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President Obama is schedule to speak in S.F. at an exclusive luncheon for 200 large donors ($7500/plate) The public is not invited but many are planning to protest.
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011, 11:00 a.m.
Meet at 3rd & Howard Streets, San Francisco at 11:00 A.M.
Many groups are planning to be there rallying and protesting.....Occupy SF, Single Payer, the Anti-War/Anti-drones, Anti-torture groups, Tar Sands, etc.
We are the 99%. Let's all show up and demand: Human Needs, Not War and Greed.
Mark your calendar.....let's unify our efforts. Maybe a big direct action is in the making......
A $7,500 a plate campaign fundraiser, and Endless Wars costing trillions.......when so many basic human necessities and social services are stripped away????
NOT IN OUR NAME, NOT IN OUR CITY, NOT IN OUR COUNTRY! WE ARE THE 99%!!!
Occupy San Francisco
Friday, October 21, 2011
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Educational Circle
Justin Herman Plaza
This week - research on Monsanto
Saturday, October 22, 2011
3:00 p.m.
Weekly March
gather at Justin Herman Plaza
Monday, October 24, 2011
10:30 a.m.
Steuart and Market Streets
(Embarcadero BART)
Interfaith Clergy Solidarity
Occupy S.F. & Occupy Wall Street
To get updates, please check this Facebook event page:
Interfaith Clergy Solidarity Occupy Wall Street SF
There is a 24/hr presence/protest at the Federal Reserve, 101 Market St., S.F.
The OccupySF encampment is at Justin Herman Plaza
General Assembly (GA) @ Justin Herman Plaza
For Info contact: sf@worldcantwait.org
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We Are the 99 Percent
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?
OccupyWallSt.org
Occupytogether.org
wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
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The Banks are Made of Marble
A Song by Les Rice (Written 1948 or 1949)*
I've traveled round this country
From shore to shining shore
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw
I saw the weary farmer
Plowing sod and loam
l heard the auction hammer
A knocking down his home
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the farmer sweated for
l saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore
l heard the bosses saying
Got no work for you no more
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the seaman sweated for
I saw the weary miner
Scrubbing coal dust from his back
I heard his children cryin
Got no coal to heat the shack
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the miner sweated for
I've seen my brothers working
Throughout this mighty land
l prayed we'd get together
And together make a stand
Final Chorus
Then we'd own those banks of marble
With a guard at every door
And we'd share those vaults of silver
That we have sweated for
—Common Dreams, October 22, 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/22-0
*Notes
In the notes to this song on Pete Seeger's 1959 Folkways LP 'American Industrial Songs' Irwin Silber wrote:
Les Rice, the composer of this song, is a New York State apple farmer and one-time president of the Ulster County chapter of the Farmers Union. His songs have made him well-known to farmers throughout the northeast. Perhaps his most well-known composition is "Banks of Marble" which achieved great popularity among union members throughout the country and even in Canada, where new verses have been found.
This song, written around 1948-49. deals with the farmer's perennial problem of "parity" and how it affects the farmer's life.
'I'm sixty per cent an American, I'm sixty per cent a man. That's what parity says I am, That's the law of the land. Now, do I work sixty per cent of each day? Eat sixty per cent of my meals? And does my truck take me into town on sixty per cent of it's wheels?
Now will my chicks be content to eat just sixty per cent of their mash? And will the middleman give my throat just sixty per cent of a slash? Now all you workers in city and town, I know your budget's a mess; But when you get down to that last lousy buck, remember I've forty cents less!'
The song has gained new resonance since the 2008-2009 financial meltdown!
http://unionsong.com/u024.html
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Drop All Charges on the 'Occupy Wall Street' Arrestees!
Stop Police Attacks & Arrests! Support 'Occupy Wall Street'!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://bailoutpeople.org/dropchargesonoccupywallstarrestees.shtml to send email messages to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC City Council, NYPD, the NY Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the NY Legislature, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, members of the media YOU WANT ALL CHARGES DROPPED ON THE 'OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTEES!
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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NATO/G8 protests in Chicago.
United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNAC, along with other organizations and activists, has formed a coalition to help organize protests in Chicago during the week of May 15 - 22 while NATO and G8 are holding their summit meetings. The new coalition was formed at a meeting of 163 people representing 73 different organization in Chicago on August 28 and is called Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANGATE). For a report on the Chicago meeting, click here: http://nepajac.org/chicagoreport.htm
To add your email to the new CANGATE listserve, send an email to: cangate-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
To have your organization endorse the NATO/G8 protest, please click here:
https://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html
Click here to hear audio of the August 28 meeting:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/54145
Click here for the talk by Marilyn Levin, UNAC co-coordinator at the August 28 meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tHQ7ilDJ8&NR=1
Click here for Pat Hunts welcome to the meeting and Joe Iosbaker's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNGcnBGGfI
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UNAC Conference.
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) conference originally scheduled for November, 11-13, 2011, has been rescheduled for March 23-25, 2012, in order to tie in to organizing efforts for building massive protests at the NATO/G-8 Summits in Chicago, May 15-22, and to have sufficient time to generate an action program for the next stage of building a mass movement for social change.
Organizations are invited to endorse this conference by clicking here:
http://www.jotform.com/form/12685942513
Donations are needed for bringing international speakers and to subsidize attendance of students and low income participants. Contributions will be accepted at www.UNACpeace.org.
For the initial conference flyer, click here:
http://nepajac.org/conferenceflyer.pdf
Click here to donate to UNAC:
https://nationalpeaceconference.org/Donate.html
Click here for the Facebook UNAC group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_157059221012587&ap=1
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The Call for the 16th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation
Saturday, October 22,2011
12:00 NOON
3rd Street and Palou
San Francisco
(Endorse this call, forward to others. Return endorsements to oct22bayarea@gmail.com or call 510 206-0742)
Across the U.S., Black, Latino, and poor neighborhoods are treated like occupied territory by increasingly militarized armies of law enforcement. People are criminalized and brutalized for their perceived status - socioeconomic, immigration, mental health, and/or racial, gender, or sexual identity. People living in our communities, especially youth, are routinely stopped, harassed, beaten, and even killed.
--In Chicago, the home of the first Black president, police have shot 44 people so far this year, mostly youth of color, including 13-year-old Jimmell Cannon, who was shot eight times.
--NYPD continues to stop hundreds of thousands of youth of color every year for the most minimal suspicion, fewer than 10 percent of which result in arrest, and far fewer in charges or conviction.
--Police nationwide continue to kill with very little consequence. Twelve Miami cops shot at 22-year-old Raymond Herisse 100 times, then threatened those who recorded the incident, destroying their cellphones. A Tucson SWAT team shot at 26-year-old Iraq War veteran Jose Guerena over 70 times, claiming that he fired at them and then leaving him to bleed to death in his home. Both their allegations of gunfire and drug-dealing were later revealed to be false. In New York and New Jersey, at least 27 people have been killed by police since October 22 of last year, while at least 35 people have been killed by law enforcement in Washington State in the last 12 months. The killing of 22-year old Oscar Grant in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009 resulted in a rare conviction for the officer who shot him; however, he was freed after mere months in prison, while people protesting the outrageous verdict were met with police violence and mass arrests. In the weeks following that cop's release, SF cops killed Charles Hill, a 45-year-old homeless man, on a subway platform and 19-year old Kenneth Harding after he supposedly failed to pay a $2 train fare, then left him dying on the pavement in front of dozens of outraged witnesses.
--Police routinely abuse the mentally ill and disabled. Fullerton, CA cops beat to death homeless and mentally ill 27-year-old Kelly Thomas, described by many in the community as "a gentle, childlike soul." In Fresno, CA, 28-year-old Raul Rosas, Jr. died after being tasered by police. His girlfriend said "I didn't call the Fresno County Sheriff to kill him. I called because he needed help with his mental illness." Raul went into cardiac arrest and was denied access to three medical ambulances that showed up to assist.
--Recently enacted anti-immigrant laws have given police in the states of Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama sweeping powers to stop people "suspected" of being undocumented on no other basis than appearance. The hostility and racism stoked by these policies have already culminated in violence, as seen in the killing of 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereka by a border patrol agent and the beating death of 42-year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas at the hands of La Migra. More than one million have been deported under the Obama administration.
--Racially targeted mass incarceration exacerbates the criminalization and marginalization of Black people, playing the same role as the Jim Crow laws that sprang from the Virginia slave codes of 1705. In 1954, 90,000 Black people were incarcerated. Now, over 900,000 Black people are imprisoned, a tenfold increase, while the total U.S. Black population has merely doubled in the same period. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate worldwide, with 2.4 million people in prison.
--Law enforcement continues to harass and sexually assault people, most especially women and the transgendered. According to the website InjusticeEverywhere.com, sexual misconduct was the second most common complaint (following excessive force) against police in 2010, involving 618 cops.
--Young schoolchildren are increasingly labeled and treated as criminals by school security and local police. Eight-year-old Aidan Elliot was peppersprayed and handcuffed by Colorado police, and ten-year-old Sofia Bautista was removed from her elementary school, then taken to a NYPD precinct, handcuffed, and interrogated for hours, while police nationwide continue to use tasers on students as young as six.
Meanwhile, repression against those who take action against injustices continues to escalate. Over a dozen activists with Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for feeding the homeless in public parks. The killings of Oscar Grant, Kenneth Harding, Kelly Thomas, Raymond Herisse, and John T. Williams in Seattle were all caught on video. Now, as if in retaliation against the subsequent public outrage, police in cities and towns nationwide have attacked and arrested people merely for recording their activity, while in Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts, video-recording the police is now explicitly illegal. Cops haven't stopped killing and brutalizing people--they're just making it a crime to record them while they do. Repression against progressive and antiwar activism has intensified: simultaneous FBI raids on activists from numerous antiwar and international solidarity organizations in three U.S. cities took place on September 24, 2010. Twenty-three activists now face serious jail time for refusing to participate in the ensuing grand jury witch hunts that clearly intend to discourage and intimidate would-be dissenters.
These vicious attacks are not going down without opposition. Whether standing up to police violence when it happens, as we saw in the video of Kenneth Harding's shooting, or organizing inspiring prison strikes in Georgia and California, people are uniting to fight back. Determined outcry from people nationwide against the shooting of unarmed men crossing the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has finally brought convictions of the guilty cops and exposed the sort of extensive cover-ups that are routine with police shootings. More and more crimes against the people are being revealed, as we have seen with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' Operation Fast and Furious, which intentionally provided weapons to Mexican drug cartels, and the overturning of over 4,000 convictions of youth in Pennsylvania after it was found that juvenile judge Mark Ciavarella received kickbacks from private for-profit detention centers.
Once we have seen the man behind the curtain, how can we pretend he is not there? One thing we know from years of experience is that when this system has to answer to organized people, it can't easily get away with all the things it's used to doing. Resistance matters.
THE VIOLENCE OF THE COPS, THE COURTS, THE FBI, LA MIGRA, AND HOMELAND SECURITY IS INTENSIFYING. OUR RESISTANCE MUST INTENSIFY AS WELL! Every year, thousands of people nationwide express their outrage, creativity, and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. People speak out and perform, they march in the streets, and more. The October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation embraces and encourages any and all such expressions of people's righteous outrage.
As said by the mother of Gil Barber, gunned down by a deputy in High Point, NC in 2001, "October 22nd is our day." ORGANIZE against these injustices! BREAK DOWN the barriers between communities that these crimes seek to strengthen! MOBILIZE people of all communities in the most visible way...and on October 22, 2011, WEAR BLACK! FIGHT BACK!
JOIN US if there is already an October 22nd event in your area. CREATE one if you are in an area where there is currently no group organizing. For listings of activities in your area, check the websitewww.october22.org.
To start building for an event in your area, email info@october22.org
TO ENDORSE THIS CALL, SIGN BELOW AND MAIL TO: October 22, P.O. Box 2627, New York, NY 10009, along with your tax-deductible donation to the national organizing effort. Suggested donation $15.00 (paid to "IFCO/October 22")
Name: ___________________________________________
Email: ____________________________________________
Organization: __________________________________________________________* (note if for identification purposes only)
Signature: __________________________________________________________
You may also make this endorsement directly on the website www.october22.org
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MEDICARE IN THE CROSS-HAIRS
SOCIAL SECURITY NEXT?
SAN FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL TEACH-IN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011, 7:30-9PM
Plumbers Union Hall, 1621 Market St., S.F.
(5 blocks from Civic Center BART station)
For more information call Carl, San Francisco Labor Council Education Project
415-829-3816
CUTTING MEDICARE-MEDICAID IS THE POLITICIANS CONSENSUS #1 BUDGET TARGET
• President Obama has just proposed a $248 billion cut in Medicare as a starter & another $72 billion in Medicaid cuts.
• Obama indicated September 19 he will support cutting more than $320 Billion if Republicans agree with him on taxes.
• Vice-President Joe Biden last June offered Republicans to cut $400-$500 billion in Medicare-Medicaid
• Republicans last April proposed to raise out-of-pocket costs for Medicare for seniors by $7,000 per year
• The 'Supercommittee' of 12 in Congress said last week they want to cut even more than Obama has proposed. They will report 'how much' more on November 19.
• Congress will vote on how much more in Medicare-Medicaid cuts before December 23.
How Much Will Your Medicare Be Cut?
How Much More Will You Have to Pay?
Come Hear the Facts
Open Discussion to Follow
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President Obama is scheduled to speak in SF this Tuesday, at a $7,500.00 per plate lunch/fundraiser.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 11:00 a.m.
President Obama in San Francisco
At the "W" Hotel
Meet at 3rd & Howard Streets
Many groups are planning to be there rallying and protesting.....Occupy SF, Single Payer, the Anti-War/Anti-drones, Anti-torture groups, Tar Sands, etc.
We are the 99%. Let's all show up and demand: Human Needs, Not War and Greed.
Mark your calendar.....let's unify our efforts. Maybe a big direct action is in the making......
A $7,500 a plate campaign fundraiser, and Endless Wars costing trillions.......when so many basic human necessities and social services are stripped away????
NOT IN OUR NAME, NOT IN OUR CITY, NOT IN OUR COUNTRY! WE ARE THE 99%!!!
Occupy San Francisco
Friday, October 21, 2011
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Educational Circle
Justin Herman Plaza
This week - research on Monsanto
Saturday, October 22, 2011
3:00 p.m.
Weekly March
gather at Justin Herman Plaza
Monday, October 24, 2011
10:30 a.m.
Steuart and Market Streets
(Embarcadero BART)
Interfaith Clergy Solidarity
Occupy S.F. & Occupy Wall Street
To get updates, please check this Facebook event page:
Interfaith Clergy Solidarity Occupy Wall Street SF
There is a 24/hr presence/protest at the Federal Reserve, 101 Market St., S.F.
The OccupySF encampment is at Justin Herman Plaza
General Assembly (GA) @ Justin Herman Plaza
Sunday thru Friday at 6:00pm -- Saturday at 12 Noon
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Rally in SF: Tell Obama to Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline!
Here are the details:
What: President Obama "YES YOU CAN Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline" rally
Where: 3rd St. and Howard St., across from the W Hotel
When: Tuesday, October 25th - 11:30 am
Why: Because Keystone XL isn't CHANGE!
We've been scaling up the fight to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- and now that fight is coming to the Bay Area.
Next week, President Obama is coming to town for a $7500 per plate lunch with his biggest donors at the W hotel in downtown San Francisco. It's a huge opportunity to put the anti-pipeline message right in front of the president, so we're joining our friends at CREDO Action to organize a big rally outside of the event.
RSVP HERE to sign up with our friends at CREDO Action and join the rally next Tuesday:
http://act.credoaction.com/event/events/event.html?event_id=2304&rc=350dotorg_oct25
Signs will be printed up beforehand, RSVP so that we know how many signs to make.
Here at 350.org we've been campaigning to stop the Keystone pipeline for months. From the epic, two-week long civil disobedience action in DC this summer where over 1200 people were arrested, to keeping up the pressure on the President with actions at public appearances, we've been ramping up the pressure from coast to coast.
The Keystone XL pipeline is one of the dirtiest and most dangerous projects on the planet. If built, it would be a fuse to the second-largest store of carbon in the world, the Canadian tar sands -- and potential spills along the pipeline route would threaten the largest freshwater aquifer in the United States.
But here's the good news: we have a fighting chance to stop this pipeline. The decision to build -- or cancel -- the Keystone XL lies with President Obama alone. This time, he can't hide behind a dysfunctional senate or a broken political system.
The campaign is reaching a tipping point: in the last week there was a front-page article in the Washington Post, an amazing video op-ed from Robert Redford in the New York Times, and grassroots activists are taking a stand against the pipeline just about everywhere Obama goes.
Now is our chance to turn up the heat in the Bay Area and show President Obama that this movement is fierce, determined, and getting stronger every day.
Please RSVP to join us next Tuesday and deliver the message to President Obama.
See you in the streets,
Rachel Shiozaki for the whole 350.org team
P.S. Our friends at TarSandsAction.org just released a great new video that chronicles the rise of the movement to stop Keystone XL over the past few months. I really enjoyed it, I hope you will too: www.tarsandsaction.org/rise-stop-keystone-xl
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For Immediate Release
Howard Petrick's "Rambo" - anti-VietNam activist tells his story-Marsh Berkeleyu-Oct 20-Dec 10
The Little Guy Takes on the Pentagon in Howard Petrick's "Rambo: The Missing Years" at The Marsh-Berkeley, Oct 20-Dec 10
The Hilarious and True Story of the Private Who Protested the Viet Nam War - While Still in the Army!
"Howard's show is proof you can fight bureaucracy and win. How he does so is told with aplomb and a certain sense of mischievousness." - Vancouver Fringe
"The potency of the show...springs from Petrick's first-hand account of his anti-Vietnam activism from within the army...this comes with an intriguing authenticity."- Winnipeg Free Press
"Petrick delivers...For 60 minutes he has you laughing through the fear." - Winnipeg Uptown
San Francisco. September 26, 2011. The Vancouver Sun calls San Francisco's Howard Petrick, "a guy who really knows how to get up the nose of the war machine." Petrick's Rambo: The Missing Years is an hilarious - and true - account of the misadventures of a Vietnam-era draftee who frustrates the military brass by asserting his right to organize his fellow GIs against the war. Petrick's Rambo - not to be confused in the least with the Sylvester Stallone action figure - plays at The Marsh-Berkeley, 2120 Alston Way in Berkeley, October 20 through December 10.
The story begins as Petrick (aka 'Hanoi Howie") reports for the draft and refuses to fill out the forms, befuddling the military bureaucracy for the first of many times to come. Yet, during his time of service he maintains an unblemished military record, breaks no rules, and continues to carry out his military duties.
Directed by Mark Kenward and developed with David Ford, the show plays on Thursday and Friday at 7:00 pm and Saturday at 8:30 pm from October 20 to December 10, 2011 (press opening November 4, no performance on Thanksgiving Day) at The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, near Shattuck. The public may visit www.themarsh.org or call 415-282-3055.
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Join Death Penalty Focus, the UC Berkeley Labor Center, and California Labor Federation for a book signing and discussion with William Adler, author of a new biography on Joe Hill, the labor leader and songwriter who was executed in 1915.
In 1914, Joe Hill was convicted of murder in Utah and sentenced to death by firing squad, igniting international controversy. Many believed Hill was innocent, condemned for his association with the Industrial Workers of the World-the radical Wobblies. Now, William M. Adler gives us the first full-scale biography of Joe Hill, and presents evidence that comes as close as one can to definitively exonerating him.
Come learn about this labor activist and the trial that condemned him to death:
WHEN: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 5:30pm
WHEN: The UC Berkeley Labor Center, 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA.
This event is free and signed books will be available for purchase. Click here for more information!
We will see you there!
Ana Zamora
Program Director
Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859 San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415.243.0143 - Fax 415.243.0994 - www.deathpenalty.org
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
La Colmenita, the National Children's Theater of Cuba, US tour 2011
Whether you are 7 or 70, Abracadabra will move you...Come and enjoy!
ABRACADABRA is not a play. It is an act of Justice and Life, written mainly by children who share the dream of freedom. A teacher invites her students to walk the road to the essences, through five very true stories of heroism and virtue.
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Wednesday October 26, 7pm
East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
339 11th Street, Richmond, CA 94801-3105
Suggested donation at the door $10, Children Free
http://eastbaycenter.org/Events/EventsbyDate/tabid/261/Default.aspx
Thursday October 27, 1pm
Esperanza Elementary School, Oakland
Private Presentation
Friday October 28, 7:30pm & Saturday October 29, 2pm
Fort Mason Center, Cowell Theater
Entrance at intersection of Marina Blvd. and Buchanan St., San Francisco, CA 94123
Tickets $20, Students & Seniors $15, Children Free
www.fortmason.org/events/events-details?id=2026
Tickets on line: http://lacolmenita.eventbrite.com
For more information about performances in your area, please visit:
www.lacolmenitacuba.com
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OCCUPY HARLEM MOBILIZATION
We stand in solidarity with Occupiers of Wall Street
SAVE THE DATE
Friday, October 28, 2011
6:30 - 9:30 PM
St. Philip's Church
204 West 134th Street
(Adam Clayton Powell Blvd)
A call to Blacks, Latinos, and immigrants to occupy their communities against predatory investors, displacement, privatization and state repression. Let us assert our Dignity! WE MUST DEFEND OUR COMMUNITIES! THIS IS OUR STRUGGLE, THIS IS OUR MOMENT IN HISTORY. THIS IS PEOPLE'S POWER!
We stand in solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters occupying cities, towns and neighborhoods in the United States. We stand in solidarity with poor and working class people across the globe rising up against criminal predatory finance capital that has no regard for humanity, that has no regard for Mother Earth.
Wall Street, the epicenter of international finance capital, began its financial prosperity with slave profiteering firms, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Wachovia Bank and Bank of America. In fact, Wall Street and most of the city's financial district were built on the burial ground of captured Africans forced into genocidal free labor for centuries, a crime against humanity. The legacy of that crime against humanity manifested today in Jim Crow mass incarceration, a crisis of massive Black unemployment and the greatest loss of wealth for people of color from sub prime lending frauds estimated between $164 billion and $213 billion.
Finance capital plutocrats have always controlled the US political system. They threaten and received a $16 trillion bank bailout, the greatest theft of taxpayers' money in modern US history. And it's only the tip of the iceberg because the banks have an estimated $700 trillion of worthless derivatives, the BULL in the china shop that might very well bring down Wall Street.
Let us, the 99 percenters, build a united people's movement of the poor, the working class and the middle class to reign in the one percent. ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!
Join us for this Occupy Harlem mobilization with guest speakers and the occupy site to be announced.
NO MORE BANK BAILOUTS! NO MORE WARS! WE WANT MONEY FOR JOBS, HOUSING, EDUCATION AND MEDICAL CARE.
Harlem Fightback Against War at Home & Abroad
Telephone: 646-812-5188
Email:harlemfightbackagainstwar@gmail.com
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OCTOBER 29 - #ROBINHOOD GLOBAL MARCH
This is a proposal for the general assemblies of the Occupy movement.
Eight years ago, on February 15, 2003, upwards of 15 million people in sixty countries marched together to stop President Bush from invading Iraq ... a huge chunk of humanity lived for one day without dead time and glimpsed the power of a united people's movement. Now we have an opportunity to repeat that performance on an even larger scale.
On October 29, on the eve of the G20 Leaders Summit in France, let's the people of the world rise up and demand that our G20 leaders immediately impose a 1% #ROBINHOOD tax on all financial transactions and currency trades. Let's send them a clear message: We want you to slow down some of that $1.3-trillion easy money that's sloshing around the global casino each day - enough cash to fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world.
Take this idea to your local general assembly and join your comrades in the streets on October 29.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
occupywallstreet.org / occupywallst.org / occupytogether.org
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Here is the official statement from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression on the 1-year anniversary of the raids.
Build the Movement Against Political Repression
One year since the September 24 FBI Raids and Grand Jury Subpoenas
Statement of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, 9-22-2011
Please come to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression one-day Conference in Chicago on November 5, 2011.
http://www.stopfbi.net/national-conference-2011
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) is asking you to build the movement against political repression on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 24, 2010 FBI raids on anti-war and international solidarity activists. We need your continued solidarity as we build movements for peace, justice and equality.
The storm of political repression continues to expand and threaten. It is likely to intensify and churn into a destructive force with indictments, trials, and attempts to imprison anti-war activists. The last we knew, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was preparing multiple indictments as he and Attorney General Eric Holder attempt to criminalize the targeted activists and the movements to which we dedicate our lives.
It is one year since the FBI raided two homes in Chicago and five homes plus the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, eventually handing out 23 subpoenas. The anti-war activists' homes were turned upside down and notebooks, cell phones, artwork, computers, passports and personal belongings were all carted off by the FBI. Anyone who has ever been robbed knows the feelings - shock and anger.
The man responsible for this assault on activists and their families, on free speech and the right to organize, is U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago. Fitzgerald has an ugly record of getting powerful Republicans like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove off the hook, while mercilessly pursuing an agenda to scare America into silence and submission with the phony 'war on terror.' Fitzgerald is attempting to criminalize anti-war activists with accusations of 'material support for terrorism,' involving groups in Palestine and Colombia.
First the U.S. government targeted Arabs and Muslims, violating their civil rights and liberties and spying on them. Then they came for the anti-war and international solidarity activists. We refuse to be criminalized. We continue to speak out and organize. We say, "Opposing U.S. war and occupation is not a crime!" We are currently building a united front with groups and movements to defeat Fitzgerald's reactionary, fear mongering assault on anti-war activism and to restore civil liberties taken away by the undemocratic USA PATRIOT Act.
Many people know the developments in the case, but for those who do not, we invite you to read a timeline at stopfbi.net. We think the repression centers on this: During the lead up to the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a federal law enforcement officer, using the phony name of "Karen Sullivan" got involved and joined the Anti-War Committee and Freedom Road Socialist Organization in Minneapolis. She lied to everyone she met and helped the FBI to disrupt many activities in the anti-war, international solidarity and labor movements in Minnesota - and also other states and even over in Palestine. It is outrageous.
In fact, many of those being investigated travelled to Colombia or Palestine to learn firsthand about U.S. government funding for war and oppression. There was no money given to any groups that the U.S. government lists as terrorist organizations. However, we met people who are a lot like most Americans - students, community organizers, religious leaders, trade unionists, women's group leaders and activists much like ourselves. Many of the U.S. activists wrote about their trips, did educational events, or helped organized protests against U.S. militarism and war. In a increasingly repressive period, this is enough to make one a suspect in Fitzgerald's office.
This struggle is far from one-sided however. The response to the FBI raids and the pushback from the movement is tremendous. Minneapolis and Chicago immediately organized a number of press conferences and rallies with hundreds of people. Over the first two weeks after the raids, 60 cities protested outside FBI offices, from New York to Kalamazoo, from traveled to the Bay Area. The National Lawyers Guild convention was in New Orleans the day of the FBI raids and they immediately issued a solidarity statement and got to work on the case. Solidarity poured in from anti-war, civil rights, religious and faith groups, students and unions. Groups and committees began working to obtain letters of support from members of Congress. The solidarity was overwhelming. It was great!
It is possible that U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald thought he was picking on an isolated group of activists. Instead, those raided proved to have many friends and allies from decades of work for social justice and peace. Over the months, all the targeted activists refused to appear at the grand jury dates set by U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office. In November 2010, a large crew of us travelled to New York City to found the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, after the United National Antiwar Committee meeting.
In December 2010, U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office called in three of the Minnesota women and threatened them. We prepared a campaign in case they were jailed for refusing to speak. The FBI also delivered subpoenas to nine more Arab-American and Palestine solidarity activists in December. Their grand jury date was on Jan. 25, 2011, and we organized protests in over 70 American cities, plus a few overseas. The movement was building and expanding, so we organized conferences with over 800 participants in the Midwest, the South, and on the East and West Coasts. While we were organizing a pushback, the FBI was making new plans.
On May 17, 2011, at 5:00 a.m., the Los Angeles, California Sheriff, under the direction of the FBI, busted down the front door of Chicano leader Carlos Montes, storming in with automatic weapons drawn and shouting. The early morning raid was supposedly about weapons and permits, but they seized decades of notes and writings about the Chicano, immigrant rights, education rights and anti-war movements. The FBI attempted to question Carlos Montes while he was handcuffed and in the back of a L.A. sheriff squad car. Montes is going to another preliminary court date on Sept. 29, prepared to face six felony charges, carrying up to three years in prison for each, knowing he is extraordinarily targeted by the FBI. We will walk every step of the way with Carlos Montes, and more. Montes was with us at the Republican National Convention protests; his name was included on the search warrant for the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, and the FBI attempted to question him about this case. We ask you to support Carlos Montes and to organize speaking events with him and local protests on his important court dates, Sept. 29 being the next one.
The same week the FBI raided Carlos Montes in May 2011, the CSFR came back with a big revelation - we released a set of documents, the FBI game plan, which the FBI mistakenly left behind in a file drawer at one of the homes. The FBI documents are on the CSFR website and are fascinating to read. Fitzgerald and company developed 102 questions that come right from a McCarthy witch-hunt trial of the 1950s. It is like turning back the clock five decades.
The whole intention of the raids is clear: They want to paint activists as 'terrorists' and shut down the organizing. They came at a time when the rich and powerful are frightened of not just the masses of people overseas, but of the people in their own country. With a failing U.S. war in Afghanistan, a U.S. occupation of Iraq predicted to last decades, a new war for oil and domination in Libya, a failing immigration policy that breaks up families and produces super-profits for big business, and now a long and deep economic crisis that is pushing large segments of working people into poverty, the highest levels of the U.S. government are turning to political repression.
The only hope for the future is in building stronger, consistent and determined movements. In a principled act of solidarity, the 23 subpoenaed activists refuse to testify before the grand jury. This sets an example for others.
In addition, the outpouring of support and mobilization into the streets from the anti-war, international solidarity, civil rights, labor and immigrant rights movements means that not one of the 24 has spent a single day in jail. That is a victory.
We ask you to stand with us, to stay vigilant and to hold steady as we proceed to organize against wars abroad and injustice at home and as we defend Carlos Montes from the FBI charade in Los Angeles.
Committee to Stop FBI Repression - www.stopfbi.net
follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Add us to your address book
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White House Petition for Leonard Peltier - October 22 deadline
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
A petition in favor of granting clemency to Leonard Peltier is now on the We the People portion of the White House Web site. We have 30 days (until October 22) to get 5,000 signatures in order for our petition to be reviewed by the White House. This petition may only allow US signatories.
Sign the petition here:
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
Due to heavy site traffic, you may have trouble accessing the petition. Keep trying until you succeed. Try during off-peak hours.
Email our petition to your friends, family and others who care about this issue.
Facebook: Post our petition to your Facebook wall to let folks know about it. Here's a sample message you can cut and paste into your Facebook status: Petition for Leonard Peltier on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Twitter: Tweet about your petition. Here's a sample tweet you can use: Leonard Peltier petition on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Let's do it!
Launched into cyberspace by the
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
The Petition:
we petition the obama administration to:
grant clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier without delay.
10th Circuit Court of Appeals: "...Much of the government's behavior... and its prosecution of Leonard Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."
While others were acquitted on grounds of self defense, Peltier was convicted in connection with the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents. Evidence shows that prosecutors knowingly presented false statements to a Canadian court to extradite Peltier and manufactured the murder weapon (the gun and shell casings entered into evidence didn't match; this fact was hidden from the jury). The number of constitutional violations in this case is simply staggering.
It's time to right this wrong. Mr. President, you can and must free Leonard Peltier.
Created: Sep 22, 2011
Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Human Rights
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/grant-clemency-native-american-activist-leonard-peltier-without-delay/LLWBZq1S
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Occupy Education -- Nov. 16, 2011 -- The 99% Say No Fee Hikes, No Cuts, No Privatization!
Meet at 7 am at UCSF Mission Bay Campus,
1555 6th Street, San Francisco
-- Occupy San Francisco
(adopted at the Oct. 19 General Assembly)
Call by Occupy San Francisco
We the 99% commit ourselves to mobilize against the privatization of public education being forced upon California and the country. The 1% -- the bankers, the UC Regents, the CSU Trustees, and the corporate politicians -- are pushing through vicious fee hikes, layoffs, and budget cuts under the pretext of the financial crisis that they created and profited off of.
They say cuts are inevitable because there are no funds -- but we know that if we really taxed the corporations, ended the wars, or took back the bailout funds, there would be no budget shortfall. They say we have to accept-- but we know that if we take mass collective action, we can defeat these attacks.
On November 16th, the UC Regents will be discussing and possibly voting on a proposal to raise fees up to 81% over the next 4 years -- raising tuition to over $22,000. This is a brutal attack against the 99% of California, particularly for communities of color and working families, and on all sectors of public education, from pre-K-12 to higher education.
We call on all the 99%, on all the Occupy general assemblies and camps throughout Northern California, on all student, labor, and community organizations, to come together in a massive display of non-violent civil disobedience to prevent the UC Regents meeting from taking place, to send the strongest message that we will not accept any fee hikes, cuts, or concessions in any level of public education.
We can win this struggle. Join us!
For more info, contact:
occupyeducation@gmail.com
www.occupyed.org
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CALL FOR AN EMERGENCY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Against the wars of occupation; Against the interference in the internal affairs of countries; In defense of the integrity and sovereignty of nations
Algiers, Algeria -- December 3-5, 2011
Ever since the invasion of Afghanistan by NATO troops in 2001, under the pretext of the "War on Terror," and of Iraq in 2003, in the name of a so-called "struggle for democracy," imperialist governments, under the leadership of the U.S. government, have implemented a strategy based on international wars of occupation and plunder. This strategy has also included widespread interference in the internal affairs of nations, the astronomic growth of war budgets, the assault on democratic rights, and the massive cuts in social spending -- particularly in Europe and the United States.
Today, the governments of the imperialist powers -- specifically the U.S., French, British and Italian governments -- have opened a new front in the war; this time in the Maghreb region of Northern Africa. (*)
A new step has been taken with the further implementation of the U.S. government's Greater Middle East Plan, which was first announced by George W. Bush in 2003 at the time of the launching of the war of occupation and looting of Iraq. It's a plan that aims to dismantle nations along ethnic, religious and communitarian lines -- from Pakistan to Mauritania.
At the very moment when the Tunisian and Egyptian workers and peoples are struggling to exercise their full sovereignty by means of democracy, Libya is descending into chaos after a foreign military intervention under the aegis of NATO -- an intervention that threatens its territorial integrity.
By this means, all the countries of the Maghreb region are now facing threats to their integrity. But this is not all: The implications for the SAHEL countries (parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Eritrea) and, more generally, for sub-Saharan Africa are incalculable. This is because the conflict has gone way beyond the Libyan borders in terms of the movement of weapons -- including heavy weapons massively distributed among Libyan civilians and armed terrorist groups who have openly displayed them in the aftermath of the foreign military intervention.
This is not to mention the devastating effects on the economies of these countries, especially when combined with the massive return of hundreds of thousands of migrants who had been working in Libya, as well as more than one million Libyan refugees, mostly in Tunisia.
In reality, through the foreign military intervention in Libya, the U.S., French, British and Italian imperialists seek to terrorize all the peoples of the region and the world.
No political party genuinely committed to the sovereignty of nations and to democracy can condone, under whatever pretext whatsoever, the imperialist war of occupation and plunder in Libya. No labor organization faithful to the traditions of the international labor movement can condone such a war. That is why we the undersigned reject another war on our African continent -- a continent that is already bloodied and torn apart by so-called ethnic conflicts, which are really nothing but the result of foreign plunder of the continent's natural resources, the repayment of foreign debt, and the various manipulations that result therewith.
We reject any foreign military presence in any form whatsoever in our region of the Maghreb, elsewhere across Northern Africa, and, more generally, on our continent of Africa.
We reject any and all attacks upon sovereign nations.
We reject the foreign looting of the riches and resources of the peoples of the Maghreb and of Africa as a whole. Taking control over these resources -- including through the installation of foreign military bases, starting with AFRICOM (United States Africa Command) -- is the real objective of the war of occupation in Libya, under the auspices of NATO. This is what's really at stake.
We denounce the imperialist designs of the governments that are racing to grab the reconstruction deals for the infrastructure of Libya, destroyed by NATO air strikes - another stake of the war.
We deny the imperialist governments, NATO and the mongers of war and chaos the right to decide the fate of the peoples of the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa and all peoples of the world.
We affirm that because there can be no popular sovereignty without national sovereignty, from the standpoint of democracy it is up to sovereign peoples -- and up to them alone -- to define their present and their future without external interference and foreign military intervention.
We call upon organizations and parties around the world and in our own country that oppose the imperialist wars to join us in supporting and participating in an Emergency International Conference in Algiers on December 3-5, 2011, against the wars of occupation, against the interference in the internal affairs of countries, and in defense of the integrity and sovereignty of nations. (**)
signed/
A. Sidi Said
General Secretary
General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA)
Louisa Hanoune
General Secretary
Workers Party of Algeria (PT)
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(*) The five countries that make up the Maghreb region are Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania.
(**) For more information about the conference or how you can get involved, please contact the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples in Paris at
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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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[Orignal full version] 1 Marine vs. 30 Cops (By. J. handy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WmEHcOc0Sys
United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Police Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement.
Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran (2 tours in Iraq), he currently plays amateur football and is in college.
Thomas comes from a long line of people who sacrifice for their country: Mother, Army Veteran (Iraq), Step father, Army, active duty (Afghanistan), Grand father, Air Force veteran (Vietnam), Great Grand Father Navy veteran (World War II).
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"A Conversation About Democracy," one of hundreds of clips the makers of a collaborative documentary about Occupy Wall Street have received.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/coming-attractions-occupy-wall-st-the-documentary/?hp
a conversation about democracy from rumur on Vimeo.
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Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to "F**k Off"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aaTGsGdp4c&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Chicago - War Protest March to Obama's 2012 HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTkOincM93s
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
On Oct. 10, 2011, a combination of five feeder marches gathered in Chicago's Loop to protest the Futures & Options and American Mortgage Bankers Association expos. The feeders represented constituencies for jobs, housing, and public schools. They generated a combined march of 7,000, and finally ended up at the Art Institute where the banksters were having a reception dinner. Here are selected scenes and comments from a big spectrum of interests affected by the dictatorship of capital being forced upon the workers of Chicago. Includes the march for homes/housing starting from the Hyatt, the Occupy Chicago location where the teachers union gathered, and the final convergence at the Art Institute. Street interviews. Also, interview/speech by Karen Lewis, President of Chicago Teachers Union. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer Labor Beat. For info: mail@laborbeat.org, www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video, YouTube, or blip.tv and search "Labor Beat". Labor Beat has regular cable slots in Chicago, Evanston, Rockford, Urbana, IL; St. Louis, MO; Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; and Rochester, NY. For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org
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'Occupy Wall Street' NYPD runs over a protester with motorcycle 14/10/2011
http://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DVrzQedHM6SY%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded
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OWS_PoliceScooter
by The Local East Village
http://vimeo.com/30550909
OWS_PoliceScooter from The Local East Village on Vimeo.
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Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related
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Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman) - This Land Is Your Land @OccupyLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ImQ7Ylvdo&feature=player_embedded#!
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#Occupy St. Louis: Bank of America refuses to let customers close accounts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KtI85Zc6Oik
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ALL COLORS (Occupy LA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Zh6hDQC8I
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600+ Protesters March on Bank of America - #Occupy Austin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1JOJ3joOA&feature=player_embedded
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Scenes From #Occupy Las Vegas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=olatH3pSvlk
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Could Occupy Wall Street be infiltrated by political groups?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D983q4xOnZg
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Make Revolution, Not Reform: A Warning to the 'Occupy' Movement
andrewgavinmarshall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oneVFYeMHjU#!
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#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded
[This truly is an amazing thing to see -- no microphones allowed by NYPD yet the crowd is completely engaged with the speakers. The speeches have to be short because the words are repeated and passed along to those furthest away since they can't hear them. Mohammed's speech is great and there's no doubt that the crowd thinks so, too...Bonnie Weinstein]
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#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.
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#Occupy Wall Street Protesters Marching
[Thousands of NYU Students march to OWS...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJpzx9IqU4
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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Supporting Occupy Wall Street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soV79czwzoo&feature=player_embedded
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Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
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#Occupy Wall Street Begins To Go National!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDnFbIwZUWQ
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OCCUPY-WALL-STREET-PROTESTERS-ARRESTS( Sept 20, 2011) Spread This Video Please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyvbI6Eq-qA
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PEACEFUL FEMALE PROTESTORS PENNED IN THE STREET AND MACED!- #OccupyWallStreet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moD2JnGTToA
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UNEDITED - COP KNEE ON THROAT 9/24/2011 #OCCUPYWALLSTREET
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbXfelyIoM&NR=1
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9/24/2011 COPS KETTLING AT UNION SQUARE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaQvh80L-g&NR=1
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Empire State Rebellion: An Idea Whose Time Has Come - OpESR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIlfV1pCZY&feature=player_embedded
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Protesters pepper sprayed at the National Air & Space Museum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc9OSFLnyUI&feature=youtu.be
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Police Raid on Occpy Boston 10 11 11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5G9agQjM60&noredirect=1
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Occupy Boston protesters arrested
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/occupy-boston-protesters-arrested/2011/10/11/gIQAsCzWdL_video.html
Boston police have arrested 129 people during Tuesday's Occupy Boston demonstrations. The early morning arrests were mostly for trespassing. (Oct. 11) (/The Associated Press)
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Video of Boston PD attacking veterans at OWS protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s3zFca5znU&feature=relmfu
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Occupy Frankfurt Germany
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxQP2eMdMU&feature=player_embedded
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Occupy Rome - La manifestazione di Roma October 15th OccupyTogether
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25CWyNnJVOI&feature=player_embedded
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A Familiar Figure Begs on the Street, but Not for Himself
97-year-old "Professor Irwin Corey" collects money for medical aid for children in Cuba.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/10/11/nyregion/100000001099057/hes-97-and-famous-spare-some-change.html
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AlphaDog Proto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbZrQp-HOk&feature=player_embedded
The AlphaDog Proto is a lab prototype for the Legged Squad Support System, a robot being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA and the US Marine Corps. When fully developed the system will carry 400 lbs of payload on 20-mile missions in rough terrain. The first version of the complete robot will be completed in 2012. This video shows early results from the control development process. In this video the robot is powered remotely. AlphaDog is designed to be over 10x quieter than BigDog. For more information visit us at www.BostonDynamics.com.
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
Free Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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Troy Davis, Racism, The Death Penalty & Labor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEues_-KoZU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war?
Narrated by Tony Benn. Music by Brian Eno
Mass Demonstration October 8, Noon, Trafalgar Square, London
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Bkg8zgoYQ&feature=youtu.be
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LOWKEY OBAMA NATION (BANIDO DA TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFywomdJTM&feature=related
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Labor Beat: THE PEOPLE'S PUTT PUTT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FkYBneJpds
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The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
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Visualizing a Trillion: Just How Big That Number Is?
"1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years."
Digital Inspiration
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
How Much Is $1 Trillion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfY0q-rEdY&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy the credit crisis and big bailout packages, the figure "trillion" has suddenly become part of our everyday conversations. One trillion dollars, or 1 followed by 12 zeros, is lots of money but have you ever tried visualizing how big that number actually is?
For people who can visualize one million dollars, the comparison made on CNN should give you an idea about a trillion - "if you start spending a million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spend a trillion dollars".
Another mathematician puts it like this: "1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years".
Now if the above comparisons weren't really helpful, check another illustration that compares the built of an average human being against a stack of $100 currency notes bundles.
A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house.
With this background in mind, 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 1000 times bigger than 1 billion and would therefore take up an entire football field - the man is still standing in the bottom-left corner. (See visuals -- including a video -- at website:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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Very reminiscent of Obama...bw
Pat Paulsen 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oiQhhdz8ys
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
The video above documents what I am told is a meeting between Fukushima residents and government officials from Tokyo, said to have taken place on 19 July 2011. The citizens are demanding their government evacuate people from a broader area around the Fukushima nuclear plant, because of ever-increasing fears about the still-spreading radiation. They are demanding that their government provide financial and logistical support to get out. In the video above, you can see that some participants actually brought samples of their children's urine to the meeting, and they demanded that the government test it for radioactivity.
When asked by one person at the meeting about citizens' right to live a healthy and radioactive-free life, Local Nuclear Emergency Response Team Director Akira Satoh replies "I don't know if they have that right."
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Let's torture the truth out of suicide bombers says new CIA chief Petraeus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sm02UbKNCKQ
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Kim Ives & Dan Coughlin on WikiLeaks Cables that Reveal "Secret History" of U.S. Bullying in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL0Dk21dC-M
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Operation Empire State Rebellion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJvBlQcaaaU&feature=player_embedded#at=10
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20 Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know
Click an image to learn more about a fact!
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php
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Licensed to Kill Video
http://nirs.org/multimedia/video/l2k.htm
Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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Tier Systems Cripple Middle Class Dreams for Young Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pQW6TW8m4&feature=youtu.be
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Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM&feature=player_embedded
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BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
http://youtu.be/eTvUs4rY4to
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Cuba: The Accidental Eden
http://video.pbs.org/video/1598230084/
[This is a stunningly beautiful portrait of the Cuban natural environment as it is today. ...bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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The Kill Team
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
Rolling Stone
March 27, 3011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
Afghans respond to "Kill Team"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3guxWIorhdA
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WikiLeaks Mirrors
Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.
In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, you will find below a list of mirrors of Wikileaks website and CableGate pages.
Go to
http://wikileaks.ch/Mirrors.html
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Domestic Espionage Alert - Houston PD to use surveillance drone in America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpstrc15Ogg
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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It's time to tell the White House that "We the People" support PFC Bradley Manning's freedom and the UN's investigation into alleged torture in Quantico, VA
On September 22nd, the White House launched a new petition website called "We the People." According to the White House blog, if a petition reaches 5,000 signatures in 30 days, "it will be reviewed by policy experts and you'll receive an official response."
Act now! Sign our petition to the White House: LINK
This is our chance to make sure the people in power know that the public still care about the fate of PFC Bradley Manning, and that we won't let this issue go away until PFC Manning is recognized as the whistleblower he is. It is also an opportunity for us to educate fellow Americans who may not have heard of PFC Manning yet, by boosting our petition to the top of the WhiteHouse.gov site.
The same day the White House launched the petition website, it also unveiled an Open Government Action Plan calling to "Strengthen and Expand Whistleblower Protection for Government Personnel." We consider this ironic given the fact that in April of 2011 the UN Chief Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, was forced to issue a rare reprimand to the U.S. for repeatedly denying his request to meet with alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Manning in an official, unmonitored visit to investigation allegations of his torture in the military brig of Quantico, VA.
We submitted the petition to the "We the People" website earlier this week, and we have already gathered over 1,000 signatures. We are relying on your help so that we can reach the 5,000 mark, and then some.
Signing the petition requires a quick and simple registration process. (Should you encounter technical trouble, please check out the link at the bottom of this e-mail.)
Click here to sign the petition now!
Already signed the petition? You can promote it to your friends on facebook and twitter! Copy and paste the following text: Tell the Obama Administration to let UN investigate torture of alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning! http://wh.gov/40y
We petition the obama administration to:
Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/free-pfc-bradley-manning-accused-wikileaks-whistleblower/kX1GJKsD?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Using the information PFC Bradley Manning allegedly revealed, media outlets have published thousands of stories, detailing countless attempts by governments around the world -- including our own -- to illegally conceal evidence of human rights abuses.
According to the President, "employees with the courage to report wrongdoing are a government's best defense against waste, fraud and abuse."
It appears that PFC Manning acted on his conscience, at great personal risk, to answer the President's call.
However, he has been subjected to extreme confinement conditions that US legal scholars have said may amount to torture.
Therefore, we also ask the Obama administration to stop blocking the UN's chief torture investigator, Juan Mendez, from conducting an official visit with PFC Manning.
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Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Resumes
By Erin Sherbert
September 26 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/pelican_bay_hunger_strike_resumes.php
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Cristian Fernandez is only 12 years old. And if Florida prosecutor Angela Corey has her way, he'll never leave jail again.
Cristian hasn't had an easy life. He's the same age now as his mother was when he was born. He's a survivor of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. In 2010, Cristian watched his stepfather commit suicide to avoid being charged with abusing Cristian.
Last January, Cristian was wrestling with his 2-year-old brother, David, and accidentally broke David's leg. Despite this, their mother left Cristian with his brother again in March. While the two boys were alone, Cristian allegedly pushed his brother against a bookcase, and David sustained a head injury. After their mother returned home, she waited six hours before taking David to the hospital. David eventually died.
Now Cristian is being charged with first degree murder -- as an adult. He's the youngest person in the history of his Florida county to receive this charge, and his next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.
Melissa Higgins works with kids who get caught up in the criminal justice system in her home state of New Hampshire. When she read about Cristian's case, she was appalled -- so she started a petition on Change.org asking Florida State's Attorney Angela Corey to try Cristian as a child. Please sign Melissa's petition immediately before Cristian's hearing tomorrow.
As part of his prosecution, Cristian has been examined by two different forensic psychiatrists -- each of whom concluded that he was "emotionally underdeveloped but essentially reformable despite a tough life."
Cristian has already been through more than most of us can imagine -- and now the rest of his life is in the hands of a Florida prosecutor who wants to make sure Cristian never leaves jail.
The purpose of the juvenile justice system is to reform kids who haven't gotten a fair shake. If Cristian is sent to adult prison, it will be more than a tragedy for him -- it will also be a signal to other prosecutors that kids' lives are acceptable collateral in the quest to be seen as "tough on crime."
Cristian's next hearing is in just 24 hours. State's Attorney Angela Corey needs to know that her actions are being watched -- please sign the petition asking her not to try Cristian as an adult:
http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult
Thanks for being a change-maker,
- Michael and the Change.org team
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Your help is needed to defend free speech rights
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
We are writing to urge you to send an email letter today that can make a big difference in the outcome of a free speech fight that is vital to all grassroots movements that support social justice and peace.
It will just take a moment of your time but it will make a big difference.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=326
All across the country people and organizations engaged in producing and disseminating leaflets and posters - the classic method of grassroots outreach used by those without institutional power and corporate money - are being faced with bankrupting fines.
This has been happening with ferocity in the nation's capital ever since the ANSWER Coalition was fined over $50,000 in the span of a few weeks for posters advertising the Sept. 15, 2007, protest against the Iraq war.
Attorneys for the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a major lawsuit in August 2007 against the unconstitutional postering regulations in Washington, D.C.
"The District has employed an illegal system that creates a hierarchy of speech, favoring the speech of politicians and punishing grassroots outreach," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF, stated in explaining a basic tenet of the lawsuit. "It's time for that system to end, and it will."
The hard-fought four-year-long lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund against Washington, D.C.'s unconstitutional postering regulations has succeeded in achieving a number of important victories, including the issuance of new regulations after the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia warned just last month of an impending declaration of unconstitutionality against the District.
In July 2011 the federal District Court issued a preliminary opinion regarding one aspect of our lawsuit and suggested that the D.C. government "revise the regulations to include a single, across-the-board durational restriction that applies equally to all viewpoints and subject matters."
But this battle is not finished. The new regulations still contain dissent-crushing "strict liability" provisions (explained below) and remain unconstitutionally vague and ambiguous. Plus the District has never withdrawn the tens of thousands of dollars of fines against ANSWER.
The District of Columbia is required by law to open the new rules to public comment, which it has done with an extremely short comment period that is now open. We need people to send a comment today to the government of Washington, D.C. It just takes a minute using our online Submit a Comment tool, which will send your comment by email.
Send a letter today in support of the right to produce and disseminate leaflets and posters in Washington, D.C. We have included a sample comment but we encourage people to use or add your own language.
An Opportunity for You to Make a Difference
In response to our lawsuit, the District of Columbia has now issued "Emergency Regulations" replacing the current system which the city now admits are a "threat to the public welfare," after the court issued a preliminary opinion that agreed with a basic argument of the lawsuit.
This is an important moment and we need you and others who believe in Free Speech to weigh in during the short 15-day public comment period in response to the proposed Emergency Regulations for postering. Submit an online Comment now that makes one or more of three vital points:
Drop the $70,000 fines that have been applied to the ANSWER Coalition for anti-war posters during the past four years.
End "Strict Liability" fines and penalities. Strict Liability constitutes something of a death penalty for Free Speech activities such as producing leaflets and posters. It means that an organization referenced on posted signs can be held "strictly liable" for any materials alleged to be improperly posted, even if the group never even posted a single sign or poster. The D.C. government is even going further than that - it just levied fines against a disabled Vietnam veteran who didn't put up a single poster but was fined $450 because three posted signs were seen referencing a Veterans for Peace demonstration last December, and the District's enforcement agents researched that his name was on the permit application for the peace demonstration at the White House. Any group or person that leaves literature at a bookstore, or distributes literature, or posts .pdf fliers on the Internet, can be fined tens of thousands of dollars simply for having done nothing more than making political literature available.
Insist that any new regulations be clear, unambiguous and fair. The District's new "Emergency" Regulations are still inadequate because they are vague and ambiguous. Vaguely worded regulations in the hands of vindictive authority can and will be used to punish, penalize and fine grassroots organizations that seek to redress grievances while allowing the powerful and moneyed interests to do as they please. The District's postering regulations must be clear and unambiguous if they are to be fair, uniform and constitutional.
Take two minutes right now, click through to our online comment submission tool.
Thank you for your continued support. After you send your comment today to the District of Columbia please send this email to your friends and encourage them to take action as well. Click here to send your comment to the District.
Sincerely,
ANSWER Coalition
www.AnswerCoalition.org
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
TAKE ACTION: New Punishment Against Rene Gonzalez
On Oct 7, René González, one of the Cuban 5 Patriots will be released from the US prison in Marianna Florida after serving out his 15 year sentence. Rene's crime was defending the security of the Cuban people against terrorist attacks.
The US government is now trying to stop his immediate return to his homeland, and his family, after he serves out the last day of this unjust sentence. And now, in the most cynical and mean spirited fashion, the US court that sentenced him in 2001 is extending his punishment by making him remain in the United States.
Because Rene was born in the US he will now have to spend an additional 3 years of probation here. Seven months ago his lawyer presented a motion asking the court to modify the conditions of his probation so that after he finished his sentence he be allowed to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family for humanitarian reasons.
On March 25, the prosecutor Caroline Heck Miller asked the judge to deny the motion. On September 16 Judge Joan Lenard rejected the defense motion, alleging among other reasons, that the Court needs time to evaluate the behavior of the condemned person after he is freed to verify that he is not a danger to the United States.
We have to remember that this is the same prosecutor that rejected an attempt to try Posada Carriles as a criminal, and this is the same judge that included in the conditions of his release a special point that while Rene is under supervised release that," the accused is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists are known to be or frequent"
By writing this Judge Lenard made the shameful recognition that terrorists groups do exist and enjoy impunity in Miami. Furthermore she is offering them protection from Rene from bothering or denouncing them upon his release.
It was not enough for the US government to make Rene fulfill the complete sentence to the last day; It was not enough to try and blackmail his family by telling them he would not go to trial if he collaborated against his 4 brothers; it was not enough to pressure Rene with what could happen to his family if he did not cooperate with the government, including the detention and deportation of his wife Olga Salanueva; and it was not enough to deny Olga visas to visit her husband repeatedly all these years.
Why does the US government want to continue punishing René and his family?
The prejudice of the Miami community against the Five was denounced by three judges of the Eleventh Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals on August 27, 2005, where it was recognized who the terrorists were, what organizations they belonged to and where they reside. To mandate that Rene Gonzalez stay another 3 years of supervised "freedom" in Florida, where a nest of international terrorists reside and who publicly make their hatred of Cuba and the Cuban 5 known, is to put the life of Rene in serious risk.
Today we are making a call to friends from all over the world to denounce this new punishment and to demand the US government allow René Gonzalez to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family as soon as he get out of prison.
Contact now President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the immediate return of René Gonzalez to his homeland and his family
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE WHITE HOUSE
Write a letter to President Obama
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
EE.UU.
Make a phone call and leave a message for President Barack Obama: 202-456-1111
Send an e-mail message to President Barack Obama
HTTP://WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Write a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder
US Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Make a phone call and leave a message for US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2000
Or call the public commentary line: 202-353-1555
Send an e-mail message to US Attorney General Eric Holder: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
To learn more about the Cuban 5 visit:
www.thecuban5.org
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO/G8 Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
The CSFR Signs Letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The CSFR is working with the United National Antiwar Committee and many other anti-war groups to organize mass rallies and protests on May 15 and May 19, 2012. We will protest the powerful and wealthy war-makers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Group of 8. Mobilize your groups, unions, and houses of worship. Bring your children, friends, and community. Demand jobs, healthcare, housing and education, not war!
Office of the Mayor
City of Chicago
To: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
We, the undersigned, demand that your administration grant us permits for protests on May 15 and 19, 2012, including appropriate rally gathering locations and march routes to the venue for the NATO/G8 summit taking place that week. We come to you because your administration has already spoken to us through Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has threatened mass arrests and violence against protestors.
[Read the full text of the letter here: http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression/full-text]
For the 10s of thousands of people from Chicago, around the country and across the world who will gather here to protest against NATO and the G8, we demand that the City of Chicago:
1. Grant us permits to rally and march to the NATO/G8 summit
2. Guarantee our civil liberties
3. Guarantee us there will be no spying, infiltration of organizations or other attacks by the FBI or partner law enforcement agencies.
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Supporter of Leak Suspect Is Called Before Grand Jury
By SCOTT SHANE
June 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16brfs-Washington.html?ref=world
A supporter of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, was called before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday, but he said he declined to answer any questions. The supporter, David M. House, a freelance computer scientist, said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because he believes the Justice Department is "creating a climate of fear around WikiLeaks and the Bradley Manning support network." The grand jury inquiry is separate from the military prosecution of Private Manning and is believed to be exploring whether the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, or others in the group violated the law by acquiring and publishing military and State Department documents.
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herman-wallace
For nearly four decades, 64-year-old Albert Woodfox and 69-year-old Herman Wallace have been held in solitary confinement, mostly in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison). Throughout their prolonged incarceration in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR) Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have endured very restrictive conditions including 23 hour cellular confinement. They have limited access to books, newspapers and TV and throughout the years of imprisonment they have been deprived of opportunities for mental stimulation and access to work and education. Social interaction has been restricted to occasional visits from friends and family and limited telephone calls.
Louisiana prison authorities have over the course of 39 years failed to provide a meaningful review of the men's continued isolation as they continue to rubberstamp the original decision to confine the men in CCR. Decades of solitary confinement have had a clear psychological effect on the men. Lawyers report that they are both suffering from serious health problems caused or exacerbated by their years of close confinement.
After being held together in the same prison for nearly 40 years, the men are now held in seperate institutions where they continue to be subjected to conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
Take action now to demand that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be immediately removed from solitary confinement
Sign our petition which will be sent to the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, calling on him to:
* take immediate steps to remove Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace from close confinement
* ensure that their treatment complies with the USA's obligations under international standards and the US Constitution.
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Stop Coal Companies From Erasing Labor Union History
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-coal-companies-from-erasing-labor-union-history
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One year after Bradley's detainment, we need your support more than ever.
Dear Friends,
One year ago, on May 26, 2010, the U.S. government quietly arrested a humble young American intelligence analyst in Iraq and imprisoned him in a military camp in Kuwait. Over the coming weeks, the facts of the arrest and charges against this shy soldier would come to light. And across the world, people like you and I would step forward to help defend him.
Bradley Manning, now 23 years old, has never been to court but has already served a year in prison- including 10 months in conditions of confinement that were clear violation of the international conventions against torture. Bradley has been informally charged with releasing to the world documents that have revealed corruption by world leaders, widespread civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces, the true face of Guantanamo, an unvarnished view of the U.S.'s imperialistic foreign negotiations, and the murder of two employees of Reuters News Agency by American soldiers. These documents released by WikiLeaks have spurred democratic revolutions across the Arab world and have changed the face of journalism forever.
For his act of courage, Bradley Manning now faces life in prison-or even death.
But you can help save him-and we've already seen our collective power. Working together with concerned citizens around the world, the Bradley Manning Support Network has helped raise worldwide awareness about Manning's torturous confinement conditions. Through the collective actions of well over a half million people and scores of organizations, we successfully pressured the U.S. government to end the tortuous conditions of pre-trial confinement that Bradley was subjected to at the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. Today, Bradley is being treated humanely at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. T hanks to your support, Bradley is given leeway to interact with other pre-trial prisoners, read books, write letters, and even has a window in his cell.
Of course we didn't mount this campaign to just improve Bradley's conditions in jail. Our goal is to ensure that he can receive a fair and open trial. Our goal is to win Bradley's freedom so that he can be reunited with his family and fulfill his dream of going to college. Today, to commemorate Bradley's one year anniversary in prison, will you join me in making a donation to help support Bradley's defense?
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
We'll be facing incredible challenges in the coming months, and your tax-deductible donation today will help pay for Bradley's civilian legal counsel and the growing international grassroots campaign on his behalf. The U.S. government has already spent a year building its case against Bradley, and is now calling its witnesses to Virginia to testify before a grand jury.
What happens to Bradley may ripple through history - he is already considered by many to be the single most important person of his generation. Please show your commitment to Bradley and your support for whistle-blowers and the truth by making a donation today.
With your help, I hope we will come to remember May 26th as a day to commemorate all those who risk their lives and freedom to promote informed democracy - and as the birth of a movement that successfully defended one courageous whistle-blower against the full fury of the U.S. government.
Donate now: bradleymanning.org/donate
In solidarity,
Jeff Paterson and Loraine Reitman,
On behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee
www.bradleymanning.org
P.S. After you have donated, please help us by forwarding this email to your closest friends. Ask them to stand with you to support Bradley Manning, and the rights of all whistleblowers.
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=207100509321891
Courage to Resist needs your support
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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Drop the Charges Against Carlos Montes, Stop the FBI Attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movement, and Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!Call Off the Expanding Grand Jury Witchhunt and FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!
Cancel the Subpoenas! Cancel the Grand Juries!
Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Chicano, Immigrant Rights, Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists!
STOP THE FBI CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHICANO, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, ANTI-WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS NOW!
Initiated by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression stopfbi.net stopfbi@gmail.com
http://iacenter.org/stopfbi/
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY -- ANY DAY
to Fitzgerald, Holder and Obama
The Grand Jury is still on its witch hunt and the FBI is still
harassing activists. This must stop.
Please make these calls:
1. Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 . Then dial 0
(zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
2. Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
3. Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
FFI: Visit www.StopFBI.net or email info@StopFBI.net or call
612-379-3585 .
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights
reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But...
The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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Call for EMERGENCY RESPONSE Action if Assange Indicted,
Dear Friends:
We write in haste, trying to reach as many of you as possible although the holiday break has begun.......This plan for an urgent "The Day After" demonstration is one we hope you and many, many more organizations will take up as your own, and mobilize for. World Can't Wait asks you to do all you can to spread it through list serves, Facebook, twitter, holiday gatherings.
Our proposal is very very simple, and you can use the following announcement to mobilize - or write your own....
ANY DAY NOW . . . IN THE EVENT THAT THE U.S. INDICTS JULIAN ASSANGE
An emergency public demonstration THE DAY AFTER any U.S. criminal indictment is announced against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Spread the word and call people to come out, across the whole range of movements and groups: anti-war, human rights, freedom of information/freedom of the press, peace, anti-torture, environmental, students and youth, radicals and revolutionaries, religious, civil liberties, teachers and educators, journalists, anti-imperialists, anti-censorship, anti-police state......
At the Federal Building in San Francisco, we'll form ourselves into a human chain "surrounding" the government that meets the Wikileaked truth with repression and wants to imprison and silence leakers, whistleblowers and truthtellers - when, in fact, these people are heroes. We'll say:
HANDS OFF WIKILEAKS! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Join the HUMAN CHAIN AROUND THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
New Federal Building, 7th and Mission, San Francisco (nearest BART: Civic Center)
4:00-6:00 PM on The Day FOLLOWING U.S. indictment of Assange
Bring all your friends - signs and banners - bullhorns.
Those who dare at great risk to themselves to put the truth in the hands of the people - and others who might at this moment be thinking about doing more of this themselves -- need to see how much they are supported, and that despite harsh repression from the government and total spin by the mainstream media, the people do want the truth told.
Brad Manning's Christmas Eve statement was just released by his lawyer: "Pvt. Bradley Manning, the lone soldier who stands accused of stealing millions of pages secret US government documents and handing them over to secrets outlet WikiLeaks, wants his supporters to know that they've meant a lot to him. 'I greatly appreciate everyone's support and well wishes during this time,' he said in a Christmas Eve statement released by his lawyer...." Read more here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mannings-message-christmas-eve-i-gr/
Demonstrations defending Wikileaks and Assange, and Brad Manning, have already been flowering around the world. Make it happen here too.
Especially here . . .
To join into this action plan, or with questions, contact World Can't Wait or whichever organization or listserve you received this message from.
World Can't Wait, SF Bay
415-864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
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DEFEND LYNNE STEWART!
http://lynnestewart.org/
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
Visiting Lynne:
Visiting is very liberal but first she has to get people on her visiting list; wait til she or the lawyers let you know. The visits are FRI, SAT, SUN AND MON for 4 hours and on weekends 8 to 3. Bring clear plastic change purse with lots of change to buy from the machines. Brief Kiss upon arrival and departure, no touching or holding during visit (!!) On visiting forms it may be required that you knew me before I came to prison. Not a problem for most of you.
Commissary Money:
Commissary Money is always welcome It is how Lynne pay for the phone and for email. Also for a lot that prison doesn't supply in terms of food and "sundries" (pens!) (A very big list that includes Raisins, Salad Dressing, ankle sox, mozzarella (definitely not from Antonys--more like a white cheddar, Sanitas Corn Chips but no Salsa, etc. To add money, you do this by using Western Union and a credit card by phone or you can send a USPO money order or Business or Govt Check. The negotiable instruments (PAPER!) need to be sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons, 53504-054, Lynne Stewart, PO Box 474701, Des Moines Iowa 50947-001 (Payable to Lynne Stewart, 53504-054) They hold the mo or checks for 15 days. Western Union costs $10 but is within 2 hours. If you mail, your return address must be on the envelope. Unnecessarily complicated? Of course, it's the BOP !)
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please make a generous contribution to her defense.
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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D. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Occupy-apalooza Strikes a Chord
By CHARLES M. BLOW
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/opinion/blow-occupy-apalooza-strikes-a-chord.html?hp
2) Occupy the Classroom
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
October 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/opinion/occupy-the-classroom.html?hp
3) A Story of Drugs and the Police
By JIM DWYER
October 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/nyregion/witness-narrates-frame-up-in-police-corruption-trial.html?ref=nyregion
4) The Marines have had Enough
By brages07
http://occupymarines.org/
5) MILLION WORKER MARCH SUPPORTS OCCUPY WALL STREET
Email: mwmeast@yahoo.com
October 17, 2011
www.millionworkermarch.org
6) U.N. Panel Calls for Inquiry Into Qaddafi's Death
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/un-panel-calls-for-inquiry-into-qaddafis-death.html?ref=world
7) In Bid to Cut Costs at Some Texas Prisons, Lunch Will Not Be Served on Weekends
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
October 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/us/texas-reduces-weekend-meals-for-prisoners.html?ref=us
8) Wal-Mart Cuts Some Health Care Benefits
"Barbara Collins, a sales associate at the Wal-Mart in Placerville, Calif., said that the premiums for the H.M.O. plan for herself and her 5-year-old son would rise to $18 every two weeks from $10. Her big concern, she said, was that her deductible would jump to $5,000 a year, from $1,000 - a daunting amount considering she earns $19,000 a year. 'I don't know how I'll be able to afford it if I go to a doctor or to physical therapy,' she said."
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and REED ABELSON
October 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/business/wal-mart-cuts-some-health-care-benefits.html?ref=business
9) Seeing Limits to 'New' Kind of War in Libya
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/africa/nato-war-in-libya-shows-united-states-was-vital-to-toppling-qaddafi.html?ref=world
10) Brazil: Doctors Convicted of Killing Four Patients for Their Kidneys
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/americas/brazil-doctors-convicted-of-killing-patients-for-their-kidneys.html?ref=world
11) BP's Plan for Drilling in the Gulf Is Approved
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/business/energy-environment/bp-plan-for-gulf-drilling-is-approved.html?ref=business
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1) Occupy-apalooza Strikes a Chord
By CHARLES M. BLOW
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/opinion/blow-occupy-apalooza-strikes-a-chord.html?hp
Thursday night I spoke to a young woman in Brooklyn who was having dinner and planning the next day. Between a morning boot camp workout at the local Y.M.C.A. and an evening meeting with friends for drinks, she was planning her first trek to Zuccotti Park to take part in the Occupy Wall Street protests.
"Why?" I asked. "What specifically are you protesting?" I was curious. I hoped that she'd respond with some variation of the umbrella arguments about income inequality, the evils of corporate greed and corruption or removing corporate money from politics.
She didn't. "I don't know. It's just cool," she said. She went on to tell me about how she felt that this was a movement of people with whom she felt some kinship, banding together and making history, and that she wanted to be a part of that in the same way that people from previous generations were part of the civil rights, women's liberation and antiwar movements.
She hinted at inequality but never quite got there. Yet she was passionately convinced that she must get involved. That is part of the magic and mystery of these protests: a near magnetic attraction drawing in both the hard core and the hangers-on alike.
While there are some people with very specific goals taking part in the protests and supporting them, there are many others who come with no particular, refined mission or message other than a desire to show solidarity, to rise up and be seen and heard and to display their disaffection for the status quo.
And that may well be message enough for many.
If the Occupy Wall Street protests were a band, I'd say the closest corollary would probably be the legendary '90s grunge band Nirvana - both meaningful and murky, tapping into a national angst and hopelessness, providing a much-needed catharsis and gaining a broad and devoted following while quickly becoming the voice of a generation.
Needless to say, that doesn't cover everyone. The protests have a Lollapalooza-like eccentricity and diversity to the crowds. Some come to revel in the moment. Others come to rage against the machine. But they are all drawn together by the excitement of animating a muscle that many thought had atrophied: demonstration and disobedience in the name of equality.
This has energized two groups who are notoriously apathetic and lacking in civic engagement - the young and the poor - and has done so outside the existing architectures of power and politics.
This excitement has attracted the attention of progressive politicians, pundits and celebrities, many of whom are making pilgrimages to the protests to lend support while reinforcing their own street cred and pondering how to best harness the energy on display.
After all, civic energy is a precious commodity in an election season. You can almost see some leaders and luminaries drooling at the thought of using the protests to their political advantage.
But there has been an even stronger reaction by some on the right, who, out of fear, are seeking to pre-emptively stain and marginalize the protesters.
Herman Cain has called them "jealous." Bill O'Reilly has suggested that they are "crackheads." Glenn Beck - I guess in an attempt to be king of the hill of hysteria - has gone so far as to call them killers: "Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsies with these people, you're wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you."
The irony is that all these people are at the top of the food chain in an economic ecosystem that many protesters seem to view as fundamentally flawed and in need of radical realignment if not wholesale deconstruction.
So the protesters have defied efforts to be led or labeled by either side. This independent positioning may be serving them well.
Early national polls taken about the movement have found that although many Americans aren't clear about the protesters' goals, they support them.
A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted last weekend found that nearly two-thirds of people who were asked didn't know enough about the goals of the Occupy Wall Street protests to say if they approved of them or not.
Yet a United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, also conducted last weekend, asked if people agreed with the goals of the protests from what they "know about the demonstrations." Fifty-nine percent said that they agreed.
That may well be because even if there isn't a single, clear message of the protests that people identify with, it seems as if they do agree with many of the disparate ideas being put forward. A Time Magazine/Abt SRBI poll conducted last week found that among those familiar with the protests, 86 percent of respondents believed that "Wall Street and lobbyists have too much influence in Washington"; 79 percent believed that "the gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. is too large"; 71 percent believed that "executives of financial institutions responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008 should be prosecuted"; and 68 percent believed that "the rich should pay more in taxes."
Closer to the epicenter, the mission is clearer and public support even stronger. A Quinnipiac poll of New York City voters released this week found that nearly three-quarters said that they understood the protesters' views at least fairly well, two-thirds said that they agreed with those views, nearly 9 in 10 said that it was O.K. "that they are protesting" and nearly three-quarters said that as long as the protesters obey the laws that they should be able to remain as long as they wish.
The Occupy Wall Street protests may or may not grow into a political force pursuing a specific legislative agenda through normal systems, but there can be little doubt at this point that the protests have struck a chord with a large swath of Americans.
If nothing else, the movement has established itself as a cultural phenomenon with surprising staying power, and as someone who wasn't sure that it would catch hold, I must echo the young woman in the restaurant: that's just cool.
I invite you to join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter, or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.
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2) Occupy the Classroom
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
October 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/opinion/occupy-the-classroom.html?hp
Occupy Wall Street is shining a useful spotlight on one of America's central challenges, the inequality that leaves the richest 1 percent of Americans with a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent.
Most of the proposed remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It's an expansion of early childhood education.
Huh? That will seem naïve and bizarre to many who chafe at inequities and who think the first step is to throw a few bankers into prison. But although part of the problem is billionaires being taxed at lower rates than those with more modest incomes, a bigger source of structural inequity is that many young people never get the skills to compete. They're just left behind.
"This is where inequality starts," said Kathleen McCartney, the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as she showed me a chart demonstrating that even before kindergarten there are significant performance gaps between rich and poor students. Those gaps then widen further in school.
"The reason early education is important is that you build a foundation for school success," she added. "And success breeds success."
One common thread, whether I'm reporting on poverty in New York City or in Sierra Leone, is that a good education tends to be the most reliable escalator out of poverty. Another common thread: whether in America or Africa, disadvantaged kids often don't get a chance to board that escalator.
Maybe it seems absurd to propose expansion of early childhood education at a time when budgets are being slashed. Yet James Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, has shown that investments in early childhood education pay for themselves. Indeed, he argues that they pay a return of 7 percent or more - better than many investments on Wall Street.
"Schooling after the second grade plays only a minor role in creating or reducing gaps," Heckman argues in an important article this year in American Educator. "It is imperative to change the way we look at education. We should invest in the foundation of school readiness from birth to age 5."
One of the most studied initiatives in this area was the Perry Preschool program, which worked with disadvantaged black children in Michigan in the 1960s. Compared with a control group, children who went through the Perry program were 22 percent more likely to finish high school and were arrested less than half as often for felonies. They were half as likely to receive public assistance and three times as likely to own their own homes.
We don't want to get too excited with these statistics, or those of the equally studied Abecedarian Project in North Carolina. The program was tiny, and many antipoverty initiatives work wonderfully when they're experiments but founder when scaled up. Still, new research suggests that early childhood education can work even in the real world at scale.
Take Head Start, which serves more than 900,000 low-income children a year. There are flaws in Head Start, and researchers have found that while it improved test results, those gains were fleeting. As a result, Head Start seemed to confer no lasting benefits, and it has been widely criticized as a failure.
Not so fast.
One of the Harvard scholars I interviewed, David Deming, compared the outcomes of children who were in Head Start with their siblings who did not participate. Professor Deming found that critics were right that the Head Start advantage in test scores faded quickly. But, in other areas, perhaps more important ones, he found that Head Start had a significant long-term impact: the former Head Start participants are significantly less likely than siblings to repeat grades, to be diagnosed with a learning disability, or to suffer the kind of poor health associated with poverty. Head Start alumni were more likely than their siblings to graduate from high school and attend college.
Professor Deming found that in these life outcomes, Head Start had about 80 percent of the impact of the Perry program - a stunning achievement.
Something similar seems to be true of the large-scale prekindergarten program in Boston. Hirokazu Yoshikawa and Christina Weiland, both of Harvard, found that it erased the Latino-white testing gap in kindergarten and sharply reduced the black-white gap.
President Obama often talked in his campaign about early childhood education, and he probably agrees with everything I've said. But the issue has slipped away and off the agenda.
That's sad because the question isn't whether we can afford early childhood education, but whether we can afford not to provide it. We can pay for prisons or we can pay, less, for early childhood education to help build a fairer and more equitable nation.
I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook and Google+, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
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3) A Story of Drugs and the Police
By JIM DWYER
October 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/nyregion/witness-narrates-frame-up-in-police-corruption-trial.html?ref=nyregion
Because Yvelisse DeLeon of Coney Island was due at an interview for a bartending job on the evening of Jan. 25, 2007, she spent part of the afternoon getting herself ready. That process included a trip to Downtown Brooklyn.
"I went down here to get color for my hair," Ms. DeLeon, 35, testified this month in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. "Jay and Fulton."
Her boyfriend, Juan Figueroa, drove her to that hair appointment and to a few other errands, and around 4 p.m., they were nearly back home. Just as they pulled in front of their building on Neptune Avenue, she said, a car drew up next to them. Two men, one with a gun, ordered them to get out of their car, she testified. They were police officers in civilian clothes.
One of them tore through the car, she said. He was wearing jeans with "little pockets," she said.
"He brought out his pocket," Ms. DeLeon said. "He said, 'Look what I find.' It looked like little powder in a little bag."
"What did he say about that little powder, Ms. DeLeon?" asked the prosecutor, Charles Guria.
"He said it was crack cocaine," she said.
"What happened then?" the prosecutor asked.
Using emphatic language, she pronounced his claim untrue, and called out that "he put it in the car."
Neither Ms. DeLeon, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, nor Mr. Figueroa, a native New Yorker who drives 18-wheel trucks, had ever been arrested before. They spent much of the day and night going through the court system, and then endured a year of follow-up before the charges against them were dismissed. The Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau investigated their claims but found them unsubstantiated. Brooklyn prosecutors took a different view. And the city has paid them each $75,000.
Both have testified in the trial of a police officer, Jason Arbeeny, who conducted the search of the car and is accused of conspiring with other police officers to pass illegal drugs to informers and to lie about arrests. Apart from Ms. DeLeon, no witness has implicated him in wrongdoing.
For anyone interested in watching the spasms of history repeating themselves, the current round of corruption cases involving police officers and drugs could serve as a down payment on the 21st century's contributions. You have to wonder when society will get tired of sending police officers to use all their wiles in the hunt for dealers, and then be shocked when some of them wind up pumping their informers with drugs - confiscated, of course, from other dealers - or craving arrests so much that they frame innocent people.
When such frame-ups are uncovered, they are prosecuted as matters of dishonest paperwork. But they amount to nothing less than a kidnapping at gunpoint for the victims.
In recent trials, officers have testified that when they make buys on the street, they place the drugs in evidence envelopes that remain unsealed until they get back to the precinct station house. In the smallest of details, an envelope that does not get licked shut, the opportunities for trouble are endless.
Mr. Arbeeny has not yet had a chance to tell his story. Asked on Tuesday about Ms. DeLeon's account, his lawyer, Michael Elbaz, said: "Clearly, her allegations are false. The DeLeon allegations were previously unsubstantiated by Internal Affairs."
Under cross-examination, Ms. DeLeon said that, during the search, "I'm watching him, just like a hawk."
But, Mr. Elbaz challenged her: Hadn't she told an Internal Affairs investigator something else? "You actually told him, you could not see his hand, what he was doing, right?" he asked.
"Never," she said, had she told anyone that.
Mr. Elbaz said on Tuesday that he intended to present a tape that would contradict her, and has suggested that she made the allegations against Mr. Arbeeny because she feared deportation.
That issue was addressed when she was questioned by the prosecutors.
"What did they tell you about taking community service?" Mr. Guria asked.
"If I don't take community service, they are going to deport me back home," she said.
"Did you take it?" Mr. Guria asked.
"No," she said.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because I know I don't do," she began, pausing to edit her own translation.
"I know I didn't do what they say I did it."
E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com
Twitter: @jimdwyernyt
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4) The Marines have had Enough
By brages07
http://occupymarines.org/
The Occupy Wall Street movement has a new hero after this past weekend. When New York City police once again used excessive force after the march to Times Square on Saturday, Marine Corps Sergeant Shamar Thomas let them know what he thought. In a video currently making the rounds on the Internet, Sergeant Thomas told several police officers that their actions made them cowards. He repeatedly asked them why they attacked unarmed people and if they felt tough doing so. Sergeant Thomas is not alone among Marines in supporting the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Recently, a new group has emerged called Occupy Marines. The group offers the Occupy Wall Street protesters organization, direction, logistics and leadership. Everything they can offer is needed and appreciated.
According to Sergeant Thomas, he served 14 months in Iraq and his and both of his parents served in Afghanistan. He repeatedly asked the police why they were treating American citizens so violently. He told them that if they wanted to fight, they should go to Iraq and that there was no honor in what they are doing. He repeatedly told the police that no one was armed and asked why the police were in riot gear. All the while, the police just stood there, looking visibly ashamed. Below the Youtube video of his confrontation with the police, Sergeant Thomas said that he was part of riot control in Rutbah, Iraq in 2004. His problem with the NYPD is that they use tactics that he could not use during that riot because the mission in Iraq is about winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Reasonably enough, he expects the same from his own country. Though his comments likely did little to change the minds of the police, they certainly illustrated the broad base of support that Occupy Wall Street has.
Occupy Marines is comprised mostly of non-active duty Marines, due to the military's ban on soldiers protesting while in uniform. Of everything they offer the protesters, the logistical support will prove particularly invaluable. From the very beginning of the protests one month ago, protesters voiced a need for various necessities via Twitter on an almost daily basis. They needs of the protesters range from fresh water to food to toiletries. Generators and fuel were also needed in the beginning. Many protesters do not leave Liberty Plaza for fear of not being able to get back in. Given the high level of organization the Marines are known for, it is likely they will be a great help in organizing the protesters. Considering the fact that one of the main criticisms of the protesters is that they are unorganized, the organizing skills of the Marines will only increase their credibility. Furthermore, the support of the Marines lends mainstream credibility to the protests. Another major criticism of the protesters is that they represent the fringe of the American political spectrum. Gaining support from Marines defuses this criticism, as no one would ever call a Marine a left-wing radical.
It is truly encouraging to hear people like Sergeant Thomas speaking out on the abuses of Wall Street and the police department that protects them. Hopefully, his stand will give others the courage to do the same. It is also wonderful that former Marines are joining the protests. With their help in establishing leadership of the movement it will surely grow and gain even more legitimacy. It says something when such a broad cross-section of America comes together in common cause to stand up for what they know is right. All too often, we think that we are intractably divided as a people. Moments like this make it clear that that is not the case. Maybe we do not always agree, we might not even completely agree now. We do agree that corporations hold undue influence over our political process and have spent the last thirty years taking more for themselves at the expense of the long-term health of the economy. They outsource jobs, cut the pay and benefits of the jobs that stay here then say that people should just take care of themselves. More and more people each day see that for greedy garbage that it is.
By brages07
OccupyMARINES Thank You All For Your Support Keep Pushing Forward
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5) MILLION WORKER MARCH SUPPORTS OCCUPY WALL STREET
Email: mwmeast@yahoo.com
October 17, 2011
www.millionworkermarch.org
The Million Worker March (MWM) organizers and activists call upon all workers organized and unorganized and the unemployed to join and defend the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. We extend the call to anti-war, immigration rights, environmental and social justice activists to join this movement which could replicate the "Arab Spring" here at home.
The MWM, initiated by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 on October 17, 2004 at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., advanced the slogan "mobilizing in our own name" independent of the two Wall Street controlled political parties to address the economic crisis of working people in which the vast majority are under siege financially.
All important social movements, which occurred in this country, were started from the bottom up (rank and file/grass roots) and not from the top down. The MWM's mission statement speaks to how ". . . a handful of the rich and powerful corporations have usurped our government. A corporate and banking oligarchy changes hats and occupies public office to wage class war on working people. They have captured the State in their own interests." They represent what the OWS activists call the 1%, otherwise known as the ruling class.
Like the MWM, the OWS has emerged at a time when the two corporate controlled political parties are preparing for the presidential election; a smokescreen where billions are spent to promote a top down and false ceremony of democracy.
Like the MWM, the OWS will be criticized for having demands that are too broad. We have endured more than 50 years of corporate assault on working people, social services, jobs, wages, pensions, health care, public education, and housing. The pursuit of endless wars, the lack of a comprehensive immigration policy and the erosion of the environment in pursuit of corporate greed, makes it impossible to address all of these issues in a sound bite. Yet one thing is crystal clear, OWS conveys a definite anti-capitalist message. It is being expressed to the entire world at the "temple" of American Capitalism, Wall Street. The OWS, while now a major protest movement against the capitalist elites, must continue to deepen, expand and become a direct challenge to corporate power. Class warfare demands fighting on multiple fronts and it all leads back to Wall Street. While the officialdom of labor has given verbal support to OWS, the rank and file possesses the real power of the labor movement. It is only through rank and file unity that labor's true power can be realized in this OWS movement. Workers can take action at the point of production and service as well as put people in the streets.
We must be mindful of attempts to co-opt this movement. Let us not forget the action of the Democratic Party and its surrogates within AFL-CIO to pressure Wisconsin unions not to initiate any General Strike actions in opposition to Governor Scott Walker's plans to eliminate collective bargaining for State workers. Wisconsin workers were limited to circulating petitions to recall targeted State republican elected officials. This took away labor's only real power, the ability to withhold its labor in defense of collective bargaining.
ILWU Local 10's Executive Board has adopted a Resolution to join and defend the OWS and called for other longshore locals to do the same. More importantly, Local 10 is connecting the OWS movement with the Pacific Northwest dockers struggle with EGT in Longview, Washington. (EGT is an international grain exporter which is attempting to rupture longshore jurisdiction.) The driving force behind EGT is Bunge LTD., a leading agribusiness and food company, which reported $2.4 billion in profits in 2010. This company has strong ties to Wall Street. This is but one example of Wall Street's corporate attack on union workers.
On October 12th, the vice-president and secretary-treasurer of ILWU Local 21 in Longview, WA, who are engaged in battle with EGT, were allowed to speak by the organizers of "Foreclosure on Wall Street West". They explained their struggle to several hundred people attending the rally that took place in the San Francisco financial district. This is an important and strategic show of solidarity between labor and OWS.
It was Black trade unionists that conceived and launched the MWM. Black workers and other workers of color should play an integral role in expanding the power and influence of OWS. The Black unemployment rate is 24% and growing. This needs to be a part of the discussion of the peoples' assemblies as it concerns empowering this peoples' movement.
Working people need to have a political expression of our own which is an alternative to the U.S. corporate sector that both the Democrats and the Republicans represent. The timing of the MWM in Washington was to prepare the beginning of a fight-back precisely because the agendas of two political parties, acting as one, the corporate agenda of permanent war, destruction of all social services, Jim Crow and a relentless assault upon working people.
This is an opportune moment for rank and file working people to forge a mass movement for fundamental change. Rarely has the importance of unity in struggle been more compelling along an axis of class independence.
Only by our own independent mobilization of working people (99%) across America, can we open the way to addressing a peoples' agenda. The MWM and OWS are both about building grass roots and rank and file anti-racist unity "forging the fight-back" on all governmental and corporate policies influenced and or directed by Wall Street.
Let's take it to the corporate state, Let the 1% take the weight
Leo Robinson, ILWU Local 10, Retired, National Convener; Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10, Executive Board, Co-Chair MWM; Chris Silvera, Teamsters Local 808, Sec-Treasurer, Co-Convener MWM East Coast; Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice, Convener MWM Southern Region; Jerry Lawrence, ILWU Local 8, Co-Convener MWM Pacific Northwest; Debby Stringfellow, ILWU Local 8, Co-Convener MWM Pacific Northwest; Gabriel Prawl, ILWU Local 52, Co-Convener MWM Pacific Northwest; Trent Willis, ILWU Local 10, Executive Board, Conceiver, MWM.
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6) U.N. Panel Calls for Inquiry Into Qaddafi's Death
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/un-panel-calls-for-inquiry-into-qaddafis-death.html?ref=world
GENEVA - The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Friday for an inquiry into the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi amid conflicting accounts of how the Libyan dictator met his end and video that appeared to show him alive after his capture.
"We believe there is a need for investigation to see whether he was killed in fighting or some form of execution," Rupert Colville, the spokesman for Navi Pillay, the human rights commissioner, told reporters in Geneva.
Libya's interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, said that Colonel Qaddafi was wounded but still alive when he was captured and put on a truck in the town of Surt on Thursday. The vehicle was caught in cross-fire between Qaddafi loyalists and the attacking forces, Mr. Jibril said, and Colonel Qaddafi was struck in the head by a bullet, dying shortly before reaching a hospital.
But video and photographs that appeared on the Internet soon after Colonel Qaddafi was captured show him alive and propped between his captors, while others showed the body of the deposed leader being dragged by a crowd, covered in blood and apparently dead.
The existence of videos showing Colonel Qaddafi first alive and then dead was "very disturbing," Mr. Colville said. "We really do need some clarity."
Mr. Colville said the thousands of victims of Colonel Qaddafi's tyrannical rule also deserved to see proper judicial procedures that bring to the light the truth of what occurred under the dictator's 42-year rule, end the culture of impunity that existed and provide reparations for victims. It is "imperative," he said, that Libya's new rulers do everything possible to calm the situation.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Colville said that the independent Commission of Inquiry for Libya, set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council, would likely look into Colonel Qaddafi's death. "This obviously falls squarely within their mandate," he said. The commission is led by Judge Philippe Kirsch, the former president of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
"In the laws of war there is an obvious difference between someone killed in combat or crossfire, or a captive being executed or summarily shot down," he said.
Marlise Simons contributed reporting from Paris.
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7) In Bid to Cut Costs at Some Texas Prisons, Lunch Will Not Be Served on Weekends
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
October 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/us/texas-reduces-weekend-meals-for-prisoners.html?ref=us
HOUSTON - Texas prison officials last month ended the decades-old practice of serving last meals to inmates about to be executed after one man ordered an elaborate feast of hamburgers, pizza and chicken-fried steaks that he did not eat.
But the 300 inmates on death row are not the only ones coping with food restrictions.
Thousands of other inmates in the Texas prison system have been eating fewer meals since April after officials stopped serving lunch on the weekends in some prisons as a way to cut food-service costs. About 23,000 inmates in 36 prisons are eating two meals a day on Saturdays and Sundays instead of three. A meal the system calls brunch is usually served between 5 and 7 a.m., followed by dinner between 4 and 6:30 p.m.
The meal reductions are part of an effort to trim $2.8 million in food-related expenses from the 2011 fiscal year budget of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the state prison agency. Other cuts the agency has made to its food service include replacing carton milk with powdered milk and using sliced bread instead of hamburger and hot dog buns.
Prison administrators said that the cuts were made in response to the state's multibillion-dollar budget shortfall in 2011, and that the weekend lunches were eliminated in consultation with the agency's health officials and dietitians. Michelle Lyons, an agency spokeswoman, said that inmates with health problems who have been prescribed a therapeutic diet continue to receive three meals per day.
By reducing its weekend meals, Texas has set itself apart from most other state prison systems. State inmates in New York, California, Nevada, Florida and several other states are fed three times a day, seven days a week. Federal prisoners receive three meals daily, as do inmates in the county jails throughout Texas. Most states serve their inmates milk in cartons, but Texas prison officials said switching to powdered milk would save them an estimated $3.5 million annually.
Ohio and Arizona serve two meals per day on the weekends to reduce food-service costs. Georgia serves two meals per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, though inmates on work details receive a third meal.
Inmates' relatives and legal advocates in Texas said the elimination of milk in cartons and weekend lunches was an unnecessarily harsh cutback that had a negative effect on prison life. In August, 19 inmates at the Hutchins State Jail near Dallas, one of the 36 prisons that reduced weekend meals, signed a petition and sent it to the Texas affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, calling the food cutbacks a violation of the federal Constitution.
"I think it's really easy to take things away from inmates," said Susan Fenner, executive director of the Texas Inmate Families Association. "One inmate told me, for some of them, that's all they have to look forward to is a meal."
Inmates are allowed to purchase chips and other snacks from prison commissaries. In prisons that have cut back on weekend meals, food from the commissaries has taken on a new significance. Prisoners' relatives said the meal reductions affect low-income inmates the most, because their families cannot afford to send money to keep them supplied with commissary snacks.
The weekend meal reduction appears to be out of step with the standards adopted by the American Correctional Association. In adult prisons, the association recommends serving three meals per day. Variations are allowed based on weekend and holiday food-service demands as long as the meals meet basic nutritional goals, but the standards do not state that the variations can be done every weekend or as a cost-cutting measure.
Daron Hall, the sheriff of Davidson County in Tennessee and the president of the American Correctional Association, said Texas prison officials had adopted a loose interpretation of the food-service standards and needed to monitor the impact of the reductions on inmates. "I've never read the standard to mean you can do it every weekend," Sheriff Hall said. "In the economic climate we're in, you're asked to do some creative and inventive things. You have to balance that with the safety and welfare of inmates in the facilities."
Prisoners' rights advocates said that serving inmates fewer than three meals a day falls into a legal gray zone based on various cases around the country. In Texas, a state law requires inmates to be fed "three times in any 24-hour period," but the law applies only to county inmates and not to state prisoners.
"We're beginning to see this more frequently, as states and counties begin to cut back on food in a short-sighted attempt to cut costs," said David C. Fathi, director of the A.C.L.U.'s National Prison Project in Washington. "This is not something the Supreme Court has addressed."
Texas prison officials said they have no legal concerns about the food cutbacks, believe that they are in compliance with the correctional association standards and stress that inmates have not reported health problems stemming from the meal reductions. "Extensive consultation with T.D.C.J.'s health services department and system dieticians prior to implementation of this plan have allowed us to avoid any medical issues," Ms. Lyons said in a statement.
State Senator John Whitmire, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee whose outrage over last meals on death row led to the end of the practice last month, said the reductions were not a major concern to him. "If they don't like the menu," he said, "don't come there in the first place."
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8) Wal-Mart Cuts Some Health Care Benefits
"Barbara Collins, a sales associate at the Wal-Mart in Placerville, Calif., said that the premiums for the H.M.O. plan for herself and her 5-year-old son would rise to $18 every two weeks from $10. Her big concern, she said, was that her deductible would jump to $5,000 a year, from $1,000 - a daunting amount considering she earns $19,000 a year. 'I don't know how I'll be able to afford it if I go to a doctor or to physical therapy,' she said."
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and REED ABELSON
October 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/business/wal-mart-cuts-some-health-care-benefits.html?ref=business
After trying to mollify its critics in recent years by offering better health care benefits to its employees, Wal-Mart is substantially rolling back coverage for part-time workers and significantly raising premiums for many full-time staff.
Citing rising costs, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, told its employees this week that all future part-time employees who work less than 24 hours a week on average will no longer qualify for any of the company's health insurance plans.
In addition, any new employees who average 24 hours to 33 hours a week will no longer be able to include a spouse as part of their health care plan, although children can still be covered.
This is a big shift from just a few years ago when Wal-Mart expanded coverage for employees and their families after facing criticism because so many of its 1.4 million workers could not afford or did not qualify for coverage - rendering many of them eligible for Medicaid.
Under pressure from states saddled with rising Medicaid costs and from labor unions and community groups, Wal-Mart had agreed to offer part-time employees, even those averaging less than 24 hours a week, health care insurance after a year on the job, shaving a year off the eligibility requirement. Wal-Mart also said that it was offering health plans that cost its employees about $250 a year for family coverage.
At the time, the moves were considered a departure from some of its major rivals and large employers, more than half of whom offer no company-sponsored health plan for part-time workers.
On Thursday, the company would not say what percentage of its work force was part time or worked fewer than 24 hours a week. Greg Rossiter, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the decision to deny coverage to new part-time employees resulted from the company's revamping of its health care offerings in light of rising costs.
"Over the last few years, we've all seen our health care rates increase and it's probably not a surprise that this year will be no different," Mr. Rossiter said. "We made the difficult decision to raise rates that will affect our associates' medical costs. The decisions made were not easy, but they strike a balance between managing costs and providing quality care and coverage."
The company said the changes were not a result of the new federal health care law. But the higher rates along with steep spikes in premiums for other plans this year are likely to stoke the national debate over the year-old legislation that has pitted President Obama and Democrats against Republicans opposed to the changes. Challenges to the law by several states are now before the Supreme Court.
These moves are also occurring in a postrecession period when Wal-Mart has been struggling to regain its footing after months of disappointing or flat sales. And with unemployment still hovering around 9 percent, employers may feel less compelled to offer expansive benefits to people desperate for work.
Nationwide, employer-sponsored health premiums are up 9 percent, and increases of 5 percent or more are predicted for next year, with workers shouldering higher burdens on premiums and deductibles.
In 2009, Wal-Mart said 52 percent of its employees obtained health coverage through it, but on Thursday it declined to give the percentage.
Documents on Wal-Mart's health and other benefit offerings were obtained by The New York Times from the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, a union-backed group of Wal-Mart employees that is seeking to pressure the company to improve wages and benefits.
In Wal-Mart's 2012 health offerings, premiums will increase for some plans by more than 40 percent, although many of their workers pay relatively low premiums in comparison to more generous plans offered by other employers. But many Wal-Mart employees complain that their low premiums are accompanied by high deductibles that sometimes exceed 20 percent of their annual pay.
Wal-Mart's new health offerings will require many employees who smoke to pay a significant penalty. They will be required to pay an extra $10 to $90 each pay period - $260 to $2,340 a year - if they want health coverage.
Several other large employers have begun charging higher premiums to employees who smoke, according to Mercer, a benefits consulting firm. Among the largest employers, about 28 percent vary their premiums based on tobacco use.
Mr. Rossiter defended the penalty for smokers, saying, "Tobacco users generally consume about 25 percent more health care services than nontobacco users."
In its health care brochures, Wal-Mart told its employees that diseases caused by tobacco result in $96 billion in extra health care costs nationwide. And it noted that some other prominent companies, including Home Depot, Macy's and PepsiCo, charge smokers more as part of their health plans.
Tammy Yancey, a $9.50-an-hour gas attendant at a Sam's Club in Pinellas Park , Fla., complained that she would no longer be able to afford health insurance from the company. Ms. Yancey, a smoker, said her premiums would jump to $127.90 every two weeks - or $3,325 a year - up from $53.80 at present, when she earns $12,000 a year from her job.
"I won't be able to afford the insurance," she said. "And I really can't go without insurance because I have a heart problem."
Dan Schlademan, director of Making Change at Walmart, a union-backed campaign, condemned the changes.
"No wonder people are protesting in the streets," he said. "This is another example of corporations putting profits ahead of what's good for everyday Americans. It's outrageous and damaging to many hard-working families that the biggest corporation in America is increasing health care costs for many employees by 40 percent."
Wal-Mart says that its health care plans are affordable and competitive compared with those of its competitors. "We are proud to be among a few companies that continue to offer an affordable associate-only medical option for about a dollar per day or $15 per pay period," Mr. Rossiter said. He noted that many companies offer health plans that start at $75 a week or more for each two-week pay period.
Companies frequently do not offer coverage to part-time workers. About 42 percent of large employers offer benefits to part-time employers, according to the 2011 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks changes in benefits. And some of Wal-Mart's competitors, like Home Depot, do not offer their part-time workers the same health plans they offer full-time workers. Instead, those employees can enroll in plans that sharply limit the amount of coverage.
Wal-Mart also significantly reduced the amount of money it contributes to the savings accounts workers can use to pay for medical bills that are not covered under their plan. Last year, the company put $1,000 into accounts for families but it will cut the amount by half for next year to just $500. Companies typically put more money into these accounts as a way of encouraging employees to choose these plans, which cost employers less than traditional policies.
While Wal-Mart defends its decision to reduce these contributions, few companies have made similar cuts, according to Mercer. Companies are continuing to try to do what they can to encourage employees to enroll in these plans, said Beth Umland, who oversees the company's benefits research.
Barbara Collins, a sales associate at the Wal-Mart in Placerville, Calif., said that the premiums for the H.M.O. plan for herself and her 5-year-old son would rise to $18 every two weeks from $10. Her big concern, she said, was that her deductible would jump to $5,000 a year, from $1,000 - a daunting amount considering she earns $19,000 a year. "I don't know how I'll be able to afford it if I go to a doctor or to physical therapy," she said.
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9) Seeing Limits to 'New' Kind of War in Libya
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/africa/nato-war-in-libya-shows-united-states-was-vital-to-toppling-qaddafi.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - For all its success, NATO's intervention in Libya had several significant flaws that highlight why future offensives, against a stronger adversary, could be far more difficult.
Even as Washington put a European mask of command on the operation - an effort described as "leading from behind" - shortages in allied intelligence-gathering aircraft, aerial refueling tankers and precision-guidance kits for bombs proved the United States remained the backbone of any NATO offensive.
To be fair, while the fighting has dragged on longer than anticipated, the death on Thursday of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, gave senior Obama administration officials an opportunity to trumpet the new American way of war to a nation weary of ground combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States military has spent just $1.1 billion in Libya, and in the words of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., "didn't lose a single life." He added that "this is more of the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has been in the past."
Libya proved that the leaders of some medium-size powers can be overthrown from a distance, without putting American boots on the ground, by using weapons fired from sea and air with the heaviest load carried by partner nations - in the case of Libya, European allies and even some Arab states.
Now, that mission is winding down. NATO said Friday that it would cease operations in Libya on Oct. 31, exactly seven months after the alliance assumed full control of the campaign.
An axiom of the new warfare is that speed kills: Attacks must be carried out rapidly to recapture an old-fashioned element of surprise, with intelligence identifying targets even before an enemy has recoiled from previous ones.
Senior military officials noted that in Libya, NATO missions were under way just 10 days after the alliance decided to move forward - compared to the 11 months it took to move from a United Nations resolution to the first airplane enforcing a no-fly zone over Kosovo in the 1990s.
"NATO works, and it can work at speed," said Adm. James G. Stavridis, the alliance's senior military commander. "The difference is that 10 years of integrated operations in Afghanistan have created an alliance that can move quickly, can move with alacrity - not without controversy, not without some nations moving faster and some moving slower and some saying we are not going to participate in this operation."
But American and alliance officials acknowledged that a stinging critique, issued this summer by Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary at the time, still echoed. He warned of a two-tiered alliance in which some allies could fight, and some really could not.
"It takes every nation to bring what they can to the operation and then it's up to the nations to figure out how best to use what they bring," said Lt. Gen. Ralph J. Jodice II, a United States Air Force officer who commands the allied campaign from his headquarters in Italy.
The shortages in the proper equipment, military skills and political commitment that Mr. Gates underscored are, indeed, considered a warning to the alliance. NATO does not have a roster of experienced officers to do its own targeting - the essence of successful air warfare. Only the United States, Britain and France have targeteers up to modern standards.
With no troops on the ground to help spot targets, NATO planners and pilots had to improvise with other reconnaissance equipment and informants on the ground. Still, commanders acknowledged that they often could not pinpoint the shifting battle lines in hotly contested cities.
Shortages in intelligence-gathering aircraft - both manned and remotely piloted - also revealed a near United States monopoly on these technologies, although NATO is considering purchasing drones for itself.
For command bunkers in Tripoli as well as Colonel Qaddafi's final hide-out in Surt, NATO increasingly relied on American Predator drones that fly high overhead for hundreds of hours, chronicling the "pattern of life" below until allied commanders feel confident the site is a legitimate target. On Thursday, for instance, a Predator helped to guide a French warplane to attack Colonel Qaddafi's convoy as it tried to flee Surt. (NATO said Thursday it did not know Colonel Qaddafi was in the convoy then.)
Ditto with refueling tankers: The United States had to provide most refueling aircraft.
Likewise with the GPS packages, which turn gravity bombs into precision-guided weapons to hit their targets while minimizing civilian casualties. While alliance officers say no missions were delayed or canceled due to shortages of precision-guided munitions, there was a scramble to borrow from American and other stockpiles for NATO aircraft.
For the record, non-American alliance and partner aircraft flew 75 percent of all sorties of the war. And non-American alliance warships carried out 100 percent of the missions to enforce the arms embargo at sea.
But NATO will be able to add muscle to its military only by increasing its defense spending, now averaging 1.7 percent of gross domestic product across the 28-nation alliance. And that may be a difficult push as the United States, still the essential alliance member, cuts the Pentagon budget as part of a deficit-reduction deal with Congress.
For all the talk that no American combat troops were deployed in Libya, ground forces were required to topple the government. But they were Libyan rebel forces, and they required ample assistance and advising from outside powers.
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10) Brazil: Doctors Convicted of Killing Four Patients for Their Kidneys
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/americas/brazil-doctors-convicted-of-killing-patients-for-their-kidneys.html?ref=world
A jury convicted three Brazilian doctors of killing four patients by removing their organs, which prosecutors said were used for transplants at an expensive private clinic. A judge in São Paulo State, Marco Montemor, sentenced the doctors to 17 years and 6 months each in prison. Two doctors were charged with murder after removing both kidneys from the patients and preparing the organs for transport, while a neurosurgeon was charged as an accomplice for incorrectly declaring the patients brain-dead and authorizing the harvest of their organs. The scheme was discovered in 1986. The defense lawyer, who said that the donors were already dead, said he would appeal.
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11) BP's Plan for Drilling in the Gulf Is Approved
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
October 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/business/energy-environment/bp-plan-for-gulf-drilling-is-approved.html?ref=business
HOUSTON - The Obama administration on Friday took another step toward allowing BP to return to the Gulf of Mexico, approving the first oil drilling plan for the company there since the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig more than a year ago.
It was another sign that oil exploration in the gulf was coming back to normal, although energy companies continued to complain that the permitting process for drilling new wells remained far slower than before the accident.
The federal government's approval of the BP plan to drill up to four exploratory wells nearly 200 miles from the Louisiana coast was positive news for BP, which has struggled to recover from the April 2010 accident that left 11 workers dead and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the gulf.
"Our review of BP's plan included verification of BP's compliance with the heightened standards that all deepwater activities must meet," said Tommy P. Beaudreau, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a statement announcing the decision.
The statement said that BP had voluntarily carried out "additional safety enhancements and performance standards" for exploring for oil and gas in the gulf.
A week earlier, the administration announced that the company would be allowed to bid on new oil leases in the gulf in a December lease auction, the first scheduled since the disaster. Michael R. Bromwich, the head of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, told a Congressional committee that the decision came after a comprehensive internal debate.
Mr. Bromwich's agency will still need to grant BP permits before the company can drill the new wells, which are expected to be at a water depth of just over 6,000 feet. That process could take several weeks or more.
BP spokesmen declined to discuss the latest decision, although the company issued a brief statement saying that, "We are working through the regulatory process" and that the company's voluntary standards "exceed current government requirements."
The gulf accident remains a burden for the company. BP, along with Transocean, the rig operator, and Halliburton, the cement contractor, recently received citations from the Interior Department saying that they had failed to protect safety and the environment. The 15 separate violations could force the companies to pay as much as $45.7 million. They face potential criminal charges as well.
Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, was sharply critical of the drilling approval.
"Comprehensive safety legislation hasn't passed Congress, and BP hasn't paid the fines they owe for their spill, yet BP is being given back the keys to drill in the gulf," Mr. Markey said in a statement.
BP continues to pump oil and gas in the gulf from production platforms, and it has a minority stake in another well being drilled by Noble Energy that was approved after the Deepwater Horizon accident.
While the company's operations may be returning to normal in the United States, its business in Russia continues to be plagued by turmoil.
Tensions at its TNK-BP joint venture led to the departure Friday of Maxim Barsky, the Russian deputy chief executive and heir apparent to the chief executive, Mikhail Fridman. It was the latest episode in a continuing corporate shake-up resulting in part from a dispute over a BP move to partner with a second Russian company, Rosneft, earlier this year.
TNK-BP blocked the Rosneft venture in court, and minority shareholders of TNK-BP have sued BP seeking billions of dollars in damages.
Mr. Fridman, who has a history of conflict with senior BP executives, will remain as chief executive of TNK-BP until the end of 2013, the companies said Friday.
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