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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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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 vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. --HELEN KELLER
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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SOLIDARITY MARCH/RALLY IN SUPPORT OF EGYPTIAN WOMEN IN STRUGGLE
Dec. 30, 3pm, Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland (near 12 St. BART)
Let's have a strong CodePink solidarity contingent!
tahmina_mahrzad@yahoo.com
Dear friends,
My name is Shimaa and I'm an Egyptian activist from Cairo.
Since the second half of October I came to the U.S to speak about the revolution from a different perspective and learn about Occupy movement. Since I'm no longer in Tahrir I feel obligated to do something here.
A week ago we made a proposal to the GA of Occupy Oakland to sign a statement of solidarity to support actions in the Bay area related to the Egyptian revolution and the struggle of the Egyptian revolutionary women.
The first action I'm organizing will be on Friday December the 30th. We will have a woman rally and march in solidarity with the Egyptian women and to denounce the following:
* The violation of human rights and the targeting of female protesters by the Egyptian military.
* The continuous support of the U.S government to SCAF that receives over than 1.3 billion $ as a form of military foreign aid.
The revolutionary women and girls struggling with the revolution and the systemic assaulting by the military in Egypt need the support and a solidarity message from their fellow American activists of occupy and other people especially women struggling in the U.S will be such a powerful initiative.
These are some related articles about 2 women who have been assaulted by the U.S packed military council in March and December:
http://www.roundtree7.com/2011/12/solidarity-from-oakland-to-samira-to-the-women-of-egypt/
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/22/world/africa/egypt-woman-attacked/
The rally will start at 3 pm at Occupy Oakland, we will need speakers so If any of you want to speak or send a solidarity message to the women struggling in Egypt you are more than welcome.
Bring signs and print pictures, these are some high quality samples that you can use:
http://rowanelshimi.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/dsc_3058.jpg
http://washingtonexaminer.com/files/d5d072b77fe3d91c010f6a70670050f1_0.jpg
http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/wp-content/uploads/EgyptRevolution_highres.jpg
Join us to defend the global revolution.
Say no to torture and military trials for Egyptians.
Say no to the U.S military Aid to SCAF from the tax money of the 99%!
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Location:
Frank Ogawa Plaza (Oscar Grant Plaza). 14th st exit from the 12th st/City Center Bart. Oakland, California
Event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/238734672863455/
My pages in English:
https://www.facebook.com/Shimaa.Tahrir
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupywallstreet-and-Egyptian-revolutionaries-United-for-change/312499518766801
Twitter: @Agenda_kid
I will see you there :)
In solidarity,
Shimaa from Tahrir square
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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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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
"Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up"
Wednesday January 4, 2012
Roxie Theater
3117 16th St
(one block from the 16th and Mission BART station)
Two showing
6:30 pm and 8:00 pm
FILMMAKER IN PERSON!
This film chronicles half a century of hostile US-Cuba relations by telling the story of "the Cuban Five": intelligence agents sent to penetrate Cuban exile terrorist groups in Miami who are now serving long prison sentences.
WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLEASE STAND UP highlights decades of assassinations and sabotage at first backed - then ignored - by the very government that launched a "War on Terror".
From the Bay of Pigs to multiple attempts on Fidel Castro's life, a question is raised: what did Cuba do to deserve such hostile treatment? Directed by Saul Landau. Cinematography by Haskell Wexler. 2011. Digital. 65 mins. Original Music -- The Cuban Cowboys, Greg and Camilo Landau.
Read review by Lawrence Wilkerson (Colonel, US Army, Ret.)
http://www.thehavananote.com/node/890
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
For more information visit :
www.thecuban5.org
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 7:30pm
Palestinian human rights activist OMAR BARGHOUTI
Speaking on
"Occupy Wall Street not Palestine! BDS and the Global Struggle for Justice & Freedom in Palestine"
First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway
Booksigning of Barghouti's book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights follows the program
Presented by the Middle East Children's Alliance & CODEPINK
Benefit for MECA's Maia Project: Clean Water for Children in Gaza. Wheelchair accessible, ASL interpreted.
Event includes Special Guests!
Buy Your Tickets Now! http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/216036
Tickets $10, no one turned away for lack of funds -For info: 510-548-0542, www.mecaforpeace.org
Cosponsored by: KPFA, Al-Awda, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, US Palestinian Community Network, Northern California Friends of Sabeel, Global Exchange, US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Bay Area Women in Black, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
--
Leena Al-Arian
Program and Communications Coordinator
Middle East Children's Alliance
1101 8th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-548-0542
www.mecaforpeace.org
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It's Time to "Occupy the Dream:" African-American Faith Community Joins Forces with Occupy Wall Street - First Day of Action on MLK Day, Jan 16 at Federal Reserve Banks
December 15, 2011 in Chicago, DC, Direct Action, Discrimination, Federal Reserve, Liberty Park, Los Angeles, Memphis, Minnesota, OccupyTogether, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco, Seattle, St Louis, Video
Members of the African-American faith community have joined forces with Occupy Wall Street to launch a new campaign for economic justice inspired by the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Faithful to its philosophical origin, the "Occupy the Dream" coalition has called for a National Day of Action on Martin Luther King Day - Monday, January 16, 2012 - when they will "Occupy the Federal Reserve," in multiple cities nationwide, focusing attention on the gross injustice visited upon the 99% by the financial elite. This will be the first of many actions leading up to a mass gathering in Washington D.C., to be held April 4 - 7, when millions will unite in celebration of the life and legacy of Dr King.
In support of this effort, StudioOccupy.org has created this inspiring video:
http://studiooccupy.org/#!/media/oici4d
The Occupy the Dream coalition was launched by a contemporary of Dr. King - Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. - and Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant of the Empowerment Temple Church, in partnership with Occupy Wall Street organizers. The following statement in support of the Occupy the Dream coalition was prepared by over 30 Occupy Wall Street organizers and read at the National Press Club in Washington, DC:
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for social and economic justice with a deep moral commitment to non-violent civil disobedience. His legacy inspires many of us on the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Nearly fifty years since hundreds of thousands of people marched with Dr. King and filled the nation's capital, the dream that inspired our nation remains unfulfilled. As shocking as it is to believe, there is a more severe inequality of wealth in the United States today than there was back then. More Americans are living in poverty today than when Dr. King organized the Poor People's Campaign.
While the rich have grown richer, tens of millions of Americans have been exploited and left behind. In a time of great wealth and technological advancement, American families are desperately struggling to get by and to make ends meet.
Our political, economic, and legal systems have become wholly corrupted through a system of political bribery. Through campaign finance, lobbying, and the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street, our wealth has been consolidated into the hands of the few at the expense and suffering of the many.
Many of our brothers and sisters lead lives dominated by fear. Fear of losing a home. Fear of losing a job. Fear of losing medical coverage. Fear of losing the ability to provide food for our families. And for far too many, these fears have already become a reality.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is about people coming together to say "enough is enough." Our families have endured economic oppression for too long. The Occupy Wall Street movement draws its strength from people of all different walks of life, with opinions across the political spectrum, coming together to find common ground and unite against the global financial interests that have bought control of our government.
Dr. King's vision of economic justice is an edifying example of what we intend to achieve. The Occupy movement has become a powerful force by occupying communities throughout the country. The time has now come for us to embody the spirit of Dr. King and for us to "Occupy the Dream."
We are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the African-American Faith community in this campaign for economic fairness and justice. We are all in this fight together. We all want a healthy and secure future for our families. In the absence of a government that will defend and represent us, we are now taking it upon ourselves to stand up and defend our own families.
It is a great honor today to join with the spirit of Dr. King, to join with heroes of the civil rights movement, luminaries of the faith community, pioneers in music and all of you in attendance.
It is a great honor today to announce the birth of the "Occupy the Dream" movement.
Social Media Accounts
Twitter: @OccupyDreamOWS
Facebook: Occupy the Dream
For more information visit OccupyDream.org.
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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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Busby: Fukushima 'criminal event' calls for investigation
Uploaded by RussiaToday on Dec 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F0uFAWV7uc&feature=player_embedded%23!
A newly released report on the Fukushima nuclear crisis says it was down to the plant's operators being ill-prepared and not responding properly to the earthquake and tsunami disaster. A major government inquiry said some engineers abandoned the plant as the trouble started and other staff delayed reporting significant radiation leaks. Professor Christopher Busby, scientific secretary to the European Committee on Radiation Risks, says health damage after contamination will be more serious than Japan announced.
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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g
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ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552
Charlie Chaplin final speech in "The Great Dictator"
I'm sorry but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others' happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.
Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men---machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it's written "the kingdom of God is within man", not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.
Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
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ILWU Local 10 Longshore Workers Speak-Out At Oakland Port Shutdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUpBpZYwms
Uploaded by laborvideo on Dec 13, 2011
ILWU Local 10 longshore workers speak out during a blockade of the Port of Oakland called for by Occupy Oakland. Anthony Levieges and Clarence Thomas rank and file members of the union. The action took place on December 12, 2011 and the interview took place at Pier 30 on the Oakland docks.
For more information on the ILWU Local 21 Longview EGT struggle go to
http://www.facebook.com/groups/256313837734192/
For further info on the action and the press conferernce go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3fE-Vhrw8&feature=youtu.be
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org
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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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Urgent Appeal to Occupy and All Social Justice Movements: Mobilize to Defend the Egyptian Revolution
Endorse the statement here:
http://www.defendegyptianrevolution.org/2011/12/19/defend-the-egyptian-revolution/
In recent days, protesters demanding civilian rule in Egypt have again been murdered, maimed and tortured by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Interior Security Forces (ISF).
The conspiracy, being brutally implemented in Egypt, is part of a global conspiracy to suffocate mass movements for socio-economic justice and is being done with direct assistance of the American government and the private interests which direct that government. We have word from friends in Egypt that SCAF, ISF and their hired thugs - armed by ongoing shipments of $1.3 billion in weapons from the U.S. government - plan to execute one by one all the leaders of the revolution, and as many activists as they can.
Accordingly, we need to ensure that people and organizers in the US and internationally are involved in closely monitoring the events unraveling in Egypt. By keeping track of the atrocities committed by SCAF and ISF, keeping track of those detained, tortured or targeted, and continuously contacting officials in Egypt and the US to demand accountability, cessation of the atrocities and justice, we can add pressure on SCAF, ISF and the forces they represent. In this way we may be able to play a role in helping save the lives of our Egyptian brothers and sisters.
Evidence of the conspiracy to execute the leaders and participants of Egyptian freedom movement, includes in very small part the following:
* Sheikh Emad of Al Azhar was killed by a bullet entering his right side from short range. This was seen at first hand by witnesses known to members of our coalition. Sheikh Emad was one of a small number of Azhar Imams issuing decrees in support of the revolution. His murder was no accident.
* Sally Tooma, Mona Seif, Ahdaf Soueif, and Sanaa Seif, all female friends and relatives of imprisoned blogger and activist Alaa abd El Fattah, and all known internationally for their political and/or literary work, were detained, and beaten in the Cabinet building.
* A woman protesting against General Tantawi, head of SCAF, was detained and then tortured by having the letter "T" in English carved into her scalp with knives.
* Detainees are being tortured while in courtroom holding pens. Two men (Mohammad Muhiy Hussein is one of them) were killed in those pens.These are only a small number of the horror stories we are hearing. And we continue to receive reports from Cairo about a massive army presence in Tahrir Square and the constant sound of gunshots.These are only a small number of the horror stories we are hearing. And we continue to receive reports from Cairo about a massive army presence in Tahrir Square and the constant sound of gunshots.
In every way, Egypt's fight is our fight. Just like us, Egyptians are the 99%, fighting for social, political and economic justice.
The same 1% that arms the Egyptian dictatorship commits systematic violence in this country against the Occupy movement; antiwar and solidarity activists; and Arabs, Muslims, and other communities of color.
As the US Palestinian Community Network recently observed, "the same US-made tear gas rains down on us in the streets of Oakland, Cairo and Bil`in."
Because of Egypt's key strategic location, the fate of its revolution echoes across the world. Its success will bring us all closer to achieving economic and social justice. But its defeat would be a major blow to social justice movements everywhere, including Occupy.
In short, Egypt is key to the continued success of the Arab Revolution, and movements she has inspired.
For all these reasons, we ask Occupy and all U.S. social justice activists to join us in mobilizing to defend our Egyptian brothers and sisters by immediately organizing mass convergences on Egyptian embassies, missions, consulates, and at U.S. government offices, to demand:
* Cancel all US aid and shipment of military and police materiel to Egypt!
* Stop the murders, tortures and detentions!
* Release all detainees and political prisoners!
* Immediate end to military rule in Egypt!
Please endorse and circulate this appeal widely. Please send statements with these demands to the bodies listed below. By endorsing, your organization commits to making these phone calls and following up continuously for the next week.
www.defendegyptianrevolution.org and defendegyptianrevolution@gmail.com
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Tarek Mehanna - another victim of the U.S. War to Terrorize Everyone. He was targeted because he would not spy on his Muslim community for the FBI. Under the new NDAA indefinite military detention provision, Tarek is someone who likely would never come to a trial, although an American citizen. His sentencing is on April 12. There will be an appeal. Another right we may kiss goodbye. We should not accept the verdict and continue to fight for his release, just as we do for hero Bradley Manning, and all the many others unjustly persecuted by our government until it is the war criminals on trial, prosecuted by the people, and not the other way around.
Marilyn Levin
Official defense website: http://freetarek.com/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Free Tarek
Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:41 PM
Subject: [Tarek Mehanna Support] Today's verdict
All who have followed Tarek's trial with a belief in the possibility of justice through the court system will be shocked to learn that today the jury found him guilty on all seven counts of the indictment. In the six weeks that the prosecution used to present its case, it presented no evidence linking Tarek to an illegal action. Instead, it amassed a large and repetitive collection of videos, e-mails, translated documents, recorded telephone conversations and informant testimony aimed at demonstrating Tarek's political beliefs. The core belief under scrutiny was one that neither Tarek nor his defense team ever denied: Muslims have a right to defend their countries when invaded.
The prosecution relied upon coercion, prejudice, and ignorance to present their case; the defense relied upon truth, reason and responsibility. The government relied upon mounds of "evidence" showing that Tarek held political beliefs supporting the right to armed resistance against invading force; they mentioned Al-Qaeda and its leadership as often as possible while pointing at Tarek. It is clear they coerced Tarek's former friends and pressured them to lie, and many of them admitted to such. There is a long list of ways this trial proceeded unjustly, to which we will devote an entire post. The government's cynical calculation is that American juries, psychologically conditioned by a constant stream of propaganda in the "war on terrorism," will convict on the mere suggestion of terrorism, without regard for the law. Unfortunately, this strategy has proved successful in case after case.
Tarek's case will continue under appeal. We urge supporters to write to Tarek, stay informed, and continue supporting Tarek in his fight for justice. Sentencing will be April 12th, 2012. We will be sending out more information soon.
A beacon of hope and strength throughout this ordeal has been Tarek's strength and the amount of support he has received. Tarek has remained strong from day one, and even today he walked in with his head held high, stood unwavering as the verdict was read to him, and left the courtroom just as unbowed as ever. His body may be in prison now, but certainly this is a man whose spirit can never be caged. His strength must be an inspiration to us all, even in the face of grave circumstances. Before he left the courtroom, he turned to the crowd of supporters that was there for him, paused, and said, "Thank you, so much." We thank you too. Your support means the world to him.
You are here: Home » ACLU | "Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security" by Christopher Ott
ACLU | "Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security" by Christopher Ott
Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security
Submitted by Online Coordinator on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 14:31 First Amendment National Security
Decision today threatens writers and journalists, academic researchers, translators, and even ordinary web surfers.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
CONTACT:
Christopher Ott, Communications Director, 617-482-3170 x322, cott@aclum.org
BOSTON - The following statement on the conviction today of Tarek Mehanna may be attributed to American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose:
"The ACLU of Massachusetts is gravely concerned that today's verdict against Tarek Mehanna undermines the First Amendment and threatens national security.
"Under the government's theory of the case, ordinary people-including writers and journalists, academic researchers, translators, and even ordinary web surfers-could be prosecuted for researching or translating controversial and unpopular ideas. If the verdict is not overturned on appeal, the First Amendment will be seriously compromised.
"The government's prosecution does not make us safer. Speech about even the most unpopular ideas serves as a safety valve for the expression of dissent while government suppression of speech only drives ideas underground, where they cannot be openly debated or refuted.
"The ACLU believes that we can remain both safe and free, and, indeed, that our safety and our freedom go hand in hand."
The ACLU of Massachusetts has condemned the use of conspiracy and material support charges where the charges are based largely on First Amendment-protected expression.
In Mr. Mehanna's case, the charges against him have been based on allegations of such activity, such as watching videos about "jihad", discussing views about suicide bombings, translating texts available on the Internet, and looking for information about the 9/11 attackers. Historically, government prosecutors have used conspiracy charges as a vehicle for the suppression of unpopular ideas, contrary to the dictates of the First Amendment and fundamental American values.
After the ACLU of Massachusetts submitted a memorandum of law in support of Mehanna's motion to dismiss the parts of the indictment against him that were based on protected expression, U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole denied permission for the memorandum to be filed with the court. A copy of the memorandum is available here.
For more information, go to: http://aclum.org/usa_v_mehanna
via Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security | ACLU of Massachusetts.
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MUMIA HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO SCI MAHANOY!
From: info@freemumia.com
December 14, 2011
Greetings all,
Just verified with Superintendent John Kerestes that Mumia Abu-Jamal is being held in Administrative Custody at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA until he is cleared to enter general population within a few days.
We need phone calls to the institution to let them know that the WORLD is watching Mumia's movements and ask general questions so that they know that nothing they are doing is happening under cover of darkness.
Please also send cards and letters to Mumia at the new address so that he begins receiving mail immediately and it is known to all of the people there that we are with him!
PHONE NUMBER: 570-773-2158
MAILING ADDRESS:
Mumia Abu-Jamal, #AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
CURRENT VISITORS on Mumia's list will allegedly be OK'd to visit once their names are entered into the computer at Frackville. NEW VISITORS will have to receive the pertinent forms directly from Mumia.
DIRECTIONS TO THE PRISON are available at http://www.cheapjailcalls.com/correctional-facility-directory/state-prison-directory/item/sci-mahanoy
PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD!!!
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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) American Jailed in Peru Returns to New York
By ANNE BARNARD
December 20, 2011, 10:10 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/american-jailed-in-peru-returns-to-new-york/?hp
2) Occupy Crackdown: CIA plays new version of "I Won't Tell You."
www.justiceonline.org > News / Commentary
December 20, 2011
http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/occupy-crackdown-cia-plays.html
3) Demonstrators Who Took Over Chinese Village Halt Protest
By EDWARD WONG
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/wukan-china-protesters-agree-to-halt-demonstrations.html?hp
4) For Illegal Immigrant, Line Is Drawn at Transplant
"'They should not get any benefit from breaking the law, especially something as expensive as organ transplants or dialysis,' said Representative Dana T. Rohrabacher, Republican of California, who contends that care for illegal immigrants is bankrupting American health care and has sought to require that emergency rooms report stabilized patients for deportation unless they prove citizenship or legal residence. 'If they're dead, I don't have an objection to their organs being used," Mr. Rohrabacher added. 'If they're alive, they shouldn't be here no matter what.'" [Boy! would I like to rip out Mr. Rohrabacher's kidneys! What an effing disgusting pig!...bw]
By NINA BERNSTEIN
December 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/
5) Japan Says Decommissioning Damaged Reactors Could Take 40 Years
By MARTIN FACKLER
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/japan-needs-40-years-to-decommission-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-reactors.html?ref=world
6) Hearing in Soldier's WikiLeaks Case Ends
By GINGER THOMPSON
December 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/hearing-in-private-mannings-wikileaks-case-ends.html?ref=us
7) Border Fence Blocks Bears in Migration, Study Finds
By MARC LACEY
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/science/earth/border-fence-affecting-black-bears-too-study-says.html?ref=us
8) Army Charges 8 in Wake of Death of a Fellow G.I.
By KIRK SEMPLE
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/us/8-charged-in-death-of-fellow-soldier-us-army-says.html?ref=nyregion
9) Bradley Manning: Troubled Young American Hero
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
22 December 11
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/9037-bradley-manning-troubled-young-american-hero
10) Poor are quicker to show compassion
Science Blog
December 20, 2011
http://scienceblog.com/51146/poor-are-quicker-to-show-compassion/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogrssfeed+%28ScienceBlog.com%29
11) Iraq Combat Veteran Dan Choi Forcibly Ousted, Barred from Bradley Manning Hearing at Ft. Meade
DemocracyNow! Broadcast Interview
December 21, 2011
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/21/iraq_combat_veteran_dan_choi_forcibly
12) Fiscal Crisis Takes Toll on Health of Greeks
By SUZANNE DALEY
December 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/europe/greeks-reeling-from-health-care-cutbacks.html?ref=world
13) Japan Panel Cites Failure in Tsunami
By HIROKO TABUCHI
December 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/asia/report-condemns-japans-response-to-nuclear-accident.html?ref=world
14) Rare but Grudging Judicial About-Face in Bias Case
By ADAM LIPTAK
December 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/us/tyson-discrimination-verdict-restored-by-appeals-court.html?ref=us
15) Japan Recommends Temporary State Control for Tokyo Electric
"The order came after Tokyo Electric Power requested ¥689.4 billion, or $8.8 billion, in government aid to help pay for its response to the nuclear accident at its Fukushima site." [I.e., Japanese tax-payers will foot the bill...bw]
By HIROKO TABUCHI
December 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/business/global/japan-recommends-temporary-state-control-for-tokyo-electric.html?adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1325008804-gCzfYdFyNH5uUzTo1OESfw
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1) American Jailed in Peru Returns to New York
By ANNE BARNARD
December 20, 2011, 10:10 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/american-jailed-in-peru-returns-to-new-york/?hp
Lori Berenson, the daughter of Manhattan academics whose story has captivated New Yorkers since she was convicted in Peru of aiding a leftist terrorist group, touched down on American soil Tuesday morning for the first time in 16 years.
Her mother, Rhoda Berenson, craned her neck in anticipation as she waited at Newark Liberty International Airport carrying a brown Bloomingdale's bag stuffed with a puffy warm coat for Lori Berenson's son, Salvador, 2, who was conceived during a conjugal visit with Ms. Berenson's husband in prison.
Asked what her daughter most wanted to see in New York, Rhoda Berenson said, "I think it's us."
Lori Berenson's parents had visited her frequently in Peru, but on this visit, dozens of friends and relatives will be seeing her for the first time since her conviction and will be meeting Salvador for the first time.
Pushing a luggage cart and flanked by police officers with Salvador trotting beside her, Ms. Berenson, 41, strode past a throng of news reporters with such focus that at first she walked right by her mother.
"Thank you," was all Ms. Berenson said as she slid into the back seat of a car driven by a male relative wearing a Yankees cap. She buckled Salvador, clutching a stuffed orange parrot, into his car seat, and they sped off.
"Happy holidays!" Rhoda Berenson, called cheerfully as she closed the car door.
It was an image far removed from the one that Lori Berenson projected soon after her arrest, when she gave a defiant, fist-waving speech in support of the Tupac Amaru rebels, a leftist militant group, which cemented her image as a dangerous radical for many Peruvians.
Ms. Berenson has always maintained her innocence, saying that she was an idealist drawn to the cause of the Peruvian poor but never supported violence or intended to aid a plot by some of her associates to attack the Peruvian parliament, an attack that never took place.
According to testimony during her trial, Ms. Berenson voluntarily helped with logistics and information and used the house she had rented as a base for the operatives.
While in prison, she married Aníbal Apari Sánchez, who had been convicted of being a member of the group and was granted conjugal visits during his parole. She is now separated from Mr. Apari, who is Salvador's father and serves as her lawyer.
Ms. Berenson is out on parole, but is technically still serving a 20-year sentence, which is due to be completed on Nov. 29, 2015. Her sentence was reduced from life in prison when she was granted a second, civilian trial, something that the United States government and her parents had pushed for. Her first trial was in military court where judges wear hoods to hide their identity.
Last week, a Peruvian court gave Ms. Berenson permission to travel to the United States. She is supposed to return by Jan. 11, and there has been widespread concern in the Peruvian news media that she will not go back.
Once this travel permit ends, Ms. Berenson will be required to report to various legal authorities in Peru, including the Criminal Court, the Provincial Criminal Court and the National Penitentiary.
At the airport, Rhoda Berenson, a professor at New York University, said her daughter intended to return. She said the family would celebrate the holidays and her husband Mark's 70th birthday. She declined to comment on the case, saying, "This is not a political time for us. "
Rhoda and Mark Berenson's lives, too, were transformed by their daughter's predicament. For a time they quit working to devote themselves full-time to her case, which captivated many because of the questions it raised about how the bookish daughter raised by intellectuals in a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment ended up accused of such a plot.
Lori Berenson graduated from LaGuardia High School and went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but soon found she cared more about campus activism than academics. She joined the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, a group affiliated with the FMLN guerilla movement that was a common presence on American campuses in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1992 Lori Berenson moved to El Salvador and later to Peru.
After her trial, her parents found themselves traveling every few weeks to Peru to visit her, taking her bagels and sweaters for the freezing-cold prison cell. Eventually they went back to work. As Rhoda Berenson said at the airport, "All this has been expensive."
Rhoda Berenson said that the family had no special plans and that her husband, a professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, was at work, administering final exams.
"We're just going to go home," she said. "I'm very excited. "
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2) Occupy Crackdown: CIA plays new version of "I Won't Tell You."
www.justiceonline.org > News / Commentary
December 20, 2011
http://www.justiceonline.org/commentary/occupy-crackdown-cia-plays.html
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is refusing to process a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that would reveal what role, if any, the agency has played in law enforcement's coordinated, nationwide campaign to shut down and evict Occupy movement encampments in cities throughout the country.
The FOIA demand for records was filed by the Washington D.C.-based civil rights legal organization, the Partnership for Civil Justice (PCJF).
The language used by the agency to announce its refusal to process the FOIA request concerning its role in the crackdown on the Occupy movement is "a classic case of CIA-double speak," according to the attorneys at the PCJF.
The CIA is not specifically denying that it has records and documents that would reveal its role in the coordinated crackdown that evicted the encampments in major cities within a short period of time. Rather, the agency asserts that it won't look for such records and documents.
"The CIA is apparently asserting that because its involvement in law enforcement's crackdown of the Occupy movement would be barred by law, it is not possible for the CIA to conduct an effective search for information responsive to our inquiry into its role in the operation," stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF. "In other words," she continued, "because the actions would be illegal, they would also be off the books."
Far from claiming it does not possess responsive records, the CIA stated in its letter to Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard that because such activities would be barred by law, "our records systems are not configured in a way that would allow us to perform a search reasonably calculated to lead to responsive records. Therefore, we must decline to process your request."
The PCJF has demanded that the CIA reconsider its request and is prepared to take legal action as necessary to force the agency to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. This denial comes on the heels of a series of Associated Press articles revealing the CIA's involvement with the NYPD.
The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) has filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Park Service (NPS) requesting that the agencies release information that they possess related to the involvement of federal agencies in the planning of a coordinated law enforcement crackdown that has taken places in multiple cities against the Occupy Movement. These requests are also on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee.
The FOIA to the various federal law enforcement agencies states: "This request specifically encompasses disclosure of any documents or information pertaining to federal coordination of, or advice or consultation regarding, the police response to the Occupy movement, protests or encampments."
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3) Demonstrators Who Took Over Chinese Village Halt Protest
By EDWARD WONG
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/wukan-china-protesters-agree-to-halt-demonstrations.html?hp
WUKAN, China - Villagers who had carried out a prominent protest against what they called land seizures by officials and business people agreed on Wednesday to halt their demonstrations after more than 10 days of keeping Communist Party authorities out of their village. The protests ended after a leader of the villagers met on Wednesday morning with senior officials from coastal Guangdong Province in southern China.
The provincial officials agreed to the meeting after residents here threatened to march on Wednesday to government offices in the nearby city of Lufeng. In the meeting, which lasted for more than an hour outside Wukan, two senior provincial officials spoke to Lin Zuluan, 65, one of the villagers' main representatives. Mr. Lin said after the meeting that the officials had agreed to three conditions set by the protesters, including freeing several villagers who had been detained, though the issue of the land sales remained unresolved.
"I was satisfied with how the meeting went," Mr. Lin said. "Now they've opened up a new channel of communication, and it will help to build a closer relationship between the two sides."
On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Lin and other village leaders met to discuss their options and decided to call off the public protests and to reopen access to the village. It was unclear whether party officials who fled earlier would return and resume their jobs.
After that conclave, the village leaders held a rally with more than 1,000 residents in a public square and told the audience about the new agreement. When the villagers then dispersed, they took down protest banners hanging up near the square.
The meeting was the first with province-level officials, and it contrasted sharply with the denunciations and threats of arrest that have defined the official response to the protests since the standoff began.
The negotiations were led by the deputy chief of the provincial Communist Party committee, Zhu Mingguo, and the party secretary of the administrative region of Shanwei, Zheng Yanxiong. Mr. Zhu is a top lieutenant to the provincial party secretary, Wang Yang, one of China's most prominent political leaders and an unspoken candidate for a spot on China's ruling body, the standing committee of the Politburo, when membership in the body, which now has nine seats, turns over next year.
The abrupt shift of negotiations to provincial leaders, after days of fruitless talks with officials of local governments, suggested that Mr. Wang was taking charge and hoping to broker a peaceful settlement of a crisis whose outcome could weigh heavily on his political future.
In midmorning, as officials began arriving outside the village, hundreds of residents lined the roadside. Dozens held up a red banner that welcomed the officials "to come to Lufeng to resolve the Wukan incident."
Inside Wukan, in a council meeting hall, bags of rice were piled high in a corner to dole out to poorer families. Since party officials abandoned the area days ago, security forces have turned back many food trucks outside the village. Some residents say the authorities intended to starve the villagers until they submitted, yet they profess their devotion to the Communist Party and speak of how the central government will soon come to their aid.
On the main road connecting Lufeng to Wukan, there was no sign of a police presence on Tuesday night. A police checkpoint that had been erected at one bridge outside Lufeng several days ago was no longer there. But on the outskirts of Wukan, villagers still manned barricades that are meant to keep back security forces. When foreign journalists traveling from Lufeng approached them near midnight, several villagers took the journalists into the heart of Wukan on the backs of motorcycles.
Mr. Lin said the greatest concern of the villagers was their land: they charge that the village government and Lufeng authorities illegally sold the village's collectively owned farm and forest land to developers without their consent, and that money from the sales is unaccounted for. Mr. Lin said the issue would need to be discussed in further talks with officials.
The anger of the last week involved a second but equally explosive issue: the death of a 42-year-old villager, Xue Jinbo, who was among 12 people chosen by villagers to negotiate a settlement to the land dispute.
Mr. Xue died after being abducted on Dec. 9 with four other men, apparently at the behest of Lufeng police officials. The Lufeng police said that Mr. Xue and the four others were arrested and charged with protest-related crimes, but that Mr. Xue later died of a heart attack. A report by the state-run Xinhua news service said Mr. Xue had become ill after two days of interrogation in which he admitted to his crimes.
Mr. Xue's relatives, who were allowed to see but not photograph his body, say it bore signs of torture, including caked blood, bruises and a broken left thumb.
Mr. Lin said the officials agreed on Wednesday morning to release the detainees that day or the next day and to turn over Mr. Xue's body soon. The officials also promised an investigation into the death, he said.
The standoff between the village and outside authorities began when protesters furious over word of Mr. Xue's death mobbed the headquarters of Wukan's village committee. The last of the committee's nine members fled after thousands of protesters beat back an effort by the local police to retake the village.
The villagers - once numbering 13,000, but now down to about 6,000, one protester said - have set up their own governing body and issued demands that their land be returned and that a new village committee be democratically elected.
Outside authorities responded by detaining two Wukan officials - the village Communist Party secretary, Xue Chang, and the head of the village administrative committee, Chun Shunyi - for interrogation by the party's disciplinary officials. The action is tantamount to arrest.
Official statements also say that roughly 67 acres of village land, a tiny fraction of the amount sold, has been recovered. The reports do not indicate what was done with the property.
News of the Wukan protest has been all but banned from the Chinese media and Internet sites. But there were indications that word of the dispute was nevertheless spreading. Posts on Chinese microblog services reported protests in three other villages in Shanwei Prefecture, which includes Wukan, apparently over other land disputes. Three people were arrested Sunday in Guangzhou, a Guangdong Province metropolis, after a protest in sympathy with the Wukan villagers.
Another microblog post on Tuesday, with photographs, described a violent clash between police officers and thousands of people in Haimen, a township in Shantou, a major Pacific coast city about 90 miles from Wukan. People in Wukan said Wednesday morning that Haimen's streets appeared quiet, but the riot police were still out in force.
The Internet posts stated that the Shantou demonstrators, some of whom were hospitalized, were protesting plans to build a power plant, fearing that it would add to pollution and damage the local fishing industry. Other microblog reports told of related protests in two nearby villages.
Shi Da contributed research.
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4) For Illegal Immigrant, Line Is Drawn at Transplant
"'They should not get any benefit from breaking the law, especially something as expensive as organ transplants or dialysis,' said Representative Dana T. Rohrabacher, Republican of California, who contends that care for illegal immigrants is bankrupting American health care and has sought to require that emergency rooms report stabilized patients for deportation unless they prove citizenship or legal residence. 'If they're dead, I don't have an objection to their organs being used," Mr. Rohrabacher added. 'If they're alive, they shouldn't be here no matter what.'" [Boy! would I like to rip out Mr. Rohrabacher's kidneys! What an effing disgusting pig!...bw]
By NINA BERNSTEIN
December 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/nyregion/illegal-immigrants-transplant-cheaper-over-life-isnt-covered.html?hp
Without treatment to replace his failing kidneys, doctors knew, the man in Bellevue hospital would die. He was a waiter in his early 30s, a husband and father of two, so well liked at the Manhattan restaurant where he had worked for a decade that everyone from the customers to the dishwasher was donating money to help his family.
He was also an illegal immigrant. So when his younger brother volunteered to donate a kidney to restore him to normal life, they encountered a health care paradox: the government would pay for a lifetime of dialysis, costing $75,000 a year, but not for the $100,000 transplant that would make it unnecessary.
For nearly two years, the brothers and their supporters have been hunting for a way to make the transplant happen. Their journey has taken them through a maze of conflicting laws, private insurance conundrums and ethical quandaries, back to the national impasse between health care and immigration policies.
The waiter's boss sought private insurance, she and the brothers said, speaking on the condition that their names be withheld for fear of provoking immigration authorities. The Catch-22: for the first year, the waiter, called Angel, would get no coverage for his "pre-existing condition," nor would he receive the dialysis that keeps him alive and able to work four days a week.
Doctors sought a transplant center that would take him. Hospitals in the city receive millions of taxpayer dollars to help offset care for illegal immigrants and other uninsured patients. But at one hospital, administrators apparently overruled surgeons willing to waive their fees. At another, Angel was told to come back when he had legal status or $200,000.
A last resort is a return to Mexico, where the operation costs about $40,000. But to pay off the necessary loans, Angel and his brother, a deli worker, would have to sneak back in through the desert. If they failed, they would be cut off from their children in Brooklyn, who are United States citizens.
"As a physician, it puts you in a real ethical dilemma," said Dr. Eric Manheimer, Bellevue's medical director, noting that a transplant would sharply reduce Angel's risk of death from complications. "The ultimate irony is it's cheaper to put in a transplant than to dialyze someone for the rest of their life."
Bellevue performs no transplants but, as a trauma center, often supplies organs harvested, with family consent, from illegal immigrants fatally injured at work.
"Here's the paradox: he could donate, but he can't receive," Dr. Manheimer said, calling the imbalance troubling. Organ registries do not record illegal status, but a study estimated that over a 20-year period noncitizens donated 2.5 percent of organs and received fewer than 1 percent.
To those focusing on immigration enforcement, however, the inequity runs the other way. "They should not get any benefit from breaking the law, especially something as expensive as organ transplants or dialysis," said Representative Dana T. Rohrabacher, Republican of California, who contends that care for illegal immigrants is bankrupting American health care and has sought to require that emergency rooms report stabilized patients for deportation unless they prove citizenship or legal residence.
"If they're dead, I don't have an objection to their organs being used," Mr. Rohrabacher added. "If they're alive, they shouldn't be here no matter what."
To Ruth Faden, the director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, the brothers' case, like the transplant statistics, illustrates how quickly firm principles on both sides unravel in practice.
"We tie ourselves up in knots," she said, "because we've accepted as a country and in international human rights law that if someone shows up in extremis in your emergency room, the nurses and doctors and technicians are morally obligated, and legally obligated, to provide that life-saving care."
How to begin refusing care, she added, becomes a dilemma for "real people in real time."
The sudden onset of the waiter's illness in January 2010 left no time to spare. At Bellevue, he underwent surgery to implant a temporary venous catheter in his neck, to cleanse his blood of lethal toxins. The cause of his renal disease is most likely genetic: when he was 8 - about the age of his own sons now - his father died of kidney failure.
Through quirks of legislative history, nearly everyone with end-stage renal disease in the United States, regardless of income, is covered under federal Medicare for dialysis and transplantation, except illegal immigrants. But regardless of a patient's immigration status, hospitals can be reimbursed for emergency care by Medicaid, the federal and state insurance program for the needy.
Unlike most states, New York, California and North Carolina define outpatient dialysis as an emergency measure. Studies show such regular dialysis is cheaper, with fewer life-threatening complications, than waiting until toxin levels require hospital treatment.
"What do I have to do to become normal?" Angel remembers asking. The medical answer was clear: a transplant, and anti-rejection drugs costing about $10,000 a year. But news that his brother and sister were compatible donors came with a blunt warning, the waiter recalled: "As long as you don't have your papers, you won't get a transplant."
Like many Mexican New Yorkers, Angel has relatives who migrated years ago without visas and are now citizens. An uncle still works for the restaurateur who helped him legalize. But immigration rules have changed, eliminating such paths.
"My boss, she tried to help me," said the waiter, who supported his mother and half-siblings from the age of 16, and worked his way up from busboy, paying taxes, mastering English and learning enough French to counsel diners on the wine list. "We find no way."
His boss kept hunting. "He deserves every break he can get," she said.
They consulted lawyers at LegalHealth, which counsels low-income patients. Randye Retkin, the director, said the waiter was one of a dozen patients in need of transplants who were referred to the nonprofit program by hospitals last year because of immigration barriers.
For many there is no remedy, Ms. Retkin said. She cited a Mexican mother of two who died without the small-bowel transplant she needed, just as lawyers won a yearlong legal battle for Medicaid to pay for it.
The waiter turned to the Mexican consulate, which appealed to Dr. Manheimer. The doctor said he persuaded surgeons at NYU Langone Medical Center to waive their $20,000 fees, but administrators would not absorb the rest. The hospital declined to comment.
Two other doctors, Hector J. Castro, a critical care specialist, and Kann H. Patel, a hematologist, sent Angel to Mount Sinai Medical Center. But there a financial transplant counselor told him he would have to pay double the typical cost in advance, to cover any complications.
"Personally, I'm troubled by it," said Dr. Sander Florman, who directs the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai. "We're looking at human beings."
But Dr. Florman confirmed that the waiter's experience reflected policies at the hospital. "Our general approach is we're not the immigration police," he said. "On the other hand, there has to be a mechanism to pay for it."
Mount Sinai officials say they provided $67.3 million in uncompensated care last year, and received $25 million from the state to offset such costs. "Mount Sinai struggles each day to balance its limited resources with its strong commitment to provide compassionate medical care," it said in a statement, noting that kidney transplantation, unlike dialysis, is not an emergency procedure under Medicaid.
For nearly everyone else, however, there is a Medicare option. Scholars trace the unusual program, now costing $40 billion a year, to a 1962 Life magazine article titled "They Decide Who Lives, Who Dies," about laymen at a Seattle hospital who judged which patients would get scarce treatment on the first "artificial kidney machine." The outcry that followed is often credited for the birth of bioethics and for the 1972 law guaranteeing coverage.
That law did not mention citizenship, said Dr. Scott Sanoff, who teaches medicine at the University of Virginia, but later restrictions, and murky state-by-state variations in Medicaid, left decisions on illegal immigrants' access to care to each medical center, often without any payment mechanism. The life-and-death nature of the decisions has been obscured, he added: In the case of Angel, "his life expectancy could be more than doubled with the transplant compared to dialysis."
The waiter now shuttles between a basement dialysis center, the restaurant and his family's cramped but well-kept walk-up. There, as their children clustered nearby, his brother, 26, said they would not give up.
"He's more than my brother, he's like my father," he said. "If I can give him life, I have to."
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5) Japan Says Decommissioning Damaged Reactors Could Take 40 Years
By MARTIN FACKLER
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/japan-needs-40-years-to-decommission-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-reactors.html?ref=world
TOKYO - Decommissioning the wrecked reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will take 40 years and require the use of robots to remove melted fuel that appears to be stuck to the bottom of the reactors' containment vessels, the Japanese government said on Wednesday.
The predictions were contained in a detailed roadmap for fully shutting down the three reactors, which suffered meltdowns after an earthquake and tsunami struck the plant on March 11. The government had previously predicted it would take 30 years to clean up after the accident at Fukushima, the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
The nuclear crisis minister, Goshi Hosono, acknowledged that no country has ever had to clean up three destroyed reactors at the same time. Mr. Hosono told reporters the decommissioning faced challenges that were not totally predictable, but "we must do it even though we may face difficulties along the way."
The plan's release follows last week's declaration by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda that the plant had been put into the equivalent of a "cold shutdown," a stable state that suggested the runaway reactors had finally been brought under control. Critics, however, immediately challenged that statement, saying it was impossible to call the reactors stable when their fuel had melted through the inner containment vessels, and appeared to be attached to the concrete bottom of outer containment vessels.
Still, the government appears ready to move ahead with the next stage of the cleanup. According to Wednesday's roadmap, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power, will spend the next two years removing spent fuel rods from storage pools located in the same buildings as the damaged reactors. At least one of those pools, which are highly radioactive, was exposed by hydrogen explosions that destroyed the reactor buildings in the first days of the accident.
The most technically challenging step will be removing the melted fuel, a process that the government said will take 25 years and require new types of robots and other new technologies that have not even been developed yet. After the removal, fully decommissioning the reactors will take another 5 to 10 years, according to the roadmap.
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6) Hearing in Soldier's WikiLeaks Case Ends
By GINGER THOMPSON
December 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/hearing-in-private-mannings-wikileaks-case-ends.html?ref=us
FORT MEADE, Md. - The military hearing against Pfc. Bradley Manning closed on Thursday, with lawyers and onlookers alternately portraying him as a premeditated traitor or an accidental hero with emotional troubles.
In their summary arguments, military lawyers accused the slight, bespectacled private of deliberately using his training as an Army intelligence analyst and his security clearances to leak tens of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, intelligence reports and a video of a military helicopter attack that left 11 people dead.
The prosecutors showed what they described as a Qaeda propaganda video in which terrorist operatives talked about the ways they had been able to exploit the leaks, with one of them saying that Private Manning "aided in the publication of those files, knowing that our enemies would use those files."
Private Manning's lawyers did not argue that their client was innocent of the leaks. However, they compared the military's case to the story of Chicken Little, saying that the files leaked to the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks had not damaged national security and that the government was "over-charging" their client, who faces life in prison.
WikiLeaks shared the files with several news organizations, including The New York Times. News accounts of the findings ignited international outrage.
The defense lawyers portrayed Private Manning, 24, as a man struggling with myriad emotional problems, stemming primarily from years of having to hide that he is gay. His lawyers said he reached out to his commanding officers for help and emotional support, but they ignored his problems. And, the lawyers said, Private Manning saw himself as a whistle-blower, not a traitor.
"My client was young," said one of the defense lawyers, David Coombs. "He thought he could make a difference."
The investigating officer overseeing the proceedings is expected to deliver his recommendations on whether to court-martial Private Manning on Jan. 16. Legal experts said it was almost certain that Private Manning would be tried on at least some of the 22 charges against him, which include aiding the enemy and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer.
If he is court-martialed on the more serious charges, Mr. Manning could face the death penalty. But prosecutors have said they would seek life in prison instead.
The case has ignited debates beyond the drab little courtroom here about whether the government keeps too many secrets, and whether the military systematically fails to provide the necessary support to minority and gay soldiers, and to protect them from abuses.
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7) Border Fence Blocks Bears in Migration, Study Finds
By MARC LACEY
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/science/earth/border-fence-affecting-black-bears-too-study-says.html?ref=us
GILA BEND, Ariz. - The much-ballyhooed border fence has not just made it more difficult for illegal immigrants to slip across from Mexico into the United States. It has also become an obstacle, researchers say, for migrating bears.
A study published in this month's edition of Biological Conservation warns that the black bear population just north of the border in Arizona may be threatened by the increasingly impermeable barriers at the border. Also fragmenting the bear habitat are the growing urban sprawl in southern Arizona and the expanding highway systems that slice through rugged terrain, the study found.
Researchers used hair snags - pieces of barbed wire set up near bait to catch genetic samples of foraging bears - to track various bear populations in Arizona. They found significant genetic disparities between black bears in the east-central part of the state and the subpopulation just north of the border. The border bears, the study said, were more closely related to bears found in northern Mexico.
The population density of the border bears was substantially lower than the bears living farther north, which had a wider habitat that was less vulnerable to development, the study found. The border is a unique region, from a biological point of view, researchers say, with many North American species reaching the southern limit of their distribution there and many South American species extending not much farther north.
"We want people to be cognizant of the impact of human activities and how they are impacting wildlife populations," said Dr. Jon P. Beckmann, a bear researcher with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and co-author of the bear study.
The authors, who include Todd C. Atwood and Julie K. Young of the United States Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center, intend to share their findings with the Department of Homeland Security and other state and federal agencies along the border. Dr. Beckmann said that the paper could be used to help generate innovative solutions that take bears and other large carnivores into consideration when border security was discussed.
As for the efficacy of border fencing in stymieing illegal immigrants, an issue that has come up in the Republican presidential primary contest, Mr. Beckmann said, "We're not weighing into that debate."
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8) Army Charges 8 in Wake of Death of a Fellow G.I.
By KIRK SEMPLE
December 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/us/8-charged-in-death-of-fellow-soldier-us-army-says.html?ref=nyregion
One night in October, an Army private named Danny Chen apparently angered his fellow soldiers by forgetting to turn off the water heater after taking a shower at his outpost in Afghanistan, his family said.
In the relatives' account, the soldiers pulled Private Chen out of bed and dragged him across the floor; they forced him to crawl on the ground while they pelted him with rocks and taunted him with ethnic slurs. Finally, the family said, they ordered him to do pull-ups with a mouthful of water - while forbidding him from spitting it out.
It was the culmination of what the family called a campaign of hazing against Private Chen, 19, who was born in Chinatown in Manhattan, the son of Chinese immigrants. Hours later, he was found dead in a guard tower, from what a military statement on Wednesday called "an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound" to the head.
On Wednesday, the American military announced that the Army had charged eight soldiers in Private Chen's battalion in connection with the death.
It was an extraordinary development in a case that has stirred intense reactions in the Asian population in New York and elsewhere and provoked debate over what some experts say is the somewhat ambivalent relationship between the Asian population and the United States military.
The authorities have not publicized much information about the circumstances of the death. Family members said they had gleaned bits of information about the hazing in private briefings with American military officials. But the array of charges announced - the most serious of which were manslaughter and negligent homicide - suggested that military prosecutors believed that the soldiers' actions drove Private Chen to commit suicide.
Private Chen's relatives and friends said they welcomed the announcement of the charges, as did Asian-American advocacy groups, which have been pressing the Army to conduct a transparent investigation into the death and to improve the treatment of Asians in the armed forces.
"It's of some comfort and relief to learn that the Army has taken this seriously," Private Chen's mother, Su Zhen Chen, said through an interpreter at a news conference in Chinatown. Private Chen was her only child.
Private Chen's parents - his father has worked as a chef in Chinese restaurants, and his mother as a seamstress - live in an East Village housing project.
Private Chen was deployed to Afghanistan in August after completing basic training in April.
In a journal he kept while in basic training and in letters, Private Chen mentioned that other soldiers teased him because of his ethnicity. "Everyone here jokingly makes fun of me for being Asian," he said in one letter to his parents. In another letter two days later, he wrote, "People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time; I'm running out of jokes to come back at them."
At a news conference on Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesman would not discuss details about the case, but he acknowledged that hazing, while against the rules of the military, occasionally occurred among its members. He insisted that the armed forces had a zero-tolerance policy toward it.
"We treat each other with respect and dignity, or we go home," the spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, said. "There's a justice system in place to deal with it. And that's what we're seeing here in the case of Private Chen."
The accused soldiers, all members of a unit based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska, included an officer and seven enlisted soldiers, the military said in a statement. Lawyers for the eight could not be reached for comment on the Army's charges.
The case is among very few from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts in which American soldiers have been implicated in the deaths of fellow soldiers.
In October, several Marines were ordered court-martialed for their roles in the death of an Asian-American Marine, Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, from California, who killed himself in April in Afghanistan after being subjected to what military prosecutors said was hazing.
Until Wednesday, the military had said little publicly about the investigation into Private Chen's death, and in the vacuum of information, suspicion flourished among relatives, friends and advocates in the Asian-American community over whether American military investigators were planning to whitewash the inquiry.
But military officials insisted all along that they were conducting a thorough investigation and that its integrity depended on the tight control of information.
Sgt. First Class Alan G. Davis, a spokesman for the military's headquarters in southern Afghanistan, said Wednesday that there had been two investigations into Private Chen's death: one conducted by the regional command, which resulted in the charges, and one by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, which is continuing.
The eight suspects, who have not been formally detained, are still stationed in Afghanistan, though on a different base and under increased supervision, another military spokesman, Lt. Col. Dave Connolly, said.
Private Chen's relatives and advocates for the family said the charges caught them by surprise.
"I didn't think the case would move this fast," said Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation. Reaching for a Chinese aphorism, he added, "You cannot wrap a fire with paper: the truth will come out."
"We are cautiously optimistic about today's news," he said, adding that the authorities "have to create an atmosphere in which Asian-Americans feel safe."
Elizabeth R. OuYang, president of the New York chapter of OCA, a civil rights group that has been working with the family, vowed to continue pressing military officials on the case. She has helped keep the matter in the public eye by organizing a prayer vigil and a march in memory of Private Chen. She has also met at the Pentagon with Army officials to emphasize the importance of the case and to demand measures to improve the treatment of Asians in the military.
The eight charged in the case are members of the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division. Five of the soldiers - Staff Sgt. Andrew J. Van Bockel, Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb, Sgt. Jeffrey T. Hurst, Specialist Thomas P. Curtis and Specialist Ryan J. Offutt - were accused of involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide and assault consummated by battery, among other crimes, the military said.
First Lt. Daniel J. Schwartz, the only officer among the eight defendants, was charged with dereliction of duty, the statement said.
Sgt. Travis F. Carden was charged with assault and maltreatment, and Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas was charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement, the statement said.
Matthew Rosenberg contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Noah Rosenberg from New York.
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9) Bradley Manning: Troubled Young American Hero
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
22 December 11
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/9037-bradley-manning-troubled-young-american-hero
Reader Supported News | Perspective
here is no ignoring the fact that Bradley Manning is a troubled young man who needed help in the months leading up to his deployment, and during the time he was in Iraq. The government and the defense highlighted his outbursts during his Article 32 hearing. They also presented evidence that Manning had self-diagnosed himself as having a gender identity disorder.
The government is attempting to discredit Manning, while the defense is portraying the Army as negligent for allowing him continued access to classified material after several emotional outbursts. That is the kind of story the corporate media would like us to focus on. But, whether or not Manning was emotionally stable only serves as a distraction from the real story.
Did the US military commit atrocities in Iraq? Would Manning have been guilty of aiding in those atrocities if he had looked the other way? Is Bradley Manning a hero for exposing the abuses of our government and other countries?
We must not let Manning's personal flaws overshadow the results of his heroic action. The State Department cables he is accused of leaking were the spark for the Arab Spring, which has led to movements around the world for economic equality.
Manning's Article 32 hearings focused on the government's case. Historically, the defense only counters the evidence presented by the prosecution, and waits until trial to present its real defense. We should withhold judgment until we hear the true motivation for his actions.
The leaking of the "Collateral Damage" video had nothing to do with his sexual orientation. The leaking of the State Department cables had nothing to do with his mental stability. The real question is: Why didn't others blow the whistle on the crimes being committed in Iraq and other countries throughout the world?
Remember, when Nazis were tried for war crimes, following orders and honoring a security clearance were not valid defenses. Bradley Manning did the right thing; those who honored their clearances and remained silent are the real criminals.
I attended three days of Manning's Article 32 hearing, and not once did I hear anything about the criminal activities that Manning shed light on. Let us hope that if this case goes to a court martial we hear more about Manning's true motives and less about his emotional problems, problems that need treatment - not ridicule.
Bradley Manning is a hero, a hero with flaws. Like every other hero, he is only human.
Scott Galindez is the Political Director of Reader Supported News, and the co-founder of Truthout.
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10) Poor are quicker to show compassion
Science Blog
December 20, 2011
http://scienceblog.com/51146/poor-are-quicker-to-show-compassion/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogrssfeed+%28ScienceBlog.com%29
Emotional differences between the rich and poor, as depicted in such Charles Dickens classics as "A Christmas Carol" and "A Tale of Two Cities," may have a scientific basis. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that people in the lower socio-economic classes are more physiologically attuned to suffering, and quicker to express compassion than their more affluent counterparts.
By comparison, the UC Berkeley study found that individuals in the upper middle and upper classes were less able to detect and respond to the distress signals of others. Overall, the results indicate that socio-economic status correlates with the level of empathy and compassion that people show in the face of emotionally charged situations.
"It's not that the upper classes are coldhearted," said UC Berkeley social psychologist Jennifer Stellar, lead author of the study published online on Dec. 12 in the journal, Emotion. "They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven't had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives."
Stellar and her colleagues' findings challenge previous studies that have characterized lower-class people as being more prone to anxiety and hostility in the face of adversity.
"These latest results indicate that there's a culture of compassion and cooperation among lower-class individuals that may be born out of threats to their wellbeing," Stellar said.
It has not escaped the researchers' attention that the findings come at a time of rising class tension, expressed in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Rather than widen the class divide, Stellar said she would like to see the findings promote understanding of different class cultures. For example, the findings suggest that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds may thrive better in cooperative settings than their upper-class counterparts.
"Upper-class individuals appear to be more self-focused, they've grown up with more freedom and autonomy," she said. "They may do better in an individualist, competitive environment."
More than 300 ethnically diverse young adults were recruited for the UC Berkeley study, which was divided into three experiments that used three separate groups of participants. Because all the volunteers were college undergraduates, their class identification - lower class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class or upper class - was based on parental income and education.
In the first experiment, 148 young adults were rated on how frequently and intensely they experience such emotions as joy, contentment, pride, love, compassion, amusement and awe. In addition, they reported how much they agreed with such statements as "When I see someone hurt or in need, I feel a powerful urge to take care of them," and "I often notice people who need help." Compassion was the only positive emotion reported at greater levels by lower-class participants, the study found.
In the second experiment, a new group of 64 participants viewed two videos: an instructional video on construction and an emotionally charged video about families who are coping with the challenges of having a child with cancer. Participants showed no differences while watching the "neutral" instructional video, and all reported feeling sad in response to the video about families of cancer patients. However, members of the lower class reported higher levels of compassion and empathy as distinct from sorrow.
The researchers also monitored the heart rates of participants as they watched the neutral and emotionally charged videos. Lower-class participants showed greater decreases in heart rate as they watched the cancer family video than upper-class participants.
"One might assume that watching someone suffering would cause stress and raise the heart rate," Stellar said. "But we have found that, during compassion, the heart rate lowers as if the body is calming itself to take care of another person."
Finally, a new set of 106 participants was randomly divided into pairs and pitted against one another in mock interviews for a lab manager position. To further raise the stress level in interviews, those who performed best were to win a cash prize. Post-interview reports from the participants showed that the lower-class interviewees perceived their rivals to be feeling greater amounts of stress, anxiety and embarrassment and as a result reported more compassion and sympathy for their competitors. Conversely, upper-class participants were less able to detect emotional distress signals in their rivals.
"Recognizing suffering is the first step to responding compassionately. The results suggest that it's not that upper classes don't care, it's that they just aren't as good at perceiving stress or anxiety," Stellar said.
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11) Iraq Combat Veteran Dan Choi Forcibly Ousted, Barred from Bradley Manning Hearing at Ft. Meade
DemocracyNow! Broadcast Interview
December 21, 2011
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/21/iraq_combat_veteran_dan_choi_forcibly
Former U.S. Army Lt. Dan Choi attended the pretrial military hearing for accused Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning this weekend but was barred from returning on Monday. Military security handcuffed Choi, pinned him to the ground and ripped off his rank. The military says Choi was heckling, but Choi maintains he never disrupted the proceedings. He is an Iraq War combat veteran, supporter of Manning, and an openly gay servicemember who was discharged in 2010 under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. "What Bradley Manning did, as a gay American, as a soldier, a good soldier-in fact, the only soldier in his entire chain of command who did the right thing, and suffers the consequences unjustly-there's no choice but for patriotic Americans to sit there and support Bradley Manning in the dignity and full honor of the uniform of service," Choi says. [includes rush transcript]
Filed under Bradley Manning, Wikileaks, LGBT, civil rights
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We're joined here in the studio by former Lieutenant Dan Choi, who attended the trial this weekend but was barred from returning on Monday. Lieutenant Choi is an Iraq combat veteran and supporter of Bradley Manning. He's also an openly gay servicemember who was discharged in 2010 under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Welcome, Lieutenant.
LT. DAN CHOI: It's great to be with you, and it's great to be with you in the uniform of my country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Can you explain, Dan, what happened on Monday at the trial?
LT. DAN CHOI: I went to the main gate with Dan Ellsberg, and we were stopped for about 10 minutes, delayed from entering the base. They knew that we were going there for trial. I had been there the few days beforehand, in full uniform. This is the uniform that I was wearing. And I was accosted as to why I'm wearing the uniform if I was discharged, that I'm not allowed to wear the uniform. And I argued with them, said, "Take a look at the Army Regulation 670-1, as well as Schacht v. The United States, 1970. I have the right to wear this uniform." And he said, "I'm not trying to fight you." And I said, "Well, I will pick a fight with you, because I know the law, and it's my right to be there to support Bradley Manning." He let us in-
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Why did they say that you can't wear the uniform? What kind of law were they invoking?
LT. DAN CHOI: I think-well, the real reason, I think, is they're angry that anybody who's a combat veteran of the Iraq War, who served in our military, who's proud of their service, would dare sit in support of Bradley Manning. And it was a way for the military public affairs office to control the message and the images that go out to the public. I think that's the real reason. And so, as I've noticed throughout many times, throughout not only this ordeal and this event, but throughout my military service and watching the military now from the outside, they do find other ways to punish those who they disagree with.
AMY GOODMAN: So, on Monday, exactly what happened when you tried to go in? They handcuffed you?
LT. DAN CHOI: When I tried to go in, they said that I was heckling the hearing, which was impossible because I wasn't in the hearing that morning. The past two days I was absolutely quiet and peaceful, adding to the decorum and the dignity of the event. But they said that I was heckling, and so they ejected me. They said, "Get out of here."
AMY GOODMAN: Get out of the base.
LT. DAN CHOI: Yes. Major Sides and a U.S. marshal named John, they said that I was disruptive, at which point they handcuffed me, and then they high-tackled me to the ground, pinned me down. And I have a picture of-and actually x-rays that I took the night of-that show that I was bruised in my left leg. I was given this because of my wrist sprain.
AMY GOODMAN: You're wearing a wrist brace.
LT. DAN CHOI: Yes. I was-I'm actually supposed to wear it on both, but it's really the right wrist that was damaged the most. And this is my rank, that doesn't go back on anymore. So-
AMY GOODMAN: Because?
LT. DAN CHOI: Because they assaulted me. And when they ripped off the rank, it was-I don't know if it was intentional. I wasn't watching everything.
AMY GOODMAN: They ripped the rank off your shoulder?
LT. DAN CHOI: As they were throwing me to the ground, and I was handcuffed, at which point they said I was assaulting them. I was yelling, "I have a right to be here. There's no charge. There's no reason why you should be assaulting me and using excessive force. There's no reason why you should be invidiously prior restraining me. There's no reason. I know my rights. This is an open trial." And they said, "You're assaulting us, and we're kicking you out." So then they said, "You're not allowed to go back for the entire duration of the pretrial."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, I just want to turn to the statement that the military issued, the statement which defended its decision for handcuffing Lieutenant Dan Choi and ejecting him from Fort Meade, where Bradley Manning's pretrial hearing was taking place. The statement said, quote, "Mr. Choi violated the terms of the hearing by being disruptive, and calling out ranks and names of individuals in uniform supporting the procedures. The security detail directed him to refrain from such conduct. When he continued his disruptive behavior, he was asked to leave, which he refused. During the process of escorting him from the facility, Mr. Choi was combative, which required the security personnel to restrain him for his own safety, and the safety of the escorts. Mr. Choi was escorted off the installation and advised he could not return to Fort Meade for the rest of the day." Dan, can you...
LT. DAN CHOI: We've heard some of that same language before used on Bradley Manning, that for his own safety, we have to strip him naked for months and have him sleep in the cold without any covering, while being watched and humiliated. We've heard the same arguments used and recycled again. And looking at the military now, the way that they treat me-I've been through a lot in the military, being discharged under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the oppression of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." But I'll tell you, sitting in that trial over all this entire ordeal this weekend, America has not seen a lower moment.
And when you talk about the reason why there's a trial, to begin with, whether the American people have a right to the truth, you see the public affairs state-run media organization telling the American people absolute misleading half-truths about what happened. I wasn't in the hearing. I wasn't heckling anybody. I've never heckled anybody. I'm a public speaker. I find it very difficult when people do heckle. But I have been adding to the decorum of the trial, and I don't see why they did that to me. So they're finding ways to spin, spin, spin, and that's exactly what this show trial is all about.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about why, Lieutenant Dan Choi, you've chosen to stand up for Bradley Manning? When did his case come to your attention?
LT. DAN CHOI: Well, Bradley Manning and I actually served in the same unit, the 10th Mountain Division. This is my combat patch. And we're not at the same time in the same unit, but I deployed with some of his same supervisors. So, to sit there in trial and to see Master Sergeant Adkins essentially plead the Fifth and see some of the other commanders worried more about their rank and status and privilege and what happens to their pension after they get discharge or a demotion, you sit there in disgust, because you realize that the oath that Bradley Manning, Master Sergeant Adkins and everybody up and down the chain of command, including President Barack Obama, took, did not say that "I promise to gain a certain rank or a certain stature." They said, "I promise to defend the Constitution." And when you see our Constitution under attack-and to quote Barack Obama, "the rule of law," a nation of laws, under attack, habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial-what ever happened to "innocent before proven guilty"? Just because you're in the military doesn't mean that you give up what it means to be American. And so, when I stand for Bradley Manning, I don't stand for him because we share the identity as gay Americans, but I support him because he's a good soldier. We are trained in the Geneva and Hague Conventions, the rules of law, the law of land warfare, as well as the United States Code on war crimes. It is an ethical responsibility, and therefore a dereliction of duty, when you see a war crime, to stay silent.
One thing about the gay community-I know you brought this up to Ed, and we've been talking about this quite a bit with gay groups-I'm a little bit shocked and disappointed that a lot of the gay groups have not spoken up for Bradley Manning. One thing about the gay community, our community is the only community in the entire world that bases its membership, the price of admission, on integrity and telling the truth about ourselves, essentially declassifying something that people deserve to know, that's important to our soul, our community, exactly who we are. And when we hide that, that's what damages not only the safety, but the reputation and the security, of our entire society. So, when we think about that, the gay community, no race, no nationality and no religion stipulates that you must have integrity for membership. What Bradley Manning did, as a gay American, as a soldier, a good soldier-in fact, the only soldier in his entire chain of command who did the right thing, and suffers the consequences, unjustly-there's no choice but for patriotic Americans to sit there and support Bradley Manning in the dignity and full honor of the uniform of service.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: What do you think the effect was, though, of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on Bradley Manning while he served in the military?
LT. DAN CHOI: Well, the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and the current ban on transgender servicemembers and transgender service, is absolutely oppressive at its core.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: There's a ban, an outright ban?
LT. DAN CHOI: Yes. And so, that's why-I know in the past interviews we've said "queers in the military," and that's actually not true, because people with certain gender identities or gender expressions are not allowed in the military yet, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repealed based on sexual orientation only. So, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" forced me, as well as 14,000 others, out of the military. And having to hide the truth of who you are upsets you and disrupts you at your core, because it goes against everything that you've learned. The very first day at West Point, we learned the Honor Code: "You will not lie. You will not tolerate liars." How simple is that? But for gay people, they said, "But you must lie. You must deceive. When people ask you about a girlfriend, you must say, 'I'm just a confirmed bachelor,' or, you know, 'I have a girlfriend,' and pronoun switch." That lying, that enforced lying, goes against all of the codes and the conduct creeds that we learned in the military.
AMY GOODMAN: Now that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has been lifted, will you reapply to the military?
LT. DAN CHOI: You know, it gets harder and harder every time the-every time I go through this. And I have to admit that it's been a roller coaster, and I've been asked many times-by you, you know, in some of the interviews we've had. And I don't hate America. I think America is still worth protecting and fighting for. But I do feel that it is our responsibility as soldiers and as veterans to speak up against unjust wars. And I do believe that we need moral soldiers to join the military. And this is a message to all of the gay activists, the queer activists out there who disagree with the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I think we do need people of all sexual orientations, if there was a just war, to protect our country. That's what equality means. Equality doesn't mean that we prevent, as a community, some of our members from joining certain professions. I was trained to protect our country, if need be. And there are such things as just wars. We just haven't been on the right side of them recently.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: You don't count Iraq as a just war then?
LT. DAN CHOI: No, I don't. I think it was an illegal war, and I am ashamed of what happened. Furthermore, as we move forward as a country-you know, it's very interesting that the Bradley Manning trial only started-the pretrial circus, show, theater, only started after the withdrawal of troops. It's very interesting why he was held for a year and a half without charges-still, actually, without formal charges. And it makes me wonder where we're going as a country to heal from the Iraq War and "Collateral Murder" and all of the videos that Bradley Manning did the righteous and moral and fulfilling his duty to prevent future war crimes. We realize that when we're thinking-
AMY GOODMAN: If in fact he did what the military says he did.
LT. DAN CHOI: If in fact he did. But if he did, he is a hero, absolutely. And he deserves a medal, not incarceration. So I will tell you this. When we move forward as a country, talking about a just peace or a transcendent peace, we have to realize that without truth there cannot be justice. And without justice, there cannot be peace.
AMY GOODMAN: Former Lieutenant Dan Choi, Iraq combat veteran, supporter of Private Bradley Manning, also an openly gay servicemember who was discharged in 2010 under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Bradley Manning has been in prison for the last year and a half. He is undergoing a military pretrial hearing right now at Fort Meade, Maryland, where Lieutenant Dan Choi was just ejected from.
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12) Fiscal Crisis Takes Toll on Health of Greeks
By SUZANNE DALEY
December 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/europe/greeks-reeling-from-health-care-cutbacks.html?ref=world
PERAMA, Greece - The free clinic here opened about a year ago to serve illegal immigrants. But these days, it is mostly caring for Greeks like Vassiliki Ragamb, who was sitting in the waiting room hoping to get insulin for her young diabetic son.
Four days earlier, she had run out of insulin and, without insurance and unable to pay for more, she had gone from drugstore to drugstore, pleading for at least enough for a few days. It took her three hours to find a pharmacist who was willing to help.
"I tried a lot of them," she said, gazing at the floor.
Greece used to have an extensive public health care system that pretty much ensured that everybody was covered for everything. But in the last two years, the nation's creditors have pushed hard for dramatic cost savings to cut back the deficit. These measures are taking a brutal toll on the system and on the country's growing numbers of poor and unemployed who cannot afford the new fees and co-payments instituted at public hospitals as part of the far-reaching austerity drive.
At public hospitals, doctors report shortages of all kinds of supplies, from toilet paper to catheters to syringes. Computerized equipment has gone unrepaired and is no longer in use. Nurses are handling four times the patients they should, and wait times for operations - even cancer surgeries - have grown longer.
Access to drugs has also been affected, as some drug manufacturers, owed tens of millions of dollars, are no longer willing to supply Greek hospitals. At the same time pharmacists, afraid that the government might not reimburse them, are asking for cash payments, even from those with insurance.
Many experts say that Greece's public health system was bloated and corrupt and in dire need of reform. But they say also that the cuts have been so deep and have come so fast, that they have hit like a tsunami.
In just two years, the government has cut spending on health care to $17 billion from $19.5 billion - a 13 percent decrease. And under its agreement with its creditors, Greece must find even more health care savings next year - as much as $915 million, government officials said.
At the same time, public health facilities have seen a 25 to 30 percent increase in patients because so many Greeks can no longer afford to visit private clinics.
Dr. Olatz Ugarte, an anesthesiologist at the Saint Savvas Cancer Hospital in Athens, said that breast cancer patients often have to wait three months now to have tumors removed. "Waiting that long can be life or death for these patients," she said.
In a recent letter to the medical journal The Lancet, a team of English researchers warned that a "Greek tragedy" could be in the making, pointing to rising suicide and H.I.V. rates and deterioration of services at hospitals under financial pressure. "In an effort to finance debts," the researchers said, "ordinary people are paying the ultimate price: losing access to care and preventive services, facing higher risks of H.I.V. and sexually transmitted diseases, and in the worst case losing their lives."
At the Perama clinic, which is run by the international nonprofit Doctors of the World, doctors say they are seeing many families that cannot afford bus fare, let alone the new $6.50 fee at public clinics.
Technically, those Greeks who cannot pay are entitled to free care. But the bureaucracy can be overwhelming. Ms. Ragamb, a former hairdresser whose unemployment benefits and health insurance ran out six months ago, said she was still waiting to get the right papers.
The story did not surprise Dr. Liana Mailli, the pediatrician who was seeing Ms. Ragamb's son, Elias. The 3-year-old got a diagnosis of diabetes only a few months ago, after he fell into a coma. Dr. Mailli has heard of such bureaucratic troubles from many patients. Even more often, she said, parents have fallen behind in paying their health insurance contributions, or their employers do not pay and so they are no longer covered.
One development that Dr. Mailli said she found particularly disturbing was that a growing number of children had not had their basic vaccinations.
If nothing is done, she said, polio, diphtheria and whooping cough could all return to Greece. "This is such a serious thing," she said. "But these vaccines are expensive."
At the start of its debt crisis, Greece was spending about 6 percent of its G.D.P. on health care - about average for Europe. But the system was far from efficient. It includes many small hospitals and a reliance on expensive brand name drugs.
Moreover, there was widespread corruption. Experts say doctors often had lucrative deals with drug manufacturers that led them to vastly overprescribe, and many expected cash payments on the side for timely and attentive care.
Since the debt crisis began in 2009, the government has frozen hiring, cut salaries and focused on tracking prescriptions and new procurement procedures. About 20 doctors have been arrested for corruption.
But little has gone smoothly.
Government officials acknowledge some problems, but say that the system was simply unsustainable. In the next year, they say, adjustments can be made.
"We have had two years of emphasis on the financial, now we will pass to evaluation," said Nikos Polyzos, the secretary general of the Health Ministry.
But many doctors say the new emphasis on cutting costs has gone too far. In addition to shortages, they say that the supplies they do have are of poor quality. They complain that bugs have been found in new syringes imported from China, sutures fall apart and generic drugs do not seem to do the job. And the hiring freeze has caused such a shortage of nurses, some doctors said, that procedures frequently have to be postponed.
"The whole system is a mess right now," said Dr. Elias Sioras, a cardiologist and a union activist at the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens. "In a six-hour shift, I am seeing 40 patients, which is ridiculous. It makes my work more difficult, but it is also much worse for the patients. And a lot of things that were covered, especially tests, are not covered anymore and the patients don't have the money to pay."
Dr. Sioras said that 11,000 patients used to have bypass surgery in public hospitals each year, but that number fell to 9,000 last year. "The way I see it, at least 2,000 people needed a bypass and didn't get it," he said. "I have no idea where they are. They could be dead."
Some experts, including Lykourgos Liaropoulos, a health economist at the University of Athens who helped the government design many of its cost-saving measures, say the hospitals were probably performing too many bypass procedures.
But even he questioned the virtual hiring freeze on nurses. "It's one of the areas where the troika got it wrong," he said, referring to the nickname that has been given to Greece's three creditors, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.
Access to drugs has also become a problem for many patients. Some pharmaceutical companies - owed millions, or unhappy with the new, lower rates the government plans to pay - have stopped supplying the hospitals. These include the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, which makes cancer drugs not available elsewhere.
And many pharmacists now demand cash payments from patients, unwilling to take the risk of waiting for reimbursements.
The president of the Athens pharmacists' association, Konstantinos Lourantos, said few pharmacists could afford to wait for reimbursements, especially for cancer drugs, which can cost 5,000 euros, or $6,500, a month.
He said he told one client to see if any hospital pharmacies had the drug on hand. But the man later told him he had gone to six hospitals without success. "I have no idea what happened to him," Mr. Lourantos said.
Dimitris Bounias and Nikolas Leontopoulos contributed reporting.
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13) Japan Panel Cites Failure in Tsunami
By HIROKO TABUCHI
December 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/asia/report-condemns-japans-response-to-nuclear-accident.html?ref=world
TOKYO - From inspectors' abandoning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as it succumbed to disaster to a delay in disclosing radiation leaks, Japan's response to the nuclear accident caused by the March tsunami fell tragically short, a government-appointed investigative panel said on Monday.
The failures, which the panel said worsened the extent of the disaster, were outlined in a 500-page interim report detailing Japan's response to the calamitous events that unfolded at the Fukushima plant after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out all of the site's power.
Three of the plant's six reactors overheated and their fuel melted down, and hydrogen explosions blew the tops off three reactor buildings, leading to a major leak of radiation at levels not seen since Chernobyl in 1986.
The panel attacked the use of the term "soteigai," or "unforeseen," that plant and government officials used both to describe the unprecedented scale of the disaster and to explain why they were unable to stop it. Running a nuclear power plant inherently required officials to foresee the unforeseen, said the panel's chairman, Yotaro Hatamura, a professor emeritus in engineering at the University of Tokyo.
"There was a lot of talk of soteigai, but that only bred perceptions among the public that officials were shirking their responsibilities," Mr. Hatamura said.
According to the report, a final version of which is due by mid-2012, the authorities grossly underestimated the risks tsunamis posed to the plant. The charges echoed previous criticism made by nuclear critics and acknowledged by the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power.
Tokyo Electric had assumed that no wave would reach more than about 20 feet. The tsunami hit at more than twice that height.
Officials of Japan's nuclear regulator present at the plant during the quake quickly left the site, and when ordered to return by the government, they proved of little help to workers racing to restore power and find water to cool temperatures at the plant, the report said.
Also, the workers left at Fukushima Daiichi had not been trained to handle multiple failures, and lacked a clear manual to follow, the report said. A communications breakdown meant that workers at the plant had no clear sense of what was happening.
In particular, an erroneous assumption that an emergency cooling system was working led to hours of delay in finding alternative ways to draw cooling water to the plant, the report said. All the while, the system was not working, and the uranium fuel rods at the cores were starting to melt.
And devastatingly, the government failed to make use of data on the radioactive plumes released from the plant to warn local towns and direct evacuations, the report said. The failure allowed entire communities to be exposed to harmful radiation, the report said.
"Authorities failed to think of the disaster response from the perspective of victims," Mr. Hatamura said.
But the interim report seems to leave ultimate responsibility for the disaster ambiguous. Even if workers had realized that the emergency cooling system was not working, they might not have been able to prevent the meltdowns.
The panel limited itself to suggesting that a quicker response might have mitigated the core damage and lessened the release of radiation into the environment.
"The aim of this panel is not to demand responsibility," Mr. Hatamura said. He also said the panel's findings should not affect debate on the safety of Japan's four dozen other nuclear reactors.
Taro Umemura contributed reporting.
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14) Rare but Grudging Judicial About-Face in Bias Case
By ADAM LIPTAK
December 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/us/tyson-discrimination-verdict-restored-by-appeals-court.html?ref=us
"It's a nice Christmas present, isn't it?" said U. W. Clemon, Alabama's first black federal judge.
Mr. Clemon, who stepped down from the bench in 2009 after three decades of service, was talking about an extraordinary about-face this month from the federal appeals court in Atlanta. He was home with a cold, but he sounded delighted to have played a part in persuading the court that some words still carry the sting of oppression, even in the modern South.
"The court now understands," Mr. Clemon said, "the unwillingness of black men to go back to being called 'boy.' "
Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that there were no racial overtones when a white manager at a Tyson chicken plant in Gadsden, Ala., called adult black men working there "boy."
"The usages were conversational" and "nonracial in context," the majority wrote in a 2-to-1 decision that overturned a jury verdict of about $1.4 million in an employment discrimination case brought by a black Tyson employee, John Hithon.
The decision prompted Mr. Clemon and 10 other civil rights leaders to file a brief. Among the signatories were giants of the civil rights movement like the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who survived beatings and bombings in Alabama and who died in October, and Andrew Young, a former mayor of Atlanta and ambassador to the United Nations.
The brief urged the court to reconsider, making the case that "boy" retains its venom. For evidence, the brief drew on personal experiences, history, literary classics like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Native Son," and the writings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Boy," the brief said, is either a proxy for or "at the very least a close cousin" of the most charged racial epithet.
On Dec. 16, more than a year after the initial decision, the appeals court reversed course. The new ruling was opaque and grudging, but Mr. Clemon said he welcomed it, particularly since it is very unusual for a federal appeals court panel simply to change its mind. "I don't recall it ever happening," said Mr. Clemon, who graduated from law school in 1968.
Judge Edward E. Carnes wrote the new decision, now for a unanimous panel. He said the court had reconsidered the evidence in the case and "we now reach a different conclusion."
Stephen B. Bright, the president of the Southern Center for Human Rights, was less magnanimous than Mr. Clemon. He said the case demonstrated "how judges manipulate facts and law to make a case come out the way they want it to."
"The new opinion flatly contradicts the first one in several places," Mr. Bright said.
The new decision followed unflattering news coverage of the earlier one and might have been prompted by the possibility of a rebuke from the full 11th Circuit.
On the other hand, the panel had dug in its heels in the face of earlier criticism in the long-running case, including from the Supreme Court.
In 2005, for instance, the appeals court said the meaning of "boy" depended on whether there was an adjective attached.
"The use of 'boy' when modified by a racial classification like 'black' or 'white' is evidence of discriminatory intent," the court said. But "the use of 'boy 'alone is not evidence of discrimination."
The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the 2005 decision the following year. "The speaker's meaning may depend on various factors including context, inflection, tone of voice, local custom and historical usage," the justices said in an unsigned opinion.
That admonition was rejected by the 11th Circuit panel last year. Then it was embraced this month, though with little enthusiasm.
"The verdict could have gone either way," Judge Carnes wrote, "and it went Hithon's way."
In the end, the new decision upheld a compensatory award to Mr. Hithon of about $365,000. But the decision struck down a $1 million award of punitive damages, saying the manager in question, who supervised 1,400 workers, was not high enough in Tyson's corporate hierarchy for his actions to be attributed to the company, which in any event had a policy against discrimination.
A Tyson spokesman did not respond to two requests for comment.
Judge Carnes thought it worthwhile to drop a footnote criticizing the civil rights leaders' brief, saying it had made a minor error in reciting the facts of the case. "Although we welcome amicus curiae briefs that are helpful, misstatements of fact are not helpful," Judge Carnes wrote, using the Latin term for friend of the court.
Judge Carnes also took a swipe at Mr. Hithon's trial lawyer, who had elicited testimony at trial about the meaning of "boy."
"You know," Anthony Ash, a black Tyson worker, testified in 2007, "being in the South, and everybody know being in the South, a white man says 'boy' to a black man, that's an offensive word."
"You might as well use the N-word if you are going to say that," Mr. Ash added.
Then the lawyer uttered the word itself. Saying it, Judge Carnes wrote, was "an improper attempt to inflame the jury."
There are classier ways to own up to mistakes. Some judges like to quote Justice Felix Frankfurter, as Judge Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit did when he changed his mind in 1994 in a libel suit against this newspaper.
"Wisdom too often never comes," Justice Frankfurter wrote, "and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late."
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15) Japan Recommends Temporary State Control for Tokyo Electric
"The order came after Tokyo Electric Power requested ¥689.4 billion, or $8.8 billion, in government aid to help pay for its response to the nuclear accident at its Fukushima site." [I.e., Japanese tax-payers will foot the bill...bw]
By HIROKO TABUCHI
December 27, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/business/global/japan-recommends-temporary-state-control-for-tokyo-electric.html?adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1325008804-gCzfYdFyNH5uUzTo1OESfw
TOKYO - The Japanese government told the operator of the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Tuesday to consider accepting temporary state control in return for a much-needed injection of public funds, in effect proposing an interim nationalization of the struggling utility.
The order came after Tokyo Electric Power requested ¥689.4 billion, or $8.8 billion, in government aid to help pay for its response to the nuclear accident at its Fukushima site. The calamity, caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people and led to a massive radiation leak.
The utility may have to pay ¥4.5 trillion in compensation payments by 2013, a government panel said in October, a sum that threatens to render the company insolvent.
The company will also most likely be forced to decommission all six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi at a huge cost, while the future of four other reactors at a second site is also on the line after a national outcry over the disaster.
Meeting with Tokyo Electric executives Tuesday, the Japanese trade minister, Yukio Edano, urged the utility to consider options including ceding control to the government.
Tokyo Electric "should not exclude various possibilities, including temporary state control" in coming up with a comprehensive turnaround plan, promised for next spring, Mr. Edano said. He asked the utility "to work toward restoring a company in 5 to 10 years that can win back public trust."
Still, it remains unclear whether the government will force changes that experts have long called for at Tokyo Electric, also known as Tepco, like sweeping changes to management or a breakup of the monopoly the utility enjoys over electricity generation and distribution in the Tokyo area.
The details of a possible government takeover also remain murky.
A new government-backed fund may buy preferred stock in Tokyo Electric, effectively nationalizing the utility to avoid insolvency, the Yomiuri newspaper reported this month.
The government may ask banks to lend ¥1 trillion to the company, Yomiuri said.
Mr. Edano refused to comment on details, saying nothing had been decided.
Tokyo Electric has already been granted initial funding of about ¥900 billion from the government-backed fund to help compensate victims. The fund is financed with taxpayers' money, as well as from contributions from major electricity companies in Japan. In theory, Tokyo Electric would repay any money it receives.
Tokyo Electric's president, Toshio Nishizawa, said the company would seriously consider various possibilities for the company. The company wanted to ensure that it "never let such an accident happen again," he said.
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