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URGENT PLEA FOR LYNNE STEWART:
Greetings,
We need your signatures asap for lynne -- she must not be operated on in a prison hospital.
Please get the signatures out asap.
Thank you,
Ralph Poynter, New Abolitionist Movement
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/091127ls/petition.html
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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IT IS TIME TO TELL PRESIDENT OBAMA: DON'T SUPPORT THE ILLEGAL
COUP REGIME IN HONDURAS, DON'T RECOGNIZE THE NOV. 29TH ELECTION
ACTIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF HONDURAS
San Francisco, CA
Sunday, November 29th 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
870 Market St. at Powell St. (Consulate of Honduras)
Sponsored by Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition
Resistance Front reports on increased militarization
Join with organizations all across the United States to call for a Week Of Actions in solidarity with the people of Honduras. The Nov 29th election organized by the illegal coup government is going ahead as planned. All progressive candidates have withdrawn from the elections and the National Resistance Front has called for a boycott. These elections under the barrel of the gun would not be happening without the support of the US government, which has declared that they will recognize the winner as the "legitimate" representative of the people of Honduras.
Elections under the illegal coup regime are not democracy - they are a farce! We continue to stand in solidarity with the people of Honduras!
In the United States, Hondurans will be able to vote through the Honduran Consulates located in New Orleans, New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Miami and Phoenix. From Nov 23-29th, actions in solidarity with the people of Honduras will be held in these cities and more across the U.S. See below for details about some of these actions..
We encourage people to participate in these actions. During these protests, pickets and educational events we encourage people to distribute information about the military coup in Honduras - and the role of the United States. On our website we have key documents such as an article by John Perkins on the role of U.S. corporations in the coup and President Zelaya's recent letter to President Obama. It is also very important to have media events to raise awareness about the situation in Honduras today. Press conferences, press packets, radio and TV interviews, and phone calls to the media are all urgently needed!
Let us know if you are organizing an event and how we can best help you have the maximum impact.
In a communiqué sent out today by the National Resistance Front, they have denounced the increased militarization of the country ahead of the elections. At this critical point in the struggle of the people of Honduras, the National Resistance Front points out that it is more important than ever to keep the pressure on our government to not recognize the illegitimate elections planned for November 29th and denounce the acts of continued repression.
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Emergency Protest: No Escalation! U.S./NATO Out Now!
Wed. Dec. 2, 5pm
Powell and Market Sts., San Francisco
Buffy Sainte Marie - No No Keshagesh
[Keshagesh is the Cree word to describe a greedy puppy that wants to keep eating everything, a metaphor for corporate greed]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmAb1gNN74&feature=player_embedded#
An emergency protest against the escalating U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan will be held on Wednesday, December 2, 5 p.m. at Powell and Market Sts. in San Francisco. On Tues., Dec. 1, Pres. Obama is expected to announce that tens of thousands additional U.S. troops will be sent to Afghanistan in the coming months.
A call for protest actions across the country against the war and escalation following the announcement has been issued by several national organizations including: A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition, World Can't Wait, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans For Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, National Assembly, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Pledge of Resistance and Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
Join us to demand: No Escalation - Bring ALL the Troops Home Now! No to War and Occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Everywhere! Money for People's Needs, Not War!
Call 415-821-6545 for more info or to volunteer.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Bay Area United Against War endorses this emergency action.
bauaw.org
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"The End of Poverty?"
Democracy Now Interview with Filmmaker Philippe Diaz
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/filmmaker_philippe_diaz_on_the_end
The film opens in San Francisco on December 4 at the 4-Star Theatre on Clement Street.
http://www.theendofpoverty.com/
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DEFEND JR VALREY!
Drop all Charges Against the Activists in the Protests of the Police Murder of Oscar Grant!
Rally at JRs Next Court Hearing
Monday, December 7, 2009, 8:00 A.M.
Alameda County Courthouse
1225 Fallon Street
Oakland, CA
Journalist JR Valrey was arrested by Oakland Police on the night of January 7, 2009, for covering the street uprising following the police murder of Oscar Grant. JR has consistently covered police brutality and terrorism. The bogus charge he faces: felony arson!
JR Varley is a POCC (People of Color Conference) Minister of Information, host of Block Report Radio, a producer at KPFA and associate editor of the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper.
PROTEST THE POLICE MURDER OF OSCAR GRANT!
The BART cop who put a bullet in the back of the young Oscar Grant while Grant was lying face-down on a BART platform is Johannes Mehserle. With 45 police killings in Oakland in the past five years, Mehserle is the only cop to be charged with murder while on duty. But the cops are pulling out all the stops to avoid a conviction. With a starkly racist argument, Mesherle's lawyer has succeeded in getting hte trial moved out of Oakland--to Los Angeles.
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 16222
Oakland, CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
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Four years ago activists around the world were mobilizing and organizing against the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. We need to continue that fight today.
Fourth Annual Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit
MOBILIZING THE MOVEMENT FOR JUSICE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 3:00-6:00 P.M.
MERRITT COLLEGE
Huey P. Newton/Bobby Seale Student Lounge
12500 Campus Drive, Oakland
For directions go to www.merritt.edu
For more information: 510-235-9780
KEVIN COOPER, TROY DAVIS, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: THREE INNOCENT MEN ON DEATH ROW
Featuring:
Angela Davis, author and activist.
Barbara Becnel, co-author and friend of Stanley Tookie Williams
Martina Correia, sister of Troy Davis
Release of report, "What's Really Happening on California's Death Row?"
Messages from "The Three Innocent Men"
Sneak Preview, "The Justice Chronicles," dramatic presentation of prison writings
Memorial Movie, for Oscar Grant III
Sponsors:
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network; Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, African American Studies Department, Merritt College
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U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!
FREE PALESTINE!
San Francisco March and Rally
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
11am, Civic Center Plaza
National March on Washington
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fri., March 19 Day of Action & Outreach in D.C.
People from all over the country are organizing to converge on Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, there will be a massive National March & Rally in D.C. A day of action and outreach in Washington, D.C., will take place on Friday, March 19, preceding the Saturday march.
There will be coinciding mass marches on March 20 in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The national actions are initiated by a large number of organizations and prominent individuals. (see below)
Click here to become an endorser:
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=5940&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&autologin=true&link=endorse-body-1
Click here to make a donation:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&autologin=true&donate=body-1&JServSessionIdr002=2yzk5fh8x2.app13b
We will march together to say "No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!" We will march together to say "No War for Empire Anywhere!"
Instead of war, we will demand funds so that every person can have a job, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.
March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the criminal war of aggression launched by Bush and Cheney against Iraq. One million or more Iraqis have died. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have lost their lives or been maimed, and continue to suffer a whole host of enduring problems from this terrible war.
This is the time for united action. The slogans on banners may differ, but all those who carry them should be marching shoulder to shoulder.
Killing and dying to avoid the perception of defeat
Bush is gone, but the war and occupation in Iraq still go on. The Pentagon is demanding a widening of the war in Afghanistan. They project an endless war with shifting battlefields. And a "single-payer" war budget that only grows larger and larger each year. We must act.
Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were predicated on the imperial fantasy that the U.S. could create stable, proxy colonial-type governments in both countries. They were to serve as an extension of "American" power in these strategic and resource-rich regions.
That fantasy has been destroyed. Now U.S. troops are being sent to kill or be killed so that the politicians in uniform ("the generals and admirals") and those in three-piece suits ("our elected officials") can avoid taking responsibility for a military setback in wars that should have never been started. Their military ambitions are now reduced to avoiding the appearance of defeat.
That is exactly what happened in Vietnam! Avoiding defeat, or the perception of defeat, was the goal Nixon and Kissinger set for themselves when they took office in 1969. For this noble cause, another 30,000 young GIs perished before the inevitable troop pullout from Vietnam in 1973. The number of Vietnamese killed between 1969 and 1973 was greater by many hundreds of thousands.
All of us can make the difference - progress and change comes from the streets and from the grassroots.
The people went to the polls in 2008, and the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
But it should now be obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change - on any front - is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country. These corporate interests work around the clock to frustrate efforts for real change, and they are the guiding hand behind the recent street mobilizations of the ultra-right.
It is up to us to act. If people had waited for politicians to do the right thing, there would have never been a Civil Rights Act, or unions, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war or any of the profound social achievements and basic rights that people cherish.
It is time to be back in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up in cities and towns throughout the country.
We must raise $50,000 immediately just to get started. Please make your contribution today. We need to reserve buses, which are expensive ($1,800 from NYC, $5,000 from Chicago, etc.). We have to print 100,000 leaflets, posters and stickers. There will be other substantial expenses as March 20 draws closer.
Please become an endorser and active supporter of the March 20 National March on Washington.
Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible donation today. We can't do this without your active support.
The initiators of the March 20 National March on Washington (preceded by the March 19 Day of Action and Outreach in D.C.) include: the ANSWER Coalition; Muslim American Society Freedom; National Council of Arab Americans; Cynthia McKinney; Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective; Ramsey Clark; Cindy Sheehan; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Deborah Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild; Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the 4th of July"; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Col. Ann Wright (ret.); March Forward!; Partnership for Civil Justice; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Alliance for Global Justice; Claudia de la Cruz, Pastor, Iglesia San Romero de Las Americas-UCC; Phil Portluck, Social Justice Ministry, Covenant Baptist Church, D.C.; Blase & Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico; Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos; Comites de Base FMLN, Los Angeles; Free Palestine Alliance; GABRIELA Network; Justice for Filipino American Veterans; KmB Pro-People Youth; Students Fight Back; Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - LA Chapter; LEF Foundation; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Community Futures Collective; Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival; Companeros del Barrio; Barrio Unido for Full and Unconditional Amnesty, Bay Area United Against War.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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The US Social Forum II
• June 22-26, 2010 •
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Another World Is Possible! Another US is Necessary!
http://www.ussf2010.org/
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
For further information contact: Jeff Mackler, Coordinator, West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
SEND RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT TO DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOSHUA L. DRATEL, ESQ. FAX: (212) 571 3792 AND EMAIL: jdratel@aol.com
SEND PROTESTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY NY 10007
Lynne Stewart speaks in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQ5_VKRf5k&feature=related
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The trial of Johannes Mehserle, killer of unarmed Oscar Grant, has been moved to Los Angeles.
In the case of an innocent verdict, folks are encouraged to head to Oakland City Hall ASAP to express our outrage in a massive and peaceful way! Our power is in our numbers! Oscar Grant's family and friends need our support!
For more information:
Contact BAMN at 510-502-9072
letters@bamn.com
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URGENT! Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Naji Mujahid detained at Israeli checkpoint
http://www.indybay.org/ newsitems/2009/11/25/18630531. php
Please help us spread the word. Dhoruba bin-Wahad (a former Black Panther political prisoner) and Naji Fenwick have been prevented from entering Palestine (11-23-09). They were going to attend a political Prisoner conference. They are asking for our support by contacting the US Embassy and anyone else we can think of that can help. Below is a sample letter for sending an email to the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan
MESSAGE FROM DHORUBA BIN WAHAD:
Greetings:
What obviously began as racial profiling, ended up as an Israeli
attempt to conceal their treatment of Palestinian Detainees from the
African-American community. As a former political prisoner, and
international activist concerned with human rights and civil
liberties, I along with Naji Mujahid, a DC based college student and
videographer, were invited to an international conference on Political
Detainees in the occupied Territories sponsored by the Palestinian
Authority. Unlike most international representatives attending the
conference, who were white and could therefore avoid pre-emptive
scrutiny for entering the occupied territory, I could not (and would
not) enter a country on disingenuous grounds. It is one thing to be
cooperative with officials while traveling, quite another to be
detained and interrogated like a common criminal about your religious
beliefs, personal associations, and family relations with no apparent
objective other than to find some excuse to ban you from entry into a
country that is under international censure for its treatment of an
entire people, the Palestinians.
When I was asked by the Political Prisoner support group Jericho to
answer the Palestinian invitation to the Conference On the Palestinian
Political Detainees in Israeli jails, I accepted. I also was asked by
"Still Here Harlem Productions" to cover the conference because the
African-American community know very little about the middle east.
This lack of knowledge is not coincidental. Many Black elected
officials in America have succumbed to the influence and financial
subsidies of the Israeli lobby, and are fearful for their political
careers should they oppose the racist practices of the Israeli
government toward peoples of color in general and the Palestinian
people in particular. African-Americans have no advocates on capital
hill who will demand their fair treatment while traveling abroad,
except where the governments in question are critical of U.S. foreign
policies. For these reason I undertook the task of reporting the
Conference on Palestinian Detainees.
SAMPLE LETTER BELOW:
----------------------------
DATE:
To Ambassador Robert Beecroft, et al.:
Yesterday, 11-23-09, two American citizens, Dhoruba Bin Wahad and William Fenwick were denied entry into Israel at the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge. After being singled out of a crowd of people that arrived via bus to cross the border, they were kept there for approximately 11hrs (most of those hours they were held incommunicado) and subjected to several searches of their persons and luggage (including strip searches) and questioned extensively; many of the questions were completely irrelevant to legitimate security concerns. Finally, they were told they were being refused entry for "security reasons". Before leaving, they were photographed and fingerprinted and their passports were stamped three times (once stamp that oddly granted them access and two stamps that denied access).
The nature of their business in Jericho, was upon invitation by the Palestinian Authority to attend/participate/document a conference on Palestinian Political Prisoners and Detainees in Israel. The official title of the conference is "The International Conference on Prisoners and Detainees in Israeli Prisons" and it features a keynote address by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. It should be noted that EVERY conference attendee that arrived for the conference through Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv were allowed access into the Territory. This is a blatant disregard for the right of tax-paying American citizens to travel (ironically, millions of those tax dollars go to subsidize the Israeli security apparatus) and International Law that supports freedom of movement and travel. Moreover, it is and a denial of their 1st Amendment rights; Israel is supposed to be a US ally.
Finally, considering the nature of how this encounter between Fenwick and Bin Wahad and the Israeli security began, it looks strikingly familiar to what the United States would consider to be racial profiling. The US consulate has a duty to secure for its citizens the same rights guaranteed at home while abroad and to protect them from arbitrary harassment and discrimination from foreign governments. Therefore, we urge you to express emphatic dismay and disappointment that the only, purportedly, "democratic nation" in the Middle East curtails the free flow of information and ideas, particularly regarding the treatment of the Palestinian people.
Respectfully yours,
John Q. Citizen
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The Story of Mouseland: As told by Tommy Douglas in 1944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAA
The Communist Manifesto illustrated by Cartoons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KUl4yfABE4
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Support mom still facing Afghanistan deployment, court martial
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist. November 16, 2009
"I currently don't have a family care plan, but they told me they did not
care and for me to get ready to go to Afghanistan," explained Oakland,
California native Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old soldier based at
Hunter Army Airfield outside of Savannah, Georgia.
As I spoke to Alexis on the phone, I believed if I found her a civilian
lawyer to work with the military, a reasonable resolution would be quickly
found. Unlike most service members Courage to Resist assists, Alexis was not
refusing to deploy. She was not looking to speak out against war. She was
simply asking for more time to find someone to care for her 11-month old son
Kamani. Within a few days, however, the Army had tossed Alexis in the
stockade and turned Kamani over to the Chatham County (Georgia) foster care
system.
Read more...
http://couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/792/1/
Please make a tax-deductible donation to Alexis' legal and family support
fund.
http://couragetoresist.org/alexis
Details:
Courage to Resist Urgent Action Alert
Army sends infant to protective services, mom to Afghanistan this weekend
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/789/1/
Army has mom, Alexis Hutchinson, arrested and 11-month old son put into county foster care system. Alexis has now been ordered to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, November 15, where she will be court martialed.
Action Alert: Contact Congresswoman Barbara Lee to urge her to "Request that the Army not deploy Alexis Hutchinson to Afghanistan so that she can care for her son." From the 9th District (Oakland-Berkeley, CA) phone: 510-763-0370 (fax: 510-763-6538). Nationwide: 202- 225-2661 (fax: 202-225-9817).
Donate to Alexis' legal and family support fund (couragetoresist.org/alexis)
Alexis' attorney now available for media interviews.
By friends of Alexis and Courage to Resist. November 12, 2009
Also in the news:
Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
by Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service. November 13, 2009
Online version with possible updates
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/789/1/
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HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG!
Statement from the NY October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
Soon after 6:00am on October 27th, five cops raided the house of Juanita Young, the mother of Malcolm Ferguson who was gunned down by a plainclothes cop in 2000. They threatened to break down her door, tried to climb in through her bathroom window, put a gun in Juanita's face and took away her son, Buddy. The cops justified their outrageous and illegal behavior by citing a warrant, refusing to identify who or what the warrant was for. Later it was claimed that the warrant was for Buddy failing to appear in court for a Desk Appearance Ticket on October 13th, just two weeks earlier. This made it clear that it was both an unusually quick response and out of the ordinary violence for this offense.
This is not the first time cops have run roughshod over the rights of Juanita and her family. Juanita Young has been an outspoken opponent of police brutality, fighting for justice not only for her son Malcolm, but for all victims of police brutality. This has made her a target of persistent persecution by the police:
--June 2003: During an illegal eviction carried out by the NYPD, Juanita was arrested for trespassing in her own home. She was handcuffed and aggressively pushed out of her apartment and building, falling twice and injuring her arm. In October 2007, a Bronx civil jury determined that the arresting officer used excessive force in her arrest.
--November 2005: After voicing her disapproval of a brutal arrest at a demonstration, Juanita was arrested after a commanding officer said, "Get her, too." She was refused medical attention that she needed due to an asthma attack. Young was hospitalized for three days and faced criminal charges, but before the date of her arraignment, she received notice in the mail that the charges were dropped.
--November 2006: Juanita was arrested after more than 8 cops entered her apartment during an ambulance call for her daughter. The cops jumped her, punched and kicked her. She was taken to the hospital, where she was handcuffed to the bed and tortured by police for four days, only to be handed a ticket on the last day an hour after a press conference about her attack took place. In October 2008, a Bronx jury acquitted Young of all charges.
--August 2009: During a cookout in front of Juanita's building, over a dozen cops broke down the front door, slammed her oldest son up behind the door, and beat him on the head. The cops also arrested her daughters. This was another attempt to intimidate Juanita Young - through striking out at her loved ones - in hopes of silencing this powerful voice against police brutality.
All these attacks are outrageous, illegitimate and illegal. We say: HANDS OFF JUANITA YOUNG! The NYPD must stop this intimidation and harassment of Juanita and her family. Speaking out against police brutality is no crime. But targeting someone in retaliation for speaking out is illegal.
From Juanita Young's statement to supporters:
"Not only have my rights been violated in the most blatant ways, but I feel physically and psychologically terrorized. I fear for my safety, my very life, and the lives of my children and grandchildren." (October 29, 2009)
We refuse to allow Juanita Young, this fighter against police brutality and injustice, to stand alone against this onslaught.
We demand:
1: The NYPD stop its persecution of Juanita Young!
2: Bronx DA Robert Johnson investigate the role of the 43rd Precinct in this persecution.
3: An investigation of the Warrant Squad and how they were charged, and how they went about, in serving the warrant at Juanita Young's house on October 27th.
Sign Petition Here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/JYoungNY/petition.html
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VIDEO INTERVIEW: Dan Berger on Political Prisoners in the United States
By Angola 3 News
Angola 3 News
37 years ago in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 ft. cells in solitary confinement, for over 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2009/09/video-dan-berger-on-political-prisoners.html
Taking Aim Radio Program with
Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
The Chimera of Capitalist Recovery, Parts 1 and 2
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
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JROTC MUST GO!
The San Francisco Board of Education has re-installed the Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps in San Francisco schools -- including allowing it to count for Physical Education credits.
This is a complete reversal of the 2006 decision to end JROTC altogether in San Francisco public schools. Our children need a good physical education program, not a death education program!
With the economy in crisis; jobs and higher education for youth more unattainable; the lure, lies and false promises of military recruiters is driving more and more of our children into the military trap.
This is an economic draft and the San Francisco Board of Education is helping to snare our children to provide cannon fodder for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and for over 700 U.S. military bases around the world!
We can't depend upon "friendly politicians" who, while they are campaigning for office claim they are against the wars but when they get elected vote in favor of military recruitment--the economic draft--in our schools. We can't depend upon them. That has been proven beyond doubt!
It is up to all of us to come together to stop this NOW!
GET JROTC AND ALL MILITARY RECRUITERS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS NOW!
Write, call, pester and ORGANIZE against the re-institution of JROTC in our San Francisco public schools NOW!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
San Francisco Board of Education
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427, (415) 241-6493
cascoe@sfusd.edu
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HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on August 11, 2009 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqelan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqelan, he had been held since August 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm x 240 cm after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.
Attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, president of the Mandela Association for prisoners' and detainees' rights, reported that this transfer is yet another continuation of the policy of repression and isolation directed at Sa'adat by the Israeli prison administration, aimed at undermining his steadfastness and weakening his health and his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Sa'adat has been moved repeatedly from prison to prison and subject to fines, harsh conditions, isolation and solitary confinement, and medical neglect. Further reports have indicated that he is being denied attorney visits upon his transfer to Ramon.
Ahmad Sa'adat undertook a nine-day hunger strike in June in order to protest the increasing use of isolation against Palestinian prisoners and the denial of prisoners' rights, won through long and hard struggle. The isolation unit at Ramon prison is reported to be one of the worst isolation units in terms of conditions and repeated violations of prisoners' rights in the Israeli prison system.
Sa'adat is serving a 30 year sentence in Israeli military prisons. He was sentenced on December 25, 2008 after a long and illegitimate military trial on political charges, which he boycotted. He was kidnapped by force in a military siege on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held since 2002 under U.S., British and PA guard.
Sa'adat is suffering from back injuries that require medical assistance and treatment. Instead of receiving the medical care he needs, the Israeli prison officials are refusing him access to specialists and engaging in medical neglect and maltreatment.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands an end to this isolation and calls upon all to protest at local Israeli embassies and consulates (the list is available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+mission/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+ Missions+Abroad.htm) and to write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners receive needed medical care and that this punitive isolation be ended. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem..jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat!
Ahmad Sa'adat has been repeatedly moved in an attempt to punish him for his steadfastness and leadership and to undermine his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Of course, these tactics have done nothing of the sort. The Palestinian prisoners are daily on the front lines, confronting Israeli oppression and crimes. Today, it is urgent that we stand with Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners against these abuses, and for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and for all of Palestine!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501(c)(3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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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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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Families of Military Suicides Seek White House Condolences
By JAMES DAO
November 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/us/26suicide.html?ref=us
2) Citation for Gesture Costs Pittsburgh
By SEAN D. HAMILL
November 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/us/25finger.html?ref=us
3) Ohio: Doctor's Help Was Sought During Failed Execution Attempt
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
November 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/us/25brfs-DOCTORSHELPW_BRF.html?ref=us
4) Law Protecting Workers From Retaliation Takes Effect
By SEWELL CHAN
November 25, 2009, 12:03 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/law-protecting-workers-from-retaliation-takes-effect/
5) From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History
By BROOKS BARNES
November 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/books/26colvin.html?_r=1&hp
6) German General Resigns Over Afghan Airstrike
By NICHOLAS KULISH
November 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/world/europe/27germany.html?ref=world
7) Lynne Stewart Update
by Pat Levasseur
23 November 2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/levasseur261109.html
8) Lynne Stewart: An American Story
Directed by Francis van den Heuvel
[movie trailer at this site...bw]
November 24, 2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/stewart241109.html
9) Lynne Stewart: Casualty of the "War on Terror"
by Marjorie Cohn
November 25, 2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cohn251109.html
10) Haiti: Aristide's Party Is Banned
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
World Briefing | Americas
November 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/world/americas/27briefs-ban.html?ref=world
11) Stacking the Deck Against Kids
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28herbert.html
12) Caracas Commitment
By Declaration from World Meeting of Left Parties, November 19-21 Caracas, Venezuela
November 25, 2009
venezuelanalysis.com
13) Housing Weighs on the Economy
NYT Editorial
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28sat2.html
14) When Prisoners Phone Home
NYT Editorial
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28sat4.html
15) U.S. Still Running Secret Prison in Afghanistan
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/world/asia/29bagram.html?hp
16) In a Home to Free Speech, a Paper Is Accused of Anti-Semitism
By JESSE McKINLEY
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/media/28paper.html?ref=us
17) Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades
By JASON DePARLE and ROBERT GEBELOFF
The Safety Net
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html?hp
18) At This School, It's Marijuana in Every Class
By TAMAR LEWIN
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/education/29marijuana.html?ref=us
19) To Prepare for War, G.I.'s Get a Dress Rehearsal
By JAMES DAO
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29training.html?ref=us
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1) Families of Military Suicides Seek White House Condolences
By JAMES DAO
November 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/us/26suicide.html?ref=us
Since at least the time of Abraham Lincoln, presidents have sent letters of condolence to the families of service members killed in action, whether the deaths came by hostile fire or in an accident.
So after Gregg Keesling's son killed himself in Iraq in June, he expected his family would receive a letter from President Obama. What they got instead was a call from an Army official telling them that they were not eligible because their son had committed suicide.
"We were shocked," said Mr. Keesling, 52, of Indianapolis.
Under an unwritten policy that has existed at least since the Clinton administration, presidents have not sent letters to survivors of troops who took their own lives, even if it was at the war front, officials say. The roots of that policy, which has been passed from administration to administration via White House protocol officers, are murky and probably based in the view that suicide is not an honorable way to die, administration and military officials say.
But at a time when the Pentagon is trying to destigmatize mental health care in hopes of stemming a near epidemic of suicide among service members, the question of whether the survivors of military suicides deserve presidential recognition has taken on new significance.
"These families already feel such shame and so alienated from the military and the country, a letter from the president might give them some comfort, some sense that people recognize their sacrifice," said Kim Ruocco, director for suicide support for Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, a military support group. "What better way to eliminate stigma?"
As suicide has crept out of the shadows and become a front-burner problem for the military, TAPS, members of Congress and individuals like Mr. Keesling have begun raising the thorny issue of equal honors for survivors of military suicides. Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said the administration had begun a review of the policy on letters of condolence.
"The president's thoughts and prayers are with every military family who has lost a loved one in service to our country," Mr. Vietor said.
Presidential letters of condolence go to troops who died in action in a war theater. Though most suicides take place on posts in the United States, a significant number occur in Iraq and Afghanistan: more than 184 since 2001, statistics reviewed by The New York Times show.
Through October, the Army, which far and away leads the armed forces in suicides, reported 133 among active-duty soldiers, putting it on pace to surpass last year's record, 140. The United States Marine Corps, which has the second largest number, is also likely to have more suicides than last year, 42.
The spike in suicides has prompted an array of actions at the Pentagon. The Army is collaborating with the National Institute of Mental Health to study mental health and suicide. It has created a suicide prevention task force led by a brigadier general. It has instituted suicide prevention programs at most posts and is requiring many noncommissioned officers to take "resiliency" training to help soldiers cope with the stress of war and deployment.
But as much as anything, the Army is trying to soften the longstanding sense that psychological problems are a sign of frailty. "We have to reduce the stigma surrounding seeking mental health help," Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, said earlier this year. "Getting help for emotional problems should be as natural as seeking help for a sprained ankle."
President Obama has also spoken forcefully about the pain of suicide in the military. During the 2008 campaign, he said: "We know that incidence of psychological injury increase with each additional tour of duty in Iraq, and that our troops are not getting the support they need. Too many are falling through the cracks because they need help but feel they can't get it."
Advocates for suicide survivors say the military has come a long way in equalizing the way it deals with suicides. Death benefits are now largely the same for families, regardless of how a service member died. And suicides are eligible for an array of military honors, like burial in a national cemetery or color guards at funerals.
But a suspicion remains among survivors that there are differences. Ms. Ruocco, whose husband, a Marine, killed himself after returning from Iraq several years ago, said several members of TAPS have said they did not receive the folded flags from the military after family members committed suicide. She said it was possible they were not eligible, but the Pentagon has not been able to clarify its rules for suicide cases.
She also said the gold stars that parents of military suicides received were slightly different from the gold stars given to parents of troops killed in action. It is a small difference, she said, but one that further separates suicide survivors from other military families. The stress of war and deployment is often a cause of suicide, she argued, making it no different than a fatal wound from a roadside bomb.
But opponents of presidential letters of condolence argue that treating suicide the same as other war deaths might encourage mentally frail soldiers to take their lives by making the act seem honorable.
After Gregg Keesling's son, Chancellor, shot himself in a latrine on June 19, the family received a folded flag, a letter from the Army praising their son, a 21-gun salute at his burial and financial death benefits.
But he views the letter of condolence as an important step toward reducing the shame and guilt many survivors feel. Hours before his son, a 25-year-old specialist, killed himself, his son had argued with his girlfriend over the phone and then sent a rambling, despondent e-mail message home.
"I can't explain how ashamed i am i said some things out of anger," he wrote. "I can't cope without each and every one of you there by me the whole way. I feel alone and unappreciated for some odd reason this deployment is ending up to be like the last i thought about killing myself and went to the porti john and chambered a round into my m4 but decided not to pull the trigger. I realize i need help and i need to have family put first. Please forgive me and except my apology."
About 17 hours later, he was dead.
"My last words to my son were, 'Be a man and get through it,' " Mr. Keesling said. "I was the stupid dad. If my son had said, 'Dad I've broken my leg, I can't go on,' I would have understood. But I didn't understand the mental health side."
Andrew W. Lehren contributed reporting.
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2) Citation for Gesture Costs Pittsburgh
By SEAN D. HAMILL
November 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/us/25finger.html?ref=us
PITTSBURGH - The City of Pittsburgh has agreed to pay $50,000 to a man who sued after being issued a disorderly conduct citation for gesturing offensively at a police officer.
The settlement, in which the city also agreed to retrain its officers in the limits of disorderly conduct law, was reached with Dave Hackbart, 35, after research undertaken by his lawyers found that police citations for swearing or offensive gestures were common here.
From March 2005 to July 2009, the research found, Pittsburgh officers cited 198 people for disorderly conduct on the basis of that sort of behavior, even though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has consistently found such citations unlawful on free speech grounds.
"Hopefully we'll send a message to other police officers across the state, where this is a consistent problem, that this is not legal," said Sara J. Rose, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which helped represent Mr. Hackbart in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city.
Pittsburgh's deputy police chief, Paul J. Donaldson, said the city had retrained officers in the law twice since 2006 but would do so again, to emphasize that "the disorderly conduct statute can't be used to protect the police from all verbal indignities."
Mr. Hackbart was charged on April 10, 2006, while trying to parallel-park. According to his lawsuit, another car pulled up and blocked him from parking, frustrating Mr. Hackbart, who gestured with his middle finger at the other driver.
When a third driver objected to the gesture, Mr. Hackbart delivered it to him as well. That driver turned out to be an officer, Sgt. Brian Elledge, who wrote the citation. Mr. Hackbart was found guilty by a magistrate and fined court costs.
"I felt really let down by the system," Mr. Hackbart said. "I challenged it as a matter or principle."
Of the $50,000 settlement, he will get $10,000; the rest goes to his lawyers.
Mr. Hackbart said that the case had raised his interest in law and that he had he quit a job as a waiter and gone back to school to become a paralegal. He is considering going on to law school.
"A lot of good things have come out of this," he said. "Hopefully it's a big deterrent and it helps other people down the road who are in my shoes."
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3) Ohio: Doctor's Help Was Sought During Failed Execution Attempt
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Midwest
November 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/us/25brfs-DOCTORSHELPW_BRF.html?ref=us
As an execution team tried to find a vein during an effort at lethal injection, prison staff members sought help from a doctor - a move generally discouraged by ethical and professional medical rules - a deposition filed in Federal District Court shows. The doctor, Carmelita Bautista, said in the deposition that she had never before been involved in an execution. "No, because I am a doctor," she tells a lawyer questioning her. "We are supposed to help people who are sick." Dr. Bautista said she tried to insert an IV catheter into the foot of the inmate, Romell Broom, during the execution attempt on Sept. 15. Gov. Ted Strickland postponed it after several hours because a usable vein could not be found. The American Medical Association bars members from participating in executions, including anything that would "contribute to the ability of another individual to directly cause the death of the condemned."
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4) Law Protecting Workers From Retaliation Takes Effect
By SEWELL CHAN
November 25, 2009, 12:03 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/law-protecting-workers-from-retaliation-takes-effect/
A law that increases penalties for companies that retaliate against employees who complain about labor-law violations takes effect this week, at a time when the state has stepped up enforcement of minimum-wage standards and other labor standards.
The law increases the minimum civil penalty for retaliation to $2,000 from $200 and the maximum penalty to $10,000 from $1,000. The new law also allows the state labor commissioner to award lost compensation to workers who have been victims of employer retaliation.
"Every worker in New York is afforded basic protections under state labor law -- minimum wage, meal breaks and the right to be paid in a timely manner," Gov. David A. Paterson, who signed the law on Aug. 26, said in a statement. "Oftentimes, when workers are not afforded those rights, many are too apprehensive to come forward due to fear of retaliation by their employers. This law will persuade more workers to come forward, while at the same time ensuring that lawbreaking employers who do retaliate against workers will face stiff penalties."
Retaliatory acts include firings, demotions, salary reductions and reassignments to less-desirable work shifts or work duties.
In January, the State Department of Labor said it had recovered $24.6 million in lost wages for more than 17,000 workers - the largest amount of collected and distributed monies in the department's 100-year history.
But since 2007, there have been a number of troubling cases of employer retaliations, the Labor Department said, citing several examples: three Long Island restaurant workers dismissed for complaining about subminimum wages, a backstretch worker from the Saratoga race course denied a job he had been promised because of his role in a state investigation into the racing industry and a supermarket bagger fired after reporting that he had only been paid tips, not wages.
The Labor Department encouraged anyone with complaints of labor-law violations to call 1-888-52-LABOR.
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5) From Footnote to Fame in Civil Rights History
By BROOKS BARNES
November 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/books/26colvin.html?_r=1&hp
On that supercharged day in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., she rode her way into history books, credited with helping to ignite the civil rights movement.
But there was another woman, named Claudette Colvin, who refused to be treated like a substandard citizen on one of those Montgomery buses - and she did it nine months before Mrs. Parks. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his political debut fighting her arrest. Moreover, she was the star witness in the legal case that eventually forced bus desegregation.
Yet instead of being celebrated, Ms. Colvin has lived unheralded in the Bronx for decades, initially cast off by black leaders who feared she was not the right face for their battle, according to a new book that has plucked her from obscurity.
Last week Phillip Hoose won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice," published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The honor sent the little-selling title shooting up 500 spots on Amazon.com's sales list and immediately thrust Ms. Colvin, 70, back into the cultural conversation.
"Young people think Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus and ended segregation, but that wasn't the case at all," Ms. Colvin said in an animated interview at a diner near her apartment in the Parkchester section of the Bronx. "Maybe by telling my story - something I was afraid to do for a long time - kids will have a better understanding about what the civil rights movement was about."
Ms. Colvin made her stand on March 2, 1955, and Mrs. Parks made hers on Dec. 1 that same year. Somehow, as Mrs. Parks became one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the 20th century, and streets and schools were named after her, Ms. Colvin managed to let go of any bitterness. After Ms. Colvin was arrested, Mrs. Parks, a seasoned N.A.A.C.P. official, sometimes let her spend the night at her apartment. Ms. Colvin remembers her as a reserved but kindly woman who fixed her snacks of peanut butter on Ritz crackers.
"My mother told me to be quiet about what I did," Ms. Colvin recalled. "She told me: 'Let Rosa be the one. White people aren't going to bother Rosa - her skin is lighter than yours and they like her.' "
Ms. Colvin said she came to terms with her "raw feelings" a long time ago. "I know in my heart that she was the right person," she said of Mrs. Parks.
Unlike Mrs. Parks, whose protest was carefully planned, Ms. Colvin was just a 15-year-old who couldn't stomach the Jim Crow segregation laws one second longer.
Ms. Colvin was riding the bus home from school when the driver demanded that she give up her seat for a middle-age white woman, even though three other seats in the row were empty, one beside Ms. Colvin and two across the aisle.
"If she sat down in the same row as me, it meant I was as good as her," Ms. Colvin said.
Two police officers, one of them kicking her, dragged her backward off the bus and handcuffed her, according to the book. On the way to the police station, they took turns trying to guess her bra size.
At the time, the arrest was big news. Black leaders, among them Dr. King, jumped at the opportunity to use her case to fight segregation laws in court. "Negro Girl Found Guilty of Segregation Violation" was the headline in The Alabama Journal. The article said that Ms. Colvin, "a bespectacled, studious looking high school student," accepted the ruling "with the same cool aloofness she had maintained" during the hearing.
As chronicled by Mr. Hoose, more than 100 letters of support arrived for Ms. Colvin - sent in care of Mrs. Rosa Parks, secretary of the Montgomery branch of the N.A.A.C.P.
But Ms. Colvin was ultimately passed over.
"They worried they couldn't win with her," Mr. Hoose said in an interview from his home in Portland, Me. "Words like 'mouthy,' 'emotional' and 'feisty' were used to describe her."
Mrs. Parks, on the other hand, was considered "stolid, calm, unflappable," he said. The final straw: Ms. Colvin became pregnant by a married man.
A second Montgomery teenager, Mary Louise Smith, was also arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat - after Ms. Colvin's arrest but before Ms. Parks's - and she was also deemed an unsuitable symbol for the movement partly because of rumors that her father had an alcohol problem.
Although Ms. Colvin quickly left Montgomery, she returned during the peak of the bus boycott that Mrs. Parks had subsequently sparked, and testified in federal court in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that effectively ended bus segregation.
"It's an important reminder that crucial change is often ignited by very plain, unremarkable people who then disappear," said David J. Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Dr. King.
Even Mrs. Parks was forgotten for the better part of 20 years, only re-emerging as a world-famous figure in the early 1970s after magazine articles and attention in several children's books.
Ms. Colvin, who relies on a cane to steady herself, retired in 2004 after 35 years as a nurse's aide at a Manhattan nursing home. She contributed to her own obscurity: after settling in New York, she never talked about how her arrest helped prompt the famous bus boycott.
"She continued to heed her mother's advice, and worried that drawing attention to herself would result in the loss of her job. "I wasn't going to take that chance," she said.
So she settled into living an average life. She never married. The son she had in Montgomery died at age 37; a second son is an accountant in Atlanta. She watches television - "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is a favorite - and is a regular at the diner.
Ms. Colvin said she reads two newspapers every day to keep up on current events, chatting about recent Nobel Prize winners. She likes Chris Rock and Alicia Keys. Aretha Franklin could stand to lose a few pounds, but she wore a good hat to President Obama's inauguration. Don't get Ms. Colvin started on Sarah Palin.
She has fond memories of Dr. King. "He was just an average-looking fellow - it's not like he was Kobe Bryant or anything," she said, fluttering her eyelashes. "But when he opened his mouth he was like Charlton Heston playing Moses."
Mr. Hoose said he stumbled across Ms. Colvin's story while researching a previous book, "We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History." Several sources told him to investigate what had almost become an urban myth: that a teenager had beaten Mrs. Parks to the punch in Montgomery.
He eventually tracked down Ms. Colvin, who has an unlisted telephone number. She refused to talk to Mr. Hoose for almost four years.
Mr. Hoose won over his reluctant subject over a long lunch at the diner. It was clear, he said, that she yearned to have her story told despite protests to the contrary. "It was easy to find the rebel girl inside of her," he said.
One of her first questions: "Can you get it into schools?"
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6) German General Resigns Over Afghan Airstrike
By NICHOLAS KULISH
November 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/world/europe/27germany.html?ref=world
HAMBURG, Germany - The head of the German armed forces resigned Thursday over accusations that the military withheld information on a deadly airstrike in Afghanistan in September that killed civilians as well as insurgents.
Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told Parliament that General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the chief of staff, as well as a senior official in the Defense Ministry, State Secretary Peter Wichert, had tendered their resignations after German news reports that information on civilian casualties had been withheld from the public and from prosecutors.
Their departures set off political tremors in Berlin and within the German military, with the opposition Social Democrats calling for an official, parliamentary inquiry because information about civilian casualties had been "systematically withheld." Other opposition groups - leftists and Greens - demanded the resignation of Franz Josef Jung, the labor minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's government who was the defense minister at the time of the attacks.
On Sept. 4, a German officer serving with his country's contingent in the NATO force in Afghanistan called in an airstrike against two tanker trucks hijacked by Taliban insurgents in the northern Kunduz region. In the aftermath of the attack, Mr. Jung repeatedly claimed that only insurgents had been killed in the attack.
But, citing an internal report, the daily newspaper Bild said Thursday that officials in the Defense Ministry were aware from the very beginning of the likelihood of civilian casualties. The newspaper said that, in 42 appendices, the report gave details of when messages about possible civilian deaths were sent from German commanders in Afghanistan to the Defense Ministry in Germany.
Within hours of the airstrike, the report said, German military personnel in Afghanistan gave "clear indications" about civilian casualties, based on reports from a hospital in Kunduz where wounded civilians were being treated.
Gen. Schneiderhan and Mr. Wichert "assumed responsibility" for the breakdown in communications, Defense Minister Guttenberg said. But it was not clear what, if any, their specific role had been.
Bild also posted aerial video of the attack on its Web site, which showed people in the form of tiny black dots swarming around the tankers before the explosion. Dozens of civilians are believed to have died in the attack, which killed as many as 142 people.
Mr. Guttenberg, who took over as defense minister last month after elections in September, said that he had learned of the report cited in news reports only on Wednesday.
"This report, as well as other reports and messages dating back to the last election period, were not submitted," Mr. Guttenberg said Thursday. "The decision-making bodies took the responsibility for this and personal consequences followed."
The report and the resignations come at a difficult moment for the government, with Parliament debating the extension of the official mandate for German troops to fight in Afghanistan and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visiting Berlin to meet with Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Guttenberg.
At the same time, the United States is trying to persuade its NATO allies to send 10,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of President Obama's strategy for the region, despite the growing unpopularity of the eight-year-old war among the European public. Germany has roughly 4,300 soldiers in Afghanistan, the third largest in the NATO force after the United States with some 68,000 military personnel members in the country, and Britain, with 9,000.
Last week, the government approved a one-year extension of Germany's deployment in Afghanistan without increasing the number of soldiers there.
The cabinet decision must be confirmed by Parliament in December, when the current mandate expires.
Speaking in Berlin on Thursday, Mr. Rasmussen, the NATO chief, urged the alliance to commit itself more strongly to helping Afghan forces take over responsibility for their country's security. "The more we do now, the quicker we will reach that point," he said.
Referring to the fight to forestall a resurgence of international terrorist bases in Afghanistan, he said, " We must all pay a price for our security."
"If we were to run away, the price would be much higher," he said, according to German news reports.
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7) Lynne Stewart Update
by Pat Levasseur
23 November 2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/levasseur261109.html
Hello All,
It's taken me a minute to report on Lynne because I have waited to talk to attorneys after they have visited with her firsthand to discuss Lynne's situation, needs, and other matters.
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC/NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
Above is Lynne's mailing address. All mail (except legal mail) is subject to opening and reading by the institution. Legal mail must be opened in front of the inmate. Lynne will greatly appreciate getting beautiful cards and thoughtful letters. Please remember to write to her now and as time goes along.
Our main focus at this time is the next court date. Lynne has a 28-month sentence. If you have read the 2nd Circuit decision (and you can by going to the web site for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, look under decisions and you will find USA v. Stewart), you will find that the sentence that Lynne has received is threatened, meaning it could go higher. Our goal is to show the steadfast support that Lynne has from the community, Lynne Stewart's good deeds throughout her life, and the fact that she had been out since her arrest in 2002 with no incidents, her age, her health -- all demand NO MORE TIME than she already has. Of course, we don't think that she should be doing any jail time at all, but we must be realistic and fight for attainable goals.
In light of this LET'S FILL THE COURTROOM AND MORE on DECEMBER 2, 2009 AT 10:30 A.M. JUDGE KOELTL'S COURTROOM, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, 500 PEARL STREET, COURTROOM 12B.
Lynne's attorneys will continue to fight her case all the way to the Supreme Court. That is our long-term battle. Our short-term battle is to fill that courtroom on each and every occasion there is court, to let the Justice Department know that there are many concerned people and that Lynne is precious to us. We can protect her, when the eyes of many are on her and her situation.
We do not know how long Lynne will remain in MCC/NY. She has court appearances ahead and a resentencing, this could be a long time. She is required to make a visiting list, and there is a form to fill out; people will need to be approved and the list is not endless, so all may not have access to her. Attorneys of record can visit her, meaning those attorneys working on her legal case. But attorneys who cannot visit her can play an important role as attorneys, in standing by Lynne Stewart and thinking of ways unique to their profession to show the support Lynne dearly needs.
Lynne loves to read and it is important to note that all books and publications must come from the publisher and mailed directly to Lynne. I will be asking Lynne for a list of reading requests and if folks want to send her a book, let's coordinate our efforts so that she doesn't get more than 1 copy of the same book, etc. Lynne will need commissary money. You can visit the website for the United States Bureau of Prisons (just type that into your search engine); under "inmate matters," you will see the option telling you how to send money to an inmate. You can do it through Western Union, using their website, or at a store, send what you can. If you would like to let me know by email that you are sending her this or that, so that we can coordinate things, I would be happy to help.
Lastly, tonight, I want you all to know that your support over the years means the world to Lynne. I miss not talking to her every day, sometimes many times a day. It is important to me that we keep Lynne in the present with us every day and that strategies and decisions are run by her first to the extent possible. All who want to continue to send out the word about Lynne to their own contingency should continue of course.
Stay tuned for future updates and developments.
Pat Levasseur
Email Pat Levasseur for more information at
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8) Lynne Stewart: An American Story
Directed by Francis van den Heuvel
[movie trailer at this site...bw]
November 24, 2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/stewart241109.html
Just what good is freedom if no one is free,
And folks go to jail if they dare disagree?
And lawyers get punished for doing their jobs?
And folks are afraid of the White House lynch mob?
Lynne Stewart was doing what she had to do
Protecting her client and civil rights, too.
She said an attorney must fight to defend --
"I'd like to think that I would do it again."
-- Vicki Ryder
"I have done nothing wrong. Everything I have done, I have done as a lawyer." -- Lynne Stewart
"The story of Lynne Stewart is the story of post-9/11 America. It's a story of the federal government instilling fear, not only in Lynne Stewart but in freedom-loving people in the United States and lawyers, people who represent controversial clients." -- Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow!
"The actions she engaged in, she engaged in in 2000, and while I'm not going to name names or incriminate myself, it was not uncommon, at that time, that you would violate basically jail rules. . . . When Sheikh Omar came to the United States, he was known to the government as a 'freedom fighter.' He was part of an Islamic fundamentalist movement that prior administrations had embraced in their struggle against the Soviet Union." -- Ronald L. Kuby, Lawyer, New York
"The media likes a sexy story. The media likes violence and conflict. There were no commies out there any more. We now had Muslims. They wanted conflict stories of 'America Besieged,' so they picked it up and they ran with it." -- Lynne Stewart
"Today we are able to tell Lynne Stewart's story. There have been many untold stories of Arab men, South Asian men, being taken from their homes, detained arbitrarily." -- Daniel Gross, Fordham Law School, New York
Lynne Stewart: An American Story (78 min.) is to be released in 2009. The quotations above are taken from this video excerpt from Lynne Stewart: An American Story. For more information about Lynne Stewart, go to
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9) Lynne Stewart: Casualty of the "War on Terror"
by Marjorie Cohn
November 25, 2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cohn251109.html
In a decision that reflects the post-911 terrorism hysteria, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed prominent civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart's convictions and remanded her case to district court Judge John G. Koeltl to reconsider her sentence. The appellate panel directed Koeltl to remand Stewart to custody and the 70-year-old woman is now in prison.
Stewart was convicted of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to the conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country (18 U.S.C. sec. 2339A and 18 U.S.C. sec. 2), conspiring to provide and conceal such support (18 U.S.C. sec. 371), and knowingly and willfully making false statements (18 U.S.C. sec. 1001). The majority opinion states that Stewart was convicted "principally with respect to [her] violations of those measures by which [she] had agreed to abide," namely, Special Administrative Measures (SAMs).
The SAMs were placed on Stewart's client, Sheikh Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for terrorism-related crimes. They restrict his ability to communicate with persons outside of the prison. Stewart and Abdel Rahman's other attorneys, Ramsey Clark and Abdeen Jabara, signed statements saying they wouldn't forward mail from Abdel Rahman to a third person or use their communications with Abdel Rahman to pass messages between him and third persons, including the media. Stewart violated her agreement to abide by the SAMs. Clark and Jabara allegedly did as well. Lawyers who violate SAMs expect to suffer administrative consequences, such as being denied visiting privileges. Yet Stewart was indicted for federal crimes. Clark and Jabara were not.
Judge Koeltl presided over the nine-month trial. Stewart was precluded from arguing that a prosecution for conspiring to commit a conspiracy (an inchoate offense) raises serious dangers. Koeltl sentenced Stewart to 28 months. The maximum sentence under the federal sentencing Guidelines is 30 years but the Supreme Court held in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005) that the guidelines are advisory, not mandatory.
Koeltl concluded that the terrorism enhancement, "while correct under the guidelines, would result in an unreasonable result." He cited "the somewhat atypical nature of Stewart's case" and "the lack of evidence that any victim was harmed as a result of the charged offense." The result of the terrorism enhancement, according to Koeltl, was "dramatically unreasonable in [her] case" because it "overstate[d] the seriousness of [her] past conduct and the likelihood that [she would] repeat the offense."
Stewart, Koeltl concluded, "has no criminal history and yet is placed in the highest criminal history category [under the terrorism enhancement] equal to that of repeat felony offenders for the most serious offenses including murder and drug trafficking." Koeltl found that Stewart's opportunity to repeat "the crimes to which she had been convicted will be nil" because she "will lose her license to practice law" ["itself a punishment"] and "will be forever separated from any contact with Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman."
Koeltl viewed Stewart's personal characteristics as "extraordinary" and determined that they "argue[d] strongly in favor of a substantial downward variance" from the guidelines. He described her as a dedicated public servant who had, throughout her career, "represented the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular, often as a Court-appointed attorney," thereby providing a "service not only to her clients but to the nation."
Koeltl also considered that Stewart had suffered from cancer -- undergoing surgery and radiation therapy -- and found a significant chance of recurrence. At age 67, Koeltl observed, prison would be "particularly difficult" for Stewart.
Although the appellate majority stated that the district court judge is "in the best position to make an individual determination about the 'history and characteristics' of a particular defendant, and to adjust the individualized sentence accordingly," the panel second-guessed Koeltl by ordering that he reconsider Stewart's sentence. Specifically, the panel directed Koeltl to consider whether Stewart committed perjury at trial by testifying "that she understood that there was a bubble built into the SAMs whereby the attorneys could issue press releases containing Abdel Rahman's statements as part of their representation of him." The panel also directed Koeltl to consider Stewart's possibly perjured testimony about "her purported lack of knowledge" of Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group, who had solicited a statement from Abdel Rahman opposing the continuation of a ceasefire between the Islamic Group and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government.
In fact, Koeltl noted there was "evidence to indicate that [Stewart's] statements were false statements." But he concluded it was "unnecessary to reach [the question] whether the defendant knowingly gave false testimony with the intent to obstruct the proceedings" because (1) the Guidelines calculation already provided for the statutory maximum, and (2) a non-Guidelines sentence was, in Koeltl's estimation, "reasonable and most consistent with the factors set forth in Section 3553(a)." Thus, Koeltl did consider whether Stewart committed perjury in his initial sentencing decision. Michael Tigar, Stewart's trial counsel, told me he is "convinced that there is ample independent corroboration for Lynne's version of events."
Judge Calabresi, who joined the majority panel decision, noted in his separate opinion that Koeltl was "a judge of extraordinary ability [with] a well-earned reputation for exceptional judgment." Calabresi wrote that "for us -- who have not been involved in the case and do not know all the backs and forths, . . . to second guess the district court's judgment seems to me to be precisely what both the Supreme Court and our court sitting en banc . . . have said we should not do."
According to Tigar, Koeltl's sentence decision was "well-argued." Tigar said, "For any court of appeals judge to write in a hostile vein about [Koeltl's] decision is an arrogation to the appellate court of a power that the rules of procedure and long legal tradition vest in trial judges. In addition," he added, "the sentence reflected the reality of this case, a reality that seems to have escaped the court of appeals panel."
Calabresi thought it "not . . . entirely irrelevant" that Stewart was the only lawyer criminally charged even though two others also violated the SAMs. Noting that "while prosecutorial discretion may be salutary in a wide variety of cases," Calabresi wrote, "when left entirely without any controls it will concentrate too much power in a single set of government actors, and they, moreover, may on occasion be subject to political pressure." Calabresi observed that the district court's exercise of its sentencing discretion "may provide the only effective way to control and diminish unjustified disparities."
Judge Walker, concurring and dissenting, wrote separately that Stewart's sentence was "breathtakingly low" and "extraordinarily lenient." He would go further than the majority and vacate Stewart's sentence as "substantively unreasonable."
Both Calabresi and the majority thought it significant that all of the acts for which Stewart was convicted occurred before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Calabresi would "take judicial notice of their timing" and "recognize that our attitudes about her conduct have inevitably been influenced by the tragedy of that day." Notably, he added: "We must be careful then in judging Stewart based on lessons that we learned only after her -- very serious -- crimes were committed." Stewart was indicted in 2002 and convicted in 2005.
"Lynne's representation of the sheik was in the best traditions of advocacy," Tigar said. "She was brought into the case by Ramsey Clark, and her actions on behalf of her client never went farther than Ramsey had already gone. The government's conduct towards her when the SAMs issue first erupted validated that belief."
The clear message of the 125-page majority appellate panel opinion is that attorneys who zealously represent their clients in the post-9/11 era beware. This result will undoubtedly chill the willingness of criminal defense attorneys to handle terrorism cases. Moreover, the Court of Appeals fortuitously released its opinion just as Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intent to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court for his alleged role in the 9/11 attacks.
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10) Haiti: Aristide's Party Is Banned
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
World Briefing | Americas
November 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/world/americas/27briefs-ban.html?ref=world
Haiti's electoral council banned Fanmi Lavalas, the influential party of the exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, from next year's legislative elections. It was one of 17 groups, including the Lespwa movement that formed around President Rene Preval, listed as banned because they submitted improper documents. Mr. Aristide, who was overthrown during a 2004 rebellion and is living in exile in South Africa, said in an interview with Radio Solidarité that the decision to eliminate Lavalas was "an electoral coup d'état." Haiti's legislature chose a new prime minister last week, and tensions remain high over the presence of 9,000 United Nations peacekeepers, who arrived in the impoverished country after the 2004 rebellion.
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11) Stacking the Deck Against Kids
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28herbert.html
Every year at Thanksgiving, parts of the Upper West Side of Manhattan become like a paradise for children. There's the exciting preparation of the balloons and floats for the Thanksgiving Day parade, and then, on Thursday morning, the parade itself.
The weather isn't always kind. I've seen the kids out there in snow, in freezing rain, in winds that threaten to send the balloons and their handlers soaring to distant venues. It doesn't seem to matter. The children come into the neighborhood in waves, holding the hands of adults or riding atop their shoulders, smiling, laughing, playing hide-and-seek among the police barricades. Finally, inevitably, they end up staring in absolute open-mouthed, wide-eyed awe as the mammoth, colorful helium-filled creations of their favorite characters begin making their majestic way down Central Park West.
We have an obligation and an opportunity at this special moment in history to do right by these youngsters, and all the rest of America's kids. It's a special moment because we've seen so clearly the many things that have gone haywire in the society, and while it may not be easy to articulate, we have a sense of what needs to be done.
The American economy is broken, ruined by the greed and irresponsibility of fabulously wealthy corporate chieftains and their shabby acolytes and enablers in government. While Wall Street is handing out billions in bonuses, American families are struggling with joblessness, home foreclosures and rampant debt. The economic woes are exacting a fierce toll on family life, and children are taking a big hit - emotionally, psychologically and otherwise.
One effect of the Great Recession, according to a recent series in The Times, has been a big jump in the number of runaway children, many of them living in dangerous conditions on the street.
Family homelessness is also up, and poverty is increasing. More than a third of all black children in America are poor, and that tragic percentage is expanding. The outlook for America's working classes is bleak. A few weeks ago a New York cab driver nearly broke down in tears as he told me he'd had to apply for food stamps to continue feeding his family.
A sense of urgency may be starting to emerge. With President Obama's jobs summit approaching, representatives from labor and progressive organizations gathered in Washington to warn of the lasting damage being inflicted on the prospects of young Americans by the continuing employment crisis.
Millions of youngsters like those who were suffused with such delight at the Thanksgiving Day parade are being buffeted by an economy that is eroding their quality of life, curtailing their educational opportunities and undermining their prospects for economic success as adults. That more attention is not being paid to this growing disaster is criminal.
Groups represented at the meeting in Washington, which was sponsored by the Economic Policy Institute, included the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the N.A.A.C.P., the National Council of La Raza and the Center for Community Change. Among other things, they urged the administration and Congress to provide substantial additional relief to economically distressed state and local governments, to invest in much more widespread infrastructure improvements, and to engage in some direct government creation of jobs.
All of that, in my view, would amount to just a first step. We remain stuck in an economic model that not only permits but encourages the continued existence of financial institutions that are too big to fail, which means that when one or more of them fail - as will surely happen at some point - we'll again be rushing to "save the system" by bailing them out at taxpayers' expense.
The system remains grotesquely unfair, with the deck stacked against working people, even as we're desperate to have them sustain the economy with nonstop consumer purchases. Keep in mind that at the start of the recession the collective wealth of the richest 1 percent of Americans was greater than that of the bottom 90 percent combined. The economic and political clout of that bottom 90 percent has only weakened since then.
We still have a hideously dysfunctional public education system, one that has mastered the art of manufacturing dropouts and functional illiterates. We have not even begun to turn that around.
We still keep fighting tragic, futile, stupid wars, squandering lives and resources and creative energies that could be put to use right here at home, where the need for nation-building is beyond critical.
The U.S. should be a paradise for young people. We need big changes in this country, approaches that are constructive, creative and fundamentally new, if we're going to give those smiling kids I saw on Thanksgiving Day the kind of society they deserve.
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12) Caracas Commitment
By Declaration from World Meeting of Left Parties, November 19-21 Caracas, Venezuela
November 25, 2009
venezuelanalysis.com
Political parties and organizations from Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania commemorate and celebrate the unity and solidarity that brought us together in Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and from this libertarian city we would like to express our revolutionary rebelliousness. We are glad of and committed to the proud presence of the forces of change in a special moment of history. Likewise, we are proud to reaffirm our conviction to definitively sow, grow and win Socialism of the 21st century.
In this regard, we want to sign the Commitment of Caracas as a revolutionary guide for the challenges ahead of us. We have gathered with the aim of unifying criteria and giving concrete answers that allow us to defend our sovereignty, our social victories, and the freedom of our peoples in the face of the generalized crisis of the world capitalist system and the new threats spreading over our region and the whole world with the establishment and strengthening of military bases in the sister republics of Colombia, Panama, Aruba, Curacao, the Dutch Antilles, as well as the aggression against Ecuadorian territory, and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
We consider that the world capitalist system is going through one of its most severe crises, which has shaken its very foundations and brought with it consequences that jeopardize the survival of humanity. Likewise, capitalism and the logic of capital, destroys the environment and biodiversity, bringing with it consequences of climate change, global warming and the destruction of life.
One of the epicenters of the capitalist crisis is in the economic domain; this highlights the limitations of unbridled free markets ruled by private monopolies. In this situation, some governments have been asked to intervene to prevent the collapse of vital economic sectors, for instance, through the implementation of bailouts to bank institutions that amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. Said governments have been asked to stimulate their economies by increasing public expenditure in order to mitigate the recession and the private sector decline, which evidences the end of the supposedly irrefutable "truth" of neo-liberalism that of non-intervention of the State in economic affairs.
In this regard, it is very timely to promote an in-depth discussion on the economic crisis, the role of the State and the construction of a new financial architecture.
In summary, the capitalist crisis cannot be reduced simply to a financial crisis; it is a structural crisis of capital, which combines the economic crisis, with an ecological crisis, a food crisis, and an energy crisis, which together represents a mortal threat to humanity and mother earth. Faced with this crisis, leftwing movements and parties see the defense of nature and the construction of an ecologically sustainable society as a fundamental axis of our struggle for a better world.
In recent years, progressive and leftwing movements of the Latin American region have accumulated forces, and stimulated transformations, throwing up leaders that today hold important government spaces. This has represented an important blow to the empire because the peoples have rebelled against the domination that has been imposed on them, and have left behind their fear to express their values and principles, showing the empire that we will not allow any more interference in our internal affairs, and that we are willing to defend our sovereignty.
This meeting is held at a historic time, characterized by a new imperialistic offensive against the peoples and governments of the region and of the world, a pretension supported by the oligarchies and ultraconservative rightwing, with the objective of recovering spaces lost as a consequence of the advancement of revolutionary process of liberation developing in Latin America. These are expressed through the creation of regional organizations such as ALBA, UNASUR, PETROCARIBE, Banco del Sur, the Sao Paulo Forum, COPPPAL, among others; where the main principles inspiring these processes are those of solidarity, complementarity, social priority over economic advantage, respect for self-determination of the peoples in open opposition to the policies of imperial domination. For these reasons, the rightwing forces in partnership with the empire have launched an offensive to combat the advance and development of the peoples' struggles, especially those against the overexploitation of human beings, racist discrimination, cultural oppression, in defense of natural resources, of the land and territory from the perspective of the left and progressive movements and of world transformation.
We reflect on the fact that these events have led the U.S. administration to set strategies to undermine, torpedo and destabilize the advancement of these processes of change and recuperation of sovereignty. To this end, the U.S. has implemented policies expressed through an ideological and media offensive that aim to discredit the revolutionary and progressive governments of the region, labeling them as totalitarian governments, violators of human rights, with links to drug-trafficking operations, and terrorism; and also questioning the legitimacy of their origin. This is the reason for the relentless fury with which all the empire's means of propaganda and its agents inside our own countries continuously attack the experiences in Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Paraguay, as with its maintenance of the blockade against revolutionary and independent Cuba.
Part of the strategy activated by the U.S. Empire is evidenced by the coup in Honduras, as well as in other destabilizing initiatives in Central America, attempting to impose the oligarchic interests that have already left hundreds of victims, while a disgusting wave of cynicism tries to cover up the dictatorship imposed by the U.S. administration with a false veil of democracy. Along with this, it is developing a military offensive with the idea of maintaining political and military hegemony in the region, for which it is promoting new geopolitical allies, generating destabilization and disturbing peace in the region and globally through military intimidation, with the help of its allies in the internal oligarchies, who are shown to be complicit in the actions taken by the empire, giving away their sovereignty, and opening spaces for the empire's actions.
We consider that this new offensive is specifically expressed through two important events that took place this year in the continent: The coup in Honduras, and the installation of military bases in Colombia and Panama, as well as the strengthening of the already existing ones in our region. The coup in Honduras is nothing but a display of hypocrisy by the empire, a way to intimidate the rest of the governments in the region. It is a test-laboratory that aims to set a precedent that can be applied as a new coup model and a way to encourage the right to plot against the transformational and independent processes.
We denounce the military agreement between the Colombian government and the United States administration strengthens the U.S.'s military strategy, whose contents are expressed in the so-called "White Book." This confirms that the development of the agreement will guarantee a projection of continental and intercontinental military power, the strengthening of transportation capability and air mobility to guarantee the improvement of its action capability, in order to provide the right conditions to have access to energy sources. It also consolidates its political partnership with the regional oligarchy for the control of Colombian territory and its projection in the Andes and in the rest of South America. All this scaffolding and consolidation of military architecture entails a serious threat for peace in the region and the world.
The installation of military bases in the region and their interrelation with the different bases spread throughout the world is not only confined to the military sphere, but rather forms part of the establishment of a general policy of domination and expansion directed by the U.S. These bases constitute strategic points to dominate all the countries in Central and Latin America and the rest of the world.
The treaty for the installation of military bases in Colombia is preceded by Plan Colombia, which was already an example of U.S. interference in the affairs of Colombia and the region using the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism as an excuse. However, it has been shown that drug trafficking levels have increased in Colombia; therefore, the plan is no longer justified given that no favorable results have been obtained since its implementation, that would justify a new treaty with the U.S.
Today, the global strategy headed by the U.S. concerning drug trafficking is a complete failure. Its results are summarized by a rapid processes of accumulation of illegal capital, increased consumption of drugs and exacerbation of criminality, whose victims are the peoples of Latin America, especially the Colombian people. This strategy should be revisited and modified, and should be oriented towards a different logic that focuses on drug consumption as a public health issue. In Colombia, drug trafficking has assumed the form of paramilitarism, and turned into a political project the scope of which and persons responsible should be investigated so that the truth is known, so that justice prevails and the terror of the civilian population ceases.
We, the peoples of the world, declare that we will not give up the spaces we have managed to conquer after years of struggle and resistance; and we commit ourselves to regain those, which have been taken from us. Therefore, we need to defend the processes of change and the unfolding revolutions since they are based on sovereign decisions made by the peoples.
Agreements:
1. Mobilization and condemnation of U.S. military bases
1.1. To organize global protests against the U.S. military bases from December 12th to 17th, 2009. Various leftwing parties and social movements will promote forums, concerts, protest marches and any other creative activity within the context of this event.
1.2. To establish a global mobilization front for the political denouncement of the U.S. military bases. This group will be made up by social leaders, leftwing parties, lawmakers, artists, among others, who will visit different countries with the aim of raising awareness in forums, press conferences and news and above all in gatherings with each country's peoples.
1.3. To organize students, young people, workers and women in order to establish a common agenda of vigilance and to denounce against the military bases throughout the world.
1.4. To organize a global legal forum to challenge the installation of the U.S. military bases. This forum is conceived as a space for the condemnation of illegalities committed against the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples and the imposition of a hegemonic imperialist model.
1.5. To organize a global trial against paramilitarism in Colombia bringing testimonies and evidence to international bodies of justice.
1.6. To promote a global trial against George Bush for crimes against humanity, as the person principally responsible for the genocide against the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan.
1.7. To promote a campaign for the creation of constitutional and legal provisions in all of our countries against the installation of military bases and deployment of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
1.8. To promote, from the different social organizations and movements of the countries present in this meeting, a political solution for the Colombian conflict.
1.9. To organize solidarity with the Colombian people against the imperial aggression that the military bases entail in Colombian territory.
2. Installation and development of a platform of joint action by leftwing parties of the world
2.1. To establish a space of articulation of progressive and leftwing organizations and parties that allows for coordinating policies against the aggression towards the peoples, the condemnation of the aggressions against governments elected democratically, the installation of military bases, the violation of sovereignty and against xenophobia, the defense of immigrants' rights, peace, and the environment, and peasant, labor, indigenous and afro-descendent movements.
2.2. To set up a Temporary Executive Secretariat (TES) that allows for the coordination of a common working agenda, policy making, and follow-up on the agreements reached within the framework of this international encounter. Said Secretariat undertakes to inform about relevant events in the world, and to define specific action plans: statements, declarations, condemnations, mobilizations, observations and other issues that may be decided.
2.3. To set up an agenda of permanent ideological debate on the fundamental aspects of the process of construction of socialism.
2.4. To prepare common working agendas with participation from Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
2.5. To organize solidarity of the people's of the world with the Bolivarian revolution and President Hugo Chávez, in response to the constant imperial attacks.
2.6. To commemorate the centenary of Clara Zetkin's proposal to celebrate March 8, 2010 as the International Day of Women. The parties undertake to celebrate this day insofar as possible.
2.7. To summon a meeting to be held in Caracas in April 2010 in commemoration of the bicentenary of our Latin American and Caribbean independences.
3. Organization of a world movement of militants for a culture of peace
3.1. To promote the establishment of peace bases, by peace supporters, who will coordinate actions and denouncements against interventionism and war sponsored by imperialism through activities such as: forums, cultural events, and debates to promote the ethical behavior of anti-violence, full participation in social life, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, acknowledgement of the cultural identities of our peoples and strengthening the framework of integration. This space seeks to raise awareness among all citizens in rejection of all forms of domination, internal or external intervention, and to reinforce the culture of peace. To struggle relentlessly for a world with no nuclear weapons, no weapons of mass destruction, no military bases, no foreign interference, and no economic blockades, as our peoples need peace and are absolutely entitled to attain development. Promote the American continent as a territory of peace, home to the construction of a free and sovereign world.
3.2. To organize a Peace Parliament as a political space to exchange common endeavors among the world's progressive and leftwing parliamentarians, and to know the historical, economic, legal, political and environmental aspects key for the defense of peace. Hereby we recommend holding the first meeting in February 2010.
4. Artillery of international communication to emancipate revolutionary consciousness
4.1. To discuss a public communication policy at an inter-regional level that aims to improve the media battle, and to convey the values of socialism among the peoples.
4.2. To promote the creation and consolidation of alternative and community communication media to break the media siege, promote an International Alternative Leftwing Media Coordination Office that creates links to provide for improved information exchange among our countries, in which Telesur and Radiosur can be spearheads for this action.
4.3. To create a website of all of the progressive and leftwing parties and movements in the world as a means to ensure permanent exchange and the development of an emancipating and alternative communication.
4.4. To promote a movement of artists, writers and filmmakers to promote and develop festivals of small, short and full-length films that reflects the advancement and the struggle of peoples in revolution.
4.5. To hold a meeting or international forum of alternative leftwing media.
5. Mobilize all popular organization in unrestricted support for the people of Honduras
5.1. To promote an international trial against the coup plotters in Honduras before the International Criminal Court for the abuses and crimes committed.
5.2. Refuse to recognize the illegal electoral process they aim to carry out in Honduras.
5.3. To carry out a world vigil on Election Day in Honduras in order to protest against the intention to legitimize the coup, coordinated by the permanent committee that emerges from this encounter.
5.4. To coordinate the actions of leftwing parties worldwide to curb the imperialist pretensions of using the coup in Honduras as a strategy against the Latin American and Caribbean progressive processes and governments.
5.5. To unite with the people of Honduras through a global solidarity movement for people's resistance and for the pursuit of democratic and participatory paths that allow for the establishment of progressive governments committed to common welfare and social justice.
5.6. To undertake actions geared towards denouncing before multilateral bodies, and within the framework of international law, the abduction of José Manuel Zelaya, legitimate President of Honduras, that facilitated the rupture of constitutional order in Honduras. It is necessary to determine responsibility among those who participated directly in this crime, and even among those who allowed his aircraft to go in and out Costa Rica without trying to detain the kidnappers of the Honduran president.
6. Solidarity with the peoples of the world
6.1. The Leftwing Parties of the International Meeting of Caracas agree to demand the immediate liberation of the five Cuban heroes unfairly imprisoned in American jails. They are authentic anti-terrorist fighters that caused no harm to U.S. national security, whose work was oriented towards preventing the terrorist attacks prepared by the terrorist counterrevolution against Cuba. The Five Heroes were subject to a biased judicial process, condemned by broad sectors of humanity, and stigmatized by a conspiracy of silence by the mainstream media. Given the impossibility of winning justice via judicial means, we call upon all political leftwing parties of the world to increase actions for their immediate liberation. We call on President Obama to utilize his executive power and set these Five Heroes of Humanity free.
6.2. The International Meeting of Leftwing Parties resolutely demands the immediate and unconditional cessation of the criminal U.S. blockade that harmed the Cuban people so badly over the last fifty years. The blockade should come to an end right now in order to fulfill the will of the 187 countries that recently declared themselves against this act of genocide during the UN General Assembly.
6.3. To unite with the people of Haiti in the struggle for the return of President Jean Bertrand Aristide to his country.
6.4. We propose to study the possibility to grant a residence in Venezuela to Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was kidnapped and overthrown as Haiti's president by U.S. imperialism.
6.5. We express the need to declare a permanent alert aimed at preventing any type of breach of the constitutional order that may hinder the process of democratic change underway in Paraguay.
6.6. We denounce the neoliberal privatizing advance in Mexico expressly in the case of the Electric Energy state-owned company, a heritage of the people, which aims through the massive firing of 45 000 workers to intimidate the union force, "Luz y Fuerza," which constitutes another offensive of the Empire in Central and North America.
6.7. To declare our solidarity with the peoples of the world that have suffered and are still suffering imperial aggressions, especially, the 50-year-long genocidal blockade against Cuba; the threat against the people of Paraguay; the slaughter of the Palestinian people; the illegal occupation of part of the territory of the Republic of Western Sahara and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan which today is expanding into Pakistan; the illegal sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe and the constant threat against Iran, among others.
Caracas, November 21st, 2009
Special declaration on the coup d'état in Honduras
We, leftwing parties of Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania, present in the international encounter of leftwing parties, reject the coup d'état against the constitutional government of citizen's power of the President of Honduras Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
Cognizant of the situation of repression, persecution and murder against the Honduran people and the permanent military harassment against president Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which represents a breach of the rule of law in the sister nation of Honduras:
We support the actions of the national resistance front in its struggle to restore democracy.
We demand and support the sovereign right of the Honduran people to call for a national constituent assembly to establish direct democracy and to ensure the broadest political participation of the people in public affairs.
We denounce the United States intervention and its national and international reactionary right-wing allies and their connection with the coup, which hinders the construction of democracy in Honduras and in the world.
We condemn and repudiate the permanent violation of political and social human rights as well as the violation freedom of speech, promoted and perpetrated by the de facto powers, the Supreme Court of Justice, the National Congress of the Republic, the Ministry of Defense and Security since June 28, 2009.
We reiterate our demand to international governments and bodies, not to recognize the results of the general elections to be held on November 29, 2009 in Honduras, due to the lack of constitutional guarantees and the legal conditions necessary for a fair, transparent and reliable electoral process, the lack of reliable observers that can vouch for the results of this electoral process, which has already been rejected by most international governments, bodies and international public opinion.
To propose and promote an international trial against coup plotters and their accomplices in Honduras before the International Criminal Court, for the illegal actions, abuses and crimes they committed, while developing actions aimed at denouncing to the relevant bodies and in the framework of the international law, the violation of the rights and the kidnapping of the legitimate president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya Rosales, because it is necessary to establish the responsibility of those who participated directly and internally in the perpetration of this crime.
We urge national and international human rights organizations to support these measures, to carry on the campaign of denunciation and vigilance with permanent observers in face of the renewed human rights violations, particularly the persecution and sanction through the loss of jobs for political reasons against the members and supporters of the resistance and president Manuel Zelaya.
We repudiate and condemn the attacks against the diplomatic corps of the embassies of the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Republic of Argentina, and the embassies of the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA); and express our solidarity with the heroic work of the staff of these diplomatic missions, who have been victims of harassment and hostility by the coup plotters.
We agree to establish coordination among leftwing parties of the world to exert pressure to oust the de facto government and for the restoration of the constitutional president and the right of the Honduran people to install a national constituent assembly that allows for deepening direct democracy.
We urge governments, international bodies and companies to maintain and intensify economic and commercial sanctions to business accomplices and supporters of the coup in Honduras, and to maintain an attitude of vigilance, to break all relations that recognize the coup plotters and the de facto government officers, as well as to take migration control measures that hinder the movement of people who have the purpose of voting in another country where elections are held with the aim of changing the results through the transfer of votes from one country to the other.
We agree not to recognize the international and national observers of the electoral process who are aligned and conspire to attempt to give legitimacy to an electoral process devoid of legality and legitimacy. We demand that rather than observing an illegal and illegitimate process, the return of the state of democratic law and the constitutional government of citizen power Honduras President Manuel Zelaya Rosales is guaranteed.
Special decision
The international encounter of Leftwing Political parties held in Caracas on November 19, 20 and 21, 2009, received the proposal made by Commander Hugo Chavez Frias to convoke the V [Fifth] Socialist International as a space for socialist-oriented parties, movements and currents in which we can harmonize a common strategy for the struggle against imperialism, the overthrow of capitalism by socialism and solidarity-based economic integration of a new type. We assessed that proposition in terms of its historical dimension which calls for a new spirit of internationalism and agreed, for the purpose of achieving it in the short term, to create a "working group" comprised of those socialist parties, currents and social movements who endorse the initiative, to prepare an agenda which defines the objectives, contents and mechanisms of this global revolutionary body. We call for an initial constitutive event for April 2010 in the City of Caracas. Furthermore, those parties, socialist currents and social movements who have not expressed themselves on this matter can subject this proposal to the examination of their legitimate directive bodies.
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13) Housing Weighs on the Economy
NYT Editorial
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28sat2.html
All roads into and out of the recession run through the housing market. During the summer, that road seemed to be heading toward recovery. These days, it seems to be headed back toward hard times. A reversal would have big implications for the economy and, by extension, the policies now being pursued by the administration, Congress and the Federal Reserve.
The Commerce Department reported this month that new-home construction fell sharply in October. That led many economists to reduce their estimates for economic growth in the current quarter.
Even this month's other seemingly good news had a dark lining. Reports from industry and government showed that sales of both new and existing homes rose in October. But much of that was driven by buyers who rushed to claim the first-time home buyer's tax credit before it expires on Nov. 30.
Though the credit has since been extended, it is not expected to spur many more sales anytime soon, in part because many buyers who would have been in the market in 2010 bought in advance of the first expiration date. The mini-frenzy of buying also did not prop up prices much, as a glut of homes on the market has depressed home prices over all. By conservative estimates, prices are now expected to fall by another 10 percent next year, bringing the average decline nationwide to 40 percent.
A weakening housing market in a fragile economy is a recipe for pain. Already, nearly a third of homeowners with a mortgage - 15.7 million people - owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, according to Moody's Economy.com. Negative equity combined with high unemployment greatly increases the risk of delinquencies and foreclosures, which, not surprisingly, continue to hit new highs.
A question for policy makers is, if real estate is not going to lead the way out of recession, what will? A related issue is where best to aim government resources as the hard times endure. The extension of the home buyer's tax credit, which failed in its first go-round to spark lasting improvements, was a giveaway to the real estate industry. Relief and recovery efforts that are focused on job creation more directly, rather than on favored industries, are needed.
The administration must also be prepared to alter its anti-foreclosure effort if, as expected, foreclosures surge again in 2010. And the Federal Reserve, whose interventions have sustained the housing market over the past year, must show flexibility. The Fed has made it clear that it would prefer to begin withdrawing support for the market in the months ahead. But without other strong and successful fiscal measures in place, that could do more harm than good.
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14) When Prisoners Phone Home
NYT Editorial
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28sat4.html
New York State's highest court has rejected the last vestiges of a lawsuit by families of inmates who claimed that the prison system overcharged them for telephone calls from their loved ones. The good news is that this suit - and an accompanying lobbying effort - has already succeeded in reforming a terribly unfair system.
New York, like many states, used the phones in its prisons as a profit center. MCI, which provided the phone service, agreed to pay the prison system 57.5 percent of the fees it charged for prisoners' collect calls. The state then allowed MCI to charge outrageously high rates: 16 cents or more a minute plus a $3 surcharge for every call. Families paid as much as $300 to $400 a month, according to one advocacy group.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, a public interest legal organization, and prisoners' families sued in 2004, charging that the exorbitant rates were unconstitutional. The suit rightly embarrassed New York politicians. In January 2007, Eliot Spitzer, the state's newly elected governor, announced that rates would be substantially lowered. The Legislature later made it illegal for the Department of Correctional Services to accept revenue in excess of its reasonable costs for operating an inmate phone system.
What was left for the New York State Court of Appeals to decide was whether family members were due refunds. They contended that the excessive fees were an illegal tax that violated inmates' equal protection rights. This week, the court, by a 5-to-1 vote, rejected the suit.
The decision is regrettable. But even the majority noted that the plaintiffs had strong arguments that the high rates were bad policy because they made it difficult for inmates to maintain family and community ties, and that released prisoners who lack these ties are more likely to return to a life of crime.
That is a message other states should heed. Prison systems may not have to subsidize these calls, but they should not be using them to balance their budgets. When prisoners cannot afford to keep in touch with their wives, husbands, parents and children, everyone pays.
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15) U.S. Still Running Secret Prison in Afghanistan
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/world/asia/29bagram.html?hp
KABUL, Afghanistan - An American military detention camp in Afghanistan is still holding inmates for sometimes weeks at a time and without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at the site on the Bagram Air Base.
The site consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each lighted by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day, where detainees said that their only contact with another human being was at twice-daily interrogation sessions.
The jail's operation highlights a tension between President Obama's goal to improve detention conditions that had drawn condemnation under the Bush administration and his desire to give military commanders leeway to operate. In this case, that means isolating certain prisoners for a period of time so interrogators can extract information or flush out confederates.
While Mr. Obama signed an order to eliminate so-called black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency in January, that order did not apply to this jail, which is run by military Special Operations forces.
Military officials said as recently as this summer that the secret Afghanistan jail and another like it at the Balad Air Base in Iraq were being used to interrogate high-value detainees. And officials said recently that there were no plans to close the detention centers.
In August, the administration restricted the time that detainees could be held at the secret jails to two weeks, changing previous Pentagon policy.
In the past, the military could obtain extensions. The interviewed detainees had been held longer but before the new policy went into effect.
Detainees call the Afghan site the black jail.
"The black jail was the most dangerous and fearful place," said Hamidullah, a spare-parts dealer in Kandahar who was detained in June and who, like some Afghans, doesn't use a last name. "They don't let the I.C.R.C. officials or any other civilians see or communicate with the people they keep there. Because I did not know what time it was, I did not know when to pray."
Mr. Hamidullah was released in October, after five and half months in detention, five to six weeks of it in the black jail, he said.
Although his and other detainees' accounts could not be independently corroborated, each was interviewed separately and described similar conditions. Their descriptions also matched those obtained by two human rights workers who had interviewed other former detainees at the site.
While two of the detainees were captured before the Obama administration took office, one was captured in June of this year.
All three detainees were later released without charges. None said they had been tortured, though they said they heard sounds of abuse going on and certainly felt humiliated and roughly used. "They beat up other people in the black jail, but not me," Hamidullah said. "But the problem was that they didn't let me sleep. There was shouting noise so you couldn't sleep."
Others, however, have given accounts of abuse at the site, including two Afghan teenagers who told The Washington Post that they had been subjected to beatings and humiliation by American guards.
All three former detainees interviewed by The Times complained of being held for months after the intensive interrogations were over without being told why. In addition to Hamidullah's detention of five and a half months, another detainee said he remained at the Bagram prison complex for two years and four months; the other was held for 10 months total.
Neither Pentagon nor White House officials would comment publicly because the existence of the site is classified.
Human rights officials said the existence of a jail where prisoners were denied contact with the Red Cross or their families contradicted the Obama administration's drive to improve detention conditions.
"Holding people in what appears to be incommunicado detention runs against the grain of the administration's commitment to greater transparency, accountability, and respect for the dignity of Afghans," said Jonathan Horowitz, a human rights researcher with the Open Society Institute.
Mr. Horowitz said he understood that "the necessities of war requires the U.S. to detain people, but there are limits to how to detain."
The black jail is separate from the larger Bagram detention center, which now holds about 700 detainees, mostly in cages accommodating about 20 men apiece, and which had become notorious to the Afghan public as a symbol of abuse. That center will be closed by early next year and the internees moved to a new larger detention site as part of the administration's effort to improve conditions at Bagram.
The former detainees interviewed by The Times said they were held at the secret site for 35 to 40 days. All three were sent there upon their arrival in Bagram and eventually transferred to the larger detention center on the base, which allows access to the Red Cross. The three detainees were hooded and handcuffed when they were taken for questioning so they did not know where they were or anything about other detainees, they said.
Mr. Horowitz said he had heard similar descriptions of the jail from former detainees, as had Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer with Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization that has tracked detention issues in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The International Committee of the Red Cross does not discuss its findings publicly and would not say whether its officials had visited the black jail. But, in early 2008, military officials acknowledged receiving a confidential complaint from the I.C.R.C. that the military was holding some detainees incommunicado.
In August, the military said that it had begun to give the Red Cross the names of everyone detained, including those held in the Special Operations camps, within two weeks of capture. But it still does not allow the organization to have face-to-face access to the detainees.
All three detainees said the hardest part of their detention was that their families did not know whether they were dead or alive.
"For my whole family it was disastrous," said Hayatullah, another detainee, who said he was working in his pharmacy in Kandahar when he was captured. "Because they knew the Americans were sometimes killing people, and they thought they had killed me because for two to three months they didn't know where I was."
The detainees interviewed by The Times said the military had mistaken them for Taliban fighters.
"They kept saying to me, 'Are you Qari Idris?' " said Gulham Khan, 25, an impoverished, illiterate sheep trader, who mostly delivers sheep and goats for people who buy the animals in the livestock market in Ghazni, the capital of the province of the same name. He was captured in late October 2008 and released in early September this year, he said.
"I said, 'I'm not Qari Idris.' But they kept asking me over and over, and I kept saying, 'I'm Gulham. This is my name, that is my father's name, you can ask the elders.' "
Ten months after his initial detention, American soldiers went to the group cell where he was then being held and told him he had been mistakenly picked up under the wrong name, he said.
"They said, 'Please accept our apology, and we are sorry that we kept you here for this time.' And that was it. They kept me for more than 10 months and gave me nothing back."
In their search for him, Mr. Khan's family members spent more than 120,000 Afghanis, about $2,400, a fortune for a sheep dealer, who often makes just 50 Afghanis a day. Some of the money was spent on bribes to local Afghan soldiers to get information on where he was being held; they said soldiers took the money and never came back with the information.
Mr. Hamidullah was similarly mistaken for a Taliban member, he said.
After he was in the black jail, interrogators insisted that he was a Taliban fighter named Faida Muhammad. "I said, 'That's not me,' " he recalled.
"They blamed me and said, 'You are making bombs and are a facilitator of bomb making and helping militants,' " he said. "I said, 'I have a shop. I sell spare parts for vehicles, for trucks and cars.' "
Mr. Hamidullah credits his release, after five and a half months, to the efforts of his family, a senior Kandahar government official, and tribal elders.
Human rights researchers worry that the jail remains in the shadows and largely inaccessible both to the Red Cross and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which has responsibility for ensuring humane treatment of detainees under the Afghan Constitution.
Manfred Nowak, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, said the site fell into a legal limbo and so was not clearly governed by the Geneva Conventions.
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
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16) In a Home to Free Speech, a Paper Is Accused of Anti-Semitism
By JESSE McKINLEY
November 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/media/28paper.html?ref=us
BERKELEY, Calif. - For the last six years, The Berkeley Daily Planet has published a freewheeling assortment of submissions from readers, who offer sharp-elbowed views on everything from raucous college parties (generally bad) to the war in Iraq (ditto).
But since March, that running commentary has been under attack by a small but vociferous group of critics who accuse the paper's editor, Becky O'Malley, of publishing too many letters and other commentary pieces critical of Israel. Those accusations are the basis of a campaign to drive away the paper's advertisers and a Web site that strongly suggests The Planet and its editor are anti-Semitic.
"We think that Ms. O'Malley is addicted to anti-Israel expression just as an alcoholic is to drinking," Jim Sinkinson, who has led the campaign to discourage advertisers, wrote in an e-mail message. He is the publisher of Infocom Group, a media relations company. "If she wants to serve and please the East Bay Jewish community, she would be safer avoiding the subject entirely."
Ms. O'Malley denies any personal or editorial bias, and bristles at the suggestion that she should not publish letters about Israel in a city like Berkeley, which has a sizable Jewish community and a populace - and City Council - that often weigh in on Middle East and international affairs.
"Frankly, the term that crossed my mind was 'protection racket,' " Ms. O'Malley said. "I think that is unusual to say the least that anybody would think that they could dictate a whole area of the world that is simply off limits for discussion."
Whether right or wrong, Mr. Sinkinson's campaign has left The Planet - a weekly already hammered by the recession - gasping for breath. Advertising sales revenue is down some 60 percent from last year, Ms. O'Malley says. In October, the paper trimmed its skeleton crew of full-time reporters to one from three, and has begun a fund-raising drive to keep publishing.
Still, she says she has no intention of stopping the publication of submitted letters, citing a commitment to free speech that is a legacy of the city where the Free Speech Movement was born in the 1960s.
"I have the old-fashioned basic liberal thing of believing that the remedy for speech you don't like is more speech," said Ms. O'Malley, 69, a veteran local journalist who bought the paper in 2002 as a retirement project with her husband, Michael, now 72. "If somebody says something you don't like, say what you think. And I felt it a privilege here in my middle age to be in a position to make that happen."
The paper has published unpopular opinions on other subjects, including a commentary from a local activist arguing that the murder of four Oakland police officers - none of whom were black - by an African-American parolee in March was "karmic justice" for past police killings of civilians. But such pieces are in a section of the paper that clearly states they "do not necessarily reflect the views of the Daily Planet."
Mr. O'Malley, the paper's publisher, said he thought The Planet's critics were confusing letters from unaffiliated writers - the paper says it prints anything that is not libelous or obscene, with a preference for local writers - with official editorial positions.
"We publish things from people that we can barely stand to be in the same room with," he said.
In addition to the letter-writing campaign, the paper has faced online criticism from dpwatchdog.com, a site that contains pages of what it calls anti-Semitic writings published in The Planet. The site's editor, John Gertz, says his goal is not to close the paper, but "reform" it.
"The object is not to attack the press," said Mr. Gertz, the president and chief executive of Zorro Productions, which owns the trademark and copyrights on the Zorro franchise. "The object is to turn the press into something responsible."
Mr. Gertz complains that The Planet does not fact-check reader submissions, something Ms. O'Malley says is well beyond its resources.
"We make a serious effort to get most words spelled right in the headlines, which we don't always achieve," Ms. O'Malley said. "And we of course never knowingly print something that we know to be untrue. But, frankly, there are things we don't know."
Mr. Sinkinson, whose company publishes The Bulldog Reporter, a media guide, first took aim at The Planet in March, in a letter to advertisers likening the paper to a "publication that praises the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan."
"In these tough economic times, is it really a good investment to continue advertising in a paper, one of whose main purposes seems to be the defamation of Jews and the state of Israel," stated the letter, which included a cancellation notice advertisers could send to the paper as well as reader submissions published in The Planet that Mr. Sinkinson described as "hate-speech." Among those was a letter printed in 2006 from an Iranian student then living in India, Kurosh Arianpour, who suggested that the Jews had brought historical persecution - including that by the Nazis - on themselves.
Mr. Arianpour's letter brought a sharp rebuke from local civic and Jewish leaders, and two weeks later, a published explanation from Ms. O'Malley, who wrote that the letter's content was "very nasty" and amounted "to untrue racist generalizations of the worst sort."
But, she wrote, "I still don't think that keeping sentiments like this out of The Daily Planet will make him or people like him go away."
The fight has gotten personal on occasion, with one of Mr. Gertz's earliest complaints centering on a 2005 letter responding to a letter he had written to The Planet. In that response, a Planet reader said Mr. Gertz wore the "funniest-looking" yarmulke.
On his Web site and in a written report he has assembled, Mr. Gertz has called Ms. O'Malley "brutish," "a second-rate intellect" and "ungifted" and suggested she may have learned what he calls anti-Semitic views while growing up in a largely non-Jewish community in Pasadena, Calif.
"It never occurred to me, frankly, till somebody submitted the research to us about her background, to begin to ask the question of, well, 'Maybe she learned this stuff on her daddy's knee,' " Mr. Gertz said. He also attacked a regular Planet contributor as a Stalinist and called The Planet's readership "aging radicals" who would be "of only marginal interest to most would-be advertisers."
Wars of words are not uncommon in Berkeley, particularly regarding the Middle East, a contentious topic that the City Council occasionally addresses though it has no sway over foreign policy.
Councilman Kriss Worthington, who condemned the Arianpour letter but was still singled out by Mr. Gertz as a "gullible politician," said he tried about a decade ago to devise a moderate council policy toward Israel. He failed.
"It was the only council item I ever wrote that got no support from either side," Mr. Worthington said.
Local Jewish leaders, meanwhile, seem wary of getting involved in the campaign against The Planet. The Anti-Defamation League's regional director in San Francisco, Jonathan Bernstein, said that while the paper had published some "divisive and hateful" material, Mr. Sinkinson's and Mr. Gertz's efforts were their own.
"I don't think anyone in the organized Jewish community is involved in this in any way," Mr. Bernstein said.
Both sides met recently to discuss possible resolutions to their dispute, but it was unclear if progress had been made.
Ms. O'Malley said the paper would abide by its mission to publish diverse opinions, trusting what she called "the self-correcting process" of open debate.
She also offered a possible two-entity solution to the conflict, saying of her critics, "They could start their own paper."
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17) Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades
By JASON DePARLE and ROBERT GEBELOFF
The Safety Net
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html?hp
MARTINSVILLE, Ohio - With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.
It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.
Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.
While the numbers have soared during the recession, the path was cleared in better times when the Bush administration led a campaign to erase the program's stigma, calling food stamps "nutritional aid" instead of welfare, and made it easier to apply. That bipartisan effort capped an extraordinary reversal from the 1990s, when some conservatives tried to abolish the program, Congress enacted large cuts and bureaucratic hurdles chased many needy people away.
From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.
There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.
The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.
In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. - Everytown, U.S.A. - nearly 40 percent of children receive aid.
While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust. There are about 50 small counties and a dozen sizable ones where the rolls have doubled in the last two years. In another 205 counties, they have risen by at least two-thirds. These places with soaring rolls include populous Riverside County, Calif., most of greater Phoenix and Las Vegas, a ring of affluent Atlanta suburbs, and a 150-mile stretch of southwest Florida from Bradenton to the Everglades.
Although the program is growing at a record rate, the federal official who oversees it would like it to grow even faster.
"I think the response of the program has been tremendous," said Kevin Concannon, an under secretary of agriculture, "but we're mindful that there are another 15, 16 million who could benefit."
Nationwide, food stamps reach about two-thirds of those eligible, with rates ranging from an estimated 50 percent in California to 98 percent in Missouri. Mr. Concannon urged lagging states to do more to enroll the needy, citing a recent government report that found a sharp rise in Americans with inconsistent access to adequate food.
"This is the most urgent time for our feeding programs in our lifetime, with the exception of the Depression," he said. "It's time for us to face up to the fact that in this country of plenty, there are hungry people."
The program's growing reach can be seen in a corner of southwestern Ohio where red state politics reign and blue-collar workers have often called food stamps a sign of laziness. But unemployment has soared, and food stamp use in a six-county area outside Cincinnati has risen more than 50 percent.
With most of his co-workers laid off, Greg Dawson, a third-generation electrician in rural Martinsville, considers himself lucky to still have a job. He works the night shift for a contracting firm, installing freezer lights in a chain of grocery stores. But when his overtime income vanished and his expenses went up, Mr. Dawson started skimping on meals to feed his wife and five children.
He tried to fill up on cereal and eggs. He ate a lot of Spam. Then he went to work with a grumbling stomach to shine lights on food he could not afford. When an outreach worker appeared at his son's Head Start program, Mr. Dawson gave in.
"It's embarrassing," said Mr. Dawson, 29, a taciturn man with a wispy goatee who is so uneasy about the monthly benefit of $300 that he has not told his parents. "I always thought it was people trying to milk the system. But we just felt like we really needed the help right now."
The outreach worker is a telltale sign. Like many states, Ohio has campaigned hard to raise the share of eligible people collecting benefits, which are financed entirely by the federal government and brought the state about $2.2 billion last year.
By contrast, in the federal cash welfare program, states until recently bore the entire cost of caseload growth, and nationally the rolls have stayed virtually flat. Unemployment insurance, despite rapid growth, reaches about only half the jobless (and replaces about half their income), making food stamps the only aid many people can get - the safety net's safety net.
Support for the food stamp program reached a nadir in the mid-1990s when critics, likening the benefit to cash welfare, won significant restrictions and sought even more. But after use plunged for several years, President Bill Clinton began promoting the program, in part as a way to help the working poor. President George W. Bush expanded that effort, a strategy Mr. Obama has embraced.
The revival was crowned last year with an upbeat change of name. What most people still call food stamps is technically the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
By the time the recession began, in December 2007, "the whole message around this program had changed," said Stacy Dean of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington group that has supported food stamp expansions. "The general pitch was, 'This program is here to help you.' "
Now nearly 12 percent of Americans receive aid - 28 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Latinos and 8 percent of whites. Benefits average about $130 a month for each person in the household, but vary with shelter and child care costs.
In the promotion of the program, critics see a sleight of hand.
"Some people like to camouflage this by calling it a nutrition program, but it's really not different from cash welfare," said Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, whose views have a following among conservatives on Capitol Hill. "Food stamps is quasi money."
Arguing that aid discourages work and marriage, Mr. Rector said food stamps should contain work requirements as strict as those placed on cash assistance. "The food stamp program is a fossil that repeats all the errors of the war on poverty," he said.
Suburbs Are Hit Hard
Across the country, the food stamp rolls can be read like a scan of a sick economy. The counties of northwest Ohio, where car parts are made, take sick when Detroit falls ill. Food stamp use is up by about 60 percent in Erie County (vibration controls), 77 percent in Wood County (floor mats) and 84 percent in hard-hit Van Wert (shifting components and cooling fans).
Just west, in Indiana, Elkhart County makes the majority of the nation's recreational vehicles. Sales have fallen more than half during the recession, and nearly 30 percent of the county's children are receiving food stamps.
The pox in southwest Florida is the housing bust, with foreclosure rates in Fort Myers often leading the nation in the last two years. Across six contiguous counties from Manatee to Monroe, the food stamp rolls have more than doubled.
In sheer numbers, growth has come about equally from places where food stamp use was common and places where it was rare. Since 2007, the 600 counties with the highest percentage of people on the rolls added 1.3 million new recipients. So did the 600 counties where use was lowest.
The richest counties are often where aid is growing fastest, although from a small base. In 2007, Forsyth County, outside Atlanta, had the highest household income in the South. (One author dubbed it "Whitopia.") Food stamp use there has more than doubled.
This is the first recession in which a majority of the poor in metropolitan areas live in the suburbs, giving food stamps new prominence there. Use has grown by half or more in dozens of suburban counties from Boston to Seattle, including such bulwarks of modern conservatism as California's Orange County, where the rolls are up more than 50 percent.
While food stamp use is still the exception in places like Orange County (where 4 percent of the population get food aid), the program reaches deep in places of chronic poverty. It feeds half the people in stretches of white Appalachia, in a Yupik-speaking region of Alaska and on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Across the 10 core counties of the Mississippi Delta, 45 percent of black residents receive aid. In a city as big as St. Louis, the share is 60 percent.
Use among children is especially high. A third of the children in Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee receive food aid. In the Bronx, the rate is 46 percent. In East Carroll Parish, La., three-quarters of the children receive food stamps.
A recent study by Mark R. Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, startled some policy makers in finding that half of Americans receive food stamps, at least briefly, by the time they turn 20. Among black children, the figure was 90 percent.
Need Overcomes Scorn
Across the small towns and rolling farmland outside Cincinnati, old disdain for the program has collided with new needs. Warren County, the second-richest in Ohio, is so averse to government aid that it turned down a federal stimulus grant. But the market for its high-end suburban homes has sagged, people who build them are idle and food stamp use has doubled.
Next door, in Clinton County, the blow has been worse. DHL, the international package carrier, has closed most of its giant airfield, costing the county its biggest employer and about 7,500 jobs. The county unemployment rate nearly tripled, to more than 14 percent.
"We're seeing people getting food stamps who never thought they'd get them," said Tina Osso, the director of the Shared Harvest Food Bank in Fairfield, which runs an outreach program in five area counties.
While Mr. Dawson, the electrician, has kept his job, the drive to distant work sites has doubled his gas bill, food prices rose sharply last year and his health insurance premiums have soared. His monthly expenses have risen by about $400, and the elimination of overtime has cost him $200 a month. Food stamps help fill the gap.
Like many new beneficiaries here, Mr. Dawson argues that people often abuse the program and is quick to say he is different. While some people "choose not to get married, just so they can apply for benefits," he is a married, churchgoing man who works and owns his home. While "some people put piles of steaks in their carts," he will not use the government's money for luxuries like coffee or soda. "To me, that's just morally wrong," he said.
He has noticed crowds of midnight shoppers once a month when benefits get renewed. While policy analysts, spotting similar crowds nationwide, have called them a sign of increased hunger, he sees idleness. "Generally, if you're up at that hour and not working, what are you into?" he said.
Still, the program has filled the Dawsons' home with fresh fruit, vegetables, bread and meat, and something they had not fully expected - an enormous sense of relief. "I know if I run out of milk, I could run down to the gas station," said Mr. Dawson's wife, Sheila.
As others here tell it, that is a benefit not to be overlooked.
Sarah and Tyrone Mangold started the year on track to make $70,000 - she was selling health insurance, and he was working on a heating and air conditioning crew. She got laid off in the spring, and he a few months later. Together they had one unemployment check and a blended family of three children, including one with a neurological disorder aggravated by poor nutrition.
They ate at his mother's house twice a week. They pawned jewelry. She scoured the food pantry. He scrounged for side jobs. Their frustration peaked one night over a can of pinto beans. Each blamed the other when that was all they had to eat.
"We were being really snippy, having anxiety attacks," Ms. Mangold said. "People get irritable when they're hungry."
Food stamps now fortify the family income by $623 a month, and Mr. Mangold, who is still patching together odd jobs, no longer objects.
"I always thought people on public assistance were lazy," he said, "but it helps me know I can feed my kids."
Shifting Views
So far, few elected officials have objected to the program's growth. Almost 90 percent of beneficiaries nationwide live below the poverty line (about $22,000 a year for a family of four). But a minor tempest hit Ohio's Warren County after a woman drove to the food stamp office in a Mercedes-Benz and word spread that she owned a $300,000 home loan-free. Since Ohio ignores the value of houses and cars, she qualified.
"I'm a hard-core conservative Republican guy - I found that appalling," said Dave Young, a member of the county board of commissioners, which briefly threatened to withdraw from the federal program.
"As soon as people figure out they can vote representatives in to give them benefits, that's the end of democracy," Mr. Young said. "More and more people will be taking, and fewer will be producing."
At the same time, the recession left Sandi Bernstein more sympathetic to the needy. After years of success in the insurance business, Ms. Bernstein, 66, had just settled into what she had expected to be a comfortable retirement when the financial crisis last year sent her brokerage accounts plummeting. Feeling newly vulnerable herself, she volunteered with an outreach program run by AARP and the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks.
Having assumed that poor people clamored for aid, she was surprised to find that some needed convincing to apply. "I come here and I see people who are knowledgeable, normal, well-spoken, well-dressed," she said. "These are people I could be having lunch with."
That could describe Franny and Shawn Wardlow, whose house in nearby Oregonia conjures middle-American stability rather than the struggle to meet basic needs. Their three daughters have heads of neat blond hair, pink bedroom curtains and a turtle bought in better times on vacation in Daytona Beach, Fla. One wrote a fourth-grade story about her parents that concluded "They lived happily ever after."
Ms. Wardlow, who worked at a nursing home, lost her job first. Soon after, Mr. Wardlow was laid off from the construction job he had held for nearly nine years. As Ms. Wardlow tells the story of the subsequent fall - cutoff threats from the power company, the dinners of egg noodles, the soap from the Salvation Army - she dwells on one unlikely symbol of the security she lost.
Pot roast.
"I was raised on eating pot roast," she said. "Just a nice decent meal."
Mr. Wardlow, 32, is a strapping man with a friendly air. He talked his way into a job at an envelope factory although his boss said he was overqualified. But it pays less than what he made muscling a jackhammer, and with Ms. Wardlow still jobless, they are two months behind on the rent. A monthly food stamp benefit of $429 fills the shelves and puts an occasional roast on the Sunday table.
It reminds Ms. Wardlow of what she has lost, and what she hopes to regain.
"I would consider us middle class at one time," she said. "I like to have a nice decent meal for dinner."
Matthew Ericson and Janet Roberts contributed reporting.
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18) At This School, It's Marijuana in Every Class
By TAMAR LEWIN
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/education/29marijuana.html?ref=us
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter. But at Med Grow Cannabis College, marijuana is the curriculum: the history, the horticulture and the legal how-to's of Michigan's new medical marijuana program.
"This state needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars," said Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old founder of the college, which is actually a burgeoning business (no baccalaureates here) operating from a few bare-bones rooms in a Detroit suburb.
The six-week, $485 primer on medical marijuana is a cross between an agricultural extension class covering the growing cycle, nutrients and light requirements ("It's harvest time when half the trichomes have turned amber and half are white") and a gathering of serious potheads, sharing stories of their best highs ("Smoke that and you are ... medicated!").
The only required reading: "Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible" by Jorge Cervantes.
Even though the business of growing medical marijuana is legal under Michigan's new law, there is enough nervousness about the enterprise that most students at a recent class did not want their names or photographs used. An instructor also asked not to be identified.
"My wife works for the government," one student said, "and I told my mother-in-law I was going to a small-business class."
While California's medical marijuana program, the country's oldest, is now big business, with hundreds of dispensaries in Los Angeles alone, the Michigan program, which started in April, is more representative of what is happening in other states that have legalized medical marijuana.
Under the Michigan law, patients whose doctors certify their medical need for marijuana can grow up to 12 cannabis plants themselves or name a "caregiver" who will grow the plants and sell the product. Anyone over 21 with no felony drug convictions can be a caregiver for up to five patients. So far, the Department of Community Health has registered about 5,800 patients and 2,400 caregivers.
For Mr. Tennant, who is certified as both a caregiver and a patient - he said he has stomach problems and anxiety - Med Grow replaces the auto detailing business he started straight out of high school, only to see it founder when the economy contracted. Med Grow began offering its course in September, with new classes starting every month.
On a recent Tuesday, two teachers led a four-hour class, starting with Todd Alton, a botanist who provided no tasting samples as he talked the students through a list of cannabis recipes, including crockpot cannabutter, chocolate canna-ganache and greenies (the cannabis alternative to brownies).
The second instructor, who would not give his name, took the class through the growing cycle, the harvest and the curing techniques to increase marijuana's potency.
Mr. Tennant said he saw the school as the hub of a larger business that will sell supplies to its graduate medical marijuana growers, offer workshops and provide a network for both patient and caregiver referrals. Already, Med Grow is a gathering place for those interested in medical marijuana. The whiteboard in the reception room lists names and numbers of several patients looking for caregivers, and a caregiver looking for patients.
The students are a diverse group: white and black, some in their 20s, some much older, some employed, some not. Some keep their class attendance, and their growing plans, close to the chest.
"I've just told a couple of people I can trust," said Jeffery Butler, 27. "It's a business opportunity, but some people are still going to look at you funny. But I'm going to do it anyway."
Scott Austin, an unemployed 41-year-old student, said he and two partners were planning to go into medical marijuana together.
"I never smoked marijuana in my life," he said. "I heard about this at a business expo a couple of months ago."
Because the Michigan program is so new, gray areas in the law have not been tested, creating real concern for some students. For example, it is not legal to start growing marijuana before being officially named a caregiver to a certified patient, but patients who are sick, certified and ready to buy marijuana generally do not want to wait through the months of the growing cycle until a crop is ready. So for the time being, coordinating entry into the business feels to some like a kind of Catch-22.
Students say they are getting all kinds of extra help and ideas from going to class.
"I want to learn all the little tricks, everything I can," said Sue Maxwell, a student who drives each week from her home four hours north of Detroit. "It's a big investment, and I want to do it right."
Ms. Maxwell, who works at a bakery, is already a caregiver - in the old, nondrug sense of the word - to a few older people for whom she thinks medical marijuana might be a real boon.
"I fix their meals, and I help with housekeeping," Ms. Maxwell said. "I have an 85-year-old lady who has no appetite. I don't know if she'd have any interest in medical marijuana, but I bet it would help her."
Ms. Maxwell said her plan to grow marijuana was slow in hatching.
"We were talking at the bakery all summer," she said. "Just joking around, I said: 'I'm going to grow medical marijuana. I'm a gardener, I've always dreamed of having a greenhouse, I think it would be great.' And then I suddenly thought, hey, I really am going to grow medical marijuana."
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19) To Prepare for War, G.I.'s Get a Dress Rehearsal
By JAMES DAO
November 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29training.html?ref=us
FORT POLK, La. - A firefight with heavily armed insurgents near a gold-domed mosque. A helicopter evacuation of bloody car bomb victims. A meeting with tribal elders upset about security.
Just another day in Afghanistan? More like the dress rehearsal for war, played out on 100,000 acres of snake-infested pine forest on an Army post near the Texas border.
Here, thousands of soldiers prepare for deployment each month by patrolling Afghan villages built by professional set designers, battling roving insurgents played by American soldiers and negotiating with actors playing tribal elders, many of whom speak real Pashto.
It is Counterinsurgency 101, about as realistic as the Army can make it in Louisiana, never mind the alligator-filled swamps, the "mud" huts assembled from metal shipping containers and the Afghan "villagers" who stir pots of Cajun rice and beans between Taliban raids. The training scenarios, created from intelligence reports fresh from the front, are capable of bringing stressed soldiers to the brink of tears, commanders say.
"We want to replicate the contemporary operating environment," said Col. Jon S. Lehr, who oversees the training operation. "But we also have to prepare a soldier for their worst day."
The training extravaganza, put on by the Army's Joint Readiness Training Center, has grown increasingly complex over the years, like the military's mission itself. Each three-week session involves more than 2,000 support workers, from the writers and logistics experts who spend more than a year plotting scenarios, to the pyrotechnists who set explosions, to the hundreds of role players recruited from Louisiana towns or Afghan immigrant communities to populate nearly two dozen imitation villages.
It is a far cry from 40 years ago, when Fort Polk was chosen to be a major training base for light infantry units largely because its tropical climate and thick forest canopy seemed ideal for preparing soldiers for Vietnam. Since then, it has readied troops to battle the Soviet Army in Europe, conduct peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and invade Iraq.
But the focus now is Afghanistan and the byword is counterinsurgency, the strategy that calls for protecting population centers and building local government. That means drills at Fort Polk include not just combat maneuvers but also things like calming angry crowds, working alongside Afghan forces and befriending tribal leaders who speak no English.
A recent visit to Fort Polk underscored how much counterinsurgency permeates the grueling pre-deployment training.
In situations that were revised and updated daily, squad leaders and company commanders from the Third Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division - which will go to Afghanistan early next year - were pushed to make snap decisions that would determine whether their units were invited to dinner or targeted for attack.
In one situation, a unit captured an insurgent carrying bribe money for a local mayor. The company captain was confronted with a conundrum: Should he arrest the mayor or try to befriend him? The captain chose the latter, bringing money and promises of future aid to the village.
As a result of following proper counterinsurgency strategy, the unit was rewarded and a suicide bombing at a ribbon-cutting ceremony was canceled.
In another scenario, a trainer posing as a C.I.A. operative approached a young lieutenant and claimed to have information that a high-ranking insurgent was hiding in a nearby building. He demanded that the lieutenant call in an air strike. The lieutenant agreed.
Wrong. Under the latest policies of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, such air strikes must be vetted by superior officers to avoid civilian casualties. The exercise was stopped so trainers could review proper procedure with the chastened lieutenant.
"Creating dilemmas is very much part of the learning objectives here," Colonel Lehr said.
At any one time, there could be half a dozen scenarios involving thousands of soldiers playing out in the training zone, known as the box. Locally based soldiers from the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, wearing beards and Afghan-style clothing, serve as enemy fighters and Afghan security forces. And more than 450 people, most of them Louisianans but some of them Afghan émigrés, play villagers and tribal elders. (The center also trains Iraq-bound troops, with Afghans replaced by Iraqi nationals.)
Among the villagers is Barbara Moses, 51, who gave up a job as a grocery store manager in a nearby town to play Bosnian, then Iraqi and now Afghan women at Fort Polk. "I got hooked," she said, a scarf wrapped around her head and a pack of cigarettes clipped to her vest.
Though she says that Afghan women are expected to be quieter than Iraqi women (and are therefore less fun to play), she is particularly proud of one performance: as a pregnant Afghan woman seeking assistance from American troops. When no help arrived, she delivered the baby, bloody water and all, at a checkpoint, forcing the guards to perform emergency medical maneuvers.
Suleiman Erfan, 49, who immigrated to the United States from Kabul as a child, plays a provincial governor. His village is color-coded amber, for neutral, requiring him to complain persistently to American commanders about poor security and government services. In his spare time, Mr. Erfan counsels soldiers on Afghan etiquette, culture and food.
"The props are certainly very realistic," he said in the village of Turani, where the butcher shop is adorned with plastic goat and camel heads. So realistic, indeed, that he has questioned the cost. "Why not spend that money building real villages in Afghanistan?" he asked.
The efforts at verisimilitude extend beyond pretend meat. Afghan tribal leaders often speak in Dari or Pashto, requiring soldiers to use interpreters. "Night letters" threatening villagers who cooperate with Americans are posted on village walls. There are even mock journalists: "good" ones who represent "legitimate" news organizations and "bad ones" who are Taliban propagandists. Company commanders must endure interviews by both.
Battle is a version of laser tag: electronic vests worn by the soldiers beep when hit by beams fired from an opponent's weapon. A pocket card explains whether they have been killed or wounded, and where.
Almost every scenario includes interactions with Afghans. After one firefight, a mob of villagers confronted the soldiers. A platoon sergeant became so flustered that he fired a warning shot over the crowd, nearly causing a riot.
Some details are off - many signs in the Afghan villages, for example, are not actually Pashto or Dari words. And the resolution of scenarios can feel pat, as every friendly encounter with village elders seems to lead to a good outcome.
The trainers acknowledge that reality will be far messier; their goal, they say, is to make clear that war is not just about killing insurgents but also about building the nation.
Many of the role players claimed a simpler mission: to make the real Afghanistan seem a little less strange and frightening, and thus, perhaps, a little more survivable.
"Some of them are ready, but some of them aren't, and that's what rips your heart out," said Tena Hester, 48, who has been a role player for six years. "There's just some of them you can tell. They're scared. You can tell. They shake here, and I'm worried for them to go out there."
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