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FYI:
Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"
The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are plotted visually and audibly on a world map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk&feature=share&mid=5408
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Lifting the Veil
"Our democracy is but a name...We choose between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" --Helen Keller, 1911
Suggested slogan for the 2012 elections:
DON'T VOTE FOR THE ONE PERCENT!
Keep Wall Street Occupied (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM
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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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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 Committee to Stop Political Repression is holding a protest:
"Standing up for the people is not a crime, defend Carlos Montes!"
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011, between 4:30pm-6pm
Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland, CA
Contact the local Bay Area committee: stop.political.repression@gmail.com
Visit the national website: http://www.stopfbi.net/
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END WALL STREET'S WARS! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Saturday, December 17, 2011, 3:00pm
Bradley Manning Plaza (formerly Justin Herman Plaza)
Market and Steuart Streets, San Francisco, CA
Dear Friend, please join us in San Francisco this Saturday, December 17th, to march and rally against war and in support of Bradley Manning on his 24th birthday. This event is called for by Occupy SF, Courage to Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War & Veterans for Peace.
Coinciding with the Bradley Manning pretrial hearing at Ft. Meade MD, the three month anniversary of the Occupy movement and one year since the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia which launched the Arab Spring.
Bradley Manning, a openly gay US Army Intelligence analyst, is facing life in prison. He is accused of sharing the following with WikiLeaks: a video of the killing of civilians by a US helicopter in Iraq, and revealing Us diplomatic cables. In short, he's been charged with telling us the truth about controversial wars, foreign policies and corporate and government corruption and tyranny.
The United States Army scheduled an Article 32 pretrial hearing for PFC Bradley Manning which will commence this Friday December 16 at Fort Meade, Maryland. This will be PFC Manning’s first appearance before a court and the first time he will face his accusers after 17 months in confinement. Supporters will be present outside Fort Meade when he arrives on December 16th, and as part of a day of action on his 24th birthday December 17th.
Please join Occupy SF in a solidarity rally and march in San Francisco, CA this Saturday at 3 pm.
Solidarity with Bradley Manning, the Arab World & the 99%!
http://www.occupysf.org
http://www.bradleymanning.org
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COURAGE TO RESIST
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
http://couragetoresist.org
510-488-3559
Saturday, December 17, 12:00 P.M., Fort Meade, Md
Army sets pre-trial hearing date for Bradley. Vigils and rallies planned at Fort Meade MD, worldwide.
Protest his Pretrial Hearing Saturday, Dec 17th (Bradley's B-Day) at 12pm at Fort Meade, MD outside Washington D.C.! (Solidarity actions taking place around the world.)
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/army-schedules-dec-16-pretrial-hearing-for-pfc-bradley-manning
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January 1st 2012 March and Speak-Out in memory
of Oscar Grant and all victims of police terror
*********OGC REPORT*********
On Sunday, November 27, 2011 the Occupy Oakland General Assembly approved by 99% the proposal below for a January 1st 2012 March and Speak-Out in memory of Oscar Grant and all victims of police terror. The working group will have its first meeting on Wednesday November 30th at 8:00 p.m. at San Francisco Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland. *Please join us!!!*
PROPOSAL * The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression, Bring the Ruckus, and the Raider Nation Collective propose that the Occupy Oakland General Assembly support, participate in, and help to organize a march and Speak Out on January 1, 2012 from Oscar Grant Plaza to the Fruitvale BART station to memorialize and protest the BART Police murder of fellow worker Oscar Grant and all victims of police violence and state terrorism.
By approving this proposal, the assembly will be mandated to form a working group set with the task of mobilizing a broad section of working class people from East, West, and North Oakland by the way of hand-to-hand flyering, canvassing neighborhoods, and having conversations that prioritize the struggles against police brutality, police profiling, and imprisonment.
We are also asking this Assembly to stand up, through this proposed Speak Out, against the Oakland Police Department's daily violent, repression of working class, low-income of communities of color through curfews, gang injunctions and loitering laws, in addition to outright murder by police.
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UNAC Conference: March 23-25, 2012
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) conference originally scheduled for November, 11-13, 2011, has been rescheduled for March 23-25, 2012, in order to tie in to organizing efforts for building massive protests at the NATO/G-8 Summits in Chicago, May 15-22, and to have sufficient time to generate an action program for the next stage of building a mass movement for social change.
Organizations are invited to endorse this conference by clicking here:
http://www.jotform.com/form/12685942513
Donations are needed for bringing international speakers and to subsidize attendance of students and low income participants. Contributions will be accepted at www.UNACpeace.org.
For the initial conference flyer, click here:
http://nepajac.org/conferenceflyer.pdf
Click here to donate to UNAC:
https://nationalpeaceconference.org/Donate.html
Click here for the Facebook UNAC group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_157059221012587&ap=1
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NATO/G8 protests in Chicago.
United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNAC, along with other organizations and activists, has formed a coalition to help organize protests in Chicago during the week of May 15 - 22 while NATO and G8 are holding their summit meetings. The new coalition was formed at a meeting of 163 people representing 73 different organization in Chicago on August 28 and is called Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANGATE). For a report on the Chicago meeting, click here: http://nepajac.org/chicagoreport.htm
To add your email to the new CANGATE listserve, send an email to: cangate-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
To have your organization endorse the NATO/G8 protest, please click here:
https://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html
Click here to hear audio of the August 28 meeting:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/54145
Click here for the talk by Marilyn Levin, UNAC co-coordinator at the August 28 meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tHQ7ilDJ8&NR=1
Click here for Pat Hunts welcome to the meeting and Joe Iosbaker's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNGcnBGGfI
NATO and the G8 Represent the 1%.
In May, they will meet in Chicago. Their agenda is war on poor nations, war on the poor and working people - war on the 99%.
We are demanding the right to march on their summit, to say:
Jobs, Healthcare, Education, Pensions, Housing and the Environment, Not War!
No to NATO/G-8 Warmakers!
No to War and Austerity!
NATO's military expenditures come at the expense of funding for education, housing and jobs programs; and the G8 continues to advance an agenda of 'austerity' that includes bailouts, tax write-offs and tax holidays for big corporations and banks at the expense of the rest of us.
During the May 2012 G8 and NATO summits in Chicago, many thousands of people will want to exercise their right to protest against NATO's wars and against the G8 agenda to only serve the richest one percent of society. We need permits to ensure that all who want to raise their voices will be able to march.
Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel has stonewalled repeated attempts by community organizers to meet with the city to discuss reasonable accommodations of protesters' rights. They have finally agreed to meet with us, but we need support: from the Occupy movement, the anti-war movement, and all movements for justice.
Our demands are simple:
That the City publicly commit to provide protest organizers with permits that meet the court- sanctioned standard for such protests -- that we be "within sight and sound" of the summits; and
That representatives of the City, including Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, refrain from making threats against protesters.
The protest movement, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), has the support of a majority of the American people. This is because people are suffering from the economic crisis brought about by Wall Street and big banks. As the OWS movement describes it, the "99%" see extreme economic inequality, where millions are unemployed without significant help while bankers in trouble get bailed out.
In Chicago and around the country, the Occupy movement is being met with repression: hundreds have been arrested, beaten, tear gassed, spied on, and refused their right to protest.
The Chicago Police Department and the Mayor have already acknowledged that they are coming down hard on the Occupy movement here to send a message to those who would protest against NATO and the G8.
We need a response that is loud and clear: we have the right to march against the generals and the bankers. We have the right to demand an end to wars, military occupations, and attacks on working people and the poor.
How you can help:
1) Sign the petition to the City of Chicago at www.CANG8.org You can also make a contribution there.
2) Write a statement supporting the right to march and send it to us atcangate2012@gmail.com.
3) To endorse the protests, go to https://nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html or write to cangate2012@gmail.com
4) Print out and distribute copies of this statement, attached along with a list of supporters of our demands for permits.
4) And then march inChicago on May 15th and May 19th. Publicizethe protests. Join us!
Formore info: www.CANG8.org or email us at cangate2012@gmail.com
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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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Lifting the Veil
"Our democracy is but a name...We choose between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" --Helen Keller, 1911
"It is naive to expect the initiative for reform of the state to issue from the political process that serves theinterests of political capitalism. This structure can only be reduced if citizens withdraw and direct their energies and civic commitment to finding new life forms...The old citizenship must be replaced by a fuller and wider notion of being whose politicalness will be expressed not in one or two modes of actibity--voting or protesting--but in many." --Sheldon Wolin
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/lifting-the-veil/
This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the graveyard of social movements, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.
Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet.
Noble is brilliantly pioneering the new film-making - incisive analysis, compelling sound and footage, fearless and independent reporting, and the aggregation of the best information out there into powerful, educational and free online feature films - all on a shoestring budget.
Viewer discretion advised - Video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war.
Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.
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Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera y Trotsky Video Original
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Z0keLaGhQ
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Toronto Emergency Public Warning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iiGTGwQ9HM&feature=player_embedded
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Tom Morello Occupy LA
Uploaded by sandrineora on Dec 3, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChicrlyeKhg&feature=player_embedded
The Nightwatchman, Tom Morello, comes to lift the spirits of Occupy LA the evening after the raid on November 29, 2011.
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UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
19 November 11
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-adds-fuel-to-fire
UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded
Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded
Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded
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UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!
Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related
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THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o
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Occupy With Aloha -- Makana -- The Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-M07v8N_eU&feature=channel_video_title
We Are The Many -- Makana -- The Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3BYw4xjxE&feature=relmfu
We Are The Many
Lyrics and Music by Makana
Makana Music LLC (c) 2011
Download song for free here:
http://makanamusic.com/?slide=we-are-the-many
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Rafeef Ziadah - 'Shades of anger', London, 12.11.11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vFJE93LTI
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News: Massive anti-nuclear demonstration in Fukuoka Nov. 12, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq_xKEWuj1I&feature=player_embedded
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Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded
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Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0
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Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded
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Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers:
POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded
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Quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded
G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded
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WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:
Occupy Oakland Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded
Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded
Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded
Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded
KTVU TV Video of Police violence
http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html
Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded
Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded
Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
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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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#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
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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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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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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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The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
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Visualizing a Trillion: Just How Big That Number Is?
"1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years."
Digital Inspiration
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
How Much Is $1 Trillion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfY0q-rEdY&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy the credit crisis and big bailout packages, the figure "trillion" has suddenly become part of our everyday conversations. One trillion dollars, or 1 followed by 12 zeros, is lots of money but have you ever tried visualizing how big that number actually is?
For people who can visualize one million dollars, the comparison made on CNN should give you an idea about a trillion - "if you start spending a million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spend a trillion dollars".
Another mathematician puts it like this: "1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years".
Now if the above comparisons weren't really helpful, check another illustration that compares the built of an average human being against a stack of $100 currency notes bundles.
A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house.
With this background in mind, 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 1000 times bigger than 1 billion and would therefore take up an entire football field - the man is still standing in the bottom-left corner. (See visuals -- including a video -- at website:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/national-call-in-for-bradley
I received the following reply from the White House November 18, 2011 regarding the Bradley Manning petition I signed:
"Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning
"Thank you for signing the petition 'Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.' We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov.
The We the People Terms of Participation explain that 'the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.' The military justice system is charged with enforcing the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Accordingly, the White House declines to comment on the specific case raised in this petition...
"This email was sent to giobon@comcast.net
Manage Subscriptions for giobon@comcast.net
Sign Up for Updates from the White House
Unsubscribe giobon@comcast.net | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House
"The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111"
That's funny! I guess Obama didn't get this memo. Here's what Obama said about Bradley:
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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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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HANDS OFF IRAN PETITION
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hands-off-iran/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend
The Petition
To President Obama and Secretary Clinton:
At no time since the Iranian people rose up against the hated U.S-installed Shah has a U.S./Israeli military attack against Iran seemed more possible. Following three decades of unrelenting hostility, the last few months have seen a steady escalation of charges, threats, sanctions and actual preparations for an attack.
We, the undersigned demand No War, No Sanctions, no Internal Interference in Iran.
(For a complete analysis of the prospects of war, click here)
http://nepajac.org/unaciran.htm
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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against Censorship" book
https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25
A Child's View from GazaA collection of drawings by children in the Gaza Strip, art that was censored by a museum in Oakland, California.
With a special forward by Alice Walker, this beautiful, full-color 80-page book from Pacific View Press features drawings by children like Asil, a ten-year-old girl from Rafah refugee camp, who drew a picture of herself in jail, with Arabic phrases in the spaces between the bars: "I have a right to live in peace," "I have a right to live this life," and "I have a right to play."
For international or bulk orders, please email: meca@mecaforpeace.org, or call: 510-548-0542
A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against Censorship [ISBN: 978-1-881896-35-7]
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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
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
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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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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
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Write to Bradley
http://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) Who Counts as 'Rich'?
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
December 9, 2011, 2:40 pm
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/who-counts-as-rich/?hp
2) Police Evict Protesters From Occupy Boston Site
By JESS BIDGOOD
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/police-evict-protesters-from-occupy-boston-site.html?hp
3) Police defend handling of the media during Occupy arrests
By Boston Globe Staff
12/10/2011 8:43 AM
http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/12/most-media-kept-away-from-scene-occupy-arrests/UF5OdOZ8lBt04GNwLZK9YI/index.html
4) For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice
By DAVID M. UHLMANN
December 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?hp
5) Thousands Gather in Russia to Protest Legislative Elections
By ELLEN BARRY
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/world/europe/thousands-protest-in-moscow-russia-in-defiance-of-putin.html?hp
6) Tracing a Mother's Vagabond Path to Murder and Suicide in Texas
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/laredo-tex-food-stamp-standoff-ends-in-killings-and-suicide.html?hp
7) Thousands Sterilized, a State Weighs Restitution
"Until folks know what the state's going to do, people aren't going to take the risk and come forward," she said. One woman who submitted her name fears it will become public. In a recent interview in her small home in Lexington, N.C., she said she would be embarrassed if her co-workers at a local hospital knew her story. Now 62, she was adopted but sent to a state school at 7 because her parents thought she was mentally deficient. She remembers being told as a teenager that she was getting an appendectomy. When she was 27 and started having uterine trouble, a doctor requested her records and discovered that she had been sterilized in an operation that had been botched, her medical records show. 'I tell you what,' she said. 'I about hit the floor.'She went to her mother, who said she was going to tell her before she got married. Welfare would have ended if she had not consented, her mother said." ...Elaine Riddick, 57, who also lives in Atlanta, was sterilized in 1967. She was 14 and had gotten pregnant from a rape. Social workers persuaded her illiterate grandmother to sign the consent form with an X."
December 9, 2011
By KIM SEVERSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/redress-weighed-for-forced-sterilizations-in-north-carolina.html?ref=us
8) Homeless Families Walking a Hard Road
"Data collected by the Illinois State Board of Education shows 42,608 homeless students enrolled in Illinois at the end of the 2011 school year, an increase of 64 percent since 2008. In Chicago Public Schools, the enrollment for homeless students reached 15,289, an increase of 24 percent."
By MERIBAH KNIGHT
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/homeless-families-walking-a-hard-road.html?ref=us
9) Conviction Is Reversed in 1992 Rape and Murder
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/conviction-of-juan-rivera-in-1992-murder-reversed.html?ref=us
10) 'Law & Order: SVU' Imitation Occupation Draws Real Protesters, and City's Ire
"...Show us the script..."
[Occupy TV -- way to go! ...bw]
By JAMES BARRON and COLIN MOYNIHAN
December 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/nyregion/law-order-svu-imitation-occupation-draws-real-protesters-and-citys-ire.html?ref=nyregio
11) Beyond Guantánamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates
By SCOTT SHANE
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/beyond-guantanamo-bay-a-web-of-federal-prisons.html?hp
12) Disillusioned Young Immigrant Kills Himself, Starting an Emotional Debate
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/joaquin-luna-jrs-suicide-touches-off-immigration-debate.html?ref=us
13) War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us
Escalation of the covert US-Israeli campaign against Tehran risks a global storm. Opposition has to get more serious
December 7, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/07/iran-war-already-begun
14) Wonkbook: The real unemployment rate is 11 percent
By Ezra Klein
Monday, December 12, 4:51 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-real-unemployment-rate-is-11-percent/2011/12/12/gIQAuctPpO_blog.html
15) Occupy protesters blocking gates at West Coast ports, halt operations at some
By Associated Press
Monday, December 12, 11:31 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/occupy-protesters-seek-to-shut-down-west-coast-ports-despite-rejection-by-longshore-union/2011/12/12/gIQA3zP3oO_story.html
16) Depression and Democracy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
December 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html
17) Brookfield Deals With Protesters Again, but Not at Zuccotti
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
December 12, 2011, 1:15 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/brookfield-deals-with-protesters-again-but-not-at-zuccotti/?hp
18) In California, a Plan to Charge Inmates for Their Stay
By JENNIFER MEDINA
December 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/us/in-riverside-california-a-plan-to-charge-inmates.html?ref=us
19) An Open Letter from America's Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports
Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports
December 12, 2011
http://cleanandsafeports.org/blog/2011/12/12/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports/
20) Bradley Manning
Accused WikiLeaker defense argues Obama must testify
Legal team for Army PFC Bradley Manning fights for fair deal at pre-trial "Article 32" hearing, supporters rally
By Jeff Paterson
December 12, 2011
http://couragetoresist.org/bradley-manning/936-obama-testify.html
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1) Who Counts as 'Rich'?
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
December 9, 2011, 2:40 pm
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/who-counts-as-rich/?hp
We've written plenty of times about how little Americans know about the distribution of income in the United States, and how many rich people don't realize they're rich, at least relative to the rest of the country.
Now Gallup has surveyed Americans to ask what they believe the cutoff for being "rich" should be. The median response was that a person would need to make at least $150,000 to be considered rich. Here's a breakdown of the responses:
Just thinking about your own situation, how much money per year would you need to make in order to consider yourself rich? [OPEN ENDED]
Less than $60,000 -- 18 percent; $60,000-$99,000 -- 12 percent; $100,000-$150,000 -- 23 percent; $150-$299,000 -- 18 percent; $300,000-$999,999 -- 14 percent; $1 million -- 11 percent; More than $1 million -- 4 percent.
Gallup, Nov. 28-Dec. 1, 2011
Note: Percentages are based on those giving a dollar estimate; Ten percent did not.
GALLUP
(The national poll was based on telephone interviews, using landlines and cellphones, with about 500 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.)
According to the Tax Policy Center's calculations on income distribution, a household earning cash income of $150,000 would fall somewhere between the 89th and 90th percentiles. In other words, the typical American believes anyone in about the top tenth of the income distribution counts as "rich."
President Obama and others, on the other hand, have set the cutoff around $250,000 when discussing "raising taxes on the rich." Households earning cash income of $250,000 are somewhere between the 96th and 97th percentiles.
As you might expect, answers to Gallup's survey question on the threshold for being "rich" varied tremendously by demographics and geography. For example, men cited a higher bar than women did - $150,000 versus $100,000, respectively:
Self-Reported Annual Income Needed to Be Rich, by Subgroup
All Americans -- Median $150,000; Men -- Median $150,000; Women -- Median $100,000; 18-49 years -- $160,000; 50-plus -- $100,000; College graduate -- $200,000; College non-graduate -- $100,000; Less than $50,000 annual household income -- $100,000; $50,000 or more annual household income -- $200,000; With children under 18 -- $200,000; No children under 18 -- $100,000; Big/Small city -- $200,000; Town or rural area -- $100,000.
Gallup, Nov. 28-Dec. 1, 2011
GALLUP
Note that respondents with children under 18 said they would require $200,000 before considering themselves rich, whereas the childless were satisfied with a $100,000 benchmark. (That reminds me of this xkcd cartoon. [http://xkcd.com/946/])
As you might expect, those who live in urban areas - like New York City, where the cost of living is very high - or in suburbs, had higher standards for being "rich" than did Americans who live in towns or rural settings.
Readers, I'm curious: What's your definition for who counts as "rich"?
Akram reported from Gaza and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.
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2) Police Evict Protesters From Occupy Boston Site
By JESS BIDGOOD
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/police-evict-protesters-from-occupy-boston-site.html?hp
BOSTON - The police swept into Occupy Boston's campsite early Saturday morning, bringing one of the country's largest continuous demonstrations inspired by New York City's Occupy Wall Street protest to an end.
Boston police said 46 people had been arrested during what the city's police commissioner, Edward Davis, said was "by and large" a peaceful eviction.
Police officers arrived shortly before 5 a.m., dragging tents out of the camp and warning the roughly 75 protesters who had stayed the night there that they would be arrested if the did not leave.
"The first thing I heard was the sound of a knife ripping through a tent," said Mike Hipson, a demonstrator who stayed through the night. A group linked arms and awaited arrest as police officers backed vans into the camp.
Some protesters noted that they could not read police badges, and some members of the media said they were kept at a distance as arrests were being made.
The sweep was not a surprise. On Thursday, a Boston judge lifted a temporary restraining order that had barred the police from evicting the group. By Friday, protesters had received eviction notices warning them that they risked arrest if they did not vacate Dewey Square by midnight, and many began clearing tents and valuables from the camp. But that night, a crowd of more than 1,000 gathered in and around the square. "The mayor and I decided it was good to hold off 24 hours after the deadline," Commissioner Davis said.
By 8 a.m. Saturday, the city's cleanup of Dewey Square was in full force, with workers using leaf blowers and moving garbage into dump trucks. Others had begun power-washing posters off of the building they had adorned in the square.
Across the street, a couple of dozen protestors chalked messages, like "Occupy Boston Lives," on the pavement outside of South Station, using supplies from the group's "mobile sign unit." The supplies, one housed in a sign-making tent, were now inside a child's wooden wagon.
One of the protesters, Steve O'Brien, a homeless 18-year-old, said he did not know where he would go now.
"I'm hoping it will be reinstated, that we go back in and set it up again," Mr. O'Brien said. He said he had wanted to be arrested, but that the police told him he was too young.
The group scheduled a general assembly for Saturday night on the Boston Common to discuss its next move.
"We have a lot of options," said Robin Jacks, 31, who, along with one other, helped begin the Boston occupation. Ms. Jacks has expressed interest in transitioning, as other groups around the country have done, from a public occupation to action like occupying foreclosed homes.
"This is not over. There's no way that we're going to dispense and not be us anymore."
At a news conference on Saturday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said safety was the primary motivator behind the eviction, praising the police for acting with "patience and respect." Mr. Menino had words of gratitude for the protestors, too.
"They shined a much needed light, still needed, on growing economic inequality in this country. In the end, they also acted with restraint, I thank them for that," Mr. Menino said.
But he said the city would immediately move to evict protesters from any new campsites.
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3) Police defend handling of the media during Occupy arrests
By Boston Globe Staff
12/10/2011 8:43 AM
http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/12/most-media-kept-away-from-scene-occupy-arrests/UF5OdOZ8lBt04GNwLZK9YI/index.html
Boston police defended their handling of the media during the Occupy Boston raid early this morning, when most reporters of the media were not able to get a good view of arrests taking place.
"We were making every accommodation for the press to make sure they did have an optimal vantage point when it came to covering the police action," said Boston police spokesman Elaine Driscoll.
As police entered the site, they forced most members of the media to stand on the sidewalk on Atlantic Avenue, on the outskirts of Dewey Square. A line of about a dozen uniformed officers stood between them and the square, where at least 46 people were arrested.
Boston Police Superintendent William Evans said this was done so members of the media wouldn't interfere with the operation.
Driscoll said reporters were escorted by officers from the department's media relations department "so they could get a closer look than they otherwise would have been able to."
She said two pool cameras were allowed closer to the action. A Globe photographer was one of those in the pool.
Visual documentation has been critical at a number of the police raids that have occurred around the country, as Occupy encampments have been dismantled, sometimes violently. The Boston eviction appears to have unfolded peacefully.
A police officer said the department was taking its own internal video of officers' interactions with protesters.
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4) For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice
By DAVID M. UHLMANN
December 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?hp
Ann Arbor, Mich.
EARLY on April 5, 2010, in the heart of West Virginia coal country, a huge explosion killed 29 workers at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine. Later that day, President Obama directed Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis to conduct "the most thorough and comprehensive investigation possible" and to work with the Justice Department to investigate any criminal violations.
On Tuesday, the Labor Department issued a 972-page report on the calamity - the nation's worst mining disaster in 40 years. It concluded that Massey's "unlawful policies and practices" were the "root cause of this tragedy." It identified over 300 violations of the Mine Safety and Health Act, including nine flagrant violations that contributed to the explosion.
The scathing findings probably came as no surprise in West Virginia, where Massey had a well-earned reputation for putting miners at risk, breaking unions and polluting the environment.
However, what jumped off the pages for me, as a former federal prosecutor, was the revelation that Massey had kept two sets of books at the mine: one for internal use, which recorded hazards, and a second for Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors, which did not. In addition, Massey routinely gave its facilities advance notice of inspections, which is a crime under federal law, and intimidated its workers so that they would not report safety and health violations.
Based on the Labor Department's investigation, the Justice Department could have criminally prosecuted Massey under the Mine Safety and Health Act for the violations that caused the explosion. Prosecutors also could have charged the company with conspiracy and obstruction of justice for the ways it thwarted regulation.
Instead, on the same day the devastating report was released, the Justice Department announced that it would not criminally prosecute Massey. The news release issued by the United States attorney misleadingly described its nonprosecution agreement with Massey's new owners as "the largest ever criminal resolution in a mining investigation."
Let's be clear: this is not a criminal resolution. Massey will not be charged with any crimes and will not plead guilty before a federal judge. Nor will there be a sentencing hearing where Massey apologizes to the families of the victims and is punished for its crimes.
The deal with Massey continues a disturbing trend whereby corporations can avoid criminal prosecution by entering deferred prosecution or nonprosecution agreements. Often the terms of these agreements are no better than what could have been achieved in a criminal case; worse, they create the appearance that justice can be bought.
Moreover, there is less to this settlement than meets the eye. The $209 million settlement requires payment of $35 million in previously assessed administrative penalties, but that sum includes just $10.8 million for the Upper Big Branch Mine tragedy. The remaining $174 million is likely to be tax deductible, including $80 million for investments in safety and infrastructure at Massey mines and an additional $48 million to establish a mine health and safety trust fund.
Even the most laudable aspect of the deal - the agreement to pay $46.5 million in restitution to the families of the victims - is illusory. Massey already had agreed to pay $16.5 million to settle lawsuits brought by the families. The remaining $30 million will be paid into a fund for future settlements, which effectively caps the amount the families can recover. And, to add insult to injury, the Justice Department agreed that Massey would admit no wrongdoing.
So why did the Justice Department respond so timidly?
Perhaps it felt hamstrung by the weakness of the criminal provisions of the Mine Safety and Health Act, which are misdemeanors and cover only willful violations of health and safety standards. It is long past time for Congress to update our mine safety laws so that violations can be prosecuted as felonies, particularly in cases where miners are killed.
Maybe the Justice Department wanted to reward the new owners, who appear to have made a greater commitment to safety. It may also have felt it would be enough to criminally prosecute Massey officials, which it can and should do if there is sufficient evidence.
We should not underestimate, however, the difficulty of prosecuting high-ranking officials in large corporations. This case may be an exception, but senior corporate officers rarely have sufficient personal involvement to be charged with crimes. To reach the boardroom, where policies are formed that can lead to tragedy, we must be willing to hold corporations criminally responsible.
During my 17 years at the Justice Department, we prosecuted corporations criminally in hundreds of cases that, while serious, did not involve the tragic loss of life at the Upper Big Branch Mine. The Justice Department did not live up to its name in agreeing not to prosecute Massey for its crimes. We can only hope that when it comes to the other unfathomable disaster that took place in April 2010, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, justice will be better served.
David M. Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan, was chief of the environmental crimes section at the Justice Department from 2000 to 2007.
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5) Thousands Gather in Russia to Protest Legislative Elections
By ELLEN BARRY
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/world/europe/thousands-protest-in-moscow-russia-in-defiance-of-putin.html?hp
MOSCOW - Tens of thousands of Russians gathered peacefully in central Moscow on Saturday to shout "Putin is a thief" and "Russia without Putin," forcing the Kremlin to confront a level of public discontent that has not been seen here since Vladimir V. Putin first became president 12 years ago.
The crowd overflowed the square where it was held, forcing stragglers to climb trees or watch from the opposite riverbank, and organizers repeatedly cleared a footbridge out of fear it would collapse. It was the largest anti-Kremlin protest since the early 1990s.
The crowd united liberals, nationalists and Communists, a group best described as the urban middle class, so digitally connected that some were broadcasting the rally live using iPads held over their heads. The police estimated the crowd at 25,000 while organizers put the figure much higher, at 40,000 or more.
The rally was a significant moment in Russia's political life, suggesting that the authorities have lost the power to control the national agenda. The event was too large to be edited out of the evening news, which does not report criticism of Mr. Putin, and was accompanied by smaller demonstrations dozens of other cities, including St. Petersburg.
The government calculated that it had no choice but to allow the events unfold. There was a large police presence, including rows of troop carriers, dump trucks and bulldozers, but remarkably when the crowd dispersed four hours later, no detentions had been reported.
On Saturday many in the crowd said the event was a watershed moment.
"People are just tired, they have already crossed all the boundaries," said Yana Larionova, 26, a real estate agent. "You see all these people who are well dressed and earn a good salary, going out onto the streets on Saturday and saying, 'No more.' That's when you know you need a change."
Calls for protest have been mounting since parliamentary elections last Sunday, which domestic and international observers said were tainted by ballot-stuffing and fraud on behalf of Mr. Putin's party, United Russia. But an equally crucial event, many said, was Mr. Putin's announcement in September that he would run for the presidency in March. He is almost certain to win a six-year term, meaning he will have been Russia's paramount leader for 18 years.
Yevgeniya Albats, editor of the New Times magazine, said that the gathering was the most striking display of grassroots democracy that she had seen in Russia, and that the involvement of young people was a game-changer. When Mr. Putin revealed his decision to return to the presidency, a full six months before presidential elections, she said, "this really, really humiliated the country."
"Today we just proved that civil society does exist, that the middle class does exist and that this country is not lost," Ms. Albats said.
The authorities had been trying to discourage attendance, saying that widespread protests could culminate in a disaster on the scale of the Soviet collapse, which occurred 20 years ago this month. Officials have portrayed the demonstrators as revolutionaries dedicated to a violent, Libya-style overthrow. Mr. Putin last week said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had set off the wave of activism by publicly criticizing the conduct of the parliamentary elections.
"She set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal," Mr. Putin said. "They heard the signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began active work."
The demonstration's organizers have put forward several demands: the immediate release of prisoners arrested last week in connection with the protests; the scheduling of new parliamentary elections; the ouster of Vladimir Y. Churov, who runs the Central Election Commission; investigation of election violations; the registration of so-called nonsystem opposition parties, ones that have been unable to win seats in Parliament or put forward presidential candidates.
Speakers said they would give the Kremlin two weeks to satisfy the demands, and hold another large protest on Dec. 24.
Aleksei Navalny, a popular blogger who has helped mobilize young Russians over the last year, sent an address from the prison where he is serving a 15-day sentence for resisting the police. Mr. Navalny was arrested Monday night after the first of three demonstrations.
"Everyone has the single most powerful weapon that we need - dignity, the feeling of self-respect," read the address, which was delivered by a veteran opposition leader, Boris Y. Nemtsov. "It's impossible to beat and arrest hundreds of thousands, millions. We have not even been intimidated. For some time, we were simply convinced that the life of toads and rats, the life of mute cattle, was the only way to win the reward of stability and economic growth."
"We are not cattle or slaves," he said. "We have voices and votes and we have the power to uphold them."
The blogosphere has played a central role in mobilizing young Russians this fall. During the parliamentary campaign, Russians using smartphones filmed authority figures cajoling, bribing or offering money to their subordinates to get out the vote for United Russia. More video went online after Election Day, when many Russians in their 20s camped out in polling stations as amateur observers.
"The Putin system, over many years, repeats the same mistakes and ignores public opinion," said Leonid Gigen, 26. "We have a lot of evidence. A lot was shot on video. And then Medvedev says these videos are fake," a reference to President Dmitri A. Medvedev. "But people saw it themselves, because they voted."
The ruling party, United Russia, lost ground in last Sunday's election, securing 238 seats in the next Duma, compared with the 315, or 70 percent, that it holds now. The Communist Party won 92 seats; Just Russia won 64 seats; and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party won 56 seats.
The vote had come to be seen as a referendum not only on United Russia but also on Mr. Putin and his plans to stay on as Russia's paramount leader. Mr. Putin remains by far the country's most popular political figure - the independent Levada Center reports his approval ratings at above 60 percent - but that approval has been diminishing gradually despite the authorities' efforts to shore it up.
It seems unlikely that the authorities will accede to the protesters' demands. A deputy chairman of Russia's Central Election Commission told the Interfax news service that the final report on the election results was signed Friday, and that he saw no reason to annul them.
"The elections are declared valid, and there is no reason for any other assessment," the official, Stanisav Vavilov, said. "There is no reason to revise the results of the elections."
One of the few official remarks on the gathering on Saturday came from Andrei Isayev, the deputy secretary of the presidium of the general council of United Russia, who told demonstrators that they risked becoming "cannon fodder."
"Do not allow yourself to become a pawn in the hands of those who want to destroy our country," he said.
Michael Schwirtz, David M. Herszenhorn and Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting.
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6) Tracing a Mother's Vagabond Path to Murder and Suicide in Texas
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/laredo-tex-food-stamp-standoff-ends-in-killings-and-suicide.html?hp
LAREDO, Tex. - Months after being denied food stamps, Rachelle Grimmer grabbed her two children, a .38-caliber revolver and 50 rounds of ammunition and walked into the state social services office here on Monday to demand answers.
But Ms. Grimmer's troubles were far deeper than a lack of food stamps, and neither the police nor the employee she held hostage could resolve them.
Divorced and living a vagabond existence in Texas in recent months, Ms. Grimmer, 38, told the police she was frustrated that she had been denied benefits in other states. She said that her former husband was affiliated with the Russian mob and the Ku Klux Klan, a situation she said led to government harassment that prevented her from receiving public assistance.
Her hostage, Robert Reyes, a supervisor who had offered himself in trade for two other employees Ms. Grimmer had taken hostage, granted her the food stamp benefits she had requested - $3,050 worth, retroactive to July, the month she had first applied. The police slipped the paperwork under the door to show Ms. Grimmer it was for real. But she refused to leave the small office in the Texas Health and Human Services building, at times sitting in a chair with her daughter on her lap and communicating with the police on an office phone.
About 10 minutes before midnight, about seven hours into the standoff, she hung up on hostage negotiators. Moments later, three shots were heard. Ms. Grimmer had shot both of her children in the head, and then herself. She died at the scene. The children were taken to University Hospital in San Antonio. Her daughter, Ramie Marie Grimmer, 12, died on Wednesday. Her son, Timothy Donald Grimmer, 10, died a day later.
Carlos R. Maldonado, Laredo's police chief, said that the denial of benefits was only one of a series of issues that had been troubling Ms. Grimmer, but that investigators had more questions than answers about her motive. The police were not certain if she was being treated for mental health problems and did not know why she moved several months ago to Laredo, a border city of 236,000, where she had no family.
"Unfortunately in these situations, there's a lot of questions that we have and a lot of those questions may never be answered," Chief Maldonado said. "I think we did everything that we possibly could to resolve the situation. We heard people say, why didn't the tactical team intervene and do something about the mother and save the children? There was never any inclination, any information available to us, that the children were in any danger at all."
But Ramie appeared to have known her life was in danger. At one point during the standoff, using an office computer, she updated her Facebook page, writing "may die 2day" in the section for posting where she worked. Later, she wrote, "tear gas seriasly," though none was used by the police.
Ms. Grimmer grew up in Montana and had been living in Ohio in 2005 when she divorced her husband and the children's father, Dale R. Grimmer. By 2010 she had moved to Texas, and in recent months she and her children seemed to have no permanent address.
In September 2010, the family was staying in a tent on a beach on the South Texas coast. In Laredo, they lived at a mobile home park in a small trailer with a cracked wall. Neighbors and park workers would help them with groceries and cash. Ms. Grimmer sold her truck, forcing the family to walk long distances around town.
Janie Rodriguez, the manager of Towne North Mobile Home and RV Park, said that Ms. Grimmer often told her she was frustrated by the state's refusal to give her benefits and that, one day weeks ago, she showed her a fax receipt for documents she had sent the social services office. "I do blame the state," Ms. Rodriguez said. "She was a very intelligent person and a very wonderful person, a very good mother. She was not mentally ill. The state never came to see how she was living."
The children were not enrolled in local schools, but were being home-schooled. The state's child welfare agency, the Department of Family and Protective Services, had come in contact with the family at least twice before.
After receiving a report of possible neglect, investigators from the agency checked on the family in September 2010, when they were living on the beach. But the children appeared to be taken care of, and Ms. Grimmer had food and money, so the case was closed, a department spokesman said. In June, Ms. Grimmer told the police in Corpus Christi that she had been a victim of domestic violence. The agency checked on her and the children but had no concerns, said the spokesman, Patrick Crimmins.
Ms. Grimmer had first applied for food stamps at the Laredo social services office on July 7. She did not meet the criteria to receive benefits within 24 hours because she was receiving child support. But an employee scheduled a time with Ms. Grimmer for someone to call her the next day to review her case, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said. A caseworker called twice but was unable to reach her, the spokeswoman said.
A letter was sent to Ms. Grimmer asking her to reschedule, and the appointment was set for July 22. On that day, a caseworker interviewed Ms. Grimmer by phone and explained what information was needed, said the spokeswoman, Stephanie Goodman. Though Ms. Grimmer turned in some of the paperwork, she did not supply materials verifying the amount of child support she had been receiving monthly, Ms. Goodman said.
On Aug. 8, the case was closed, and Ms. Grimmer was sent a letter informing her that she had been denied food stamp benefits because of the missing information, Ms. Goodman said.
In Texas, benefits applications are approved more often than they are denied: in the past six months, 85 percent of cases statewide were approved, and the median number of days to process an application was 12, the agency said.
In mid-November, Ms. Grimmer called the agency's ombudsman office, saying that she disagreed with the reason she was denied benefits. A supervisor called her on Dec. 1 but could not reach her. No one in the Laredo office heard from her until she walked in on Monday.
The agency is reviewing its handling of Ms. Grimmer's case. "I think we did everything we could," said Thomas M. Suehs, the commissioner of health and human services. "It's a tragic situation."
Outside the Grimmers' trailer on Thursday, neighbors gathered to pray for the family. Standing next to a memorial of balloons and teddy bears, one mother spoke of the sunflower bookmark Ms. Grimmer had drawn for her. Santiago Morantes Jr., 16, recalled seeing Ms. Grimmer, Ramie and Tim walking to the post office one morning. He remembered it because he noticed all three of them were barefoot.
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7) Thousands Sterilized, a State Weighs Restitution
"Until folks know what the state's going to do, people aren't going to take the risk and come forward," she said. One woman who submitted her name fears it will become public. In a recent interview in her small home in Lexington, N.C., she said she would be embarrassed if her co-workers at a local hospital knew her story. Now 62, she was adopted but sent to a state school at 7 because her parents thought she was mentally deficient. She remembers being told as a teenager that she was getting an appendectomy. When she was 27 and started having uterine trouble, a doctor requested her records and discovered that she had been sterilized in an operation that had been botched, her medical records show. 'I tell you what,' she said. 'I about hit the floor.' She went to her mother, who said she was going to tell her before she got married. Welfare would have ended if she had not consented, her mother said." ...Elaine Riddick, 57, who also lives in Atlanta, was sterilized in 1967. She was 14 and had gotten pregnant from a rape. Social workers persuaded her illiterate grandmother to sign the consent form with an X."
December 9, 2011
By KIM SEVERSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/redress-weighed-for-forced-sterilizations-in-north-carolina.html?ref=us
LINWOOD, N.C. - Charles Holt, 62, spreads a cache of vintage government records across his trailer floor. They are the stark facts of his state-ordered sterilization.
The reports begin when he was barely a teenager, fighting at school and masturbating openly. A social worker wrote that he and his parents were of "rather low mentality." Mr. Holt was sent to a state home for people with mental and emotional problems. In 1968, when he was ready to get out and start life as an adult, the Eugenics Board of North Carolina ruled that he should first have a vasectomy.
A social worker convinced his mother it was for the best.
"We especially emphasized that it was a way of protecting Charles in case he were falsely accused of having fathered a child," the social worker wrote to the board.
Now, along with scores of others selected for state sterilization - among them uneducated young girls who had been raped by older men, poor teenagers from large families, people with epilepsy and those deemed to be too "feeble-minded" to raise children - Mr. Holt is waiting to see what a state that had one of the country's most aggressive eugenics programs will decide his fertility was worth.
Although North Carolina officially apologized in 2002 and legislators have pressed to compensate victims before, a task force appointed by Gov. Bev Perdue is again wrestling with the state's obligation to the estimated 7,600 victims of its eugenics program.
The board operated from 1933 to 1977 as an experiment in genetic engineering once considered a legitimate way to keep welfare rolls small, stop poverty and improve the gene pool.
Thirty-one other states had eugenics programs. Virginia and California each sterilized more people than North Carolina. But no program was more aggressive.
Only North Carolina gave social workers the power to designate people for sterilization. They often relied on I.Q. tests like those done on Mr. Holt, whose scores reached 73. But for some victims who often spent more time picking cotton than in school, the I.Q. tests at the time were not necessarily accurate predictors of capability. For example, as an adult Mr. Holt held down three jobs at once, delivering newspapers, working at a grocery store and doing maintenance for a small city.
Wealthy businessmen, among them James Hanes, the hosiery magnate, and Dr. Clarence Gamble, heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune, drove the eugenics movement. They helped form the Human Betterment League of North Carolina in 1947, and found a sympathetic bureaucrat in Wallace Kuralt, the father of the television journalist Charles Kuralt.
A proponent of birth control in all forms, Mr. Kuralt used the program extensively when he was director of the Mecklenburg County welfare department from 1945 to 1972. That county had more sterilizations than any other in the state.
Over all, about 70 percent of the North Carolina operations took place after 1945, and many of them were on poor young women and racial minorities. Nonwhite minorities made up about 40 percent of those sterilized, and girls and women about 85 percent.
The program, while not specifically devised to target racial minorities, affected black Americans disproportionately because they were more often poor and uneducated and from large rural families.
"The state owes something to the victims," said Governor Perdue, who campaigned on the issue.
But what? Her five-member task force has been meeting since May to try to determine what that might be. A final report is due in February.
This week, the task force set some priorities. Money was the most important thing to offer victims, followed by mental health services.
How much to pay is a vexing question, and what North Carolina does will be closely watched by officials in other states. In a period of severe budget cuts and layoffs, money for eugenics victims can be a hard sell to legislators.
States began practicing eugenics in earnest in the United States in the 1920s and '30s, driven by a philosophy of social engineering once so popular that President Woodrow Wilson, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. of the Supreme Court and Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, were ardent supporters.
Before most of the programs were closed down, more than 60,000 people nationwide had been sterilized by state order.
The reasons were chilling, reports from state records and interviews with survivors and researchers show.
There was a 14-year-old girl deemed low-performing and "oversexed" who came from a home with poor housekeeping standards. A man who raped his daughter at 12 signed her sterilization consent when she was 16 and pregnant. A mother of five was deemed to have a low I.Q.
Victims began filing a handful of lawsuits in the 1970s, but outrage has been slow to build. In 2002, The Winston-Salem Journal ran a series of articles on eugenics, prompting official apologies and initial legislative efforts aimed at compensating victims.
But nothing came of it until Governor Perdue, a Democrat, took up the cause. She has vowed to put money in the 2012 budget. The House speaker, Thom Tillis, a Republican, said in October that he, too, would work on a bill to compensate victims.
But how much to include? Is $20,000 per victim, a figure suggested by some, enough?
"How can you quantify how much a baby is worth to people?" asked Charmaine Fuller Cooper, executive director of the North Carolina Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, which is financed by the state. "It's not about quantifying the unborn child, it's about the choices that were taken away."
The issues go deeper than just a dollar amount. The task force has to decide whether money should go only to those living or to the estates of the dead, whether a tubal ligation is worth more than a vasectomy.
One variable is how many people will actually sign up to get the money. The state estimates that about 3,000 victims of state-mandated sterilizations may still be alive. Of those, 68 have been verified in state records. But not all sterilizations were done through the state board. Counties had programs, as did private doctors who were part of the eugenics movement. Those people will not qualify for state compensation, Ms. Fuller Cooper said.
Still, her office in Raleigh receives about 200 calls a month. People who suspect they were part of the state program must send her a notarized letter. Then, their names have to be found among eugenics board records stored in dozens of cardboard boxes in the basement of the state archives. People have died or moved or use different names. It is needle-in-a-haystack work.
Some critics of the effort say the state is not working hard enough. Victims and others argue that names in the archives could be matched to drivers' records.
But the state cannot just send letters to people's houses suggesting they might have been sterilized against their will, Ms. Fuller Cooper said. Medical records are private. Husbands or adopted children could find out a long-buried secret. Old wounds could be laid open again.
Even people who call her office sometimes hang up abruptly when a spouse approaches, wanting to keep their terrible secret unless money is on the table.
"Until folks know what the state's going to do, people aren't going to take the risk and come forward," she said.
One woman who submitted her name fears it will become public. In a recent interview in her small home in Lexington, N.C., she said she would be embarrassed if her co-workers at a local hospital knew her story.
Now 62, she was adopted but sent to a state school at 7 because her parents thought she was mentally deficient. She remembers being told as a teenager that she was getting an appendectomy. When she was 27 and started having uterine trouble, a doctor requested her records and discovered that she had been sterilized in an operation that had been botched, her medical records show.
"I tell you what," she said. "I about hit the floor."
She went to her mother, who said she was going to tell her before she got married. Welfare would have ended if she had not consented, her mother said.
She did marry, and her husband, who has since died, accepted the fact that they could not have children. Still, she was forever changed.
"I see people with babies and I think how much I would have loved to have a young one," she said. "It should have been my choice whether I wanted to have a baby or not. You just feel like you were held back, like you never had any say in your life."
She figures what she went through is worth at least $50,000 or $100,000. "Maybe I could retire," she said.
Mr. Holt still remembers that October day. He thought he was getting an examination so he could leave the state home. He said he did not know he was giving up his chance to be a parent.
"The doctor told me I couldn't go home unless I had an operation done," said Mr. Holt, who was 19 at the time. "When I woke up I tried to walk, and I said: 'This ain't right. I don't even remember them shaving me down there.' "
He went on to marry and divorce. Now recovering from a stroke and surviving on disability payments, he lives with relatives in a tidy trailer park in the middle of the state.
He thinks maybe $30,000 would be enough. Others want more. Elaine Riddick, 57, who also lives in Atlanta, was sterilized in 1967. She was 14 and had gotten pregnant from a rape. Social workers persuaded her illiterate grandmother to sign the consent form with an X.
She has become the most vocal proponent of payment, suing the state for $1 million. Her case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which refused to hear it.
For Nial Ramirez, 65, who was sterilized at 18 after she gave birth to her daughter, no amount could make it right.
A social worker from the Washington County Department of Public Welfare suggested that she get sterilized. Mrs. Ramirez said she did not understand that the procedure was permanent and thought she had no choice.
"They told me that my brothers and sisters were going to be in the streets all because of you," she said. "It's either sign the paper or mama's checks get cut off."
In 1973, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, she became the first person to file a lawsuit against the state eugenics board. It ended with a $7,000 settlement from the doctor, she said.
Now in a small apartment surrounded by the sound of the television and some of the 200 dolls she has collected through her lifetime, Ms. Ramirez remains angry. She does not want an apology, and she will not settle for the amounts being discussed.
"What would an apology do for me?" she said. "You don't know what my kids were going to be. You don't know what kids God was going to give me. Twenty thousand dollars ain't gonna do it, honey."
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8) Homeless Families Walking a Hard Road
"Data collected by the Illinois State Board of Education shows 42,608 homeless students enrolled in Illinois at the end of the 2011 school year, an increase of 64 percent since 2008. In Chicago Public Schools, the enrollment for homeless students reached 15,289, an increase of 24 percent."
By MERIBAH KNIGHT
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/homeless-families-walking-a-hard-road.html?ref=us
Samantha Caballero cannot remember the last time she slept well. Some nights she nods off in a chair. She has slouched in the front seat of her brother's station wagon or huddled between boxes in her mother's storage unit. Sometimes she squeezes onto a friend's extra bed with five of her six children.
There are seven of them: Six children. One mother. No home.
On most days, when she wakes at 6 a.m. from a half-sleep, Ms. Caballero must get her 12-year-old daughter, Lajuanese, and her three boys, Jovany, 11; Deangelo, 6; and Jaden, 3; ready for school. She makes sure they have school assignments in their book bags, toothbrushes and a change of clothes; the family may change addresses during the day.
As with any large family, everything requires planning. With her two youngest, Devonta, 4 months, and Samantha, 3, Ms. Caballero spends her day navigating a maze of bureaucracies: cash assistance, food stamps, Social Security, schools, shelters and health care.
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley's 10-year plan to end homelessness focused on the chronically homeless, substance abusers and the disabled. But nine years later, many young people and families are still on the streets. Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to update the plan early next year.
The number of homeless families is rising in Illinois, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Between 2008 and 2010 their ranks swelled by more than 7 percent, to 6,827. "Anecdotally, we have seen a significant number of single mothers entering the Chicago system of care," said John Pfeiffer, the deputy commissioner of Chicago's Department of Family and Support Services.
A nearly three-year evaluation of Mr. Daley's program by researchers at the University of Chicago and Loyola University tracked more than 500 homeless people for a year and found a fragmented system that inhibited progress.
In 100 calls to the city's 311 referral system, the researchers found help-line respondents passive and largely unable to link callers to the appropriate resources. Attendants often directed them to the nearest police station or hospital. In only 16 percent of cases did workers give more detailed information. The study also reported that no test caller was "offered a well-being check, callback or pickup for families with young children or unaccompanied youth."
When the researchers disclosed their findings last week at the annual breakfast for the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness, Mr. Emanuel, who was at the event, expressed astonishment.
"That seems crazy that we can't get 311 trained correctly," he said.
Ms. Caballero, 32, is often frustrated by the system. She has been in and out of shelter programs since 2004, more than a fifth of her life. A conviction on her record - she stole $6,000 from a gas station where she worked - has made it difficult to find a job. Over the years, she has encountered a labyrinthine, opaque system in a city that offers few rights to publicly financed shelter.
In contrast to Chicago, cities like New York, Washington, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Louisville have regulations to protect the homeless. In 2002, a judge's ruling forced New York City to give financial compensation to families forced to sleep on the floor and benches of the city's Emergency Assistance Unit.
"Her situation exposes flaws in every level of the system," said Emily Benfer, director of the Health Justice Project and clinical professor of law at the Loyola School of Law. "There are no consistent regulations governing shelter, and she has no rights."
Ms. Caballero, who is of Mexican descent, grew up in the Humboldt Park neighborhood in Chicago. Pregnant with her first child at 19, Ms. Caballero dropped out of high school. Her oldest child is 12.
Ms. Caballero said that not all her children were planned. She considered terminating one of her pregnancies but did not have $1,000 for the late-term abortion.
When her public aid arrives without snags - a rarity, she said - she receives $674 in Social Security, $623 in cash assistance and $723 in food stamps each month, plus support from the federal Women, Infants and Children program. The public support covers food and clothes, but it is not enough for a security deposit on an apartment.
Dealing with the red tape of public aid eats up her days. Recently, it took Ms. Caballero five hours and eight bus rides, her children in tow, to make a court-mandated meeting with her parole officer and a food run to W.I.C.
After Ms. Caballero unlawfully lost her cash assistance and food stamps early this year, it took four advocates at the Health Justice Project working 380 hours between February and July to replace the lost benefits, according to the Health Justice Project's database.
A run of recent trouble began Sept. 1, after Ms. Caballero's mother was evicted from the one-bedroom Cicero apartment they had shared. Ms. Caballero called 311 after the eviction and explained she was homeless with no relatives to help, according to records kept by Health Justice Project lawyers.
A 311 operator referred her to the Trina Davila Community Service Center, one of the city government's six warming and referral centers. The operator then proceeded to "admonish Ms. Caballero for not saving enough money for a security deposit," said Ms. Benfer, who listened in on the call.
A two-week tangled web of missing paperwork, unreturned voice-mail messages and dead-end referrals to shelters followed, according to records kept by Justice Project lawyers of calls made by Ms. Caballero and lawyers to 311 and shelters. Ms. Caballero wound up in a storage unit rented by her mother. Though the storage company prohibits overnight stays, she hid her children behind the unit's locked door, kept them quiet and arranged a sleeping area among the boxes.
On other nights, the family slept in her brother's station wagon, most of the children in back, she in the driver's seat, and her 4-month-old son, Devonta, in a car seat on the passenger side.
Several times during that two weeks, Ms. Caballero and Justice Project lawyers said, workers cited a shortage of beds in Chicago's shelters. On Sept. 14, space in a shelter became available, but by the time she collected her children from school and rode buses there, their beds had been given away and she could not get in, she said. City officials contend she never arrived at the West Side shelter.
Anne Sheahan, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Family and Support Services, said once the agency had realized that Ms. Caballero had been without shelter for two weeks, workers from several departments devoted two days to finding shelter space, only to have Ms. Caballero reject it, saying the shelter was too far from her children's schools.
Mr. Pfeiffer, of Family and Support Services, said the agency immediately found shelter for families in 90 percent of the cases. "Our policy is not to turn away," he said.
Despite her itinerant life, Ms. Caballero is able to keep four of her children in public school - three in the Cicero district and one in Chicago. Every day the Cicero school district picks up and drops off Jovany, Deangelo and Jaden from Logan Square. Federal law ensures homeless children free school transportation, regardless of where the family stays.
Data collected by the Illinois State Board of Education shows 42,608 homeless students enrolled in Illinois at the end of the 2011 school year, an increase of 64 percent since 2008. In Chicago Public Schools, the enrollment for homeless students reached 15,289, an increase of 24 percent.
The constant movement and stress take a physical toll on Ms. Caballero's children. Deangelo has asthma, and Samantha is showing signs of the disease. Jaden has developmental and speech delays, medical records show. Lajuanese recently
spent a week in the psychiatric ward of Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center and has a learning disability.
On Nov. 18, Deangelo suffered an asthma attack that put him in the hospital for three days. The week before, the family had slept in the rain on a friend's back porch.
"How hard your life is is probably going to affect your health status, especially vulnerable people - older people and children," said Richard Warnecke, director of the Center for Population Health and Health Disparities at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
On Dec. 1, Ms. Caballero strapped Devonta to her chest and gathered the other five children for a trip to W.I.C. She had no money for return bus fare and needed everyone to help carry bags to a friend's house, where they were staying the night.
"This situation doesn't give my kids a chance to be kids," Ms. Caballero said.
She handed 3-year-old Samantha three boxes of cereal and divided three gallons of milk, apple juice, more cereal, fruit, bread and eggs among the others. Their hands full, the family set off on the mile-long walk.
mknight@chicagonewscoop.org
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9) Conviction Is Reversed in 1992 Rape and Murder
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/conviction-of-juan-rivera-in-1992-murder-reversed.html?ref=us
The conviction of a man in the 1992 rape and murder of an 11-year-old baby sitter, a case that his supporters have long believed was the result of a false confession, was reversed Friday night by an Illinois appellate court.
Juan Rivera, who is 39 and serving a life sentence, had been convicted by three separate juries in the death of Holly Staker, who was baby-sitting two toddlers when she was killed in the Chicago suburb of Waukegan. Mr. Rivera confessed to the crime after four days of interrogation, but no physical evidence linked him to the crime.
In 2005, DNA testing proved that Mr. Rivera was not the source of the semen found inside Holly's body. Nonetheless, he was convicted again in 2009 after prosecutors suggested that Holly was sexually active and that the semen may have come from someone else.
Mr. Rivera's case was profiled in a Nov. 27 article in The New York Times Magazine.
Earlier this week, the prosecutor, Michael Mermel, who had convicted Mr. Rivera in his third trial, retired because of inappropriate comments he made about the reliability of DNA evidence and about alleged sexual activity by the victim.
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10) 'Law & Order: SVU' Imitation Occupation Draws Real Protesters, and City's Ire
"...Show us the script..."
[Occupy TV -- way to go! ...bw]
By JAMES BARRON and COLIN MOYNIHAN
December 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/nyregion/law-order-svu-imitation-occupation-draws-real-protesters-and-citys-ire.html?ref=nyregio
"Law & Order" helped give the phrase "ripped from the headlines" as much of a place in the consciousness of New York as detectives' chatter about "perps" and "vics." Or that clang-clang noise at the beginning of each scene in the television show.
But when the "Law & Order: SVU" production crew began setting up for a scene in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan on Thursday night, some of the people who actually generated the headlines that "SVU" was preparing to rip from - the Occupy Wall Street protesters - were less than pleased.
They, in turn, generated some headlines that "SVU" did not want to rip from - it turned out that the "SVU" crew did not have a permit to be there.
"SVU" is not the only prime-time television drama that has worked in material about the Occupy protests, or has tried to. On "The Good Wife" last Sunday night, Julianna Margulies's character had a brainstorm as an arbitration hearing droned on. She rushed out of the hearing room and used a cellphone to snap a shot of a bulletin-board poster that said, "Support Occupy Wall Street."
Later still, Ms. Margulies had a scene opposite Michael J. Fox playing a lawyer who mentioned his "mean corporate clients."
"The 1 percent," he added.
The "SVU" brouhaha began when the crew put up tarps and tents in the square, in the shadow of the courthouse at 60 Centre Street, a familiar backdrop for the step-climbing prosecutors in the "Law & Order" universe. The crew tacked up placards denouncing war and greed. It installed a library with rows of books and a kitchen, complete with a sign that read, "End the War on Workers."
All in all, the crew transformed Foley Square into a fake encampment that looked like the real one a few blocks away, in Zuccotti Park, which the police cleared on Nov. 15. But the tents and the anticorporate slogans came down before the cameras could roll, done in by real Occupy Wall Street protesters who saw the set as a stage for political theater.
They streamed onto the set at midnight, stepping over yellow tape and brushing off objections from production assistants. Some crawled into the tents and lay down. Others danced while pounding drums and waving flags. Several headed straight to the kitchen, where they helped themselves to muffins and a jar of pickles, among other things.
Some complained about art imitating life, and about unfairness.
"We thought we would bring some extras down and add some reality to this show," Aaron Black, 38, of Brooklyn, said. "Why should they be able to put tents up in a public park when we are unable to do that?"
Drew Hornbein, 24, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said he found it "bizarre" to walk through an imitation occupation. He wondered whether the "SVU" producers had realized that a fake tent city would be a target for Occupy protesters. "Did they think we were gone?" he said.
Before long, a contingent of police officers gathered. A commander said that everyone near the tents had to move on or face arrest, protesters and production assistants alike. This was after he said the permit for the set had been rescinded - something that turned out to be not quite right. On Friday, the city said "SVU" did not have a permit to build the encampment, only a permit for filming beginning at 8 a.m. Friday.
For a while, the protesters stayed where they were. Eventually, they adjourned to a fountain at the southern end of the square and began holding a meeting. The police remained on the set, and workers from "SVU" began dismantling the tents.
Curt King, a spokesman for NBC Universal, said on Friday that the network had no comment about the occupation of the apparently rule-breaking set; neither did a spokeswoman for "SVU." They did not explain how "SVU" would rework the scene.
But Warren Leight, an executive producer of "Law & Order: SVU," posted a series of messages on Twitter that began, "Saddened by last night's events."
"We understand OWS emotions run high," Mr. Leight said, "and also protesters' fear of having their images and history co-opted by corporate media - the irony here is the scene we couldn't shoot portrayed OWS in a sympathetic light."
In another post he said, "And harassing night-shift production assistants. Those are not the images of OWS we wanted our audience to see."
"Let's move forward," he added. "Peace."
The posts were deleted about 45 minutes after they appeared, which prompted a response from #OccupyWallStreet: "Wish u hadn't deleted ur tweets. Why censor urself? Ready 2 move forward. Show us the script."
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11) Beyond Guantánamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates
By SCOTT SHANE
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/beyond-guantanamo-bay-a-web-of-federal-prisons.html?hp
WASHINGTON - It is the other Guantánamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate.
An aggressive prosecution strategy, aimed at prevention as much as punishment, has sent away scores of people. They serve long sentences, often in restrictive, Muslim-majority units, under intensive monitoring by prison officers. Their world is spare.
Among them is Ismail Royer, serving 20 years for helping friends go to an extremist training camp in Pakistan. In a letter from the highest-security prison in the United States, Mr. Royer describes his remarkable neighbors at twice-a-week outdoor exercise sessions, each prisoner alone in his own wire cage under the Colorado sky. "That's really the only interaction I have with other inmates," he wrote from the federal Supermax, 100 miles south of Denver.
There is Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, Mr. Royer wrote. Terry Nichols, who conspired to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building. Ahmed Ressam, the would-be "millennium bomber," who plotted to attack Los Angeles International Airport. And Eric Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
In recent weeks, Congress has reignited an old debate, with some arguing that only military justice is appropriate for terrorist suspects. But military tribunals have proved excruciatingly slow and imprisonment at Guantánamo hugely costly - $800,000 per inmate a year, compared with $25,000 in federal prison.
The criminal justice system, meanwhile, has absorbed the surge of terrorism cases since 2001 without calamity, and without the international criticism that Guantánamo has attracted for holding prisoners without trial. A decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, an examination of how the prisons have handled the challenge of extremist violence reveals some striking facts:
¶ Big numbers. Today, 171 prisoners remain at Guantánamo. As of Oct. 1, the federal Bureau of Prisons reported that it was holding 362 people convicted in terrorism-related cases, 269 with what the bureau calls a connection to international terrorism - up from just 50 in 2000. An additional 93 inmates have a connection to domestic terrorism.
¶ Lengthy sentences. Terrorists who plotted to massacre Americans are likely to die in prison. Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in 2010, is serving a sentence of life without parole at the Supermax, as are Zacarias Moussaoui, a Qaeda operative arrested in 2001, and Mr. Reid, the shoe bomber, among others. But many inmates whose conduct fell far short of outright terrorism are serving sentences of a decade or more, the result of a calculated prevention strategy to sideline radicals well before they could initiate deadly plots.
¶ Special units. Since 2006, the Bureau of Prisons has moved many of those convicted in terrorism cases to two special units that severely restrict visits and phone calls. But in creating what are Muslim-dominated units, prison officials have inadvertently fostered a sense of solidarity and defiance, and set off a long-running legal dispute over limits on group prayer. Officials have warned in court filings about the danger of radicalization, but the Bureau of Prisons has nothing comparable to the deradicalization programs instituted in many countries.
¶ Quiet releases. More than 300 prisoners have completed their sentences and been freed since 2001. Their convictions involved not outright violence but "material support" for a terrorist group; financial or document fraud; weapons violations; and a range of other crimes. About half are foreign citizens and were deported; the Americans have blended into communities around the country, refusing news media interviews and avoiding attention.
¶ Rare recidivism. By contrast with the record at Guantánamo, where the Defense Department says that about 25 percent of those released are known or suspected of subsequently joining militant groups, it appears extraordinarily rare for the federal prison inmates with past terrorist ties to plot violence after their release. The government keeps a close eye on them: prison intelligence officers report regularly to the Justice Department on visitors, letters and phone calls of inmates linked to terrorism. Before the prisoners are freed, F.B.I. agents typically interview them, and probation officers track them for years.
Both the Obama administration and Republicans in Congress often cite the threat of homegrown terrorism. But the Bureau of Prisons has proven remarkably resistant to outside scrutiny of the inmates it houses, who might offer a unique window on the problem.
In 2009, a group of scholars proposed interviewing people imprisoned in terrorism cases about how they took that path. The Department of Homeland Security approved the proposal and offered financing. But the Bureau of Prisons refused to grant access, saying the project would require too much staff time.
"There's a huge national debate about how dangerous these people are," said Gary LaFree, director of a national terrorism study center at the University of Maryland, who was lead author of the proposal. "I just think, as a citizen, somebody ought to be studying this."
The Bureau of Prisons would not make any officials available for an interview with The New York Times, and wardens at three prisons refused to permit a reporter to visit inmates. But e-mails and letters from inmates give a rare, if narrow, look at their hidden world.
Paying the Price
Consider the case of Randall Todd Royer, 38, a Missouri-born Muslim convert who goes by Ismail. Before 9/11, he was a young Islamic activist with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society, meeting with members of Congress and visiting the Clinton White House.
Today he is nearly eight years into a 20-year prison sentence. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to helping several American friends go to a training camp for Lashkar-e-Taiba, an extremist group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. The organization was later designated a terrorist group by the United States - and is blamed for the Mumbai massacre in 2008 - but prosecutors maintained in 2004 that the friends intended to go on to Afghanistan and fight American troops alongside the Taliban.
Mr. Royer had fought briefly with the Bosnian Muslims against their Serbian neighbors in the mid-1990s, when NATO, too, backed the Bosnians. He trained at a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp himself. And in 2001, he was stopped by Virginia police with an AK-47 and ammunition in his car.
But he adamantly denies that he would ever scheme to kill Americans, and there is no evidence that he did so. Before sentencing, he wrote the judge a 30-page letter admitting, "I crossed the line and, in my ignorance and phenomenally poor judgment, broke the law." In grand jury testimony, he expressed regret about not objecting during a meeting, just after the Sept. 11 attacks, in which his friends discussed joining the Taliban.
"Unfortunately, I didn't come out and clearly say that's not what any of us should be about," he said.
Prosecutors call Mr. Royer "an inveterate liar" in court papers in another case, asserting that he has given contradictory accounts of the meeting after Sept. 11. Mr. Royer says he has been truthful.
Whatever the facts, he is paying the price. His 20-year sentence was the statutory minimum under a 2004 plea deal he reluctantly took, fearing that a trial might end in a life term. His wife divorced him and remarried; he has seen his four young children only through glass since 2006, when the Bureau of Prisons moved him to a restrictive new unit in Indiana for inmates with the terrorism label. After an altercation with another inmate who he said was bullying others, he was moved in 2010 to the Supermax in Colorado.
He is barred from using e-mail and permitted only three 15-minute phone calls a month - recently increased from two, a move that Mr. Royer hopes may portend his being moved to a prison closer to his children. His letters are reflective, sometimes self-critical, frequently dropping allusions to his omnivorous reading. His flirtation with violent Islam and his incarceration, he says, have not poisoned him against his own country.
"You asked what I think of the U.S.; that is an extraordinarily complex question," Mr. Royer wrote in one letter consisting of 27 pages of neat handwriting. "I can say I was born in Missouri, I love that land and its people, I love the Mississippi, I love my family and my cousins, I love my Germanic ethnic heritage and people, I love the English language, I love the American people - my people.
"He said he believed some American foreign policy positions had been "needlessly antagonistic" but added, "Nothing the U.S. did justified the 9/11 attacks."
Mr. Royer rejected the notion that the United States was at war with Islam. "Conflict between the U.S. and Muslims is neither inevitable nor beneficial or in anyone's interest," he wrote. "Actually, I suppose it is in the interest of fanatics on both sides, but their interests run counter to everyone else's." He added an erudite footnote: " 'Les extrémités se touchent' (the extremes meet) - Blaise Pascal."
He expressed frustration that the Bureau of Prisons appears to view him as an extremist, despite what he describes as his campaign against extremism in discussions with other inmates and prison sermons at Friday Prayer, "which they surely have recordings of."
"I have gotten into vehement debates, not to mention civil conversations, with other inmates from the day I was arrested until today, about the dangers and evils of extremism and terrorism," Mr. Royer wrote in a yearlong correspondence with a reporter. "Can they not figure out who I am?"
A Scorched-Earth Approach
In 2004, prosecutors believed they knew who Mr. Royer was: one of a group of young Virginians under the influence of a radical cleric, Ali al-Timimi, whose members played paintball to practice for jihad and were on a path toward extremist violence. After Sept. 11, federal prosecutors took a scorched-earth approach to any crime with even a hint of a terrorism connection, and judges and juries went along.
In the Virginia jihad case, for instance, prosecutors used the Neutrality Act, a little-used law dating to 1794 that prohibits Americans from fighting against a nation at peace with the United States. Prosecutors combined that law with weapons statutes that impose a mandatory minimum sentence in a strategy to get the longest prison terms, with breaks for some defendants who cooperated, said Paul J. McNulty, then the United States attorney overseeing the case.
"We were doing all we could to prevent the next attack," Mr. McNulty said.
"It was a deterrence strategy and a show of strength," said Karen J. Greenberg, a law professor at Fordham University who has overseen the most thorough independent analysis of terrorism prosecutions. "The attitude of the government was: Every step you take toward terrorism, no matter how small, will be punished severely."
About 40 percent of terrorism cases since the Sept. 11 attacks have relied on informants, by the count of the Center on Law and Security at New York University, which Ms. Greenberg headed until earlier this year. In such cases, the F.B.I. has trolled for radicals and then tested whether they were willing to plot mayhem - again, a pre-emptive strategy intended to ferret out potential terrorists. But in some cases prosecutors have been accused of overreaching.
Yassin M. Aref, for instance, was a Kurdish immigrant from Iraq and the imam of an Albany mosque when he agreed to serve as witness to a loan between an acquaintance and another man, actually an informant posing as a supporter of a Pakistani terrorist group, Jaish-e-Muhammad. The ostensible purpose of the loan was to buy a missile to kill the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Aref's involvement was peripheral - but he was convicted of conspiring to aid a terrorist group and got a 15-year sentence.
That was a typical punishment, according to the Center on Law and Security, which has studied the issue. Of 204 people charged with what it calls serious jihadist crimes since the Sept. 11 attacks, 87 percent were convicted and got an average sentence of 14 years, according to a September report from the center.
Federal officials say the government's zero-tolerance approach to any conduct touching on terrorism is an important reason there has been no repeat of Sept. 11. Lengthy sentences for marginal offenders have been criticized by some rights advocates as deeply unfair - but they have sent an unmistakable message to young men drawn to the rhetoric of violent jihad.
The strategy has also sent scores of Muslim men to federal prisons.
Special Units
After news reports in 2006 that three men imprisoned in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had sent letters to a Spanish terrorist cell, the Bureau of Prisons created two special wards, called Communication Management Units, or C.M.U.'s. The units, which opened at federal prisons in Terre Haute, Ind., in 2006 and Marion, Ill., in 2008, have set off litigation and controversy, chiefly because critics say they impose especially restrictive rules on Muslim inmates, who are in the majority.
"The C.M.U.'s? You mean the Muslim Management Units?" said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The units currently hold about 80 inmates. The rules for visitors - who are allowed no physical contact with inmates - and the strict monitoring of mail, e-mail and phone calls are intended both to prevent inmates from radicalizing others and to rule out plotting from behind bars.
A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, Traci L. Billingsley, said in an e-mail that the units were not created for any religious group but were "necessary to ensure the safety, security and orderly operation of correctional facilities, and protection of the public."
An unintended consequence of creating the C.M.U.'s is a continuing conflict between Muslim inmates and guards, mainly over the inmates' demand for collective prayer beyond the authorized hourlong group prayer on Fridays. The clash is described in hundreds of pages of court filings in a lawsuit. In one affidavit, a prison official in Terre Haute describes "signs of radicalization" in the unit, saying one inmate's language showed "defiance to authority, and a sense of being incarcerated because of Islam."
One 2010 written protest obtained by The New York Times, listing grievances ranging from the no-contact visiting rules to guards "mocking, disrespecting and disrupting" Friday Prayer, was signed by 17 Muslim prisoners in the Terre Haute Communication Management Unit. They included members of the so-called Virginia jihad case of which Mr. Royer was part; the Lackawanna Six, Buffalo-area Yemeni Americans who traveled to a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan; Kevin James, who formed a radical Muslim group in prison and plotted to attack military facilities in Los Angeles; and John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban.
An affidavit signed by Mr. Lindh, who is serving 20 years after admitting to fighting for the Taliban, complained that a correctional officer greeted male Muslim inmates with "Good morning, ladies." ("No ladies were in the area," Mr. Lindh writes.) Prison officials say in court papers that Mr. Lindh has repeatedly challenged guards and violated rules.
Unlike those at the Supermax, inmates in the segregated units have access to e-mail, and some were willing to answer questions. Mr. Lindh, whose father, Frank Lindh, said his son believed the news media falsely labeled him a terrorist, was not. In reply to a reporter's letter requesting an interview, he sent only a photocopy of the sole of a tennis shoe. Since shoe bottoms are considered offensive in many cultures, his answer appeared to be an emphatic no.
There is some evidence that the Bureau of Prisons has assigned Muslims with no clear terrorist connection to the C.M.U.'s. Avon Twitty, a Muslim who spent 27 years in prison for a 1982 street murder, was sent to the Terre Haute unit in 2007. When he challenged the assignment, he was told in writing that he was a "member of an international terrorist organization," though no organization was named and there appears to be no public evidence for the assertion.
Mr. Twitty, working for a home improvement company and teaching at a Washington mosque since his release in January, said he believed the real reason was to quash his complaints about what he believed were miscalculations of time off for good behavior for numerous inmates. "They had to shut me up," he said.
Another former inmate at the Marion C.M.U., Andy Stepanian, an animal rights activist, said a guard once told him he was "a balancer" - a non-Muslim placed in the unit to rebut claims of religious bias. Mr. Stepanian said the creation of the predominantly Muslim units could backfire, adding to the feeling that Islam is under attack.
"I think it's a fair assessment that these men will leave with a more intensified belief that the U.S. is at war with Islam," said Mr. Stepanian, 33, who now works for a Princeton publisher. "The place reeked of it," he said, describing clashes over restrictions on prayer and some guards' hostility to Islam.
Yet Mr. Stepanian also said he found the "family atmosphere" and camaraderie of inmates at the unit a welcome change from the threatening tone of his previous medium-security prison, where he said prisoners without a gang to protect them were "food for the sharks." When he arrived at the C.M.U., he said, he found on his bed a pair of shower slippers and a bag of non-animal-based food that Muslim inmates had collected after hearing a vegan was joining the unit.
He was wary. "I thought they were trying to indoctrinate me," he said. "They never tried." The consensus of the inmates, he said, "was that 9/11 was not Islam." "These guys were not lunatics," he said. "They wanted to be back with their families."
Reflection
It may be too early to judge recidivism for those imprisoned in terrorism cases after Sept. 11; those who are already out are mostly defendants whose crimes were less serious or who cooperated with the authorities. Justice Department officials and outside experts could identify only a handful of cases in which released inmates had been rearrested, a rate of relapse far below that for most federal inmates or for Guantánamo releases.
For example, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, a Kuwaiti Canadian who plotted with Al Qaeda to attack American embassies in Singapore and Manila, pleaded guilty in 2002 and began to work as an F.B.I. informant. But F.B.I. agents soon discovered he was secretly plotting to kill them - and he was sentenced to life in prison.
Nearly all of these ex-convicts, however, lie low and steer clear of militancy, often under the watchful eye of family, mosque and community, lawyers and advocates say. A dozen former inmates declined to be interviewed, saying that to be associated publicly with a terrorism case could derail new jobs and lives. As for Mr. Royer, he is approaching only the midpoint of his 20-year sentence.
Did he get what he deserved? Chris Heffelfinger, a terrorism analyst and author of "Radical Islam in America," did a detailed study of the Virginia jihad case, and concluded that Mr. Royer's sentence was perhaps double what his crime merited. But he said the prosecution was warranted and probably prevented at least some of the men Mr. Royer assisted from joining the Taliban.
"I think a strong law enforcement response to cases like this is appropriate nine times out of 10," Mr. Heffelfinger said. Mr. Royer himself, in his long presentencing letter to Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, said he understood why he had been arrested. "I realize that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from terrorism," he wrote, "and that in this post-9/11 environment, it must take all reasonable precautions."
Today, Mr. Royer's only battle is to serve out his sentence in a less restrictive prison nearer his children. In what he called in a letter "a heroic sacrifice," his parents, Ray and Nancy Royer, moved from Missouri to Virginia to be close to their son's children, now aged 8 to 12.
"I found it necessary to be a surrogate father," said Ray Royer, 70, a commercial photographer by trade, in an interview at the retirement community outside Washington where he and his wife now live. When his son, who still goes by Randy in the family, converted to Islam at the age of 18, his parents did not object. Later, when he headed to Bosnia, they chalked it up to his active social conscience. "Religion is a personal thing," the elder Mr. Royer said. "He'd never been in trouble."
Ray Royer was at his son's Virginia apartment in 2003 when the F.B.I. knocked at 5 a.m., put him in handcuffs and took him away. Now, years later, he alternates between defending his son and expressing dismay at what Randy got himself into.
"He did help his buddies get to L.E.T.," or Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group later designated as a terrorist organization. "He admitted to it. He should pay the price." Still, he added, "maybe he deserved five years or so. Not 20."
Ray Royer sat at his home computer one recent evening, looking through a folder called "Randy Pics" - photographs tracing his son's life from childhood, to fatherhood, to prison.
"He loved his family," the father said of his son. "Why would he put this cause ahead of his family? I still don't really know what happened. I'm still trying to figure it out."
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12) Disillusioned Young Immigrant Kills Himself, Starting an Emotional Debate
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
December 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/us/joaquin-luna-jrs-suicide-touches-off-immigration-debate.html?ref=us
MISSION, Tex. - On the last night of his life, Joaquin Luna Jr., 18, filled the pages of a spiral notebook with goodbyes. In brief letters to relatives, friends and teachers, he asked one of his brothers to take care of his nephews and his niece and told a friend he had left a memento for her in his Bible.
One letter was different from the rest. It was addressed to Jesus Christ, and in it he asked for forgiveness. "Jesus," he wrote, "I've realized that I have no chance in becoming a civil engineer the way I've always dreamed of here ... so I'm planning on going to you and helping you construct the new temple in heaven."
In the days since Mr. Luna took his own life last month and since some of his writings became public, his story - of an illegal immigrant who suddenly lost hope of becoming the first in his family to go to college - has evolved into something more.
To the immigrant rights movement in Texas, Mr. Luna has become a symbol of the psychological toll that being in the country illegally can take on young people. To others, he has become a political pawn, with his death being used by those who support the passage of the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who go to college.
Still others have questioned what role, if any, Mr. Luna's immigration status played in his suicide. Although his relatives claimed that he committed suicide because of the pressure he felt, none of the letters mentioned his illegal status. In his letter to Jesus, he suggested that another issue was troubling him, saying he was "fearful to fall in any temptation," though he did not elaborate.
But beyond the reasons for his death, Mr. Luna's suicide has had an impact far past the border towns of the Rio Grande Valley. It has given other illegal immigrants in high school and college the courage to speak out about their own depression.
It has also thrust a low-income family of immigrants into the national spotlight and put a troubled teenager's final letters at the center of the immigration debate, with relatives, activists, politicians and reporters dissecting them seeking evidence for or against the family's claims.
Mr. Luna was a shy, lanky young man who played guitar in church bands and helped care for his diabetic mother near the border in Hidalgo County, one of the poorest counties in America, where 35.2 percent of the population lived below the poverty level in 2009. His neighborhood is a rural, ragged place, with run-down trailer homes and graffiti-tagged street signs. The skyline is dominated not by tall buildings but by windswept palm trees that tower over dirt yards, stray dogs and citrus groves.
Mr. Luna, who was born in Reynosa, Mexico, and came to the United States as an infant, was not like most teenagers in Mission. He drew the blueprints that were used to build his mother's new house and spoke often of becoming either an architect or a civil engineer. He joked that he did not have time for a girlfriend, spending many weekends mowing lawns to pay for his electric guitar and lessons. At Benito Juarez-Abraham Lincoln High School, he was ranked 89th out of 467 students in the senior class.
In recent weeks, administrators at the school and several people close to Mr. Luna said he had given no indication that anything was wrong. But on Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving, he put on a maroon shirt and a tie, lay down next to his mother and told her he was sorry he was never going to be the person he wanted to be, relatives said. Then he went into the bathroom, put a handgun underneath his chin and pulled the trigger.
Mr. Luna's family told local reporters that he had killed himself because of the despair he felt over his immigration status as he was applying to colleges and that he had been affected by the Senate's failure to pass the Dream Act last year. At that point, relatives had not read Mr. Luna's letters because the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office had confiscated them as part of its investigation.
The story was quickly seized on by supporters of the Dream Act. College students in Austin painted posters reading "I am Joaquin." At a vigil honoring Mr. Luna in Los Angeles, mourners listened to a message recorded by his relatives. In Washington, a Texas congressman, Representative Rubén Hinojosa, a Democrat from Edinburg, spoke of Mr. Luna on the floor of the House and urged Congress to pass the Dream Act.
Guadalupe Treviño, the Hidalgo County sheriff, said that Mr. Luna's death had been ruled a suicide, but that investigators had not established a motive.
"I'm very disappointed that some folks, and even some of our elected leaders, have exploited and politicized this young man's ill decision to take his own life, especially when we have found no evidence that points to any particular motive," Sheriff Treviño said. "Nobody knows why he did it. Only he knows for sure why he did what he did."
The sheriff's office provided the letters to the family on Dec. 2. Relatives said that even though the letters failed to mention the issue, they continue to believe that Mr. Luna committed suicide because of his immigration status, based on their conversations with him and the references in the letters to his failure to realize his dreams.
"We lived with him, so we know, and it doesn't matter what other people say," said one of Mr. Luna's brothers, Diyer Mendoza, 35, a truck driver who has become the family spokesman. "Every time he would put in an application, the first thing that would pop up was 'Are you a U.S. citizen?' No. 'Resident?' No. 'Social Security number?' No. It was all just mounting and mounting on top of him. I truly believe that if that Dream Act would have already passed, he would still be here today."
As it became clear that the letters mentioned neither immigration nor the Dream Act, immigrant rights advocates went on the defensive as their conservative opponents attacked their handling of the issue. On its Web site, Americans for Legal Immigration said the claims about Mr. Luna's suicide had been "proven as a hoax by desperate and unscrupulous illegal immigrant invasion supporters."
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which organized the vigil there, issued a statement saying it believed that the family was not being dishonest and was not exaggerating.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Hinojosa said he stood by his remarks because of statements the family made to his staff. "The congressman has no reason to doubt what the family has said," said the spokeswoman, Patricia Guillermo.
Greisa Martinez, a senior at Texas A&M University and the coordinator of the Texas Dream Alliance, said the contents of Mr. Luna's letters had not reduced the effect his suicide had on students who are in the country illegally. "We can all share in that pain and that angst that he felt at that moment, because we've all been there," said Ms. Martinez, 23, who is an illegal immigrant.
One of the colleges Mr. Luna applied to was the University of Texas-Pan American, in nearby Edinburg. For a school project, he wrote that he wanted to attend the university because it was close to home and inexpensive. Mr. Luna was accepted, but he never found out: he died before his admission became official.
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13) War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us
Escalation of the covert US-Israeli campaign against Tehran risks a global storm. Opposition has to get more serious
December 7, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/07/iran-war-already-begun
They don't give up. After a decade of blood-drenched failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, violent destabilisation of Pakistan and Yemen, the devastation of Lebanon and slaughter in Libya, you might hope the US and its friends had had their fill of invasion and intervention in the Muslim world.
It seems not. For months the evidence has been growing that a US-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France. Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.
The attacks are not directly acknowledged, but accompanied by intelligence-steered nods and winks as the media are fed a stream of hostile tales - the most outlandish so far being an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US - and the western powers ratchet up pressure for yet more sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme.
The British government's decision to take the lead in imposing sanctions on all Iranian banks and pressing for an EU boycott of Iranian oil triggered the trashing of its embassy in Tehran by demonstrators last week and subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London.
It's a taste of how the conflict can quickly escalate, as was the downing of a US spyplane over Iranian territory at the weekend. What one Israeli official has called a "new kind of war" has the potential to become a much more old-fashioned one that would threaten us all.
Last month the Guardian was told by British defence ministry officials that if the US brought forward plans to attack Iran (as they believed it might), it would "seek, and receive, UK military help", including sea and air support and permission to use the ethnically cleansed British island colony of Diego Garcia.
Whether the officials' motive was to soften up public opinion for war or warn against it, this was an extraordinary admission: the Britain military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked US attack on Iran - just as it did against Iraq eight years ago.
What was dismissed by the former foreign secretary Jack Straw as "unthinkable", and for David Cameron became an option not to be taken "off the table", now turns out to be as good as a done deal if the US decides to launch a war that no one can seriously doubt would have disastrous consequences. But there has been no debate in parliament and no mainstream political challenge to what Straw's successor, David Miliband, this week called the danger of "sleepwalking into a war with Iran". That's all the more shocking because the case against Iran is so spectacularly flimsy.
There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report once again failed to produce a smoking gun, despite the best efforts of its new director general, Yukiya Amano - described in a WikiLeaks cable as "solidly in the US court on every strategic decision".
As in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, the strongest allegations are based on "secret intelligence" from western governments. But even the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, has accepted that the evidence suggests Iran suspended any weapons programme in 2003 and has not reactivated it.
The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn't want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US - which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region - Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.
Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?
As Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, said recently, if he were an Iranian leader he would "probably" want nuclear weapons. Claims that Iran poses an "existential threat" to Israel because President Ahmadinejad said the state "must vanish from the page of time" bear no relation to reality. Even if Iran were to achieve a nuclear threshold, as some suspect is its real ambition, it would be in no position to attack a state with upwards of 300 nuclear warheads, backed to the hilt by the world's most powerful military force.
The real challenge posed by Iran to the US and Israel has been as an independent regional power, allied to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas movements. As US troops withdraw from Iraq, Saudi Arabia fans sectarianism, and Syrian opposition leaders promise a break with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of proxy wars is growing across the region.
A US or Israeli attack on Iran would turn that regional maelstrom into a global firestorm. Iran would certainly retaliate directly and through allies against Israel, the US and US Gulf client states, and block the 20% of global oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Quite apart from death and destruction, the global economic impact would be incalculable.
All reason and common sense militate against such an act of aggression. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel's Mossad, said last week it would be a "catastrophe". Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that it could "consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret".
There seems little doubt that the US administration is deeply wary of a direct attack on Iran. But in Israel, Barak has spoken of having less than a year to act; Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has talked about making the "right decision at the right moment"; and the prospects of drawing the US in behind an Israeli attack have been widely debated in the media.
Maybe it won't happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilisation than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the US, Israel and Britain who think otherwise. And the threat of miscalculation and the logic of escalation could tip the balance decisively. Unless opposition to an attack on Iran gets serious, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.
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14) Wonkbook: The real unemployment rate is 11 percent
By Ezra Klein
Monday, December 12, 4:51 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-real-unemployment-rate-is-11-percent/2011/12/12/gIQAuctPpO_blog.html
Typically, I try to tie the beginning of Wonkbook to the news. But today, the most important sentence isn't a report on something that just happened, but a fresh look at something that's been happening for the last three years. In particular, it's this sentence by the Financial Times' Ed Luce, who writes, "According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent."
Remember that the unemployment rate is not "how many people don't have jobs?", but "how many people don't have jobs and are actively looking for them?" Let's say you've been looking fruitlessly for five months and realize you've exhausted every job listing in your area. Discouraged, you stop looking, at least for the moment. According to the government, you're no longer unemployed. Congratulations?
Since 2007, the percent of the population that either has a job or is actively looking for one has fallen from 62.7 percent to 58.5 percent. That's millions of workers leaving the workforce, and it's not because they've become sick or old or infirm. It's because they can't find a job, and so they've stopped trying. That's where Luce's calculation comes from. If 62.7 percent of the country was still counted as in the workforce, unemployment would be 11 percent. In that sense, the real unemployment rate -- the apples-to-apples unemployment rate -- is probably 11 percent. And the real un- and underemployed rate -- the so-called "U6" -- is near 20 percent.
There were some celebrations when the unemployment rate dropped last month. But much of that drop was people leaving the labor force. The surprising truth is that when the labor market really recovers, the unemployment rate will actually rise, albeit only temporarily, as discouraged workers start searching for jobs again.
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15) Occupy protesters blocking gates at West Coast ports, halt operations at some
By Associated Press
Monday, December 12, 11:31 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/occupy-protesters-seek-to-shut-down-west-coast-ports-despite-rejection-by-longshore-union/2011/12/12/gIQA3zP3oO_story.html
OAKLAND, Calif. - Hundreds of Wall Street protesters blocked gates at some of the West Coast's busiest ports on Monday, causing the partial shutdown of several in a day of demonstrations they hope will cut into the profits of the corporations that run the docks.
The closures affected some of the terminals at the ports in Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Longview, Wash., though it was not immediately clear the how much the shutdowns would affect operations and what the economic loss would be.
From California to as far away as Vancouver, British Columbia, protesters picketed gates at the ports, causing longer wait times for trucks. There were no major clashes with police.
In Oakland, shipping companies and the longshoremen's union agreed to send home about 150 workers, essentially halting operations at two terminals. In Portland, authorities shuttered two terminals after arresting two people who were carrying weapons.
And in Longview, Wash., workers were sent home out of concerns for their "health and safety."
The movement, which sprang up this fall against what it sees as corporate greed and economic inequality, is targeting "Wall Street on the waterfront" in its most dramatic gesture since police raids sent most remaining Occupy tent camps scattering last month.
It was unclear whether demonstrators could amass in sufficient numbers to significantly disrupt or force more port closures as they did last month during an overnight shift at the Port of Oakland. The union that represents longshoremen says it doesn't support the shutdowns.
Protesters are most upset by two West Coast companies: port operator SSA Marine and grain exporter EGT. The bank, Goldman Sachs, owns a major stake in SSA Marine and has been a frequent target of protesters.
They say they are standing up for workers against the port companies, which have had high-profile clashes with union workers lately. Longshoremen at the Port of Longview, for example, have had a longstanding dispute with EGT.
In Oakland, officials urged protesters to consider the impact on workers. Port workers and truck drivers say the protests will hurt them.
Several hundred people picketed at the port before dawn and blocked some trucks from going through at least two entrances. A long line of big rigs sat outside one of the entrances, unable to drive into the port.
"This is joke. What are they protesting?" said Christian Vega, 32, who sat in his truck carrying a load of recycled paper from Pittsburgh on Monday morning. He said the delay was costing him $600.
"It only hurts me and the other drivers. We have jobs and families to support and feed. Most of them don't," Vega said.
Police in riot gear monitored the scene as protesters marched in an oval and carried signs with messages such as "Shutdown Wall St. on the Waterfront." No major clashes were reported.
The port has appealed to city residents not to join the blockade, which they said could hurt the port's standing among customers and cost local jobs.
Organized labor appears divided over the port shutdown effort.
The Nov. 2 strike that culminated in the port's closure had strong union support. This time, the city's teachers union is backing Monday's action while construction workers opposed to the closure say the port has provided jobs to many unemployed workers and apprentices.
In rainy Southern California, about 200 protesters held a four-hour demonstration at the Port of Long Beach, delaying some truck traffic at one of the world's largest port complexes. There was one arrest.
In Portland, Ore., a couple of hundred protesters blocked entrances to two terminals at the port, preventing trucks from entering. Police in riot gear were on hand, but there were no immediate confrontations or arrests.
Workers at the two terminals were told to stay home, the Oregonian reported (http://bit.ly/unRr6l ). Spokesman Josh Thomas said an unspecified number of workers at the terminals wouldn't be paid.
Before the protest began, police made three arrests and seized a gun and a sword from people who said they were on the way to protests. A spokeswoman for Occupy Portland said the armed men are not associated with the group.
"We do not send out folks with guns," Kari Koch said. "We don't plan anything illegal."
In Vancouver, demonstrators briefly blocked two gates at Port Metro Vancouver. The Canadian Press reported demonstrators held up a large banner proclaiming solidarity with longshoremen involved in the Port of Longview dispute.
The disruption lasted an hour before the protest moved to a second gate, blocking it for less than 30 minutes before moving on.
Organizers of the port demonstrations said they hope to draw thousands to stand in solidarity with longshoremen and port truckers they said are being exploited. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, however, distanced itself from the shutdown effort.
The union's president suggested in a letter to members that protesters were attempting to co-opt the union's cause to advance their own.
Shutdown supporters said they're not asking longshoremen to organize a work stoppage in violation of their contract. They said they are simply asking them to exercise their free speech rights and stay off the job, in keeping with the union's historic tradition of activism.
If protesters muster large enough numbers to block entrances, arbitrators could declare unsafe working conditions. That would allow port workers to stay home.
Officials at West Coast ports said they have been coordinating with law enforcement agencies as they prepare for possible disruptions. Protesters said police crackdowns in any city will trigger an extension of blockades in other cities as a show of resolve.
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16) Depression and Democracy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
December 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html
It's time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression. True, it's not a full replay of the Great Depression, but that's cold comfort. Unemployment in both America and Europe remains disastrously high. Leaders and institutions are increasingly discredited. And democratic values are under siege.
On that last point, I am not being alarmist. On the political as on the economic front it's important not to fall into the "not as bad as" trap. High unemployment isn't O.K. just because it hasn't hit 1933 levels; ominous political trends shouldn't be dismissed just because there's no Hitler in sight.
Let's talk, in particular, about what's happening in Europe - not because all is well with America, but because the gravity of European political developments isn't widely understood.
First of all, the crisis of the euro is killing the European dream. The shared currency, which was supposed to bind nations together, has instead created an atmosphere of bitter acrimony.
Specifically, demands for ever-harsher austerity, with no offsetting effort to foster growth, have done double damage. They have failed as economic policy, worsening unemployment without restoring confidence; a Europe-wide recession now looks likely even if the immediate threat of financial crisis is contained. And they have created immense anger, with many Europeans furious at what is perceived, fairly or unfairly (or actually a bit of both), as a heavy-handed exercise of German power.
Nobody familiar with Europe's history can look at this resurgence of hostility without feeling a shiver. Yet there may be worse things happening.
Right-wing populists are on the rise from Austria, where the Freedom Party (whose leader used to have neo-Nazi connections) runs neck-and-neck in the polls with established parties, to Finland, where the anti-immigrant True Finns party had a strong electoral showing last April. And these are rich countries whose economies have held up fairly well. Matters look even more ominous in the poorer nations of Central and Eastern Europe.
Last month the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development documented a sharp drop in public support for democracy in the "new E.U." countries, the nations that joined the European Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not surprisingly, the loss of faith in democracy has been greatest in the countries that suffered the deepest economic slumps.
And in at least one nation, Hungary, democratic institutions are being undermined as we speak.
One of Hungary's major parties, Jobbik, is a nightmare out of the 1930s: it's anti-Roma (Gypsy), it's anti-Semitic, and it even had a paramilitary arm. But the immediate threat comes from Fidesz, the governing center-right party.
Fidesz won an overwhelming Parliamentary majority last year, at least partly for economic reasons; Hungary isn't on the euro, but it suffered severely because of large-scale borrowing in foreign currencies and also, to be frank, thanks to mismanagement and corruption on the part of the then-governing left-liberal parties. Now Fidesz, which rammed through a new Constitution last spring on a party-line vote, seems bent on establishing a permanent hold on power.
The details are complex. Kim Lane Scheppele, who is the director of Princeton's Law and Public Affairs program - and has been following the Hungarian situation closely - tells me that Fidesz is relying on overlapping measures to suppress opposition. A proposed election law creates gerrymandered districts designed to make it almost impossible for other parties to form a government; judicial independence has been compromised, and the courts packed with party loyalists; state-run media have been converted into party organs, and there's a crackdown on independent media; and a proposed constitutional addendum would effectively criminalize the leading leftist party.
Taken together, all this amounts to the re-establishment of authoritarian rule, under a paper-thin veneer of democracy, in the heart of Europe. And it's a sample of what may happen much more widely if this depression continues.
It's not clear what can be done about Hungary's authoritarian slide. The U.S. State Department, to its credit, has been very much on the case, but this is essentially a European matter. The European Union missed the chance to head off the power grab at the start - in part because the new Constitution was rammed through while Hungary held the Union's rotating presidency. It will be much harder to reverse the slide now. Yet Europe's leaders had better try, or risk losing everything they stand for.
And they also need to rethink their failing economic policies. If they don't, there will be more backsliding on democracy - and the breakup of the euro may be the least of their worries.
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17) Brookfield Deals With Protesters Again, but Not at Zuccotti
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
December 12, 2011, 1:15 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/brookfield-deals-with-protesters-again-but-not-at-zuccotti/?hp
Updated 3:25 p.m. | At least 17 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested on Monday at the World Financial Center, whose owner, Brookfield Properties, also owns Zuccotti Park, the public space where the protesters maintained an encampment for two months before being cleared by the police in mid-November.
"We thought we would come over and give Brookfield a direct message," said Bill Dobbs, an Occupy Wall Street organizer.
About 200 protesters milled and chanted inside the center's winter garden, a public atrium with soaring ceilings. They also stretched yellow adhesive tape marked with the word "Occupy" across the granite floor of the atrium. From a second-floor balcony, a banner was unfurled with the words "solidarity" and "west coast port shutdown," in support of protests in cities like Oakland, Seattle and San Diego, where activists with the Occupy movement announced plans to blockade ports.
Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesOccupy Wall Street protesters in the atrium of the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center on Monday.
Onlookers peered from other parts of the balcony, or hurried across the main floor of the atrium, where protesters swirled in a circle.
Soon police officers arrived. A man wearing a suit, who would not say who he worked for announced: "If you do not leave, you will be arrested."
A police commander said the man worked for Brookfield. A spokeswoman for the company said by e-mail that she would not comment on whether Brookfield employees directed protesters to leave.
A few minutes after the announcement, officers began herding protesters down a wide staircase in the atrium and pushed them toward a door. At one point, several officers pounced on a man on the ground. A moment later, officers chased another man through the atrium, cornering him near glass windows and arresting him.
Mr. Dobbs said that he was walking toward a door when he was shoved from behind and sent sprawling.
"I was thrown to the ground.," he said. "I couldn't believe I was being hurled with such force."
Most of the protesters and several news reporters and photographers were pushed outside. But about 10 men and 7 women were placed in handcuffs inside the atrium, then removed and placed in police vehicles.
The protests began when a few hundred people assembled on Broadway, opposite Zuccotti Park, and marched to the Goldman Sachs headquarters nearby. Some of those on the march compared Goldman Sachs to a giant squid with tentacles that spread throughout the global financial system.
"We're demonstrating the links between the excesses in finance and the excesses in industry," said Aaron Bornstein, 31, a neuroscientist from Fort Greene, Brooklyn. "And the labor-busting power of industry."
Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesAt least a dozen people were arrested.
After rallying outside the Goldman Sachs building on West Street while brandishing placards and papier-mâché replicas of squids, some of the protesters then headed to the World Financial Center.
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18) In California, a Plan to Charge Inmates for Their Stay
By JENNIFER MEDINA
December 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/us/in-riverside-california-a-plan-to-charge-inmates.html?ref=us
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A one-night stay in this city's finest hotel costs $190, complete with sumptuous sheets and a gourmet restaurant. Soon, a twin metal bunk at the county jail, with meals served on plastic trays, will run $142.42.
With already crowded jails filling quickly and an $80 million shortfall in the budget, Riverside County officials are increasingly desperate to find every source of revenue they can. So last month, the County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a plan to charge inmates for their stay, reimbursing the county for food, clothing and health care.
Prisoners with no assets will not have to pay, but the county has the ability to garnish wages and place liens on homes under the ordinance, which goes into effect this week.
As the county supervisor who pressed for the ordinance, Jeff Stone, likes to put it: "You do the crime, you will serve the time, and now you will also pay the dime."
While a few other local governments have tried similar ideas, Riverside is by far the largest to enact what many call a "pay to stay" plan. Mr. Stone estimates that about 25 percent of the county's prisoners would be able to pay something and that the county could collect as much as $6 million a year.
But the county attorney cautioned that the move was unlikely to bring in significant revenue, because many inmates were destitute and because convicts would be expected to pay restitution and other fines first.
Like all counties in California, Riverside is in the midst of accepting a new influx of inmates who would have normally gone to state prison. Faced with an order from the Supreme Court to shed 30,000 prisoners from state prisons over the next two years, the Legislature approved a plan to shift thousands of prisoners to local jails.
Many local leaders and law enforcement officials are skeptical of the plan and say the state is unlikely to cover the counties' costs for the new inmates. In many counties, including Riverside, the jails are already near capacity, and officials worry about being forced to release some inmates before their sentences are complete.
Under California law, counties are allowed to collect money as a condition of probation, but only after a judge determines that the inmate can afford to pay. And counties are the last in line to get money from a convict.
A similar plan has been floated in Kern County, north of Los Angeles. But the sheriff there, Donny Youngblood, has opposed the idea, saying it could cost more than it would bring in.
"I'm not against it, believe me. I think in a perfect world, if all of them could pay, I would be in favor of it," Sheriff Youngblood said. "It's not so much that I am concerned about the fairness, although there is an aspect of that. It's simply not a road I think is worth going down right now."
But, he added, "If it's successful, there will certainly be others who follow, because we are all looking for more money."
With five jails spread throughout the county, Riverside, which is east of Los Angeles, has already reached 93 percent of its capacity, up from 85 percent before the state began moving prisoners in October. Those inmates have much longer sentences - they will stay in county jail an average of two years, more than double the length of stay for typical county inmates.
"Overcrowding is one of my top concerns," said Jerry Gutierrez, a chief deputy at the Riverside County Sheriff's Department who oversees the jails. "You have an overcrowded facility, and it just builds up the tensions. It becomes a longer wait for the showers - not everybody is going to get in there. There's less time outside of cells, and it demands more resources we may not have."
The effects of the state's transfer plans are not limited to the jails. For years, the state has relied on inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes to join crews that fight wildfires across the state. But because of the shift of so many prisoners to county jails, the firefighting force will begin to shrink this year. (Counties can send prisoners to the fire camps, but the state will charge those that do about $46 per prisoner per day, reducing the incentive.)
Mr. Stone, a Republican who has been so critical of the Democratic-controlled Legislature that he has called for the secession of the eastern part of the state, said the state's plan amounted to a "partially unfunded" mandate. Riverside officials have said they were getting enough money from the state now, but they worry about next year, when the guarantee for a financing source expires and voters will be asked to approve tax increases to ensure that services do not erode.
"We need to be looking for revenue wherever we can for ourselves," Mr. Stone said. "There are people who have the means and who get into trouble with the law. Why should the citizens of this county with other struggles be forced to pay for that? The Lindsay Lohans of the world can certainly pay for it themselves."
Sharon Dolovich, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the county faced a "tremendous blood-from-a-stone problem" and called the plan an "illogical, ill-thought-through response" to the state transfer of prisoners.
"If our goal as a society is to rehabilitate people who have been in jail, then burdening them with another thing to pay when they are released is not the way to do it," Professor Dolovich said. "It could also create an incentive to deny bail just so that the county could be bringing in more money."
For now, most neighboring counties are watching what happens with a skeptical eye.
"Sometimes you attack the absurd with the absurd," said John M. W. Moorlach, an Orange County supervisor. "We're all messaging to Sacramento that the state has do more than just take our money and download prisoners to us. We're all finding different ways to scream."
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19) An Open Letter from America's Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports
Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports
December 12, 2011
http://cleanandsafeports.org/blog/2011/12/12/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports/
We are the front-line workers who haul container rigs full of imported and exported goods to and from the docks and warehouses every day.
We have been elected by committees of our co-workers at the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, Tacoma, New York and New Jersey to tell our collective story. We have accepted the honor to speak up for our brothers and sisters about our working conditions despite the risk of retaliation we face. One of us is a mother, the rest of us fathers. Between the five of us we have 11children and one more baby on the way. We have a combined 46 years of experience driving cargo from our shores for America's stores.
We are inspired that a non-violent democratic movement that insists on basic economic fairness is capturing the hearts and minds of so many working people. Thank you "99 Percenters" for hearing our call for justice. We are humbled and overwhelmed by recent attention. Normally we are invisible.
Today's demonstrations will impact us. While we cannot officially speak for every worker who shares our occupation, we can use this opportunity to reveal what it's like to walk a day in our shoes for the 110,000 of us in America whose job it is to be a port truck driver. It may be tempting for media to ask questions about whether we support a shutdown, but there are no easy answers. Instead, we ask you, are you willing to listen and learn why a one-word response is impossible?
We love being behind the wheel. We are proud of the work we do to keep America's economy moving. But we feel humiliated when we receive paychecks that suggest we work part time at a fast-food counter. Especially when we work an average of 60 or more hours a week, away from our families.
There is so much at stake in our industry. It is one of the nation's most dangerous occupations. We don't think truck driving should be a dead-end road in America. It should be a good job with a middle-class paycheck like it used to be decades ago.
We desperately want to drive clean and safe vehicles. Rigs that do not fill our lungs with deadly toxins, or dirty the air in the communities we haul in.
Poverty and pollution are like a plague at the ports. Our economic conditions are what led to the environmental crisis.
You, the public, have paid a severe price along with us.
Why? Just like Wall Street doesn't have to abide by rules, our industry isn't bound to regulation. So the market is run by con artists. The companies we work for call us independent contractors, as if we were our own bosses, but they boss us around. We receive Third World wages and drive sweatshops on wheels. We cannot negotiate our rates. (Usually we are not allowed to even see them.) We are paid by the load, not by the hour. So when we sit in those long lines at the terminals, or if we are stuck in traffic, we become volunteers who basically donate our time to the trucking and shipping companies. That's the nice way to put it. We have all heard the words "modern-day slaves" at the lunch stops.
There are no restrooms for drivers. We keep empty bottles in our cabs. Plastic bags too. We feel like dogs. An Oakland driver was recently banned from the terminal because he was spied relieving himself behind a container. Neither the port, nor the terminal operators or anyone in the industry thinks it is their responsibility to provide humane and hygienic facilities for us. It is absolutely horrible for drivers who are women, who risk infection when they try to hold it until they can find a place to go.
The companies demand we cut corners to compete. It makes our roads less safe. When we try to blow the whistle about skipped inspections, faulty equipment, or falsified logs, then we are "starved out." That means we are either fired outright, or more likely, we never get dispatched to haul a load again.
It may be difficult to comprehend the complex issues and nature of our employment. For us too. When businesses disguise workers like us as contractors, the Department of Labor calls it misclassification. We call it illegal. Those who profit from global trade and goods movement are getting away with it because everyone is doing it. One journalist took the time to talk to us this week and she explains it very well to outsiders. We hope you will read the enclosed article "How Goldman Sachs and Other Companies Exploit Port Truck Drivers."
But the short answer to the question: Why are companies like SSA Marine, the Seattle-based global terminal operator that runs one of the West Coast's major trucking carriers, Shippers' Transport Express, doing this? Why would mega-rich Maersk, a huge Danish shipping and trucking conglomerate that wants to drill for more oil with Exxon Mobil in the Gulf Coast conduct business this way too?
To cheat on taxes, drive down business costs, and deny us the right to belong to a union, that's why.
The typical arrangement works like this: Everything comes out of our pockets or is deducted from our paychecks. The truck or lease, fuel, insurance, registration, you name it. Our employers do not have to pay the costs of meeting emissions-compliant regulations; that is our financial burden to bear. Clean trucks cost about four to five times more than what we take home in a year. A few of us haul our company's trucks for a tiny fraction of what the shippers pay per load instead of an hourly wage. They still call us independent owner-operators and give us a 1099 rather than a W-2.
We have never recovered from losing our basic rights as employees in America. Every year it literally goes from bad to worse to the unimaginable. We were ground zero for the government's first major experiment into letting big business call the shots. Since it worked so well for the CEOs in transportation, why not the mortgage and banking industry too?
Even the few of us who are hired as legitimate employees are routinely denied our legal rights under this system. Just ask our co-workers who haul clothing brands like Guess?, Under Armour, and Ralph Lauren's Polo. The carrier they work for in Los Angeles is called Toll Group and is headquartered in Australia. At the busiest time of the holiday shopping season, 26 drivers were axed after wearing Teamster T-shirts to work. They were protesting the lack of access to clean, indoor restrooms with running water. The company hired an anti-union consultant to intimidate the drivers. Down Under, the same company bargains with 12,000 of our counterparts in good faith.
Despite our great hardships, many of us cannot - or refuse to, as some of the most well-intentioned suggest - "just quit." First, we want to work and do not have a safety net. Many of us are tied to one-sided leases. But more importantly, why should we have to leave? Truck driving is what we do, and we do it well.
We are the skilled, specially-licensed professionals who guarantee that Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart are all stocked with just-in-time delivery for consumers. Take a look at all the stuff in your house. The things you see advertised on TV. Chances are a port truck driver brought that special holiday gift to the store you bought it.
We would rather stick together and transform our industry from within. We deserve to be fairly rewarded and valued. That is why we have united to stage convoys, park our trucks, marched on the boss, and even shut down these ports.
It's like our hero Dutch Prior, a Shipper's/SSA Marine driver, told CBS Early Morning this month: "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
The more underwater we are, the more our restlessness grows. We are being thoughtful about how best to organize ourselves and do what is needed to win dignity, respect, and justice.
Nowadays greedy corporations are treated as "people" while the politicians they bankroll cast union members who try to improve their workplaces as "thugs."
But we believe in the power and potential behind a truly united 99%. We admire the strength and perseverance of the longshoremen. We are fighting like mad to overcome our exploitation, so please, stick by us long after December 12. Our friends in the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports created a pledge you can sign to support us here.
We drivers have a saying, "We may not have a union yet, but no one can stop us from acting like one."
The brothers and sisters of the Teamsters have our backs. They help us make our voices heard. But we need your help too so we can achieve the day where we raise our fists and together declare: "No one could stop us from forming a union."
Thank you.
In solidarity,
Leonardo Mejia
SSA Marine/Shippers Transport Express
Port of Long Beach
10-year driver
Yemane Berhane
Ports of Seattle & Tacoma
6-year port driver
Xiomara Perez
Toll Group
Port of Los Angeles
8-year driver
Abdul Khan
Port of Oakland
7-year port driver
Ramiro Gotay
Ports of New York & New Jersey
15-year port driver
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20) Bradley Manning
Accused WikiLeaker defense argues Obama must testify
Legal team for Army PFC Bradley Manning fights for fair deal at pre-trial "Article 32" hearing, supporters rally
By Jeff Paterson
December 12, 2011
http://couragetoresist.org/bradley-manning/936-obama-testify.html
Lead lawyer for accused WiliLeaks whistle-blower US Army PFC Bradley Manning, attorney David Coombs released the defense's witness list for his pre-trial hearing, known as an "Article 32" hearing in military lingo, last week. On December 16th, PFC Manning may finally get his first day in court following his arrest in May 2010. The pre-trial phase is scheduled to begin at Fort Meade, just northeast of Washington DC, and last through December 22nd. The witness list represents an expansive range of 48 witnesses that offer significant insight into the brewing legal battle.
PFC Manning, a 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst, is accused of blowing the whistle on the "Collateral Murder" video of a US helicopter attack that killed a dozen unarmed Iraqis, the "Iraq War Logs", the "Afghan Diaries", the "Gitmo Files", and a trove of embarrassing US State Department cables by providing these files to the WikiLeaks website. In short, he is being charged with telling us the truth.
The actual charges are "various offenses under Article 92 and Article 134" of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, noted Mr. Coombs in last week's court filling. "The offenses deal with the incorporation, under Article 134, of the Espionage Statute 18 U.S.C 793(e)," along with property and computer fraud statutes. According to the Army, PFC Manning faces "confinement for life", followed by a dishonorable discharge.
The most significant witnesses listed are President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Two health care professionals on staff at the Quantico Marine Brig--where PFC Manning was subjected to torturous conditions for nine months--are also noteworthy.
President Obama's unlawful declarations and commitment to transparency questioned
The headline witness requested by the defense is President Barack Obama. While all witness names were redacted, the identity of witness #36 is not in question. The court document reads:
The defense requests the presence of --- in order to discuss the issue of Unlawful Command Influence (UCI)... Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a superior officer in the chain of command is prohibited from saying or doing anything that could influence any decision by a subordinate in how to handle a military justice matter. As the --- made improper comments on 21 April 2011, when he decided to comment on PFC Manning and his case. On that date, he responded to questions regarding PFC Manning's alleged actions by concluding that "We're a nation of laws. We don't let individuals make their own decision about how the laws operate. He [PFC Manning] broke the law." The comments by --- are UCI. The defense intends to question --- on the nature of his discussions with members of the military regarding this case and whether he has made any other statements that would either influence the prosecution of this case or PFC Manning's right to a fair trial.
Dear Mr. President: Free Bradley Manning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ViWtnjRw9bM
In addition to President Obama's views of the release of Afghanistan related documents by WikiLeaks, the defense believes Obama will:
Testify about the problem of over-classification within the government. Specifically, that he supported and signed into law the Reducing Over-Classification Act on 7 October 2010. Additionally, he will testify that on his first full day in office, 21 January 2009, he issued two memoranda for the head of Executive Departments and Agencies that were related to transparency in government. The first memorandum focused on the administration of the Freedom of information Act (FOIA), and the second focused on transparency and open government. --- will testify that the transparency memorandum he wrote committed the administration to "an unprecedented level of openness" and to the establishment of a "a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration."...
Another easily identifiable witness is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, #38 in the court document. Secretary Clinton will "testify that although the leaks were embarrassing for the administration, that she concurs...that they did not represent significant consequences to foreign policy."
Witness #37 appears to be former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The defense expects that he will:
Testify that the Afghanistan and Iraq SIGACT releases [by WikiLeaks] did not reveal any sensitive intelligence sources or methods. He will also testify that the Department of Defense could not point to anyone in Afghanistan or Iraq harmed due to the documents released by WikiLeaks... --- will also testify that the initial public descriptions of the harm to foreign policy due to the publication of diplomatic cables were "fairly significantly overwrought." He will also testify that although the disclosures were embarrassing and awkward, they did not represent significant consequences to foreign policy.
These requests represent an aggressive attempt by PFC Manning's legal team to get at the heart of the issues at play in this continuing persecution: Government transparency or the lack there of, and the over-classification of documents for no legitimate security purposes.
Historic whistle-blower a hero despite challenges of adjusting to military life
Of the witnesses requested, about a dozen are expected to address their opinions that PFC Manning was a "marginal soldier" with "behavioral issues" related to military life. Examples include statements such as "PFC Manning...was not receptive to commands" and "PFC Manning wanted to be a good soldier, but naturally was not good at the basic soldier skills." PFC Manning was seeking assistance from the Army's "Combat Stress" mental health services and "appeared to be under a considerable amount of stress." PFC Manning had been demoted for striking an officer.
These witnesses paint a picture of a young man who had difficulty adjusting to life in the Army. Witness #33, a soldier who served with PFC Manning in Iraq, notes "Others would make fun of PFC Manning's size and the fact that they believed he was gay... The Army was not a good fit for him based upon where he was at in his life."
A few witnesses would note that PFC Manning probably should have been separated from the Army, or at least given a less sensitive job, but was deployed to Iraq due to "manpower issues".
Over the last week, many in the media have used these dozen or so witness descriptions to minimize PFC Manning's agency in his alleged release of documents that have concretely contributed to democracy movements, government transparency, and a hastened withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Instead, headlines such as "Defense team to highlight suspect's fragile mental state," have carried the day.
However, even among witnesses who can speak to PFC Manning's shortcomings as a soldier, there are things to be learned. Witness #31, a fellow soldier will:
Testify that he believes that PFC Manning used to be a very happy and very hyper individual, but his [Army] leadership wore him down. He will state that PFC Manning was upset that no one cared about the mission... PFC Manning found a report that apparently upset him... Iraqis or possibly some Moroccans were being arrested at a printing press facility... He will testify that PFC Manning was very upset about the issue. He will testify that if there was a moment in which PFC Manning may have snapped, this would have been it. --- will testify that everyone stonewalled PFC Manning on the issue as no one thought it was a big deal. He will testify that the translation [of the report] indicated that the individuals being arrested had printed documents that were questioning where the Iraqi government was embezzling public funds.
Another fellow soldier, witness #34, recommended that:
PFC Manning not deploy due to his emotional issues. She will testify that she believes that she was the first in the T-SCIF [intelligence office] to see the "Apache video" [released by WikiLeaks with the title "Collateral Murder"] which she found of her own accord... --- will testify that over the next few days, several of the T-SCIF personnel debated about whether the video showed a camera or a rocket propelled Grenade (RPG) launder and whether the action of the Apache crew were appropriate under the circumstances. --- will testify about her time as PFC Manning's direct supervisor and her multiple observations... that indicated to her PFC Manning was struggling both emotionally and mentally.
Many of the millions of people worldwide who have viewed the "Collateral Murder" video since its release by WikiLeaks "struggled emotionally and mentally" with the graphic depiction of a dozen Iraqis being ripped apart, including two Reuters journalists, by an unseen US helicopter. The video includes a scene of US forces then killing the ambulance van driver who tried to aid survivors, in the process severely wounding his two small children. These scenes are traumatic. One of the soldiers who offered assistance to those children, Spc. Ethan McCord, has noted that those types of incidents are quite common. It simply isn't accurate for members of the media to suggest that soldiers who experience normal responses to traumatic situations involving potential war crimes can only be suffering from a "fragile mental state."
A comprehensive review of the witness list shows that most are expected to testify, not to PFC Manning's behavioral issues, but to the merits of the case against him and the standard practices of the unit to which he was attached. Witnesses 1 through 9 are law enforcement agents connected to the prosecutions efforts, witnesses 20 through 23 will speak to unit level supervision, and witnesses 31 through 45 cover a wide range of background issues, including the impact of the wiki-leaked documents, and under what rationale they were classified in the first place. The latter group includes President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Robert Gates.
Military court martials
After reading some of the recent press accounts regarding this witness list, some have mistakenly concluded that the defense's legal strategy amounts to, "please have pity on him, he's crazy." Yet why would Mr. Coombs include these witnesses?
A military court martial is similar to a civilian trial, but there some significant differences. A court martial is conducted in two separate phases-a guilt phase and a punishment phase. There is no delay between the two phases. A defendant could be found guilty in the first phase, and yet be sentenced to no punishment at the conclusion of second phase-albeit very unlikely.
During the guilt phase, military judges are often very narrow regarding what defense evidence they will allow the jury of career military officers and senior enlisted members to hear. For example, arguments delving into the legality of a specific war or related "Nuremberg Principle"-type defenses are simply dismissed and shut down as "outside the scope of this hearing". A military judge will always want to pose a simple "did he or did he not do it?" question the jury.
For this reason, it is unlikely that the mental health, behavioral problems, or sub-standard soldier issues attributed to PFC Manning will have much bearing on the guilt phase of the court martial.
On the other hand, due to the prosecution's overreach in charging PFC Manning with an Espionage Statute and "aiding the enemy", the defense may have uncommon opportunities to bring issues related to motive and intent into play in the guilt phase. These issues of motive and intent are at the core of why millions of people around the world sympathize with PFC Manning, but we'll have to wait to see how they play out in a Fort Meade military courtroom in the spring or summer.
Mitigation of punishment
Defense efforts to call witnesses and present evidence can be highly restricted by a military judge during the guilt phase, but just about anything can be presented in mitigation during the punishment phase (assuming of course that the defendant is not acquitted of all charges).
As there is no delay between the two phases, the defense has to be ready to mount a vigorous case for mitigation from the beginning. If the witnesses are not already present, then it's too late. This is especially true for non-cooperative witnesses that need to be compelled to appear by the court, including nearly all of the witnesses requested by the defense for the Article 32. If the defense wants them at court martial, that fight needs to start now--and that is what this list represents. The prosecution has already come out opposed to all witnesses requested, with the exception of those witnesses that they also intend to question. There is still plenty of time prior to court martial to add friendly witnesses.
Unless the military is compelled to resolve the legal proceedings against PFC Manning non-judicially, or PFC Manning is acquitted of all charges, then there will be the need for mitigation during this second phase of court martial. That mitigation may include any number of arguments, including: PFC Manning should have been released from military service for failure to adapt to military life, he should not have been deployed to Iraq, he should not have been allowed to keep a security clearance due to a pattern of behavioral issues-and that the Army should assume some responsibility for not following their own regulations in those matters. Those arguments do not contradict the mitigating fact that if PFC Manning did what he is accused of, he is the most important whistle-blower since Daniel Ellsberg who released the Top Secret Pentagon Papers that helped end the Vietnam War.
Illegal pre-trial punishment at Quantico
The final two witnesses, #46 and #47, were health care professionals on staff at the Quantico Marine Brig. Military authorities justified imposing tortuous conditions upon PFC Manning for nine months by simply citing a concern for his own safety. These conditions included ritualistic forced nudity and extreme isolation. The description of #46 reads:
He will testify that during a meeting in early January of 2011, the Security Battalion Commander in charge of the Quantico Brig, ---, clearly stated to the Brig Staff that "I will not have anything happen to Manning on my watch.... So, nothing is going to change... He won't be able to hurt himself and he won't be able to get away, and our way of making sure of that is that is he will remain on Maximum Custody and POI [Prevention of Injury] indefinitely." He will testify that one of the other Brig psychiatrists, --- then said "You know Sir, I am concerned because if you are going to do that, maybe you want to call it something else because it is not based upon anything from behavioral health." In response, --- will testify that --- then said, "We will do whatever we want to do..." Others at the Brig told him that they have never seen anything like this before. --- will testify that others told him that they were afraid to speak out about the situation given the concern of what would happen [to themselves] as a result of any complaint about PFC Manning's treatment.
Witness #47 would add that:
He recalls a meeting with --- where he stated that PFC Manning would remain in his current status Maximum Custody and POI unless and until he received instruction from higher authority to the contrary... he does recall that --- made it clear that nothing would change with PFC Manning regardless of his behavior to the recommendations of behavioral health.
Just last week, Juan Mendez, the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on Torture, admonished the Obama administration for continuing to stonewall his attempts to investigate the treatment of PFC Manning at Quantico.
The illegal pre-trial punishment will likely have little impact on the guilt phase of the court martial, but it's likely to be an important mitigating factor in punishment as PFC has already been subject to extreme and unusual punishment while presumed innocent.
Government opposes all defense witnesses
Government prosecutors have already opposed every single defense witness on the list, unless the government was already intending to call them! Apparently the government has cited cost and burden. In response, Mr. Coombs explained in a December 7th memorandum to the court entitled "Witness Justification":
The government does not seem to be interested at all in providing a thorough and impartial investigation... The government claims that it is too costly and troublesome to bring any of the defense requested witnesses. Such a position defies logic and common sense.
In conclusion, Mr. Coombs explains:
PFC Manning is charged with offenses that carry the maximum punishment of life without the possibility of parole. His charges are among the most serious charges that a soldier can face. The government must be prepared to accept the costs incurred by the seriousness of the charges that they have preferred against PFC Manning. Anything but the personal appearances of all witnesses requested by the defense and government would deny PFC Manning his right to a thorough and impartial investigation and turn this into a hollow exercise.
While the pre-trial and court martial proceedings are open to the public and media by law, the military is expected to attempt to restrict access to key and possibly large portions of the proceedings. Between opposing all defense witnesses and attempting to hide significant and critical parts of the proceedings, the government is using every opportunity to stack the deck against PFC Manning.
Public support for PFC Manning
There is no doubt that PFC Manning faces long odds for anything resembling justice and freedom anytime soon. However, due to the work of the Bradley Manning Support Network over the last 18 months, he stands a fighting chance-and that has been a huge improvement. With the help of over 6,000 individual contributors, the Support Network continues to fund all of PFC Manning's legal expenses, as well as efforts to influence public opinion though protest, petitions, and high-profile billboards. Join us Friday, December 16th at the Fort Meade Main Gate for an all-day vigil, and Saturday, December 17th for a march and rally from noon to 3:00pm.
Jeff Paterson is the project director of Courage to Resist, an organization dedicated to supporting US military service members who face military justice for matters of conscience, and a member of the Bradley Manning Support Network steering committee. In 1990, Marine Cpl. Paterson was the first service member to publicly refuse to fight in Iraq.
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