Wednesday, February 01, 2012

BAUAW NEWSLETTER - WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2012



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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Tell Wells Fargo: Hands off our neighbors! Call-in/Email Today!

Despite recording record profits last year, Wells Fargo continues to drive tens of thousands of people out of their homes through foreclosure proceedings while devastating our communities. The good news is, we're fighting back.

Occupy Bernal Heights formed to resist the foreclosure and eviction of our neighbors. Through public protest, we stopped the bank from immediately auctioning off the homes of Washington and Maria Davila and Alberto Del Rio, but the bank has merely rescheduled the auction dates. And despite meeting with six foreclosure fighters from the neighborhood and another from Bayview-Hunters Point, Wells Fargo executives have refused to allow any of them to refinance their homes or modify their loans, and have not stopped foreclosure proceedings against them.

Call and email Wells Fargo executives TODAY and demand that they grant a loan modification and fair deal to Alberto Del Rio; Maria and Washington Davila; Thomas German; Ernesto Viscara; Victor Granados; DeDe Martinez; and Archbishop King. Tell them to stop evicting and foreclosing on our neighbors!

Note: We are trying to keep track of the number of emails sent. Please cc your email to action@occupybernal.org

Wells Fargo Phone numbers/emails:

Diana Stauffer (Senior VP Regional Servicing Director): 925-552-4347 diana.stauffer@wellsfargo.com

Alfredo Pedroza (Director CA Local Gov't Relations): 415-396-0829 alfredo.pedroza@wellsfargo.com

John Stumpf (CEO): 866-878-5865 john.g.stumpf@wellsfargo.com

Sample Email:

To: diana.stauffer@wellsfargo.com; alfredo.pedroza@wellsfargo.com; john.g.stumpf@wellsfargo.com

Subject line: WELLS FARGO: HANDS OFF OUR NEIGHBORS!

Message: I demand that you cancel the auction of Alberto Del Rio and Maria and Washington Davila's family homes immediately. I also demand that you allow them, along with Ernesto Viscara; Victor Granados; DeDe Martinez; and Archbishop Franzo King, to modify their loans with you or refinance their homes. I call on you to stop evictions and foreclosures in San Francisco.

Stop evicting and foreclosing on our neighbors!

Background:

Occupy Bernal has identified 84 homes in foreclosure proceedings in Bernal Heights alone. Of these, Wells Fargo owns the mortgage in at least 13 of these cases. Of the homes we have visited, a disproportionate number of the owners are African-American or Latino, reflecting the racist practices of the banks who are preying on communities.

While foreclosures in Bernal Heights represent just the tip of the iceberg in a city that has seen as many as 12,000 foreclosures in the past three years, Occupy Bernal Heights is hopeful that a victory in our neighborhood could spark victories elsewhere in San Francisco.

Here are the bios of Occupy Bernal foreclosure fighters:

Thomas German is a seventy-two year-old veteran and retired worker from the US Mint in SF. Has lived in Bernal since 1967 and at his home at 248 Andover since 1974. Thomas is known and loved by all on his street. He was the first Bernal resident to step forward and join OB to battle to keep his home.

Melodie " DeDe" Martinez is a third generation resident of 150 Elsie St. Her family was at the heart of the launching of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center(BHNC) in 1976, when she was a child. Her Grandmother Jean Hamer and mother Charlene Martinez were on the founding Board of Directors of the BHNC.

Alberto Del Rio - A father of three, who grew up in his home at 565 Banks St. A strong but gentle and religious man, Alberto is an eloquent speaker on behalf of his family and other foreclosees.

Victor Granados is a tenant at 4207 Folsom St. with his wife and family. He is a quiet but determined fighter against his and other foreclosures. When Occupy Bernal needs guidance and inspiration, he often has words of wisdom.

Ernesto Viscara is an owner and occupant of 249 Anderson, where he also rents to another family living on his 2nd floor. Ernesto has lived in Bernal for 30 years. He is also an accomplished public speaker, a veteran fighter for social justice and a participant in struggles against U.S. military intervention in Central America.

Maria and Washington Davila - A quiet couple with two beloved Yorkshire Terriers, the Davilas have rented their home at 4255 Folsom St. for 7 years. They have been the ideal tenants, and the inside of their home looks like a photo shoot from Home Beautiful. Their landlord, who faces foreclosure, is ill and lives in Las Vegas.

Archbishop Franzo King pastors the John Coltrane Church, located in the Western Addition community of San Francisco. He is a life-long resident of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. He has owned his house for over 20 years. He is a member of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).

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Pacific Northwest tour:
The campaign to free Bradley Manning

Jan/Feb events presented by Jeff Paterson

* 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

Courage 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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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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(please forward widely)

Register Now! Extremely Reasonable Air Fare & Hotel Rooms Now Available!

United National Antiwar Coalition National Conference

March 23-25, 2012 at the Stamford CT Hilton (one stop from Harlem/125th St. on Metro North commuter line)

Say No to the NATO/G8 Wars & Poverty Agenda

A Conference to Challenge the Wars of the 1% Against the 99% at Home and Abroad

The U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the G-8 world economic powers will meet in Chicago, May 19-22, to plan their financial and military strategies for the coming period. These elites, who serve the 1% at home and abroad, impose austerity--often by the use of drones, armies, and the police--on the 99% to expand their profits.

Join activists from the antiwar, occupy, environmental, immigrant rights, labor, and other movements at a conference from March 23-25, 2012 to learn more, to plan a May 19 "No to NATO/G8" demonstration in Chicago, and to democratically develop a program of action for the months to follow.

Special guest speakers include:

-Xiomara de Zelaya is currently a presidential candidate in Honduras and the partner of Manuel de Zelaya, the former president displaced by a U.S.-backed coup in 2009.

-Bill McKibben is the founder of the grassroots global warming group 350.org and the architect of the successful campaign to defeat the XL pipeline.

-Glen Ford is the executive editor of Black Agenda Report, a ground breaking site that covers U.S. wars abroad and wars at home from the perspective of the African American community.

-Richard Wolff is the author Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It

-Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid is the founder of the Muslim Peace Coalition

-Vijay Prashad is the author of The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World

-Andrew Murray is a member of the UK Trades Union Congress General Council and head of UK Stop the War coalition from 2001-2011

-Col. Ann Wright was a central Gaza Boat organizer and the editor of Dissent: Voices of Conscience

-Medea Benjamin is the founder of Code Pink

--Jared Ball is the author of I Mix What I Like.

-Clarence Thomas is an Oakland ILWU activist with Longview WA Longshore fight

-Scott Olsen is an Iraq war veteran and Occupy victim of Oakland police violence

-David Swanson is author and editor of War is a Crime.org

-Pat Hunt is a founding member of the Coalition Against NATO/G8 Wars & Poverty Agenda

--Fignole St. Cyr is a leader of the Haitian Autonomous Workers Confederation

How to Register?-Where to Stay?-Transportation?-Submitting Resolutions?

Visit www.UNACPEACE.org and click on UNAC conference.

Email: UNACpeace@gmail.com Phone: 518- 227-6947.
Send donations to: UNACpeace@gmail.com or to 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 Oakland Call for Participation in a May 1, 2012
Global General Strike

Occupy Oakland decides to participate in the Global General Strike on May Day!!!

Posted January 30, by ragtag

Categories: Front Page, GA Resolutions, Notice

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly passed the proposal today!

Occupy Oakland Call for Participation in a May 1, 2012
Global General Strike

The general strike is back, retooled for an era of deep budget cuts, extreme anti-immigrant racism, and massive predatory financial speculation. In 2011, the number of unionized workers in the US stood at 11.8%, or approximately 14.8 million people.

What these figures leave out are the growing millions of people in this country who are unemployed and underemployed. The numbers leave out the undocumented, and domestic and manual workers drawn largely from immigrant communities. The numbers leave out workers whose workplace is the home and a whole invisible economy of unwaged reproductive labor. The numbers leave out students who have taken on nearly $1 trillion dollars in debt, and typically work multiple jobs, in order to afford skyrocketing college tuition. The numbers leave out the huge percentage of black Americans that are locked up in prisons or locked out of stable or secure employment because of our racist society.

In December of 2011,Oakland's official unemployment rate was a devastating 14.1%. As cities like Oakland are ground into the dust by austerity, every last public dollar will be fed to corrupt, militarized police departments in order to contain social unrest. On November 2 of last year, Occupy Oakland carried out the first general strike in the US since the 1946 Oakland general strike,shutting down the center of the city and blockading the Port of Oakland. We must re-imagine a general strike for an age where most workers do not belong to labor unions, and where most of us are fighting for the privilege to work rather than for marginal improvements in working conditions. We must take the struggle into the streets, schools, and offices of corrupt local city governments. A re-imagined general strike means finding immediate solutions for communities impacted by budget cuts and constant police harassment beyond changing government representatives. Occupy Oakland calls for and will participate in a new direction for the Occupy movement based on the recognition that we must not only find new ways to provide for our needs beyond thestate we must also attack the institutions that lock us into an increasingly miserable life of exploitation, debt, and deepening poverty everywhere.
IF WE CAN'T LIVE, WE WON'T WORK.

May Day is an international holiday that commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Massacre, when Chicago police defending, as always, the interests of the 1% attacked and murdered workers participating in a general strike and demanding an 8-hour workday. In the 21st century, despite what politicians tell us, class war is alive and well against workers (rank-and-file and non-unionized), students, people of color, un- and underemployed, immigrants, homeless, women, queer/trans folks, prisoners. Instead of finding common ground with monsters, it's time we fight them. And it's time we make fighting back an everyday reality in the Bay Area and beyond.

On May Day 2012, Occupy Oakland will join with people from all walks of life in all parts of the world around the world in a global general strike to shut down the global circulation of capital that every day serves to enrich the ruling classes and impoverish the rest of us. There will be no victory but that which we make for ourselves, reclaiming the means of existence from which we have been and continue to be dispossessed every day.
REVOLT FOR A LIFE WORTH LIVING

STRIKE / BLOCKADE / OCCUPY

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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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Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces
By ANDY NEWMAN
February 1, 2012, 10:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-tape-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion



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Save the Rich by Garfunkel and Oates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M8fOwHnwg0&feature=player_embedded



Riki "Garfunkel" Lindhome and Kate "Oates" Micucci sing about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Shot by Raul Fernandez.

LYRICS:

Everyone knows these times are really tough
And we need to band together say we've had enough
All the jobless people need to learn to be content
Cause what we need to do is protect our one percent

Save the rich
Let them know you care
Don't leave to languish
In their penthouse of despair

Save the rich
Let their bonuses be swollen
And let them keep it all tax free
Even if it's stolen

Save the rich

Let's give our job creators
More than their fare share
So they can go to Asia
And create jobs over there

There's loopholes and exemptions
And children to exploit
So give them special tax breaks
Go fuck yourself Detroit

And those who don't create jobs
Really need help too
Cause without their 7th home
How will they make it through

It's not time for complaining
Not the time for class war
It's time sacrifice yourself
To give them more and more and more
And more and more and more

Save the rich
America's built on corporate greed
It's not Wall Street's fault
If you can't get what you need

Save the rich
Don't go crying to mommy
Cause if you don't agree
Than you're socialist commie

Save the rich

Blame yourself for your problems
Not the bad economy
So what if those who have the most
Are the ones who put it in jeopardy

Fuck your student loans
Fuck your kids and their health care
It'll only take 10,000 of your jobs
To put another private jet in the air

Save the rich
It's so easy to do
Just let yourself be ignorant
To what's been done to you

Save the rich
By doing nothing at all
Deny all sense and logic
And just think really small
You should think really small
Or just don't think at all
And save the rich

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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


More at The Real News


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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.



*---------*

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


*---------*

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



*---------*

THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o



*---------*

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



*---------*

Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0



*---------*

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



*----*

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



*----*

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



*----*

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


*---------*

Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I



*---------*

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



*---------*

#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



*---------*

#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870

@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.



*---------*

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) 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

2) 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

3) 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

4) '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

5) 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

6) 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

7) 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

8) 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

9) Occupy the Super Bowl: Now more than just a slogan.
Dave Zirin on January 30, 2012 - 11:38pm ET
"Upsetting the Super Bowl - I couldn't care less. This is about my life and my family." - Lou Feldman, IBEW local 668
http://www.thenation.com/blog/165952/occupy-super-bowl-now-more-just-slogan

10) U.N. Watchdog Tentatively Backs Japan's Nuclear Stress Tests
By HIROKO TABUCHI
January 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/world/asia/united-nations-tentatively-backs-japans-nuclear-stress-tests.html?hp

11) Food Crisis as Drought and Cold Hit Mexico
By KARLA ZABLUDOVSKY
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/americas/drought-and-cold-snap-cause-food-crisis-in-northern-mexico.html?ref=world

12) Civilian Deaths Due to Drones Are Not Many, Obama Says
By MARK LANDLER
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/middleeast/civilian-deaths-due-to-drones-are-few-obama-says.html?ref=world

13) A Touch During Recess, and Reaction Is Swift
By SCOTT JAMES
January 16 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/education/boy-6-suspended-in-sexual-assault-case-at-elementary-school.html?scp=1&sq=Six%20year%20old%20boy%20charged%20with%20sexual%20assault&st=cse

14) Boy, 6, accused of sexual assault on classmate during playground game of tag
By Katie Silver
Last updated at 3:13 AM on 29th January 2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093023/Boy-6-accused-sexual-assault-classmate-playground-game-tag.html#ixzz1l2pk5ihE

15) Occupy D.C. Protesters Stay Put as Evacuation Deadline Passes
By THEO EMERY
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/us/tensions-rise-but-no-evictions-at-occupy-dc.html?ref=us

16) Illinois: Reactor Is Shut After Power Loss
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/business/energy-environment/illinois-reactor-is-shut-after-power-loss.html?ref=us

17) WikiLeaks Founder Appeals Extradition at Britain's Supreme Court
By ALAN COWELL and RAVI SOMAIYA
February 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/middleeast/julian-assange-wikileaks-appeal-extradition-britain-supreme-court.html?hp

18) More Woes for Officials at Mortuary for Military
By JAMES DAO
January 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/us/whistle-blowers-disciplined-at-dover-air-base-mortuary.html?ref=world

19) After Workers Are Fired, an Immigration Debate Roils California Campus
By JENNIFER MEDINA
February 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/us/after-workers-are-fired-an-immigration-debate-roils-california-campus.html?ref=us

20) Cancer Group Halts Financing to Planned Parenthood
By PAM BELLUCK
January 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/us/cancer-group-halts-financing-to-planned-parenthood.html?ref=us

21) Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces
By ANDY NEWMAN
February 1, 2012, 10:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-tape-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion

22) Occupiers' 'Think Tank' Soldiers On, Nonconfrontationally
By BRENT MCDONALD
February 1, 2012, 6:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/occupiers-think-tank-soldiers-on-nonconfrontationally/?ref=nyregion

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1) 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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2) 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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3) 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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4) '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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5) 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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6) 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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7) 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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8) 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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9) Occupy the Super Bowl: Now more than just a slogan.
Dave Zirin on January 30, 2012 - 11:38pm ET
"Upsetting the Super Bowl - I couldn't care less. This is about my life and my family." - Lou Feldman, IBEW local 668
http://www.thenation.com/blog/165952/occupy-super-bowl-now-more-just-slogan

The sheer volume of the Super Bowl is overpowering: the corporate branding, the sexist beer ads, the miasma of Madison Avenue produced militarism, the two-hour pre-game show. But people in the Labor and Occupy movements in Indiana are attempting to drown out the din with the help of a human microphone right at the front gates of Lucas Oil Stadium.

The Republican-led state legislature aims to pass a law this week that would make Indiana a "Right to Work" state. For those uninitiated in Orwellian doublespeak, the term "Right to Work" ranks with "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and "Fair and Balanced" as an phrase of grotesque sophistry. In the reality-based community, "Right to Work" means smashing the state's unions and making it harder for non-union workplaces to get basic job protections This has drawn peals of protest throughout the state, with the Occupy and labor movement front and center from small towns to Governor Mitch Daniels's door at the State House. Daniels and friends timed this legislation with the Super Bowl. Whether that was simple arrogance or ill-timed idiocy, they made a reckless move. Now protests will be a part of the Super Bowl scenery in Indy.

The Super Bowl is perennially the Woodstock for the 1%: a Romney-esque cavalcade of private planes, private parties, and private security. Combine that with this proposed legislation, and the people of Indiana will not let this orgy of excess go unoccupied. Just as the parties start a week in advance, so have the protests. Over 150 people - listed as 75 in USA Today, but I'll go with eyewitness accounts - marched through last Saturday's Super Bowl street fair in downtown Indianapolis with signs that read, "Occupy the Super Bowl" "Fight the Lie" and "Workers United Will Prevail." Occupy the Super Bowl has also become a T-shirt, posted for the world to see on the NBC Sports Blog.

The protests also promise to shed light on the reality of life for working families in the city of Indianapolis. Unemployment is at 13.3%, with unemployment for African American families at 21%. Two of every five African American families with a child under 5 live below the anemic poverty line. Such pain amidst the gloss of the Super Bowl and the prospect of Right to Work legislation is, for many, a catalyst to just do something.

April Burke, a former school teacher and member of a local Occupy chapter, said to me, "I see Right to Work for what it is: an attack on not only organized labor but on all working class people... Because strong unions set the bar for wages, RTW laws will effectively lower wages for all. Rushing the passage of RTW in the State of Indiana on the eve of the Super Bowl is an insult to the thousand of union members who built Lucas Stadium as well as the members of the National Football League Players Association who issued a statement condemning the RTW bill."

As April mentioned, the NFLPA has spoken out strongly against the bill. When I interviewed Player Association president DeMaurice Smith last week, he said, "When you look at proposed legislation in a place like Indiana that wants to call it something like 'Right to Work,' I mean, let's just put the hammer on the nail. It's untrue. This bill has nothing to do with a 'right to work.' If folks in Indiana and that great legislature want to pass a bill that really is something called 'Right to Work' have a constitutional amendment that guarantees every citizen a job. That's a 'right to work'. What this is instead is a right to ensure that ordinary working citizens can't get together as a team, can't organize, and can't fight management on an even playing field. So don't call it "Right to Work". If you want to have an intelligent discussion about what the bill is, call it what it is. Call it an anti-organizing bill. Fine... let's cast a vote on whether or not ordinary workers can get together and represent themselves, and let's have a real referendum."

But Gov. Mitch Daniels, who was George W. Bush's budget director didn't get this far by feeling shame or holding referendums. This is the same Mitch Daniels who said in 2006, "I'm not interested in changing any of it. Not the prevailing wage laws, and certainly not the right to work law. We can succeed in Indiana with the laws we have, respecting the rights of labor, and fair and free competition for everybody." In other words, he's that most original of creatures: a politician who lies.

If Daniels signs the bill before the big game, demonstrations sponsored by the AFL-CIO in partnership with the Occupy Movement will greet the 100,000 people who can afford the pilgrimage to Lucas Oil Field. The NFLPA, I've been told by sources, will also not be silent in the days to come. As Occupy protester Tithi Bhattacharya said to me, "If the bill becomes law this week then it is very important for all of us to protest this Sunday. We should show the 1% that the fate of Indiana cannot be decided with the swish of a pen by corporate politicians - the Super Bowl should be turned into a campaign for justice and jobs."

Occupy the Super Bowl. Now it's more than just a slogan.

[BTW: I like the Giants, 24-20]

[Dave Zirin is the author of "The John Carlos Story" (Haymarket) and just made the new documentary "Not Just a Game." Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.]

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10) U.N. Watchdog Tentatively Backs Japan's Nuclear Stress Tests
By HIROKO TABUCHI
January 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/world/asia/united-nations-tentatively-backs-japans-nuclear-stress-tests.html?hp

TOKYO - A United Nations fact-finding mission on Tuesday tentatively supported new stress tests designed to determine whether Japan's nuclear plants can withstand another emergency, throwing its weight behind a government push to restart reactors idled in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant after the earthquake and tsunami in March.

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, were in Japan at the request of the government to review stress tests ordered by the country's nuclear regulator on reactors across the nation.

The government is eager to dispel public mistrust of nuclear power and restart the reactors, which until recently provided 30 percent of Japan's electricity needs. But because of heightened local opposition to nuclear power following the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station nearly a year ago, host communities across Japan have blocked reactors from starting after mandatory shutdowns required every year for maintenance.

Only three out of the country's 54 nuclear reactors are operating, and the rest are likely to be halted in the coming months, raising fears of a power shortage during peak summer months.

In a bid to quell those fears, Japan's nuclear regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has ordered the country's nuclear operators to conduct stress tests, or computer simulations that analyze whether a reactor can withstand disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis.

Earlier this month, the agency said it had reviewed stress tests conducted on two reactors at the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant in central Japan, and concluded that the plant would survive a disaster similar to the magnitude-9.0 earthquake that jolted eastern Japan in March and triggered a tsunami. By last July, more than 22,000 people were listed as dead or missing from the disaster.

In its preliminary assessment released on Tuesday, the I.A.E.A. said those checks met the agency's safety standards. Japanese regulators' checks of emergency measures at the plant were "appropriate and enhanced confidence" in the reactors' resilience to disasters, the agency said in a statement.

It also issued a list of recommendations for earthquake-prone Japan, including a more detailed analysis of the risks caused by earthquakes and tsunamis.

"What we saw was a process that we felt comfortable with. But in any process, there is always room for improvement," said James Lyons, leader of the eight-person team.

The preliminary report yielded few details of the contingency measures the I.A.E.A. had deemed sufficient. Japan's nuclear operators have promised higher sea walls at their plants to protect against tsunamis, as well as better ways to prevent station blackouts, which can shut off vital cooling systems and cause the reactors' cores to overheat.

The I.A.E.A. spokesman, Greg Webb, also stressed that the agency was not vouching for the absolute safety of nuclear power plants in Japan, or whether they are a good fit for the nation.

"We could never do that," Mr. Webb said. "You can never be complacent about nuclear safety."

It was up to Japan to weigh the risks and benefits of nuclear power to determine whether it should form part of the nation's energy supply, he said.

Even if it restarts its idled reactors, Japan has said it will eventually phase out nuclear power. That could take a long time: recently proposed legislation could allow some reactors to operate for as long as 60 years.

The I.A.E.A. is scheduled to submit a final report on its findings to the Japanese government by the end of February.

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11) Food Crisis as Drought and Cold Hit Mexico
By KARLA ZABLUDOVSKY
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/americas/drought-and-cold-snap-cause-food-crisis-in-northern-mexico.html?ref=world

MEXICO CITY - A drought that a government official called the most severe Mexico had ever faced has left two million people without access to water and, coupled with a cold snap, has devastated cropland in nearly half of the country.

The government in the past week has authorized $2.63 billion in aid, including potable water, food and temporary jobs for the most affected areas, rural communities in 19 of Mexico's 31 states. But officials warned that no serious relief was expected for at least another five months, when the rainy season typically begins in earnest.

While the authorities say they expect the situation to worsen, one of the five worst-affected states, Zacatecas, got a reprieve on Sunday. Heriberto Félix Guerra, head of the Ministry of Social Development, saw the rain, the first in 17 months, as a guardedly reassuring sign.

Among the more seriously affected communities are tribal areas of the Tarahumara indigenous community in the Sierra Madre, in the north. Known for endurance running and self-reliance, the Tarahumara are among Mexico's poorest citizens. When false reports of a mass suicide brought on by hunger surfaced recently, journalists and aid organizations poured in to shed light on the situation.

"I think it has really become extreme poverty," says Isaac Oxenhaut, national aid coordinator for the Mexican Red Cross. Mr. Oxenhaut recently visited the Indian communities where, he said, the land was too dry to grow any crops the Tarahumara usually depend on for their livelihood. "They don't have anywhere to harvest absolutely anything," he added.

Nearly 7 percent of the country's agricultural land, mostly in the north and center, has suffered total loss, according to Victor Celaya del Toro, director of development studies at the Agriculture Ministry.

The drought, which has been compounded by freezing temperatures, has already pushed up the cost of some produce, including corn and beans. The governor of the Central Bank, Agustín Carstens, speaking last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, cautioned that it might cause inflation to rise later this year.

But government officials have said they do not expect the price of exports to be affected.

Some of the most devastated areas are hard to reach, slowing the flow of aid to a trickle. The Red Cross is sending 70-pound sacks of rice, beans and sugar, as well as winter clothing.

"A cargo bus will not fit," Mr. Oxenhaut said. "You have to do it with four-wheel drives or donkeys, or the people who take it on their backs."

Even illicit crops have suffered in the drought. Pedro Gurrola, army commander in the state of Sinaloa, told reporters on Monday that many marijuana crops had dried up but that the harvest of what remains has continued.

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12) Civilian Deaths Due to Drones Are Not Many, Obama Says
By MARK LANDLER
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world/middleeast/civilian-deaths-due-to-drones-are-few-obama-says.html?ref=world

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Monday defended the use of drones to strike suspected terrorists in Pakistan and elsewhere, saying the clandestine program was "kept on a very tight leash" and enabled the United States to use "pinpoint" targeting to avoid more intrusive military action.

Mr. Obama, in an unusually candid public discussion of the Central Intelligence Agency's covert program, said the drone strikes had not inflicted huge civilian casualties. "We are very careful in terms of how it's been applied," he said. "It is important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash."

The president made the remarks in answer to questions posed by people during a live Web interview sponsored by Google Plus, the social media site of Google. He also spoke about the economy, laughed at a comedian's impersonation of him, and declined a woman's request to sing or do a dance.

The subject of drones came up when a viewer asked Mr. Obama about a report in The New York Times on Monday about the State Department's use of drones for surveillance purposes to protect its diplomatic installations in Iraq. Mr. Obama confirmed their use for surveillance, but said he thought the article was "a little overwritten." He added that drones were a key part of the country's offensive against Al Qaeda.

The C.I.A.'s drone program, unlike the use of armed unmanned aircraft by the military in Afghanistan and previously in Iraq, is a covert program, traditionally one of the government's most carefully-guarded secrets. But because of intense public interest - the explosions cannot be hidden entirely - American officials have been willing to discuss the program on condition of anonymity.

Until Monday, Mr. Obama, who has overseen a dramatic expansion of the use of drones in Pakistan and on a smaller scale in Yemen and Somalia, had spoken only indirectly about the program. For example, after a C.I.A. drone strike in September killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Qaeda propagandist hiding in Yemen, Mr. Obama never mentioned the agency, its unmanned aircraft or the missiles they fired.

Instead, speaking at a Virginia military base, he said Mr. Awlaki "was killed" in what he said was "a tribute to our intelligence community." The secrecy has prevented an open debate on legal and ethical questions surrounding the strikes, since neither intelligence officials nor members of Congress can speak openly about them.

Scott Shane contributed reporting.

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13) A Touch During Recess, and Reaction Is Swift
By SCOTT JAMES
January 16 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/education/boy-6-suspended-in-sexual-assault-case-at-elementary-school.html?scp=1&sq=Six%20year%20old%20boy%20charged%20with%20sexual%20assault&st=cse

It started as schoolyard roughhousing during recess, with one boy's hand allegedly touching the upper thigh, or perhaps the groin, of another. There were no reported witnesses, and it remains unclear if anyone complained, but the principal immediately suspended the student, placing the incident on the boy's record as a case of "sexual assault." The children involved were first graders - the purported assailant just 6.

"It's really overzealous," Levina Subrata, the accused boy's mother (they do not share the same last name), said of the incident last month at Lupine Hills Elementary, a public school in Hercules. "They were playing tag. There's no intent to do any sort of sexual assault."

The school's principal, Cynthia Taylor, did not respond to an interview request. Marin Trujillo, a spokesman for the West Contra Costa Unified School District, which includes Hercules, said officials were barred from speaking about student and personnel matters. However, he added, "We must take any allegation of assault involving a child very seriously."

Ms. Subrata provided a copy of the suspension notice, which shows what appears to be the principal's signature and the conclusion: "Committed or attempted to commit a sexual assault or sexual battery."

That such adult criminal intent was applied to a matter involving young children has caused a stir in this tidy East Bay suburb, a place so orderly that traffic signals halt every car at every light.

Ms. Subrata, fearful that being branded with a sex offense could ruin her son's future, sought advice via the Berkeley Parents Network, a popular online forum for area families. An avalanche of vitriol followed.

"That principal and school is so insanely out of line," said one comment. "This kind of thing makes me livid," said another. Other parents said their children had faced similar trouble, including one suspended for "hugging."

Experts said such incidents are not isolated, but rather part of an emerging national trend. A similar case caused a sensation in Boston in November when a 7-year-old faced sexual harassment charges for kicking another boy his age in the groin during a fight.

Due to heightened concerns over bullying in recent years - spurred by a public awareness campaign following several child suicides - school administrators now feel pressure to act boldly in cases where students might face harassment.

Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy institute, said the antibullying efforts are well intentioned, but, "the policies being adopted set forth pretty strong rules regarding categories of behavior," he said. "This means there's less room, and more risk, for principals who would make sensible accommodations based on student age and the circumstances in question."

Indeed, calling a matter "sexual" when a first-grader is involved seems at odds with California statutes that indicate that such intent can only be applied to children who are in fourth grade or older.

Stuart Lustig, a board-certified child psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, said that in general it is quite common, normal even, for young children to touch each other's genital areas. "It's curiosity," he said. "It's not sexual in the adult sense."

Dr. Lustig added that it would only become a concern if a young child does not stop when told the behavior is inappropriate. However, he said he had heard of cases where schools have acted immediately to discipline youngsters, even over a single schoolyard kiss. "Schools can sometimes respond very strongly because of the legal environment," he said.

Mr. Hess predicted that questionable actions by schools in such cases would soon become a significant education concern. "We're putting educators in an untenable position," he said. "They're being asked to squelch out every iota of bad behavior, but without overreacting or stomping on childhood."

Ms. Subrata, the Hercules mother, hired a lawyer and threatened legal action against the school district, demanding that her son be moved to a different school, that his record be expunged and that the principal be disciplined.

The district would not say if any action had been taken, but Ms. Subrata said she has been assured that her son's records have now been cleared of any wrongdoing. And he was recently transferred to a new elementary school where he's adjusting to the change, although he is a bit confused by all the fuss.

"He doesn't know what he did wrong," Ms. Subrata said. "I mean, he had just received an award from the school for being a good citizen."

Scott James is an Emmy-winning television journalist and novelist who lives in San Francisco.

sjames@baycitizen.org

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14) Boy, 6, accused of sexual assault on classmate during playground game of tag
By Katie Silver
Last updated at 3:13 AM on 29th January 2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093023/Boy-6-accused-sexual-assault-classmate-playground-game-tag.html#ixzz1l2pk5ihE

In a move that has attracted outrage from many local parents, an overzealous principal has accused a six-year-old of sexual assault.

Levina Subrata's son was playing tag in his Californian school playground when he was accused of touching his best friend's upper thigh and groin.

The youngster was taken to Principal Cynthia Taylor's office where, after being held for two hours, he confessed to the touch and was charged with sexual battery.

The child's father Oswin (who will not disclose his surname) remembers the phone call from Lupine Hills Elementary School.

He was told: 'We have a serious situation. Your child is being detained for sexual assault.'

Despite there being no witnesses to the alleged sexual assault Ms. Subrata received a suspension notice that stated her son had 'committed or attempted to commit a sexual assault.'

Ms. Subrata then sought advice from a lawyer who said that you couldn't even charge a child as young as six in California with sexual assault.

In fact, according to Californian law, intent only exists if the child is in the fourth grade or older.

'It's really overzealous,' she said.

The principal then tried to reduce the charge from sexual battery.

This was 'unacceptable,' said Oswin.

While Ms Taylor refused to comment, Marin Trujillo spokesman for the West Contra Costa School District said in a statement:

'There was an investigation about that incident... under education code we cannot charge a child with sexual battery.

'The record of that child was corrected.

'We must take any allegation of assault involving a child very seriously.'

Levin Subrata defends her child: 'They were playing tag. There's no intent to do any sort of sexual assault.'

The boy now attends another school and is quite confused and distressed by the whole incident:

'He doesn't know what he did wrong,' Ms Subrata told the New York Times.

'I mean, he had just received an award from the school for being a good citizen.'

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15) Occupy D.C. Protesters Stay Put as Evacuation Deadline Passes
By THEO EMERY
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/us/tensions-rise-but-no-evictions-at-occupy-dc.html?ref=us

WASHINGTON - Demonstrators affiliated with the Occupy movement maintained a wary vigil here on Monday as a deadline from the National Park Service for campers to remove their gear or depart from two downtown parks came and went.

As the noon deadline neared, chanting protesters in McPherson Square dragged an enormous blue tarp emblazoned with "Tent of Dreams" over a statue of Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson at the park's center. His head and shoulders poked through the apex, along with the ears of the horse he was astride. The tarp covered existing tents encircling the statue.

"Some individuals will stay, and some will go, but those who decide to stay - which are a lot of people - we have the right to be here, " said Michael Patterson, 21, of Anchorage.

Despite the deadline, there was no immediate effort by the police to clamp down on the campers during daylight hours. Only a few patrol officers watched from the outskirts of the park, where the enforcement deadline had been posted in recent days. At a nearby encampment, Freedom Plaza, police kept a low profile as well. There were no confrontations during the day; instead, many demonstrators removed their camping equipment and unzipped their tents for police to inspect.

The scene stood in marked contrast to a violent confrontation 3,000 miles away over the weekend when 400 Occupy protesters in Oakland, Calif., were arrested after tearing down construction barricades. As of Monday afternoon, about 100 protesters remained in custody, according to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, and 42 were set to be released by the end of the day. The other 58 protesters are being held on more serious misdemeanor or felony charges.

Oakland protesters and city officials blamed each other for the weekend's violence, which left three officers and at least two protesters injured. Mayor Jean Quan referred to the vandalism at City Hall, where a case containing a model of Frank H. Ogawa Plaza was destroyed and a flag was burned outside, as "like a tantrum." Members of the Occupy movement, in turn, denounced the actions of the police and said the focus on the damage to City Hall was misplaced.

"I don't think that Mayor Quan is weighing the big picture - the small amount of destruction caused by these autonomous people that may or may not be part of Occupy Oakland, versus the kind of destruction against the environment, working people and poor people," said Wendy Kenin, 40, a spokeswoman for Occupy Oakland.

Until recently, the park service has largely taken a hands-off approach to the Washington camps. There is a long-established right for protesters to hold vigils in federal parks, including long-term ones if there is no camping, which it defines as using park land for sleeping and storing personal possessions.

But the agency has increasingly come under criticism for allowing legal vigils to turn into permanent camp sites that are not permitted under the law. Pressure on the park service has increased as conditions have deteriorated, including a rat infestation in McPherson Square and the discovery of an apparently abandoned infant in a tent.

On Jan. 12, Mayor Vincent C. Gray, a Democrat, wrote to the park service director, Jonathan B. Jarvis, conveying "serious concerns" about health and safety problems.

Last week, a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing at which Republicans questioned the park service over allowing camping to continue.

"We were under the apparent misapprehension that camping was illegal in McPherson Square, and we look forward to hearing the National Park Service explain the different between camping and a 24-hour vigil, especially when that 24-hour vigil lasts several months," said Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee.

Erica Goode contributed reporting from Oakland, Calif.

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16) Illinois: Reactor Is Shut After Power Loss
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 30, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/business/energy-environment/illinois-reactor-is-shut-after-power-loss.html?ref=us

A nuclear reactor at a northern Illinois plant shut down Monday after losing power, and steam was being vented to reduce pressure, according to officials from Exelon Nuclear and federal regulators. Unit 2 at Byron Generating Station shut down about 10:20 a.m., after losing power from an off-site source, Exelon officials said. Diesel generators began supplying power to the plant equipment and operators began releasing steam from the nonnuclear side of the plant to help cool the reactor, officials said. The steam contains low levels of radioactive tritium, but the levels are safe for workers and the public, federal and plant officials said. An Exelon spokesman said the company did not yet know the reason for the power loss.

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17) "The House I Live In": New Documentary Exposes Economic, Moral Failure of U.S. War on Drugs
Eugene Jarecki, director of The House I Live In, a new film about the so-called "war on drugs" that won the 2012 Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.
Nannie Jeter, helped raise Eugene Jarecki, and one of the people featured in his new documentary, The House I Live In.
January 30, 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/31/the_house_i_live_in_new

This weekend the top documentary prize at the Sundance Film Festival went to "The House I Live In," which questions why the United States has spent more than $1 trillion on drug arrests in the past 40 years, and yet drugs are cheaper, purer and more available today than ever. The film examines the economic, as well as the moral and practical, failures of the so-called "war on drugs" and calls on the United States to approach drug abuse not as a "war," but as a matter of public health. We need "a very changed dialogue in this country that understands drugs as a public health concern and not a criminal justice concern," says the film's director, Eugene Jarecki. "That means the system has to say, 'We were wrong.'" We also speak with Nannie Jeter, who helped raise Jarecki as her own son succumbed to drug addiction and is highlighted in the film. We air clips from the film, featuring Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow"; Canadian physician and bestselling author, Gabor Maté; and David Simon, creator of "The Wire."

AMY GOODMAN: As the Republican presidential candidates challenge President Obama with competing visions for how to improve the struggling U.S. economy, a new documentary questions the amount of money this country spends on the so-called "war on drugs." Over the last 40 years, more than 45 million drug-related arrests have cost an estimated $1 trillion. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer and more available today than ever. The documentary is called The House I Live In. It examines the economic, as well as the moral and practical, failures of the war on drugs and calls on the U.S. to approach drug abuse not as a war, but as a matter of public health.

The House I Live In won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary this past weekend at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the largest independent film showcase in the country. Democracy Now! was there earlier in the week, and I spoke with the film's director, Eugene Jarecki, along with one of his main characters in the film, Nannie Jeter, about what inspired him to look at the war on drugs.

EUGENE JARECKI: The film is a movie which was very much inspired by Nannie Jeter, who's sitting with me. I grew up-I've known Nannie my whole life. Nannie worked with my family from the time I was a toddler and taught me a great deal about life and about the struggles of people in this country. And as I grew up, you know, I was very close with Nannie, and I was very close with members of her family, some of whom have come here to Sundance. And I grew up, and I've had a pretty privileged life. I've been able to become a filmmaker. I've met opportunity along the way. I've had a lot of positive experiences. And I noticed that young people in her family, who were growing up alongside me, were not having that kind of experience, and I wanted to know why.

I wanted to know why people I love and care about-I mean, I knew that we were all living in a post-civil-rights America. Nannie Jeter is African American. Her family is African American. But I thought that was all supposed to get better, and so I thought we were on a path all together, as I think a lot of people did. And yet, despite certain gains that African Americans have made, for the masses of black people in this country, it remains a pretty tough road to hoe. And I wanted to know what went wrong. And I began to learn that from Nannie, and that really sent me on a journey, because I started to ask her my first questions about what she thought had happened, even within her own family and community.

AMY GOODMAN: Nannie Jeter, this is a story about the so-called drug war in America?

NANNIE JETER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your family in the context of that.

NANNIE JETER: Well, my son, which is deceased, his name is James Jeter, my youngest son. And he got on drugs when he was about 14. As he became more addicted to drugs, I couldn't control him, and I could not discipline him. And so many things would disappear from the house: clothes and rent money, food money, everything that you left in your house and you trust your kids with. And it was like a, like I said, genie. You would see it today, and at nighttime it wasn't there. And it was your last. And drug played that part in my life, that I became-I just hate anything to do with drugs, because it destroyed a family. And back in those days, you would be walking or taking the bus, and you would see someone else's son taking furniture out of their neighbor house or their own parents' house, selling it for this drug. And even back in those years, it still haven't changed. There are-of the same thing for drugs.

I have a great-niece that had four children, and she is addicted to drugs. And for a while, she'll go into rehab. And it still comes back to haunt her. It's like something that she can't get rid of. And that was the same thing with my son. And at the end, he just got so tired of drugs, and he had injected himself so much with drugs, it was in his-in his feet. Just, you can't even imagine the abuse, the suffering that people go through addicted to drugs. And it is a sad thing.

And our-this country, where we can go into other countries and try to straighten that out, and we can't even straighten out. And it's a black thing, and it's more prison to put young blacks in, all the blacks in, and there's nothing been done about it. If you can send someone to the moon and all of the things that we are doing in this country, you sure can eliminate the drugs that's coming. That's my faith and my belief. And even in our own-in New Haven, I remember back last year when a lot of white teenagers were being killed at 16 with their driving license. We had a government that changed the rules so that we wouldn't lose so many white teenagers. But it never was a rule-you don't even hear any politician mention drugs or anything, you know, and that's what really, really bother me an awful lot, that it destroyed people. It's no trust there.

And different relatives, you can't leave in your home. You have to lock up stuff. And stuff that you just bought and on credit and trying to pay for and live American-halfway-dream, it's being stolen. It's being stolen. And my son were-he would wait for the mailman. I had-my aunt was living. And he would wait 'til she would come to get mail, so he could get in the house and to take whatever that he could sell. And you beg, cry. You love. You love. You hate. It's nothing that you could do about it. And still, I have a niece that have a family that love her, and her kids now have reject her. She wants to get off drug. I do not believe that people do not want to get off drug. And you hear testimony of womens that is on drugs. It's something that our country can change. We can change everything else.

AMY GOODMAN: And I think that's really what this film is about. You have these facts and figures peppered throughout this film, Eugene. African Americans make up roughly 13 percent of the U.S. population, 14 percent of the drug users, yet they represent 56 percent of those incarcerated-

EUGENE JARECKI: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: -for drug crimes.

EUGENE JARECKI: Have 90 percent in the federal system. So you have a 13 percent population. I mean, most people, for example, when they think of crack, they think, because that's what the media has told us, that crack is a black drug. The fact is, blacks don't use crack more than anybody else. And as a result, because blacks are only 13 percent of the country, they're 13 percent of the crack users. So the remaining crack users, i.e. the majority, are white and brown. That's something you would never even imagine, because that's not how the laws are applied, it's not how we hear about it.

AMY GOODMAN: Set up this clip for us around crack.

EUGENE JARECKI: Sure. Well, crack-you know, the crack phenomenon, which exploded in the 1980s, was built on a lie. Len Bias, the basketball player, had died of a heart issue related perhaps to cocaine. It was never even fully determined. And it was pretended at the time that it was crack. And Tip O'Neill and other Democrats, particularly, at that time wanted to appear tough on crime, like their Republican counterparts, and so they used Len Bias and other sort of "shock and awe" stories about crack to say there's this terrible new drug that is so destructive.

And I totally empathize that-with Nannie, about losses she has seen, that people have experienced, due to drugs. That's no question. But what you'll see in the clip is the way in which lies and propaganda by the U.S. government about drugs not only make-they make the problem worse, because they don't solve the problem that the drug may represent, which is a public health problem. Her son was a victim of a public health problem. What do you do about addictive drugs in the world? That's a question that's worth debating and worth figuring out the public health policies for. But instead what we'll see is, the way that Ronald Reagan and others of both parties have used these issues is to make it a criminal justice opportunity, a law opportunity.

CHILD: Don't take my mother, please!

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: When Reagan announced that he was planning to rev up the drug war, more than ever, it was political opportunity, because at the time drug crime was actually on the decline, not on the rise. Less than 2 percent of the American population even identifies drugs as the nation's top priority. But then, of course, they got lucky.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Crack cocaine.

DAN RATHER: Crack, the super-addictive and deadly cocaine concentrate.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Crack hit the streets, and suddenly there was a hysteria about this brand new demon-like form of cocaine.

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: Today, there's a new epidemic: smokable cocaine, otherwise known as crack. It is an uncontrolled fire.

The American people want their government to get tough and to go on the offensive. That's exactly what we intend, with more ferocity than ever before.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Police, freeze!

POLICE OFFICER 2: Here is your crack.

MARK MAUER: It's inescapable that the image of the crack user at the time was a young black man, whether or not that was correct.

CARL HART: What we saw were images of black urbanites on TV smoking crack cocaine over and over and over. And then these incredible stories were being associated with crack cocaine, and they were taken as fact.

HAROLD DOW: The drug so powerful it will empty the money from your pockets, make you sell the watch off your wrist, the clothes off your back.

ROBERT STUTMAN: Or kill your mother. Yep, that's what we're seeing.

CARL HART: But if you go back to the 1920s and the '30s, this is what people were saying about marijuana.

FILM CLIP: Alvin takes that frying pan from the stove and kills his mother with it. Not a very nice thing to look at, but this is marijuana.

CARL HART: If you say that now in our society, people will look at you like you're crazy.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the film, The House I Live In. It won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. We'll be back with the director, Eugene Jarecki, and Nannie Jeter, one of the subjects of his film, in a moment.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to my conversation about the so-called "war on drugs" with director Eugene Jarecki. His film, The House I Live In, won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary this past weekend at Sundance Film Festival. I spoke with Eugene, along with the woman who helped to raise him, one of the film's main characters, Nannie Jeter. I asked him about the costs of the drug war.

EUGENE JARECKI: You know, we've spent, in the years of the drug war-the drug war, as we know it today, started in 1971, when Richard Nixon called it a "drug war." We had had drug laws in this country going back to the 1800s, which we go into in the film a little bit. But it was Nixon who made it a war. And when you make something a war, what comes with that are all the problems that wars bring: profiteering, corruption, fear mongering, victims, aggressors, an industrial sector that emerges.

Just like the weapons business, what we discovered is there is a giant and sort of secret network of people in this country. It's not even that secret. It's just secret if you don't realize it's there. But there's this vast spectrum of people. You know, when you put a prison in a town, that prison needs food facilities, so somebody's got to make the food. And this isn't just about jobs. It's about companies that then service these institutions. You need laundry service. You need phone service. We went to a trade show, for example, where we saw, as if we were looking at people who were selling like plumbing hardware, people selling all the stuff you need to make a bigger, better, stronger, tougher prison.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to that trade show for just one minute.

RESTRAIN CHAIR SPOKESPERSON: This chair, in comparison to other types of restrain chairs, is the most humane, and it's not restrictive.

BERNARD KERIK: The war on drugs has to be a war at every level. It has to be a war on the streets of the cities. It has to be a war at the state level, and it has to be a war at the federal level. It's just like fighting the war on terrorism.

QURAN SALESPERSON: Before, in the prisons, I guess the only choice was, you could get a Torah or a Bible. Things have changed now.

Anybody want their free copy of the Quran?

RICHARD LAWRENCE MILLER: All sorts of people start to get a vested interest, a financial interest, in keeping the system going.

RESTRAIN CHAIR SPOKESPERSON: We're in the business of supplying Corrections with products. It's a growing market, prisons. There is a lot of prisoners in the United States.

CCA SPOKESPERSON: This company, CCA, we are the leader and the largest in the world, as far as private prisons and jails. We're highly rated in the stock market. It hones your ability to do it less expensively, because we have to earn a profit.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: There's a whole range of corporations now deeply invested in the drug war and mass incarceration.

RICHARD LAWRENCE MILLER: And all these people are not trying to do anything wrong. They're trying to make society better. But their actions, combined together, become part of the thrust that makes the bad parts of the drug war more feasible and more practical.

DR GABOR MATÉ: The thing with the war on drugs is, and the question we have to ask is, not why is it a failure, but why, given that it seems to be a failure, why is it persisting? And I'm beginning to think maybe it's a success. What if it's a success by keeping police forces busy? What if it's a success by keeping private jails thriving? What if it's a success keeping a legal establishment justified in its self-generated activity? Maybe it's a success on different terms than the publicly stated ones.

AMY GOODMAN: You're watching a clip, listening to a clip, of The House I Live In. The filmmaker is Eugene Jarecki. A remarkable-even remarkable to see Bernard Kerik in this clip, who is the former police commissioner, as you have identified him, prisoner because of his own corruption.

EUGENE JARECKI: The strange thing about the war on drugs, and I think the thing I hope to get across most to people, is that the war on drugs is something that was made by this country. We made it. It's upon us. We have-you know, in our country, we've spent a trillion dollars on the war on drugs. It's had 45 million arrests in 30 years. It has not reduced the supply, demand, use, sale or purity or availability of drugs. So it's failed-there's no one anymore who stands by it, maybe other than Bernard Kerik. But there's almost no one I could get to tell me, "Yeah, this is a great idea." They all say it's a terrible idea, but how do you stop it at this point? How do you slow down something that is so immoral, so deeply misguided, but so powerful? And that's the big $64,000 question we're all trying to figure out. And by making the film, I'm hoping the public can get into that question in a more engaged way.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about some of the other figures in this documentary, The House I Live In.

EUGENE JARECKI: Of the numbers? Well, you know-

AMY GOODMAN: One of the people, I just want to say, who is quite compelling on how he describes this, because he has researched it for so long, is David Simon, who did The Wire.

EUGENE JARECKI: Sure, sure. Well, you know, after I spoke with Nannie initially about her own family experience with the drug war-her firsthand experience is of drugs. I mean, she's a kind person, so, fundamentally, she is-she feels pain about loved ones suffering from the most immediate thing she can see, which is drugs. But I even know, from her own reporting to me about her own life over time, that it's not just the drugs. It's that drugs then get made worse by our criminal justice practices, which have been proven to be racist, misguided, driven by the kind of propaganda that surrounds drugs.

And so, members of her family, over time, who had issues with drugs didn't meet the kind of-you know, she says, "You can put a man on the moon. Why can't you deal with this?" Well, the question is, where is the political will to deal with it? If you have a public health issue, and you instead treat it as a big opportunity to build the prisons and to have industrial interests benefit from that and politicians who can get elected saying, "I'm tough on crime," you end up creating a statistical mess on your hands, we're sure. We have more black men incarcerated today, in one form or another, than were enslaved at the end of slavery 10 years before the Civil War ended. That's a shocking statistic.

AMY GOODMAN: And the effects from housing.

EUGENE JARECKI: Think about that. Think about the effects on-

AMY GOODMAN: Voting.

EUGENE JARECKI: If you go to jail, you come home, you-for the rest of your life, as Michelle Alexander says in the film, you have to sign that dreaded-you have to check that box, that dreaded question on a job application: "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" And that stays with you forever, and it affects everything. It affects whether you can live in public housing, whether you can get food stamps, whether you're eligible for any of the things that then help you find your life back, if you ever had a life to begin with. And so, then we see that we have the highest recidivism rates of any Western nation, apart from the fact that we're the large-world's largest jailer and the rest. And so, my mission, which started with her feelings about the people she loved, who I loved, through her, became a study of why it hasn't been more morally and decently and honorably approached as a public concern.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see this, Ms. Jeter, as a racist war?

NANNIE JETER: Yes, I do, because when you-when he was speaking about voting, we have an ex-governor that spent time incarcerated, and he went right back into politics. So, and yet, still-and that's what I look at. Those that in high places can pull time and come right back and vote and run and get almost back in the same position they were in for, that's a double standards. That is. You can do it for one, and the same people are against the lone man whilst you are doing what you have changed against someone else. And it's not fair. It's about fairness.

AMY GOODMAN: Eugene Jarecki, you actually go with cops to do a drug raid.

EUGENE JARECKI: We do. And, you know, one of the wonderful things is-you could get really hopeless making a movie like this. We have, you know, 2.3 million people incarcerated in America. That's 1 percent of our population. We are the world's biggest jailer, beyond countries that are totalitarian in nature. You look at the country, and you see how unfairly the laws are written. You see that crack has historically been punished a hundred times as severely as powder, and that that seems no accident, whether it was an accident when it started or not. Over the years, jurists and judges and doctors and experts said this is wrong, it's unfair, and it's not based on science. Crack and powder are chemically the same, so why is one being punished that way. When you see all of that and you work with people in prisons and you talk to people who are at close range of this, you could really get very despairing, because the stories of people are-touch your heart in a very deep way.

But the reverse also happens, which is, I get to talk to Nannie, and she tells me things of so much honesty and so much depth about the issues she's living through. And she's not lost any fight. She's not given up on grandchildren she even has incarcerated right now. To be perfectly fair, the grandchild she has incarcerated right now is the son of her son who died from drugs, to begin with. This cycle goes on and on, is infecting generations. So, could I lose hope? Yes. But until she says-I look over at her. She hasn't lost hope. And then I talk to cops in the film, who openly tell me about what they're doing, openly tell me that they don't entirely agree with what they're doing. They're taking great jeopardy to appear in my movie and speak out critically about the way that police forces, for example, run on the money they collect from people. They bust a drug operation, as you're going to see in this clip, and he'll tell you in the clip, "We really run on the profits we get from these kind of operations."

DAVID SIMON: We like to believe that the drug war has given law enforcement all these tools, all of this authority in which to pursue criminality and gangsterism. But actually what it did was it basically destroyed the police deterrent in a very subtle and unintended way.

AMY GOODMAN: That's David Simon of The Wire.

SGT. BILL CUNEEN: Going up to 15th Street and Dixie. He's going to have some crack for him and some oxycodone pills.

Joe and I are both sergeants in major narcotics, and we don't do street-level drug deals.

Start thinking about why you're in handcuffs, and maybe you can help yourself out, OK?

What happened is, the second guy, he's now running on foot. Yeah, that's where-we believe he might have gone in there.

I guess we're going to have to write this up as a separate case. Totally unrelated to the original drug deal we did, but we stumble upon a house where a couple of big stacks of money, a good amount of marijuana. That's sometimes how things happen. They're not even planned.

DAVID SIMON: There are lot of detectives who I admire for their professionalism, for their craft.

SGT. BILL CUNEEN: Hey, what's up? Can I help you?

PASSERBY: No. No, sir.

DAVID SIMON: But the drug war created an environment in which none of that was rewarded.

SGT. BILL CUNEEN: Get his ID. He was just cutting through the yard. All right?

DAVID SIMON: A drug arrest does not require anything other than getting out of your radio car and jacking people up against the side of a liquor store. Probable cause? Are you kidding?

The problem is, is that that cop that made that cheap drug arrest, he's going to get paid. He's going to get the hours of overtime for taking the drugs down to DCU. He's going to get paid for processing the prisoner down at central booking. He's going to get paid for sitting back at his desk and writing the paperwork for a couple hours. And he's going to do that 40, 50, 60 times a month, so that his base pay might end up being only half of what he's actually paid as a police officer.

POLICE OFFICER: The most important thing, right here.

DAVID SIMON: We're paying a guy for stats.

AMY GOODMAN: That's a clip from The House I Live In. Eugene Jarecki, take it from there, this raid, and going-you also speak with judges.

EUGENE JARECKI: Well, throughout the history of the war on drugs, it has gained a greater and greater number of critics on the inside. The people we spoke to who gave us the deepest criticisms of this system operate within it. Security Chief Carpenter, who's a-he is the head of security at a major prison in Oklahoma. I thought he was-he looked like the toughest guy I'd ever met in my life. I thought I would-he's a terrifying person to look at. I wouldn't want to be under his lock and key, if you paid me. I get to sit down to talk to him, and I discover he has very deep and textured views about the wrongness of the way in which we incarcerate and we put so many resources into handcuffs, more cops, tougher laws. And where do those resources come from? They come out of the very programs in a prison that would help somebody not become a repeat offender, help them gain a skill, build some life elements that they will need when they get out, so that they don't go the way of Nannie's son, who was in and out of prison and not getting that kind of care.

AMY GOODMAN: In The House I Live In, in Oklahoma, you talk about the draconian laws there and a guy caught on possession of meth-

EUGENE JARECKI: Sure.

AMY GOODMAN: -three times. His sentence?

EUGENE JARECKI: Well, there's a guy in the film named Kevin Ott. And Kevin Ott is in for life without parole for a nonviolent drug crime. And he has no violent drug crimes in his history. He has three-in-a-row possession. So he got a three strikes-

AMY GOODMAN: That's three strikes, you're out.

EUGENE JARECKI: -and you're in for life without parole.

AMY GOODMAN: Life without parole for possession.

EUGENE JARECKI: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You have people like Bill Clinton, the president, saying, "Three strikes, and you're out, and we're proud of that."

EUGENE JARECKI: Yeah, and they're doing it. And it's-I think when Americans see that, and without working only along racist lines, I would say, when Americans see a relatively middle-class white American like Kevin Ott in there, they go, "Wow! This isn't just happening to other people? It's happening to guy who kind of looks like my uncle?" Now, I don't think that's how people should think. I think they should care already when it's happening to another person. But for some reason, in this society, a lot of times you have to wake people up by their neighbor or their brother or their uncle.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, the solution?

EUGENE JARECKI: What's my view of the solution? The first thing is that you need to have a very changed dialogue in this country that understands drugs as a public health concern and not a criminal justice concern. And that means the system has to say, "We were wrong."

AMY GOODMAN: And do you think we're going to have that in this election year, when sound bites are nine seconds, and the drug war, and the victims of it, the perpetrators, etc.-

EUGENE JARECKI: Yeah. I mean, I'm not a dreamer on that score, but I do believe there is so much wrong with this, it is showing its weaknesses so terribly, and other countries are shaming us, like Portugal, where they've made drugs legal and it's working, and things like this.

I believe that making drug activity that is nonviolent in nature illegal was a grave mistake in this country. If you want to say that violent activity is the province of the law, and we should protect ourselves, one from the other, from rape, robbery, murder, the classic things that we use police for and that we use laws for, I perfectly agree with that. I think Nannie would. Anyone would. And if you take a drug and it makes it worse, it's no different than if you got in a car and you hurt someone with your car, it might be manslaughter. If you were drinking, they're going to call it murder. It's going to enhance. It should. Drugs should be seen in that way. But alcohol, which is more dangerous than all of them, has laws applied to it that basically say it's legal to do unless it's an enhancer on you driving. Well, let's make drugs that.

So, in other words, I would say, let's stop talking about legalization versus the most draconian system in the history of the world. Let's talk about no more having it be illegal to engage in nonviolent drug activity. I think millions of Americans, who use drugs anyway, and we all know that everybody uses drugs in this country-we are the biggest drug-using country in the world-everyone will cheer for that, because they are still protected, one from the other, but we're not doing something that is so deeply on the wrong side of history. It's obvious.

AMY GOODMAN: Ms. Jeter, since Eugene calls you his second mother, you helped raise Eugene, how do you feel he turned out?

NANNIE JETER: Well, I-

EUGENE JARECKI: You can be honest.

NANNIE JETER: Well, my children call him my son. When the phone ring, they say that's her other son. And he is like my son. This family, I love, is three them. And the oldest one called me, and I almost wept. I never met a family like this. And I knew Eugene-

EUGENE JARECKI: I have two brothers.

NANNIE JETER: I knew Eugene before he was born. Matter of fact, I was his, supposedly, nurse, because his mom was tired of nurses. Something happened. So, I was in their home when Eugene came home, when his parents brought him home from the hospital. And I have loved him ever since. And I talked about him, and I didn't know my sons were jealous of him, because when I would come home, all I would talk about was Eugene, Eugene, and Tommy and Andrew.

EUGENE JARECKI: And that's complicated. That's a complicated part of the history, you know, and it's something we deal with in the film, because for somebody like me and Nannie, we're just in a system where she's looking for work, she's got a job with a family. My family left Connecticut. She traveled with us. That left her son, who got into drugs and other things, unguarded, to some extent, by her. She feels a weight in her about that. I feel that neither of us is to blame for that. It's a system. It's an economy in this country that has lots of people driving long distances to work, today on even more expensive gas than ever before. Like, it's a tough time, and it has been for a long time. And she and I, within that, just have a real love for one another.

But I think we're both kind of aware of the complicated political dynamics of who we are. I learned a lot of that from her, because she would say to me things like that, and I don't know, am I supposed to feel guilty about that? Or how am I supposed to feel? And I didn't do anything wrong. I just love her, and she really loves me. But, for example, when I meet her kids, I'm aware that time spent toward me is time not spent toward them when I was a kid. That matters. You can't take that for granted. It doesn't have-it's not about blame, but it's just a fact that needs to be understood, if we're going to make the world better and have it not be that way.

AMY GOODMAN: Director Eugene Jarecki, along with Nannie Jeter, the woman who helped raise him. She's one of the film's main characters. Jarecki's film, The House I Live In, won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary this past weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. We spoke in Park City, Utah, at the Sundance headquarters.

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17) WikiLeaks Founder Appeals Extradition at Britain's Supreme Court
By ALAN COWELL and RAVI SOMAIYA
February 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/middleeast/julian-assange-wikileaks-appeal-extradition-britain-supreme-court.html?hp

LONDON - Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, went before Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday in the latest chapter of a long-running battle to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer accusations of sexual misconduct.

Seven Supreme Court judges have allocated two days to hearing an appeal against rulings by lower courts approving Mr. Assange's extradition. The judges are expected to announce their conclusions in several weeks - a decision likely to be critical in determining Mr. Assange's own future and that of his beleaguered antisecrecy group. It could also weigh on the broader question of extradition procedures in Europe.

If the Supreme Court rejects his argument, Mr. Assange will still be able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, according to a statement in December by Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, acting for the Swedish prosecutors' office.

If that court declined to take the case, he would be returned to Sweden, where prosecutors want to question him about accusations of sexual molestation, unlawful coercion and rape by two WikiLeaks volunteers in Stockholm who said that consensual encounters with Mr. Assange in August 2010 became nonconsensual.

The appeal will revolve around whether the Swedish public prosecutor had the legal power to seek Mr. Assange's extradition. His lawyers maintain that public prosecutors are not judicial authorities and are not entitled to sign arrest warrants.

Dinah Rose, a lawyer representing Mr. Assange, said the appeal raised a "significant issue of law" relating to provisions in legislation dating to 2003 concerning the nature of the judicial authority issuing a European arrest warrant. It was "a matter of fundamental legal principle" that the authority should be independent and impartial, she said, according to The Press Association news agency.

"Since the Swedish prosecutor cannot fulfill those conditions, she is not a judicial authority and not capable of issuing a warrant for the purposes" of the 2003 law, Ms. Rose said.

"She lacks the impartiality and the independence from both the executive and the parties which constitute essential features of the exercise of judicial authority, under domestic and European law," Ms. Rose continued. "In short, the prosecutor, as the party with conduct of the criminal investigation into the allegations cannot act as a judge in relation to the same action." When they agreed in December to hear the case, the Supreme Court judges said they were doing so "given the great public importance of the issue raised."

The current case has been dragging on for more than a year. For most of that time, Mr. Assange lived under house arrest at a friend's country mansion in eastern England, but more recently he has been reported to be living at a private house in the southeastern county of Kent.

The Supreme Court agreement to hear the case in December was made public on the same day that an American Army private, Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking the classified American documents that became the most famous of the WikiLeaks disclosures, made his first appearance for preliminary hearings in a military courtroom at Fort Meade, Md.

Prosecutors have charged him with aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act by providing Mr. Assange's organization with hundreds of thousands of confidential diplomatic cables, military field reports and war videos.

Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington, is to decide whether to order a trial for Private Manning, 24, on up to 22 counts after two lower-ranking officers said he should face court-martial.

In 2010, WikiLeaks' release of the documents dominated the front pages of newspapers across the world, including The New York Times. Mr. Assange depicted those releases as a means of seeking publicity for documents he hoped would reshape the very nature of government.

Mr. Assange was surfing a wave of celebrity when the sexual abuse charges were made in August 2010. He appeared for an initial interview with the police there that month, but fled to London before further questioning could be completed, a court here was told.

Swedish prosecutors later decided to issue an Interpol red notice and a European arrest warrant to compel him to return but Mr. Assange, who denies the charges, has fought the warrants.

He was briefly jailed in London in late 2010, before being released on bail and placed under house arrest.

Protesters and celebrity supporters - including the socialites Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger and the journalist John Pilger - have often represented the case as a battle for free speech. Mr. Assange himself has suggested that government forces might be behind the accusations of sexual wrongdoing as a means of silencing him.

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18) More Woes for Officials at Mortuary for Military
By JAMES DAO
January 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/us/whistle-blowers-disciplined-at-dover-air-base-mortuary.html?ref=world

Officials at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the entry point for the nation's war dead, retaliated against four employees after they raised concerns about the mishandling of service members' remains, according to an independent agency that investigates whistle-blower complaints in the federal government.

The agency, the Office of Special Counsel, delivered a 39-page report to the Air Force on Monday detailing what it called reprisals against the four employees over a 17-month period in 2009 and 2010.

The office declined to make the report public on Tuesday, saying it would give the Air Force 30 days to take "substantial" disciplinary action against the officials responsible for retaliating against the workers.

Though the special counsel declined to name the officials, it released a scathing report on the mortuary in November that singled out three officials for criticism: Col. Robert H. Edmondson, the former commander of the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center; Trevor Dean, Colonel Edmondson's former deputy; and Quinton R. Keel, the former mortuary director.

As a result of the earlier investigation, the Air Force demoted Mr. Dean and Mr. Keel, both civilians, and moved them into lesser jobs at Dover, neither of them in the mortuary. Colonel Edmondson received a letter of reprimand, effectively ending any further promotions.

But those punishments were considered inadequate by the special counsel, which asserted they should have been fired. In a letter to the White House in November, Carolyn N. Lerner, the head of the office, said that Mr. Keel and Mr. Dean had exhibited a pattern of "negligence, misconduct and dishonesty" and that there had been a "failure of leadership" by Colonel Edmondson.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Ms. Lerner said: "We applaud the whistle-blowers for their courage in coming forward. We expect the Air Force will now take appropriate steps to discipline the wrongdoers and deter future acts of retaliation."

Ms. Lerner said that if the Air Force did not take strenuous action, it would consider asking the Merit Systems Protection Board, which reviews federal whistle-blower cases, to impose appropriate penalties against the civilian mortuary officials. The board has no jurisdiction over active-duty military personnel.

Ann O'Hanlon, a spokeswoman, said the special counsel was not recommending specific actions, only that they be "substantial."

The Air Force secretary, Michael Donley, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Air Force was conducting its own assessment of the disciplinary actions and would submit a report to the secretary of defense.

"Reprisals against employees are unethical and illegal and counter to Air Force core values," Mr. Donley said. "We take violations of the law seriously."

The problems at the mortuary first came to light in 2010 when an employee named James Parsons told investigators that mortuary employees had sawed off the arm of a Marine without consulting Air Force leadership or the Marine's family. Three other employees later came forward with reports of lost remains and other problems.

After the Air Force began investigating the matter, Mr. Keel fired Mr. Parson and a second employee who had assisted investigators, but the Air Force reinstated them.

In its report in November, the Air Force said that senior officials at the mortuary had displayed "gross mismanagement" by failing to correct sloppy practices even after they knew workers had lost body parts from two service members killed in Afghanistan. But in a separate report, the Office of Special Counsel questioned the thoroughness of the Air Force inquiry and criticized its refusal to fire the three senior mortuary officials.

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19) After Workers Are Fired, an Immigration Debate Roils California Campus
By JENNIFER MEDINA
February 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/us/after-workers-are-fired-an-immigration-debate-roils-california-campus.html?ref=us

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The dining hall workers had been at Pomona College for years, some even decades. For a few, it was the only job they held since moving to United States.

Then late last year, administrators at the college delivered letters to dozens of the longtime employees asking them to show proof of legal residency, saying that an internal review had turned up problems in their files.

Seventeen workers could not produce documents showing that they were legally able to work in the United States. So on Dec. 2, they lost their jobs.

Now, the campus is deep into a consuming debate over what it means to be a liberal college, with some students, faculty and alumni accusing the administration and the board of directors of betraying the college's ideals. The renewed discussion over immigration and low-wage workers has animated class discussions, late-night dorm conversations and furious back and forth on alumni Listservs. Some alumni are now boycotting donating to the college, while some students are considering discouraging prospective freshmen from enrolling.

For the last two years, many of the dining hall workers had been organizing to form a union, but the efforts stalled amid negotiations with the administration. Many on campus believe that the administration began looking into the employees' work authorization as a way to thwart the union effort, an accusation the college president, David Oxtoby, has repeatedly denied. But that has done little to quell questions and anger among the fired workers and many who support their efforts to unionize.

"We were here for a very long time and there was never a complaint," said Christian Torres, a 25-year-old cook who had worked at the college for six years. "But now all of the sudden we were suspect, and they didn't want us to work here anymore."

Mr. Torres, who still greets dozens of people on campus by first name, had been one of the primary leaders of the effort to create a union until he lost his job in December.

Mr. Oxtoby said that his office received a "specific, credible complaint" from an employee in early 2011, about the college's hiring policies. Because the complaint included accusations against his own administration's policies, he asked the board of trustees to investigate.

For months, officials said, lawyers from the law firm Sidley Austin combed through the university's records and met with administrators. By the time the investigation was complete, the law firm had identified deficiencies in the files of 84 employees, including dining hall and maintenance workers as well as professors and students working for the college. Each employee received the same letter asking for documents to re-verify their work status. Of the 17 employees who ultimately lost their job, 16 were dining hall workers.

Mr. Oxtoby said that when he heard the results he "knew immediately this would be an explosive issue."

"This is a very sensitive issue especially in Southern California and many of our students and faculty are immigrants themselves or are descendants of immigrants," he said. Still, he said, he had no doubt that the workers would need to leave the college. "The law is very unforgiving, and unfortunately we have to obey the law even though it really hurt the community."

The idea that the college had mounted the effort to stop the union drive was the opposite of the truth, he said. "We've been trying to improve the relationship with workers for some time, and this has been a big setback," Mr. Oxtoby said. "Rationally, it would have not made strategic sense."

Mr. Oxtoby and the college's trustees repeatedly said that there was no choice but to fire the workers. In a letter from the law firm, lawyers for the college said that the college would have left itself open to investigation and punishment from federal immigration authorities had it not fully examined the employment files.

Pomona is part of a consortium of seven colleges whose campuses intertwine here. In December, just a day before the Pomona workers would be fired, a human resources officer at Scripps College, one of the other members of the consortium, called seven employees there asking them to complete a new work authorization form.

The next day, the Scripps president, Lori Bettison-Varga, sent an e-mail to students and staff explaining that "as soon as the calls came to the attention of the President's Office, they were halted." Further, she said that employment forms were stored off campus, and added, "There is no reason for any further questions or actions to be pursued." A spokeswoman for the college said that the human resources official was not acting on any complaint.

That e-mail only prompted more anger and suspicion among those involved at Pomona, who argued that Scripps showed that the college could have taken less-aggressive measures.

While the investigation of the workers' immigration records has generated the most controversy, it was hardly the first time that students vocally criticized the administration's treatment of the people who served their food each day. Months before, students had complained that renewed enforcement of a rule barring dining hall employees from talking to students in the cafeteria during their breaks was a way to stop any union effort.

"We're told that we are a community, that everyone on campus matters, but that's really not what we see now," said Isabel Juarez, a junior who participated in a hunger fast to demand that Mr. Oxtoby meet with workers last in November.

Ms. Juarez emigrated to Chicago with her parents from Guatemala when she was a teenager and draws parallels between her parents' struggles in the United States and the workers' troubles. "You contrast this with the way students are treated here, where we really get everything. These are the people who serve us every day and they are just asserting their rights - we would be outraged if we were treated that way."

Mr. Oxtoby said that the college made tremendous efforts to support the workers who lost their jobs. Each was given a severance of two weeks' pay for every year of employment, as well as health insurance through June.

Still, it does little to reassure Carmen, 30, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of alerting immigration officials. Carmen had worked at the college for 11 years, using the money she earned to put herself through a public college. But she never looked for another job, fearing that she would not be able to produce the proper documents. For years she made about $8 an hour, but in recent years raises had increased her wages to nearly $17 an hour. She and her husband bought a modest home in nearby Pomona this fall and moved in just two weeks before she was fired.

"I really don't know what I am going to do," she said, adding that her options were to look for work that paid in cash or move back to Mexico with her 2-year-old son while her husband, an American citizen, stayed here. "I'm still in shock. This is the only thing I've really ever known."

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20) Cancer Group Halts Financing to Planned Parenthood
By PAM BELLUCK
January 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/us/cancer-group-halts-financing-to-planned-parenthood.html?ref=us

In a decision that is inflaming passions on both sides of the abortion debate, the world's largest breast cancer organization, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is cutting off its financing of breast cancer screening and education programs run by Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The move will halt financing to 19 of Planned Parenthood's 83 affiliates, which received nearly $700,000 from the Komen foundation last year and have been receiving similar grants since at least 2005.

Planned Parenthood contends that the Komen foundation is yielding to longstanding pressure from anti-abortion groups, which Komen denies.

A spokeswoman for the Komen foundation, Leslie Aun, told The Associated Press that the main factor in the decision was a new rule adopted by Komen that prohibits grants to organizations being investigated by local, state or federal authorities. Ms. Aun told The A.P. that Planned Parenthood was therefore disqualified from financing because of an inquiry being conducted by Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida, who is looking at how Planned Parenthood spends and reports its money.

After the A.P. article was posted on Tuesday afternoon, the Komen foundation declined to make Ms. Aun or another staff member available to discuss the Planned Parenthood decision. The foundation issued a statement saying it was seeking to "strengthen our grants program" and had "implemented more stringent eligibility and performance criteria."

The statement added, "While it is regrettable when changes in priorities and policies affect any of our grantees, such as a longstanding partner like Planned Parenthood, we must continue to evolve to best meet the needs of the women we serve and most fully advance our mission."

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, said that the decision "came so abruptly in the face of a long, good, working relationship with Komen" and that the change in financing criteria "was written specifically to address the political pressure that they've been under."

Ms. Richards said all of Planned Parenthood's affiliates provided around 770,000 women with breast examinations and paid for mammograms and ultrasounds for those who needed and could not afford further diagnostic services. She said she received the news from the Komen foundation in late December and had requested a meeting with officials there to discuss the matter but was rebuffed.

"Until really recently, the Komen foundation had been praising our breast health programs as essential," Ms. Richards said. "This really abrupt about-face was very surprising. I think that the Komen foundation has been bullied by right-wing groups."

Anti-abortion advocates and Web sites have criticized the Komen foundation's financing of Planned Parenthood for years. And in December, LifeWay Christian Resources, which is owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, said it was recalling a pink Bible it was selling at Walmart and other stores because a dollar per copy was going to the Komen foundation and the foundation supported Planned Parenthood.

Leslie Durgin, senior vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood's Rocky Mountain affiliate, said the Komen decision would cost three of the organization's health centers in Denver and one in Glenwood Springs about $165,000. Ms. Durgin said the money paid for hundreds of breast exams each year, as well as mammograms and other services.

Ms. Durgin, who has herself had breast cancer, said many low-income women visited Planned Parenthood for their primary health care needs and in the process received breast cancer education and screening that they would not otherwise have made the effort to seek out.

"Any kind of impediment for women, including a referral to go someplace else, will mean that women delay getting further screenings and women who may have cancer will discover it later than they might otherwise," Ms. Durgin said. "A lot of our clients are just one hassle away from not getting services at all."

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21) Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces
By ANDY NEWMAN
February 1, 2012, 10:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-tape-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion

Four police officers in the Bronx have been stripped of their guns and badges and placed on modified duty after a video shot by a civilian surfaced of them pummeling a drug suspect, the authorities said.

The Bronx district attorney's office said that it and the Police Department were investigating the episode. All the officers are stationed in the 42nd Precinct.

The beating of the suspect, Jateik Reed, 19, occurred last Thursday afternoon on East 168th Street in University Heights after the police say they saw him throw a bag of crack on the ground.

In the video, after officers wrestle Mr. Reed to the sidewalk, four of them repeatedly strike him with their batons and kick him for about 20 seconds. One officer points a canister of pepper spray at the videographer and orders him to "move back."

Mr. Reed was charged with assaulting a police officer, drug possession, menacing and harassment.

According to court papers, one officer, Jason Vasquez, saw Mr. Reed throw a bag of crack on the ground and saw two bags of marijuana in his hand.

When another officer, Robert Jaquez, approached Mr. Reed, he flailed his arms, refusing to be handcuffed, punched Officer Jaquez in the nose, opening a wound that required stitches, and head-butted him in the cheek, court papers say.

About two hours later, three family members and friends of Mr. Reed's went to the 42nd Precinct station house and got into a scuffle with the police, court papers say. They were charged with disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest, court papers show.

Mr. Reed's mother, Schuan Reed, told New York 1 that he "has staples in his head, he has staples in his arm, his eyes were black, his whole entire back is black, blue, purple."

The police have not released the names of the officers who have been disciplined in the case.


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22) Occupiers' 'Think Tank' Soldiers On, Nonconfrontationally
By BRENT MCDONALD
February 1, 2012, 6:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/occupiers-think-tank-soldiers-on-nonconfrontationally/?ref=nyregion

Correction Appended

Winter has not been easy for Occupy Wall Street.

Violent confrontations between protesters and police officers in Oakland, Calif., New York and elsewhere have threatened to dominate news coverage of the movement. On Jan. 12, the New York City group posted on its Web site that its offices would temporarily be shuttered due to an anonymous complaint to the Buildings Department that people were camping out there. A couple of days later, with donations drying up, the governing body decided to limits spending in order to regroup and think how best to rebound in the spring.

"We were arguing about money every day instead of thinking about action," said Haywood Carey, one of the group's accountants. "We don't want that."

But there is at least one facet of the New York contingent that is still going strong: the People's Think Tank, a sort of intellectual nucleus around which people have gathered since the beginning of the movement to discuss topics like health care, food, energy, banking and the influence of corporate money in politics. In the early days of Occupy Wall Street, in the northeast corner of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, people joined the Think Tank each day from noon to 6 p.m. to talk about the direction of the movement. Every conversation was diligently recorded.

Those daily forums continue today. After the police cleared Zuccotti Park by force on Nov. 15, a small group of facilitators continued to hold discussions in the barricaded park and elsewhere in New York. On Jan. 17, during an event called Occupy Congress that drew hundreds of participants from around the country to Washington (many of whom are still there), about 70 people gathered for a Think Tank discussion on the West Lawn of the Capitol.

In November, New York University began archiving the Think Tank's recordings in its Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. Michael Nash, director of the library, said he expected the archived recordings to begin appearing online by next January.

"I think OWS is the most exciting thing that's happened in radical politics since maybe the 1960s," Mr. Nash said. "It's changed political discourse in ways you couldn't have imagined six months ago."

Back in November, The New York Times profiled Tim Weldon, 35, a founder and frequent facilitator of the People's Think Tank. On Jan. 17, The Times caught up with Mr. Weldon in Washington during Occupy Congress.

In this follow-up video, Weldon explains how he's tried to go mobile with the Think Tank and expand it in New York City beyond Manhattan.

"I support Oakland and people taking to the streets, but I'd take an intellectual gathering any day," he said. "I'm not here to shout at police."

Correction: February 1, 2012

An earlier version of this post misspelled the name of the library at the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive.

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