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Glen Ford on Black Delusion in the Age of Obama
[A speech delivered to the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations conference. This is a great speech full of information.]
blackisbackcoalition.org
http://blip.tv/file/3169123
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STOP SPENDING TRILLIONS ON THE WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
FOOD NOT GUNS IN HAITI!
U.S. OUT OF IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN!
FREE PALESTINE!
MONEY FOR HEALTHCARE, JOBS AND EDUCATION!
U.S. HANDS OFF LATIN AMERICA!
SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY
SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 11:00 A.M., CIVIC CENTER
GET THE WORD OUT ABOUT MARCH 20!
Call 415-821-6545 for leafleting and posting schedule.
NEXT MARCH 20 COALITION MEETING:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2010, 2:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
Between 16th and 15th Streets, SF)
For more information call: 415-821-6545
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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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Black History Month Forum & Benefit for Haiti Relief
Stand with the people of Haiti!
What the U.S. government isn't telling you
Fri. Feb. 5, 7pm
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia St. at 16th St., SF
near 16th St. BART; Wheelchair accessible
Featured speaker: Pierre Labossiere, Haiti Action Committee
Plus, cultural performance and dinner to help raise funds
The people of the world are responding to help alleviate the terrible suffering of the Haitian people after the massive earthquake which struck Jan. 12. We urge everyone who can, to attend this important benefit for the Haitian people. Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee will give an important update on the ongoing crisis.
Why is Haiti the most impoverished country in the Western hemisphere? The answer lies in the more than two centuries of U.S. exploitation of--and hostility to--the island nation, whose hard-won independence in 1804 from the French was only the beginning of its struggle for liberation.
Natural disasters are inevitable, but resource allocation and planning can play a decisive role in lessening their impact. But Haiti has been drained of vital resources and income for decades, due to extortionate loans by the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These loans enrich the banks while Haitian people die.
Haiti was self-sufficient in rice production until the Clinton administration forced a "free trade" policy on Haiti in the 1990s, and soon U.S. agribusiness began to flood Haiti's markets, displacing thousands of farmers. The chronic malnutrition and poverty is a direct result of U.S. imperialist policy.
President Obama announced that USAID and the Departments of State and Defense will support the rescue and relief efforts in Haiti. Yet, these are the same government bodies responsible for the economic and military policies that reduced Haiti to ruins even before the earthquake hit. We call on the U.S. government to stop deportations of the Haitians from the U.S., and to immediately cancel Haiti's debt, in addition to real assistance for the Haitian people.
$10-20 donation. (no one turned way for lack of funds). All funds collected go to Haiti relief.
Sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition. Co-sponsored by FMLN-N. Calif., Bay Area Latin American Solidarity Coalition, Task Force on the Americas, and others.
Call 415-821-6545 for more info.
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Renters Rights Clinic Opening on 3rd street!
New Weekly Renters Rights Clinic
Grand Opening Party!
Saturday February 6, 2010
11 am - 2 pm
Local Music!
Food!Door Prizes!
Get information about your rights!
Housing counselors will be available on site to schedule appointments.
--with the Housing Rights Committee and Bay Area Legal Aid!
Help with Repairs, Pests, Mold, etc.
Your housing shouldn't make you sick!
Renter's Rights Clinic
4911 3rd Street @ Palou
Walk-In Thursdays 1-4 p.m.
or call 415-354-6353 to set up an appointment
Renters Rights Clinic Sponsored by the San Francisco Asthma Task Force; Breathe California, Golden Gate Public Health Partnership, SFDPH Environmental Health; Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco; Alpha & Omega Asthma Resource Center; and Bay Areal Legal Aid.
For more information, call Camila at Housing Rights Committee at 703-8634.
Sara Shortt
Executive Director
Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco
427 South Van Ness, SF, CA 94103
Phone: 415-703-8634, Ext. 106
Fax: 415-703-8639
www.hrcsf.org
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NEXT MARCH 20 COALITION MEETING:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2010, 2:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
Between 16th and 15th Streets, SF)
For more information call: 415-821-6545
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Commemoration of the Gaza Massacre... and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The young will grow to continue our struggle for liberation.
A night of poetry, reflection and celebration of resistance
Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Professor Haidar Eid
Saturday, February 6th, 2010, 6:30pm
Burlingame Recreation Center
850 Burlingame Avenue
Al-Awda, Arab Cultural and Community Center (ACCC), Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), Palestinian Youth Network (PYN), Students for Justice in Palestine - UCB (SJP), US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), ANSWER Coalition, Al Juthoor Debkah Troupe, Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid (BACEIA), Birthright Unplugged, International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Justice for Palestinians (San Jose, CA), Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!), San Francisco Women in Black, US Organization for Medical and Educational Needs (US-OMEN)
To endorse this event, send an email to: gazacommemoration@ gmail.com
*** please forward to your lists!!!
*** if you can help distribute or post flyers please send an email to: gazacommemoration@ gmail.com
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Educating, Advocating, and Organizing For The Return
Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine @ SDSU, UCSD and USD, and
Al-Awda San Diego, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
One-Day Conference
Saturday February 13, 2010, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Drive, La Mesa, CA 91942
(note change of venue)
Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
LEARN about the Palestinian refugee crisis and what is happening here on the West Coast
The conference will be followed by
Banquet - Celebrating 10 Years of Al-Awda!
When: 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm (doors open 6:00 pm)
SHARE IDEAS
with fellow activists and help empower the right to return movement at large
ACT NOW!
your participation is urgently needed in the months ahead! This is your chance!
One-Day Conference
Saturday February 13, 2010, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Program: Strategy & tactics discussions will include panels on Student Activism, Refugee Support, Media Activism, and preparations for the upcoming Annual International Al-Awda Convention. Speakers will include Dr. Jess Ghannam, Chair of Al-Awda's National Coordinating Committee, Mazen Almoukdad, Al-Awda Refugee Support Activist, Adam Shapiro, activist filmmaker, among others. There will also be a special presentation of personal experience by a Palestinian refugee recently arrived from Al-Waleed camp in Iraq.
For a tentative schedule with more details of the one day conference, visit this page.
Conference is free of charge!!
The conference will be followed by
Banquet - Celebrating 10 Years of Al-Awda!
When: 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm (doors open 6:00 pm)
Banquet Includes: Keynote Address by Dr. Jamal Nassar, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at California State University, San Bernardino; The Second West Coast Regional Dabke Competition; and Delicious Arabic Food (all Halal)
Banquet Dinner Tickets: General $25.00; Student $15.00; Children under 5 free
To get your tickets, please go to http://al-awdacal.org/dinner.html or contact 760-918-9441 Monday to Friday 9 AM to 5 PM
(Please note that attendance at the conference is not required for attendance at the dinner and vice versa)
Sponsorship: We welcome individual and organizational sponsorship of The Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference. All Sponsors will be listed in the printed program of the conference and acknowledged at the Ten Years of Al-Awda Celebration Dinner unless otherwise requested. Underwriters will each also have a table for eight people reserved for them at the Dinner Celebration. For more information, please go to this sponsorship page.
Suggested accommodation for out of town guests see: Hotel circle http://www.hotelcircle.net
Flyer (color): Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Flyer
(b&w): Fifth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Directions to Conference and Banquet: Take the Spring St exit from I-8 E toward El Centro (6.8 miles). Merge onto 13A (85 ft). Slight left to stay on 13A (315 ft). Continue onto Spring Street (0.1 mile). Turn left at University Ave (0.4 miles). Turn left at Memorial Dr.
Parking is free. Plenty available.
For more information, contact:
SJP @ SDSU, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182; Tel: 661-992-3281 email: sjp.sdsu@googlemail.com or Al-Awda San Diego: info@al-awdasandiego.org, Tel: 760-918-9441
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
Email: info@al-awdacal.org
WEB: http://al-awdacal.org
SFLC March 4 Call to Affiliates & Community Partners
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
Please find below the Call for the March 4 Rally for California's Future that was adopted unanimously last night by the Executive Board of the San Francisco Labor Council.
Contact Alan [mailto:alanbenjamin@earthlink.net] for a pdf version of this Call, on Labor Council letterhead, for printing and wide distribution to your members and supporters.
In solidarity,
Alan Benjamin,
Member, SFLC Executive Committee
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RALLY FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE!
All Out For March 4 Rally at Civic Center in Defense
Of Public Education and All Public-Sector Services!
The San Francisco Labor Council calls on all labor affiliates, community organizations, and student groups to mobilize their memberships to attend the 5 p.m. rally and demonstration at the San Francisco Civic Center on March 4.
This rally is being organized and sponsored by United Educators of San Francisco, AFT Local 2121, and the California Faculty Association as part of the statewide March 4 Strike/Day of Action in Defense of Public Education that was called by a statewide conference of students, faculty, and staff unions held in Berkeley on October 24, 2009.
Responding to layoffs, furloughs and widespread cutbacks, the October 24 conference summoned all sectors of education to struggle collectively to save public education in California. The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and California Teachers Association (CTA) have endorsed the Day of Action. Massive demonstrations are being organized across the state on March 4.
The San Francisco Labor Council believes that those who work in the education sector should not be placed in competition with state workers, where each fights against the other for scarce funds.
That is why we are urging that California enact a program of progressive taxation. This could ensure that all our communities can thrive. We could create ample funds so that everyone has the opportunity, through quality, accessible education, to fully develop their potential and become productive members of society. And, at the same time, we could establish fully funded social services and job security for public workers.
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Note: UESF is calling on all teacher unionists and K-12 families to gather at 4 p.m. at the State Building on the corner of Van Ness & McAllister, before joining the mass rally at the Civic Center.
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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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NYT VIDEO:
Security in an Insecure Land
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/30/world/americas/1247466794033/security-in-an-insecure-land.html?hp
What the US/UN police and military are doing in Haiti -- really.
This video takes us to the poorest section of Port-au-Prince, Cité Soleil. It looks like a giant concentration camp in the middle of a desert. The UN Police caravan have nothing with them but cameras and guns! People--men, women, children, are standing alongside the road begging for help. They say they have had no help at all since the earthquake.
The UN police bring NO AID with them. No food, water--nothing! Then the police, guarded by soldiers with automatic weapons, and their camera stop among a large group of people. The UN cop, Alix Sainvil, a Haitian-American United Nations police officer who worked to secure Cité Soleil before the earthquake, is talking to the camera; he explains that since the jail collapsed and prisoners escaped after the earthquake, he worried about how the "gangs" are taking over again.
The camera pans the faces of ALL the men.
One "gang member" (synonym "male") overhears what Soleil is saying to the camera and speaks up and says, "Even if your not a looter, when you walk past a store police will just shoot you for no reason. That's the only thing you do!" That, of course, designates him a "gang member."
The cop, Soleil, says as they are driving away, "that young man is a 'troublemaker.'"
This video illustrates just what the UN has been doing in Haiti. They have been patrolling these slums with automatic weapons and targeting anyone who shows any signs of resistance to the deplorable state of poverty they live in. It is a heinous atrocity orchestrated by the U.S.!
Haiti is US/UN occupied territory now. AND THEY STILL HAVEN'T GIVEN OUT ANY MEANINGFUL AMOUNTS OF AID! They typically pull up with one-tenth of the supplies needed so that most go hungry and get nothing but their fury ignited. And who the hell wouldn't be furious? This is Katrina in powers of ten!
In another article in the Times, "Food Distribution Retooled; Americans Arrested," by DAMIEN CAVE, (number 19, below) "After two weeks of often chaotic food distribution, the United Nations announced plans on Saturday for a coupon-based system that aims to give rice to 10,000 Haitians a day at each of 16 locations around Port-au-Prince." (The article points out that the rice will be given to women only.)
AFTER TWO WEEKS THEY WILL BEGIN THIS WEEK?!?!? I guess they're thinking it'll be cheaper in the long run if more people die first. And that's the bottom line for this government! By the way, the ten Americans were arrested by the Haitian government for trying to take 33 Haitian children across into the Dominican Republic for "adoption." The thing is, they had no proof the children were orphans. I wonder how much they were going to charge for them?
--Bonnie Weinstein
Also see:
Haitian Law Enforcement Returns
The Haitian police are back on patrol in Port-au-Prince.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/world/americas/1194811622209/index.html#1247466794033
Haitians Scramble for Aid
France24 reports on desperate Haitians trying to get some aid food in the Cité Soleil district of Port-au-Prince.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/world/americas/1194811622209/index.html#1247466794033
HOW MANY CRIMES CAN THE U.S. COMMIT IN A CENTURY? EVIDENTLY THEIR PENCHANT FOR MORE AND MORE EGREGIOUS CRIMES ARE LIMITLESS! IT'S UP TO US TO STOP THEM! U.S. OUT OF HAITI NOW! LEAVE THE FOOD AND SUPPLIES AND GET THE HELL OUT! AND TAKE YOUR MARINES, GUNS AND TANKS WITH YOU!
U.S. Marines prevent the distribution of food to starving people due to "lack of security." They bring a truck full of supplies then, because their chain of command says they haven't enough men with guns, they drive away with the truckload of food leaving the starving Haitians running after the truck empty-handed! This is shown in detail in the video in the New York Times titled, "Confusion in Haitian Countryside." The Marines-the strong, the brave--turn tail and run! INCAPABLE, EVEN, OF DISTRIBUTING FOOD TO UNARMED, STARVING, MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN!
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/01/22/world/americas/1247466678828/confusion-in-the-haitian-countryside.html?ref=world
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Lost Generation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
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Sign the petition. Drop the charges against Alexis Hutchinson!
"...four separate court martial charges have been brought against Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single parent with a one-year old son, who missed deployment in early November 2009 when her childcare plan fell through at the last moment, due to circumstances beyond her control."
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/811/1/
Cuba establishes hospital in Port-au-Prince
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/01/17/kastenbaum.haiti.la.paz.hosp.cnn
Disputes emerge over Haiti aid control
[THIS IS A MUST-SEE VIDEO. U.S. AID IS MILITARY OCCUPATION...BW]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F5TwEK24sA&feature=player_embedded
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
To: President Barack Obama
WE THE UNDERSIGNED petition you to speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all the men, women and children facing execution around the world. This ultimate form of punishment is unacceptable in a civilized society and undermines human dignity. (U.N. General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 62/149, Dec. 18, 2007; reaffirmed, Resolution 63/168, Dec. 18, 2008.)
Mr. Abu-Jamal, a renowned black journalist and author, has been on Pennsylvania's death row for nearly three decades. Even though you do not have direct control over his fate as a state death-row inmate, we ask that you as a moral leader on the world stage call for a global moratorium on the death penalty in his and all capital cases. Mr. Abu-Jamal has become a global symbol, the "Voice of the Voiceless", in the struggle against capital punishment and human-rights abuses. There are over 20,000 awaiting execution around the globe, with over 3,000 on death rows in the United States.
The 1982 trial of Mr. Abu-Jamal was tainted by racism, and occurred in Philadelphia which has a history of police corruption and discrimination. Amnesty International, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, "determined that numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings. [T]he interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal. The trial should fully comply with international standards of justice and should not allow for the reimposition of the death penalty." (A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
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Alert! New Threat To Mumia's Life!
Supreme Court Set To Announce A Decision
On the State Appeal To Reinstate Mumia's Death Sentence
17 January 2010
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
Mumia Abu-Jamal, an innocent man on death row and the world's best-known political prisoner, now faces an immediate new threat to his life from the US Supreme Court. The Court ruled last year on Mumia's appeal, by summarily refusing to even consider a reversal of his unjust 1982 murder conviction in a blatantly racist court. And last week, the Supreme Court discussed a cross-appeal by the State of Pennsylvania to reinstate Mumia's death sentence, which had been put on hold by a federal court in 2001. A ruling could be announced as early as Tuesday this week.
It would be an illusion to expect good news. Supporters should stay tuned, and be prepared to participate in actions to free Mumia!
The Vendetta Against Mumia
In making it's flat-out rejection of Mumia's appeal (which it did without making any statement), the Supreme Court had to knowingly violate its own precedent in the 1986 Batson v Kentucky decision. This ruling famously said that purging a jury on the basis of race was unconstitutional. In Mumia's case, at least 10 black jurors were excluded for reasons not applied to their white counterparts. Under Batson, such violations require that the conviction be thrown out!
But this was Mumia Abu-Jamal, the falsely accused "cop killer." And while evidence of his innocence has always been available, along with evidence of the corruption of the cops who framed him, Mumia is the object of a world-wide vendetta led by the Fraternal Order of Police and numerous pundits and politicians. So an exception was made.
The Spisak Case
Meanwhile, the 2001 federal district court decision (besides upholding Mumia's conviction) said that Mumia's death sentence resulted from improper instructions to the jury. The trial judge's instructions to the jury on sentencing had said that a decision had to be unanimous, even on mitigating factors that could result in a sentence of life in prison, instead of death. This violated another Supreme Court precedent, Mills v Maryland, which held that such mitigating factors required only a simple majority.
After tossing out Mumia's appeal in 2009, the Court took it's time on the State's cross-appeal, because another case, Smith v Spisak, dealt with the same issue of jury instructions in sentencing. Frank Spisak is a neo-Nazi who made racist statements in court, wore a Hitler mustache, and confessed to three hate-crime murders in Ohio. The two cases could hardly be more different, yet appeals courts threw out death sentences in both on the basis of the Mills decision. But now, on January 12th, the Supreme Court has reinstated Spisak's death sentence. The decision on Mumia followed shortly thereafter, and the implications are clear. The Spisak decision could open the door to what the cops, courts and ruling class generally want to do most: legally murder Mumia!
The Supreme Court said Mills didn't apply to Spisak for various reasons (that don't seem to apply to Mumia), but the legal ins and outs aren't the point. The point is that the entire legal system is at the service not of the law, but of power in society.
As Mumia Abu-Jamal said in a recent interview, "[Spisak's] case differs from mine substantially, not just in terms of facts, but also in terms of law. But the law is the tool of those in power, so how they use it doesn't depend on the law; it depends on power."
(-Free Speech Radio News, 15 January 2010).
The Question of Innocence!
As an award-winning radical journalist, former Black Panther, and critic of police brutality and malfeasance, Mumia Abu-Jamal is considered an enemy of the state. As such, legal decisions have systematically gone against him, regardless of the law. Batson is only one example of this "Mumia exception."
Manufacturing false confessions, planting evidence, corrupting "witnesses" to say they saw what they didn't see--all of these "illegal" tricks were used against Mumia. The real evidence points to Mumia's innocence, including another man who confessed, witnesses who said Mumia didn't shoot anybody but who were never called to testify, and photos of the crime scene that show that police lied. But very little of this has ever been heard in court.
Rather than follow the "law," the criminal justice system follows a simple rule: "If we want to get you, we will." The US Supreme Court (Herrera v Collins), and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (signed by Bill Clinton in 1996), have effectively said: innocence is no defense!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has never thought that calling for a new trial, or appealing to the US Justice Department to right the wrongs that they helped create, were anything more than distractions, getting in the way of a mass, working-class movement to free Mumia.
Mumia is a class-war prisoner, and it will take a class struggle to free him: that was position of longshore workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) when they shut down all the ports on the West Coast in 1999, and headed the march in San Francisco, to free Mumia. Oakland teachers, and teachers in Rio de Janeiro Brazil also took work actions to support Mumia. Only this kind of working-class action, combined with mass mobilizations, can defeat a determined frame-up by cops, courts and politicians. Mumia Abu-Jamal is now in imminent danger of a new execution order, so the need for action is urgent. For workers action to free Mumia!
Stay in touch for demonstration details this week.
Visit our newly-rebuilt and updated web site for background information on Mumia's innocence. See the "What You Can Do Now" page: www.laboractionmumia.org
- The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610
(510) 763-2347
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Urgent action needed to stop executions in CA
By Stephanie Faucher, Death Penalty Focus
January 8, 2009
stefanie@deathpenalty.org
Dear supporters,
Please take action today to stop executions from resuming in California. This is very urgent, without your help executions could occur in the near future.
Both Californians and non-Californians are encouraged to take action.
Letters must be received by January 20, 2010 at 5pm PDT.
BACKGROUND:
On January 4, 2010, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) proposed minor revisions to its lethal injection procedures in the form of amendments to its previously proposed procedures. CDCR set a fifteen-day comment period ending January 20, 2010 at 5:00 p.m. during which the public can submit written comments on the proposed amendments.
The amended regulations, which are virtually identical to the regulations proposed in May 2009, can be found here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=DsL2ekA4m2nB2qSfspkiCinFkqj%2BKN3u
The above link contains only those regulations that were amended. To see the full text of the proposed regulations proposed in May 2009, go to this link:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NHU2PZL0sQWgLuC6BWt%2BfynFkqj%2BKN3u
TAKE ACTION:
We have created a draft letter which you can personalize and send here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1988
A separate letter will also be sent the Governor of California.
Thank you for taking action!
BAUAW responds:
Here is the letter I wrote as a representative of BAUAW:
I oppose the racist death penalty to its very core. There is no "humanitarian" way to murder someone. It's barbaric.
Already so many who have been on death row for decades have been proven to be innocent victims of gross forensic mistakes or blatant police frame-ups.
The poor are routinely afforded inferior and indifferent legal services that serve mainly as a go-between the prosecution and accused. It can hardly be called legal defense.
Justice is not served equally or fairly in the United States. Most other nations have done away with the death penalty. Here our "great minds of justice" debate the best way to kill.
Under these concrete circumstances, instead of limiting the appeals process for prisoners, the justice system should bend over backwards to hear and re-hear the evidence and set free those who have been convicted unfairly.
Death should never be our conscious choice as a nation.
I am also very concerned about the newly revised lethal injection procedures.
In particular, I have the following concerns:
* The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) added a news article from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat to the rulemaking file. The article mentions that the original creator of the three-drug lethal injection formula has suggested ways to reform the process, including keeping up with changing drugs and science and proper training of lethal injection team members. The recent experience of Romell Broom in Ohio reinforces a point raised in the article, that botched executions are a real possibility, especially in California, due to the limited training of the lethal injection team members and California's repeated failure to meaningfully change its protocol.
* CDCR's amended regulations continue to be wholly inadequate and inapplicable to female condemned inmates. The regulations now specify that a female condemned inmate shall be transported to San Quentin no sooner than 72 hours and no later than six hours prior to the scheduled execution, but contain no provisions to implement the required 45-day chronology of events prior to her arrival at San Quentin. CDCR also fails to address how and if the female condemned inmate will be in contact with her family members and her legal team during her transport, which may take place on the same day as her scheduled execution.
* Contrary to CDCR's claim, the amended regulations continue to treat the condemned prisoner's witnesses differently than the victim's witnesses. The victim's family is allowed an unlimited number of witnesses at the execution, whereas the prisoner scheduled to die is limited to five individuals other than her or his spiritual adviser. In the event of lack of space, the victim's family is provided with the option of remote viewing of the execution, while the same option is not extended to the inmate's family.
*The distinction drawn between Chaplains and "approved" Spiritual Advisors is confusing and it is unclear how and when a person may become a "pre-approved" Spiritual Advisor.
I expect that you will take these concerns very seriously.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War, bauaw.org
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The Pay at the Top
The compensation research firm Equilar compiled data reflecting pay for 200 chief executives at 198 public companies that filed their annual proxies by March 27 and had revenue of at least $6.3 billion. (Two companies, Motorola and Synnex, had co-C.E.O.'s.) | See a detailed description of the methodology.
http://projects.nytimes.com/executive_compensation?ref=business
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AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akm3nYN8aG8
The Unemployment Game Show: Are You *Really* Unemployed? - From Mint.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu3SCAmeBA
Video: Gaza Lives On
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU5Wi2jhnW0
ASSESSMENT - "LEFT IN THE COLD"- CROW CREEK - 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmfue_pjwho&feature=PlayList&p=217F560F18109313&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5
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Tom Zaniello is a living, walking encyclopedia of films about labour.
I heard him speak at a conference once, but it wasn't so much a speech as a high-speed tour through dozens of film clips, lovingly selected, all aiming to make a point.
I don't know anyone who knows more about cinema and the labour movement than he does.
And Working Stiffs, Union Maids, Reds, and Riffraff: An expanded guide to films about labor is his, well, encyclopedia about the subject.
It's a 434 page guide to 350 labour films from around the world, ranging from those you've heard of - Salt of the Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, Roger & Me - to those you've never heard of but will fall in love with once you see them.
Zaniello describes all the films in detail, tells you whether they're available for rental or purchase, and, if so, where.
Fiction and nonfiction, the films are about unions, labour history, working-class life, political movements, and the struggle between labour and capital.
Each entry includes critical commentary, production data, cast list, suggested related films, and annotated references to books and Web sites for further reading.
If you want to know more about labour films, buy this book.
And remember that every copy you purchase helps support LabourStart.
Thanks very much.
Eric Lee
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Letter from Lynne Stewart from behind bars:
Dear Sisters and Brothers, Friends and Supporters:
Well the moment we all hoped would never come is upon us. Good bye to a good cup of coffee in the morning, a soft chair, the hugs of grandchildren and the smaller pleasures in life. I must say I am being treated well and that is due to my lawyer team and your overwhelming support.
While I have received "celebrity" treatment here in MCC - high visibility - conditions for the other women are deplorable. Medical care, food, education, recreation are all at minimal levels. If it weren't for the unqualified bonds of sisterhood and the commissary it would be even more dismal.
My fellow prisoners have supplied me with books and crosswords, a warm it is cold in here most of the time) sweat shirt and pants, treats from the commissary, and of course, jailhouse humor. Most important many of them know of my work and have a deep reservoir of can I say it? Respect.
I continue to both answer the questions put to me by them, I also can't resist commenting on the T.V. news or what is happening on the floor - a little LS politics always! Smile) to open hearts and minds!
Liz Fink, my lawyer leader, believes I will be here at MCC-NY for a while - perhaps a year before being moved to prison. Being is jail is like suddenly inhabiting a parallel universe but at least I have the luxury of time to read! Tomorrow I will get my commissary order which may include an AM/FM Radio and be restored to WBAI and music classical and jazz).
We are campaigning to get the bladder operation scheduled before I came in to MCC) to happen here in New York City. Please be alert to the website I case I need some outside support.
I want to say that the show of support outside the Courthouse on Thursday as I was "transported" is so cherished by me. The broad organizational representation was breathtaking and the love and politics expressed the anger too) will keep me nourished through this.
Organize - Agitate, Agitate, Agitate! And write to me and others locked down by the Evil Empire.
Love Struggle, Lynne Stewart
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 10007
Lynne Stewart speaks in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQ5_VKRf5k&feature=related
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With a New Smile, 'Rage' Fades Away [SINGLE PAYER NOW!!!]
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/08/health/20091208_Clinic/index.html?ref=us
FTA [F**k The Army] Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HlkgPCgU7g
Jon Stewart: Obama Is Channeling Bush VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/jon-stewart-obama-is-chan_n_378283.html
US anti-war activists protest
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/12/200912283650408132.html
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#
Buffy Sainte-Marie - No No Keshagesh lyrics:
http://www.lyricsmode.com/?i=print_lyrics&id=705368
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The Tar Sands Blow
Hi -
I just signed the Tar Sands Blow petition -- and I hope you'll do the same.
The Canadian tar sands produce the dirtiest oil on earth -- including five times the greenhouse gases of conventional oil. World leaders meet next month in Copenhagen to deal with climate change. Sign the petition -- so that we all don't get a raw deal.
http://ien.thetarsandsblow.org/
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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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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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 501c)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) Bankers Put Focus on 'Real Economy'
By ALISON SMALE
February 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/business/global/01iht-davosjobs.html?hp
2) 'New Haiti,' Same Corporate Interests
By Isabel Macdonald
January 29, 2010
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100215/macdonald
3) Text of Bill Moyers Interview with Richard Trumka on the State of Labor
January 29, 2010
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01292010/watch2.html
4) Jim Crow Policing
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02herbert.html
5) As Marines Move In, Taliban Fight a Shadowy War
"...shepherds whistled in the darkness, passing warning of the Americans' approach. Dogs barked themselves hoarse. The din rose in every direction, enveloping the column in noise. And then, as the Marines became visible in the bluish twilight, a minivan rumbled out of one compound. Its driver steered ahead of the company, honking the van's horn, spreading the alarm. Spotters appeared on roofs." [So, if you have a dog that barks when strangers approach, you must be Taliban, of course! What more proof do the Marines need? How shifty the Taliban are to be able to train dogs that way! And, oh!, they use smoke signals too. So if you're cooking on your stove--that means your Taliban too! This is the most insane and revealing article I have read about U.S. battlefield tactics....bw]
By C. J. CHIVERS
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/asia/02taliban.html?ref=world
6) Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power
By DAVID E. SANGER
News Analysis
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/politics/02deficit.html?ref=us
7) Suit Points to Guest Worker Program Flaws
By JULIA PRESTON
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/02immig.html?ref=us
8) Pennsylvania: 3 Officers Suspended
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Mid-Atlantic
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/02brfs-3OFFICERSSUS_BRF.html?ref=us
9) Haiti On Our Minds
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
January 16, 2010
prisonradio.org
10) The Saints Linebacker Who Speaks His Mind
By JOE LAPOINTE
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/sports/football/03fujita.html?hp
11) No Help in Sight, More Homeowners Walk Away
By DAVID STREITFELD
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/business/03walk.html?hp
12) Coupons Ease Chaos in Efforts to Feed Haitians
"Hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting. When the empty trucks left Pétionville, Haitians from the camp walked around looking for another gathering, holding up small strips of paper with their names written in careful script.
Desperate, hungry and still not satisfied, they said they were looking for the white men in control of food distribution. They needed coupons. They needed to eat" [Week three and they still haven't made a dent in food distribution...bw]
By DAMIEN CAVE and GINGER THOMPSON
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/world/americas/03haiti.html?ref=world
13) 5.7 Million Get Weekly Food Assistance
By JASON DePARLE
National Briefing | Washington
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/us/03brfs-57MILLIONGET_BRF.html?ref=us
14) BUSH TO THE HAGUE
International Criminal Court Complaint Filed Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice and Gonzales
INTERNATIONAL ARREST WARRANTS REQUESTED
January 19, 2010
clarity@islandnet.com
15) Rebuilding Effort in Haiti Turns Away From Tents
[They can't give out the food and they can't even give out the tents. This is what they call a "rebuilding effort"...bw]
By DAMIEN CAVE
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/americas/04haiti.html?hp
16) China Shows Little Patience for U.S. Currency Pressure
By EDWARD WONG and MARK LANDLER
February 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/world/asia/05diplo.html?ref=world
17) Soldier Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. in Pakistan
By JANE PERLEZ
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04pstan.html?ref=world
18) Swiss Court Reverses Award of Duvalier Millions
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/americas/04duvalier.html?ref=world
19) U.S. Report Details Money Laundering
By LYNNLEY BROWNING
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/business/04bribe.html?ref=us
20) What's Next for Swiss Bank Secrecy?
Peter J. Henning, a professor at Wayne State Law School, specializes in issues related to white-collar crime and follows them for DealBook's White Collar Watch.
February 3, 2010, 1:27 pm
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/whats-next-for-swiss-bank-secrecy/?ref=business
21) Doctor and Patient
When the Patient Can't Afford the Care
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
February 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/health/04chen.html?ref=health
22) Reports: AIG to pay out $100 million in bonuses
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wed Feb 3, 7:05 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100203/ap_on_bi_ge/us_aig_bonuses
23) Tom Condit Dies - Socialist, frequent Candidate
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 4, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/04/BADR1BQ9MQ.DTL
24) Turkey - Life will stop in Turkey on February 4th to support the resisting TEKEL workers' struggle! 6 Labor Confederations reach agreement to participate in the general strike!
February 3, 2010
http://www.sendika.org/english/yazi.php?yazi_no=29079
25) We Won't Sit By while the Bankers and Militarists Plunder this Country
and Send our Loved Ones to Fight in a War for Empire!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Statement
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
26) Marines brace for new push in southern Afghanistan
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 3, 2010; 11:25 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020300564.html?sub=AR27)
27) Military Officials Say Afghan Fight Is Coming
"There will be a big clearance operation and we will separate the civilian population from the insurgents," General Azimi said. "As I've said many times before, we will have a bloody summer ahead."
By ROD NORDLAND
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04taliban.html?ref=world
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1) Bankers Put Focus on 'Real Economy'
By ALISON SMALE
February 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/business/global/01iht-davosjobs.html?hp
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - Jobs will be hard to find in both the developed and developing world as bankers, corporations and governments work to put the financial system and world economies on a firmer footing, key participants at the World Economic Forum said Sunday.
At a session wrapping up five days of open and closed-door meetings of world business and political leaders, two prominent European bankers - Josef Ackermann of Deutsche Bank and Peter Sands of Standard Chartered - sounded contrite about the role of some banks in helping to bring about the financial meltdown of 2008-9.
Banks that take too much risk should be allowed to fail, Mr. Ackermann said, and all banks should concentrate firmly on working to develop what participants here repeatedly referred to as "the real economy."
Sounding a faint echo of a speech Wednesday by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who argued for restoration of morals to save capitalism, Mr. Ackermann added: "If you have lost the trust of societies, you cannot just respond technically, you have to respond morally."
Mr. Sands, chief economist at Standard Chartered, said there was no "one big idea, one silver bullet" that would guarantee recovery. "If we've learned anything from the crisis, it is that we don't always know what we're doing," he said.
He noted further that job creation "is going to be a huge problem in both the developed and developing world." In the West, he argued, governments are heavily indebted and may find they do not have as much leeway as they would like to spur job creation.
In the developing world, argued Azim H. Premzi, head of the Indian outsourcing company Wipro, there may be too many people pursuing a moderate amount of education, which will leave them overqualified for low-skilled jobs in agriculture or other areas, but not qualified enough to take part in an increasingly high-tech economy.
He urged Indian authorities to insist on two more years of schooling, and to offer more targeted training for specific skills, citing Germany as an example of a country that has done that well.
Mr. Ackermann said there was an urgent need to create jobs for young people in particular. With levels of youth unemployment touching 40 percent in some European countries and 50 percent in parts of the Middle East, he said, money alone will not solve the problem.
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2) 'New Haiti,' Same Corporate Interests
By Isabel Macdonald
January 29, 2010
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100215/macdonald
In the wake of the earthquake that has killed more than 100,000 people in Haiti, the foreign ministers of several countries calling themselves the "Friends of Haiti" met on Monday in Montreal to discuss plans for "building a new Haiti." Participants in the Ministerial Preparatory Conference on Haiti, who included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; representatives of international financial institutions including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive came to what Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, the conference chair, referred to as a "road map towards Haiti's reconstruction and development."
However, the Latin American countries of ALBA--the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas--who held a counter-conference, and several grassroots Haiti solidarity organizations, who organized protests outside the conference, expressed skepticism that the "Friends of Haiti" and the international financial institutions would work to further the interests of ordinary Haitians.
One of the groups protesting the conference, Haiti Action Montreal, issued a statement warning that "There is a danger that these major powers will try to exploit the earthquake to further narrow pro-corporate ends, if reconstruction of New Orleans after Katrina and in Asia following the tsunami are any indication."
As Naomi Klein has observed, this process is already underway. The Heritage Foundation think tank's initial response to the earthquake clearly followed the pattern she documented in her book The Shock Doctrine, by which neoliberal reformers seek to impose an agenda of privatization in times of crisis. It was less than twenty-four hours after Haiti was hit by an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude that the Heritage Foundation issued a release recommending that "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."
That sentiment was echoed by James Dobbins, former special envoy to Haiti under President Bill Clinton and director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, who stated in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, "This disaster is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms," including "breaking up or at least reorganizing the government-controlled telephone monopoly" and restructuring the ports, which also represent two of Haiti's few remaining state enterprises.
The World Bank also observed an upside to the catastrophe in Haiti; in a January 18 blog post titled "Haiti earthquake: Out of great disasters comes great opportunity," a World Bank disaster management analyst recently stated that "there is a silver lining to this great tragedy. Looking back in history, great natural disasters are often a catalyst for huge, positive change." Even calls for the expansion of Haiti's sweatshop industry are being made in the media.
The possibility of a repeat of the kinds of corrupt corporate profiteering that Klein documented in Iraq in the initial months of the 2003 US occupation have not been lost on Dan Senor, an adviser to the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and 2004. In a January 17 op-ed in the New York Times, Senor recommended the adoption in Haiti of the same fund used under the Coalition Provisional Authority--"a discretionary fund that American officers can dip into for development projects and crisis response without constantly looking over their shoulders at monitors in Washington."
As one financial analyst observed in a particularly frank article titled "An Opportunity to Heal Haiti," published a day after the earthquake in The Street, "Here are some companies that could potentially benefit: General Electric (GE), Caterpillar (CAT), Deere (DE), Fluor (FLR), Jacobs Engineering (JEC)." And that's not to mention the mercenary companies that, as The Nation's Jeremy Scahill has observed, are now setting their sights on Haiti.
The chair's opening remarks at the conference Monday suggest that corporate interests are being well represented in the planning stages for the "new Haiti." In his introductory speech at the ministerial conference on Haiti, Cannon stated, "We also have with us today some members from the private sector who have given generously to the humanitarian appeal but will also play an important role in Haiti's future." Singling out several sectors of the Haitian economy (including the ports, electricity and telecommunications) that have historically been state-owned, he added that "They [members from the private sector] will be accompanying and supporting us in rebuilding the national infrastructure of ports, roads and power generation and in re-establishing essential services from electricity, to banking and communications."
When I asked the World Bank's vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, Pamela Cox, to elaborate on what kind of private-sector role was being envisioned for Haiti's future, she said, "You'd have to talk to the private sector...in the sense that they're the ones who would be putting their money in so they'd have the decision. What we want to hear from them is what kinds of things they need, so that they can come back." Cox cited "one proposal" that she'd heard vis-&gravea;-vis investment in the "garment manufacturing industry"--a sector that has long been associated with sweatshop labor practices in Haiti.
For anyone familiar with Haiti's experience of this sweatshop-based, pro-corporate development model over the years, it is clear that the road map the banks and "Friends" are charting for the "new Haiti" is not in the least bit new. And, for the Haitian people, who have always paid the price for these failed policies, it is nothing less than disastrous.
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3) Text of Bill Moyers Interview with Richard Trumka on the State of Labor
January 29, 2010
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01292010/watch2.html
BARACK OBAMA: With all due deference to separations of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the flood gates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.
BILL MOYERS: You no doubt noticed that president Obama had something on his mind in that state of the union speech Wednesday night.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: And we're on track to add another one and a half million jobs...Jobs...Jobs...Jobs...Job creation...New jobs...Job market...New jobs...Create jobs right here in the United States of America.
BILL MOYERS:That's right, jobs. Twenty-nine times he mentioned jobs. And well he might. In 43 states last month the number of people out of work was higher than a month earlier. This month, one million people will run out of unemployment compensation. Voters in Massachusetts had jobs on their mind, too - and sent Washington a message saying, "Pay attention!"
My next guest has been saying the same thing for months now and often directly to the president. He thinks the message finally broke through.
Richard Trumka is the head of the AF of L-CIO, representing eleven million members and 57 national and international unions. He became its president less than six months ago, after serving 15 years as the AF of L's secretary-treasurer.
The son and grandson of coal miners, he made his way through college and law school working as they did -- blasting, drilling and hauling coal from the dangerous depths of the Pennsylvania coal fields.
He climbed his way up the ranks of the United Mine Workers of America at a time when that union was still rocked by violence and corruption. Leading a reform ticket, at age 33, he became the Mine Workers' youngest president. The AF of L-CIO leadership marked him as a comer.
He's still out there with the workers, even getting himself arrested with more than a hundred union members just a couple of weeks ago, demanding a fair contract for San Francisco hotel workers.
As we saw in Obama's election, the political clout of labor remains potent. While their numbers have dwindled, unions are still a source of money and people power. But are they getting what they had hoped for from the Obama presidency? That's just one of the reasons I wanted to talk with Rich Trumka. Welcome to the JOURNAL.
RICHARD TRUMKA: Bill, thanks for having me on.
BILL MOYERS: Did the President's speech this last Wednesday night convince you that he gets it?
RICHARD TRUMKA: Well, I think he does get it. I think the speech was interesting in a lot of ways. He knows that there's a lot of anger and frustration out there. And he was willing to look at people and say, "You're an obstructionist." He looked right at the Republicans and said, "You can't say no to everything and call that leadership." He looked at the Supreme Court and said, "You made a bad decision that's going to hurt this country. Corporations already have too much power. You just handed them more."
So, I think he's starting to understand and feel the anger. And I think he's willing to work his way through. Now, the question becomes, will he do it on a scale that's necessary or essential to solve the problem.
BILL MOYERS: What kind of scale?
RICHARD TRUMKA: That's the issue. It has to be a large scale. We lost eight million jobs, plus we have two million that we needed for growth. So, we're 10 million jobs in the hole. In order to do that, it's going to take more than a little stimulus package or a little job bill. Because if all we do is the same thing that Japan did in the early '90s. They would spend a little, look like they're coming out of recession. And then stop and it would drop back down.
They did that for a whole decade. They lost a decade. And our country just can't stand that. So, our job is to make sure that his understanding of the anger, translates out into a jobs program of sufficient size to solve the problem.
BILL MOYERS:So, what are your economists, your experts, your scholars, your academicians telling you we should be spending for the jobs program that you'd like to see, that you think will really make a big contribution to closing the gap.
RICHARD TRUMKA: First of all, we have to extend unemployment benefits. You got almost six million people who have been unemployed for longer than six months. If they lose those benefits, they stop consuming. If they stop consuming, the economy contracts pretty significantly.
So, we have to extend benefits. And we suggested a year's extension, so that everybody knows where they're going to be. Second of all, we needed money for the state and local governments. They are going to have about $178 billion deficit. And if they stop spending, anything we spend on the federal side just negates one another. So, we have to make sure that we don't lose education, like teachers, firemen, police officers, and all those jobs that are necessary. So, we think there should be aid to state and local governments.
We think there ought to be a major investment in infrastructure. We have a $2.2 trillion deficit in this country when it comes to our infrastructure. Bridges are crumbling. Schools are crumbling. Other places, roads are done. So, we need to make a major investment in that. And quite frankly, we think that the government ought to signal or say that they're going to do that over a number of years.
Because if they do that, and say, "We're going to make a ten-year commitment to rebuilding our infrastructure," then they can bring in private funds. We can leverage that money and private funds will come in as well. The fourth thing we think we need in the short term is direct funding of jobs. I'll give you a couple of examples. You go into an area where schools are, where the students are hurting, because of a low tax base. And you say, "I'm going to provide tutors." Now, that creates a job and it helps a student with better schooling, better education, and being able to do better. And then the last thing the President announced he was going to do was that we think that we ought to use the TARP money to give to regional and community banks so that they can lend to small and mid-sized businesses that create that. And we think this year, we need to be on the range of at least $400 billion. That will get us about 4 million jobs back.
BILL MOYERS: Where does this money come from? I mean, we have increased our deficits to record highs. People are really concerned. The President indicated Wednesday night that he's concerned. Where is this money coming from? We don't want to be taxed anymore.
RICHARD TRUMKA: It's a real simple thing. You know, let's look at who created the mess. The banks created this mess. Wall Street created this mess. And the super rich have had a tax break from Bush of $1.2 trillion. We can take a little bit back from the rich that have really enjoyed the last ten years in an unprecedented way, and pay for the creation of jobs that they actually destroyed.
BILL MOYERS: But realistically, Rich, less than five percent of American households make more than $250,000 a year. Do you think you can tax them to fund the kind of jobs program you really want to see?
RICHARD TRUMKA:Well, I'll give you an example. Nancy Pelosi in the House said, "We will put a 5.6 percent tax surcharge on any income over $1 million. Just money over $1 million." And that would have produced $400 billion. Enough to pay for four million jobs.
BILL MOYERS: Your message is very clear. Tax the rich.
RICHARD TRUMKA: Of course. They've had a ten year free ride.
BILL MOYERS: WALL STREET JOURNAL is going to come out next week and say Trumka says that class war is on again. And I'm serious about that.
RICHARD TRUMKA: Well, the class war's been on, except my class has been losing.
BILL MOYERS: You spoke at the National Press Club with this tough warning to the President, the Democrats on the 11th of January.
RICHARD TRUMKA: We worked to preserve a Democratic majority in 1994 because we knew what the alternative was. But there was no way to persuade enough working Americans to go to the polls when they couldn't tell the difference between the policies of the two parties. So politicians who think that working people have it too good, too much health care, too much Social Security, too much Medicare, too much power on the job - are actually inviting a repeat of 1994.
BILL MOYERS: Is that exactly what happened when the Republican Scott Brown defeated the Democrat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race.
RICHARD TRUMKA:It was a wakeup call. And we were predicting that. We said, "Look, they're angry. They're frustrated. And if you're not on the side of creating jobs, jobs, jobs. If they don't believe that, and you're not acting that on the scale that they think is necessary, you're going to face a bad time." And that's exactly what happened.
BILL MOYERS: The Senate vote showed that 49 percent of union households in Massachusetts voted for the Republican.
RICHARD TRUMKA:Here's what they were saying. Here's what our members were saying. Here's what the general public said. Here's what working America's saying. That wasn't about Obama's agenda. They were saying, "You haven't overreached. You've under-reached. You haven't produced enough change. So, we're going to help you. You think the status quo's great. We'll show you." They want change. They want their problems solved.
BILL MOYERS: They voted for the Republican.
RICHARD TRUMKA:They did. But they did it because they were angry and they were frustrated and they wanted to demonstrate that change wasn't happening fast enough. And they were going to help it along.
BILL MOYERS: What do you think they want?
RICHARD TRUMKA: They want jobs. That's one thing they want. They do want health care reform. They still want it. But they don't want their benefits taxed in the process. And remember, Massachusetts has universal health care in the state. They were worried about losing what they did have. So, that played into it. Here's a startling figure. For people who thought that their benefits were going to be taxed in Massachusetts, they voted 64 to 32 for Brown.
BILL MOYERS: So, what happens now to health care?
RICHARD TRUMKA: Well, we still have a chance to get it done. I think the ball is in the Senate's court. We said to them, there aren't the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill. So, what they'll do, what we should do is, the Senate has to demonstrate that they have 51 votes for a plan that America will accept and the House can pass. And when they do that, the House can do it quickly.
BILL MOYERS: You've been negotiating with Obama on all this. Is your message getting through? Does he hear you?
RICHARD TRUMKA:He listens to us all the time. We'll see what the results are. And some of it, you know, it may not be what he wants to do, but what he thinks he can do. Or what he can't do. So, it's not, I mean, it's not, I don't think it's fair to just say he could do this if he wanted to. Because there's the Senate, which has been timid about everything. They've been willing to coddle millionaires. You know? It's going to cost them in the long run, I think.
BILL MOYERS:I'm curious, Rich, about why we haven't been seeing more public demonstrations from people who have lost their job? I mean, we covered a story early last year in Chicago of workers who sat in, when it looked as if their factory was going to be closed down. Why has there been so little of that?
RICHARD TRUMKA:Well, you know what? I think some of it is people have been so beat down, that they -- we sort of plucked the hope out of them. And what we have to do is restore that hope. They don't think that there's anything that they can do. They feel hopeless. Corporations are so powerful, and they control the political process so much that there's nothing we can do. They're wrong, of course. And we're getting more and more people that are willing to start coming out now.
BILL MOYERS: So, what's happened that unions don't seem to be fighting back the way they did in the 1930s?
RICHARD TRUMKA: Well, I don't think that's so. I think we are fighting back. You know, first of all, you have a larger array of forces against us. You have a recession right now that's caused a lot of our members to get laid off, just like other Americans out there. You have a set of labor laws that are totally inadequate, and they're not even enforced. Now, President Obama's trying to. But he can't even get people from the N.L.R.B. confirmed.
BILL MOYERS: The National Labors Relations Board.
RICHARD TRUMKA: Yeah, the National Labor Relations Board.
BILL MOYERS: There are several vacancies on there, that you want to see filled.
RICHARD TRUMKA:Of course. And the Republicans, all they do is filibuster. They don't want him to succeed. And so they keep people, quality people that are needed to make government effectively. They keep them out of the spotlight and off the job.
BILL MOYERS:But the Democrats have 59 Members of the Senate. They have a 78 vote majority in the House. They got the President of the United States. And they can't deliver anything labor wants from them?
RICHARD TRUMKA: No, I want to say it a different way. I want to say they haven't delivered anything. They can. And it's up to us, and we're getting there.
BILL MOYERS: But how do you explain that?
RICHARD TRUMKA: Slowly but surely.
BILL MOYERS: Because you really worked for Obama in '08.
RICHARD TRUMKA: Yes, I did.
BILL MOYERS: And yet, so far, one year into his administration, you haven't gotten anything that I can see that you wanted in '08.
RICHARD TRUMKA: That's not so. There have been a number of executive orders that have provided collective bargaining people. I mean, the people he's appointed, Hilda Solis is terrific. Even the people in the Commerce and Treasury are far more cognizant of our position. So, he hasn't been able to pass the big bills yet, but we're getting there. And we'll get them done.
BILL MOYERS:What's happened to the one thing that was most important to labor back in '08? Obama seemed to promise the Employee Free Choice Act, EFCA as - it's come to be known, very important to labor. What happened to it?
RICHARD TRUMKA: Well, it's still there. We're still pushing it forward. He still supports it. The Vice President still supports it. A vast majority- at least 59 Senators in the Senate support it. And over a vast majority in the House support it.
BILL MOYERS: So, will you get it?
RICHARD TRUMKA: I think we will.
BILL MOYERS: You will- you still think you'll get it.
RICHARD TRUMKA: Yeah, I do. I still think we will. It'll take some creative doing. But we'll do it.
BILL MOYERS: And why is it so important to you?
RICHARD TRUMKA:What an Employee Free Choice Act does is the following: It takes the choice of having a union away from the employer, which is where it is right now, and gives it to the employee. Under today's circumstances, let's say you have a unit of 100 people. And all 100 people say, "I want a union and I want it right now. I want it. I deserve it. I need it." It's the employer who says, "No, I'm not giving it to you. I demand a secret ballot." What this does, it takes the choice out of the employer's hand and puts it into the worker's hands, who have the right. If they want a secret ballot, they get it. If they say, "I want a union without a secret a ballot, then they wouldn't get it." And let me just go back and frame this for one second. From 1946 to 1973 in this country, productivity doubled. And so did wages. It was the greatest expansion of wealth and distribution of wealth in any country, anywhere in the world.
BILL MOYERS: Some people say it created our strong middle class.
RICHARD TRUMKA:It did. And the interesting thing, Bill, is the bottom two quartiles back then, their income was increasing faster than the people at the top. And so, the wage gap was collapsing. Back during that time, workers had collective bargaining in 35 to 40 percent of the shops out there. So, we were making sure that profits got spread evenly. From '73, wages stayed flat. Productivity continued to go up, but wages stayed flat. And the amount of money between wages and productivity going up, went to the top one percent. And that's why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important. It's important as part of the economic recovery program so that workers can get a fair share of what they produce. Their productivity gains ought to be split in some manner with their employer. And the only way that that happens is through collective bargaining. So, you get collective bargaining. Wages start to rise again. The consumers start to spend again. The economy's rebuilt again.
BILL MOYERS:In your recount of the past, there seems to be one very important thing that you don't include. And it makes me sometimes wonder why you hang around with Democrats so much, because it was a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, and a Democratic Vice President, Al Gore, who fought hard for NAFTA. And at the time, I-- it seemed to me that the Democrats were destroying their working class base by agreeing to ship industrial and manufacturing jobs abroad.
RICHARD TRUMKA:You know, really, I agree with everything you just said. We opposed NAFTA. We said it was going to be bad. Everything we predicted has come true. And even Bill Clinton understands now that it was a bad thing. We have to change the way we do it. He won't say that trade is bad, and neither will we. 'Cause we think trade is a good thing. Exporting our products is a good thing. Not exporting our jobs. I wish, though-- I wish there were Republicans that I could support. But they're so rabidly anti-worker. They're so rabidly anti-union. I wish that there were dozens of them out there that we could run out and embrace and say, "This is our person." Now, there are a few. But the number is less and less and less each year.
BILL MOYERS:Why did the A.F. of L.C.I.O. then file a friend of the court brief to support the conservative effort recently that, led to the Supreme Court deciding that they would take the limits off of what corporations and--
RICHARD TRUMKA:We didn't. Our amicus brief didn't say that. There was a provision in the law that said you couldn't do ads 30 days before primaries and 60 days before elections. It was very, very loosely written. And it was a criminal prosecution. So, if we tried to communicate with our members. And we were wrong. Because the word that was in the statute was, if it refers to a candidate or refers to the election in the wrong way, it was a criminal statue. We thought that was absolutely wrong for anybody. And we tried to defend the union's point of view and say, "We ought to have a chance to get rid of this." And they could- this Supreme Court could have ended the case by saying, "That's right." It's constitutionally vague. They win." But they didn't do that. They went far beyond that. They become the most activist judges the country's ever seen. And took away the last limit on corporate spending.
BILL MOYERS: But they made you equal with corporations.
RICHARD TRUMKA: No.
BILL MOYERS:They said, in effect, that corporations are persons for the purpose of political advertising. And that money is speech. They also said unions can do exactly what corporations are going to do.
RICHARD TRUMKA:We're willing to forego that because we think it's wrong. First of all, I don't think the framing fathers ever agreed or imagined that corporations ought to have more rights than we the people. And this court has given corporations more rights than we the people. And gave corporations that are already too powerful. And already control the political process too much. They gave them more power on that day.
BILL MOYERS: But the Supreme Court gave corporations and unions the right to spend as much money as they want to leading up to an election.
RICHARD TRUMKA: Well, anybody, quite frankly, not just--
BILL MOYERS: Private groups, associations--
RICHARD TRUMKA: And it's- yeah, anybody. So, I mean, I don't know your point other than to say--
BILL MOYERS:Well, the point-- John Nichols, a progressive writer, whom I think you know, said: "What are the leaders of the Labor Federation thinking? They imagine that with spending limits removed, organized labor will be able to buy enough--
RICHARD TRUMKA: We never argued--
BILL MOYERS: "--television time to reward their political friends and punish their political enemies."
RICHARD TRUMKA:Look, we've never been able to compete with them money wise. They outspend us ten, 12, 15 to one, all the time. But we never argued that. We never said take away the limits. We said completely the opposite. We said there ought to be limits on them. What we said was this language is constitutionally vague.
BILL MOYERS: So, would you support a constitutional amendment to reverse that decision and at least to take away the identity of corporations as persons?
RICHARD TRUMKA:Oh, short answer is yes. I want to be a little cautious about tinkering with the First Amendment. Because the First Amendment is really what makes us separate from much of the rest of the world. It's a wonderful right. And we have to protect it. So, I would want to be careful that we didn't have some unintended consequences with it. But, yeah, I would.
BILL MOYERS: So, how do you make unions relevant in a world where capital is mobile. Moving around. And the gap between capital and working people continues to increase no matter what happens.
RICHARD TRUMKA:Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to just touch on the relevancy thing. In the last election, we were about 25 to 26 percent of the vote. That's pretty relevant to anybody-- according to anybody's scale. But one of the things that we have to do, and I think in the past we haven't done a good enough job at this. We've expected young workers who are working in a different type of economy to change the way that they make a living to fit our model. Right now, we're in the process of changing our model so that we fit the way they make a living.
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?
RICHARD TRUMKA:Well, workers used to get one job-- take my dad. My dad went to work in-- well, my grandfathers went to work in a coal mine. My dad and his two brothers went to work in the same coal mine. I went to work in the same coal mine. My dad was there 44 years in the same coal mine. People don't do that now. They're going to be in two, three, four, five, six, seven places. So, we have to be able to accommodate them. Our model has to say, "We can help you. And- in the way you're making a living." Not say to them, "Well, figure out a way to stay 44 years at one place and we'll help you." So, it's up to us, and we're changing. And we're working real hard at it. And we're reaching out to young people. And we're reaching out into the community. And we're building allies and it's starting to have some effect, real fast.
BILL MOYERS:You are taking to the streets. I mean, you were arrested a few weeks ago in that demonstration for hotel workers out in San Francisco. Are you calling for more militancy? For more mobilization? More action in the street?
RICHARD TRUMKA:Absolutely. More mobilization. More education. I don't know whether you call it militancy or not. But it is more education, so our members know who is really doing it to them. Here's the model that we see. Instead of going after a politician and elected 60 people to the Senate, we create a groundswell of support for an issue that will get more than 60 votes. And those that don't vote for it do so at their own peril.
BILL MOYERS: So California Nurses, S.E.I.U., A.F. of L.C.I.O., all of you were out there mobilizing this last year, but we still didn't get a health care bill that you like.
RICHARD TRUMKA:Yeah, I think we mobilized around politicians rather than around the issue of health care. Now, that's a subtle difference, but a major one. Because if we continue to educate and mobilize around issues, then 60 votes doesn't matter anymore. It matters that people support that, and they'll lose just like they did in Massachusetts, if you don't grab onto that-- to the thing that they're supporting.
BILL MOYERS: From what interests you, from what you want from this Administration, what grade would you give the President, not just on his speech, but on what he's actually calling for and says he will do about the fix we're in?
RICHARD TRUMKA:Well, let's tick down the items. One, we're about jobs, jobs, jobs, and creating jobs. And I think he said and advocated that a number of times in the speech. And he convinced me that he understands and he's serious about that. He also understands that look, we can't just replicate the old economy. Because if we do, the same thing will happen. So, what we do-- we have to re-regulate Wall Street. And let me say this to you, Bill. 'Cause I think this is an extremely important point. There are two economies in this country. There's the real economy that makes things. And there's the financial economy that was supposed to provide them with the capital to make things. And they-- this was subservient, and the real economy was supposed to be the master. Somewhere along the line, that got turned on its head. And the financial community became the master. And they actually started sucking money out of the real economy, 'cause you could get a better return passing complex instruments around, rather than making steel or autos or anything else. So, it's up to us to correct that imbalance. To make it so that the real economy is actually the dominant economy. And the financial economy is a servant to make them- enable them to do their job. And that's going to take re-regulation so if we enacted everything he said with the jobs bill, that's an A minus. He's trying to fight for jobs. We're going to fight with him. Our job, all of us, as Americans, is to make sure that we push the Congress and the White House to do a jobs program that's of sufficient size to fix the problem. Not just dribble at it. But to fix the problem. And that's what we're hoping to do
BILL MOYERS: Richard Trumka, thank you very much for being with me on the Journal. I've enjoyed the conversation.
RICHARD TRUMKA: My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
RICHARD TRUMKA: The economy's been all but destroyed, and we have to build a new one. A whole new one, based on good jobs not bad debt with America investing in an exporting technology and world class products, not financial crisis....
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4) Jim Crow Policing
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02herbert.html
The New York City Police Department needs to be restrained. The nonstop humiliation of young black and Hispanic New Yorkers, including children, by police officers who feel no obligation to treat them fairly or with any respect at all is an abomination. That many of the officers engaged in the mistreatment are black or Latino themselves is shameful.
Statistics will be out shortly about the total number of people who were stopped and frisked by the police in 2009. We already have the data for the first three-quarters of the year, and they are staggering. During that period, more than 450,000 people were stopped by the cops, an increase of 13 percent over the same period in 2008.
An overwhelming 84 percent of the stops in the first three-quarters of 2009 were of black or Hispanic New Yorkers. It is incredible how few of the stops yielded any law enforcement benefit. Contraband, which usually means drugs, was found in only 1.6 percent of the stops of black New Yorkers. For Hispanics, it was just 1.5 percent. For whites, who are stopped far less frequently, contraband was found 2.2 percent of the time.
The percentages of stops that yielded weapons were even smaller. Weapons were found on just 1.1 percent of the blacks stopped, 1.4 percent of the Hispanics, and 1.7 percent of the whites. Only about 6 percent of stops result in an arrest for any reason.
Rather than a legitimate crime-fighting tool, these stops are a despicable, racially oriented tool of harassment. And the police are using it at the increasingly enthusiastic direction of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
There were more than a half-million stops in New York City in 2008, and when the final tally is in, we'll find that the number only increased in 2009.
Not everyone who is stopped is frisked. When broken down by ethnic group, the percentages do not at first seem so wildly disproportionate. Some 59.4 percent of all Hispanics who were stopped were also frisked, as were 56.6 percent of blacks, and 46 percent of whites. But keep in mind, whites composed fewer than 16 percent of the people stopped in the first place.
These encounters with the police are degrading and often frightening, and the real number of people harassed is undoubtedly higher than the numbers reported by the police. Often the cops will stop, frisk and sometimes taunt people who are at their mercy, and then move on - without finding anything, making an arrest, or recording the encounter as they are supposed to.
Even the official reasons given by the police for the stops are laughably bogus. People are stopped for allegedly making "furtive movements," for wearing clothes "commonly used in a crime," and, of course, for the "suspicious bulge." My wallet, my notebook and my cellphone would all apply.
The police say they also stop people for wearing "inappropriate attire for the season." I saw a guy on the Upper West Side wearing shorts and sandals a couple weeks ago. That was certainly unusual attire for the middle of January, but it didn't cross my mind that he should be accosted by the police.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a class-action lawsuit against the city and the Police Department over the stops. Several plaintiffs detailed how their ordinary daily lives were interrupted by cops bent on harassment for no good reason. Lalit Carson was stopped while on a lunch break from his job as a teaching assistant at a charter school in the Bronx. Deon Dennis was stopped and searched while standing outside the apartment building in which he lives in Harlem. The police arrested him, allegedly because of an outstanding warrant. He was held for several hours then released. There was no outstanding warrant.
There are endless instances of this kind of madness. People going about their daily business, bothering no one, are menaced out of the blue by the police, forced to spread themselves face down in the street, or plaster themselves against a wall, or bend over the hood of a car, to be searched. People who object to the harassment are often threatened with arrest for disorderly conduct.
The Police Department insists that these stops of innocent people - which are unconstitutional, by the way - help fight crime. And they insist that the policy is not racist.
Paul Browne, the chief spokesman for Commissioner Kelly, described the stops as "life-saving." And he has said repeatedly that the racial makeup of the people stopped and frisked is proportionally similar to the racial makeup of people committing crimes.
That is an amazingly specious argument. The fact that a certain percentage of criminals may be black or Hispanic is no reason for the police to harass individuals from those groups when there is no indication whatsoever that they have done anything wrong.
It's time to put an end to Jim Crow policing in New York City.
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5) As Marines Move In, Taliban Fight a Shadowy War
"...shepherds whistled in the darkness, passing warning of the Americans' approach. Dogs barked themselves hoarse. The din rose in every direction, enveloping the column in noise. And then, as the Marines became visible in the bluish twilight, a minivan rumbled out of one compound. Its driver steered ahead of the company, honking the van's horn, spreading the alarm. Spotters appeared on roofs." [So, if you have a dog that barks when strangers approach, you must be Taliban, of course! What more proof do the Marines need? How shifty the Taliban are to be able to train dogs that way! And, oh!, they use smoke signals too. So if you're cooking on your stove--that means your Taliban too! This is the most insane article I have read about U.S. battlefield tactics....bw]
By C. J. CHIVERS
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/asia/02taliban.html?ref=world
KARARDAR, Afghanistan - The Marine infantry company, accompanied by a squad of Afghan soldiers, set out long before dawn. It walked silently through the dark fields with plans of arriving at a group of mud-walled compounds in Helmand Province at sunrise.
The company had received intelligence reports that 40 to 50 Taliban fighters had moved into this village a few days before, and the battalion had set a cordon around it. The Marines hoped to surprise any insurgents within.
But as the company moved, shepherds whistled in the darkness, passing warning of the Americans' approach. Dogs barked themselves hoarse. The din rose in every direction, enveloping the column in noise. And then, as the Marines became visible in the bluish twilight, a minivan rumbled out of one compound. Its driver steered ahead of the company, honking the van's horn, spreading the alarm. Spotters appeared on roofs.
Marine operations like this one in mid-January, along with interviews with dozens of Marines, reveal the insurgents' evolving means of waging an Afghan brand of war, even as more American troops arrive.
Mixing modern weapons with ancient signaling techniques, the Taliban have developed the habits and tactics to evade capture and to disrupt American and Afghan operations, all while containing risks to their ranks.
Seven months after the Marines began flowing forces into Helmand Province, clearing territory and trying to establish local Afghan government, such tactics have helped the Taliban transform themselves from the primary provincial power to a canny but mostly unseen force.
Until last year Helmand Province had been a zone outside of government influence, where beyond the presence of a few Western outposts the Taliban enjoyed free movement and supremacy. The province served as both a fighters' haven and the center of Afghanistan's poppy production, providing rich revenue streams for the war against the central government and the Western forces that protect it.
In areas where they have built bases, the Marines have undermined the Taliban's position. But the insurgents have consolidated and adapted, and remain a persistent and cunning presence.
On the morning of the sweep, made by Weapons Company, Third Battalion, First Marines, a large communications antenna that rose from one compound vanished before the Marines could reach it. The man inside insisted that he had seen nothing. And when the Marines moved within the compounds' walls, people in nearby houses released white pigeons, revealing the Americans' locations to anyone watching from afar.
The Taliban and their supporters use other signals besides car horns and pigeons, including kites flown near American movements and dense puffs of smoke released from chimneys near where a unit patrols.
"You'll go to one place, and for some reason there will be a big plume of smoke ahead of you," said Capt. Paul D. Stubbs, the Weapons Company commander. "As you go to the next place, there will be another."
"Our impression," he added, "is the people are doing it because they are getting paid to do it."
Late in the morning during the company's sweep, the insurgents fired a few bursts of automatic rifle fire from outside the cordon. Later still, they lobbed a single mortar round toward the company. It exploded in a field without causing any harm.
No one could tell exactly where the fire came from. This showed another side of the Taliban's local activities. Wary of engaging the Marines while they were ready and massed, fighters risked nothing more than this harassing fire.
The sweep was not entirely fruitless. In several houses, Afghan soldiers found sacks of poppy seeds, which they carried outside, slashed open with knives and set on fire. In a few houses, they found processed opium and heroin. But the Taliban's fighters had proved elusive again.
Another example of the insurgents' patience has been their selection of locations for hiding bombs, which the military calls I.E.D.'s, for improvised explosive devices. Many of these bombs are detonated by the weight of a person or vehicle that depresses a pressure plate.
The steppe is vast. The pressure plates are small - often covering not much more surface area than a man's boot. To emplace the bombs where they are most likely to kill, the Taliban watch the Marines' habits carefully, including how small units react in the first instants of a firefight.
While the Marines scatter, take cover and maneuver, using walls and small rises as firing positions to bound from, the insurgents take note. "This is what they do: Shoot, and observe where the Marines go," said Lt. Col. Matthew Baker, the battalion's commander. "And where the Marines go, that is where they will put an I.E.D."
On two patrols the battalion made last month, the Taliban's sense of their enemy's previous movements seemed well developed.
On one, a Marine stepped on a pressure plate rigged to a bomb that did not explode. The pressure plate was located against a wall on a knoll with a commanding view of surrounding ground. The Marines said units had used the knoll as a firing position many times.
On another, an antitank land mine had been placed in the dirt on a turnaround loop beside one of the province's main roads - exactly where an Afghan police unit often parks its cars.
Part of the Taliban's enduring tactical position, the Marines say, is related to their control of Marja, a well-defended de facto capital just outside the Marines' current area of operations. At least hundreds of Taliban fighters have taken refuge. The town is protected by elaborate defenses and by a network of irrigation canals built by a United States development program a half-century ago.
From within Marja, the Marines also say, the Taliban manufacture improvised explosives and send fighters and suicide bombers on attacks throughout the province, including the suicide raid last week into Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
When Marine units approach Marja, the dangers rise. The insurgents run an active picket network, some of the workings of which were visible late last week on a Bravo Company security patrol that left Observation Post ManBearPig at Treekha Nawa.
After picking their way westward, searching for hidden bombs as they moved, the lead Marines crept toward the top of a low, rocky bluff. They peered over the opposite side at a group of mud-walled compounds several hundred yards ahead.
This was the outer perimeter of Marja, which was about eight miles away.
The Taliban's spotters went to work. A man on a motorcycle sped down the road and entered one of the compounds. Heads appeared over the walls, above small holes from which Taliban fighters might fire assault rifles and machine guns. (The Marines call these "murder holes.")
The civilians who had been outside disappeared. Both sides quietly eyed each other from just outside of rifle range.
The Bravo Company commander, Capt. Thomas J. Grace, had ordered patrols not to become decisively engaged with the Taliban's fighters in this no man's land. The company is the forward line of Marine presence, and has limited manpower to consolidate on new ground after a fight.
"There is absolutely no reason to go out there and kick in doors and get in a big fight," he said. "Because you can't hold it."
Several thousand more Marines are expected in the province later this year, Marine officers say, which will allow the Afghans and Americans to clear and hold a larger area than they control now, and ultimately to displace the Taliban from Marja.
In the interim, at the Marines' most forward positions, the two sides probe each other with patrols. On this day, the patrol leader, First Lt. Ryan P. Richter, could see the trap.
His platoon had been in many firefights here. If the patrol continued over the bluff and into the open, it would be enveloped by fire from three sides. In the contest of Helmand Province, he said, this remained for the moment Taliban turf.
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6) Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power
By DAVID E. SANGER
News Analysis
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/politics/02deficit.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.
The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country's entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was restored and war spending abated.
But the second number, buried deeper in the budget's projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obama's own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 - years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms - they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.
For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country's influence around the world eroded.
Or, as Mr. Obama's chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, used to ask before he entered government a year ago, "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?"
The Chinese leadership, which is lending much of the money to finance the American government's spending, and which asked pointed questions about Mr. Obama's budget when members visited Washington last summer, says it thinks the long-term answer to Mr. Summers's question is self-evident. The Europeans will also tell you that this is a big worry about the next decade.
Mr. Obama himself hinted at his own concern when he announced in early December that he planned to send 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, but insisted that the United States could not afford to stay for long.
"Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power," he told cadets at West Point. "It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry."
And then he explained why even a "war of necessity," as he called Afghanistan last summer, could not last for long.
"That's why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended," he said then, "because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own."
Mr. Obama's budget deserves credit for its candor. It does not sugarcoat, at least excessively, the potential magnitude of the problem. President George W. Bush kept claiming, until near the end of his presidency, that he would leave office with a balanced budget. He never got close; in fact, the deficits soared in his last years.
Mr. Obama has published the 10-year numbers in part, it seems, to make the point that the political gridlock of the past few years, in which most Republicans refuse to talk about tax increases and Democrats refuse to talk about cutting entitlement programs, is unsustainable. His prescription is that the problem has to be made worse, with intense deficit spending to lower the unemployment rate, before the deficits can come down.
Mr. Summers, in an interview on Monday afternoon, said, "The budget recognizes the imperatives of job creation and growth in the short run, and takes significant measures to increase confidence in the medium term."
He was referring to the freeze on domestic, non-national-security-related spending, the troubled effort to cut health care costs, and the decision to let expire Bush-era tax cuts for corporations and families earning more than $250,000.
But Mr. Summers said that "through the budget and fiscal commission, the president has sought to provide maximum room for making further adjustments as necessary before any kind of crisis arrives."
Turning that thought into political action, however, has proved harder and harder for the Washington establishment. Republicans stayed largely silent about the debt during the Bush years. Democrats have described it as a necessary evil during the economic crisis that defined Mr. Obama's first year. Interest in a long-term solution seems limited. Or, as Isabel V. Sawhill of the Brookings Institution put it Monday on MSNBC, "The problem here is not honesty, but political will."
One source of that absence of will is that the political warnings are contradicted by the market signals. The Treasury has borrowed money to finance the government's deficits at remarkably low rates, the strongest indicator that the markets believe they will be paid back on time and in full.
The absence of political will is also facilitated by the fact that, as Prof. James K. Galbraith of the University of Texas puts it, "Forecasts 10 years out have no credibility."
He is right. In the early years of the Clinton administration, government projections indicated huge deficits - over the "sustainable" level of 3 percent - by 2000. But by then, Mr. Clinton was running a modest surplus of about $200 billion, a point Mr. Obama made Monday as he tried anew to remind the country that the moment was squandered when "the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars without paying for any of it."
But with this budget, Mr. Obama now owns this deficit. And as Mr. Galbraith pointed out, it is possible that the gloomy projections for 2020 are equally flawed.
Simply projecting that health care costs will rise unabated is dangerous business.
"Much may depend on whether we put in place the financial reforms that can rebuild a functional financial system," Mr. Galbraith said, to finance growth in the private sector - the kind of growth that ultimately saved Mr. Clinton from his own deficit projections.
His greatest hope, Mr. Galbraith said, was Stein's law, named for Herbert Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.
Stein's law has been recited in many different versions. But all have a common theme: If a trend cannot continue, it will stop.
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7) Suit Points to Guest Worker Program Flaws
By JULIA PRESTON
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/02immig.html?ref=us
Immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oil-rig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.
The cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents is recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., erupted into a public clash in March 2007.
Since then, hundreds of the Indian workers have brought a civil rights lawsuit against the company, claiming they were victims of human trafficking and labor abuse. Signal International is fighting the suit and has sued American and Indian recruiters who contracted with the workers in India. The company claims the recruiters misled it - and the workers - about the terms of the work visas that brought them to this country.
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have opened separate investigations. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined in September that there was "reasonable cause" to believe the Indian guest workers at Signal had faced discrimination and a work environment "laced with ridicule and harassment."
The Signal case has come to represent some of the flaws and pitfalls, for immigrants and for employers, in the H-2B temporary guest worker program. As Congressional lawmakers weigh moving forward this year on an overhaul of the immigration system, they are debating whether to include an expansion of guest worker programs.
A lawyer for Signal, Erin C. Hangartner, said the company could not comment on the suit.
As it rushed to repair offshore oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina, Signal International hired about 500 skilled metalworkers from India in 2006. Numerous workers have said that they paid as much as $20,000 to Signal's recruiters, many going into debt or selling their homes. They said recruiters had promised that their visas would soon be converted to green cards, allowing them to remain as permanent residents.
Once the workers realized they would not receive green cards, many complained of fraud and banded together to seek help from American lawyers.
In a deposition in the lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in New Orleans, Signal's chief operating officer, Ronald Schnoor, said he grew frustrated with Indian workers who were "chronic whiners." In early 2007 he decided to fire several who were encouraging protests.
Those workers "were making impossible demands" for the company to secure green cards for them or to repay the high fees, Mr. Schnoor said. They were "taking workers away from their work and actually trying to get them to join some effort they were organizing," he said.
Mr. Schnoor and Darrell Snyder, a manager in the shipyard, where the Indians were living in a labor camp, said they had consulted with agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement for "guidance" on how to fire the workers, following the rules of the H-2B program.
Mr. Schnoor said the "direction" he received from an immigration enforcement agent was this: "Don't give them any advance notice. Take them all out of the line on the way to work; get their personal belongings; get them in a van, and get their tickets, and get them to the airport, and send them back to India."
Signal managers said they tried to carry out those instructions on March 9, 2007, putting several Indian workers into vans to take them to the airport. They were prevented from leaving the shipyard by immigrant advocates gathered at the gates.
In an internal e-mail message 10 days later, Mr. Snyder reported that another immigration official had assured him in a meeting that day that the agency would pursue any Indian workers who left their jobs, "if for no other reason than to send a message to the remaining workers that it is not in their best interests to try and 'push' the system."
Carl Falstrom, an immigration lawyer in New Orleans who is not associated with the Signal case, said there were rules for employers who fired guest workers. They are required to provide return airfare to the workers' home countries, and they are supposed to notify the visa agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services, when workers are no longer employed. But, Mr. Falstrom said, private companies cannot carry out deportations.
Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, which represents some workers in the lawsuit, said the managers' testimony showed that immigration enforcement agents had "advised the corporation on how to retaliate against workers who were organizing."
An ICE spokesman, Brian Hale, said he could not comment on a continuing investigation. But Mr. Hale said ICE agents were generally aware that a company that fires workers in the H-2B program "is prohibited from compelling individuals to get on the plane."
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8) Pennsylvania: 3 Officers Suspended
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | Mid-Atlantic
February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/02brfs-3OFFICERSSUS_BRF.html?ref=us
Pittsburgh has suspended three white police officers while officials investigate accusations that they beat a black teenager who was walking to his grandmother's house after dark. Jordan Miles, an 18-year-old violist who attends Pittsburgh's prestigious Creative and Performing Arts High School, alleges that Officers Richard Ewing, Michael Saldutte and David Sisak beat him without provocation. A criminal complaint says Mr. Miles, who was charged with assault and resisting arrest, was standing against a building "as if he was trying to avoid being seen." The officers say they believed he was carrying a gun - which police said turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew.
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9) Haiti On Our Minds
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
January 16, 2010
prisonradio.org
The recent natural disaster in Haiti, has once again, thrown Haiti into the eyes of the world, and once again, brought out both the best and worst of us.
The sheer scale of human suffering has evoked massive compassion, as governments far and wide mobilize to assist those who are unable to assist themselves.
Haiti, once the colonial-era "Pearl of the Antilles" (Caribbean), then the "Mother of Revolutions", has suffered for nearly two centuries for daring to fight for, and win, its freedom from European colonialism, slavery and plunder.
Haiti, we are informed by the corporate media, is the poorest nation in the West. We are never told however, how it got that way. How many of us know that the U.S. brutally occupied Haiti, and stayed there for over 20 years? Or that Haiti, which had the temerity to defeat not one, not two, but three colonial armies (the French, the British, and the Spanish), was forced to pay France billions of dollars in reparations for 200 years -- the first and only time in history that a victor in war had to pay back the nation it defeated!?
Haiti isn't just poor; it's been impoverished by a global system of exploitation and a plantation capitalist economy that was designed as a sanction for Black Liberation.
The U.S., its nearest, richest neighbor, didn't recognize or trade with the country for nearly 60 years -- or until a Civil War brought a formal end to slavery on these shores.
C.L.R. James, the revolutionary scholar/activist, has argued that the Haitian Revolution was a singular event in human history, of more significance than either the French or American revolutions.
That an American preacher (and former presidential candidate could today liken the event to the devil gives us some sense of its continuing power.
Interestingly, neither of these other revolutions spelled an end to that truly demonic institution -- slavery. Indeed, the reverse is true, for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were slave owners, and Napoleon Bonaparte sent his armies to Haiti to defend slavery.
Decade after decade of U.S. supported dictators, a legacy of plantation capitalism and exploitation, U.S. supported coups (like the Bush-era removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide), and corporate strangulation of poor Haitian workers, has left it severely under-developed, and thus, less able to cope with natural disasters when they strike.
Several years ago, when a hurricane hit a city in the world's wealthiest nation, the wealthy and middle classes had the resources to flee just before the worst struck town. The poor were left to fend for themselves.
In Haiti, those resources were even more rare.
But an earthquake isn't a hurricane. It strikes suddenly, often without significant warning.
But many nations, like Japan, have constructed buildings which resist the bumps and whirls of earthquakes. Such techniques, if applied to Haitian schools, homes and offices, could've greatly alleviated loss of life and suffering.
If it hadn't been bled and exploited for centuries, Haiti would've had the wherewithal to protect its people as much as possible.
Let us hope that Haiti's future will be brighter than its post colonial past.
--(c) '10 maj
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10) The Saints Linebacker Who Speaks His Mind
By JOE LAPOINTE
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/sports/football/03fujita.html?hp
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. - New Orleans Saints linebacker Scott Fujita addresses hot-button issues the way he might meet an opposing running back: directly.
So Fujita was not shy Tuesday about entering two Super Bowl debates that have little to do with his team's game Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts.
At issue are two Super Bowl television commercials, one about abortion, the other about gay rights.
The first ad - which will be shown on CBS - is an antiabortion message from Focus on the Family that includes Tim Tebow, the former Heisman Trophy winner from Florida.
The other ad - which was rejected by CBS - is for ManCrunch, a gay dating service. Fujita has spoken out before in favor of abortion rights and gay rights.
"It's just me standing up for equal rights," Fujita said. "It's not that courageous to have an opinion if you think it's the right thing and you believe it wholeheartedly."
The Tebow ad suggests that Tebow's mother was advised about having an abortion when she was pregnant with him, but chose instead to give birth.
The issue resonates with Fujita because he was adopted, and Fujita said he respected Tebow for standing up for what he believed in.
"The idea of focusing on the family - who wouldn't agree with that?" Fujita said. "But the means of doing so, he and I might not see eye to eye all the way."
When Fujita was born in 1979, his biological mother, he said, was in her teens and she gave him up for adoption because she did not have the means to raise a child.
"I'm just so thankful she had the courage and the support system to be able to carry out the pregnancy," Fujita said. "I wouldn't expect that of everybody."
As for the rejected ad about gay dating, Fujita said he had no objection to the topic being aired, but understood why some people might complain.
"The idea of doing it at the Super Bowl is going to raise some eyebrows," Fujita said. "Do they have the right? Absolutely. Is it going to offend some people? Absolutely."
Last fall, in an interview on the Sirius XM Satellite Radio show "Edge of Sports," Fujita bluntly supported a march for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.
"Just because I'm in favor of gay rights doesn't mean I'm gay," Fujita told the host, Dave Zirin. "I know who I am. My wife knows who I am."
Fujita, who played in college at California, and his wife, Jaclyn, have twin daughters who are 2 years old.
In Tuesday's Super Bowl session with members of the news media, Fujita, who said his teammates give him some gentle teasing in the language of the locker room for his public opinions, reflected on how the campus he attended is known for progressive attitudes.
"There is a certain stigma that comes with being from Berkeley," he said. "And I'm proud of that stigma."
He also discussed the attitudes of other athletes toward gay rights.
"By and large, the players are more tolerant than they get credit for," he said. "It's not a big issue. Some guys will think you are crazy for believing one way, but they'll still accept you."
Acceptance and tolerance are important to Fujita. His adopted father is a Japanese-American who was born during World War II in an internment camp in Arizona.
Fujita said that at the time, his grandfather was fighting in the United States Army in Italy. He said he takes strength from his grandmother Lillie.
"I don't hear any sense of resentment in her voice," Fujita said. "She grew stronger from it. I just always say, 'What do I have to complain about?' "
Fujita, who said that his family observes Japanese holidays and that he knows a few words of Japanese, is often interviewed by Japanese television reporters.
"They always want to talk to me, the big white guy with the Japanese name," Fujita said. "I have no Japanese blood in my body. But I'm Japanese at heart."
Fujita joined the Saints in 2006, the year they returned to New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He was named the team's man of the year this season for his charitable works. Among Fujita's causes is a New Orleans Catholic adoption agency.
He played for Kansas City and Dallas, but has come to love New Orleans.
Fujita said that when he chose to leave the Cowboys as a free agent in 2006, people asked why he was abandoning what some call America's Team.
"Well, they were the self-proclaimed America's Team a couple decades ago," he said. "They have really, really good, loyal fans. But the rest of the country hates them. Let's be honest.
"The Saints are America's adopted team."
Fujita often uses words like love, hate and heart. He did not "stand up on a pedestal" to campaign for Barack Obama for president, to get American troops out of Iraq, in opposition to bigotry against Muslims, for gay rights or abortion rights.
And yet, he said he knows his visibility helps advance his viewpoints. "People ask me a question, I'll give them my opinion," Fujita said. "I never claimed to have all the answers."
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11) No Help in Sight, More Homeowners Walk Away
By DAVID STREITFELD
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/business/03walk.html?hp
In 2006, Benjamin Koellmann bought a condominium in Miami Beach. By his calculation, it will be about the year 2025 before he can sell his modest home for what he paid. Or maybe 2040.
"People like me are beginning to feel like suckers," Mr. Koellmann said. "Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?"
After three years of plunging real estate values, after the bailouts of the bankers and the revival of their million-dollar bonuses, after the Obama administration's loan modification plan raised the expectations of many but satisfied only a few, a large group of distressed homeowners is wondering the same thing.
New research suggests that when a home's value falls below 75 percent of the amount owed on the mortgage, the owner starts to think hard about walking away, even if he or she has the money to keep paying.
In a situation without precedent in the modern era, millions of Americans are in this bleak position. Whether, or how, to help them is one of the biggest questions the Obama administration confronts as it seeks a housing policy that would contribute to the economic recovery.
"We haven't yet found a way of dealing with this that would, we think, be practical on a large scale," the assistant Treasury secretary for financial stability, Herbert M. Allison Jr., said in a recent briefing.
The number of Americans who owed more than their homes were worth was virtually nil when the real estate collapse began in mid-2006, but by the third quarter of 2009, an estimated 4.5 million homeowners had reached the critical threshold, with their home's value dropping below 75 percent of the mortgage balance.
They are stretched, aggrieved and restless. With figures released last week showing that the real estate market was stalling again, their numbers are now projected to climb to a peak of 5.1 million by June - about 10 percent of all Americans with mortgages.
"We're now at the point of maximum vulnerability," said Sam Khater, a senior economist with First American CoreLogic, the firm that conducted the recent research. "People's emotional attachment to their property is melting into the air."
Suggestions that people would be wise to renege on their home loans are at least a couple of years old, but they are turning into a full-throated barrage. Bloggers were quick to note recently that landlords of an 11,000-unit residential complex in Manhattan showed no hesitation, or shame, in walking away from their deeply underwater investment.
"Since the beginning of December, I've advised 60 people to walk away," said Steve Walsh, a mortgage broker in Scottsdale, Ariz. "Everyone has lost hope. They don't qualify for modifications, and being on the hamster wheel of paying for a property that is not worth it gets so old."
Mr. Walsh is taking his own advice, recently defaulting on a rental property he owns. "The sun will come up tomorrow," he said.
The difference between letting your house go to foreclosure because you are out of money and purposefully defaulting on a mortgage to save money can be murky. But a growing body of research indicates that significant numbers of borrowers are declining to live under what some waggishly call "house arrest."
Using credit bureau data, consultants at Oliver Wyman calculated how many borrowers went straight from being current on their mortgage to default, rather than making spotty payments. They also weeded out owners having trouble paying other bills. Their estimate was that about 17 percent of owners defaulting in 2008, or 588,000 people, chose that option as a strategic calculation.
Some experts argue that walking away from mortgages is more discussed than done. People hate moving; their children attend the neighborhood school; they do not want to think of themselves as skipping out on a debt. Doubters cite a Federal Reserve study using historical data from Massachusetts that concludes there were relatively few walk-aways during the 1991 bust.
The United States Treasury falls into the skeptical camp.
"The overwhelming bulk of people who have negative equity stay in their homes and keep paying," said Michael S. Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions.
It would cost about $745 billion, slightly more than the size of the original 2008 bank bailout, to restore all underwater borrowers to the point where they were breaking even, according to First American.
Using government money to do that would be seen as unfair by many taxpayers, Mr. Barr said. On the other hand, doing nothing about underwater mortgages could encourage more walk-aways, dealing another blow to a fragile economy.
"It's not an easy area," he said.
Walking away - also called "jingle mail," because of the notion that homeowners just mail their keys to the bank, setting off foreclosure proceedings - began in the Southwest during the 1980s oil collapse, though it has never been clear how widespread it was.
In the current bust, lenders first noticed something strange after real estate prices had fallen about 10 percent.
An executive with Wachovia, one of the country's biggest and most aggressive lenders, said during a conference call in January 2008 that the bank was bewildered by customers who had "the capacity to pay, but have basically just decided not to." (Wachovia failed nine months later and was bought by Wells Fargo. )
With prices now down by about 30 percent, underwater borrowers fall into two groups. Some have owned their homes for many years and got in trouble because they used the house as a cash machine. Others, like Mr. Koellmann in Miami Beach, made only one mistake: they bought as the boom was cresting.
It was April 2006, a moment when the perpetual rise of real estate was considered practically a law of physics. Mr. Koellmann was 23, a management consultant new to Miami.
Financially cautious by nature, he bought a small, plain one-bedroom apartment for $215,000, much less than his agent told him he could afford. He put down 20 percent and received a fixed-rate loan from Countrywide Financial.
Not quite four years later, apartments in the building are selling in foreclosure for $90,000.
"There is no financial sense in staying," Mr. Koellmann said. With the $1,500 he is paying each month for his mortgage, taxes and insurance, he could rent a nicer place on the beach, one with a gym, security and valet parking.
Walking away, he knows, is not without peril. At minimum, it would ruin his credit score. Mr. Koellmann would like to attend graduate school. If an admission dean sees a dismal credit record, would that count against him? How about a new employer?
Most of all, though, he struggles with the ethical question.
"I took a loan on an asset that I didn't see was overvalued," he said. "As much as I would like my bank to pay for that mistake, why should it?"
That is an attitude Wall Street would like to encourage. David Rosenberg, the chief economist of the investment firm Gluskin Sheff, wrote recently that borrowers were not victims. They "signed contracts, and as adults should also be held accountable," he wrote.
Of course, this is not necessarily how Wall Street itself behaves, as demonstrated by the case of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. An investment group led by the real estate giant Tishman Speyer recently defaulted on $4.4 billion in debt that it had used to buy the two apartment developments in Manhattan, handing the properties back to the lenders.
Moreover, during the boom, it was the banks that helped drive prices to unrealistic levels by lowering credit standards and unleashing a wave of speculative housing demand.
Mr. Koellmann applied last fall to Bank of America for a modification, noting that his income had slipped. But the lender came back a few weeks ago with a plan that added more restrictive terms while keeping the payments about the same.
"That may have been the last straw," Mr. Koellmann said.
Guy D. Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance magazine, says he does not hear much sympathy from lenders for their underwater customers.
"The banks tell me that a lot of people who are complaining were the ones who refinanced and took all the equity out any time there was any appreciation," he said. "The banks are damned if they will help."
Joe Figliola has heard that message. He bought his house in Elgin, Ill., in 2004, then refinanced twice to get better terms. He pulled out a little money both times to cover the closing costs and other expenses. Now his place is underwater while his salary as circulation manager for the local newspaper has been cut.
"It doesn't seem right that I can rent a place somewhere for half of what I'm paying," he said. "I told my bank, 'Just take a little bite out of what I owe. That would ease me up. Isn't that why the president gave you all this money?' "
Bank of America did not agree, so Mr. Figliola, who is 48, sees no recourse other than walking away. "I don't believe this is the right thing to do," he said, "but I've got to survive."
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12) Coupons Ease Chaos in Efforts to Feed Haitians
"Hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting. When the empty trucks left Pétionville, Haitians from the camp walked around looking for another gathering, holding up small strips of paper with their names written in careful script.
Desperate, hungry and still not satisfied, they said they were looking for the white men in control of food distribution. They needed coupons. They needed to eat" [Week three and they still haven't made a dent in food distribution...bw]
By DAMIEN CAVE and GINGER THOMPSON
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/world/americas/03haiti.html?ref=world
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Four days into a new food distribution program from the United Nations that aims to repair a faltering aid effort, paper coupons that can be redeemed for 55 pounds of rice have become more valuable than Haitian money.
Women hide them away in their bosoms. Aid workers count them furtively in the back of S.U.V.'s. The government wants control over who gets them, while schemers have already created counterfeits.
The food coupons are akin to diamonds: they are precious because sustenance is scarce. For three weeks since the international effort to feed millions of Haitians has been dogged by confusion, transportation snags, security problems and a lack of coordination. Before the coupon program started on Saturday, food giveaways had become a Darwinian sport - with biscuits and bottles of canola oil or biscuits thrown like footballs from the backs of trucks to masses of men jockeying for position.
Many are still hungry. As of Sunday, 639,200 people had received a meal from the United Nations' World Food Program, 32 percent of the two million estimated to be in need.
Aid groups say that they have been knocked back on their heels by a catastrophe they describe as more difficult to manage than famine in Africa or the tsunami in Asia.
Rarely if ever, they say, has a natural disaster so ravaged the crowded capital of an already poor country, devastating both the government and the international agencies that usually step in.
And yet the food crisis is not simply a natural disaster. Interviews with aid groups, United Nations officials, experts and Haitian government leaders reveal that communication was not a top priority early on. Inexperience and a go-it-alone approach - by groups Haitian and foreign - contributed to the dysfunction.
In many ways, the new food distribution program is an improvement, with its stepped-up security, emphasis on women as recipients and its plan for 16 fixed locations. But the disorientation that immediately followed the earthquake has been especially hard to cure.
Two weeks after the quake, in a khaki tent on the United Nations campus in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's interior minister led a meeting of bleary-eyed officials from the government, the United Nations and a half-dozen other agencies assigned to such issues as food, water and shelter.
Almost immediately, confusion surfaced: they were not working from a common map.
Several people at the meeting complained that they were not getting reports fast enough from organizations on the streets to help keep an accurate tally of which areas were getting assistance.
Numbers were tossed about, all of them adding up to staggering challenges. The shelter cluster reported that it had only 4,000 of the 200,000 tents requested by Haitian authorities. Food rations - a basic meal - had been distributed to less than half of the people the government believed needed them. And while potable water was reaching about 500,000 a day, only 20,000 had been given access to latrines.
"How do you provide toilets to makeshift camps," Guido Canale of Unicef said in an interview after the meeting, "in a city that did not have sufficient sanitation to begin with?"
Agencies Were Also Hurt
The meeting revealed how aid groups were struggling with an unexpected development: in a country where many of them had worked for years, they were starting from scratch. Sophie Perez, the country director for CARE, for example, said that 80 percent of her 133 employees had lost their homes to the quake.
The government, weak in the best of times, was incapacitated, and three of four United Nations warehouses with stockpiles of rice and other staples had been damaged. Food, more than anything else, became the pressure point. Haitian officials pushed to get off the sidelines; aid groups, fearing rampant corruption and violence, sought to limit their role.
The World Food Program started out by trying to feed as many people as possible, wherever, whenever. But by Week 2, some aid groups and Haiti's interior minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé, were saying that without better coordination, "it's like we are shooting in the dark."
Anthony B. Banbury, a high-ranking United Nations logistician, said that it had become clear that distributing food properly would bring peace, while mistakes could lead to unrest.
"One of our main tools to achieve security is also a source of insecurity," he said after being sent to Haiti to speed the relief effort. "We need to do it in a well-planned, well-organized and well-coordinated manner."
That, however, proved to be immensely difficult. The collapse of the headquarters of the United Nations mission here robbed the relief effort of a central command.
Some of the groups that had rushed into the void were competent veterans. Others were what organizers from larger groups described as "humanitarian tourists": nongovernmental organizations full of good intentions, but with limited supplies and experience.
"They added to the confusion," Mr. Canale of Unicef said, "not to the solutions."
Dysfunction Was Clear
The dysfunction was all too obvious to besieged Haitians. Sheets and splintered plywood with painted calls for help began to appear on the streets of Port-au-Prince just a few days after the quake. "We need food," said one sign, then 6, then 20.
Most were in English, Spanish or French. The underlying message was not just that Haiti's people were desperate - they also had no idea who was in charge or how to get help. Voltaire Samuel, like many others, concluded that perhaps the foreigners needed some direction.
Last week, with one arm in a sling, he and a half-dozen neighbors put up another S O S sign in the median of Delmas Street, outside downtown.
"They are giving food to other places," Mr. Samuel said. "Here, they bring us nothing."
Many of the residents in the district of Delmas 1 said last week they had not eaten in days. They hesitated to go too far in search of food because they feared that someone would steal their last remaining possessions, so they selected five men from among them to look.
But it did not work for them, or for thousands of others.
At the most visible food distribution site in the capital, near the collapsed presidential palace, the line typically lasted hours, with a swell of hungry Haitians leaving empty-handed.
After several days of trucks coming and leaving without serving the entire group, chaos engulfed the process.
Marcus Prior, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said that around 60 police officers and United Nations troops usually managed security at locations where as many as 5,000 people crowded around trucks with food.
On at least two days last week, United Nations troops used tear gas after a mass of men rushed the food distribution point and began grabbing what they could. In a separate case, one World Food Program truck stuck in traffic was robbed by men on motorbikes.
First Come First Served
Violence was more the exception than the rule, but food was still given out first come first served. A truck would drive up and men would run toward it. After awhile, women and those who lived a few blocks away did not even bother.
"They are treating people like dogs, just tossing things at them," said Séjour Jean Rodrigue, 38, one of the leaders in Delmas 1. "We don't want anything to do with it."
The new system for food distribution, devised to address these problems, has two major changes: coupons and a focus on women, who are supposed to be the only ones collecting rice.
The process also shifts power from Haiti's government to foreign aid groups; and from men throwing food from trucks to local leaders giving out coupons, like Rigaud Joachin, 48, a gregarious bookkeeper with the national telecommunications company who lives in one of the few houses still standing in the neighborhood of Nazon.
He was responsible on Sunday night for handing out 300 coupons to a list of families, and he took his job seriously. Inside his porch at dusk, he bellowed for each person to come forward.
"Lafleur Fernande!"
"Renette Briole!"
Before long, the crowd was 15 people wide and 3 deep. But Mr. Joachin, a respected neighborhood figure, had little trouble keeping order.
The next day, his 300 coupon holders and hundreds of others lined Poupelard Street, as two women at a time walked away with sacks of rice.
Security Still a Problem
Other locations have had a harder time. Security has been stepped up for food distribution, but twice since Saturday Haitians have set up blockades to try to stop United Nations supply trucks from passing, and pressure on coupon holders has intensified. On Monday afternoon, a crowd of several hundred people rushed workers from Catholic Relief Services as they tried to hand out coupons near the presidential palace, forcing them and a small team of American soldiers to flee.
One woman, Marcelin Cristana, admitted that she had gamed the system. "I bought the coupon for 20 Haitian dollars," she said, or about $2.50 in the United States.
At a park in the wealthy suburb of Pétionville that day, the food arrived late, after thousands without coupons had already gathered. Brian Casey, an emergency coordinator with Goal, an Irish aid group, explained that there had been a problem obtaining fuel. His loaders also failed to show up, leading him to pull 23 men with coupons out of line, offering them $5 each.
The biggest problem was the location: the driveway of a police station that was wide open, with no natural entrance or exit. Aid workers and United Nations troops set up a perimeter with orange plastic fencing, and the area where people left with rice felt as chaotic and aggressive as the food lines before the new program had started.
Meanwhile, theft occurred almost openly. Partly because workers were trying to move quickly - letting men, not just women, pick up the rice - pairs of off-duty police officers slid in to collect what they had no right to take.
"I'll make a note of it," said a United Nations police officer who had pulled one of the men aside. "But he's a policeman, so nothing will happen."
Many people nonetheless left pleased. Bernadette Volcy, 54, said she was "so happy the Americans are helping us." But, she added, "it's not enough."
United Nations officials agree. As of Tuesday morning, the new program had handed out enough rice to feed about 212,000 people, according to United Nations figures - more than 100,000 people short of its initial goal. Of the 16 sites chosen for distribution, only 9 were up and running on Sunday, increasing to 12 on Monday, and 14 on Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of people are still waiting. When the empty trucks left Pétionville, Haitians from the camp walked around looking for another gathering, holding up small strips of paper with their names written in careful script.
Desperate, hungry and still not satisfied, they said they were looking for the white men in control of food distribution. They needed coupons. They needed to eat.
Marc Lacey contributed reporting.
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13) 5.7 Million Get Weekly Food Assistance
By JASON DePARLE
National Briefing | Washington
February 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/us/03brfs-57MILLIONGET_BRF.html?ref=us
The number of Americans getting help from soup kitchens, shelters and food pantries each week rose 27 percent in the past four years, to 5.7 million, according to a survey by Feeding America, an association of food banks. About 37 million Americans, one in eight, got assistance over the course of a year, an increase of 46 percent.
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14) BUSH TO THE HAGUE
International Criminal Court Complaint Filed Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice and Gonzales
INTERNATIONAL ARREST WARRANTS REQUESTED
January 19, 2010
clarity@islandnet.com
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) in The Hague against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the "Accused") for their criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition" perpetrated upon about 100 human beings. This term is really their euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless the Accused have ordered and been responsible for the commission of I.C.C. statutory crimes within the respective territories of many I.C.C. member states, including several in Europe. Consequently, the I.C.C. has jurisdiction to prosecute the Accused for their I. C.C. statutory crimes under Rome Statute article 12(2)(a) that affords the I.C.C. jurisdiction to prosecute for I.C. C. statutory crimes committed in I.C.C. member states.
The Complaint requests (1) that the I.C.C. Prosecutor open an investigation of the Accused on his own accord under Rome Statute article 15(1); and (2) that the I.C.C. Prosecutor also formally "submit to the [I.C.C.] Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an investigation" of the Accused under Rome Statute article 15(3).
For similar reasons, the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration risk the filing of a follow-up Complaint with the I.C.C. if they do not immediately terminate the Accused's criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition," which the Obama administration has continued to implement.
The Complaint concludes with a request that the I.C.C. Prosecutor obtain International Arrest Warrants for the Accused from the I.C.C. in accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), 58(1)(b)(i), 58(1)(b)(ii), and 58(1)(b) (iii).
In order to demonstrate your support for this Complaint you can contact the I.C.C. Prosecutor by letter, fax, or email as indicated below.
The Honorable Luis Moreno-Ocampo Office of the Prosecutor International Criminal Court Post Office Box 19519 2500 CM, The Hague The Netherlands Fax No.: 31-70-515-8555 Email: OTP.InformationDesk@icc-cpi.int
January 19, 2010
Dear Sir:
Please accept my personal compliments. I have the honor hereby to file with you and the International Criminal Court this Complaint against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice , and Alberto Gonzales (hereinafter referred to as the "Accused") for their criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition." This term is really a euphemism for the enforced disappearancesof persons, their torture, severe deprivation of their liberty, their violent sexual abuse, and other inhumane acts perpetrated upon these Victims. The Accused have inflicted this criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition" upon about one hundred (100) human beings, almost all of whom are Muslims/Arabs/Asians and People of Color. I doubt very seriously that the Accused would have inflicted these criminal practices upon 100 White Judeo-Christian men.
The Accused's criminal policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition" are both "widespread" and "systematic" within the meaning of Rome Statute article 7(1). Therefore the Accused have committed numerous "Crimes against Humanity" in flagrant and repeated and longstanding violation of Rome Statute articles 5(1)(b), 7(1)(a), 7 (1)(e), 7(1)(f), 7(1)(g), 7(1)(h), 7(1)(i), and 7(1)(k). Furthermore, the Accused's Rome Statute Crimes Against Humanity of enforced disappearances of persons constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues even as of today.
The United States is not a contracting party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless, the Accused ordered and were responsible for the commission of these I.C.C. statutory crimes on, in, and over the respective territories of several I.C.C. member states, including many located in Europe. Therefore, the I.C.C. has jurisdiction over the Accused for their I.C.C. statutory crimes in accordance with Rome Statute article 12(2)(a), which provides as follows:
Article 12
Preconditions to the Exercise of Jurisdiction
...
2. In the case of article 13, paragraph (a) or (c), the Court may exercise its jurisdiction if one or more of the following States are Parties to this Statute or have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in accordance with paragraph 3:
(a) The State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred ...
So the fact that United States is not a contracting party to the Rome Statute is no bar to the I.C.C.'s prosecution of the Accused because they have ordered and been responsible for the commission of Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity on, in, and over the respective territories of several I.C.C. member states.
Consequently, I hereby respectfully request that the Court exercise its jurisdiction over the Accused for these Crimes against Humanity in accordance with Rome Statute article 13(c), which provides as follows:
Article 13
Exercise of Jurisdiction
The Court may exercise its jurisdiction with respect to a crime referred to in article 5 in accordance with the provisions of this Statute if:
...
(c) The Prosecutor has initiated an investigation in respect of such a crime in accordance with article 15.
Pursuant to Rome Statute article 13(c), I hereby respectfully request that you initiate an investigation proprio motu against the Accused in accordance with Rome Statute article 15(1): "The Prosecutor may initiate investigations proprio motu on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court." My detailed Complaint against the Accused constitutes the sufficient "information" required by article 15(1).
Furthermore, I respectfully submit that this Complaint by itself constitutes "a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation" under Rome Statute article 15(3). Hence, I also respectfully request that you formally "submit to the Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an investigation" of the Accused under Rome Statute article 15(3) at this time. Please inform me at your earliest convenience about the status and disposition of my two requests set forth immediately above.
Based upon your extensive human rights work in Argentina, you know full well from direct personal experience the terrors and the horrors of enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture. According to reputable news media sources here in the United States, about 100 human beings have been subjected to enforced disappearances and subsequent torture by the Accused. We still have no accounting for these Victims. In other words, many of these Victims of enforced disappearances and torture by the Accused could still be alive today. Their very lives are at stake right now as we communicate. You could very well save some of their lives by publicly stating that you are opening an investigation of my Complaint.
As for those Victims of enforced disappearances by the Accused who have died, your opening an investigation of my Complaint is the only means by which we might be able to obtain some explanation and accounting for their whereabouts and the location of their remains in order to communicate this critical information to their next- of-kin and loved-ones. Based upon your extensive experience combating enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture in Argentina, you know full well how important that objective is. The next-of-kin, loved-ones, and friends of "disappeared" human beings can never benefit from psychological "closure" unless and until there is an accounting for the fates, if not the remains, of the Victims. In part that is precisely why the Accused's enforced disappearances of about 100 human beings constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues as of today and will continue until the fates of all their Victims have been officially determined by you opening an investigation into my Complaint.
Let us mutually suppose that during the so-called "dirty war" in Argentina the International Criminal Court had been in existence. I submit that as an Argentinean human rights lawyer you would have moved heaven and earth and done everything in your power to get the I.C.C. and its Prosecutor to assume jurisdiction over the Argentine Junta in order to terminate and prosecute their enforced disappearances and torture of your fellow Argentinean citizens. I would have done the same. Unfortunately, the I.C.C. did not exist during those darkest of days for the Argentine Republic when we could have so acted. But today as the I.C.C. Prosecutor, you have both the opportunity and the legal power to do something to rectify this mass and total human rights annihilation, and to resolve and to terminate and to prosecute the "widespread" and "systematic" policy and practice of enforced disappearances and consequent torture of about 100 human beings by the Accused.
Unfortunately, the new Obama administration in the United States has made it perfectly clear by means of public statements by President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder that they are not going to open any criminal investigation of any of the Accused for these aforementioned Crimes against Humanity. Hence an I.C.C. "case" against the Accused is "admissible" under Rome Statute article 1(complementarity) and article 17. As of right now you and the I.C.C. Judges are the only people in the entire world who can bring some degree of Justice, Closure, and Healing into this dire, tragic, and deplorable situation for the lives and well-being of about one hundred "disappeared" and tortured human beings as well as for their loved-ones and next-of-kin, who are also Victims of the Accused's Crimes against Humanity. On behalf of them all, as a fellow human rights lawyer I implore you to open an investigation into my Complaint and to issue a public statement to that effect.
Also, most regretfully, the new Obama administration has publicly stated that it will continue the Accused's policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition," which is really their euphemism for enforced disappearances of human beings and consequent torture by other States. Hence the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration fully intend to commit their own Crimes against Humanity under the I.C.C. Rome Statute - unless you stop them! Your opening an investigation of my Complaint will undoubtedly deter the Obama administration from engaging in any more "extraordinary renditions" -- enforced disappearances of human beings and having them tortured by other States. Indeed your opening of an investigation into my Complaint might encourage the Obama administration to terminate its criminal "extraordinary rendition" program immediately and thoroughly by means of issuing a public statement to that effect. In other words, your opening an investigation of my Complaint could very well save the lives of a large number of additional human beings who otherwise will be subjected by the Obama administration to the Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity of enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture by other States, inter alia.
The lives and well-being of countless human beings are now at risk, hanging in the balance, waiting for you to act promptly, effectively, and immediately to save them from becoming Victims of Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration as successors-in-law to the Accused by opening an investigation of my Complaint. Otherwise, I shall be forced to file with you and the I.C.C. a follow-up Complaint against the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration. I certainly hope it will not come to that. Please make it so.
Finally, for reasons more fully explained in the Conclusion to my Complaint, I respectfully request that you obtain I.C.C. arrest warrants for the Accused in accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), article 58(1)(b)(i), article 58(1)(b)(ii), and article 58(1)(b)(iii). The sooner, the better for all humankind.
I respectfully request that you schedule a meeting with me at our earliest mutual convenience in order to discuss this Complaint. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
This transmission letter is an integral part of my Complaint against the Accused and is hereby incorporated by reference into the attached Complaint dated as of today as well.
Please accept, Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration.
Francis A. Boyle Professor of International Law
FRANCIS A. BOYLE is a leading American expert in international law. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia-Herzegovina at the World Court. He served as legal adviser to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations from 1991 to 1993. In 2007, he delivered the Bertrand Russell Peace Lectures. Previous Russell Lecturers have included E.P. Thompson, Elena Bonner, Edward Said, Ramsey Clark, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Joseph Rotblat, Johan Galtung, and Noam Chomsky. Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign and is author of, inter alia, The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, Foundations of World Order, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, Destroying World Order, Biowarfare & Terrorism. And Tackling America's Toughest Questions. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University.
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15) Rebuilding Effort in Haiti Turns Away From Tents
[They can't give out the food and they can't even give out the tents. This is what they call a "rebuilding effort"...bw]
By DAMIEN CAVE
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/americas/04haiti.html?hp
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Shifting tactics in the race to shelter an estimated one million Haitians displaced by the earthquake, aid groups on Wednesday began to de-emphasize tents in favor of do-it-yourself housing with tarpaulins at first, followed by lumber.
Mark Turner, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, said that a move toward "transitional shelters" - built eventually with lumber and some steel - would give people sturdier structures and more flexibility.
"Tents really have a shelf life of not much more than six months," Mr. Turner said. In contrast, he added: "You can stand up in a shelter that you build. You can start a business there."
Officials from the migration agency said they were hoping to give people the means to create temporary housing, and the power to build where they wanted. They acknowledged that it could be five years before most people moved back into houses, which means that under the current best-case situation, Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, will soon be blanketed with hundreds of thousands of simple structures that designers describe as "garden sheds" and others see as shanties.
It reflects what emergency shelter experts here describe as an emerging consensus, born in part from the aftermath of the Asian tsunami in 2004. There, aid groups that built concrete homes in large tracts found that few people were interested in moving from where they had lived before the disaster. Transitional shelters were quicker to set up and allowed people to stay put while continually improving their own homes over time.
The model, cited by a senior shelter adviser, is Sri Lanka, where residents using building materials and design guidelines from aid groups built 56,000 transitional shelters in seven months, housing 92 percent of the displaced families in about a 550-mile area.
But in Haiti, the challenge will be even greater. There is a hard deadline: hurricane season starts on June 1. And compared with Sri Lanka, there are far more Haitians without homes, and in a densely packed urban area with rubble crowding nearly every street.
Mr. Turner, along with Haitian government officials, said that the shelter plan would work only if demolition and debris removal moved quickly.
"We need to put in place a process that is fast and dynamic for clearing the rubble and creating spaces that are small," said Charles Clermont, a prominent businessman and adviser to President René Préval. He added that people living in camps on public land - outside the National Palace, for example - would be given incentives to guide them to other places, or moved by legal means if they refused.
The goal would be to minimize relocation, to help people move back to where they lived before the earthquake and to make clear that their living situations would not be permanent. "If it's where a building was, you know it's temporary," Mr. Clermont said.
Large camps of tents outside the city - the idea originally promoted by the Haitian government, and the International Organization for Migration - will continue to be part of the plan at a few locations. But to avoid creating huge refugee camps permanently dependent on foreign aid, officials said the camps would become the exception, not the rule.
The same goes for tents.
So far, aid groups have given out more than 10,000 family tents, and there are 55,000 more in stock or being sent to Haiti, according to the migration organization. There are already more tarpaulins in the pipeline: 100,000 are in stock or have been handed out, and 176,000 are on the way.
Lumber, according to the organization, has been making its way by ship and over land, to be distributed as quickly as possible.
Officials are also trying to recruit Haitian comedians to promote the plans. And in meetings, they have discussed whether to create demonstration shelters, built to designs laid out by aid groups like Shelter Center, which could be set up at the 16 sites now being used to distribute aid.
Haitians, though, may be hard to convince. Most of the tarpaulins being distributed are enormous, big enough for four 10-foot-square shelters. And people do want them. Near a handful of makeshift camps in the neighborhood of Canapé-Vert, hundreds of people lined up on Wednesday to take one.
But nearly everyone in line said he would rather have a tent.
"With a tent, you can close it and stay inside, so you're safe," said Joseph Jimmy, 29, who said he needed to find shelter for his family of 11. "With a tarp you'll still get wet."
When told about the plan to give Haitians lumber and corrugated steel, Mr. Jimmy became more interested. He nodded, thought about it and, like many Haitians, said he was most concerned about when or if the promise would be fulfilled.
"If they come step by step and they really do come, O.K.," he said. "But I don't know. If not, I want a tent."
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16) China Shows Little Patience for U.S. Currency Pressure
By EDWARD WONG and MARK LANDLER
February 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/world/asia/05diplo.html?ref=world
BEIJING - A senior Chinese official said on Thursday that China would not bow to pressure from the United States to revalue its currency, which President Obama says is kept at an artificially low level to give China an unfair advantage in selling its exports.
The official, Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a regular news conference here that "wrongful accusations and pressure will not help solve this issue."
Mr. Ma was reacting to remarks on trade that Mr. Obama made on Wednesday when he met with Democratic senators in Washington. Mr. Obama stopped short of saying China manipulates its currency, but his words on China's economic policies were harsh - the United States, he said, had "to make sure our goods are not artificially inflated in price and their goods are not artificially deflated in price; that puts us at a huge competitive disadvantage."
Economists agree with that assessment. They say that the Chinese currency, the renminbi, is undervalued by 25 to 40 percent compared to the dollar and other currencies. The gap is wider than at any time since July 2005, when the Chinese government, under pressure from the Bush administration, decided to the do away with the renminbi's peg to the dollar and allow the currency to float in a narrow band against the dollar and other currencies.
The renminbi appreciated 21 percent, but since July 2008 it has remained at the same value - today, one dollar equals about 6.83 renminbi, also called the yuan.
"Judging from the international balance of payments and the currency market's supply and demand, the value of the renminbi is getting to a reasonable and balanced level," Mr. Ma said on Thursday.
The sharp exchange over China's currency is only the latest symptom of rising tensions in American relations with China. Internet censorship, hacking attacks directed at American companies, arms sales to Taiwan and the pending visit of the Dalai Lama to Washington have all cropped up in the last month as points of conflict. China is exhibiting a brash sense of confidence as its economy continues to boom while much of the world remains mired in a recession.
On economics, Chinese officials now regularly lecture their American counterparts on the need to maintain the value of the American dollar. China, which has more than $2.4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, is the largest holder of American debt. On Wednesday, Xinhua, the official state news agency, .the official state news agency said Chinese economists were concerned that the American government, suffering from a record budget deficit, could print more dollars and issue more bonds, eroding the value of the dollar.
The finger-wagging from the American side is almost certain to intensify too. With midterm elections this fall, Mr. Obama is under pressure to alleviate the high unemployment rate in the United States. Mr. Obama said last week in his State of the Union address that he hoped to double American exports within five years.
In China, the export industry is a large employer in the coastal regions and draws hordes of migrant workers from interior provinces. Exports have slowed considerably since the global financial crisis began, and Chinese leaders and economists have been saying that domestic consumption should become a larger part of the economy.
Last year, the Chinese economy grew by 8.7 percent, surpassing the 8 percent benchmark set by the government and indicating that China was managing to push through the global recession with little damage. A large driver of the growth was domestic spending - the Chinese government announced in November 2008 a stimulus package worth $585 billion.
But the spending, along with in-flows of foreign currency through private investments and speculation, what some economists call "hot money," is fueling inflation. The consumer price index in the fourth quarter of 2009 rose 1.9 percent. Fears of an overheated economy could lead the Chinese government to revalue the renminbi later this year to help contain inflation.
In late January, Jim O'Neill, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg News that he expected the Chinese government to make a one-off revaluation of the renminbi, letting it appreciate by at least five percent before the end of 2010. He said the revaluation would happen suddenly, without any warning from Chinese leaders.
Reopening the battle with Beijing over its currency may pay political dividends for Mr. Obama at a time of double-digit unemployment and growing fears that China is stealing American jobs. But experts say the president will have even less leverage over Beijing than President George W. Bush did. Mr. Bush prodded China for years to adjust its exchange rate with little success.
China, they say, is determined to reignite its export machine after a global recession that sapped demand for Chinese goods. A cheap currency is vital to that goal. And as indicated by Mr. Ma's statement on Thursday, China's leaders have grown impatient with lectures on economic policy from their chief debtor, the United States.
"It will be like water off a duck's back," said Nicholas R. Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "They're puzzled by the criticism. They think they should be praised for keeping their currency stable at a time of global turmoil."
Criticizing China's policy, however, is likely to worsen a relationship already frayed by irritants on both sides.
In two weeks, Mr. Obama is expected to meet with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, over the objections of the Chinese, who condemn him as a subversive. The administration forged ahead with sales of weapons to Taiwan, drawing an angry blast from Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized China for censoring the Internet, in the wake of Google's allegations about hacking.
For its part, the United States is frustrated that the Chinese will not back tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. And China has resisted American initiatives on climate change policy, turning the recent climate meeting in Copenhagen into a diplomatic drama.
The administration has struggled to prevent the ill will from any single issue from contaminating the broader relationship. "We can't pick the timing of when an issue becomes important," said a senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.
Exchange rates are an arcane subject, harder to explain than a meeting with the Dalai Lama. But they influence easy-to-understand issues like the competitiveness of American exports and job security.
"The currency issue has the potential to become a very hot political issue," said Kenneth G. Lieberthal, who worked on China policy in the Clinton White House. "We're in significant danger of hitting a very rough patch in trade relations, in the latter part of this year."
Edward Wong reported from Beijing, and Mark Landler from Washington.
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17) Soldier Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. in Pakistan
By JANE PERLEZ
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04pstan.html?ref=world
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack on Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan that the authorities here would like to keep quiet and the Americans, as the donors, chafe at not receiving credit for.
The soldiers were among at least 60 to 100 members of a Special Operations team that trains Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps in counterinsurgency techniques, including intelligence gathering and development assistance. The American service members are from the Special Operations Command of Adm. Eric T. Olson.
At least 12 other American service members have been killed in Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001, in hotel bombings and a plane crash, according to the United States Central Command, but these were the first killed as part of the Special Operations training, which has been under way for 18 months.
That training has been acknowledged only gingerly by both the Americans and the Pakistanis, but has deliberately been kept low-key so as not to trespass onto Pakistani sensitivities about sovereignty, and not to further inflame high anti-American sentiment.
Even though the United States calls Pakistan an ally, the country, unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, has not allowed American combat forces to operate here, a point that is stressed by the Pentagon and the Pakistani Army, the most powerful institution in Pakistan.
Instead, the Central Intelligence Agency operates what has become the main American weapon in Pakistan, the drones armed with missiles that have struck with increasing intensity against militants with the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the lawless tribal areas.
The American soldiers were probably made targets as a result of the drone strikes, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of international relations at Islamabad University. "The attack seems a payback for the mounting frequency of the drone attacks," Professor Hussain said.
If the American soldiers were the targets, the attack raised the question of whether the Taliban had received intelligence or cooperation from within the Frontier Corps.
The three soldiers were killed, and two other service members wounded, in the region of Lower Dir, which is close to the tribal areas. According to police officials in the region, the armored vehicle in which they were traveling was hit by a suicide bomber driving a car. Earlier reports from Pakistani security officials said the soldiers had been killed by a roadside explosive device.
To disguise themselves in a way that is common for Western men in Pakistan, the American soldiers were dressed in traditional Pakistani garb of baggy trousers and long tunic, known as shalwar kameez, according to a Frontier Corps officer. They also wore local caps that helped cover their hair, he said.
Their armored vehicle was equipped with electronic jammers sufficient to block remotely controlled devices and mines, the officer said. Vehicles driven by the Frontier Corps were placed in front and behind the Americans as protection, he said.
Still, the Taliban bomber was able to penetrate their cordon. In all 131 people were wounded, most of them girls who were students at a high school adjacent to the site of the suicide attack, the Lower Dir police said.
The soldiers were en route to the opening of a girls school that had been rebuilt with American money, the United States Embassy said in a statement. The school was destroyed by the Taliban last year as they swept through Lower Dir and the nearby Swat Valley, where a battle raged for months between the Pakistani Army and the Taliban.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban called reporters hours after the attack against the Americans and claimed that his group was responsible.
The Pakistani Army currently occupies Swat, and in an effort to strengthen the civilian institutions there and in Dir, some of the American service members on the Special Operations team have been quietly working on development projects, an American official said.
The presence of the American military members in an area known to be threaded with Taliban militants would also raise questions, said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of the North-West Frontier Province, which includes Swat and Dir.
Mr. Aziz said it was odd that American soldiers would go to such a volatile area where Taliban militants were known to be prevalent even though the Pakistani security forces insisted that they had been flushed out.
The usual practice for development work in Dir and Swat called for Pakistani aid workers or paramilitary soldiers to visit the sites, he said.
The Americans' involvement in training Frontier Corps recruits in development assistance was little known until Wednesday's attack.
"People are going to be very suspicious," said Mr. Aziz, who is now involved in American assistance projects elsewhere. "There is going to be big blowback in the media."
An American development official said that encouraging the Frontier Corps to become expert in humanitarian aid was an important part of the trainers' counterinsurgency curriculum.
Last summer, for example, the American military trainers helped distribute food and water in camps for the more than one million people displaced from the Swat Valley by the fighting, the official said. But that American assistance, too, was kept quiet.
The 500,000-strong Pakistani Army led by Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the standard-bearer of Pakistan's strong sense of nationalism, is resistant to the appearance of overt military assistance, least of all from the unpopular Americans, that would make the army look less than self-reliant on the battlefield.
Over the last several years, as the Qaeda-backed insurgents increased their hold on Pakistan's tribal areas and used their base to attack American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the United States military asked for permission for combat soldiers to operate in the tribal zone, according to American officials. Pakistan rebuffed the requests, they said.
Whether American soldiers are based in Pakistan is often raised by Pakistani politicians, students and average Pakistanis, many of them suspicious of American motives.
The question of the presence of American soldiers in Pakistan is also prompted by the fact that the American military provides important equipment to the Pakistani Army, including F-16 fighter jets, Cobra attack helicopters and howitzers.
Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for the United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said 12 other service members had been killed in Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001. The three soldiers who died Wednesday had been assigned to a Special Operations command in Pakistan. But he said they were not commandos from the elite Delta Force or Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets. The United States has about 200 military service members in Pakistan, Captain Hanzlik said.
The three names of the soldiers killed were not released Wednesday because United States military officials were still notifying the next of kin.
Reporting was contributed by Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan; Pir Zubair Shah from Islamabad; and Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
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18) Swiss Court Reverses Award of Duvalier Millions
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/americas/04duvalier.html?ref=world
GENEVA - In an embarrassment to Switzerland's government, the country's top court said Wednesday that at least $4.6 million in Swiss bank accounts previously awarded to charities must be returned to the family of Haiti's ex-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.
The court's decision was reached hours before the quake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, but it was only published Wednesday, prompting the Swiss government to issue an emergency decree to keep the money frozen in a Swiss bank until a new law can be passed allowing it to be donated to aid groups working in Haiti.
"This is a public relations disaster for Switzerland," said Mark Pieth, a Swiss professor with a long resume in international corruption cases such as the U.N. oil-for-food scandal.
In the decision, the Federal Supreme Court reversed a lower court's ruling that the money should have gone to aid groups working in the impoverished nation because the statute of limitations on any crimes committed by the Duvalier clan would have expired in 2001.
Beyond depriving Haiti's relief efforts of additional money, the ruling also strikes a blow at Switzerland's efforts to shed its image as an investment haven for the world's dictators.
"We assume that this money doesn't belong to the Duvalier family," said Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the Swiss justice minister. "We've blocked the money again today to prevent that it goes somewhere that it shouldn't for political reasons. We really hope that this money finally goes back to the country."
Many Haitians accuse Duvalier and his entourage of robbing millions from public funds before he was ousted in 1986. Duvalier is believed to be living in exile in France and has always denied wrongdoing.
The decision cannot be appealed, but the Swiss Foreign Ministry said it would try to keep the money from being withdrawn while it works on a better national law for dealing with assets of "criminal origin." It said the amount of money actually totaled $5.7 million, though the reason for the discrepancy was unclear.
The government "wants to avoid the Swiss financial center serving as a haven for illegally acquired assets," it said in a statement, adding that a new law working retroactively could be ready this month. Widmer-Schlumpf was less optimistic, but said the law could come into effect as early as 2011.
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19) U.S. Report Details Money Laundering
By LYNNLEY BROWNING
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/business/04bribe.html?ref=us
A suitcase containing $1 million in shrink-wrapped bills, hand-carried into New York by the former president of Gabon for his daughter to buy a Manhattan apartment. Purchases of a stretch Hummer H2 armored limousine and C-130 Hercules military transport planes for a civil war in Angola. And a shell company named Sweet Pink used to funnel millions of dollars into the United States from Equatorial Guinea.
These and other deals and money transfers took place in recent years because of inadequate controls on money laundering at large American banks and unregulated American lawyers, real estate agents and lobbyists, according to a Senate report released late Wednesday.
The 325-page report by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which will conduct a hearing on Thursday, sheds new light on how banks like Citigroup, Wachovia and Bank of America unwittingly shifted hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of African politicians, their relatives and associates.
The banks ended up closing or restricting the accounts and cooperated with the subcommittee, offering comments on individual transactions.
In all cases, the Senate report says, the banks ignored controls intended to prevent money laundering and related screens on PEP, meaning politically exposed persons - high-risk clients from corrupt countries.
The report recommends strengthening regulations against money laundering at banks and revoking exemptions for lawyers and other third parties from restrictions on money laundering in the USA Patriot Act. It recommends that Congress pass laws requiring people who form corporations to disclose the true owners.
The report, brimming with bank statements and internal e-mail messages, contains four case studies.
"Together, these four case histories demonstrate the need for the United States to strengthen its PEP controls to prevent corrupt foreign officials, their relatives and close associates from using U.S. professionals and financial institutions to conceal, protect and utilize their ill-gotten gains," it says.
The report details how Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the son of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea, used lawyers, bankers, real estate agents and escrow agents, all Americans, from 2004 through 2008 to move more than $110 million into the United States, including $100 million through Wachovia and Citibank.
Mr. Obiang, the subject of a criminal investigation into charges of money laundering, bribery and extortion, also employed Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, a law firm now known as Sidley Austin, to help him buy a $38.5 million Gulfstream G-5 jet in 2005, the report says.
Janet Zagorin, a spokeswoman for the firm, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
The report says two American lawyers, Michael Berger and George Nagler, helped Mr. Obiang circumvent controls at the banks by setting up accounts for shell companies with names like Beautiful Vision, Unlimited Horizon and Sweet Pink, named on honor of the rapper Eve, Mr. Obiang's girlfriend at the time.
Mr. Obiang, Equatorial Guinea's minister of agriculture and forestry, used the accounts to pay his personal expenses, including chefs and butlers for his home in Malibu, Calif., and bills at Ferrari of Beverly Hills and Dolce & Gabbana, receipts cited in the report show. He also arranged for Mr. Berger to be invited to the 2007 "Kandy Halloween Bash" at the Playboy Mansion, the report says.
It says Mr. Obiang hired two American real estate agents to help him buy the $30 million home in Malibu, with suspect money transferred from Equatorial Guinea.
The report also details how in recent years an American lobbyist, Jeffrey Birrell, helped the former president of Gabon, Omar Bongo, buy six armored vehicles, including the Hummer, and obtain United States government permission to buy six C-130 military cargo aircraft to support his government, all suspect transactions. The purchases were routed through accounts set up at HSBC, Commerce Bank and JPMorgan Chase, the report says.
Another case study details how Jennifer Douglas Abubakar, an American and the fourth wife of the former vice president of Nigeria, helped her husband bring more than $40 million in suspect money into the United States. It says some of the money was then funneled through offshore accounts.
The report also details how Pierre Falcone, a native Algerian and known arms dealer now imprisoned in France, used nearly 30 bank accounts at Bank of America's Scottsdale, Ariz., branch to funnel millions of dollars in suspect money through the United States over 18 years.
Bernie Becker contributed reporting.
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20) What's Next for Swiss Bank Secrecy?
Peter J. Henning, a professor at Wayne State Law School, specializes in issues related to white-collar crime and follows them for DealBook's White Collar Watch.
February 3, 2010, 1:27 pm
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/whats-next-for-swiss-bank-secrecy/?ref=business
Switzerland's long tradition of bank secrecy has been under assault as a number of countries try to thwart tax evasion by citizens who keep money hidden in secret accounts. While the edifice of secrecy has shown some cracks lately, it is still an open question whether there will be a serious breach in the wall of silence that the Swiss have built around their banking institutions.
The criminal and Internal Revenue Service investigations of the Swiss bank UBS for assisting Americans evade taxes resulted in a historic agreement between the United States and Switzerland under which the identity of nearly 5,000 account holders would be disclosed to the I.R.S. and Justice Department.
For the first time, the Swiss government became committed to helping reveal individuals who used secret accounts to avoid taxes, something it had long resisted. As a result of a voluntary disclosure program, the I.R.S. has learned of a number of individuals who used offshore accounts to hide assets.
As Lynnley Browning reported in The New York Times, however, Swiss courts have thrown up a roadblock by finding that the agreement with the United States violates bank secrecy laws, and therefore the identity of UBS clients cannot be revealed. As part of the deal between the I.R.S. and UBS, the process by which about 4,450 names would be turned over by the bank to American authorities was the key provision that ended the quest to compel the bank to disclose records on more than 50,000 accounts. If that process cannot be completed, then the I.R.S. can revive its case seeking to enforce what is known as a "John Doe Summons" that would require UBS to turn over the records of its customers.
If the bank could not comply with a court order to supply the records because of its obligations under Swiss law, then one potential remedy would be to bar UBS from doing business in the United States. While the bank disposed of its United States cross-border business as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, it still has a significant presence in this country. Whether the Swiss government is willing to change its underlying bank secrecy laws remains to be seen, and I find it hard to believe that its longstanding policy of protecting the identity of bank customers will change significantly.
A second, and potentially more serious, development involves an offer to the German government to sell digital bank records containing the identity of approximately 1,500 Germans with accounts in Switzerland. The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäube, stated that the government would be willing to purchase the information, which had been offered to it for 2.5 million euros. It is not clear what bank is involved, although there were news reports in December that records had been stolen from a branch of HSBC.
The Swiss have protested the potential purchase, pointing out that data theft is a crime and that Switzerland would not provide any legal assistance to the Germans for an investigation involving stolen bank information. While it is a crime to steal from a thief, it is hard to feel much sympathy for the victim, and in this case Switzerland's policy makes protests about how bank secrecy has been unfairly compromised sound a bit hollow.
If Germany does purchase the information and uses it to pursue tax evasion cases against its citizens, it raises an interesting question of whether others will be encouraged to engage in similar conduct, and if the United States would be willing to buy such information.
Congress adopted a whistleblower reward program in 2006 that allows those who report tax evasion to recover 15 percent to 30 percent of what the I.R.S. collects if the total amount meets a minimum threshold. The tax whistleblower program does not limit any award based on how the information was obtained, so stealing it from a company or individual evading taxes does not seem to preclude a reward. Bradley Birkenfeld, a former UBS banker whose disclosures of tax evasion were critical in bringing the case against the bank, is seeking a whistleblower payment even though he pleaded guilty to conspiracy involving tax evasion by clients and is serving a 40-month prison term.
Government bounty programs have become a favorite tool in the past few years for ferreting out wrongdoing. In 2009, Congress adopted legislation expanding the False Claims Act, making it easier for whistleblowers to pursue claims under the act for false or fraudulent conduct that costs the federal government money. The Securities and Exchange Commission may implement a similar program if Congress enacts the Investor Protection Act that has already been passed by the House.
The offer to the German government involves an upfront payment rather than receiving a portion of the taxes recovered, which is more like a contingency fee than a ransom for the information. But it is not clear whether there is any real difference between that payment and a bounty paid to an informant for information used to recover unpaid taxes and assess penalties. The government regularly uses undercover informants who skirt the edge of legality to gather evidence, and it is hard to distinguish between different types of payments based on one being made upfront to a person who steals information and the other as a reward after a successful tax evasion proceeding.
There is no constitutional prohibition on the American government that prevents it from using information of the type that has been offered to Germany. A well-known - and much criticized - Supreme Court case, United States v. Alvarez-Machain, held that a federal court had jurisdiction over a defendant who was kidnapped in his home country and delivered to American authorities. Similarly, an illegal seizure of evidence abroad from a foreign national does not preclude it from being used in an American courtroom, particularly when no government agent was involved in the conduct.
Stealing information from a Swiss bank in order to sell it to another government is quite clearly unseemly, and a risky proposition for the thief who can be prosecuted in Switzerland if caught. Nor is it the way countries normally deal with one another. But the decision of the Swiss court that effectively rejected the agreement with the United States creates a real risk that less-conventional means will be used to get around bank secrecy that is costing governments billions of dollars and euros of tax revenue.
- Peter J. Henning
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21) Doctor and Patient
When the Patient Can't Afford the Care
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
February 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/health/04chen.html?ref=health
During my training, I took care of a man in his 50s with a devastating surgical complication: His abdominal incision had split open a week after an emergency operation. Even after we had taken him back to the operating room, sewn the deepest layer of his abdominal wall closed and treated the infection that had caused his wound to fall apart in the first place, he still had a three-inch long crevice along the middle of his belly. Until the edges contracted and the gaping expanse filled in on its own, he and his wife would have to pack damp gauze into the wound every day to keep it clean and help it heal.
But on a visit a few weeks after his discharge from the hospital, I noticed that the gauze had been packed more loosely and changed less frequently than we had instructed. What should have been white and fluffy looked dried and yellowed, and his wound was no longer clean and healthy but covered with crusty patches.
When I started to lecture him on the importance of dressing changes, he leaned over to interrupt. "Hey, Doc," he said, pointing to the pile of unopened gauze I had brought into the room to re-dress his wound. "Do you think I could have the extra? This stuff isn't cheap."
My patient had been cutting back on the gauze and changing the dressing less often because he couldn't afford the supplies. And while I had been careful to recite the science behind the treatments, I had no idea how much he had to pay or if he could afford the expense.
As I stuffed a few packages into my patient's pocket, I realized that in the busy day-to-day pursuit of becoming a good doctor, I had telescoped in on the clinical details, neglecting my once-cherished ideal to embrace the social and economic aspects of health care. By the time I was in residency, as was so apparent that afternoon, I had completely lost touch with my patient's economic reality.
I believed that being a good doctor meant knowing the clinical facts down cold. And I somehow had led myself to believe that it would've taken much more time and effort to pay closer attention to those other details.
It was as if there had to be some kind of trade-off.
But I was wrong, on two counts. It was possible to learn about the economic and social aspects of health care while immersed in the details of biology, physiology and pharmacology. And it was impossible to become a good clinician without doing so.
Last fall the journal Academic Medicine reported that the vast majority of students felt they had received adequate clinical training during their four years of schooling. But fewer than half felt they had had adequate exposure to health care systems and practice, an area of study that extends to subjects like medical economics, managed care, practice management and medical record-keeping.
When the researchers compared the five-year results from two medical schools, they found that students who had attended the school with more of these types of courses were significantly more satisfied with their education than students from the school with fewer. Moreover, regardless of how much of their school's curriculum was devoted to these nonclinical topics, students remained equally satisfied with their clinical preparation.
"If you only have one system, one payer and one set of hospitals in your country, there's not much you need to know about health care systems," said Dr. Matthew Davis, an associate professor of pediatrics, internal medicine and public policy at the University of Michigan and the senior author of the study. "But when you have hundreds of insurance plans and thousands of insurance groups and different hospitals, you have to be really smart about the health care system.
"Our findings suggest that we are not preparing them nearly as well for that challenge as we are for their clinical work."
What was surprising to the researchers was how relatively little time was required to train students in these broader health care issues. "There was a difference of maybe 16 or 17 lectures" between the two schools, said Dr. Mitesh S. Patel, lead author and a resident in the internal medicine training program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. "But the impact on how properly people felt they were being trained was dramatic."
That impact on students' perceptions and the kind of care they offer is obvious to Madelon L. Finkel, a professor of clinical public health at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, who has led medical students in a required two-week intensive course on the health care system since its inception a decade ago.
"The course opens their eyes to issues they haven't been focusing on," Dr. Finkel said. "At the beginning, I always ask if students routinely ask their patients about drug coverage. But none of them ever does."
The goal of the course, which includes discussions and lectures, as well as mornings spent with officials at various hospital systems, health care organizations and government agencies, is to have all the students asking questions like that one and "understanding the complexities of being a doctor."
Learning about the economics and practice of health care does not always require separate courses; educators can have the same kind of impact by integrating the lessons into the standard medical curriculum. "Oftentimes," Dr. Davis observed, "people look at a curriculum in terms of time rather than ideas." But a discussion about a new group of high blood pressure medications can include not only biochemistry and pharmacology but also health care costs and outcomes research.
"These are incredibly important topics," said Dr. John E. Prescott, chief academic officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges, the group that has sponsored the national questionnaire used by the researchers. "Physicians knowing about the system and the environment in which they work allows them to be better doctors. And that in turn allows them to take better care of their patients."
"It's a pay-off," Dr. Davis added, "not a trade-off."
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22) Reports: AIG to pay out $100 million in bonuses
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wed Feb 3, 7:05 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100203/ap_on_bi_ge/us_aig_bonuses
NEW YORK - American International Group Inc. is set to pay out about $100 million in a fresh round of bonuses to employees of its financial products division, the unit whose risky bets helped sink the company leading to a $180 billion government bailout, according to reports published Tuesday.
AIG agreed to cut the retention bonuses by $20 million but will still hand out $100 million Wednesday, The New York Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the negotiations.
The Washington Post, also citing people familiar with the situation, said the retention payments are for employees at the division who agreed to accept 10 to 20 percent less than AIG had initially promised them two years ago. In return, they are getting their money more than a month ahead of schedule.
AIG is still due to pay out tens of millions of dollars more in March, mostly to former employees who did not agree to the concessions, the Post reported.
A message was left with an AIG spokesman seeking comment.
New York-based AIG faced intense public and Congressional criticism last March when it paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in retention bonuses to employees months after receiving the government bailout.
When the credit crisis hit in the fall of 2008, the U.S. government rescued AIG from the brink of collapse in exchange for an 80 percent stake in the insurer. AIG's near collapse was not due to its traditional insurance operations, but instead risky derivatives contracts written by the financial products division.
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23) Tom Condit Dies - Socialist, frequent Candidate
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 4, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/04/BADR1BQ9MQ.DTL
A celebration will be held in June to honor Berkeley resident Tom Condit, a lifelong socialist and founding member of California's Peace and Freedom Party who ran several times for public office.
Mr. Condit died Jan. 9 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland of prostate cancer. He was 72.
John Thomas Condit was born June 17, 1937, in Spokane, Wash. His father was a newspaper journalist and the family moved frequently as he chased jobs around the country. They were often poor, said Mr. Condit's wife, Marsha Feinland, and Tom Condit picked fruit in the summer.
Mr. Condit began college at UC Santa Barbara but soon found that he couldn't afford to attend, so he joined the Marines. After being discharged he joined the Young People's Socialist League in New York. He held a leadership position in the Students for a Democratic Society. He headed west to Berkeley in the mid-1960s and became involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, among others.
He attended Merritt College, San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley on the GI Bill, Feinland said, "but never received a degree because there was always a protest to organize."
In the late 1960s, Mr. Condit helped to get the Peace and Freedom Party on the ballot in California. He ran under its banner for state insurance commissioner three times, as well as for Assembly and state Senate. In 1984, he ran for president, but lost in the party's primary.
Over the years, Mr. Condit worked in an Oakland cannery, drove a cab and typed documents in a law office. But he was always advocating for working people and supported a single-payer health care system for decades. Feinland said he viewed the current health care legislation before Congress as "a gift to the insurance companies."
Mr. Condit met Feinland, a schoolteacher, at a socialist convention in 1984. They married in 1992.
In 2007, for a reunion of the Young People's Socialist League, Mr. Condit wrote a memoir that was recently reposted by Solidarity, a socialist organization, at www.solidarity-us.org.
"In the past 50 years, I have seen the socialist movement decline on a world-wide scale," Mr. Condit wrote. "At the same time, the need for one has never been greater. The capitalist class is greedier, more violent and more destructive of both humanity and the earth than ever before, and shows no sign of improving despite all the 'greenwashing' corporations are rushing to give themselves.
"We need more than ever to build a movement capable of putting an end to capitalism and building a new society based on cooperation, democracy and sharing," he wrote.
He is survived by his wife, Feinland of Berkeley; his stepson, Ian Grimes of San Francisco; his brother, Colin Condit of Vancouver, British Columbia; his sister, Constance Condit, and her partner, Kathleen McCall of Claremont (Los Angeles County); and his stepmother, Geraldine Irby of Surrey, British Columbia.
Memorial contributions can be made to Haiti Emergency Relief Fund/EBSC, 2362 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94704, or to Feinland for Senate, 2124 Kittredge St., No. 66, Berkeley, CA 94704. A June celebration of Mr. Condit's life is being planned. Details will be made available at www.peaceandfreedom.org.
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24) Turkey - Life will stop in Turkey on February 4th to support the resisting TEKEL workers' struggle! 6 Labor Confederations reach agreement to participate in the general strike!
February 3, 2010
http://www.sendika.org/english/yazi.php?yazi_no=29079
The entire labor union confederations agreed on a joint general strike to support the heroic struggle of the public TEKEL workers who are fighting against contracting out their jobs. In solidarity with this historic event, entire progressive trade associations, student organizations, democratic mass organizations and political parties will join forces with labor against privatizations and against the IMF and World Bank mandates, government take aways and neo liberal policies of the Islamic, pro-US Turkish government.
Massive rallies and demonstrations will be held in every corner of the country from east to west protesting the attacks of neo liberalism and free market policies imposed by imperialism and implemented by the "moderate" Islamic government of Justice and Development Party (JDP) of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
In Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey with a population above 12 million, due to the expected massive participation, there will be two rallies which will march across the city to merge at Sarachane Park around 1:00 PM.
In the nation's capital, Ankara, there will be several marches starting from various points. Each march will follow one of the major roads so that the entire capital will be covered with protests and demonstrations during this day of strike and protest. While the office workers meet at Ulus, the old downtown of Ankara, the health care workers will gather at Hacettepe Hospital that is located between the old and the new parts of Ankara. Labor Unions of Turk-Is, the largest confederation, will meet at the Confederation offices and start the march to meet the rest of the demonstrators. The president of Turk-Is, Mustafa Kumlu, is expected to give a speech at around 11:00 AM.
No trains, no planes
The union of airline workers, Hava-Is, in a written statement called for work stoppage across all its members. The statement reads, "Our members will exercise their right to stop work on February 4 by not being present at their work places. This action will cover all work shifts between 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM and 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. We invite our entire membership to be at Edirnekapi meeting place at 11:00 AM and participate in the massive press conference."
The Joint Transportation Union BTS also called for a strike between 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and announced that the trains will not be running during these hours.
Call to strike from labor organizations
KESK, the Confederation of Public Workers' Unions, in a statement said, "To take such an action, the government must be thinking that they can simply get rid of the workers and that no one will support them,. The TEKEL workers lit a torch against the darkness of this government. We will not let this torch burn out. We will show our solidarity and determination with a one day strike on February 4th."
The president of The Chamber of Engineers and Architects of Turkey, Mehmet Soganci promised to be on the streets with all the members on February 4th.
In another statement, Kamu-Sen, the public workers' union announced the decision to stop work for a day on February 4th.
Joint call from 17 Health Organizations
17 health organizations including the Association of Pharmacists, The Chamber of Physicians of Turkey, Progressive Health Workers' Union, and Healthcare Labor Union announced a joint call to support the TEKEL workers and urged all workers to use their power. The announcement read, "Everybody knows, that is, all the unemployed, all the poor, all public and private workers know that when it comes to using the resources of this country, they know no limits for their own ilk. However, when people need these resources, suddenly nothing is available. The entire health care workers are very much aware of this fact. Therefore we declare that on February 4th, the healthcare workers will join forces with others not only for the TEKEL workers, but also for themselves and for the entire poor and working class of this country."
Sendika.Org
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25) We Won't Sit By while the Bankers and Militarists Plunder this Country
and Send our Loved Ones to Fight in a War for Empire!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Statement
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
The outrage continues and gets worse.
When tens of thousands march in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles on March 20 - we are going to tie together the issue of endless war and skyrocketing unemployment and poverty.
If we don't act, no one will.
Consider these scandalous facts:
--Today, the Pentagon announced that tens of thousands of Marines are invading the southern provinces of Afghanistan in the next few days. General Barry McCaffrey predicts 300-500 killed and wounded each month in the next few months. The generals never bother talking about the loss of Afghan lives.
--Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Gates submitted the largest military budget in U.S. history. The $708 billion includes nearly $500 million each day for Iraq and Afghanistan.
--Hours later, the bankrupt insurance giant AIG announced that it was doling out $100 million more in bonuses. AIG exists because it received $180 billion in taxpayers' bailout. The federal government received an 80 percent share in AIG, which means Obama's Treasury Secretary Geithner agreed to these bonuses. AIG will give millions more bonuses in March.
--More than 25 million people are unemployed or seriously underemployed while the bankers, war contractors and other corporate crooks make record profits and record bonuses.
--Personal bankruptcies rose 32 percent in the past year as families lost their jobs, medical benefits and their homes.
Take to streets. Tell every family and friend, co-worker and fellow student that it's time to get on the bus. It's time for the people to speak out. It's time to raise hell!
Please make an urgently needed donation!
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&JServSessionIdr004=gko1pk1bs3.app13b
This is a huge undertaking and we can't do it without the help of thousands of people like you who are opposing the expanding wars and occupations. Please make your contribution today.
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26) Marines brace for new push in southern Afghanistan
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 3, 2010; 11:25 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020300564.html?sub=AR
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan -- U.S. troops and their Afghan and NATO allies are planning their biggest joint offensive since the Afghan war's start, targeting a town in the volatile south known as a Taliban stronghold and a hub of their lucrative opium trade, officers said Wednesday.
No date for the start of the offensive has been released for security reasons. But U.S. commanders have said they plan to capture the town of Marjah, 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul, this winter.
It is to be the first major offensive since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and many of the Marines set to participate arrived as part of the surge.
Up to 125,000 people are believed to live in the district around Marjah, an agricultural center in Helmand province surrounded by a maze of irrigation canals built with American aid in the 1950s and 1960s. About 80,000 people live in or around the town itself.
Between 600 and 1,000 Taliban and foreign fighters are thought to operate in the area, U.S. officers say. NATO officials won't say how many NATO and Afghan troops have been earmarked for the offensive, but they are expected to vastly outnumber the Taliban and their allies.
In Kabul, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay told reporters that the operation will include at least 1,000 Afghan police and thousands of Afghan soldiers as well as thousands of NATO troops. U.S. officers say the offensive will involve the highest number of Afghan forces in any joint operation to date.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi did not specifically mention Marjah, but told reporters in Kabul that a large operation is coming "in the near future" in Helmand. He said it will "separate the local people from the terrorists in the area."
Fighting escalated in Helmand in 2006, and the sprawling southern province was transformed into one of the deadliest parts of the country for NATO forces.
Last spring, thousands of U.S. Marines arrived in the province to reinforce the British military. British and American forces launched twin operations to try to stabilize the area before the August presidential election, in which turnout in Helmand was extremely low.
U.S. officials have spoken publicly about plans to take Marjah in hopes that many civilians will leave the town, along with Taliban fighters who are not deeply committed to the insurgency.
Commanders believe support of the local population is crucial to establishing an Afghan administration as quickly as possible and to help NATO troops detect the numerous improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that they expect to face in Marjah.
Two U.S. service members were killed by a bomb Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, but NATO did not specify the precise location.
Col. George Amland, the deputy commander of Marines in Helmand province, said the Taliban force includes "hundreds of idiots running around Marjah right now waiting to aggregate" and confront the NATO and Afghan troops.
He expects the Taliban ranks will "dwindle very quickly into a very manageable number" by the time the fighting begins.
Amland dismissed most of the Taliban force as just "in the Taliban's employ" and said that local opium poppy growers and opium dealers will abandon the militants quickly.
That leaves the "dyed-in-the-wool Taliban," Amland told reporters in Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine Corps base in southern Afghanistan. He estimates there are "a couple of hundred of those that are rallying the rest of the cause."
The militants are believed to include about 100 to 150 foreign fighters, including Arabs, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and a few Yemenis, said Maj. Jundish Jang Baz, of the Afghan National Army.
The problem, he added, is that NATO isn't completely sure whether it can rely on all the forces supposed to be on its side. Jang Baz said the locally hired Afghan police were less than reliable.
"We think they're working with al-Qaida in Marjah," Jang Baz said, adding that he expected the Taliban to "scatter like ants."
"The real challenge is to make sure they don't flee with enough weapons to start another fight somewhere else," he said.
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Azimi also said an investigation was still under way into a NATO airstrike that killed four Afghan soldiers last week in Wardak province.
The fighting broke out when a joint U.S.-Afghan force came under fire near a remote highway outpost and called in the airstrike. Both sides have said it appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.
The U.S. Army Special Operations Command denied claims by Afghan officials that the troops involved were special forces.
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27) Military Officials Say Afghan Fight Is Coming
"There will be a big clearance operation and we will separate the civilian population from the insurgents," General Azimi said. "As I've said many times before, we will have a bloody summer ahead."
By ROD NORDLAND
February 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/world/asia/04taliban.html?ref=world
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO and the Afghan military are about to launch their biggest joint offensive of the war, and they appear to be making sure the Taliban know they are coming.
On Wednesday, spokesmen for the Afghan Defense Ministry and for the NATO forces announced at a news conference that an offensive involving thousands of troops would begin "in the near future," and while they did not confirm the place, they also did not dispute widespread speculation that the target was the Taliban-held town of Marja.
The deliberate publicizing of the offensive - with news conferences, press releases and public pronouncements - is relatively unusual for the military. There could be several strategic benefits - and risks. If Taliban were to withdraw in advance of the offensive and civilians had ample warning, there could be fewer military and civilian casualties.
"In some cases it may make sense, with a population-centered strategy, to give an awareness where U.S. and Afghan forces are going, and give an opportunity for Taliban and insurgent forces to clear out," said Seth Jones, a RAND Corporation senior political scientist who specializes in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American military commander in Afghanistan, has emphasized a counterinsurgency strategy that focuses on reducing civilian casualties and convincing the local population that the Americans and NATO can protect them.
Afghan military officials and Marja residents say that the area has been heavily leafleted to warn civilians that an offensive is coming.
But forewarning also gives the Taliban an opportunity to escape and regroup elsewhere, as insurgents in Iraq did after the 2004 American Marine assault on Falluja. That assault was also widely expected, and the timing generally known within days. Already, Mr. Jones said, there have been reports of Taliban militants filtering out of Marja. Alternatively, the Taliban could fortify their defenses and plant explosives around the area.
The imminent offensive was first announced in a press release from the Pentagon on Monday, and, unusually, the name of the campaign was disclosed: Operation Moshtarak, which means Joint Operation in Dari.
While reporters embedded with American units in southern Afghanistan have been told not to mention the target of the offensive in their dispatches, or in e-mail or phone calls, even Taliban commanders have said they expect their Marja stronghold to be attacked soon.
For months, the town has been under complete Taliban control, and more than a thousand Taliban reportedly took refuge there beginning last summer, as United States Marines stepped up the pressure in Helmand Province. Located in the opium poppy-growing belt, Marja also is close to the strategically important provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, and has been a staging area for suicide attacks and other bombings.
A local Taliban commander in Marja reached by cellphone said they were aware that the town was the target, and he sought to signal that they would not be intimidated. "We will definitely defend Marja," said the commander, who goes by the name Ishaq. "It's the only place left for us. We have all of our fighters assembled here to fight against Afghan and foreign forces."
"We know this operation will be much bigger than previous operations," Mr. Ishaq said. "We are determined to fight until the last drop of our blood."
At the news conference on Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Zahir Azimi, spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense, said the offensive would start "in the near future" in southern Afghanistan. Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, the spokesman for NATO forces here, was more specific, saying it would be in central Helmand Province. "There will be at least a thousand Afghan National Police, thousands of Afghan National Army soldiers and many thousands of ISAF troops," General Azimi said, using the acronym for the International Security Assistance Force.
Since summer, international forces led by the United States Marines have been systematically clearing the Helmand River valley, and in December their Operation Cobra's Anger forced Taliban fighters out of the town of Now Zad, leaving Marja as the last town under Taliban control.
"It's no secret we're going there," the Marine commander in Helmand, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, said in an interview with Reuters and CNN in December. "There's an inevitability that there's a date with destiny with Marja, and we're moving toward that."
At the bus station in Lashkar Gah on Wednesday, Marja residents said the offensive had been expected since leaflets were dropped from helicopters beginning about four months ago. The leaflets warned residents to stay off the streets after 9 p.m. and to stay away from windows once an offensive started.
Ahmed Shah, a 53-year-old driver, said that Taliban fighters had been increasing their numbers in Marja in recent days and residents expected an attack soon, although they did not know when. "Their activities are visible in the city and it seems they are preparing for face-to-face fighting with the government and international forces."
"We know about the operation but we don't know how big and how powerful it will be," said Azizullah, 35, a shopkeeper from Marja, who uses only one name. "It seems it will be a major operation because compared to the previous time, this time there's too much preparation for this operation on both sides."
Both Mr. Azizullah and Mr. Shah said they were hopeful that Afghan government and international forces would stay in Marja, rather than pulling out after a short time, as happened the last time the coalition took Marja, in May 2009.
"There will be a big clearance operation and we will separate the civilian population from the insurgents," General Azimi said. "As I've said many times before, we will have a bloody summer ahead."
General Tremblay said there was no intention of leaving the area after the offensive. Government and civilian reconstruction efforts will follow closely behind the military campaign, he said.
General Azimi said the Afghan military would be bringing troops in from many parts of the country for the offensive. In addition, American troop strength has doubled in the course of the past six months, making it easier to remain in force in areas that are cleared of Taliban.
He said previous efforts to clear the Taliban from areas in Helmand Province faltered because there were insufficient troops to stay permanently.
Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Washington, and an employee of The New York Times from Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan.
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