write letters, and even has a window in his cell.
Of course we didn't mount this campaign to just improve Bradley's conditions in jail. Our goal is to ensure that he can receive a fair and open trial. Our goal is to win Bradley's freedom so that he can be reunited with his family and fulfill his dream of going to college. Today, to commemorate Bradley's one year anniversary in prison, will you join me in making a donation to help support Bradley's defense?
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
We'll be facing incredible challenges in the coming months, and your tax-deductible donation today will help pay for Bradley's civilian legal counsel and the growing international grassroots campaign on his behalf. The U.S. government has already spent a year building its case against Bradley, and is now calling its witnesses to Virginia to testify before a grand jury.
What happens to Bradley may ripple through history - he is already considered by many to be the single most important person of his generation. Please show your commitment to Bradley and your support for whistle-blowers and the truth by making a donation today.
With your help, I hope we will come to remember May 26th as a day to commemorate all those who risk their lives and freedom to promote informed democracy - and as the birth of a movement that successfully defended one courageous whistle-blower against the full fury of the U.S. government.
Donate now: bradleymanning.org/donate
In solidarity,
Jeff Paterson and Loraine Reitman,
On behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee
www.bradleymanning.org
P.S. After you have donated, please help us by forwarding this email to your closest friends. Ask them to stand with you to support Bradley Manning, and the rights of all whistleblowers.
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=207100509321891
Courage to Resist needs your support
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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Drop the Charges Against Carlos Montes, Stop the FBI Attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movement, and Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!Call Off the Expanding Grand Jury Witchhunt and FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!
Cancel the Subpoenas! Cancel the Grand Juries!
Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Chicano, Immigrant Rights, Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists!
STOP THE FBI CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHICANO, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, ANTI-WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS NOW!
Initiated by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression stopfbi.net stopfbi@gmail.com
http://iacenter.org/stopfbi/
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY -- ANY DAY
to Fitzgerald, Holder and Obama
The Grand Jury is still on its witch hunt and the FBI is still
harassing activists. This must stop.
Please make these calls:
1. Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 . Then dial 0
(zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
2. Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
3. Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
FFI: Visit www.StopFBI.net or email info@StopFBI.net or call
612-379-3585 .
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights
reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But...
The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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Call for EMERGENCY RESPONSE Action if Assange Indicted,
Dear Friends:
We write in haste, trying to reach as many of you as possible although the holiday break has begun.......This plan for an urgent "The Day After" demonstration is one we hope you and many, many more organizations will take up as your own, and mobilize for. World Can't Wait asks you to do all you can to spread it through list serves, Facebook, twitter, holiday gatherings.
Our proposal is very very simple, and you can use the following announcement to mobilize - or write your own....
ANY DAY NOW . . . IN THE EVENT THAT THE U.S. INDICTS JULIAN ASSANGE
An emergency public demonstration THE DAY AFTER any U.S. criminal indictment is announced against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Spread the word and call people to come out, across the whole range of movements and groups: anti-war, human rights, freedom of information/freedom of the press, peace, anti-torture, environmental, students and youth, radicals and revolutionaries, religious, civil liberties, teachers and educators, journalists, anti-imperialists, anti-censorship, anti-police state......
At the Federal Building in San Francisco, we'll form ourselves into a human chain "surrounding" the government that meets the Wikileaked truth with repression and wants to imprison and silence leakers, whistleblowers and truthtellers - when, in fact, these people are heroes. We'll say:
HANDS OFF WIKILEAKS! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Join the HUMAN CHAIN AROUND THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
New Federal Building, 7th and Mission, San Francisco (nearest BART: Civic Center)
4:00-6:00 PM on The Day FOLLOWING U.S. indictment of Assange
Bring all your friends - signs and banners - bullhorns.
Those who dare at great risk to themselves to put the truth in the hands of the people - and others who might at this moment be thinking about doing more of this themselves -- need to see how much they are supported, and that despite harsh repression from the government and total spin by the mainstream media, the people do want the truth told.
Brad Manning's Christmas Eve statement was just released by his lawyer: "Pvt. Bradley Manning, the lone soldier who stands accused of stealing millions of pages secret US government documents and handing them over to secrets outlet WikiLeaks, wants his supporters to know that they've meant a lot to him. 'I greatly appreciate everyone's support and well wishes during this time,' he said in a Christmas Eve statement released by his lawyer...." Read more here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mannings-message-christmas-eve-i-gr/
Demonstrations defending Wikileaks and Assange, and Brad Manning, have already been flowering around the world. Make it happen here too.
Especially here . . .
To join into this action plan, or with questions, contact World Can't Wait or whichever organization or listserve you received this message from.
World Can't Wait, SF Bay
415-864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
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DEFEND LYNNE STEWART!
http://lynnestewart.org/
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
Visiting Lynne:
Visiting is very liberal but first she has to get people on her visiting list; wait til she or the lawyers let you know. The visits are FRI, SAT, SUN AND MON for 4 hours and on weekends 8 to 3. Bring clear plastic change purse with lots of change to buy from the machines. Brief Kiss upon arrival and departure, no touching or holding during visit (!!) On visiting forms it may be required that you knew me before I came to prison. Not a problem for most of you.
Commissary Money:
Commissary Money is always welcome It is how Lynne pay for the phone and for email. Also for a lot that prison doesn't supply in terms of food and "sundries" (pens!) (A very big list that includes Raisins, Salad Dressing, ankle sox, mozzarella (definitely not from Antonys--more like a white cheddar, Sanitas Corn Chips but no Salsa, etc. To add money, you do this by using Western Union and a credit card by phone or you can send a USPO money order or Business or Govt Check. The negotiable instruments (PAPER!) need to be sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons, 53504-054, Lynne Stewart, PO Box 474701, Des Moines Iowa 50947-001 (Payable to Lynne Stewart, 53504-054) They hold the mo or checks for 15 days. Western Union costs $10 but is within 2 hours. If you mail, your return address must be on the envelope. Unnecessarily complicated? Of course, it's the BOP !)
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please make a generous contribution to her defense.
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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D. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) OWS Organizers Blast MoveOn
By Washington's Blog
15 October 11
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/7898-focus-ows-organizers-blast-moveon
2) Dems backing Occupy Wall St. are funded by Wall St.
Prominent Democrats applaud Occupy Wall Street while taking huge donations from the finance industry
By Justin Elliott
Monday, Oct 10, 2011 10:35 AM PST
http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/10/dems_backing_occupy_wall_st_are_funded_by_wall_st/
3) Welcome to the #OWS 99% Movement "We Will NOT Be Co-Opted"
Posted on October 8, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/welcome-to-the-ows-99-movement-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-not-be-co-opted%E2%80%9D.html
4) Citizens' Testing Finds 20 Hot Spots Around Tokyo
"The government's failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan's leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens' groups that conduct testing on their own. 'Radioactive substances are entering people's bodies from the air, from the food. It's everywhere,' said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University's faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. 'But the government doesn't even try to inform the public how much radiation they're exposed to.' ...Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan's legally permissible level for compost."
By HIROKO TABUCHI
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?scp=1&sq=Radioactive%20Hot%20Spots%20in%20Tokyo%20Raise%20Fears%20of%20Wider%20Contamination&st=cse
5) Losing Their Immunity
"...the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent's gains) in the nation's income. More broadly, the same political forces that promoted financial deregulation fostered overall inequality in a variety of ways, undermining organized labor, doing away with the 'outrage constraint' that used to limit executive paychecks, and more. Oh, and taxes on the wealthy were, of course, sharply reduced. ...Median family income, adjusted for inflation, grew only about a fifth as much between 1980 and 2007 as it did in the generation following World War II, even though the postwar economy was marked both by strict financial regulation and by much higher tax rates on the wealthy than anything currently under political discussion. ...Wall Street pay has rebounded even as ordinary workers continue to suffer from high unemployment and falling real wages."
By PAUL KRUGMAN
October 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/krugman-wall-street-loses-its-immunity.html?hp
6) Pleas Unheeded as Students' U.S. Jobs Soured
By JULIA PRESTON
October 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/us/hershey-foreign-exchange-students-pleas-were-ignored.html?ref=us
7) Protesters Debate What Demands, if Any, to Make
By MEREDITH HOFFMAN
October 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-trying-to-settle-on-demands.html?ref=us
8) Wells Fargo Earnings Rise 21%, to $4.1 Billion
By BEN PROTESS
Chris Keane/ReutersWorkers removed the last Wachovia sign outside a Wells Fargo bank center in Charlotte, N.C.
October 17, 2011, 8:09 am
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/wells-fargo-earnings-rise-21-to-4-1-billion/?ref=business
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1) OWS Organizers Blast MoveOn
By Washington's Blog
15 October 11
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/7898-focus-ows-organizers-blast-moveon
Occupy Wall Street: Take the Bull by the Horns RSN Special Coverage: Occupy D.C. RSN Special Coverage: Occupy America
David DeGraw - one of the primary Wall Street protest organizers - just sent me the following email:
Top MoveOn leaders / executives are all over national television speaking for the movement. fully appreciate the help and support of MoveOn, but the MSM is clearly using them as the spokespeople for OWS. This is an blatant attempt to fracture the 99% into a Democratic Party organization. The leadership of MoveON are Democratic Party operatives. they are divide and conquer pawns. For years they ignored Wall Street protests to keep complete focus on the Republicans, in favor of Goldman's Obama and Wall Street's Democratic leadership.
If anyone at Move On or Daily Kos would like to have a public debate about these comments, we invite it.
Please help us stop this divide and conquer attempt.
DeGraw - who is wholly non-partisan [like the writers at Washington's Blog] - tells me that about half of the protesters are liberals, but the other half are libertarians (and see this. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/welcome-to-the-ows-99-movement-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-not-be-co-opted%E2%80%9D.html)
This mirrors what one of the original organizers of the "Occupy Trenton" protest told me: MoveOn attempted to set the agenda and pretend it was their event.
As I noted last week:
Everyone's trying to cash in on the courage and conviction of the Wall Street protesters.
People are trying to associate Occupy Wall Street with their pet projects, in the same way that advertisers try to associate the goodwill of the Super Bowl, NBA playoffs, World Series or Olympics with their product.
But I hear from OWS organizers that the protesters come from totally diverse political affiliations. Many protesters support Ron Paul, many like Obama, others are for other parties or candidates or don't vote at all.
The protesters themselves are having none of it, tweeting today:
We don't want to be the democratic tea party or liberal tea party. We want to be our own movement separate of any political affiliation.
Update: Another tweet from the protesters:
We don't represent liberal interests nor are we the liberal tea party. We represent the interest of the 99%
And as I pointed out Tuesday:
The two main challenges [facing the protesters are]: (1) An attempt by both the Democratic and Republican parties to co-opt it (see this, this and this); and (2) agents provocateur (see this, this and this) [and here].
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2) Dems backing Occupy Wall St. are funded by Wall St.
Prominent Democrats applaud Occupy Wall Street while taking huge donations from the finance industry
By Justin Elliott
Monday, Oct 10, 2011 10:35 AM PST
http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/10/dems_backing_occupy_wall_st_are_funded_by_wall_st/
A lot has been made in the last few days of increasing Democratic Party support for Occupy Wall Street. Some within the movement have expressed fears of co-optation. Some on the right have argued that the Dems are blundering by throwing in their lot with a group of putative radicals. And so on.
The irony is that the same elected Democrats singing the praises of Occupy Wall Street are themselves major recipients of money from ... Wall Street!
Does this mean that the Democratic embrace should be rejected? Not necessarily. Occupy Wall Street could, of course, open up political space for Democrats to address unemployment, income inequality, criminality by banks, the overwhelming influence of corporate money in politics and so on. But it's worth keeping in mind that most if not all of these politicians have been cozy with Wall Street for years; so there are grounds for suspicion.
Take the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the party organization that collects money for House races around the country. It is now soliciting signatures (along with email addresses for its database) for a petition in support of Occupy Wall Street.
"Protestors are assembling in New York and around the country to let billionaires, big oil and big bankers know that we're not going to let the richest 1% force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial programs on Main Street Americans," the DCCC pitch reads.
It asks people to sign a letter telling Republicans, "I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests because it's time to take the country back for the middle class."
But the DCCC has sucked up cash from Wall Street as much as any entity in politics. The DCCC received $4.6 million from the securities and investment industry in the 2010 cycle. In the 2008 cycle, the DCCC took in $6.4 million from the securities industry. The only group that gave more was lawyers and law firms. Current DCCC chair Steve Israel, a Dem from Long Island, has been hailed for his skill in wooing the financial industry. Politico reported last month that part of the reason the DCCC is outpacing its Republican counterpart in fundraising is Israel's "easy access to Wall Street."
Then there's House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "God bless them for their spontaneity," she said of the protesters a few days ago. "It's young, it's spontaneous, it's focused and it's going to be effective." She continued: "The message of the American people is that no longer ... will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street."
In the current election cycle, Pelosi has raised more money - $105,000 - from the securities and investment crowd than from any other industry. In the 2010 cycle, Pelosi and her political action committee took in another $180,000 from the industry. In 2008 it was $243,000, a total that included donations from lobbyists representing Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
President Obama, for his part, has not expressed support for Occupy Wall Street, but said at a news conference last week he understands what's going on.
"I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel, that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country ... and yet you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place," he said.
In June, Obama traveled to New York for a $35,800-per-plate dinner with the Wall Street bankers who are the target of the occupiers' anger.
Bloomberg reported on the guest list:
Among those who were to dine with Obama at Daniel were Robert Wolf, chairman of UBS Americas; Blair W. Effron, partner and co-founder of Centerview Partners LLP; Marc Lasry, managing partner and founder of Avenue Capital Group; Mark Gallogly, a managing principal of Centerbridge Partners; James Rubin, managing director of BC Partners; and Frank Brosens of Taconic Capital Advisors LP, according to a party official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the list hadn't been made public.
Meanwhile, the Bloomberg report added, Obama campaign chief Jim Messina has been aggressively wooing Wall Street executives.
None of this means that some of these Wall Street donors aren't genuine progressives. Nor does it mean that certain policies advocated by at least some Democrats - the expiration of Bush tax cuts for the rich, say - would not be marginally worse for Wall Street than Republican policies. But let's not lose sight of the fact, highlighted by many of the occupiers I've interviewed, that the tentacles of Wall Street reach deep into both major parties, and that has a profound effect on public policy in this country.
Close
Justin Elliott
Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott
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3) Welcome to the #OWS 99% Movement "We Will NOT Be Co-Opted"
Posted on October 8, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/welcome-to-the-ows-99-movement-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-not-be-co-opted%E2%80%9D.html
Preface from Washington's Blog: Both mainstream Democratic and Republican parties are working furiously behind the scenes to co-opt the Wall Street protests. But as the Associated Press notes, the protesters are fed up with both mainstream parties, as are most of the American people.
A P.R. professional says that the mainstream media's ridicule of the protests for failing to have a specific list of demands is a dishonest tactic.
And Yves Smith notes that the movement is effective even without demands:
I've noticed both here and on some news stories I heard in passing on MSNBC on Friday that the OccupyWallStreet movement has already succeeded in expanding the space of what is now being discussed as remedies.
By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus.com [See this for DeGraw's role in organizing the Wall Street protests.]
This is not an official statement from the #OWS 99% Movement. As a decentralized leaderless movement, in our opinion, there is no one group, organization, website or individual who can speak for the movement as a whole.
We, a working group of people currently occupying Liberty Park and many other locations throughout the US, are growing increasingly concerned about divide and conquer attempts being made to co-opt the movement. In the following message, we are issuing our first proposed statement. If you agree with the statement, please post it to your website and/or spread it throughout your social networks, both online and offline at occupations throughout the country. If you would like to read this statement at your local GA meetings and vote or edit it, feel free. If you disagree with the statement, please air your disagreements - this is what democracy looks like.
We appreciate, respect and encourage endorsements from individuals and organizations. We invite them. However, just because an individual or organization endorses our movement, does not mean that they in any way have a leadership role in deciding the future direction of this movement. We will not be co-opted by hierarchical organizations. No matter how wonderful their cause may be.
There are many people, organizations and media outlets within both the Democratic and Republican parties who are trying to label us as the Democrat's version of the Tea Party. In this working groups opinion, not only is this incorrect, but in labeling us this way, you are, whether you realize it or not, undermining the very essence of this movement with your obsolete divide and conquer groupthink propaganda. Just as the mainstream media and both political parties aided and abetted the co-option of the Tea Party by the Republican Party, there is an attempt being made to do the same to us within the Democratic Party.
We the People, We the 99%, are not the pawns of either wing of the two-party oligarchy.
We emphatically reject the attempted leadership of any political party, organization or individual. If there are elected officials or organizations who endorse our movement, we welcome them.
However, they must do so knowing this: Your voice will be just as loud as any other voice. We are led by no one. You cannot co-opt We The People.
Respect Us.
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4) Citizens' Testing Finds 20 Hot Spots Around Tokyo
"The government's failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan's leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens' groups that conduct testing on their own. 'Radioactive substances are entering people's bodies from the air, from the food. It's everywhere,' said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University's faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. 'But the government doesn't even try to inform the public how much radiation they're exposed to.' ...Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan's legally permissible level for compost."
By HIROKO TABUCHI
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?scp=1&sq=Radioactive%20Hot%20Spots%20in%20Tokyo%20Raise%20Fears%20of%20Wider%20Contamination&st=cse
TOKYO - Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens' group to test for radiation near his son's baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Like Japan's central government, local officials said there was nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone.
Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl.
The patch of ground was one of more than 20 spots in and around the nation's capital that the citizens' group, and the respected nuclear research center they worked with, found were contaminated with potentially harmful levels of radioactive cesium.
It has been clear since the early days of the nuclear accident, the world's second worst after Chernobyl, that that the vagaries of wind and rain had scattered worrisome amounts of radioactive materials in unexpected patterns far outside the evacuation zone 12 miles around the stricken plant. But reports that substantial amounts of cesium had accumulated as far away as Tokyo have raised new concerns about how far the contamination had spread, possibly settling in areas where the government has not even considered looking.
The government's failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan's leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens' groups that conduct testing on their own.
"Radioactive substances are entering people's bodies from the air, from the food. It's everywhere," said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University's faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. "But the government doesn't even try to inform the public how much radiation they're exposed to."
The reports of hot spots do not indicate how widespread contamination is in the capital; more sampling would be needed to determine that. But they raise the prospect that people living near concentrated amounts of cesium are being exposed to levels of radiation above accepted international standards meant to protect people from cancer and other illnesses.
Japanese nuclear experts and activists have begun agitating for more comprehensive testing in Tokyo and elsewhere, and a cleanup if necessary. Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert and a former special assistant to the United States secretary of energy, echoed those calls, saying the citizens' groups' measurements "raise major and unprecedented concerns about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster."
The government has not ignored citizens' pleas entirely; it recently completed aerial testing in eastern Japan, including Tokyo. But several experts and activists say the tests are unlikely to be sensitive enough to be useful in finding micro hot spots such as those found by the citizens' group.
Kaoru Noguchi, head of Tokyo's health and safety section, however, argues that the testing already done is sufficient. Because Tokyo is so developed, she says, radioactive material was much more likely to have fallen on concrete, then washed away. She also said exposure was likely to be limited.
"Nobody stands in one spot all day," she said. "And nobody eats dirt."
Tokyo residents knew soon after the March 11 accident, when a tsunami knocked out the crucial cooling systems at the Fukushima plant, that they were being exposed to radioactive materials. Researchers detected a spike in radiation levels on March 15. Then as rain drizzled down on the evening of March 21, radioactive material again fell on the city.
In the following week, however, radioactivity in the air and water dropped rapidly. Most in the city put aside their jitters, some openly scornful of those - mostly foreigners - who had fled Tokyo in the early days of the disaster.
But not everyone was convinced. Some Tokyo residents bought dosimeters. The Tokyo citizens' group, the Radiation Defense Project, which grew out of a Facebook discussion page, decided to be more proactive. In consultation with the Yokohama-based Isotope Research Institute, members collected soil samples from near their own homes and submitted them for testing.
Some of the results were shocking: the sample that Mr. Hayashida collected under shrubs near his neighborhood baseball field in the Edogawa ward measured nearly 138,000 becquerels per square meter of radioactive cesium 137, which can damage cells and lead to an increased risk of cancer.
Of the 132 areas tested, 22 were above 37,000 becquerels per square meter, the level at which zones were considered contaminated at Chernobyl.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, said most residents near Chernobyl were undoubtedly much worse off, surrounded by widespread contamination rather than isolated hot spots. But he said the 37,000 figure remained a good reference point for mandatory cleanup because regular exposure to such contamination could result in a dosage of more than one millisievert per year, the maximum recommended for the public by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
The most contaminated spot in the Radiation Defense survey, near a church, was well above the level of the 1.5 million becquerels per square meter that required mandatory resettlement at Chernobyl. The level is so much higher than other results in the study that it raises the possibility of testing error, but micro hot spots are not unheard of after nuclear disasters.
Japan's relatively tame mainstream media, which is more likely to report on government pronouncements than grass-roots movements, mainly ignored the citizens' group's findings.
"Everybody just wants to believe that this is Fukushima's problem," said Kota Kinoshita, one of the group's leaders and a former television journalist. "But if the government is not serious about finding out, how can we trust them?"
Hideo Yamazaki, an expert in environmental analysis at Kinki University in western Japan, did his own survey of the city and said he, too, discovered high levels in the area where the baseball field is located.
"These results are highly localized, so there is no cause for panic," he said. "Still, there are steps the government could be taking, like decontaminating the highest spots."
Since then, there have been other suggestions that hot spots were more widespread than originally imagined.
Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan's legally permissible level for compost.
And on Wednesday, civilians who tested the roof of an apartment building in the nearby city of Yokohama - farther from Fukushima than Tokyo - found high quantities of radioactive strontium. (There was also one false alarm this week when sky-high readings were reported in the Setagaya ward in Tokyo; the government later said they were probably caused by bottles of radium, once widely used to make paint.)
The government's own aerial testing showed that although almost all of Tokyo had relatively little contamination, two areas showed elevated readings. One was in a mountainous area at the western edge of the Tokyo metropolitan region, and the other was over three wards of the city - including the one where the baseball field is situated.
The metropolitan government said it had started preparations to begin monitoring food products from the nearby mountains, but acknowledged that food had been shipped from that area for months.
Mr. Hayashida, who discovered the high level at the baseball field, said that he was not waiting any longer for government assurances. He moved his family to Okayama, about 370 miles to the southwest.
"Perhaps we could have stayed in Tokyo with no problems," he said. "But I choose a future with no radiation fears."
Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington, and Kantaro Suzuki from Tokyo.
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5) Losing Their Immunity
"...the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent's gains) in the nation's income. More broadly, the same political forces that promoted financial deregulation fostered overall inequality in a variety of ways, undermining organized labor, doing away with the 'outrage constraint' that used to limit executive paychecks, and more. Oh, and taxes on the wealthy were, of course, sharply reduced. ...Median family income, adjusted for inflation, grew only about a fifth as much between 1980 and 2007 as it did in the generation following World War II, even though the postwar economy was marked both by strict financial regulation and by much higher tax rates on the wealthy than anything currently under political discussion. ...Wall Street pay has rebounded even as ordinary workers continue to suffer from high unemployment and falling real wages."
By PAUL KRUGMAN
October 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/krugman-wall-street-loses-its-immunity.html?hp
As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, the response from the movement's targets has gradually changed: contemptuous dismissal has been replaced by whining. (A reader of my blog suggests that we start calling our ruling class the "kvetchocracy.") The modern lords of finance look at the protesters and ask, Don't they understand what we've done for the U.S. economy?
The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation's economic elite have done for us. And that's why they're protesting.
On Saturday The Times reported what people in the financial industry are saying privately about the protests. My favorite quote came from an unnamed money manager who declared, "Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let's embrace it."
This is deeply unfair to American workers, who are good at lots of things, and could be even better if we made adequate investments in education and infrastructure. But to the extent that America has lagged in everything except financial services, shouldn't the question be why, and whether it's a trend we want to continue?
For the financialization of America wasn't dictated by the invisible hand of the market. What caused the financial industry to grow much faster than the rest of the economy starting around 1980 was a series of deliberate policy choices, in particular a process of deregulation that continued right up to the eve of the 2008 crisis.
Not coincidentally, the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent's gains) in the nation's income. More broadly, the same political forces that promoted financial deregulation fostered overall inequality in a variety of ways, undermining organized labor, doing away with the "outrage constraint" that used to limit executive paychecks, and more.
Oh, and taxes on the wealthy were, of course, sharply reduced.
All of this was supposed to be justified by results: the paychecks of the wizards of Wall Street were appropriate, we were told, because of the wonderful things they did. Somehow, however, that wonderfulness failed to trickle down to the rest of the nation - and that was true even before the crisis. Median family income, adjusted for inflation, grew only about a fifth as much between 1980 and 2007 as it did in the generation following World War II, even though the postwar economy was marked both by strict financial regulation and by much higher tax rates on the wealthy than anything currently under political discussion.
Then came the crisis, which proved that all those claims about how modern finance had reduced risk and made the system more stable were utter nonsense. Government bailouts were all that saved us from a financial meltdown as bad as or worse than the one that caused the Great Depression.
And what about the current situation? Wall Street pay has rebounded even as ordinary workers continue to suffer from high unemployment and falling real wages. Yet it's harder than ever to see what, if anything, financiers are doing to earn that money.
Why, then, does Wall Street expect anyone to take its whining seriously? That money manager claiming that finance is the only thing America does well also complained that New York's two Democratic senators aren't on his side, declaring that "They need to understand who their constituency is." Actually, they surely know very well who their constituency is - and even in New York, 16 out of 17 workers are employed by nonfinancial industries.
But he wasn't really talking about voters, of course. He was talking about the one thing Wall Street still has plenty of thanks to those bailouts, despite its total loss of credibility: money.
Money talks in American politics, and what the financial industry's money has been saying lately is that it will punish any politician who dares to criticize that industry's behavior, no matter how gently - as evidenced by the way Wall Street money has now abandoned President Obama in favor of Mitt Romney. And this explains the industry's shock over recent events.
You see, until a few weeks ago it seemed as if Wall Street had effectively bribed and bullied our political system into forgetting about that whole drawing lavish paychecks while destroying the world economy thing. Then, all of a sudden, some people insisted on bringing the subject up again.
And their outrage has found resonance with millions of Americans. No wonder Wall Street is whining.
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6) Pleas Unheeded as Students' U.S. Jobs Soured
By JULIA PRESTON
October 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/us/hershey-foreign-exchange-students-pleas-were-ignored.html?ref=us
The college student from Moldova was in the United States on a cultural exchange program run for half a century by the federal government, a program designed to build international understanding by providing foreign students with a dream summer of fun in America. So he summoned his best English for the e-mail he sent to the State Department in June.
"Pleas hellp," wrote the student, Tudor Ureche. He told them about "the miserable situation in which I've found myself cought" since starting a job under the program in a plant packing Hershey's chocolates near the company's namesake town in Pennsylvania.
Students like Mr. Ureche, who had paid as much as $6,000 to take part in the program, expected a chance to see the best of this country, to make American friends and sightsee, with a summer job to help finance it all.
Instead, many students who were placed at the packing plant found themselves working grueling night shifts on speeding production lines, repeatedly lifting boxes weighing as much as 60 pounds and financially drained by low pay and unexpected extra costs for housing and transportation. Their complaints to the contractor running the program on behalf of the State Department were met with threats that they could be sent home.
Events this summer at the Hershey packing plant in Palmyra, Pa., revealed major holes in the State Department's oversight of its summer work and travel program, the largest and most ambitious of its cultural exchanges. The program, which placed 130,000 foreign students in all sorts of jobs across the country this year, has a large impact in shaping the country's image for young generations overseas.
The Hershey students finally got the department's attention on Aug. 17 when 200 of them, waving placards and chanting union slogans, walked out of the plant, the first labor protest in the 50-year history of the department's exchange programs.
The protests raised questions about whether the State Department is equipped to manage what has become a vast temporary work program, especially in times when suitable jobs for foreign students - even short-term jobs - are harder to come by as high unemployment persists in the United States.
The protests also exposed serious lapses by the Council for Educational Travel, USA, a nonprofit group based in California and one of more than 70 sponsors contracted by the State Department to organize the students' trips to the United States and find jobs and housing for them.
The group, known as Cetusa, placed nearly 400 foreigners from 18 countries, many of them graduate students in medicine, engineering and economics, in physically arduous jobs at the Palmyra factory that were overwhelming for some.
The students, who were earning about $8 an hour, said they were isolated within the plant, rarely finding moments to practice English or socialize with Americans. With little explanation or accounting, the sponsor took steep deductions from their paychecks for housing, transportation and insurance that left many of them too little money to afford the tourist wanderings they had eagerly anticipated.
Program documents and interviews with 15 students show that Cetusa failed to heed many distress signals from students over many months, and responded to some with threats of expulsion from the program.
A Cry for Help
Mr. Ureche, 22, an engineering student, said he had begun to appeal to Cetusa for a different job as soon as he went to work lifting boxes loaded with Hershey's candies.
"I've been having serious back pains since the first day of work," Mr. Ureche reported in his e-mail to the State Department on June 6, sent two weeks after he started on the job. "If I continue in this rythm of work, it may cause me serious health damages."
He felt "mistreated and ignored by my sponsor," he wrote. And the organization told him, he said, that if he complained to Washington, "they will immediately cancel my visa." A few days later Mr. Ureche quit his job, making his way to New York and finding work.
When the walkout came two months later, State Department officials reacted swiftly, opening an investigation centering on Cetusa that has not yet concluded.
The department was already on notice about trouble in the program, after an Associated Press investigation last year found abuses of foreign students in several states. Officials started a broad review earlier this year, and on July 15 they inaugurated new regulations, which tighten requirements on sponsor organizations to ensure that students are matched with jobs that are appropriate and safe. A newly expanded staff of 18 inspectors will begin on-site audits of sponsor organizations this fall, officials said.
"We are asking hard questions," said Rick Ruth, the State Department official in charge of cultural exchange programs - including whether the program should be scaled back in light of the hard times in the United States.
Cetusa responded to the protest by arranging for students to have a paid week off from the plant and by paying for two trips to historic sites in Pennsylvania. The Hershey Company hosted a daylong visit to its headquarters so students could learn about its business strategies.
"This is a beautiful, great program," Rick Anaya, Cetusa's chief executive, said of the cultural exchange.
Mr. Anaya said he was aware that the work in Palmyra was strenuous. "It is hard to lift," he said. "But they get used to it and they are fine with it after a week or so." He said all students had received and signed job descriptions before going to Palmyra. If packing work seemed too difficult, he said, "they didn't have to sign up for the job."
Mr. Anaya blamed the discontent on the National Guestworker Alliance, a labor group that helped organize the walkout, together with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other unions.
"It's clear and obvious to me that this whole thing was started and fueled by the unions," he said.
The foreign students' travails did prove fertile ground for the alliance, an advocate for temporary foreign workers. Joined by some of the students, the alliance since August has led a campaign against the Hershey Company, accusing it of exploiting foreign students to displace American workers. Some students agreed.
"They take students who came on a cultural exchange to slave for them and make next to nothing, when these jobs could be going to families in Pennsylvania," said Godwin Efobi, 26, a Nigerian medical student who was a protest leader.
Created under a 1961 law, the State Department's summer work and travel program was designed to give foreign university students who do not hail from wealthy elites at home a brief plunge into American life, at no cost to the American taxpayer. The students come on a visa known as a J-1, which allows them to work for up to four months and travel for a month.
Students in the program, a legacy of the cold war, come mainly from China, Russia and Eastern European countries, with some from Latin America. Traditionally they have been employed in national parks, amusement parks, summer camps, beach resorts and restaurants, in low-wage but congenial jobs.
Over the years the program has won many happy reviews after students returned home. But in recent years it grew rapidly, to 150,000 students in 2008 from about 30,000 a decade earlier. It is now bigger than most federal programs explicitly dedicated to importing temporary foreign workers.
As a cultural exchange, the program is not monitored by labor authorities, said Daniel Costa, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington who studies the J-1 program. Unlike the Department of Labor, he said, the State Department does not collect employment data that would show, for example, how many students have been placed in factories like the Palmyra plant, or how recently.
Mr. Anaya said his organization began by sending small numbers of students to Palmyra six years ago, for the annual summertime surge packing Hershey's candies for the Christmas holidays.
Many students were surprised to learn when they arrived that they would not work for Hershey, but for SHS OnSite Solutions, a staffing subcontractor for Exel, the contractor Hershey hired to operate the packing plant.
This summer Cetusa placed nearly 400 students in jobs in which, according to the fine print of the visa papers, the worker "spends 100 per cent of the shift standing, walking, stooping, bending or lifting" and "involved in repetitive motion work," and must be able to "lift up to 27 kilograms throughout the shift" (about 60 pounds) and "function effectively" in a cold room.
'This Is America'
Many students - including many who left Hershey before the labor groups arrived - said the jobs were an immersion in misery.
Ignacio Torres Sibaja, a 21-year-old graphic arts student, said he started to weep when he read news about the walkout from his home in Costa Rica as he recalled three months when he worked in Palmyra last winter.
"I spent some of the worst moments of my life during that exchange," Mr. Torres said. Speaking by telephone from San José, he said he had applied for a resort job in Colorado, learning only at the last minute that he would go to Palmyra. He did not focus on the job description. He thought working for Hershey would be fun.
A partner organization of Cetusa in Costa Rica had assured him he would earn back the $4,000 he borrowed from his parents to pay airfare and charges by Cetusa for his visa and their fees, Mr. Torres said. But that partner went out of business days after he arrived in the United States. With no guidance from either group, Mr. Torres spent two sleepless days, including one night he passed in a mall, finding a bus from Kennedy Airport to Harrisburg, Pa., where Cetusa has an office.
A representative of the sponsor greeted him with a demand for $800 to cover a rental deposit on an apartment, Mr. Torres said. The agency provided small apartments, often 15 miles away in Harrisburg, charging each student $400 a month to live in cramped quarters with four or five others.
Mr. Torres turned over all the spending money - $500 - he had scraped together for the trip. "I spent a week not eating," he said.
At the plant, Mr. Torres said, "the packing line gets really, really fast and stressful." Even though the plant was chilled below 60 degrees, he said, "I would be sweating all over."
Mr. Torres echoed many students when he said his lowest moment came with his first paycheck. After deductions by Cetusa for rent, utilities, bus fare and other items, he took home $85 for 35 hours of work.
"You wanted a cultural exchange," Mr. Torres was told by the group representative, he said. "This is America and this is the way we do things here." Although Cetusa is a nonprofit organization in the United States, commercial affiliates manage housing and insurance for its international student programs.
Mr. Torres finished his job too broke to travel in the United States, he said, and went home in debt, feeling cheated.
Hoping to Be Fired
In June, a student from China, Tian Jia Yi, started on the packing line at the Hershey plant. Mr. Tian, 20, a hotel management student at a college in Qingdao, quickly discovered that the work was too much for him.
"My supervisor always ordered us to carry these chocolate boxes every day that were too heavy," Mr. Tian said in a telephone interview, striving to express himself in correct English. After he pleaded for weeks for a different task, he said, a manager fired him.
"In a stupid way it was my dream that she would fire me because I can't bear that work anymore," he said.
Cetusa offered Mr. Tian a new job in California - but he had no money to travel there. Then the organization ordered him to leave his Pennsylvania apartment. Stranded and alone, he managed to locate a relative in Flushing, Queens, and retreated there to search, unavailingly, for a new job.
"I feel very ashamed that I have to spend a lot of money that my parents sent to me," Mr. Tian said.
Under program regulations, sponsors are required to monitor their students throughout their stay here. But according to State Department officials, Mr. Anaya told them shortly after the walkout that his organization had not received any complaints from Palmyra before the protest.
Mr. Torres, however, recalled a gathering in March when dozens of students assailed Cetusa representatives with their grievances. "Everybody rose up and starting confronting them," he said. In early August, a representative of the organization, Malgorzata Tekgoz, worked a night shift at the Palmyra plant to assess conditions there.
"It was fine, of course I got tired at the end of the shift," she reported in an e-mail. She said students had raised "many standard complaints," particularly about "the frequency of lifting boxes."
With some students who pressed their case, Cetusa played tough. When the agency learned that Mr. Ureche had complained to the State Department, it terminated his participation in the program, putting him in violation of his visa, according to correspondence between Alan J. Leahy, a lawyer for the organization, and a labor lawyer Mr. Ureche contacted, Laurence E. Norton.
Still, dozens of foreign students employed at the Palmyra plant did not join the protests, State Department officials noted. Some had returned this summer for a second tour there.
Lenka Vavrova, 23, a student from Slovakia, told Cetusa in an e-mail that she was "ashamed of who some of these students are." She wrote, "We came here for a short time so we should respect the conditions and laws."
Mr. Anaya said he was convinced the demonstrators had been "misled and sold a bill of goods that is unfair to them" by the labor groups. "I do believe in the kids," he said. "I believe eventually they will feel sorry for what they did."
Saket Soni, director of the National Guestworker Alliance, said mobilizing the students had not been hard. "We talked about fundamental labor and civil rights protections that cover these students, and all workers in America," he said. After the walkout, Exel, the contractor, said it would not longer use J-1 students at Palmyra.
Mr. Ureche said he remained disappointed by his experience here. "The students are not cheap workers," he said. "They are coming here to meet new people, make some money for travel. This program is not for living without food, without money, without nothing."
Alain Delaquérière contributed reporting.
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7) Protesters Debate What Demands, if Any, to Make
By MEREDITH HOFFMAN
October 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-trying-to-settle-on-demands.html?ref=us
In a quiet corner across the street from Zuccotti Park, a cluster of 25 solemn-faced protesters struggled one night to give Occupy Wall Street what critics have found to be most lacking.
"We absolutely need demands," said Shawn Redden, 35, an earnest history teacher in the group. "Like Frederick Douglass said, 'Power concedes nothing without a demand.' "
The influence and staying power of Occupy Wall Street are undeniable: similar movements have sprouted around the world, as the original group enters its fifth week in the financial district. Yet a frequent criticism of the protesters has been the absence of specific policy demands.
Mr. Redden and other demonstrators formed the Demands Working Group about a week and a half ago, hoping to identify specific actions they would formally ask local and federal governments to adopt. But the very nature of Occupy Wall Street has made that task difficult, in New York and elsewhere.
Although Occupy Seattle has a running tally of votes on its Web site - 395 votes to "nationalize the Federal Reserve," 138 for "universal education" and 245 to "end corporate personhood," for example - Mike Hines, a member of the group, said the list would soon be removed because the provisions had not been clearly explained and because some people were not capable of voting online.
"It feels like we're all in a similar boat," Mr. Hines said of other Occupy movements. "We all want to include as many voices as possible."
In New York, the demands committee held a two-hour open forum last Monday, coming up with two major categories: jobs for all and civil rights. The team will continue to meet twice a week to develop a list of specific proposals, which it will then discuss with protesters and eventually take to the General Assembly, a nightly gathering of the hundreds of protesters in the park.
A two-thirds majority would have to approve each proposal, and any passionate opponent could call for the entire vote to be delayed.
The General Assembly has already adopted a "Declaration of the Occupation of New York City," which includes a list of grievances against corporations and a call for others to join the group in peaceful assembly. To many protesters, that general statement is enough, and the open democracy of Zuccotti Park is the point of the movement.
"Demands are disempowering since they require someone else to respond," said Gabriel Willow, a protester strolling past a sleeping-bag pod of young adults in the park last Monday. "It's not like we couldn't come up with any, but I don't think people would vote for them."
Although Monday's open forum was meagerly attended, politically active members like Cecily McMillan and David Haack, who first proposed formulating demands in a pre-campout planning meeting in August, said they were ready to take action. Mr. Haack, who in 2009 tried to run for the White Plains City Council, admitted feeling disillusioned after the group struck down their proposal in August, but now he feels inspired by the movement's "true democratic process," even if it means slower progress going forward.
"Let's give ourselves two weeks," Ms. McMillan said about presenting provisions to the General Assembly. Ms. McMillan, 23, a New School graduate student, feels such dedication to the cause that she has contemplated taking a sabbatical from her studies - but she has begun to worry that the movement could become "a joke" without specific goals. Still, with the right demands, she said, more union members and diverse contingencies could join.
In Austin, Tex., participants agreed on four demands, including an end to corporate personhood and tax reform. One Austin activist, Lauren Walker, linked the movement's goals directly to government officials.
"This is our time because we're coming up to the 2012 elections," she said, suggesting that protesters saw the presidential election as a "deadline" to draft revolutionary policy suggestions.
Elsewhere, Occupy Boston, Occupy D.C. and Occupy Philadelphia were among the many groups in the movement slowly formulating demands, though in each city, opposition has arisen from skeptical demonstrators.
In Boston, Meghann Sheridan wrote on the group's Facebook page, "The process is the message." In Baltimore, Cullen Nawalkowsky, a protester, said by phone that the point was a "public sphere not moderated by commodities or mainstream political discourse." An Occupy Cleveland participant, Harrison Kalodimos, is even writing a statement about why demands are not the answer.
Joseph Schwartz, a political science professor and an Occupy Philadelphia participant, said he thought the movement's "anarchist strain" discouraged a demand-making environment.
Whatever it is, New York's small group of focused activists said they would not yield.
"If we don't make demands, the political parties will make them for us," a longtime protester, Eric Lerner, 64, said from his spot in the cluster last Monday. "We have to get it right this time."
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8) Wells Fargo Earnings Rise 21%, to $4.1 Billion
By BEN PROTESS
Chris Keane/ReutersWorkers removed the last Wachovia sign outside a Wells Fargo bank center in Charlotte, N.C.
October 17, 2011, 8:09 am
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/wells-fargo-earnings-rise-21-to-4-1-billion/?ref=business
Wells Fargo, the nation's largest consumer lender, reported Monday that its third-quarter earnings rose 21 percent, even as a drop in revenue indicated a disappointing sign for the San Francisco-based bank.
The bank turned a $4.1 billion profit in the third quarter, or 72 cents a share, bolstered by gains in its lending and deposit division and its lack of exposure to the volatile investment banking business. That compared with a profit of $3.3 billion, or 60 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. The figures, also aided by an $800 million release in reserves amid easing loan losses, fell just below the analysts' consensus estimate of 73 cents a share.
The bottom line improvement was somewhat overshadowed by the lack of top-line growth. The bank's revenue fell to $19.6 billion, from $20.9 billion, reflecting the banking industry's broader struggles generating growth as the economic recovery stalls and the markets wildly fluctuate. Investors frowned on the report, sending the bank's shares down more than 3 percent to roughly $25.60.
"The economic recovery has been more sluggish and uneven than anyone anticipated," the bank's chairman and chief executive, John Stumpf, said in a statement. "We can't change the economic environment, yet we have worked hard to control the variables we can - making our products and services more relevant to individuals and businesses, focusing on the customer, making as many loans as possible and growing new relationships - as well as fostering longtime ones."
The strong profit numbers at Wells Fargo bucked the generally grim outlook facing the industry, as big banks struggle to shed the legacy of the mortgage crisis and cope with poor investment banking figures. JPMorgan Chase last week kicked off bank earnings season by reporting a 4 percent drop in profit. Bank of America, which will announce its earnings on Tuesday, has racked up billions of dollars in losses over the last few quarters. And some analysts expect Goldman Sachs, once appearing immune from the industry's woes, to report a quarterly loss, only the second since the company went public 12 years ago.
While competitors have struggled, Wells Fargo has remained relatively healthy. Profit has grown quarter after quarter. Following the takeover of the Wachovia Corporation at the height of the financial crisis, it established a network of retail branches along both coasts.
Still, Wells is not immune from the industry's turmoil. The bank reported disappointing revenue numbers across its operation. The community banking division, which includes Wells Fargo's branches and mortgage business, experienced a 7 percent drop in revenue, while revenue declined slightly in the bank's retail brokerage unit.
While it is no secret the banking industry is struggling, investment banking results have been especially hard hit. Trading revenue, in particular, is hurting from the unnerving volatility in the markets.
Wells Fargo does not break out its investment banking results, but the wholesale banking unit, which includes the sales and trading business along with the corporate lending division, had a 4 percent decline in revenue. The bank attributed the drop to weak fixed-income sales and trading.
But it could have been worse. Wells Fargo features a far smaller investment bank than most of its big rivals, so it is less exposed to the difficult market conditions that, for instance, caused JPMorgan's third-quarter investment banking profit to tumble 20 percent.
"Investment banking is a boom and bust business, and right now it's bust," said Brian Foran, a senior analyst at Nomura Securities International. He noted that it "helps" banks like Wells that are not deeply entrenched in the business.
Wells Fargo's biggest unit by far is its community-banking arm, which reported a 7 percent drop in revenue, as mortgage banking income slowed and the bank battled the choppy markets.
But earnings at the unit leapt 20 percent compared with the third quarter of 2010. Unlike competitors that had a heavy hand in the mortgage business during the toxic subprime boom, Wells Fargo enforced tougher standards for borrowers and only revved up its lending following the 2008 takeover of Wachovia. Wells Fargo has since quietly emerged from the mortgage mess as one of the nation's largest and strongest lenders.
On Monday, the bank reported that its overall loan portfolio jumped to $760 billion, up $8.2 billion from the prior quarter. The bank's deposits soared, too, up 8 percent from a year ago to nearly $837 billion. The bank also saw an improvement in credit quality, as nonperforming assets declined $7.6 billion from the prior year and net loan charge-offs dropped $1.5 billion. It also recorded the $800 million release in reserves, a nod to the improving loan portfolio.
"There are winners and losers in the mortgage market right now," Mr. Foran said. "Wells has won this equation."
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