JUSTICE DENIED
Kevin Cooper, the Death Penalty, and the Failure of U.S. Criminal Justice System
"The state of California may be about to execute an innocent man." -Justice William A. Fletcher, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Bay Area book tour with J. Patrick O'Connor, author of "SCAPEGOAT: The Chino Hills Murders and the Framing of Kevin Cooper" and "The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal"
Sunday, Feb. 5. - Oakland
6:00 p.m. - dinner/reception with O'Connor and friends at the home of Jeff Mackler, $15.00, call for reservations: 510-268-9429
Monday, Feb 6 - Oakland
10:30 a.m. - Laney College
900 Fallon, Bldg./Rm. G209, Oakland
Tuesday, Feb. 7 - South Bay
12 noon - 1:00 p.m. - Santa Clara Law School
500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053
(Enter on Palm Drive and tell them you are going to Law School for free parking pass and directions)
7:00 p.m. - Peninsula Peace and Justice
(Cable TV show/Public forum)
Community Media Center, 900 San Antonio Rd., Palo Alto. 650-326-8837
Wednesday, Feb. 8 - Oakland
5:30 pm -- KPFA Radio Flashpoints
Tune in at 94.1 FM for interview with Dennis Bernstein
7:00 pm -- Laney College public meeting
Student Center, Fourth Floor, 900 Fallon, Oakland
Thursday, Feb 9 - - Sacramento
10:00 AM -- Capital Public Radio's "Insight" tune in at 90.9 PM
McGeorge School of Law, Sacramento call 51 0-268-9429 for information
UC Davis Law School. Davis
Call 510-268-9429 for information
7:00 pm -- Public forum with Patrick O'Connor and Norman Hile, attorney for Kevin Cooper
Sponsored by WILPF & Sacramento Area Peace Council 909 12th Street, Sacramento
Friday, Feb 10 -- Berkeley
7:00 pm -- UC Berkeley public forum cal! 510- 268-9429 for information
Saturday, Feb. 11, Berkeley
7:30 PM -- Peace and Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists
1924 Cedar St. at Bonita
Sunday, Feb 12, San Jose
2:00 pm -- San Jose Peace and Justice Center 48 S. Seventh St., Suite 101, San Jose, 95112 408-297-2299
For further information contact: 510-268-9429
About the author and speaker:
J. Patrick O'Connor has been the editor and publisher of Crime Magazine (www.crimemagazine.com) since 1998. He was a reporter and bureau manager for United Press International, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, and an associate editor for TV Guide. He was editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times, an alternative newspaper.
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DON'T VOTE FOR THE ONE PERCENT!
We working people--employed, unemployed, partially employed or retired--can't get any economic justice by voting for the One Percent! We need to occupy the elections with our own candidates of, by and for working people! --Bonnie Weinstein
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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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Pacific Northwest tour:
The campaign to free Bradley Manning
Jan/Feb events presented by Jeff Paterson
* Corvallis, Oregon - Monday, January 30 at 7:00pm - Oddfellows Hall, 223 Southwest 2nd Street, Sponsored by Veterans for Peace-Corvallis
* Eugene, Oregon - Wednesday, February 1 at 7:30pm - First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive St. - Sponsored by Community Alliance of Lane County
* Portland, Oregon - Thursday, February 2 at 7:00pm - First Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Salmon, Buchan Reception Room, Sponsored by the Alliance for Democracy. With musician David Rovics.
* Bellingham, Washington - Friday, February 3 at 7pm - Whatcom Peace & Justice Center, 1155 N. State Street, Ste. 300, Sponsored by Veterans for Peace-Bellingham
* Seattle, Washington - Saturday, February 4 at 3pm - Revolution Books, 89 S. Washington Street
* Seattle, Washington - Sunday, February 5 at 3pm - University Temple United Methodist Church, 1415 NE 43rd Street, Sponsored by Veterans for Peace-Seattle
* Olympia, Washington - Monday, February 6 at 3:30pm - South Puget Sound Community College
* Lakewood, Washington - Monday, February 6 at 7pm - Coffee Strong Café, 15109 Union Avenue SW
* Olympia, Washington - Tuesday, February 7 at Noon - The Evergreen State College, Lecture Hall 3, Sponsored by SDS and the "Re-Interpreting Liberation" program
free manningCourage to Resist project director and Bradley Manning Support Network campaign organizer Jeff Paterson will provide a multi-media presentation to include:
* An overview of US v. Bradley Manning
* His report from the Fort Meade courtroom where Bradley had his first court hearing after 18 months of pre-trial confinement
* Updates on the international grassroots campaign
* An opportunity to make a tax-deductible donation to Bradley's defense fund, which in addition to supporting public education efforts is responsible for 100% of Bradley's legal expenses
* Introduction to the new Courage to Resist book, About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War-from Army Lt. Ehren Watada to PFC Bradley Manning, and two dozen other stories. Published by PM Press, September 2011.
Contact Courage to Resist for more information regarding specific events.
For daily updates on the campaign to save Bradley Manning, visit
www.bradleymanning.org
Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave. #41, Oakland, CA 94610, 510-488-3559, couragetoresist.org
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"Where Soldiers Come From" Film Screening & Discussion
START DATE: Wednesday February 01, 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM
AMC Van Ness
1000 Van Ness Ave
San Francisco, CA, 94109
Event Type: Screening
Contact Name- Joshua Shepherd
Email Address info [at] ivawsf.org
***TICKETS: Are $9 and must be purchased in advance online: https://tugg.co/events/161***
***FILM TRAILER*** http://youtu.be/gWixLvfef0Y
San Francisco's chapter of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War are collaborating to bring you a powerful documentary about real Americans going to fight our war in Afghanistan, and will be followed with a discussion by some of our members.
"From a snowy small town in Northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan and back, WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM follows the four-year journey of childhood friends, forever changed by a faraway war.
A documentary about growing up, WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars and the families and town they come from. Returning to her hometown, Director Heather Courtney gains extraordinary access following these young men as they grow and change from teenagers stuck in their town, to 23-year-old veterans facing the struggles of returning home."
Iraq Veterans Against the War has been spearheading a national campaign called "Operation Recovery", which is devoted to stopping the re-deployment of traumatized troops. Our servicemembers are seeing multiple deployments, even after experiencing severe traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress, and military sexual trauma which adds tremendous stress to the individual and their already daunting process of recovery.
IVAW SF is fundraising to send a delegation to the Operation Recovery convergence at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas in order to bring the campaign home to the bay.
http://www.facebook.com/events/23600045314...
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February 4 2012: NATIONAL DAY OF MASS ACTION TO STOP A U.S. WAR ON IRAN:
San Francisco Bay Area:
NO war on Iran! NO sanctions! NO intervention! NO assassinations!
Rally and March
Meet at NOON: Powell and Market Sts. (Powell St. BART Plaza), SF
This is a united action being called and organized cooperatively by many local anti-war organizations and communities including World Can't Wait (see below). Everyone is welcome and everyone's presence is needed.
Friends, we're pleased to tell you that yesterday at a meeting initiated by World Can't Wait and the ANSWER Coalition, 40 people met and agreed to organize together for February 4. We all hope that the rally and march will bring out a very broad and diverse crowd to speak up NOW - the U.S. and Israeli sabre-rattling threatening Iran is so ominous, yet to today there has not been public protest raised inside this country demanding NO WAR ON IRAN. February 4 will change that situation.
Last week, a large national conference call of anti-war groups and activists produced the call for this nationwide day, and agreed on its single, simple slogan:
NO war on Iran! NO sanctions! NO intervention! NO assassinations!
In the Bay Area, a united action is being planned with a NOON RALLY at Powell and Market, and a march to follow. All organizations, communities, and people who agree with the above call for this day, and this slogan, are invited to join. Our local list of endorsers is in formation, beginning with World Can't Wait, ANSWER Coalition, Unitarian Universalists for Peace, the Al-Awda Palestine Right of Return Coalition, and Code Pink.
Your participation, endorsement and support are urgently needed.
Sign up at http://worldcantwait.net/
Spread the word at http://www.facebook.com/events/305742392811934/
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FORUM ON POLICE RESPONSE TO OCCUPY OAKLAND
A symposium sponsored by the Oakland Citizens' Police Review Board
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 AT 6:15 P.M.
Oakland City Hall, City Council Chambers, 1 Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza
The forum will focus on issues of planning and strategy, OPD's
response to issues of misconduct, OPD's policies on mutual aid, and
changes in department practice going forward.
*The Oscar Grant Committee meets the 1st Tuesday of every month at the
Niebyl Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph (near Alcatraz) in Oakland at 7:00
p.m. Call us at 510-239-3570 and visit us at
www.oscargrantcommittee.weebly.com. *
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
The campaign to save Army Private Bradley Manning, accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Friday, February 17, 2012 from 7:00pm to 8:30pm UC Berkeley's International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave, Berkeley, California
Bradley Manning, a 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst, faces life in prison for allegedly sharing the "Collateral Murder" video of a US helicopter attack that killed 11 civilians and wounded two children in Baghdad, Iraq with the WikiLeaks website. Bradley has also been charged with blowing the whistle on the "Iraq War Logs", the "Afghan Diaries", the "Gitmo Files", and embarrassing US State Department cables. All of the documents released have added significantly to public knowledge of war crimes, civilian casualties, government corruption, and the over-classification of information. No one has been harmed and the information has helped fuel pro-democratic protests globally. For this, Bradley faces life in prison at a military court martial this spring. Free Bradley Manning!
Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon Papers whistle-blower who helped end the Vietnam War
US Army Colonel Ann Wright (ret) Diplomat who resigned in protest of the Iraq War
Ray McGovern Former CIA analyst
Jeff Paterson Bradley Manning Support Network organizer
Suggested donation $10 (no one turned away). A fund pitch for the Bradley Manning Defense Fund will be made during the program by Reverend Billy Talen. For more information regarding this panel, contact Courage to Resist at 510-488-3559 or courage@riseup.net
Presented by the Bradley Manning Support Network, Courage to Resist, and the Fresh Juice Party. Endorsed by.
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This panel will help kickoff the "Occupy the Truth: Whistleblower's" open-source conference at UC Berkeley's International House, February 17 -19, 2012. Participants are encouraged to return the following day to participate in the conference and/or become involved in the campaign to save Bradley Manning. For more information regarding the conference: www.freshjuiceparty.com/occupy-the-truth
Other weekend conference participants include: filmmaker Mikko Allane, strategist Celia Alario, performance artist Larry Bogad, veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Conrad, performance Artist Savitri D, firebrand teen activist Erica Fernandez, attorney Stephen Kohn, activist and widow of the late great Abbie Hoffman Johanna Lawrenson, filmmaker Carol Leigh, medical marijuana activist Dr. Frank Lucido, actress / activist Alexandra Paul, communications specialist Zack Pesavento, social entrepreneur Peter Samuelson, WikiLeaks expert Micah L. Sifry, artist and media hoaxer Joey Skaggs, activist David Solnit, artist / filmmaker Annie Sprinkle PhD, activist Andy Stepanian, professor Elizabeth Stephens, Reverend Billy Talen, and attorney Ben Wizner.
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LYNNE STEWART WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2012 HEARING AND 24-HOUR VIGIL ALERT:
Ralph Poynter updated his status: "GREETINGS FAMILY/COMRADES/SPIRIT WARRIORS- BE SURE TO PLACE OUR 'OCCUPY THE COURTS' EVENT IN YOUR CALENDAR. THE EVENING OF TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2012 IS THE DATE OF THE ALL NITE VIGIL PRECEEDING THE HEARING FOR LYNNE STEWART AT 500 PEARL STREET NEW FEDERAL COURT ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 29TH IN NYC. THE ALL NITE VIGIL WILL TAKE PLACE IN TOM PAINE PARK BESIDE THE COURT HOUSE. COME WITH YOUR DRUMS - YOUR SLEEPING BAGS - YOUR BANNERS SUPPORT LYNNE STEWART, LEORNARD PELTIER, MUMIA, BRADLEY MANNING AND ALL OF OUR FREEDOM FIGHTERS UNJUSTLY INCARCERATED IN THE TORTURE CELLS OF USA INJUSTICE SYSTEM."
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#F29 - Occupy Portland National Call To Action To
Shut Down the Corporations FEBRUARY 29, 2012
by OccupyWallSt
http://occupywallst.org/article/f29-occupy-portland-national-call-action-shut-down/
via Occupy Portland & Portland Action Lab:
"Occupy Portland calls for a day of non-violent direct action to reclaim our voices and challenge our society's obsession with profit and greed by shutting down the corporations. We are rejecting a society that does not allow us control of our future. We will reclaim our ability to shape our world in a democratic, cooperative, just and sustainable direction.
We call on the Occupy Movement and everyone seeking freedom and justice to join us in this day of action.
There has been a theft by the 1% of our democratic ability to shape and form the society in which we live and our society is steered toward the destructive pursuit of consumption, profit and greed at the expense of all else.
We call on people to target corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council which is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not people. They used it to create the anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona among so many others. They use ALEC to spread these corporate laws around the country.
In doing this we begin to recreate our democracy. In doing this we begin to create a society that is organized to meet human needs and sustain life.
On February 29th, we will reclaim our future from the 1%. We will shut down the corporations and recreate our democracy.
Join us! Leap into action! Reclaim our future! Shut down the corporations!
*This action received unanimous consensus from the Portland General Assembly on Sunday January 1st, 2012."
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Occupy St.Patrick's Day!
Once again the San Francisco Bay Area comrades of the International Republican Socialist Network are reaching out to socialists, syndicalists, anarchists, and Irish, Scottish, and Welsh republicans to join them in marching in this year's San Francisco St. Patrick's Parade.
For the first time in the nearly three decades that local comrades have marched in the parade under the auspices of the H-Block/Armagh Committees, Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America, and the International Republican Socialist Network the parade will actually take place on St. Patrick's Day, Saturday, March 17th.
As usual, the parade will begin at Market and Second Streets and our assembly point will no doubt be somewhere on Second Street and the time will be approximately 10:30, though details are not yet known.
As has been the case for many years, the IRSN will have a decorated truck--this year dedicated to the proud history of Irish Republican Socialism--but that entry will be joined by the Anti-Imperialist Contingent, composed of revolutionaries from many different organizations, united by their opposition to both British and American imperialism and their support for an independent, 32-country Irish socialist republic.
Participants in the Anti-Imperialist Contingent are welcome to bring their own identifying banners, as well as to join in carrying IRSC-supplied banners, raising slogans in opposition to imperialism and in support of the struggle for socialism in Ireland. The IRSN appreciates it when comrades who will be joining in march with the Anti-Imperialist Contingent let us know of their intent to do so in advance, as it helps us to better plan the organization of the contingent; the earlier you are able to do so, the more we appreciate it. For additional information, or to notify us of you or your organization's participation, please e-mail: irsp@netwiz.net.
As has long been our tradition, the IRSN will be welcoming all those who join us in marching in this year's parade to join in a post-parade party, featuring the very traditional combination of nachos and Margaritas (well, traditional for us anyway).
So mark your calendars and get your marching shoes ready, and come and join the International Republican Socialist Network in once again ensuring that St. Patrick's Day in the San Francisco Bay Area has a proudly visible representation of the Irish Republican Socialist tradition.
Only you can prevent the St. Patrick's Day Parade from becoming a green beer, ROTC, and Hooters-dominated event!
Come out to show your solidarity with the struggle for national liberation and socialism in Ireland and to help reclaim the revolutionary tradition of St. Patrick's Day in the US.
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NATIONAL CONFERENCE
United National Antiwar Coalition
Say No! To the NATO / G8 Wars & Poverty Agenda
A Conference to Challenge the Wars of the 1% on the 99% at Home and Abroad
March 23-25, 2012 Stamford Hilton Hotel, CT (just one Metro North train stop from NYC)
On December 31, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This legislation:
1. Directs $662 billion dollars desperately needed by the 99% for housing, jobs, health care and schools towards war appropriations.
2. Slaps dangerous new sanctions on Iran.
3. Codifies indefinite detention without charges or trial on American soil.
The sanctions on Iran, which will cause severe economic hardship for the people of Iran and squeeze U.S. competitors like China who depend on Iranian oil, are just one more step toward a new U.S. war. The indefinite detention threat will be used to silence activists for social change and to ramp up Islamophobia and war fever here at home. Already, on January 1, a mosque in NYC and the homes of people of color were firebombed. Overall, the billions of dollars just appropriated are going to be used for provocative new military operations in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.
And this is just the beginning of 2012. On May 19, the U.S. will be hosting, simultaneously, the summits of the US led military coalition that has destroyed Afghanistan and Libya and threatens Syria and Iran-NATO-and the representative financial body of the rich nations-G8 - that are now imposing austerity and inequality on people everywhere.
Government leaders are preparing for expanded war and repression in 2012.
The 99% at home and around the globe will be watching to see if we are able to respond effectively.
Join us at a conference specifically designed to take up this challenge.
NATIONAL CONFERENCE
United National Antiwar Coalition
Say No! To the NATO / G8 Wars & Poverty Agenda
A Conference to Challenge the Wars of the 1% on the 99% at Home and Abroad
March 23-25, 2012 Stamford Hilton Hotel, CT (just one Metro North train stop from NYC)
The US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the G-8 world economic powers will meet in Chicago, May 15-22, 2012 to plan their economic and military strategies for the coming period. These military, financial, and political leaders, who serve the 1 % at home and abroad, impose austerity on the 99% to expand their profits, often by drones, armies, and police.
Just as there is a nationally-coordinated attempt to curb the organized dissent of the Occupy Wall St. movements, the federal and local authorities want to deny us our constitutional rights to peacefully and legally protest within sight and sound range of the NATO/G-8 Summits. We must challenge them and bring thousands to Chicago to stand in solidarity with all those fighting US-backed austerity and war around the globe.
To plan these actions and further actions against the program of endless war of the global elite, we will meet in a large national conference March 23-25 in Stamford CT. This conference will bring together activists from the occupy movements, and the antiwar, social justice and environmental movements. We will demand that Washington Bring Our War Dollars Home Now! and use these trillions immediately for human needs.
Workshop topics include:
Occupy Wall St. & the Fight Against War; Global Economic Crisis; Climate Crisis and War; Women and War; War at Home on Black Community; War on the U.S.-Mexico Border; Islamophobia as a Tool of War; Labor; Defense of Iran and Syria; Afghanistan: Ten Years of Occupation; Is the U.S. Really Withdrawing from Iraq?; Updates on Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Yemen; What Next for the Arab Spring?; Occupation of Haiti; U.S. Intervention in Honduras, Colombia, and the rest of Latin America; No to Drone Warfare and Weapons in Space; Civil Liberties; Guantanamo, Torture and Rendition; U.S. Combat Troops Involved in New Scramble for Africa; Control of Media; Imperialism Nonviolence & Direct Action; Palestine: UN Statehood, Civil Resistance, BDS; Breaking the Siege of Gaza; Veterans Peace Team; Immigrant Rights and War; Human Rights in South Asia; Fight for Our Right to Protest; No War; No Warming; No Nukes; Philippines & the Pacific; Bring Our War $$ Home
Register now at www.unacpeace.org.
Donate to send an occupier or student to this conference!
Donate to help build the NATO/G8 permitted protest!
Send donations to: UNACpeace@gmail.com orto use a credit card, go here: https://nationalpeaceconference.org/Donate.html
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NATO/G8 protests in Chicago.
United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNAC, along with other organizations and activists, has formed a coalition to help organize protests in Chicago during the week of May 15 - 22 while NATO and G8 are holding their summit meetings. The new coalition was formed at a meeting of 163 people representing 73 different organization in Chicago on August 28 and is called Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANGATE). For a report on the Chicago meeting, click here: http://nepajac.org/chicagoreport.htm
To add your email to the new CANGATE listserve, send an email to: cangate-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
To have your organization endorse the NATO/G8 protest, please click here:
https://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html
Click here to hear audio of the August 28 meeting:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/54145
Click here for the talk by Marilyn Levin, UNAC co-coordinator at the August 28 meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tHQ7ilDJ8&NR=1
Click here for Pat Hunts welcome to the meeting and Joe Iosbaker's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNGcnBGGfI
NATO and the G8 Represent the 1%.
In May, they will meet in Chicago. Their agenda is war on poor nations, war on the poor and working people - war on the 99%.
We are demanding the right to march on their summit, to say:
Jobs, Healthcare, Education, Pensions, Housing and the Environment, Not War!
No to NATO/G-8 Warmakers!
No to War and Austerity!
NATO's military expenditures come at the expense of funding for education, housing and jobs programs; and the G8 continues to advance an agenda of 'austerity' that includes bailouts, tax write-offs and tax holidays for big corporations and banks at the expense of the rest of us.
During the May 2012 G8 and NATO summits in Chicago, many thousands of people will want to exercise their right to protest against NATO's wars and against the G8 agenda to only serve the richest one percent of society. We need permits to ensure that all who want to raise their voices will be able to march.
Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel has stonewalled repeated attempts by community organizers to meet with the city to discuss reasonable accommodations of protesters' rights. They have finally agreed to meet with us, but we need support: from the Occupy movement, the anti-war movement, and all movements for justice.
Our demands are simple:
That the City publicly commit to provide protest organizers with permits that meet the court- sanctioned standard for such protests -- that we be "within sight and sound" of the summits; and
That representatives of the City, including Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, refrain from making threats against protesters.
The protest movement, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), has the support of a majority of the American people. This is because people are suffering from the economic crisis brought about by Wall Street and big banks. As the OWS movement describes it, the "99%" see extreme economic inequality, where millions are unemployed without significant help while bankers in trouble get bailed out.
In Chicago and around the country, the Occupy movement is being met with repression: hundreds have been arrested, beaten, tear gassed, spied on, and refused their right to protest.
The Chicago Police Department and the Mayor have already acknowledged that they are coming down hard on the Occupy movement here to send a message to those who would protest against NATO and the G8.
We need a response that is loud and clear: we have the right to march against the generals and the bankers. We have the right to demand an end to wars, military occupations, and attacks on working people and the poor.
How you can help:
1) Sign the petition to the City of Chicago at www.CANG8.org You can also make a contribution there.
2) Write a statement supporting the right to march and send it to us atcangate2012@gmail.com.
3) To endorse the protests, go to https://nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html or write to cangate2012@gmail.com
4) Print out and distribute copies of this statement, attached along with a list of supporters of our demands for permits.
4) And then march inChicago on May 15th and May 19th. Publicizethe protests. Join us!
Formore info: www.CANG8.org or email us at cangate2012@gmail.com
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Occupy the PGA in Benton Harbor, MI May 23-27, 2012
http://wibailoutpeople.org/2011/12/29/occupy-the-pga-in-benton-harbor-mi-may-23-27-2012/
A personal invitation from the President of the NAACP , Benton Harbor
Chapter:
It is our distinct honor and privilege to invite you on behalf of the
NAACP-BH , the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO)
and Stop The Take Over in Benton Harbor, Michigan to an event
scheduled for May 23-27, 2012 .
Occupy the PGA
Benton Harbor, Michigan
Senior PGA Golf Tournament
We are committed to escalating the Occupy Movement to support human
rights in housing in addition to the push back against bailouts for
fraudulent banks. They are stealing our homes and lives. Democracy is
non-existent here in Benton Harbor. Joseph Harris, the Emergency
Manager must go! With pride, he called himself a "dictator."
The PGA will be played on a $750 million dollar, 530-acre resort near
the lakeshore with $500,000 condominiums. We can not forget the three
golf holes inside Jean Klock Park that were taken from the Benton
Harbor residents.
If your schedule does not permit your attendance on May 26, 2012,
alternative action dates are May 23-25, 2012. Please let me know if
you can accept the invitation to participate in Occupy the PGA. We
eagerly await your response. If you have any questions or concerns,
feel free to contact me directly at (269-925-0001). Allow me to thank
you in advance.We the residents of Benton Harbor love you!
President/NAACP/BANCO
& Stop The Take Over
Benton Harbor
Rev. Edward Pinkney
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI
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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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On Obama's SOTU:GM is a Terrible Model for US Manufacturing
Frank Hammer: GM was rebuilt by lowering wages and banning the right to strike
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=7847
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Defending The People's Mic
by Pham Binh of Occupy Wall Street
The North Star
January 20, 2012
http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=53
Grand Central Terminal Arrests - MIRROR
Two protesters mic check about the loss of freedom brought about by the passage of the NDAA and both are promptly arrested and whisked out of public sight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Tj7tEVx8A&feature=player_embedded
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"Welcome to Chicago! You're under arrest!"
"Under the new ordinance: Every sign has to be described in particularity on the parade permit. ...If there are signs not on the parade permit, police can issue an ordinance violation. What does that ordinance violation allow? It allows for every sign, the organizer ... can face $1000.00 fine--that's for every un-permitted sign--plus up to ten days in jail...."
Chicago City Hall Press Conference Against NATO/G8 Ordinance
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQfJcRNwqM
An impressive coalition of organizations -- unions, anti-war, human rights, churches and neighborhood groups -- held a press conference today (Jan. 17, 2012) at Chicago's City Hall. They were protesting the proposed new ordinances against demonstrations targeting the upcoming spring NATO/G8 meetings here, but now possibly to become permanent laws. The press conference took place right before two key City Council committees were to meet to consider whether to endorse the proposed new ordinances, prior to their going to a vote before the full City Council tomorrow. In this excerpt from the press conference, speakers include Eric Ruder, Coalition Against NATO/G8's War & Poverty Agenda; Erek Slater, ATU 241 member speaking for ATU International Vice Presidents; Talisa Hardin, National Nurses United; Wayne Lindwal, SEIU 73 Chicago Division Director; Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union.
For more info on fight against ordinance: (http://bit.ly/AntiLibertyOrdinance).
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This is excellent! Michelle Alexander pulls no punches!
Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow, speaks about the political strategy behind the War on Drugs and its connection to the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people in the United States.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75cbEdNo2U&feature=player_embedded
If you think Bill Clinton was "the first black President" you need to watch this video and see how much damage his administration caused for the black community as a result of his get tough attitude on crime that appealed to white swing voters.
This speech took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on January 12, 2012.
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NATO, G8 In Chicago: More Details Released, City Grants First Protest Permit
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
January 12, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/12/nato-g8-in-chicago-more-d_n_1203429.html
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Release Bradley Manning
Almost Gone (The Ballad Of Bradley Manning)
Written by Graham Nash and James Raymond (son of David Crosby)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYG7yJpBbQ&feature=player_embedded
Locked up in a white room, underneath a glaring light
Every 5 minutes, they're asking me if I'm alright
Locked up in a white room naked as the day I was born
24 bright light, 24 all alone
What I did was show some truth to the working man
What I did was blow the whistle and the games began
Tell the truth and it will set you free
That's what they taught me as a child
But I can't be silent after all I've seen and done
24 bright light I'm almost gone, almost gone
Locked up in a white room, dying to communicate
Trying to hang in there underneath a crushing wait
Locked up in a white room I'm always facing time
24 bright light, 24 down the line
What I did was show some truth to the working man
What I did was blow the whistle and the games began
But I did my duty to my country first
That's what they taught me as a man
But I can't be silent after all I've seen and done
24 bright light I'm almost gone, almost gone
(Treat me like a human, Treat me like a man )
Read more on Nash's blog - grahamnash.com
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FREEDOM ROAD - A Tribute to Mumia sung by Renn Lee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC27vzqxSCA&feature=youtu.be
FREEDOM ROAD
(written by Samuel Légitimus- adapted in english, sung and arranged by Paris-Sydney)
They've taken all you had away
And what's left, still they can't bend
To find you guilty was their way
Yet here I am and you're my friend.
Your writing's proof enough for me, Mumia,
You place honor and law
Above all, till the end.
Thirty years gone by
On death row, we never knew
Anything of the weight
You had to carry while you grew.
But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no
We won't let them ever win
Won't let you bear such a heavy load
While walking down the Freedom Road.
(Instrumental)
Like Jimmy (1) and Bob (2) you've lived to see the light:
Believing that all men
Can stand up for their rights.
Accusing you of crime
From behind their scales they hide
It makes them scared deep down inside
To know that truth is on your side.
But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no,
We won't let them ever win
Won't let you bear such a heavy load
While walking down the Freedom Road.
(Instumental)
Those thirty years gone by
On death row, we never knew
Anything of the weight
You had to carry while you grew.
We've named a street for you, Mumia
A lovely rue in Saint-Denis
By joining hands we're showing you
Proof of our strength and peace.
But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no,
We won't let them ever win
Won't let you bear such a heavy load
While walking down the Freedom Road.X2
But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no
We won't let them ever win
Won't let them block you from getting in,
Into your home on Freedom Road.
But they won't get you no Mumia,
We will win, we'll never bend
For thirty years you've shown us all
Just how to fight until the end.
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School police increasingly arresting American students?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-efNBvjUU&feature=player_embedded
Uploaded by RTAmerica on Dec 29, 2011
A new study shows that by age 23, 41 percent of young Americans were arrested from the years 1997-2008. The survey questioned 7,000 people but didn't disclose the crimes committed. Many believe the arrests are related to the increase of police presence in schools across America. Amanda Petteruti from the Justice Policy Institute joins us to examine these numbers.
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"The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!" -- Big Bill Haywood
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1293. Big Coal Don't Like This Man At All (Original) - with Marco Acca on guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljtxjFKB718&mid=574
This song is a tribute to Charles Scott Howard, from Southeastern Kentucky, a tireless fighter for miners' rights, especially with regard to safety, and to his lawyer, Tony Oppegard, who sent me this newspaper article on which I based the song: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/14/charles-scott-howard-whistleblower-m...
The melody is partly based on a tune used by Woody Guthrie, who wrote many songs in support of working men, including miners.
My thanks to Marco Acca for his great guitar accompaniment at very short notice (less than an hour).
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=142068
To see the complete lyrics and chords please click here: http://raymondfolk.wetpaint.com/page/Big+Coal+Don%27t+Like+This+Man+At+all
You can see a playlist of my mining songs here:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CF909DA14CE415DF
You can hear a playlist of my original songs (in alphabetical order) here:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B9F8E3B7A8822951
For lyrics and chords of all my songs, please see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com
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FYI:
Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"
The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are plotted visually and audibly on a world map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk&feature=share&mid=5408
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Lifting the Veil
Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. --HELEN KELLER
Suggested slogan for the 2012 elections:
DON'T VOTE FOR THE ONE PERCENT!
We working people--employed, unemployed, partially employed or retired--can't get any economic justice by voting for the One Percent! We need to occupy the elections with our own candidates of, by and for working people! --Bonnie Weinstein
Keep Wall Street Occupied (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM
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We Are the 99 Percent
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?
OccupyWallSt.org
Occupytogether.org
wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
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Drop All Charges on the 'Occupy Wall Street' Arrestees!
Stop Police Attacks & Arrests! Support 'Occupy Wall Street'!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT:
http://bailoutpeople.org/dropchargesonoccupywallstarrestees.shtml to send email messages to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC City Council, NYPD, the NY Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the NY Legislature, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, members of the media YOU WANT ALL CHARGES DROPPED ON THE 'OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTEES!
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We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAOJsBxAxY
This video begins with Professor of Education Pauline Lipman (University of Illinois-Chicago) briefly recapping the plans hatched a decade ago in Chicago to replace public schools with private charter schools. Then Chicago Public Schools head Arne Duncan implemented those plans (Renaissance 2010) so obediently that President Obama picked him to do the same thing to every school system in the country. So Chicago's growing uprising against these deepening attacks against public education has national importance. Here is a battalion of voices from the communities and the teachers union, all exposing the constantly changing, Kafkaesque rules for evaluating school turn-arounds and closings. The counter-attack from the working people in the city is energized and spreading, and is on a collision course with the 1% who want to take away their children's futures. Includes comments from Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, teachers and parents from targeted school communities. Length - 24:40
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The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Documentary Footage (1963)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL2mU029PkQ&feature=fvsr
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In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the 44-Day Flint Michigan sit-down strike at GM that began December 30, 1936:
According to Michael Moore, (Although he has done some good things, this clip isn't one of them) in this clip from his film, "Capitalism a Love Story," it was Roosevelt who saved the day!):
"After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan, with the support of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National Guard. But the guns and the soldiers weren't used on the workers; they were pointed at the police and the hired goons warning them to leave these workers alone. For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right to a redress of their grievances." -Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story' - Flint Sit-Down Strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8x1_q9wg58
But those cannons were not aimed at the goons and cops! They were aimed straight at the factory filled with strikers! Watch what REALLY happened and how the strike was really won!
'With babies & banners' -- 75 years since the 44-day Flint sit-down strike
http://links.org.au/node/2681
--Inspiring
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Busby: Fukushima 'criminal event' calls for investigation
Uploaded by RussiaToday on Dec 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F0uFAWV7uc&feature=player_embedded%23!
A newly released report on the Fukushima nuclear crisis says it was down to the plant's operators being ill-prepared and not responding properly to the earthquake and tsunami disaster. A major government inquiry said some engineers abandoned the plant as the trouble started and other staff delayed reporting significant radiation leaks. Professor Christopher Busby, scientific secretary to the European Committee on Radiation Risks, says health damage after contamination will be more serious than Japan announced.
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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g
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ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552
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ILWU Local 10 Longshore Workers Speak-Out At Oakland Port Shutdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUpBpZYwms
Uploaded by laborvideo on Dec 13, 2011
ILWU Local 10 longshore workers speak out during a blockade of the Port of Oakland called for by Occupy Oakland. Anthony Levieges and Clarence Thomas rank and file members of the union. The action took place on December 12, 2011 and the interview took place at Pier 30 on the Oakland docks.
For more information on the ILWU Local 21 Longview EGT struggle go to
http://www.facebook.com/groups/256313837734192/
For further info on the action and the press conferernce go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3fE-Vhrw8&feature=youtu.be
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org
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Lifting the Veil
"Our democracy is but a name...We choose between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" --Helen Keller, 1911
"It is naive to expect the initiative for reform of the state to issue from the political process that serves theinterests of political capitalism. This structure can only be reduced if citizens withdraw and direct their energies and civic commitment to finding new life forms...The old citizenship must be replaced by a fuller and wider notion of being whose politicalness will be expressed not in one or two modes of actibity--voting or protesting--but in many." --Sheldon Wolin
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/lifting-the-veil/
This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the graveyard of social movements, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.
Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet.
Noble is brilliantly pioneering the new film-making - incisive analysis, compelling sound and footage, fearless and independent reporting, and the aggregation of the best information out there into powerful, educational and free online feature films - all on a shoestring budget.
Viewer discretion advised - Video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war.
Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.
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Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera y Trotsky Video Original
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Z0keLaGhQ
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Toronto Emergency Public Warning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iiGTGwQ9HM&feature=player_embedded
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Tom Morello Occupy LA
Uploaded by sandrineora on Dec 3, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChicrlyeKhg&feature=player_embedded
The Nightwatchman, Tom Morello, comes to lift the spirits of Occupy LA the evening after the raid on November 29, 2011.
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UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
19 November 11
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-adds-fuel-to-fire
UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded
Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded
Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded
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UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!
Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related
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THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o
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Occupy With Aloha -- Makana -- The Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-M07v8N_eU&feature=channel_video_title
We Are The Many -- Makana -- The Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3BYw4xjxE&feature=relmfu
We Are The Many
Lyrics and Music by Makana
Makana Music LLC (c) 2011
Download song for free here:
http://makanamusic.com/?slide=we-are-the-many
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Rafeef Ziadah - 'Shades of anger', London, 12.11.11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vFJE93LTI
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News: Massive anti-nuclear demonstration in Fukuoka Nov. 12, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq_xKEWuj1I&feature=player_embedded
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Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded
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Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0
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Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded
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Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers:
POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded
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Quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded
G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded
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WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:
Occupy Oakland Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded
Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded
Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded
Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded
KTVU TV Video of Police violence
http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html
Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded
Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded
Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
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Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related
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#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded
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#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.
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Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
Free Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
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Visualizing a Trillion: Just How Big That Number Is?
"1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years."
Digital Inspiration
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
How Much Is $1 Trillion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfY0q-rEdY&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy the credit crisis and big bailout packages, the figure "trillion" has suddenly become part of our everyday conversations. One trillion dollars, or 1 followed by 12 zeros, is lots of money but have you ever tried visualizing how big that number actually is?
For people who can visualize one million dollars, the comparison made on CNN should give you an idea about a trillion - "if you start spending a million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spend a trillion dollars".
Another mathematician puts it like this: "1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years".
Now if the above comparisons weren't really helpful, check another illustration that compares the built of an average human being against a stack of $100 currency notes bundles.
A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house.
With this background in mind, 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 1000 times bigger than 1 billion and would therefore take up an entire football field - the man is still standing in the bottom-left corner. (See visuals -- including a video -- at website:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/national-call-in-for-bradley
I received the following reply from the White House November 18, 2011 regarding the Bradley Manning petition I signed:
"Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning
"Thank you for signing the petition 'Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.' We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov.
The We the People Terms of Participation explain that 'the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.' The military justice system is charged with enforcing the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Accordingly, the White House declines to comment on the specific case raised in this petition...
"This email was sent to giobon@comcast.net
Manage Subscriptions for giobon@comcast.net
Sign Up for Updates from the White House
Unsubscribe giobon@comcast.net | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House
"The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111"
That's funny! I guess Obama didn't get this memo. Here's what Obama said about Bradley:
BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Mumia Abu-Jamal Transferred Out of Solitary Confinement, Into General Population
Posted on January 27, 2012
prisonradio
http://prisonradio.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/mumia-abu-jamal-transferred-out-of-solitary-confinement-into-general-population/
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections tells Democracy Now! it has transferred Mumia Abu-Jamal out of solitary confinement and into general population. The move comes seven weeks after Philadelphia prosecutor Seth Williams announced he would not pursue the death penalty against the imprisoned journalist. Abu-Jamal's legal team confirmed the move in an email from attorney, Judy Ritter. "This is a very important moment for him, his family and all of his supporters," Ritter wrote.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal note prison officials just received more than 5,000 petitions calling for his transfer and release. Superintendent John Kerestes has previously said Abu-Jamal would have to cut short his dreadlocks, and meet several other conditions, before a transfer would be allowed.
While on death row at SCI Green, Abu-Jamal made regular phone calls to Prison Radio in order to record his columns and essays, but prison officials revoked his phone privileges after he was moved to SCI Mahanoy, the Frackville, PA prison in which he's currently being held. Prison Radio has since announced it will continue to record and distribute Abu-Jamal's essays as read by his well-known supporters.
Write to Mumia
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
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ACLU: SAY NO TO INDEFINITE DETENTION!
He signed it. We'll fight it.
President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. It contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision.
The dangerous new law can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. He signed it. Now, we have to fight it wherever we can and for as long as it takes.
Sign the ACLU's pledge to fight worldwide indefinite detention for as long as it takes.
The Petition:
I'm outraged that the statute President Obama signed into law authorizes worldwide military detention without charge or trial. I pledge to stand with the ACLU in seeking the reversal of indefinite military detention authority for as long as it takes.
And I will support the ACLU as it actively opposes this new law in court, in Congress, and internationally.
Signed,
[your name]
https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?emsrc=Nat_Appeal_AutologinEnabled&s_subsrc=120103_NDAA_GOL&pagename=120103_NDAAGOLAsk&emissue=indefinite_detention&emtype=pledge&JServSessionIdr004=d90jai6lu1.app224a
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Urgent Appeal to Occupy and All Social Justice Movements: Mobilize to Defend the Egyptian Revolution
Endorse the statement here:
http://www.defendegyptianrevolution.org/2011/12/19/defend-the-egyptian-revolution/
In recent days, protesters demanding civilian rule in Egypt have again been murdered, maimed and tortured by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Interior Security Forces (ISF).
The conspiracy, being brutally implemented in Egypt, is part of a global conspiracy to suffocate mass movements for socio-economic justice and is being done with direct assistance of the American government and the private interests which direct that government. We have word from friends in Egypt that SCAF, ISF and their hired thugs - armed by ongoing shipments of $1.3 billion in weapons from the U.S. government - plan to execute one by one all the leaders of the revolution, and as many activists as they can.
Accordingly, we need to ensure that people and organizers in the US and internationally are involved in closely monitoring the events unraveling in Egypt. By keeping track of the atrocities committed by SCAF and ISF, keeping track of those detained, tortured or targeted, and continuously contacting officials in Egypt and the US to demand accountability, cessation of the atrocities and justice, we can add pressure on SCAF, ISF and the forces they represent. In this way we may be able to play a role in helping save the lives of our Egyptian brothers and sisters.
Evidence of the conspiracy to execute the leaders and participants of Egyptian freedom movement, includes in very small part the following:
* Sheikh Emad of Al Azhar was killed by a bullet entering his right side from short range. This was seen at first hand by witnesses known to members of our coalition. Sheikh Emad was one of a small number of Azhar Imams issuing decrees in support of the revolution. His murder was no accident.
* Sally Tooma, Mona Seif, Ahdaf Soueif, and Sanaa Seif, all female friends and relatives of imprisoned blogger and activist Alaa abd El Fattah, and all known internationally for their political and/or literary work, were detained, and beaten in the Cabinet building.
* A woman protesting against General Tantawi, head of SCAF, was detained and then tortured by having the letter "T" in English carved into her scalp with knives.
* Detainees are being tortured while in courtroom holding pens. Two men (Mohammad Muhiy Hussein is one of them) were killed in those pens.These are only a small number of the horror stories we are hearing. And we continue to receive reports from Cairo about a massive army presence in Tahrir Square and the constant sound of gunshots.These are only a small number of the horror stories we are hearing. And we continue to receive reports from Cairo about a massive army presence in Tahrir Square and the constant sound of gunshots.
In every way, Egypt's fight is our fight. Just like us, Egyptians are the 99%, fighting for social, political and economic justice.
The same 1% that arms the Egyptian dictatorship commits systematic violence in this country against the Occupy movement; antiwar and solidarity activists; and Arabs, Muslims, and other communities of color.
As the US Palestinian Community Network recently observed, "the same US-made tear gas rains down on us in the streets of Oakland, Cairo and Bil`in."
Because of Egypt's key strategic location, the fate of its revolution echoes across the world. Its success will bring us all closer to achieving economic and social justice. But its defeat would be a major blow to social justice movements everywhere, including Occupy.
In short, Egypt is key to the continued success of the Arab Revolution, and movements she has inspired.
For all these reasons, we ask Occupy and all U.S. social justice activists to join us in mobilizing to defend our Egyptian brothers and sisters by immediately organizing mass convergences on Egyptian embassies, missions, consulates, and at U.S. government offices, to demand:
* Cancel all US aid and shipment of military and police materiel to Egypt!
* Stop the murders, tortures and detentions!
* Release all detainees and political prisoners!
* Immediate end to military rule in Egypt!
Please endorse and circulate this appeal widely. Please send statements with these demands to the bodies listed below. By endorsing, your organization commits to making these phone calls and following up continuously for the next week.
www.defendegyptianrevolution.org and defendegyptianrevolution@gmail.com
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Tarek Mehanna - another victim of the U.S. War to Terrorize Everyone. He was targeted because he would not spy on his Muslim community for the FBI. Under the new NDAA indefinite military detention provision, Tarek is someone who likely would never come to a trial, although an American citizen. His sentencing is on April 12. There will be an appeal. Another right we may kiss goodbye. We should not accept the verdict and continue to fight for his release, just as we do for hero Bradley Manning, and all the many others unjustly persecuted by our government until it is the war criminals on trial, prosecuted by the people, and not the other way around.
Marilyn Levin
Official defense website: http://freetarek.com/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Free Tarek
Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:41 PM
Subject: [Tarek Mehanna Support] Today's verdict
All who have followed Tarek's trial with a belief in the possibility of justice through the court system will be shocked to learn that today the jury found him guilty on all seven counts of the indictment. In the six weeks that the prosecution used to present its case, it presented no evidence linking Tarek to an illegal action. Instead, it amassed a large and repetitive collection of videos, e-mails, translated documents, recorded telephone conversations and informant testimony aimed at demonstrating Tarek's political beliefs. The core belief under scrutiny was one that neither Tarek nor his defense team ever denied: Muslims have a right to defend their countries when invaded.
The prosecution relied upon coercion, prejudice, and ignorance to present their case; the defense relied upon truth, reason and responsibility. The government relied upon mounds of "evidence" showing that Tarek held political beliefs supporting the right to armed resistance against invading force; they mentioned Al-Qaeda and its leadership as often as possible while pointing at Tarek. It is clear they coerced Tarek's former friends and pressured them to lie, and many of them admitted to such. There is a long list of ways this trial proceeded unjustly, to which we will devote an entire post. The government's cynical calculation is that American juries, psychologically conditioned by a constant stream of propaganda in the "war on terrorism," will convict on the mere suggestion of terrorism, without regard for the law. Unfortunately, this strategy has proved successful in case after case.
Tarek's case will continue under appeal. We urge supporters to write to Tarek, stay informed, and continue supporting Tarek in his fight for justice. Sentencing will be April 12th, 2012. We will be sending out more information soon.
A beacon of hope and strength throughout this ordeal has been Tarek's strength and the amount of support he has received. Tarek has remained strong from day one, and even today he walked in with his head held high, stood unwavering as the verdict was read to him, and left the courtroom just as unbowed as ever. His body may be in prison now, but certainly this is a man whose spirit can never be caged. His strength must be an inspiration to us all, even in the face of grave circumstances. Before he left the courtroom, he turned to the crowd of supporters that was there for him, paused, and said, "Thank you, so much." We thank you too. Your support means the world to him.
You are here: Home » ACLU | "Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security" by Christopher Ott
ACLU | "Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security" by Christopher Ott
Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security
Submitted by Online Coordinator on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 14:31 First Amendment National Security
Decision today threatens writers and journalists, academic researchers, translators, and even ordinary web surfers.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
CONTACT:
Christopher Ott, Communications Director, 617-482-3170 x322, cott@aclum.org
BOSTON - The following statement on the conviction today of Tarek Mehanna may be attributed to American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose:
"The ACLU of Massachusetts is gravely concerned that today's verdict against Tarek Mehanna undermines the First Amendment and threatens national security.
"Under the government's theory of the case, ordinary people-including writers and journalists, academic researchers, translators, and even ordinary web surfers-could be prosecuted for researching or translating controversial and unpopular ideas. If the verdict is not overturned on appeal, the First Amendment will be seriously compromised.
"The government's prosecution does not make us safer. Speech about even the most unpopular ideas serves as a safety valve for the expression of dissent while government suppression of speech only drives ideas underground, where they cannot be openly debated or refuted.
"The ACLU believes that we can remain both safe and free, and, indeed, that our safety and our freedom go hand in hand."
The ACLU of Massachusetts has condemned the use of conspiracy and material support charges where the charges are based largely on First Amendment-protected expression.
In Mr. Mehanna's case, the charges against him have been based on allegations of such activity, such as watching videos about "jihad", discussing views about suicide bombings, translating texts available on the Internet, and looking for information about the 9/11 attackers. Historically, government prosecutors have used conspiracy charges as a vehicle for the suppression of unpopular ideas, contrary to the dictates of the First Amendment and fundamental American values.
After the ACLU of Massachusetts submitted a memorandum of law in support of Mehanna's motion to dismiss the parts of the indictment against him that were based on protected expression, U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole denied permission for the memorandum to be filed with the court. A copy of the memorandum is available here.
For more information, go to: http://aclum.org/usa_v_mehanna
via Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security | ACLU of Massachusetts.
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MUMIA HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO SCI MAHANOY!
From: info@freemumia.com
December 14, 2011
Greetings all,
Just verified with Superintendent John Kerestes that Mumia Abu-Jamal is being held in Administrative Custody at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA until he is cleared to enter general population within a few days.
We need phone calls to the institution to let them know that the WORLD is watching Mumia's movements and ask general questions so that they know that nothing they are doing is happening under cover of darkness.
Please also send cards and letters to Mumia at the new address so that he begins receiving mail immediately and it is known to all of the people there that we are with him!
PHONE NUMBER: 570-773-2158
MAILING ADDRESS:
Mumia Abu-Jamal, #AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
CURRENT VISITORS on Mumia's list will allegedly be OK'd to visit once their names are entered into the computer at Frackville. NEW VISITORS will have to receive the pertinent forms directly from Mumia.
DIRECTIONS TO THE PRISON are available at http://www.cheapjailcalls.com/correctional-facility-directory/state-prison-directory/item/sci-mahanoy
PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD!!!
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HANDS OFF IRAN PETITION
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hands-off-iran/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend
The Petition
To President Obama and Secretary Clinton:
At no time since the Iranian people rose up against the hated U.S-installed Shah has a U.S./Israeli military attack against Iran seemed more possible. Following three decades of unrelenting hostility, the last few months have seen a steady escalation of charges, threats, sanctions and actual preparations for an attack.
We, the undersigned demand No War, No Sanctions, no Internal Interference in Iran.
(For a complete analysis of the prospects of war, click here)
http://nepajac.org/unaciran.htm
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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against Censorship" book
https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25
A Child's View from GazaA collection of drawings by children in the Gaza Strip, art that was censored by a museum in Oakland, California.
With a special forward by Alice Walker, this beautiful, full-color 80-page book from Pacific View Press features drawings by children like Asil, a ten-year-old girl from Rafah refugee camp, who drew a picture of herself in jail, with Arabic phrases in the spaces between the bars: "I have a right to live in peace," "I have a right to live this life," and "I have a right to play."
For international or bulk orders, please email: meca@mecaforpeace.org, or call: 510-548-0542
A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against Censorship [ISBN: 978-1-881896-35-7]
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It's time to tell the White House that "We the People" support PFC Bradley Manning's freedom and the UN's investigation into alleged torture in Quantico, VA
We petition the obama administration to:
Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/free-pfc-bradley-manning-accused-wikileaks-whistleblower/kX1GJKsD?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO/G8 Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
The CSFR Signs Letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The CSFR is working with the United National Antiwar Committee and many other anti-war groups to organize mass rallies and protests on May 15 and May 19, 2012. We will protest the powerful and wealthy war-makers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Group of 8. Mobilize your groups, unions, and houses of worship. Bring your children, friends, and community. Demand jobs, healthcare, housing and education, not war!
Office of the Mayor
City of Chicago
To: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
We, the undersigned, demand that your administration grant us permits for protests on May 15 and 19, 2012, including appropriate rally gathering locations and march routes to the venue for the NATO/G8 summit taking place that week. We come to you because your administration has already spoken to us through Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has threatened mass arrests and violence against protestors.
[Read the full text of the letter here: http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression/full-text]
For the 10s of thousands of people from Chicago, around the country and across the world who will gather here to protest against NATO and the G8, we demand that the City of Chicago:
1. Grant us permits to rally and march to the NATO/G8 summit
2. Guarantee our civil liberties
3. Guarantee us there will be no spying, infiltration of organizations or other attacks by the FBI or partner law enforcement agencies.
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herman-wallace
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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Hundreds march, rally at Fort Meade for Bradley
Courage to Resist, January 5, 2012
December 16-22, the world turned its eyes to a small courtroom on Fort Meade, MD, where accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Army PFC Bradley Manning made his first public appearance after 18 months in pre-trial confinement. The "Article 32" pre-trial hearing is normally a quick process shortly after one is arrested to determine whether and what kind of court martial is appropriate. Bradley's hearing was unusual, happening 18 months after his arrest and lasting seven days.
Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network organized two public rallies at Fort Meade to coincide with the beginning of the hearing, and there were about 50 solidarity rallies across the globe. We also sent representatives into the courtroom during all seven days of the hearing to provide minute-by-minute coverage via bradleymanning.org, Facebook, and Twitter.
"No harm in transparency: Wrap-up from the Bradley Manning pretrial hearing" includes our collection of courtroom notes
"Statement on closed hearing decisions" covers how even this hearing was far from "open"
Article and photos by John Grant
A message from Bradley and his family
"I want you to know how much Bradley and his family appreciate the continuing support of so many, especially during the recent Article 32 hearing. I visited Bradley the day after Christmas-he is doing well and his spirits are high."
-Bradley's Aunt Debra
Write to Bradley
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
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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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) An Order in Oakland
"...'serious concerns' about the department's handling of the Occupy protest..."
January 25, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/us/oakland-police-ordered-to-consult-with-monitor-on-decisions.html?ref=us
2) Fed Signals That a Full Recovery Is Years Away
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
January 25, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/economy/fed-to-maintain-rates-near-zero-through-late-2014.html?ref=business
3) Family Health Insurance Costs Doubled in 7 Years, Study Finds
By ANN CARRNS
January 26, 2012, 10:48 am
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/family-health-insurance-costs-doubled-in-7-years-study-finds/?src=busln
4) Mumia Abu-Jamal Transferred Out of Solitary Confinement, Into General Population
Posted on January 27, 2012
prisonradio
http://prisonradio.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/mumia-abu-jamal-transferred-out-of-solitary-confinement-into-general-population/
5) An Iraqi Massacre, a Light Sentence and a Question of Military Justice
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ELISABETH BUMILLER
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/us/an-iraqi-massacre-a-light-sentence-and-a-question-of-military-justice.html?ref=world
6) Occupy Protesters Are Told They Can't Camp in Parks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/us/occupy-protesters-are-told-they-cant-camp-in-parks.html?ref=us
7) Kelly Says Anti-Muslim Film Shouldn't Have Been Screened
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/nyregion/raymond-kelly-says-anti-muslim-film-shouldnt-have-been-shown.html?ref=nyregion
8) For Ford, Three Years of Profit in a Row
By NICK BUNKLEY
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/business/fords-posts-third-straight-annual-profit.html?ref=business
9) Union Membership Rate Fell Again in 2011
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/business/union-membership-rate-fell-again-in-2011.html?ref=business
10) Ritalin Gone Wrong
"One of the most profound findings in behavioral neuroscience in recent years has been the clear evidence that the developing brain is shaped by experience."
By L. ALAN SROUFE
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/childrens-add-drugs-dont-work-long-term.html?hp
11) Occupy Protesters and Police Clash in Oakland
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
January 29, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/occupy-protesters-and-police-clash-in-oakland.html?ref=us
12) Retrial in a Case Tied to Post-Katrina Deaths
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/retrial-planned-for-officer-linked-to-post-katrina-shootings.html?ref=us
13) BP Feared Spill of 3.4 Million Gallons a Day
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/bp-feared-gulf-oil-spill-rate-of-3-4-million-gallons-a-day.html?ref=us
14) 'Policing Chicago Schools': Report Suggests In-School Officers Put Teens On Road To Prison
"The vast majority of those affected by the criminalization of in-school behavior in Chicago are black students, who accounted for 74 percent of school-based juvenile arrests in 2010, Project NIA reports. Only 45 percent of the system's students are African American."
Lizzie Schiffman
January 30, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/policing-chicago-schools-in-school-officers-prison_n_1230900.html
15) U.S. Drones Patrolling Its Skies Provoke Outrage in Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
"The Pentagon and C.I.A. have been stepping up their use of armed Predator and Reaper drones to conduct strikes against militants in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. More recently, the United States has expanded drone bases in Ethiopia, the Seychelles and a secret location in the Arabian Peninsula."
January 29, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/middleeast/iraq-is-angered-by-us-drones-patrolling-its-skies.html?hp
16) General Strike Grips Belgium
By STEPHEN CASTLE
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/europe/strike-grips-belgium-ahead-of-european-union-summit.html?ref=world
17) Twelve Arrested at Manhattan March for Oakland Protesters
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
January 30, 2012, 2:26 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/12-arrested-at-n-y-c-march-for-oakland-protesters/?ref=nyregion
18) Lower-Income Families May Pay More for Auto Insurance
"Auto insurers price insurance based on a variety of factors, but the authors argue that many of their methods put lower- and moderate-income families - or households with roughly $20,000 to $40,000 in earnings - at a disadvantage. Homeowners, for instance, often pay less than people who do not own their homes, while people in low-paying occupations who have less education pay more. In fact, the study cited 2006 research that found that those with less education and working in less skilled occupations would pay premiums that were, on average, 40 percent higher. Meanwhile, consumers with thin or blemished credit histories are charged more, as are drivers who had previous coverage with lower limits on bodily injury."
By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD
January 30, 2012, 1:00 pm
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/lower-income-families-may-pay-more-for-auto-insurance/?src=busln
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1) An Order in Oakland
January 25, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/us/oakland-police-ordered-to-consult-with-monitor-on-decisions.html?ref=us
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Oakland Police Department to consult with a court-appointed monitor before all major decisions, bringing the department one step closer to a federal takeover.
The order comes less than a week after the court-appointed monitor released a report that cited "serious concerns" about the department's handling of the Occupy protest and its capacity to "adopt and hold true to the best practices in American policing" on its own.
The department has been under court monitor since 2003. The monitor was supposed to help carry out necessary reforms within five years.
Nine years later, Judge Thelton E. Henderson said sufficient changes still had not been made.
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2) Fed Signals That a Full Recovery Is Years Away
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
January 25, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/economy/fed-to-maintain-rates-near-zero-through-late-2014.html?ref=business
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve, declaring that the economy would need help for years to come, said Wednesday it would extend by 18 months the period that it plans to hold down interest rates in an effort to spur growth.
The Fed said that it now planned to keep short-term interest rates near zero until late 2014, continuing the transformation of a policy that began as shock therapy in the winter of 2008 into a six-year campaign to increase spending by rewarding borrowers and punishing savers.
The economy expanded "moderately" in recent weeks, the Fed said in a statement released after a two-day meeting of its policy-making committee, but jobs were still scarce, the housing sector remained deeply depressed and Europe's flirtation with crisis could undermine the nascent domestic recovery.
The Fed forecast growth of up to 2.7 percent this year, up to 3.2 percent next year and up to 4 percent in 2014, but at the end of that period, the central bank projected that the recovery would still be incomplete. Workers would still be looking for jobs, and businesses would still be looking for customers.
"What did we learn today? Things are bad, and they're not improving at the rate that they want them to improve," said Kevin Logan, chief United States economist at HSBC. "That's what they concluded - 'We've eased policy a lot, but we haven't eased it enough.' "
The economic impact of the low-interest rate extension, however, is likely to be modest. Many businesses and consumers can't qualify for loans, a problem the Fed's efforts do not address. Moreover, long-term rates already are at record low levels and, like pushing on a spring, the going gets harder as it nears the floor. Finally, the Fed already was widely expected by investors to hold rates near zero well into 2014, limiting the benefits of a formal announcement.
"I wouldn't overstate the Fed's ability to massively change expectations through its statements," the Fed's chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said at a press conference Wednesday after the announcement. "It's important for us to say what we think and it's important for us to provide the right amount of stimulus to help the economy recover from its currently underutilized condition."
The Fed's plans for interest rates were unveiled amid a barrage of statements the central bank released Wednesday as part of its campaign to improve its transparency. And while it pleased some investors in the markets, it left others befuddled. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been down in the morning, began rising steadily after the Fed released its statement at about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Dow finished the day up 81.21 points at 12,756.96.
First came the Fed's traditional statement, released after each meeting of its policy-making committee, which said that the central bank intended to hold short-term rates near zero "at least through late 2014."
Ninety minutes later, the Fed published for the first time the predictions of the committee's members on when they would raise interest rates. It showed that 11 of the 17 members expected the Fed to raise rates by the end of 2014. Taken together, the documents suggested that the Fed expected to keep rates near zero until late 2014, but probably not any longer than that.
Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007, the Fed has alternated bursts of activity with periods of rest, concluding several times that it had done enough only to find the economy still struggling to recover. The Fed announced last summer that the central bank intended to keep interest rates near zero through at least the middle of 2013, and that it would seek to reduce long-term interest rates through changes in the kinds of investment securities it holds. Since then, two meetings had passed without the introduction of any new programs.
The Fed's latest action came after a run of better-than-expected economic data, suggesting to some analysts that the pace of growth might begin to rise without any further help. The Fed also is under relentless assault from Republican presidential candidates who have said that its policies are doing little good and will eventually spur inflation.
And there is growing criticism that the Fed's policies are unfairly taking money from savers, including many seniors who planned their retirements around the interest rates that low-risk assets like bank deposits used to pay.
Mr. Bernanke said Wednesday that the Fed was aware of this, but it was acting again because it still did not believe that it has done enough. At the same time, he suggested that the Fed was not on the verge of more drastic measures, like further expanding its portfolio of mortgage-backed securities.
Such purchases remain under consideration, Mr. Bernanke said, but only "if we see that the recovery is faltering or if we see that inflation is not moving towards target."
As part of its transparency campaign, the Fed also published Wednesday a statement of its long-term goals, formalizing its longstanding commitment to maintain inflation at about 2 percent a year. The Fed also said that it was equally committed to minimizing unemployment, but that its exact goal would vary based on economic circumstances. It said the goal now was to reduce unemployment below 6 percent.
The new forecast showed that the Fed expects to hit its inflation target over the next three years, but to fall well short of its goals for unemployment. The Fed projected that unemployment would drop no lower than 8.2 percent this year, just slightly below the current rate of 8.5 percent, and no lower than 7.4 percent by the end of next year. By the end of 2014, the Fed still expects that at least 6.7 percent of people actively interested in working would not be able to find jobs.
In light of those projections, it was unclear why so many members of the policy-making committee expected to raise interest rates by the end of 2014.
Asked why the committee would seek to raise rates in such a situation, Mr. Bernanke said that he did not imagine it would.
"We're certainly willing to look for different ways to provide further support for the economy if in fact we have this unsatisfactory situation," he said.
As for the forecasts, he said, "there is no mechanical relationship between these projections" and the committee's decisions.
Some analysts cautioned that the Fed's statements and predictions were being given too much weight.
"Here's what all Fed promises are worth: nothing, if the data tell them to do something different," said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics.
Furthermore, Mr. Bernanke's Fed is now making projections about decisions that could be made under the leadership of someone else. Mr. Bernanke's current term ends in early 2014.
"I wouldn't feel bound by anything the previous chairman had done," Mr. Shepherdson said. "And three years is a very, very long time."
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3) Family Health Insurance Costs Doubled in 7 Years, Study Finds
By ANN CARRNS
January 26, 2012, 10:48 am
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/family-health-insurance-costs-doubled-in-7-years-study-finds/?src=busln
If you've seen your health insurance premiums increase along with your deductible, you're not alone. A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund shows just how much more consumers are paying for employer-provided health insurance.
Total premiums - the amount paid by both employers and workers combined - for family coverage rose 50 percent from 2003 to 2010, to nearly $14,000 a year, the study found. (The fund is a private foundation that researches health policy issues. The report includes an interactive map showing premium increases by state).
Workers, meanwhile, are shouldering more of that burden. Their share of annual premiums increased by 63 percent over the same period. In 2010, employee premiums for family-plan coverage averaged about $3,700, up from roughly $2,300 back in 2003.
As a result, "many working families have seen little or no growth in wages as they have, in effect, traded off wage increases just to hold onto their health benefits," the report found.
What's more, employees are paying more for less, because of higher deductibles - the amount workers pay out of pocket before coverage kicks in. The average family deductible nearly doubled over the seven years studied, to almost $2,000 in 2010.
The study used annual employer data from the federal government to examine insurance cost trends in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Whether the rate of cost growth can be slowed, the report said, depends on the Affordable Care Act, which was passed in March 2010 and intended to go into effect over several years. The act has, for instance, rules to limit what insurance companies can spend on administrative costs and can be "a platform for further action," the report said.
In November, however, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the healthcare overhaul law, throwing some of its provisions into question.
"With rising costs and eroding coverage, much is at stake for the insured and uninsured alike as the nation looks forward," the report concluded.
If you have employer-based health insurance, how are you handling increases in your premiums and deductibles?
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4) Mumia Abu-Jamal Transferred Out of Solitary Confinement, Into General Population
Posted on January 27, 2012
prisonradio
http://prisonradio.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/mumia-abu-jamal-transferred-out-of-solitary-confinement-into-general-population/
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections tells Democracy Now! it has transferred Mumia Abu-Jamal out of solitary confinement and into general population. The move comes seven weeks after Philadelphia prosecutor Seth Williams announced he would not pursue the death penalty against the imprisoned journalist. Abu-Jamal's legal team confirmed the move in an email from attorney, Judy Ritter. "This is a very important moment for him, his family and all of his supporters," Ritter wrote.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal note prison officials just received more than 5,000 petitions calling for his transfer and release. Superintendent John Kerestes has previously said Abu-Jamal would have to cut short his dreadlocks, and meet several other conditions, before a transfer would be allowed.
While on death row at SCI Green, Abu-Jamal made regular phone calls to Prison Radio in order to record his columns and essays, but prison officials revoked his phone privileges after he was moved to SCI Mahanoy, the Frackville, PA prison in which he's currently being held. Prison Radio has since announced it will continue to record and distribute Abu-Jamal's essays as read by his well-known supporters.
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5) An Iraqi Massacre, a Light Sentence and a Question of Military Justice
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ELISABETH BUMILLER
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/us/an-iraqi-massacre-a-light-sentence-and-a-question-of-military-justice.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - The collapse this week of the prosecution of a Marine for a civilian massacre in Haditha, Iraq - a striking outcome, even in a military justice system with a mixed record of charging soldiers for war crimes - has not only outraged Iraqis but also stunned some American military law specialists.
"It's a travesty," said Eric S. Montalvo, a former prosecutor and defense counsel in the Marine Corps who is now in private practice specializing in military law. "I don't believe that justice was served."
The 2005 massacre, which came after a roadside bombing of a Marine convoy, killed 24 Iraqis, including women, children and a man in a wheelchair.
People who followed the case say it collapsed largely because of prosecutors' errors - including giving immunity to squad mates whose credibility as witnesses came into question, and tactical decisions that led to a lengthy delay before the trial got under way.
By the time of the trial last week, charges against six Marines had been dropped, and a seventh Marine had been acquitted in a civilian court. After several days of spotty testimony about the last remaining defendant, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 31, who admitted telling his men to "shoot first and ask questions later" after the bombing, the military agreed to a plea deal allowing him to avoid prison time.
"It was a series of missteps, errors built upon mistakes, until the case was just untriable," said Lt. Col. Gary D. Solis, a retired Marine Corps judge who now teaches military law at Georgetown University.
The Marine Corps rejected any claim of incompetence in the prosecution of the Haditha case.
"The case was handled in strict accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice," said Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel, a spokesman.
Some of the challenges that the prosecution faced dovetailed with the difficulties often encountered in efforts to prosecute troops for unlawful killings in combat zones. Collecting physical evidence and finding witnesses can be difficult because the killings often occur in unstable and dangerous areas, and the cases often come to light only after time has passed.
The Haditha case also fits another pattern: Many cases involving civilian deaths arise during the chaos of combat or shortly afterward, when fighters' emotions are running high; they can later argue that they feared they were still under attack and shot in self-defense.
In those so-called fog-of-war cases, the military and its justice system have repeatedly shown an unwillingness to second-guess the decisions made by fighters who said they believed they were in danger, specialists say.
"There is a surprising pattern of acquittals," said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. "I think there is an unwillingness in some cases of military personnel to convict their fellow soldiers in the battle space."
The limited data available suggests that even when the military has tried to prosecute troops for murder or manslaughter in a combat zone, the acquittal rate has been significantly higher than it is in the civilian context.
Over the last 10 years, the Army has court-martialed 43 people on murder or manslaughter charges in cases that occurred in Iraq or Afghanistan and that included both civilian victims and detainees. Twenty-eight were convicted and 15 acquitted.
That acquittal rate is more than twice as high as it is in civilian criminal cases, said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University. But, he said, the gap is not surprising, given the chaos of combat.
"Those considerations mean there's more likely to be a reasonable doubt, when you're trying to figure out what happened," he said.
The Marine Corps did not offer a detailed breakdown of its court-martial numbers, and even the numbers provided by the Army offer only a limited window into unlawful killings in the war zones. For example, they do not cover cases involving a lesser charge like negligent homicide, or those punished with administrative reprimands.
Some cases that have received prominent attention have never led to charges.
For example, in 2008 the military did not bring charges against two Marines who commanded a unit accused of firing indiscriminately at cars and bystanders along a 10-mile stretch in Afghanistan, killing 19 people and wounding 50. The shootings began after a suicide bomber attacked the unit, and the Marines said they were being shot at and had fired to defend themselves as their convoy fled.
By contrast, the justice system has been more likely to hand down convictions and lengthy sentences for killings detached from the chaos of combat.
One soldier was sentenced to life in prison - and another who testified against him received 24 years - in the "kill team" case in Afghanistan in 2010. In that case, the defendants were part of a drug-addicted platoon and were accused of deliberately going out with the goal of killing civilians at random - and collecting body parts as trophies.
Similarly, in 2006 an Army unit from a checkpoint in Mahmudiya, Iraq, gang-raped a 14-year-old girl who lived nearby and killed her and her family, with a plan to blame the deaths on insurgents - another premeditated crime that was not connected to combat. One soldier who had left the service by the time the case came to light was prosecuted in civilian court and sentenced to life, while three other soldiers received sentences of 90 to 110 years in a court-martial.
Colonel Solis also said that in the early years of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the military appeared to be particularly unwilling to hand out convictions to troops who killed civilians. But notwithstanding the Haditha case, he said, that generally changed over time, with more convictions and lengthier sentences in later years, including several involving the shooting of Iraqi prisoners.
Sarah Holewinksi, executive director of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, said it was impossible to know how many civilian deaths had occurred. She described bodies piling up in morgues with gunshot and shrapnel wounds or burns, but little way to find out who they were, who had killed them or whether they had been targets or caught in cross-fire.
"The fact that there was very little accountability for what happened in Haditha, that's really frustrating," she said. "We actually knew who these people were in Haditha. We knew their names. Usually we don't even know who the civilian casualties were."
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6) Occupy Protesters Are Told They Can't Camp in Parks
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/us/occupy-protesters-are-told-they-cant-camp-in-parks.html?ref=us
The United States Park Police is warning Occupy DC protesters that they must stop camping at two parks by noon on Monday or risk arrest. The National Park Service distributed warning fliers to protesters on Friday at McPherson Square on K Street and at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue. The move comes after a hearing on Tuesday of the House oversight subcommittee whose portfolio includes the District of Columbia, at which Republican lawmakers questioned why camping has been allowed at the parks since October. The park service said it has a history of accommodating 24-hour vigils and protests. The flier distributed Friday defines camping as using land for "living accommodation purposes such as sleeping" and says camping materials must be removed and temporary structures left open for inspection.
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7) Kelly Says Anti-Muslim Film Shouldn't Have Been Screened
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/nyregion/raymond-kelly-says-anti-muslim-film-shouldnt-have-been-shown.html?ref=nyregion
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Friday that "The Third Jihad," a film depicting many American Muslim leaders as extremists, "should not have been shown" to New York City officers.
The film was played on a loop for officers during 2010 in a waiting area outside a counterterrorism training course, Mr. Kelly said. He placed responsibility for the decision to show the film on a sergeant, whom Mr. Kelly did not identify. "A sergeant, I think well meaning, took this film and put it in a loop in a room that was outside of the training area," Mr. Kelly told reporters at Police Headquarters.
The disclosure that the Police Department showed the film to many officers has strained relations between it and the city's Muslim communities.
The film claims that "much of Muslim leadership here in America" aims to "infiltrate and dominate" the United States. On Friday, Mr. Kelly characterized the film "as "inflammatory" and "a little much."
The film included an interview with Mr. Kelly; in his brief appearance, he speaks about the general threat of a nuclear or biological terror attack on the city but does not criticize Muslims.
In remarks on Friday, Mr. Kelly played down his involvement in the film, saying he often sits for interviews.
"In this job, you do a lot of interviews," he said.
Mr. Kelly suggested that the decision to screen the film did not go through ordinary channels. He said that ordinarily the department's counterterrorism division approved the material that was used as part of its training. But in this instance, he said, the film "was never approved" by the division. The sergeant who screened the film was not part of the counterterrorism division, he said.
Mr. Kelly said that he first saw the film on Tuesday, the day after an article in The New York Times disclosed that at least 1,489 police officers had seen it.
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8) For Ford, Three Years of Profit in a Row
By NICK BUNKLEY
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/business/fords-posts-third-straight-annual-profit.html?ref=business
DEARBORN, Mich. - The Ford Motor Company reported its third consecutive full-year profit on Friday and its largest in 13 years, ensuring its hourly workers one of the biggest profit-sharing bonuses in the company's history.
Ford said strong sales in North America overshadowed higher commodity costs and losses in other parts of the world. The North American results mean 41,600 hourly workers in the United States will receive $6,200 in profit-sharing bonuses for 2011, up from $5,000 the year before.
Ford made an unusual accounting adjustment in the fourth quarter worth $12.4 billion that increased its 2011 earnings to $20.2 billion, the second-highest total ever for the carmaker. But excluding that one-time gain, Ford's fourth-quarter operating profit declined.
The accounting change eliminated most of a tax allowance created when the company was bleeding billions of dollars in 2006 and saw little likelihood of making a profit in the coming years. By making the adjustment, Ford is now signaling that it expects to continue earning substantial profits.
"It's a very positive signal," said the company's chief financial officer, Lewis W. K. Booth. "In our judgment, we're going to be profitable enough in the foreseeable future to use up the deferred assets."
The hourly workers received a $3,750 advance on the 2011 bonus after signing a new four-year labor agreement last fall and will receive the remaining $2,450 in March. The largest profit-sharing bonus at Ford came for the year 1999, when workers received an average of $8,000.
The accounting gain means that, on paper, Ford has recovered nearly all of the $30.1 billion it lost from 2006 through 2008. In the three years since, the company's profit totaled $29.5 billion.
Ford created the tax allowance in 2006, when Alan R. Mulally, the chief executive, joined the company as its performance was in a downward spiral and it mortgaged most assets to raise money. The losses meant Ford could no longer keep many deferred tax assets on its books, but after posting 11 consecutive profitable quarters, it was able to release nearly all of that allowance.
Doing so lets Ford offset taxes on about $35 billion of future profits, said James Hines, a law and economics professor at the University of Michigan.
"You would only do that if you were expecting a lot of pretax profits," Professor Hines said. "It's not a shock, given how well they've been doing."
By region, the company earned a pretax operating profit in North America in 2011 of $6.2 billion but lost a total of $119 million in its Europe and Asia-Pacific-Africa regions. Its fourth-quarter loss in Europe nearly quadrupled to $190 million, from $51 million in 2010, and Mr. Booth conceded that Europe "may stay challenging for some time."
In contrast, North America, the epicenter of Ford's past troubles, has become "the engine for supporting our growth worldwide," Mr. Mulally said.
The net profit was equal to $4.94 a share, up from $1.66 a share a year earlier, when Ford earned $6.6 billion.
Excluding the accounting change and other special items, Ford earned an operating profit of $8.8 billion for the year, or $1.51 a share, 6 percent more than its 2010 operating profit of $8.3 billion, or $1.91 a share.
Revenue increased 13 percent to $136.3 billion, but profit margins declined to 5.4 percent, from 6.1 percent in 2010.
In the fourth quarter, Ford reported an operating profit of $1.1 billion, or 20 cents a share, down from $1.3 billion, or 30 cents a share, a year ago. Analysts were expecting earnings of 25 cents a share, and consequently, Ford shares fell 4 percent on Friday to close at $12.21.
Including the accounting gain, Ford had net income of $13.6 billion. Revenue for the quarter rose 6 percent to $34.6 billion.
Ford ended 2011 with $13.1 billion in automotive debt, $400 million more than at the end of the third quarter but $6 billion less than it had a year earlier.
It had $22.9 billion in automotive cash, up $2.4 billion for the year.
Mr. Booth said the challenging economy in Europe and flooding in Thailand hurt fourth-quarter earnings. Commodity costs also ended up being higher than expected, he said.
With the auto market in the United States improving, Ford said it expected operating profit to increase in 2012 and for profit margins to be equal to or better than in 2011. The company said it planned to contribute $3.5 billion to its underfunded pension plans, including $2 billion in the United States.
The projections are "encouraging to us given all the industry headwinds," Adam Jonas, an analyst with Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note to clients Friday. He added, "2012 may be shaping up to be a very good year for Ford."
Ford sold 17 percent more cars and trucks at American dealerships in 2011, with big gains for its redesigned Explorer sport utility vehicle and year-old Fiesta subcompact car. This year, it is bringing out revamped versions of the Fusion midsize sedan and Escape crossover vehicle, along with several plug-in vehicles and hybrids.
Mr. Booth said Ford would be able to improve its performance in the years ahead by increasing sales and by operating more efficiently, which is a central focus of its turnaround plan, known as One Ford.
"We're really only at the beginning of getting the benefits of One Ford," Mr. Booth said.
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9) Union Membership Rate Fell Again in 2011
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
January 27, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/business/union-membership-rate-fell-again-in-2011.html?ref=business
The nation's union membership rate continued a decades-long slide last year, falling to 11.8 percent of the American work force in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in a report on Friday.
That was down from 11.9 percent the previous year even though total union membership edged up, rising by 49,000 last year to 14.76 million. The overall membership rate declined because the increases in organized labor's ranks did not keep pace with overall growth in employment.
The bureau announced these numbers as the nation's labor unions have been coming under heavy political attack. Republican governors and Republican-controlled legislatures in Wisconsin and in several other states have pushed to curb the power of public employees to bargain collectively. Moreover, Indiana is poised to become the first state in more than a decade to enact a "right to work" law, which bans employers and unions from agreeing to contracts that require workers to pay fees for union representation.
According to the bureau, 16.3 million workers are represented by unions, some 1.5 million more than the total membership, indicating that many workers opt out of joining the unions that represent them at their workplaces.
The percentage of public sector workers in unions was 37 percent last year, more than five times the 6.9 percent membership rate for private sector workers. In the 1950s, more than 35 percent of private sector workers were in unions.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the number of private sector workers in unions increased by 110,000 to 7.2 million, buoyed by a rebound in manufacturing and construction employment. But with many states, cities and school districts laying off employees, the number of public sector workers in unions dropped 61,000, to 7.56 million.
The bureau found that New York State had the highest unionization rate, 24.1 percent, followed by Alaska (22.1 percent) and Hawaii (21.5 percent). North Carolina had the lowest rate, 2.9 percent, with South Carolina second-lowest (3.4 percent). The data was collected in the Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of 60,000 households.
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10) Ritalin Gone Wrong
"One of the most profound findings in behavioral neuroscience in recent years has been the clear evidence that the developing brain is shaped by experience."
By L. ALAN SROUFE
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/childrens-add-drugs-dont-work-long-term.html?hp
THREE million children in this country take drugs for problems in focusing. Toward the end of last year, many of their parents were deeply alarmed because there was a shortage of drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that they considered absolutely essential to their children's functioning.
But are these drugs really helping children? Should we really keep expanding the number of prescriptions filled?
In 30 years there has been a twentyfold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit disorder.
As a psychologist who has been studying the development of troubled children for more than 40 years, I believe we should be asking why we rely so heavily on these drugs.
Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth.
Sadly, few physicians and parents seem to be aware of what we have been learning about the lack of effectiveness of these drugs.
What gets publicized are short-term results and studies on brain differences among children. Indeed, there are a number of incontrovertible facts that seem at first glance to support medication. It is because of this partial foundation in reality that the problem with the current approach to treating children has been so difficult to see.
Back in the 1960s I, like most psychologists, believed that children with difficulty concentrating were suffering from a brain problem of genetic or otherwise inborn origin. Just as Type I diabetics need insulin to correct problems with their inborn biochemistry, these children were believed to require attention-deficit drugs to correct theirs. It turns out, however, that there is little to no evidence to support this theory.
In 1973, I reviewed the literature on drug treatment of children for The New England Journal of Medicine. Dozens of well-controlled studies showed that these drugs immediately improved children's performance on repetitive tasks requiring concentration and diligence. I had conducted one of these studies myself. Teachers and parents also reported improved behavior in almost every short-term study. This spurred an increase in drug treatment and led many to conclude that the "brain deficit" hypothesis had been confirmed.
But questions continued to be raised, especially concerning the drugs' mechanism of action and the durability of effects. Ritalin and Adderall, a combination of dextroamphetamine and amphetamine, are stimulants. So why do they appear to calm children down? Some experts argued that because the brains of children with attention problems were different, the drugs had a mysterious paradoxical effect on them.
However, there really was no paradox. Versions of these drugs had been given to World War II radar operators to help them stay awake and focus on boring, repetitive tasks. And when we reviewed the literature on attention-deficit drugs again in 1990 we found that all children, whether they had attention problems or not, responded to stimulant drugs the same way. Moreover, while the drugs helped children settle down in class, they actually increased activity in the playground. Stimulants generally have the same effects for all children and adults. They enhance the ability to concentrate, especially on tasks that are not inherently interesting or when one is fatigued or bored, but they don't improve broader learning abilities.
And just as in the many dieters who have used and abandoned similar drugs to lose weight, the effects of stimulants on children with attention problems fade after prolonged use. Some experts have argued that children with A.D.D. wouldn't develop such tolerance because their brains were somehow different. But in fact, the loss of appetite and sleeplessness in children first prescribed attention-deficit drugs do fade, and, as we now know, so do the effects on behavior. They apparently develop a tolerance to the drug, and thus its efficacy disappears. Many parents who take their children off the drugs find that behavior worsens, which most likely confirms their belief that the drugs work. But the behavior worsens because the children's bodies have become adapted to the drug. Adults may have similar reactions if they suddenly cut back on coffee, or stop smoking.
TO date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships or behavior problems, the very things we would most want to improve. Until recently, most studies of these drugs had not been properly randomized, and some of them had other methodological flaws.
But in 2009, findings were published from a well-controlled study that had been going on for more than a decade, and the results were very clear. The study randomly assigned almost 600 children with attention problems to four treatment conditions. Some received medication alone, some cognitive-behavior therapy alone, some medication plus therapy, and some were in a community-care control group that received no systematic treatment. At first this study suggested that medication, or medication plus therapy, produced the best results. However, after three years, these effects had faded, and by eight years there was no evidence that medication produced any academic or behavioral benefits.
Indeed, all of the treatment successes faded over time, although the study is continuing. Clearly, these children need a broader base of support than was offered in this medication study, support that begins earlier and lasts longer.
Nevertheless, findings in neuroscience are being used to prop up the argument for drugs to treat the hypothesized "inborn defect." These studies show that children who receive an A.D.D. diagnosis have different patterns of neurotransmitters in their brains and other anomalies. While the technological sophistication of these studies may impress parents and nonprofessionals, they can be misleading. Of course the brains of children with behavior problems will show anomalies on brain scans. It could not be otherwise. Behavior and the brain are intertwined. Depression also waxes and wanes in many people, and as it does so, parallel changes in brain functioning occur, regardless of medication.
Many of the brain studies of children with A.D.D. involve examining participants while they are engaged in an attention task. If these children are not paying attention because of lack of motivation or an underdeveloped capacity to regulate their behavior, their brain scans are certain to be anomalous.
However brain functioning is measured, these studies tell us nothing about whether the observed anomalies were present at birth or whether they resulted from trauma, chronic stress or other early-childhood experiences. One of the most profound findings in behavioral neuroscience in recent years has been the clear evidence that the developing brain is shaped by experience.
It is certainly true that large numbers of children have problems with attention, self-regulation and behavior. But are these problems because of some aspect present at birth? Or are they caused by experiences in early childhood? These questions can be answered only by studying children and their surroundings from before birth through childhood and adolescence, as my colleagues at the University of Minnesota and I have been doing for decades.
Since 1975, we have followed 200 children who were born into poverty and were therefore more vulnerable to behavior problems. We enrolled their mothers during pregnancy, and over the course of their lives, we studied their relationships with their caregivers, teachers and peers. We followed their progress through school and their experiences in early adulthood. At regular intervals we measured their health, behavior, performance on intelligence tests and other characteristics.
By late adolescence, 50 percent of our sample qualified for some psychiatric diagnosis. Almost half displayed behavior problems at school on at least one occasion, and 24 percent dropped out by 12th grade; 14 percent met criteria for A.D.D. in either first or sixth grade.
Other large-scale epidemiological studies confirm such trends in the general population of disadvantaged children. Among all children, including all socioeconomic groups, the incidence of A.D.D. is estimated at 8 percent. What we found was that the environment of the child predicted development of A.D.D. problems. In stark contrast, measures of neurological anomalies at birth, I.Q. and infant temperament - including infant activity level - did not predict A.D.D.
Plenty of affluent children are also diagnosed with A.D.D. Behavior problems in children have many possible sources. Among them are family stresses like domestic violence, lack of social support from friends or relatives, chaotic living situations, including frequent moves, and, especially, patterns of parental intrusiveness that involve stimulation for which the baby is not prepared. For example, a 6-month-old baby is playing, and the parent picks it up quickly from behind and plunges it in the bath. Or a 3-year-old is becoming frustrated in solving a problem, and a parent taunts or ridicules. Such practices excessively stimulate and also compromise the child's developing capacity for self-regulation.
Putting children on drugs does nothing to change the conditions that derail their development in the first place. Yet those conditions are receiving scant attention. Policy makers are so convinced that children with attention deficits have an organic disease that they have all but called off the search for a comprehensive understanding of the condition. The National Institute of Mental Health finances research aimed largely at physiological and brain components of A.D.D. While there is some research on other treatment approaches, very little is studied regarding the role of experience. Scientists, aware of this orientation, tend to submit only grants aimed at elucidating the biochemistry.
Thus, only one question is asked: are there aspects of brain functioning associated with childhood attention problems? The answer is always yes. Overlooked is the very real possibility that both the brain anomalies and the A.D.D. result from experience.
Our present course poses numerous risks. First, there will never be a single solution for all children with learning and behavior problems. While some smaller number may benefit from short-term drug treatment, large-scale, long-term treatment for millions of children is not the answer.
Second, the large-scale medication of children feeds into a societal view that all of life's problems can be solved with a pill and gives millions of children the impression that there is something inherently defective in them.
Finally, the illusion that children's behavior problems can be cured with drugs prevents us as a society from seeking the more complex solutions that will be necessary. Drugs get everyone - politicians, scientists, teachers and parents - off the hook. Everyone except the children, that is.
If drugs, which studies show work for four to eight weeks, are not the answer, what is? Many of these children have anxiety or depression; others are showing family stresses. We need to treat them as individuals.
As for shortages, they will continue to wax and wane. Because these drugs are habit forming, Congress decides how much can be produced. The number approved doesn't keep pace with the tidal wave of prescriptions. By the end of this year, there will in all likelihood be another shortage, as we continue to rely on drugs that are not doing what so many well-meaning parents, therapists and teachers believe they are doing.
L. Alan Sroufe is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development.
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11) Occupy Protesters and Police Clash in Oakland
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
January 29, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/occupy-protesters-and-police-clash-in-oakland.html?ref=us
A march to take over a vacant building by members of the Occupy movement in Oakland, Calif., turned into a violent confrontation with the police on Saturday, leaving three officers injured and about 200 people arrested.
The clashes began just before 3 p.m. when protesters marched toward the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, the police said, and began to tear down construction barricades. Officers ordered the crowd to disperse when protesters "began destroying construction equipment and fencing," the Oakland police said in a press release.
"Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares, the police said." Officers responded with smoke, tear gas and beanbag projectiles. Twenty people were arrested.
Most of the arrests occurred in the evening, when large groups of people were corralled in front of the Downtown Oakland Y.M.C.A. on Broadway. At one point, one group of protesters broke into the City Hall building.
On a livestream broadcast on the Web site oakfosho.com, dozens of protesters could be seen sitting cross-legged in darkness on the street in front of the Y.M.C.A. Their hands appeared to be bound behind them, while police officers stood watch. Occasionally the protesters sang or cheered.
The events were part of a demonstration dubbed "Move-in Day," a plan by protesters to move into the vacant convention center and use it as a commune-like command center, according to the Web site occupyoaklandmoveinday.org.
"We were going to set up a community center," said Benjamin Phillips, 32, a member of the Occupy Oakland media team. "It would be a place where we could house people, feed people, do all the things that we have been doing."
In an open letter to Mayor Jean Quan on the Move-in Day site, the group threatened actions like "blockading the airport indefinitely, occupying City Hall indefinitely" and "shutting down the Oakland ports." Occupy protesters did briefly shut down the city's busy port in November.
In a statement issued before the march, Ms. Quan said that "the residents of Oakland are wearying of the constant focus and cost to our city." On Saturday night, she added: "Once again, a violent splinter group of the Occupy Movement is engaging in violent actions against Oakland. The Bay Area Occupy Movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground."
In a statement, city officials said the total number of arrests was estimated at 200.
Ms. Quan has spent her first term embattled by the Occupy movement, which installed itself in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in October. After initially embracing the protest, she ordered the encampment removed from the plaza.
After a series of violent episodes, including a clash in which a Marine veteran of Iraq suffered a fractured skull when struck by a projectile in a confrontation with the police, Ms. Quan relented and permitted the protesters to return to the plaza. But two weeks later, in response to fears of renewed violence, she ordered the plaza cleared again.
Mr. Phillips, who said he is a veteran of the United States Air Force, spoke Saturday night from his home on Grand Avenue where he had stopped to rinse tear-gas residue from his contact lenses. He described the scene in front of the Y.M.C.A. as "terrifying."
"This is disgusting, because this is not the way that America is supposed to work," he said. "You're supposed to be able to have something like freedom to assemble and air your grievances," he said.
"It's bizarre," he said of the police reaction. "It's not something you expect to see in the United States, and we've seen it over and over in Oakland."
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12) Retrial in a Case Tied to Post-Katrina Deaths
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/retrial-planned-for-officer-linked-to-post-katrina-shootings.html?ref=us
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Prosecutors intend to retry a retired police sergeant charged with helping cover up deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina.
United States Attorney Jim Letten made the announcement late Friday but declined to provide further comment.
Earlier Friday, Judge Kurt Engelhardt of Federal District Court declared a mistrial in the case of the former police officer, Gerard Dugue, ruling that the Justice Department prosecutor, Bobbi Bernstein, may have tainted the jury hearing the trial by mentioning the name of a man who was beaten to death by a New Orleans police officer in a case unrelated to Mr. Dugue's.
Mr. Dugue was on trial for charges that he wrote a false report on the shootings of unarmed residents on the Danziger Bridge, less than a week after the August 2005 hurricane. He was the last of 20 New Orleans police officers who were charged by the Justice Department's civil rights division to go on trial, and the case was expected to go to the jury early this week.
Ms. Bernstein argued that merely mentioning the unrelated victim's name could not amount to any prejudice against Mr. Dugue. Mr. Dugue was not charged in the other case, but Judge Engelhardt said it was impossible to know if any jurors had heard the remark and reached any negative conclusions.
"That's a chance that I'm not willing to take," he said, adding that a mistrial was "the last thing in the world I want to do."
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13) BP Feared Spill of 3.4 Million Gallons a Day
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/bp-feared-gulf-oil-spill-rate-of-3-4-million-gallons-a-day.html?ref=us
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - On the day the Deepwater Horizon sank, BP officials warned in internal e-mails that if the well was not protected by the blowout preventer, crude oil could burst into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 3.4 million gallons a day - an amount a million gallons more than what the government later said it believed had spilled daily from the site.
The e-mail conversation, which BP agreed to release on Friday as part of federal court proceedings, suggests that BP managers recognized the potential of the disaster in its early hours, and that company officials sought to make sure that its model-developed information was not shared with outsiders.
The e-mails also suggest that BP was having heated discussions with the Coast Guard over the potential of the oil spill.
The messages were released as part of the court proceedings to determine the division of responsibility for the nation's worst offshore oil disaster, which began when the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 men about 50 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast.
The first phase of the trial is scheduled to start on Feb. 27.
BP officials declined to comment on the e-mails.
The amount of oil that flowed from the well was officially calculated at 206 million gallons from at least April 22 until the well was capped on July 15, 2010. That is a daily flow rate of about 2.4 million gallons - two-thirds of BP's projection of what could leak from the well if it were an "open hole." BP has disputed the government's estimates.
Having an accurate flow rate estimate is necessary to determine how much in civil and criminal penalties BP and other companies that drilled the well face under the Clean Water Act.
In the string of e-mails, a BP official urged that the flow-rate projections not be shared and referred to the "difficult discussions" the company was having at the time with the Coast Guard.
Gary Imm, a BP manager, told Rob Marshall, BP's subsea manager in the gulf, to tell the modeler doing the estimates "not to communicate to anyone on this."
"A number of people have been looking at this," Mr. Imm wrote in an e-mail. "We already have had difficult discussions with the U.S.C.G. on the numbers," he added, referring to the Coast Guard and flow estimates.
On April 23, 2010, the Coast Guard, relying on BP's remotely operated vehicles, said no oil was leaking from the well a mile under the sea. A day later, Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard said oil was leaking at a rate of about 42,000 gallons a day. The Coast Guard and BP did not divulge how they had arrived at that figure.
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14) 'Policing Chicago Schools': Report Suggests In-School Officers Put Teens On Road To Prison
"The vast majority of those affected by the criminalization of in-school behavior in Chicago are black students, who accounted for 74 percent of school-based juvenile arrests in 2010, Project NIA reports. Only 45 percent of the system's students are African American."
Lizzie Schiffman
January 30, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/policing-chicago-schools-in-school-officers-prison_n_1230900.html
CHICAGO -- As Chicago Public Schools have become increasingly dependent on the police department to control student behavior on school grounds, a disproportionately high number of black juveniles are being thrust into the criminal justice system too early and too easily, according to data from a new report issued Wednesday by the Chicago youth advocacy group Project NIA.
The group analyzed Chicago Police Department arrest data and found that 20 percent of all juvenile arrests in 2010 took place on school grounds. Nearly one-third of those arrests were for simple battery charges -- offenses that in previous years would have been written off as schoolyard skirmishes and punished with suspensions or other penalties doled out by the school.
"I think our main purpose with trying to put the study out is that it's long overdue; the last study focusing on Chicago was released in 2003," said Mariame Kaba, director of Project NIA and co-author of the report. "We think the most important thing is to operationalize how the schools-to-prison pipeline works. There are a lot of ways that happens, one of which is youths being funneled directly into the system by being arrested at schools."
Police presence at schools in Chicago and nationwide has seen a sharp uptick in the last 20 years, according to the report, titled "Policing Chicago Public Schools: A Gateway to the School-to-Prison Pipeline." In Chicago, administrators have become so reliant on in-school police officers that only four of the system's 122 high schools were willing to give up their assigned officers in return for a $25,000 incentive offered this summer by the cash-strapped district.
The vast majority of those affected by the criminalization of in-school behavior in Chicago are black students, who accounted for 74 percent of school-based juvenile arrests in 2010, Project NIA reports. Only 45 percent of the system's students are African American.
The study also turned up geographical biases. Nearly 40 percent of the city's school-based juvenile arrests in 2010 came from five police districts: the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 22nd, all on the city's South and South West sides.
Youth intercepted by the criminal justice system at a young age can find themselves trapped in a cycle of repeat incarcerations. A recently released report by the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission found major problems with the way the system handles juvenile cases.
The problem of criminalizing student misbehavior isn't limited to Chicago schools. A national study released recently by the Justice Policy Institute, titled "Education Under Arrest," finds the trend is spreading with dangerous results.
"Students are needlessly arrested for offenses as minor as disorderly conduct, which can include swearing at a teacher or throwing spitballs," said Amanda Petteruti, the institute's associate director, in a release that accompanied the report. "[In-school police] lead to discipline applied without the filter of school administrators or policies. This in turn leads to a troubling disruption of the educational process ... the result of which is some students who never become re-connected to school."
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15) U.S. Drones Patrolling Its Skies Provoke Outrage in Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
"The Pentagon and C.I.A. have been stepping up their use of armed Predator and Reaper drones to conduct strikes against militants in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. More recently, the United States has expanded drone bases in Ethiopia, the Seychelles and a secret location in the Arabian Peninsula."
January 29, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/middleeast/iraq-is-angered-by-us-drones-patrolling-its-skies.html?hp
BAGHDAD - A month after the last American troops left Iraq, the State Department is operating a small fleet of surveillance drones here to help protect the United States Embassy and consulates, as well as American personnel. Some senior Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the program, saying the unarmed aircraft are an affront to Iraqi sovereignty.
The program was described by the department's diplomatic security branch in a little-noticed section of its most recent annual report and outlined in broad terms in a two-page online prospectus for companies that might bid on a contract to manage the program. It foreshadows a possible expansion of unmanned drone operations into the diplomatic arm of the American government; until now they have been mainly the province of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.
American contractors say they have been told that the State Department is considering to field unarmed surveillance drones in the future in a handful of other potentially "high-threat" countries, including Indonesia and Pakistan, and in Afghanistan after the bulk of American troops leave in the next two years. State Department officials say that no decisions have been made beyond the drone operations in Iraq.
The drones are the latest example of the State Department's efforts to take over functions in Iraq that the military used to perform. Some 5,000 private security contractors now protect the embassy's 11,000-person staff, for example, and typically drive around in heavily armored military vehicles.
When embassy personnel move throughout the country, small helicopters buzz over the convoys to provide support in case of an attack. Often, two contractors armed with machine guns are tethered to the outside of the helicopters. The State Department began operating some drones in Iraq last year on a trial basis, and stepped up their use after the last American troops left Iraq in December, taking the military drones with them.
The United States, which will soon begin taking bids to manage drone operations in Iraq over the next five years, needs formal approval from the Iraqi government to use such aircraft here, Iraqi officials said. Such approval may be untenable given the political tensions between the two countries. Now that the troops are gone, Iraqi politicians often denounce the United States in an effort to rally support from their followers.
A senior American official said that negotiations were under way to obtain authorization for the current drone operations, but Ali al-Mosawi, a top adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki; Iraq's national security adviser, Falih al-Fayadh; and the acting minister of interior, Adnan al-Asadi, all said in interviews that they had not been consulted by the Americans.
Mr. Asadi said that he opposed the drone program: "Our sky is our sky, not the U.S.A.'s sky."
The Pentagon and C.I.A. have been stepping up their use of armed Predator and Reaper drones to conduct strikes against militants in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. More recently, the United States has expanded drone bases in Ethiopia, the Seychelles and a secret location in the Arabian Peninsula.
The State Department drones, by contrast, carry no weapons and are meant to provide data and images of possible hazards, like public protests or roadblocks, to security personnel on the ground, American officials said. They are much smaller than armed drones, with wingspans as short as 18 inches, compared with 55 feet for the Predators.
The State Department has about two dozen drones in Iraq, but many are used only for spare parts, the officials said.
The United States Embassy in Baghdad referred all questions about the drones to the State Department in Washington.
The State Department confirmed the existence of the program, calling the devices unmanned aerial vehicles, but it declined to provide details. "The department does have a U.A.V. program," it said in a statement without referring specifically to Iraq. "The U.A.V.'s being utilized by the State Department are not armed, nor are they capable of being armed."
When the American military was still in Iraq, white blimps equipped with sensors hovered over many cities, providing the Americans with surveillance abilities beyond the dozens of armed and unarmed drones used by the military. But the blimps came down at the end of last year as the military completed its withdrawal. Anticipating this, the State Department began developing its own drone operations.
According to the most recent annual report of the department's diplomatic security branch, issued last June, the branch worked with the Pentagon and other agencies in 2010 to research the use of low-altitude, long-endurance unmanned drones "in high-threat locations such as Iraq and Afghanistan."
The document said that the program was tested in Iraq in December 2010. "The program will watch over State Department facilities and personnel and assist regional security officers with high-threat mission planning and execution," the document said.
In the online prospectus, called a "presolicitation notice," the State Department last September outlined a broad requirement to provide "worldwide Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (U.A.V.) support services." American officials said this was to formalize the initial program.
The program's goal is "to provide real-time surveillance of fixed installations, proposed movement routes and movement operations," referring to American convoy movements. In addition, the program's mission is "improving security in high-threat or potentially high-threat environments."
The document does not identify specific countries, but contracting specialists familiar with the program say that it focuses initially on operations in Iraq. That is "where the need is greatest," said one contracting official who spoke on condition of anonymity, because the contract is still in its early phase.
In the next few weeks, the department is expected to issue a more detailed proposal, requesting bids from private contractors to operate the drones. That document, the department said Friday, will describe the scope of the program, including the overall cost and other specifics.
While the preliminary proposal has drawn interest from more than a dozen companies, some independent specialists who are familiar with drone operations expressed skepticism about the State Department's ability to manage such a complicated and potentially risky enterprise.
"The State Department needs to get through its head that it is not an agency adept at running military-style operations," said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and the author of "Wired for War," a book about military robotics.
The American plans to use drones in the air over Iraq have also created yet another tricky issue for the two countries, as Iraq continues to assert its sovereignty after the nearly nine-year occupation. Many Iraqis remain deeply skeptical of the United States, feelings that were reinforced last week when the Marine who was the so-called ringleader of the 2005 massacre of 24 Iraqis in the village of Haditha avoided prison time and was sentenced to a reduction in rank.
"If they are afraid about their diplomats being attacked in Iraq, then they can take them out of the country," said Mohammed Ghaleb Nasser, 57, an engineer from the northern city of Mosul.
Hisham Mohammed Salah, 37, an Internet cafe owner in Mosul, said he did not differentiate between surveillance drones and the ones that fire missiles. "We hear from time to time that drone aircraft have killed half a village in Pakistan and Afghanistan under the pretext of pursuing terrorists," Mr. Salah said. "Our fear is that will happen in Iraq under a different pretext."
Still, Ghanem Owaid Nizar Qaisi, 45, a teacher from Diyala, said that he doubted that the Iraqi government would stop the United States from using the drones. "I believe that Iraqi politicians will accept it, because they are weak," he said.
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Michael S. Schmidt from Baghdad.
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16) General Strike Grips Belgium
By STEPHEN CASTLE
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/europe/strike-grips-belgium-ahead-of-european-union-summit.html?ref=world
BRUSSELS - Belgium was paralyzed by a national strike Monday as unions, angry over austerity measures, timed the protest to coincide with a one-day meeting of European Union leaders in the capital, Brussels.
The rail network was shut down and flights were severely disrupted, with the airport at Charleroi, a hub for the low-cost carrier Ryanair, closed by the first general strike in Belgium since 1993.
Tram, bus and metro services in Brussels were suspended, transportation officials said. High-speed international trains, like the Eurostar from London and Thalys from Paris, were among those canceled.
Belgian news media reported that most government buildings and many schools were closed and that postal services were not operating. Many stores were closed, and striking workers erected barriers to block access to industrial zones.
In central Brussels, traffic was light, however, as many workers stayed home. Those who did venture out braved icy temperatures and light snow.
The country's main airport at Zaventem, in Brussels, remained open but canceled some flights and advised travelers to check with their airlines before coming to the airport.
Flights bringing European leaders to Brussels for their one-day meeting Monday afternoon were expected to continue. The meeting, to discuss on efforts to contain Europe's debt crisis, was also expected to review ideas to stimulate growth and jobs.
Belgium is one of many European nations struggling to control its budget, and unions are angry over plans to cut spending and raise taxes.
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17) Twelve Arrested at Manhattan March for Oakland Protesters
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
January 30, 2012, 2:26 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/12-arrested-at-n-y-c-march-for-oakland-protesters/?ref=nyregion
Twelve protesters were arrested Sunday night on a march through Lower Manhattan to show support for Occupy protesters in Oakland, where a violent confrontation erupted on Saturday night between the police and demonstrators who tried to take over an empty convention center.
The crowd in New York, about 300 strong, occasionally surged into streets, and on at least two occasions someone in the crowd threw a bottle, apparently aimed at police officers who accompanied the march on foot and in vehicles. The police plunged into the crowd several times.
Three men were charged with assault and one with criminal weapons possession, the police said. Most of the rest of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct. Three of the 12 people arrested were women. One officer sustained an injured finger.
The demonstration began just after 7 p.m. in Washington Square, where hundreds of people assembled near a fountain, beating drums and waving flags.
A man stood on the lip of the fountain and announced: "We're going to get the backs of our brothers and sisters in the Bay Area," adding, "Let's march."
The crowd headed north on Fifth Avenue chanting "New York is Oakland; Oakland is New York." The marchers turned west on 14th Street, then flowed into the roadway on Avenue of the Americas. One man dragged plastic construction barrels into the roadway as police cars and vans followed the march, sirens blaring.
Officers chased several young men on 17th Street after one of them dragged a wooden sawhorse into the road. The men got away, but soon afterward an officer grabbed another man walking on a sidewalk who was wearing a balaclava.
A few moments later, on Park Avenue, a man wearing dark clothes and wearing no visible badge grabbed a woman by the arm and threw her to the ground. Uniformed officers arrested her and a second woman as other officers blocked the lens of a newspaper photographer attempting to document the arrests.
As they were led away in handcuff, the two told onlookers that they had done nothing to deserve being arrested. The woman thrown to the ground identified herself as Jessica Lemmer, 21, and said that the man in the dark clothes had thrown her down after she told him not to push her.
At the corner of 13th Street and Second Avenue, the police dragged a man from the crowd, accusing him of having thrown a bottle.
Just before 10 p.m., the marchers arrived on 9th Street just east of Avenue B and congregated in front of an empty former school building that had housed the Charas / El Bohio Cultural and Community Center before the group was evicted ten years ago by a developer, Gregg L. Singer, who had bought the building at a city auction.
"This was once a vibrant community center," a man said as others pounded on a tall plywood fence that sealed the empty building off from the sidewalk. "The people in Oakland wanted to create a community center."
A security guard emerged from inside the building and peered down from an elevated plaza at those outside. A man tried to clamber over the fence, but police officers quickly pulled him down and arrested him as a helicopter with a spotlight hovered overhead.
By 10:30 p.m., most of the marchers had moved to Tompkins Square. One man strummed a mandolin. Another tapped on a drum. Several others stretched out on an asphalt pathway, using backpacks as pillows and gazing at the sky as a line of police officers stood at a nearby entrance to the park.
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18) Lower-Income Families May Pay More for Auto Insurance
"Auto insurers price insurance based on a variety of factors, but the authors argue that many of their methods put lower- and moderate-income families - or households with roughly $20,000 to $40,000 in earnings - at a disadvantage. Homeowners, for instance, often pay less than people who do not own their homes, while people in low-paying occupations who have less education pay more. In fact, the study cited 2006 research that found that those with less education and working in less skilled occupations would pay premiums that were, on average, 40 percent higher. Meanwhile, consumers with thin or blemished credit histories are charged more, as are drivers who had previous coverage with lower limits on bodily injury."
By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD
January 30, 2012, 1:00 pm
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/lower-income-families-may-pay-more-for-auto-insurance/?src=busln
Many low-income families cannot afford car insurance, at least in part because insurers price their policies in ways that cost them more, according to a new report from the Consumer Federation of America.
In fact, in some cases, the cost of insurance can be a greater impediment to car ownership than the cost of the vehicle itself, the authors said. That has broad economic implications since those without cars have a harder time getting to work, school, day care or the grocery store.
"There is much academic research that clearly shows that if you have ready access to a car, it dramatically improves your economic opportunities," said Stephen Brobeck, executive director at the Consumer Federation of America, who co-wrote the report with J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance at the group. The report, "Lower-Income Households and the Auto Insurance Marketplace: Challenges and Opportunities," reviewed the existing literature from academics and regulators and includes findings from the authors' own research.
"The release of the report is just the beginning of our initiative to try to inform the country, particularly state regulators, who can do a great deal to mitigate the problems," Mr. Brobeck said.
Auto insurers price insurance based on a variety of factors, but the authors argue that many of their methods put lower- and moderate-income families - or households with roughly $20,000 to $40,000 in earnings - at a disadvantage. Homeowners, for instance, often pay less than people who do not own their homes, while people in low-paying occupations who have less education pay more. In fact, the study cited 2006 research that found that those with less education and working in less skilled occupations would pay premiums that were, on average, 40 percent higher. Meanwhile, consumers with thin or blemished credit histories are charged more, as are drivers who had previous coverage with lower limits on bodily injury.
While insurers are prohibited from asking for a driver's income, the authors said that hasn't stopped insurers from asking for information that they can use as a proxy for earnings. "We think education, occupation and credit scores are surrogates for income," Mr. Hunter said, adding that nobody has studied how using the combination of those factors affects the poor. "Occupations that have no driving risk affiliated with them but do have lower incomes tend to pay more, so it raises serious questions."
The study also found that some insurers were charging more for policies with less coverage, which, they said, is likely to disproportionately affect lower-income households since they may be more likely to buy those policies. "Some companies charge more for the basic limits for the state than they would for higher limits for the exact same driver," Mr. Hunter said. "It's like going into a store and saying, 'I want a box of cereal,' and the big box is much cheaper than the little box."
They found evidence of this happening in states including Arizona, Texas and Arkansas, but not in New York or California. For instance, in Texas, they found that two major insurers would charge a single female with a 2007 Toyota Camry who is living in low-income areas in Dallas, San Antonio and Houston anywhere from $27 to $75 more each year for a policy with minimal liability coverage. It was hard to determine how widespread the issue was because of the limited amount of information available on the state insurance departments' Web sites. "We were shocked that we found it anywhere," Mr. Hunter said. He added that the issue should be researched further.
But a more common way to deny coverage is to "grossly overprice it," the paper said.
Most states require car owners to buy liability coverage for bodily injuries and property damage, with the exception of New Hampshire. This type of insurance pays for the expenses incurred by people the driver injured (or property that they damaged) in an accident where someone is at fault. The most common bodily injury limits are $25,000/$50,000 - which means the insurer will pay up to $25,000 for a person's injuries, and $50,000 for all injuries related to one accident - and property damage limits of either $10,000 or $25,000. But insurers recommend that people with assets get more coverage.
"The big problem is that mandatory coverage is so expensive, often costing over $1,000 in urban areas that it prevents them from buying a car," Mr. Brobeck said.
Consider two drivers in California: a single female over the age of 30 who has been driving for six to eight years, but who logs less than 10,000 miles a year with no traffic violations; and a single male under 30 years old, who has been driving for three to five years, but has one traffic ticket and one "at fault" accident. At four major companies, the woman will be charged annual premiums of $694 to $1,039 in Compton, a low-income area in Los Angeles, and premiums of $570 to $1,058 in Sunnyside, a moderate-income area. For the same coverage at three of the companies, the man would be charged annual premiums of $1,628 to $2,353 in Compton and premiums of $1,334 to $1,734 in Sunnyside, the paper said, citing the California Department of Insurance's 2011 Auto Insurance Rate Comparisons.
The high prices help explain why many motorists in these communities choose to risk fines for driving uninsured, the paper said. In 2007, the Insurance Research Council estimated that about 14 percent of car owners drive without insurance, though Mr. Hunter said the rate is probably about double that among household with low to moderate incomes.
So what do they propose? The authors said that pricing should be largely influenced by factors that drivers can control, like the cars they drive and how far and safely they drive them.
"Poor people, we know from the data, they spend a lot less on gas, which means they are driving less," Mr. Hunter said. "So if insurers more fully reflected miles driven in pricing, it would lower the rate for poorer people."
The paper also points to programs in states, like California, which allow lower-income drivers to qualify for a cheaper alternative as long as they meet certain requirements. In California, drivers who own a vehicle worth less than $20,000 and who have incomes of less than $27,000 to $55,000 - depending on family size - and who have driven at least three years with a clean record can qualify for minimal liability coverage at relatively low rates. While the average annual premium in Los Angeles was $802, the paper said the annual premium for drivers in the program was $358, which also happens to be the highest premium the program charges in all of California.
The authors also suggested potentially lowering the minimum amount of liability insurance that lower-income households are required to purchase. Mr. Hunter said he had already suggested to the Federal Insurance Office to collect more data on the issue.
"The states are cracking down on the uninsured," Mr. Brobeck said. "If they are going to do that, they have a responsibility to ensure that lower income people can afford to drive."
What do you think should be done?
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