These two bills are now in Congress and need your support. Either or both bills would drastically decrease Lynne's and other federal sentences substantially.
H.R. 1475 "Federal Prison Work Incentive Act Amended 2009," Congressman Danny Davis, Democrat, Illinois
This bill will restore and amend the former federal B.O.P. good time allowances. It will let all federal prisoners, except lifers, earn significant reductions to their sentences. Second, earn monthly good time days by working prison jobs. Third, allowances for performing outstanding services or duties in connection with institutional operations. In addition, part of this bill is to bring back parole to federal long term prisoners.
Go to: www.FedCURE.org and www.FAMM.org
At this time, federal prisoners only earn 47 days per year good time. If H.R. 1475 passes, Lynne Stewart would earn 120-180 days per year good time!
H.R. 61 "45 And Older," Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (18th Congressional District, Texas)
This bill provides early release from federal prison after serving half of a violent crime or violent conduct in prison.
Please write, call, email your Representatives and Senators. Demand their votes!
This information is brought to you by Diane E. Schindelwig, a federal prisoner #36582-177 and friend and supporter of Lynne Stewart.
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEOS
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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From: Local 2 UNITE HERE!
UPHOLD THE HOTEL BOYCOTTS!
Join Local 2's All-Day Picketlines!
HILTON SIEGE
O'Farrell and Mason Streets
August 25 & 26, 2010
Wednesday/Thursday
7am to 7pm
SAVE THE DATE
for another siege action!
September 2, 2010
7am to 7pm
Venue to be announced
We always have a Labor Day action, but this year we will join another national coordinated hotel workers' protest on Thursday, September 2. The venue for this 12-hour siege will be announced soon. Please save the date and commit to a two-hour picket shift.
*************
SUPPORT WORKERS! JOIN OUR BOYCOTT TEAM!
UNITE HERE! is leading the fight to for hotel workers - many of them women of color and immigrants - in hotels across San Francisco and North America. UNITE HERE! represents more than 250,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada who work in the hospitality, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, laundry, and airport industries. We are at the forefront of the battle for workers rights, immigration reform and living wages.
In San Francisco, union contracts for thousands of hotel workers have expired. These workers are standing in solidarity to defend their standards against dozens ruthless hotel corporations. Additionally, non-union hotel workers are also engaged in an ongoing struggle at two hotels, the HEI Le Meridien and the Hyatt at Fisherman's Wharf.
Our ground-up model of organizing and our comprehensive corporate campaigns are largely worker and volunteer run. In this current economic crisis, it is more important than ever for committed local activists to get involved in the fight for workers rights.
We are seeking enthusiastic volunteer activists to help build the labor movement in San Francisco. Currently, the Local 2 Boycott Apprenticeship Program is offering non-paid internship opportunities.
DETAILS OF THE APPRENTICESHIP
Location: San Francisco
Education: No requirement
Additional Qualifications:
Passion for social justice, assertive personality and basic computer skills for research (Spreadsheets, Databases, Internet search tools).
Duties include:
30% - Coordinating and executing creative actions at strategic locations to help enforce worker called boycotts.
70% - Research and campaign related work.
Commitment:
4 - 10 Hours a week minimum, Ongoing program.
************
Let us learn together, and fight together. Join Local 2's awesome Boycott Team.
For volunteer opportunities, please contact:
Powell DeGange, pdegange@unitehere.org
415-864-8770 ext. 759
Sign the Hotel Boycott Pledge:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dE9US3YwVmZyZFpLcVFUOFozWk4tZEE6MA
Click here for details and figures showing why these corporations have no excuse not to provide hotel workers affordable quality health care:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BzaUbolMBN98NTZmZGU3MGUtM2NjMy00ZjgxLWFjYzgtYTcyOTRmZTA1NDgy&hl=en
WATCH A VIDEO OF THE BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVOzfbb08_0
For a current list of boycotted hotels, please check our website
www.unitehere2.org
Join our Facebook Groups:
"Boycott HEI Le Meridien and Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf"
"UNITE HERE Local 2"
Check our Websites:
www.unitehere2.org
www.unitehere.org
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There are signs plastered all over the New York City subway system warning that, "Assaulting MTA New York City Transit subway personnel is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison." What will Johannes Mehserle, an Oakland BART subway cop get for the murder of Oscar Grant? HE COULD EVEN GET PAROLLE! OR AS LITTLE AS FOUR YEARS! WE WANT THE MAXIMUM FOR MEHSERLE!
Longshore workers call for labor/community rally for:
Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail Killer Cops!
The next labor/community organizing meeting will be:
7 PM, Tuesday August 31, 2010
Longshore Hall - Henry Schmidt room
400 North Point St @ Mason
near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco
Media/Publicity: Jack Heyman 510-531-4717, jackheyman@comcast.net
You are urged to attend!
A broad group of labor and community organizers met Tuesday, July 27 to help organize a mass demonstration demanding Justice for Oscar Grant! Jail Killer Cops! to take place Saturday, October 23 in Oakland. Committees were set up and organizing has begun involving people from the Bay Area and coordinated nation-wide. Bay Area United Against War Newsletter encourages everyone to become involved in organizing and building this very urgent event. We can't allow the police to have a license to murder the innocent and unarmed with a slap on the wrist. We demand the maximum for Johannes Mehserle!
Oscar Grant was murdered in cold blood!
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SAVE THE DATE: JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT -- October 23, 2010
Media/Publicity: Jack Heyman 510-531-4717, jackheyman@comcast.net
ILWU Local 10 Motion on the Verdict in the Oscar Grant Case
Whereas, Oscar Grant's killer, BART police officer Johannes Mehserle received a verdict of involuntary manslaughter on July 8, 2010; and
Whereas, video tapes show clearly that Oscar Grant was lying face down on the Fruitvale BART platform, waiting to be handcuffed with another cop's boot on his neck posing no threat when he was shot in the back and killed in cold blood by Mehserle; and
Whereas, this is just another example in a racist justice system where police officers go free for killing young black men; and
Whereas, the Contra Costa Times reports that police are holding a rally in Walnut Creek on July 19, 2010 to show support for the killer cop so his sentence will only be a slap on the wrist; and
Whereas; the ILWU has always stood for social justice;
Therefore be it resolved that the labor movement organize a mass protest rally October 23, 2010 with participation from community groups, civil rights organizations, civil liberties organizations and all who stand for social justice demand jail for killer cops.
THAT LOCAL 10 DELEGATES TO THE BAY AREA LABOR COUNCILS ARE DIRECTED TO RAISE THE ABOVE MOTION AT THEIR NEXT MEETING
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Education 4 the People!
October 7 Day of Action in Defense of Public Education - California
http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/
MORE THAN 100 activists from across California gathered in Los Angeles April 24 to debate next steps for the fight against the devastating cutbacks facing public education.
The main achievements of the conference were to set a date and location for the next statewide mass action-October 7-and for the next anti-cuts conference, which will happen October 16 at San Francisco State University. The other key outcome was the first steps toward the formation of an ad hoc volunteer coordinating committee to plan for the fall conference.
These decisions were a crucial step toward deepening and broadening the movement. For example, the fall conference will be the key venue for uniting activists from all sectors of public education, and especially from those schools and campuses which saw action on March 4, but which have yet to plug into the broader movement.
This will be crucial for extending the scope and increasing the strength of our movement, as well as for helping us strategize and prepare for what is certain to be a tough year ahead. Similarly, the fall mass action will be crucial to re-igniting the movement following the summer months.
http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/
Organizing for the next Statewide Public Education Mobilization Conference at SFSU on OCT 16th
Posted on May 24, 2010 by ooofireballooo
Organizing for the next Statewide Public Education Mobilization Conference
@ San Francisco State University on October 16th
MORE THAN 100 activists from across California gathered in Los Angeles April 24 to debate next steps for the fight against the devastating cutbacks facing public education.
The main achievements of the conference were to set a date and location for the next statewide mass action-October 7-and for the next anti-cuts conference, which will happen October 16 at San Francisco State University. The other key outcome was the first steps toward the formation of an ad hoc volunteer coordinating committee to plan for the fall conference.
These decisions were a crucial step toward deepening and broadening the movement. For example, the fall conference will be the key venue for uniting activists from all sectors of public education, and especially from those schools and campuses which saw action on March 4, but which have yet to plug into the broader movement.
This will be crucial for extending the scope and increasing the strength of our movement, as well as for helping us strategize and prepare for what is certain to be a tough year ahead. Similarly, the fall mass action will be crucial to re-igniting the movement following the summer months.
Proposal: Form a conference organizing listserve immediately!
Please join the google group today.
* Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/fallconferencesfsu
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NOVEMBER 2010 - CONVERGE ON FORT BENNING, GEORGIA
November 18-21, 2010: Close the SOA and take a stand for justice in the Americas.
www.soaw.org/take-action/november-vigil
The November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia will be held from November 18-21, 2010. The annual vigil is always held close to the anniversary of the 1989 murders of Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Jesuit priests at a the University of Central America in El Salvador.
ORGANIZE YOUR COMMUNITY FOR THE 2010 VIGIL!
November 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the vigil that brings together religious communities, students, teachers, veterans, community organizers, musicians, puppetistas and many others. New layers of activists are joining the movement to close the SOA in large numbers, including numerous youth and students from multinational, working-class communities. The movement is strong thanks to the committed work of thousands of organizers and volunteers around the country. They raise funds, spread the word through posters and flyers, organize buses and other transportation to Georgia, and carry out all the work that is needed to make the November vigil a success. Together, we are strong!
VIGIL AND RALLY AT THE GATES, NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION, TEACH-IN, CONCERTS, WORKSHOPS AND A ANTI-MILITARIZATION ORGANIZERS CONFERENCE
There will be exciting additions to this year's vigil program. Besides the rally at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia with inspiring speakers and amazing musicians from across the Americas, the four day convergence will also include an educational teach-in at the Columbus Convention Center, several evening concerts, workshops and for the first time, the Latin America Solidarity Coalition will stage a one-day Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference on Thursday, November 18, 2010.
SHUT DOWN THE SOA AND RESIST U.S. MILITARIZATION IN THE AMERICAS
Our work has unfortunately not gotten any easier and U.S. militarization in Latin America is accelerating. The SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras, the continuing repression against the Honduran pro-democracy resistance and the expansion of U.S. military bases in Colombia and Panama are grim examples of the ongoing threats of a U.S. foreign policy that is relying on the military to exert control over the people and the resources in the Americas. Join the people who are struggling for justice in Honduras, Colombia and throughout the Americas as we organize to push back.
Spread the word - Tell a friend about the November Vigil:
http://www.SOAW.org/tellafriend
For more information, visit:
www.SOAW.org.
See you at the gates of Fort Benning in November 2010
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B. VIDEOS:
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Toxic Soup in Ocean Springs Ms By Lorrie Williams
August 13, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBLCekZiyA
August 16, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/user/LorrieofOceanspring
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BP Oil Spill Cleanup Worker Exposes the Realities of Beach Cleanup In Gulf of Mexico
August 11, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlMDBAGLFI
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NEWS BREAKING Louisiana official willing to go to jail in fight against federal Government!!
August 12, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cje9Y6HMRoo
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The Coast Guard threatens to have Louisiana official arrested for fighting oil spill
August 13, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gpet4ZshnE
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Days After Tar Balls Hit New York Beach Massive Fish Kills Stretch From New Jersey to Massachusetts
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/08/12/days-tar-balls-york-beach-massive-fish-kills-stretch-nj-massachusets/
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WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord's Eyewitness Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kelmEZe8whI&feature=player_embedded
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On The Move: Mumia Abu-Jamal's Message to the United National Peace Conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9QAgr1wNZA&feature=player_embedded
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Videos: Hideous Conditions at Long Beach Harbor, MS
By Denise Rednour
August 7, 2010
http://deniselngbch.blogspot.com/2010/08/hideous-conditions-at-long-beach-harbor.html
August 7th, 2010 -- LONG BEACH MS - Very thick oil in and around the harbor at Long Beach, MS today. It's a very sad day indeed. The stench of dispersants and dead fish is in the air as well.
PLEASE, don't be fooled by mainstream media and politicians who are telling people it's over, it's safe to swim, and the seafood is harmless. All beaches in Mississippi remain open without cautions even. All waters are open to commercial and sport fishing of fin fish and shrimp. The only activity banned at the present is crab and oyster fishing.
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Video: George Carlin: "The American Dream"/"Workers Nightmare"
Because the Owners of This Country Own Everything - They Own You - They Don't Want Critical Thinking - They Want Obedient Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=159216125164&ref=mf
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Citizens of New Orleans Respond to the BP Oil Spill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCCX8kLm3Sc
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Economic Hitmen: John Perkins on Economic Imperialism
[He's wrong, though, about there being a benign form of capitalism. There's only one kind of capitalism -- this kind of capitalism -- and it's all bad...bw]
http://vodpod.com/watch/3772159-economic-hitmen-john-perkins-on-economic-imperialism
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Narrated - Oil Leaking From BP Gulf Oil Spill Sea Floor Strata
[After the cement fill...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-VuOTmTbXQ&feature=player_embedded
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Lady Gaga Rallies Fans in Arizona: "If it wasn't for all you immigrants, this country wouldn't have s--t."
By Tanner Stransky
http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/08/02/lady-gaga-arizona-immigration-protest/
Lady Gaga is well known for stirring the pot while advocating for buzzy causes like gay rights, and now she's using her sizable cultural influence to stand up against SB 1070, the controversial Arizona immigration law. At her Monster Ball show in Phoenix on Saturday evening, the pop star encouraged her "little monsters" to not sit idle in regards to the law: "We have to be active. We have to actively protest," she told her audience. Since the news of SB 1070 came down, several heavyweights in the music biz have boycotted the state, but Gaga said she won't do the same.
"I will not cancel my show. I will hold you, and we will hold each other, and we will protest this state," Gaga told her audience. "I got a phone call from a couple really big rock-n-rollers, big pop stars, big rappers, and they said: 'We'd like you to boycott Arizona. We'd like you to boycott playing Arizona because of SB 1070.' And I said: 'You really think that us dumb f-ing pop stars are going to collapse the economy of Arizona?'" And that's when she urged fans to protest. "The nature of the Monster Ball is to actively protest prejudice and injustice and that bullshit that is put on our society!" See her whole impassioned speech here:
http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/08/02/lady-gaga-arizona-immigration-protest/
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Missing Gulf Coast Oil Appears To Be Welling Up Under Barrier Island Beaches (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/03/missing-gulf-coast-oil-ap_n_669243.html
Last week, BP managed to finally cap the Deepwater Horizon oil volcano and the media suddenly found itself in the grips of a baffling problem with object permanence. Where did all the oil go, they wondered. Had it disappeared? Was it eaten by microbes? Did it get Raptured up to Oil Heaven? It was a mystery, wrapped in a miracle! At least it was until Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland took about a minute to send some text messages to colleagues in the field, inquiring after the oil's whereabouts. They answered back: Where is the oil? How does all over the place grab you?
Over at The Upshot, Brett Michael Dykes highlights this report from WVUE in New Orleans, which confirms that the oil did not, in fact, fortuitously disappear into thin air:
According to WVUE correspondent John Snell, local officials dispatched a dive team to a barrier island off of southeastern Louisiana's Plaquemines parish to scan the sea floor for oil. The team, however, could barely see the sea floor, due to the current murky state of the area waters. But when the divers returned to shore, they made a rather remarkable discovery: tiny holes that burrowing Hermit crabs had dug into the ground effectively became oil-drilling holes. When the divers placed pressure on the ground near the holes, oil came oozing up.
So, basically, questioning where the oil has gone is the exact same thing as looking at the shoes attached to the ends of your legs and wondering if your feet have disappeared.
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Video Shows Michigan Oil Spill
By ROBERT MACKEY
July 29, 2010, 1:57 pm
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/youtube-video-of-michigan-oil-spill/?ref=us
As my colleague Emma Graves Fitzsimmons reports from Michigan, the Environmental Protection Agency now estimates that more than one million gallons of oil may have spilled from a pipeline into the Kalamazoo River this week, which is far more than the pipeline's owner, Enbridge Energy Partners, initially estimated.
In a statement posted online, the E.P.A. explained that the government has taken charge of the clean-up effort and is working to keep the oil from reaching Lake Michigan.
On Monday, when a 30-inch pipeline burst in Marshall, Mich., releasing hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek, a waterway that feeds the Kalamazoo River, local residents started posting video of the damage on YouTube. As the site's own CitizenTube blog noted, a user calling herself Picture Takin Diva posted these aerial images of the creek, with the comment, "It's not the Gulf, but it's pretty bad!"
Another user, Corrive 9, who uploaded the video at the top of this post on Tuesday, also conducted some interviews with people who live near the river. Looking at the oily water, this man said, "It smells like a mechanic's shop, for one thing, but it's just a shame because this river was just becoming cleaner and now this. We fish this, catch a lot of small-mouth bass out here, great big ones."
A third YouTube user, who goes by 420 Stardust Glitter, uploaded these silent images of the oil water with a note saying, "The oil is so thick it's starting to look gummy and the smell of the toxins are unbearable."
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BP Oil Spill Grand Isle Town Hall Meeting Part 3
http://videos.wittysparks.com/id/699180664
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Sometimes there are things so beautiful it takes your breath away and confirms the best and most basic good in the nature of humanity...bw
Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around the World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM&feature=player_embedded
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Pete Seeger Live - New Protest Song About BP Oil Spill in Gulf Coast on Banjo w James Maddock Guitar
Published on Friday, July 30, 2010 by YouTube
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/07/30-2
On July 23th 2010 Pete Seeger performed live at a Gulf Coast Oil Spill fundraiser at The City Winery in New York City. There, he unveiled to the public his new protest song about the BP oil spill entitled "God's Counting on Me, God's Counting on You." Backing up Pete's singing and banjo picking is the singer/songwriter James Maddock on acoustic guitar. All proceeds of this concert went to the Gulf Restoration Project. The show was produced and hosted by Richard Barone. The video was edited and mixed by Matthew Billy.
Lyrics:
When we look and we can see things are not what they should be
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
When we look and see things that should not be
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Hopin' we'll all pull through, Hoping we'll all pull through,
Hopin' we'll all pull through
Me and you.
It's time to turn things around, trickle up not trickle down
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
It's time to turn things around, trickle up not trickle down
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Hopin' we'll all pull through, Hoping we'll all pull through,
Hopin' we'll all pull through
Me and you.
And when drill, baby, drill turns to spill, baby, spill
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Yes when drill, baby, drill turns to spill, baby, spill
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Hopin' we'll all pull through, Hoping we'll all pull through,
Hopin' we'll all pull through
Me and you.
Don't give up don't give in, workin' together we all can win
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Don't give up don't give in, workin' together we all can win
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Hopin' we'll all pull through, Hoping we'll all pull through,
Hopin' we'll all pull through
Me and you.
There's big problems to be solved, let's get everyone involved
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
There's big problems to be solved, let's get everyone involved
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Hopin' we'll all pull through, Hoping we'll all pull through,
Hopin' we'll all pull through
Me and you.
When we sing with younger folks, we can never give up hope
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
When we sing with younger folks, we can never give up hope
God's counting on me, God's counting on you
Hopin' we'll all pull through, Hoping we'll all pull through,
Hopin' we'll all pull through
Me and you.
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Underwater Lakes Of Oil From BP Spill Will Continue To Cover Gulf Beaches With Toxic Layer Of Invisible Oil For Months
Posted by Alexander Higgins - July 28, 2010 at 10:59 pm - Permalink
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/07/28/underwater-lakes-of-oil-from-bp-spill-will-continue-to-cover-gulf-beaches-with-toxic-layer-of-invisible-oil-for-months/
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Feds think public can't HANDLE THE TRUTH about toxic dispersants says EPA Sr. Analyst
July 28, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN4MJFeEYuE&feature=player_embedded
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Breathing Toxic Oil Vapors??? video
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=179134
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Ohio may execute an innocent man unless you take action.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-kevin-keith
Kevin Keith is scheduled to be executed on September 15th, despite a wide range of new evidence that suggests he is innocent. Kevin, who has been on Ohio's death row for 16 years, was convicted on the basis of faulty eyewitness identification.
Thirteen years after he was convicted, Kevin discovered that one of the State's supposed "witnesses" -- a hospital nurse who was critical to corroborating the legitimacy of the surviving victim's eyewitness identification -- does not actually exist. He has an alibi affirmed by four people and new evidence has emerged implicating another suspect.
No court has heard the full array of new evidence pointing to Kevin's innocence. Take action today to stop Ohio from executing a man who very well may be innocent.
Sincerely,
Stefanie Faucher
Associate Director
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Please sign the petition to release Bradley Manning
http://www.petitiononline.com/manning1/petition.html (Click to sign here)
To: US Department of Defense; US Department of Justice
We, the Undersigned, call for justice for US Army PFC Bradley Manning, incarcerated without charge (as of 18 June 2010) at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Media accounts state that Mr. Manning was arrested in late May for leaking the video of US Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent people and seriously wounding two children in Baghdad, including those who arrived to help the wounded, as well as potentially other material. The video was released by WikiLeaks under the name "Collateral Murder".
If these allegations are untrue, we call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
If these allegations ARE true, we ALSO call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.
Simultaneously, we express our support for Mr. Manning in any case, and our admiration for his courage if he is, in fact, the person who disclosed the video. Like in the cases of Daniel Ellsberg, W. Mark Felt, Frank Serpico and countless other whistleblowers before, government demands for secrecy must yield to public knowledge and justice when government crime and corruption are being kept hidden.
Justice for Bradley Manning!
Sincerely,
The Undersigned:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?manning1
--
Zaineb Alani
http://www.thewordsthatcomeout.blogspot.com
http://www.tigresssmiles.blogspot.com
"Yesterday I lost a country. / I was in a hurry, / and didn't notice when it fell from me / like a broken branch from a forgetful tree. / Please, if anyone passes by / and stumbles across it, / perhaps in a suitcase / open to the sky, / or engraved on a rock / like a gaping wound, / ... / If anyone stumbles across it, / return it to me please. / Please return it, sir. / Please return it, madam. / It is my country . . . / I was in a hurry / when I lost it yesterday." -Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi poet
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http://couragetoresist.org/donate
Dear Gio,
Thanks again for supporting military war resisters. We do this work because it is a tangible contribution to a future without empire and war. With your help, we've won a number of victories recently--you might have read about "Hip Hop" stop-loss soldier Marc Hall, or single mom, and Afghanistan deployment resister, Alexis Hutchinson in the news.
Now, intel analyst Bradley Manning is in the headlines and facing decades in prison for leaking a video of a massacre in Baghdad. If Pfc. Manning is the source of the video, then he did what he had to do to expose a war crime. Regardless, he's wrongly imprisoned and we are doing everything we can to support him. Keep an eye out for action alerts in the coming days on how to support Bradley!
If you have not yet had a chance to make a donation recently, I'm asking that you please consider doing so now so that together we can step up to support Bradley Manning and all GI war objectors!
http://couragetoresist.org/donate
Jeff Paterson,
Project Director, Courage to Resist
p.s. Our new August print newsletter is now available:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/aug10-newsltr.pdf
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Please forward widely...
Lynne Stewart Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison
By Jeff Mackler
(Jeff Mackler is the West Coast Director of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee.)
The full force of the U.S. criminal "justice" system came down on innocent political prisoner, 30-year veteran human rights attorney and radical political activist Lynne Stewart today, July 15, 2010.
In an obviously pre-prepared one hour and twenty minute technical tour de force designed to give legitimacy to a reactionary ruling Federal District Court John Koeltl, who in 2005 sentenced Stewart to 28 months in prison following her frame-up trial and jury conviction on four counts of "conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism," re-sentenced Stewart to 120 months or ten years. Koeltl recommended that Stewart serve her sentence in Danbury, Connecticut's minimum security prison. A final decision will be made by the Bureau of Prisons.
Stewart will remain in Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center for 60 days to prepare an appeal.
The jam-packed New York Federal District Court chamber observers where Koeltl held forth let our a gasp of pain and anguish as Lynne's family and friends were stunned - tears flowing down the stricken and somber faces of many. A magnificent Stewart, ever the political fighter and organizer was able to say to her supporters that she felt badly because she had "let them down," a reference to the massive outpouring of solidarity and defiance that was the prime characteristic of Lynne's long fight for freedom.
Judge Koeltl was ordered to revisit his relatively short sentence when it was overturned by a two-judge majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judges Robert D. Sack and Guido Calabresi ruled that Koeltl's sentence was flawed because he had declined to determine whether Stewart committed perjury when she testified at her trial that she believed that she was effectively operating under a "bubble" protecting her from prosecution when she issued a press release on behalf of her also framed-up client, the blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rachman. Rachman was falsely charged with conspiracy to damage New York state buildings.
Dissenting Judge John M. Walker, who called Stewart's sentence, "breathtakingly low" in view of Stewart's "extraordinarily severe criminal conduct" deemed the Second Circuit's majority opinion "substantively unreasonable." Walker essentially sought to impose or demand a 30-year sentence.
The three-judge panel on Dec. 20, 2009 followed its initial ruling with even tougher language demanding that Koeltl revisit his treatment of the "terrorism enhancement" aspects of the law. A cowardly Koeltl, who didn't need this argument to dramatically increase Stewart's sentence, asserted that he had already taken it under consideration in his original deliberations.
Government prosecutors, who in 2005 sought a 30-year sentence, had submitted a 155-page memorandum arguing in support of a 15-30 year sentence. Their arguments demonstrated how twisted logic coupled with vindictive and lying government officials routinely turn the victim into the criminal.
Stewart's attorneys countered with a detailed brief recounting the facts of the case and demonstrating that Stewart's actions in defense of her client were well within the realm of past practice and accepted procedures. They argued that Koeltl properly exercised his discretion in determining that, while the terrorism enhancement provisions of the "law" had to be taken into consideration, the 30-year-prison term associated with it was "dramatically unreasonable," "overstated the seriousness" of Stewart's conduct" and had already been factored into Koeltl's decision.
Stewart's attorneys also argued convincingly in their brief that the Special Administrative Measure (SAM) that Stewart was convicted of violating by releasing a statement from her client to the media was well within the established practice of Stewart's experienced and mentoring co-counsels- former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and past American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee president Abdeen Jabarra. Both had issued similar statements to the media with no government reprisal. Clark was an observer in Koeltl's courtroom. When he testified in support of Lynne during her trial one overzealous prosecutor suggested that he too be subject to the conspiracy charges. The more discreet team of government lawyers quietly dropped the matter.
At worst, in such matters, government officials refuse defense attorneys client visiting rights until an agreement on a contested interpretation of a SAM is reached. This was the case with Stewart and her visiting rights were eventually restored with no punishment or further action. Indeed, when the matter was brought to then Attorney General Janet Reno, the government declined to prosecute or otherwise take any action against Stewart.
But Koeltl, who had essentially accepted this view in his original sentence, reversed himself entirely and proceeded in his erudite-sounding new rendition of the law to repeatedly charge Stewart with multiple acts of perjury regarding her statements on the SAM during her trial.
Koeltl took the occasion to lecture Stewart regarding the first words she uttered in front of a bevy of media outlets when she joyfully alighted from the courthouse following the judge's original 28-month sentence. Said Stewart at that time, "I can do 28 months standing on my head." A few moments earlier Stewart, with nothing but a plastic bag containing a toothbrush, toothpaste and her various medications, had stood before Koeltl, who had been asked by the government to sentence her to a 30-year term, effectively a death sentence for Lynne, aged 70, a diabetic and recovering breast cancer victim in less than excellent health.
Koeltl dutifully followed the lead of the Second Circuit judges, who feigned outrage that Stewart could possibly appear joyful that her life was spared despite 28 months in prison. Koeltl insisted that Stewart's remark was essentially contemptuous of his sentence and insufficient to convince Stewart of the seriousness of her "crime." Lynne's defense was that while she fully understood that 28 months behind bars, separating from her "family, friends and comrades," as she proudly stated, was a harsh penalty, she was nevertheless "relieved" that she would not die in prison. Koeltl needed a legal brick to throw at Lynne's head and ignored her humanity, honesty and deep feeling of relief when she expressed it to a crowd of two thousand friends, supporters and a good portion of the nation's media.
The same Judge Koeltl who stated in 2005, when he rendered the 28-month jail term, that Lynne was "a credit to her profession and to the nation," clearly heard the voice of institutionalized hate and cruelty and responded in according with its unstated code. "Show no mercy! Thou shall not dissent without grave punishment" in capitalist America.
Lynne was convicted in the post-911 generated climate of political hysteria. Bush appointee, Attorney General John Ashcroft, decided to make an example of her aimed at warning future attorneys that the mere act of defending anyone whom the government charged with "conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism," could trigger terrible consequences.
On July 15 Judge Koeltl made the decision of his career. Known for his meticulous preparation in such matters, and already having enraged the powers that be with his "light" sentence of Stewart, he bent full tilt to the reactionary political pressures exerted on him by the court hierarchy. He had the option to stand tall and reaffirm his original decision. The "law" allowed him to do so. He could have permitted Lynne to leave prison in less than two years, recover her health, and lead a productive life. His massively extended sentence, unless overturned, will likely lead to Lynne's demise behind bars - a brilliant and dedicated fighter sacrificed on the alter of an intolerant class-biased system of repression and war.
Courage is a rare quality in the capitalist judiciary. For every defiant decision made, usually driven by a change in the political climate and pressed forward by the rise of mass social protest movements, there are thousands and more of political appointees that affirm the status quo, including its punishment of all who struggle to challenge capitalist prerogatives and power.
Lynne Stewart stands tall among the latter. We can only hope that the winds of change that are stirring the consciousness of millions today in the context of an American capitalism in economic and moral crisis keeps the movement for her freedom alive and well. The fight is not over! What we do now remains critical. Lynne's expected appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court cannot be written off as absurd and hopeless. What we do collectively to free her and all political prisoners and to fight for freedom and justice on every front counts for everything!
Write to Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY 2-S
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
For further information call Lynne's husband, Ralph Poynter, leader of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Send contributions payable to:
Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
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Listen to Lynne Stewart event, that took place July 8, 2010 at Judson Memorial Church
Excerpts include: Mumia Abu Jamal, Ralph Poynter, Ramsey Clark, Juanita
Young, Fred Hampton Jr., Raging Grannies, Ralph Schoenman
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
And check out this article (link) too!
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2010/062210Lendman.shtml
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HE WAS MURDERED!
HE WAS MURDERED!
HE WAS MURDERED!
HE WAS MURDERED!
RIP Oscar!
DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT
Victory for movement, but justice still needs to be won
Calling on all supporters of justice for Oscar Grant and opponents of racist police brutality:
The jury verdict is not justice for Oscar Grant - it is up to the new movement to use its power to win real justice. THIS IS THE TIME TO ACT.
DEMAND:
The maximum sentence for killer cop Johannes Mehserle.
Jail Officers Pirone and Domenici, the two police who were accomplices to murder.
Disarm and disband the BART Police.
Provide massive funding to Oakland for education and jobs for Oakland's black, Latina/o, Asian, and poor and working-class white youth.
Stop police/ICE racial profiling of Latina/o, black, Asian, and other minority youth with and without papers.
Furthermore, we call on Oakland Mayor Dellums and other governmental authorities in Oakland to declare that this verdict does not render justice to Oscar Grant and to act on the demands of the movement.
If you haven't already done so yet, join the JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT ACTION PAGE on Facebook at: http://www.causes.com/causes/188135
BAMN STATEMENT:
Oscar Grant Verdict Is Victory for the Movement,
But Justice for Oscar Grant Still Needs to Be Won
Today's [THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2010] conviction of Johannes Mehserle is a victory for the movement. Despite all the foot-dragging and machinations of the police, the justice system, the government, and the politicians, the movement secured the first conviction of a California police officer for the killing of a black man. This victory is important and provides some greater protection for black and Latina/o youth. However, this verdict does NOT constitute justice for Oscar Grant.
Tens of millions of people around the world saw the videotape and know that Oscar Grant was murdered in cold blood by Johannes Mehserle. And yet, because of the failure of the prosecutor's office to fight the change in venue, and because of the pro-police bias of the judge, the jury was deprived of even being able to consider convicting Mehserle of first-degree murder. The Los Angeles county jury which heard that case did not include a single black juror.
BAMN salutes the new civil rights movement for this victory. However, achieving justice for Oscar Grant requires that the movement continue to build and grow in determination, drawing in millions more black, Latina/o and other youth.
BAMN also salutes Wanda Johnson, Oscar Grant's mother, for refusing to accept a civil settlement and for fighting to achieve justice for her son. We pledge to Wanda Johnson, Oscar's daughter Tatiana, her mother, and all family and friends that we will not rest until we achieve justice for Oscar.
We call on the movement to maintain the fight for justice for Oscar Grant by raising and fighting to win the following demands:
The maximum sentence for killer cop Johannes Mehserle.
Jail Officers Pirone and Domenici, the two police who were accomplices to murder.
Disarm and disband the BART Police.
Provide massive funding to Oakland for education and jobs for Oakland's black, Latina/o, Asian, and poor and working-class white youth.
Stop police/ICE racial profiling of Latina/o, black, Asian, and other minority youth with and without papers.
Furthermore, we call on Oakland Mayor Dellums and other governmental authorities in Oakland to declare that this verdict does not render justice to Oscar Grant and to act on the demands of the movement.
Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)
(510) 502-9072 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (510) 502-9072 end_of_the_skype_highlighting letters@bamn.com BAMN.com
--
Ronald Cruz
BAMN Organizer, www.BAMN.com
& Civil Rights Attorney
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SOME GOOD NEWS FOR TROY ANTHONY DAVIS - INNOCENT MAN ON DEATH ROW:
http://www.troyanthonydavis.org/call-to-action.html
Georgia: Witnesses in Murder Case Recant
By SHAILA DEWAN
June 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/24brfs-WITNESSESINM_BRF.html?ref=us
In an unusual hearing ordered by the Supreme Court that began in Savannah on Wednesday, several witnesses said they had concocted testimony that Troy Anthony Davis killed a police officer, Mark MacPhail, in 1989. Last August, the Supreme Court ordered a federal district court to determine if new evidence "clearly establishes" Mr. Davis's innocence, its first order in an "actual innocence" petition from a state prisoner in nearly 50 years, according to Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented. Seven of the witnesses who testified against Mr. Davis at his trial have recanted, and some have implicated the chief informer in the case. Mr. Davis's execution has been stayed three times.
For more info: www.iamtroy.com | www.justicefortroy.org | troy@aiusa.org Savannah Branch NAACP: 912-233-4161
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Lynne Stewart and the Guantanamo Lawyers: Same Fact Patterns, Same Opponent, Different Endings?
Lynne Stewart will be re-sentenced sometime in July, in NYC.
By Ralph Poynter
(Ralph Poynter is the Life partner of Lynne Stewart. He is presently dedicated 24/7 to her defense, as well as other causes.)
Ralph.Poynter@yahoo.com
In the Spring of 2002, Lynne Stewart was arrested by the FBI, at her home in Brooklyn, for materially aiding terrorism by virtue of making a public press release to Reuters on behalf of her client, Sheik Abdel Omar Rahman of Egypt. This was done after she had signed a Special Administrative Measure issued by the Bureau of Prisons not permitting her to communicate with the media, on his behalf.
In 2006, a number of attorneys appointed and working pro bono for detainees at Guantanamo were discovered to be acting in a manner that disobeyed a Federal Judge's protective court order. The adversary in both cases was the United States Department of Justice. The results in each case were very different.
In March of 2010, a right wing group "Keep America Safe" led by Lynne Cheney, hoping to dilute Guantanamo representation and impugn the reputations and careers of the volunteer lawyers, launched a campaign. Initially they attacked the right of the detainees to be represented at all. This was met with a massive denouncement by Press, other media, Civil rights organizations ,and rightly so, as being a threat to the Constitution and particularly the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
A second attack on the Gitmo lawyers was made in the Wall Street Journal of March 16. This has been totally ignored in the media and by civil and human rights groups. This latter revelation about the violations, by these lawyers, of the Judge's protective orders and was revealed via litigation and the Freedom of Information Act. These pro bono lawyers serving clients assigned to them at Gitmo used privileged attorney client mail to send banned materials. They carried in news report of US failures in Afghanistan and Iraq . One lawyer drew a map of the prison. Another delivered lists to his client of all the suspects held there. They placed on the internet a facsimile of the badges worn by the Guards. Some lawyers "provided news outlets with 'interviews' of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organizations." When a partner at one of the large Wall Street law firms sent in multiple copies of an Amnesty International brochure, which her client was to distribute to other prisoners, she was relieved from her representation and barred by the Military Commander from visiting her client.
This case is significant to interpret not because of the right wing line to punish these lawyers and manipulate their corporate clients to stop patronizing such "wayward" firms. Instead it is significant because, Lynne Stewart, a left wing progressive lawyer who had dedicated her thirty year career to defending the poor, the despised, the political prisoner and those ensnared by reason of race, gender, ethnicity, religion , who was dealt with by the same Department of Justice, in such a draconian fashion, confirms our deepest suspicions that she was targeted for prosecution and punishment because of who she is and who she represented so ably and not because of any misdeed.
Let me be very clear, I am not saying that the Gitmo lawyers acted in any "criminal" manner. The great tradition of the defense bar is to be able to make crucial decisions for and with the client without interference by the adversary Government.
I believe that they were acting as zealous attorneys trying to establish rapport and trust with their clients. That said, the moment the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice tried to remove Julia Tarver Mason from her client, the playing field tilted. Ms Tarver Mason was not led out of her home in handcuffs to the full glare of publicity. There was no press conference. The Attorney General did not go on the David Letterman show to gloat about the latest strike in the War on Terror, the purge of the Gitmo lawyer...NO.
Instead an "armada" of corporate lawyers went to Court against the Government. They, in the terms of the litigation trade, papered the US District Courthouse in Washington D.C. They brought to bear the full force of their Money and Power-- derived from the corporate world--and in 2006 "settled" the case with the government, restoring their clients to Guantanamo without any punishment at all, not to say any Indictment. Lynne Stewart, without corporate connections and coming from a working class background, was tried and convicted for issuing, on behalf of her client, a public press release to Reuters. There was no injury, no harm, no attacks, no deaths.
Yet that same Department of Justice that dealt so favorably and capitulated to the Gitmo corporate lawyers, wants to sentence Lynne Stewart to thirty (30) YEARS in prison. It is the equivalent of asking for a death sentence since she is 70 years old.
This vast disparity in treatment between Lynne and the Gitmo lawyers reveals the deep contradictions of the system ---those who derive power from rich and potent corporations, those whose day to day work maintains and increases that power--are treated differently. Is it because the Corporate Power is intertwined with Government Power???
Lynne Stewart deserves Justice... equal justice under law. Her present sentence of 28 months incarceration (she is in Federal Prison) should at least be maintained, if not made equal to the punishment that was meted out to the Gitmo lawyers. The thirty year sentence, assiduously pursued by DOJ under both Bush and Obama, is an obscenity and an affront to fundamental fairness. They wanted to make her career and dedication to individual clients, a warning, to the defense bar that the Government can arrest any lawyer on any pretext. The sharp contrasts between the cases of Lynne and the Gitmo lawyers just confirm that she is getting a raw deal--one that should be protested actively, visibly and with the full force of our righteous resistance.
Write to Lynne:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, New York 10007
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Bernadette McAliskey Quote on Zionists:
"The root cause of conflict in the Middle East is the very nature of the state of Israel. It is a facist state. It is a international bully, which exists not to protect the rights of the Jewish people but to perpetuate a belief of Zionist supremacy. It debases the victims of the holocaust by its own strategy for extermination of Palestine and Palestinians and has become the image and likeness of its own worst enemy, the Third Reich.
"Anyone challenging their position, their crazed self-image is entitled, in the fascist construction of their thinking, to be wiped out. Every humanitarian becomes a terrorist? How long is the reality of the danger Israel poses to world peace going to be denied by the Western powers who created this monster?"
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POEM ON WHAT ISRAEL DOES NOT ALLOW INTO GAZA - FROM THE IRISH TIMES / CARDOMAN AS A BIOLOGICAL WARFARE WEAPON
[ The poem does not mention that the popular herb cardamom is banned from importation into Gaza. Israel probably fears that cardamom can be used as a biological weapon. Rockets with cardamom filled projectiles landing in Israel could cause Israeli soldiers 'guarding' the border to succumb to pangs of hunger, leave their posts to go get something eat, and leave Israel defenseless. - Howard Keylor]
Richard Tillinghast is an American poet who lives in Co Tipperary. He is the author of eight books of poetry, the latest of which is Selected Poems (Dedalus Press, 2010 ), as well as several works of non-fiction
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No tinned meat is allowed, no tomato paste,
no clothing, no shoes, no notebooks.
These will be stored in our warehouses at Kerem Shalom
until further notice.
Bananas, apples, and persimmons are allowed into Gaza,
peaches and dates, and now macaroni
(after the American Senator's visit).
These are vital for daily sustenance.
But no apricots, no plums, no grapes, no avocados, no jam.
These are luxuries and are not allowed.
Paper for textbooks is not allowed.
The terrorists could use it to print seditious material.
And why do you need textbooks
now that your schools are rubble?
No steel is allowed, no building supplies, no plastic pipe.
These the terrorists could use to launch rockets
against us.
Pumpkins and carrots you may have, but no delicacies,
no cherries, no pomegranates, no watermelon, no onions,
no chocolate.
We have a list of three dozen items that are allowed,
but we are not obliged to disclose its contents.
This is the decision arrived at
by Colonel Levi, Colonel Rosenzweig, and Colonel Segal.
Our motto:
'No prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis.'
You may fish in the Mediterranean,
but only as far as three km from shore.
Beyond that and we open fire.
It is a great pity the waters are polluted
twenty million gallons of raw sewage dumped into the sea every day
is the figure given.
Our rockets struck the sewage treatments plants,
and at this point spare parts to repair them are not allowed.
As long as Hamas threatens us,
no cement is allowed, no glass, no medical equipment.
We are watching you from our pilotless drones
as you cook your sparse meals over open fires
and bed down
in the ruins of houses destroyed by tank shells.
And if your children can't sleep,
missing the ones who were killed in our incursion,
or cry out in the night, or wet their beds
in your makeshift refugee tents,
or scream, feeling pain in their amputated limbs -
that's the price you pay for harbouring terrorists.
God gave us this land.
A land without a people for a people without a land.
--
Greta Berlin, Co-Founder
+357 99 18 72 75
witnessgaza.com
www.freegaza.org
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freegaza
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Mumia Abu-Jamal - Legal Update
June 9, 2010
Robert R. Bryan, Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
www.MumiaLegalDefense.org
Dear All:
There are significant developments on various fronts in the coordinated legal campaign to save & free Mumia Abu-Jamal. The complex court proceedings are moving forward at a fast pace. Mumia's life is on the line.
Court Developments: We are engaged in pivotal litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia. At stake is whether Mumia will be executed or granted a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Two years ago we won on that issue, with the federal court finding that the trial judge misled the jury thereby rendering the proceedings constitutionally unfair. Then in January 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court vacated that ruling based upon its decision in another case, & ordered that the case be again reviewed by the Court of Appeals.
The prosecution continues its obsession to kill my client, regardless of the truth as to what happened at the time of the 1981 police shooting. Its opening brief was filed April 26. Our initial brief will be submitted on July 28. At issue is the death penalty.
In separate litigation, we are awaiting a decision in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on prosecutorial abuses, having completed all briefing in April. The focus is on ballistics.
Petition for President Barack Obama: It is crucial for people to sign the petition for President Barack Obama, Mumia Abu-Jamal & the Global Abolition of the Death Penalty, which was initially in 10 languages (Swahili & Turkish have since been added). This is the only petition approved by Mumia & me, & is a vital part of the legal effort to save his life. Please sign the petition & circulate its link:
www.MumiaLegalDefense.org
Nearly 22,000 people from around the globe have signed. These include: Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa (Nobel Peace Prize); Günter Grass, Germany (Nobel Prize in Literature); Danielle Mitterrand, Paris (former First Lady of France); Fatima Bhutto, Pakistan (writer); Colin Firth (Academy Award Best-Actor nominee), Noam Chomsky, MIT (philosopher & author); Ed Asner (actor); Mike Farrell (actor); & Michael Radford (director of the Oscar winning film Il Postino); Robert Meeropol (son of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, executed in 1953); Fatima Bhutto, Pakistan (writer); Noam Chomsky, MIT (philosopher & author); Ed Asner (actor); Mike Farrell (actor); Michael Radford (director of the Oscar winning film Il Postino); members of the European Parliament; members of the German Bundestag; European Association of Lawyers for Democracy & World Human Rights; Reporters Without Borders, Paris.
European Parliament; Rosa Luxemburg Conference; World Congress Against the Death Penalty; Geneva Human Rights Film Festival: We began the year with a major address to the annual Rosa Luxemburg Conference in Berlin, Germany, sponsored by the newspaper junge Welt. The large auditorium was filled with a standing-room audience. Mumia joined me by telephone. We announced the launching of the online petition, Mumia Abu-Jamal & the Global Abolition of the Death Penalty.
A large audience on the concluding night of the World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva, Switzerland, February 25, heard Mumia by telephone. He spoke as a symbolic representative of the over 20,000 men, women & children on death rows around the world. The call came as a surprise, since we thought it had been canceled. Mumia's comments from inside his death-row cell brought to reality the horror of daily life in which death is a common denominator. During an earlier panel discussion I spoke of racism in capital cases around the globe with the case of Mumia as a prime example. A day before the Congress on February 23, I talked at the Geneva Human Rights Film Festival on the power of films in fighting the death penalty & saving Mumia.
On March 2 in the European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium, members Søren Søndergaard (Denmark) & Sabine Lösing (Germany) announced the beginning of a campaign to save Mumia & end executions. They were joined by Sabine Kebir, the noted German author & PEN member, Nicole Bryan, & me. We discussed the online petition which helps not only Mumia, but all the condemned around the globe.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense & Online Petition: The complex litigation & investigation that is being pursued on behalf of Mumia is enormously expensive. We are in both the federal & state courts on the issue of the death penalty, prosecutorial wrongdoing, etc. Mumia's life is on the line.
How to Help: For information on how to help, both through donations & signing the Obama petition, please go to Mumia's legal defense website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org .
Conclusion: Mumia remains on death row under a death judgment. He is in greater danger than at any time since his arrest 28 years ago. The prosecution is pursuing his execution. I win cases, & will not let them kill my client. He must be free.
Yours very truly,
Robert
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Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.MumiaLegalDefense.org
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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
(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).]
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
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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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D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Attacking Social Security
By PAUL KRUGMAN
August 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html?hp
2) In Brooklyn Store, Everything Is Always 100% Off
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
August 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16free.html?ref=nyregion
3) No 'Graceful Exit'
By BOB HERBERT
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17herbert.html?hp
4) Barbara Kingsolver Supports Trotsky Museum
Instituto del Derecho de Asilo - Casa Museo Leon Trotsky, A.C.
(IDA-CMLTAC)
Avenida RÃo Churubusco No. 410
Col. del Carmen Coyoacán
CP 04100 México, DF -- MEXICO
Tel. 56 58 87 32
gall.museotrotsky@gmail.com
5) Uncovering the Lies That Are Sinking the Oil
by: Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 16 August 2010
http://www.truth-out.org/uncovering-lies-that-are-sinking-oil62345
6) Obama's Gulf Swim Was Fake
By Stephen Lendman
Monday, August 16, 2010
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/obamas-gulf-swim-was-fake.html
7) U.S. Said to Plan Easing Rules for Travel to Cuba
By GINGER THOMPSON
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/world/americas/17cuba.html
8) Questions Linger as Shrimp Season Opens in Gulf
By SHAILA DEWAN
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/us/17gulf.html?hp
9) Israeli Ex-Soldier Defends Her Facebook Snapshots
By ROBERT MACKEY
August 17, 2010, 11:47 am
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/israeli-ex-soldier-defends-her-facebook-snapshots/?hp
To See If I Am Smiling
http://www.linktv.org/programs/to-see-if-i-am-smiling
10) Sweden: Wikileaks Founder to Write
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/world/europe/17briefs-Sweden.html?ref=world
11) Judge Orders Man Freed in a Three-Strikes Case
By REBECCA CATHCART
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/us/17strikes.html?ref=us
12) Economy Led to Cuts in Use of Health Care
By ROBERT PEAR
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/health/policy/17health.html?ref=us
13) Where Geese Were Thinned, Their Population Thickens
By CATE DOTY
August 17, 2010, 12:51 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/index.html
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1) Attacking Social Security
By PAUL KRUGMAN
August 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html?hp
Social Security turned 75 last week. It should have been a joyous occasion, a time to celebrate a program that has brought dignity and decency to the lives of older Americans.
But the program is under attack, with some Democrats as well as nearly all Republicans joining the assault. Rumor has it that President Obama's deficit commission may call for deep benefit cuts, in particular a sharp rise in the retirement age.
Social Security's attackers claim that they're concerned about the program's financial future. But their math doesn't add up, and their hostility isn't really about dollars and cents. Instead, it's about ideology and posturing. And underneath it all is ignorance of or indifference to the realities of life for many Americans.
About that math: Legally, Social Security has its own, dedicated funding, via the payroll tax ("FICA" on your pay statement). But it's also part of the broader federal budget. This dual accounting means that there are two ways Social Security could face financial problems. First, that dedicated funding could prove inadequate, forcing the program either to cut benefits or to turn to Congress for aid. Second, Social Security costs could prove unsupportable for the federal budget as a whole.
But neither of these potential problems is a clear and present danger. Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund. The program won't have to turn to Congress for help or cut benefits until or unless the trust fund is exhausted, which the program's actuaries don't expect to happen until 2037 - and there's a significant chance, according to their estimates, that that day will never come.
Meanwhile, an aging population will eventually (over the course of the next 20 years) cause the cost of paying Social Security benefits to rise from its current 4.8 percent of G.D.P. to about 6 percent of G.D.P. To give you some perspective, that's a significantly smaller increase than the rise in defense spending since 2001, which Washington certainly didn't consider a crisis, or even a reason to rethink some of the Bush tax cuts.
So where do claims of crisis come from? To a large extent they rely on bad-faith accounting. In particular, they rely on an exercise in three-card monte in which the surpluses Social Security has been running for a quarter-century don't count - because hey, the program doesn't have any independent existence; it's just part of the general federal budget - while future Social Security deficits are unacceptable - because hey, the program has to stand on its own.
It would be easy to dismiss this bait-and-switch as obvious nonsense, except for one thing: many influential people - including Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the president's deficit commission - are peddling this nonsense.
And having invented a crisis, what do Social Security's attackers want to do? They don't propose cutting benefits to current retirees; invariably the plan is, instead, to cut benefits many years in the future. So think about it this way: In order to avoid the possibility of future benefit cuts, we must cut future benefits. O.K.
What's really going on here? Conservatives hate Social Security for ideological reasons: its success undermines their claim that government is always the problem, never the solution. But they receive crucial support from Washington insiders, for whom a declared willingness to cut Social Security has long served as a badge of fiscal seriousness, never mind the arithmetic.
And neither wing of the anti-Social-Security coalition seems to know or care about the hardship its favorite proposals would cause.
The currently fashionable idea of raising the retirement age even more than it will rise under existing law - it has already gone from 65 to 66, it's scheduled to rise to 67, but now some are proposing that it go to 70 - is usually justified with assertions that life expectancy has risen, so people can easily work later into life. But that's only true for affluent, white-collar workers - the people who need Social Security least.
I'm not just talking about the fact that it's a lot easier to imagine working until you're 70 if you have a comfortable office job than if you're engaged in manual labor. America is becoming an increasingly unequal society - and the growing disparities extend to matters of life and death. Life expectancy at age 65 has risen a lot at the top of the income distribution, but much less for lower-income workers. And remember, the retirement age is already scheduled to rise under current law.
So let's beat back this unnecessary, unfair and - let's not mince words - cruel attack on working Americans. Big cuts in Social Security should not be on the table.
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2) In Brooklyn Store, Everything Is Always 100% Off
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
August 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16free.html?ref=nyregion
April Gariepy, 30, wheeled her bike beneath the white tent on Saturday afternoon looking for a wire basket she could attach to her handlebars. A moment later, Sharika Barrow, 17, approached, gazed at the shelves of books, clothing and other items displayed beneath the tent, then wondered aloud what sort of place she was visiting.
"It's a free store," Ms. Gariepy replied, having made that determination herself just a few moments earlier.
After browsing, the two emerged from beneath the tent without selecting anything but both said they would probably return.
"I just came from the Brooklyn Flea," Ms. Gariepy, said. "This is kind of like the same thing, but everything at the flea is higher priced."
For six weeks, a group of people have been engaged in an unusual project in Bedford-Stuyvesant that they are calling the Brooklyn Free Store, where everything is available for the taking and nothing is for sale.
The name of the store is painted on a purple banner hanging from a chain link fence fronting a bare dirt lot on Walworth Street, near De Kalb Avenue. Behind the fence a blue plastic tarp is stretched over a white tent, covering an array of items stacked atop sheets of weathered plywood.
A handwritten sign reads "Take what you want. Share what you think others may enjoy (not limited to material items)."
There were cans of green beans and a pair of used brown wingtips beneath the tarp on Saturday, along with a used toaster oven, a flashlight and a galvanized metal bucket.
There were books by such disparate writers as Plato ("The Republic") and Tina Brown ("The Diana Chronicles," which details the life and times of the former Princess of Wales).
And there were dozens of items of clothing, including a brown fur coat and matching hat.
Organizers of the store said it was intended to demonstrate the feasibility of recycling and to offer an alternative to mainstream capitalism. It has no owners or customers, only participants, say the people who started it. Because everything there is free, the store has no official hours and it is never locked.
"New York is world renowned for having the best garbage," said Myles Emery, 34, an organizer of the store. "There could be free stores everywhere."
Most of the items in the store are donated and a few of them are gleaned from a wealth of serviceable objects that are discarded on the streets each day. The number and nature of the items beneath the tarp vary, organizers said, adding that people have dropped off a digital camera, an electric stove and a TiVo with a recording capacity of 40 hours.
Some of those who started the Free Store in early July had also played a role in operating an earlier incarnation, which was run out of a storefront in Williamsburg from 1999 until 2005. Both stores drew inspiration from the original Diggers, a group of agrarian utopians in 17th-century England, as well as from another group that adopted the same name more than 40 years ago and opened storefronts in San Francisco and in New York where items were dropped off and picked up without any money changing hands.
About two dozen people stopped by the Walworth Street store over the course of four hours on Saturday. Some merely looked. Krissa Henderson, 25, from Bushwick, took some gardening books. Gregory Coleman, 54, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, left with wool socks.
Others arrived to drop things off. Caryn Prescott, 41, donated some clothes and cosmetics, and Eddie Ballard, 34, from Crown Heights, who came across the store by chance, contributed a recyclable tote bag he happened to have with him, mainly out of a sense of admiration for the project.
"There is something about the communal aspect of this place that appeals to me," Mr. Ballard said. "I felt like I wanted to give something just to be a part of it."
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3) No 'Graceful Exit'
By BOB HERBERT
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17herbert.html?hp
In his book, "The Promise," about President Obama's first year in office, Jonathan Alter describes a brief conversation between the president and Vice President Joe Biden that took place last November at the end of Mr. Obama's long deliberation about what to do in Afghanistan.
Mr. Biden asked whether the new policy of beginning a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2011 was a direct presidential order that could not be countermanded by the military. The president said yes.
The two men were on their way to a meeting in the Oval Office with members of the Pentagon brass who would be tasked with carrying out Mr. Obama's orders. Among those at the meeting was Gen. David Petraeus, then the chief of the United States Central Command, which included oversight of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to Mr. Alter, the president said to General Petraeus:
"David, tell me now. I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in eighteen months?"
Mr. Petraeus replied: "Sir, I'm confident we can train and hand over to the A.N.A. [Afghan National Army] in that time frame."
The president went on: "If you can't do the things you say you can in eighteen months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?"
"Yes, sir, in agreement," said General Petraeus.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also at the meeting, and he added his own crisp, "Yes, sir."
That was then. The brass was just blowing smoke, telling the commander in chief whatever it was that he wanted to hear. Over the past several days, at meetings with one news media outlet after another, General Petraeus has been singing a decidedly different song. The lead headline in The Times on Monday said: "General Opposes a Rapid Pullout in Afghanistan."
Having taken over command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after the ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Mr. Petraeus is now saying he did not take that job in order to preside over a "graceful exit." His goal now appears to be to rally public opinion against the very orders that President Obama insisted, as he told Joe Biden, could not be countermanded.
Who's in charge here?
The truth is that we have no idea how the president really feels about the deadline he imposed for beginning a troop withdrawal. It always seemed peculiar to telegraph the start of a troop pullout while fighting (in this case, escalating) a war. And Mr. Obama has always been careful to ratchet up the ambiguity quotient by saying the start of any withdrawal would depend on conditions on the ground.
Anyone who has been paying attention knows that conditions on the ground right now are awful, so it looks as though we're going to be there for a long, long while.
This is a terrible thing to contemplate because in addition to the human toll (nearly half of all the American troop deaths in Afghanistan have occurred since Mr. Obama took office), the war is a giant roadblock in the way of efforts to deal effectively with deteriorating economic and social conditions here in the United States.
Look around at the economy, the public school system, the federal budget deficits, the fiscal conditions plaguing America's state and local governments. We are giving short shrift to all of these problems and more while pouring staggering amounts of money (the rate is now scores of billions of dollars a year) into a treacherous, unforgiving and hopelessly corrupt sinkhole in Afghanistan.
(I stand in awe of the heights of hypocrisy scaled by conservative politicians and strategists who demand that budget deficits be brought under control while cheering the escalation in Afghanistan and calling for ever more tax cuts here at home.)
The reason you hear so little about Lyndon Johnson nowadays despite his stupendous achievements - Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - is that Vietnam laid his reputation low. Johnson's war on poverty was derailed by Vietnam, and it was Vietnam that tragically split the Democratic Party and opened the door to the antiwar candidacies of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. The ultimate beneficiaries, of course, were Richard Nixon and the Republicans.
President Obama does not buy the comparison of Afghanistan to Vietnam, and he has a point when he says that the U.S. was not attacked from Vietnam. But Sept. 11, 2001, was nearly a decade ago, and the war in Afghanistan was hopelessly bungled by the Bush crowd. There is no upside to President Obama's escalation of this world-class fiasco.
We are never going to build a stable, flourishing society in Afghanistan. What we desperately need is a campaign of nation-building to counteract the growing instability and deterioration in the United States.
David Brooks is off today.
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4) Barbara Kingsolver Supports Trotsky Museum
Instituto del Derecho de Asilo - Casa Museo Leon Trotsky, A.C.
(IDA-CMLTAC)
Avenida RÃo Churubusco No. 410
Col. del Carmen Coyoacán
CP 04100 México, DF -- MEXICO
Tel. 56 58 87 32
gall.museotrotsky@gmail.com
----------------------------
Dear Friends,
We are writing to ask you to become a founding member of International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum in Coyoacán, Mexico. We will be launching this committee on Friday, August 20 and would like to include your name on our program as one of its founding members.
Support has been coming in from all over the world for International Friends. We have been very heartened by the widespread response to our appeal -- from political activists of all tendencies and backgrounds, intellectuals, artists, elected officials, trade union leaders and activists, historians, and so many others.
We are enclosing below three letters from the United States that will give you a sense of the kind of support we are receiving. We urge you to endorse International Friends by filling out the pledge coupon below and returning it as soon as possible -- preferably by August 18, so that your name can be listed in our brochure at our founding event.
We also call upon you to make a donation to our fund drive, large or small, to help us with our urgently needed museum conservation/renovation project.
All checks -- which are tax-deductible -- should be made out to Global Exchange (with Trotsky Museum listed on the lower-left memo line of your check) and sent to:
International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum
P.O. Box 40009
San Francisco, CA 94140
Messages to our August 20 launching of International Friends are also welcome. Please send them to
We thank you all in advance for your attention and your support,
Sincerely,
Olivia Gall
Director,
Leon Trotsky Museum (IDA-CMLTAC)
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TROTSKY MUSEUM DONATION COUPON
[ ] I will contribute $ _____ to the fund to preserve the Leon Trotsky Museum in Mexico City. My tax-exempt contribution will be made out to Global Exchange (with Trotsky Museum on Memo line of check) and sent to International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
NAME
ADDRESS
CITY
STATE
ZIP
(please fill out this coupon and return to
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LETTER OF SUPPORT FROM BARBARA KINGSOLVER
(best-selling writer, author of award-winning The Lacuna)
August 5, 2010
International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum
P.O. Box 40009
San Francisco, CA 94140
Dear International Friends,
Please find enclosed my check for $1,000 to help preserve the Trotsky Museum in Coyoacán. I feel enormous gratitude to all who have helped maintain the integrity of this museum over the years, because it was an invaluable resource to me during my research and writing of The Lacuna. Efforts like these to preserve political history are powerfully political in themselves, and help us to retain our sense of who we are, and where we have been.
I'm deeply touched that Trotsky's grandson Sieva has read my novel. If you could facilitate this, I would like to send him a signed copy of The Lacuna with my personal dedication, as well as the Spanish translation, which is soon to be published.
However, I'm sorry to say, I won't be able to attend the launch of the International Campaign on Aug. 20. I wish you the greatest success. I always think of Lev Trotsky at that time of year -- and many others.
Yours in solidarity
signed/
Barbara Kingsolver
Meadowview, Virginia
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LETTER OF SUPPORT FROM FRANK FRIED
(veteran socialist activist)
Dear Comrades,
I enthusiastically join International Friends commemorating and celebrating in Mexico City the life and ideas of Leon Trotsky. Unfortunately, the ravages of age prevent me from joining you in person but, like tens of thousands of others throughout the world, I am with you in spirit and in solidarity.
Through the many twists and turns in my life of 83 years, one thing has remained consistent since I became a socialist at the age of 17. I have always said with a sense of pride when asked, and volunteered often even when not asked, that I came from the Trotskyist tradition. Though the forms of struggle changed for many of us over the decades, this truth stayed with me.
And these ideas remain relevant today. Every revolutionary movement that hopes to make an impact on the world cannot escape coming fact to face with issues of class independence and socialist democracy except at their great peril.
Preserving the rich history of the struggle for these ideas, which is the basis of my optimistic hope for the future of humankind, is why I support your project and adopt it as my own.
On behalf of myself, you have my gratitude; on behalf of my nine grandchildren, you give them hope.
Frank Fried
Alameda, California
August 10, 2010
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LETTER FROM KIRSTEN MOLLER
(Executive Director, Global Exchange)
Dear Olivia,
Thank you so much for inviting us to be at the founding event of the International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum. The ILTF is one of my favorite places to visit in the DF.
Unfortunately, we won't be able to make to Mexico this summer but our thoughts will be with you and please give those gathered a message of solidarity from all of us at Global Exchange.
If we don't preserve our history we won't have a chance to learn from it!
With warm greetings,
Kirsten Moller
Executive Director
Global Exchange
San Francisco, California
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5) Uncovering the Lies That Are Sinking the Oil
by: Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 16 August 2010
http://www.truth-out.org/uncovering-lies-that-are-sinking-oil62345
The rampant use of toxic dispersants, out-of-state private contractors being brought in to spray them and US Coast Guard complicity are common stories now in the four states most affected by BP's Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
Commercial and charter fishermen, residents and members of BP's Vessels Of Opportunity (VOO) program in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana have spoken with Truthout about their witnessing all of these incidents.
Toxic Dispersants Found on Recently Opened Mississippi Shrimping and Oyster Grounds
On Monday, August 9, the Director of the State of Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR), Bill Walker, despite ongoing reports of tar balls, oil and dispersants being found in Mississippi waters, declared, "there should be no new threats" and issued an order for all local coast governments to halt ongoing oil disaster work being funded by BP money that was granted to the state.
BP had allocated $25 million to Mississippi for local government disaster work. As of August 9, Walker estimated that only about $500,000 worth of invoices for oil response work had been submitted to the state. Nobody knows what the rest of the money will be used for.
Our readers are our only financial backers - keep Truthout afloat by supporting us today.
Recent days in Mississippi waters found fishermen and scientists finding oil in Garden Pond on Horn Island, massive fish kills near Cat Island, "black water" in Mississippi Sound and submerged oil in Pass Christian.
Mississippi residents and fishermen Truthout spoke with believe Walker's move was from an order given by Gov. Haley Barbour, who has been heavily criticized over the years for his lobbying on behalf of the Tobacco and Oil industries.
Two days after Walker's announcement and in response to claims from state and federal officials that Gulf Coast waters are safe and clean, fishermen took their own samples from the waters off of Pass Christian in Mississippi.
The samples were taken in water that is now open for shrimping, as well as from waters directly over Mississippi's oyster bed, that will likely open in September for fishing.
Commercial fisherman James "Catfish" Miller, took fishermen Danny Ross Jr. and Mark Stewart, along with scientist Dr. Ed Cake of Gulf Environmental Associates and others out and they found the fishing grounds to be contaminated with oil and dispersants.
Their method was simple - they tied an absorbent rag to a weighted hook, dropped it overboard for a short duration of time, then pulled it up to find the results. The rags were covered in a brown, oily substance that the fishermen identified as a mix of BP's crude oil and toxic dispersants.
Shortly thereafter, Catfish Miller took the samples to a community meeting in nearby D'Iberville to show fishermen and families. At the meeting, fishermen unanimously supported a petition calling for the firing of Dr. Walker, the head of Mississippi's DMR, who is responsible for opening the fishing grounds.
Dr. Cake wrote of the experience: "When the vessel was stopped for sampling, small, 0.5- to 1.0-inch-diameter bubbles would periodically rise to the surface and shortly thereafter they would pop leaving a small oil sheen. According to the fishermen, several of BP's Vessels-of-Opportunity (Carolina Skiffs with tanks of dispersants [Corexit]) were hand spraying in Mississippi Sound off the Pass Christian Harbor in prior days/nights. It appears to this observer that the dispersants are still in the area and are continuing to react with oil in the waters off Pass Christian Harbor."
Ongoing Contamination and the Carolina Skiffs
On August 13, Truthout visited Pass Christian Harbor in Mississippi. Oil sheen was present, the vapors of which could be smelled, causing our eyes to burn. Many ropes that tied boats to the dock were oiled and much of the water covered with oil sheen.
A resident, who has a yacht in the harbor, spoke with Truthout on condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisal from BP. "Last week we were sitting on our boat and you could smell the chemicals," he explained. "It smelt like death. It was like mosquito spray, but ten times stronger. The next day I was hoarse and my lungs felt like I'd been in a smoky bar the night before."
Oil boom was present throughout much of the harbor. Despite this, fishermen, obviously trusting Mr. Walker's announcement about the fishing waters being clear of oil and dispersant, were trying to catch fish from their boat inside the harbor.
"Last week oil filled this harbor," the man, an ex-commercial fisherman added. "BP has bought off all our government officials, and shut them up. You can't say the oil is gone, it's right here! Them saying it's not here is a bunch of bullshit."
Truthout spoke with another man, who was recently laid off from the VOO program. He also spoke on condition of anonymity. "Just the other day one of the Carolina Skiffs passed us spraying something," he said. "We went west instead of east as we turned and a group of Carolina Skiffs was spraying something over the water."
A Carolina Skiff is a type of boat, usually between 13' and 30' long, very versatile and can function well in shallow or deep waters. They are known for having a large payload capacity and a lot of interior space.
Alarmed by what he saw, the former VOO worker called the Coast Guard to report what he believed was a private contractor company spraying dispersants. "We were later told by the Coast Guard they'd investigated the incident and told us what we saw were vacuum boats sucking oil, and they were rinsing their tanks," he said. "But we know this is a lie and that BP is using these out of state contractors to come in and spray the dispersant at night and they are using planes to drop it as well."
He worked in the VOO program looking for oil. When his team would find oil, upon reporting it, they would consistently be sent away without explanation or the opportunity to clean it. "They made us abort these missions," he said. "Two days ago I put out boom in a bunch of oil for five minutes, they told me to abort the mission, so I pulled up boom soaked in oil. What the hell are we doing out there if they won't let us work to clean up the oil?"
He told Truthout that as his and other VOO teams would be going out to work on the water in the morning, they would pass the out-of-state contractors in Carolina Skiffs coming in from what he believed to be a covert spraying of the oil with dispersant in order to sink it. He believes this was done to deliberately prevent the VOO teams from finding and collecting oil. By doing so, BP's liability would be lessened since the oil giant will be fined for the amount of oil collected.
"BP brings in the Carolina Skiffs to spray the dispersant at night," he added, "And they are not accountable to the Coast Guard."
James Miller, who had taken the group out into the Mississippi Sound that found the oil/dispersants on August 11, told Truthout that the Carolina Skiff teams spraying dispersants were "common" and that it "happened all the time."
Miller, who was in the VOO, is an eyewitness to planes spraying dispersants, as well as the Carolina Skiff crews doing the same.
"We'd roll up on a patch of oil 1/2 mile wide by one mile long and they'd hold us off from cleaning it up," Miller, speaking with Truthout at his home in D'Iberville, Mississippi, said. "We'd leave and the Carolina Skiffs would pull up and start spraying dispersants on the oil. The guys doing the spraying would wear respirators and safety glasses. Their boats have 375 gallon white drums full of the stuff and they could spray it out 150 feet. The next day there'd be the white foam that's always there after they hit the oil with dispersants."
Some nights VOO crews would sleep out near the work sites. "We'd sleep out there and some nights the planes would come in so close the noise would wake us from a dead sleep," Miller added. "Again, we'd call in the oiled areas during the day and at night the planes would come in and hit the hell out of it with dispersants. That was the drill. We'd spot it and report it. They'd call us off it and send guys out in the skiffs or planes to sink it."
Mark Stewart, from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, was in the VOO program for 70 days before being laid off on August 2. The last weeks has seen BP decreasing the number of response workers from around 45,000 down to around 30,000. The number is decreasing by the day.
Stewart, a third generation commercial fisherman, told Truthout he had regularly seen "purple looking jelly stuff, three feet thick, floating all over, as wide as a football field" and "tar balls as big as a car." He, like Miller, is an eyewitness to planes dispensing dispersant at night, as well as the Carolina Skiff crews spraying dispersant. "I worked out off the barrier islands of Mississippi," Stewart said. "They would relentlessly carpet bomb the oil we found with dispersants, day and night."
Stewart, echoing what VOO employees across the Gulf Coast are saying, told Truthout his crew would regularly find oil, report it, be sent away, then either watch as planes or Carolina Skiffs would arrive to apply dispersants, or come back the next day to find the white foamy emulsified oil remnant that is left on the surface after oil has been hit with dispersants.
Stewart added, "Whenever government people, state or federal, would be flying over us, we'd be instructed to put out all our boom and start skimming, acting like we were gathering oil, even when we weren't in the oil."
While acting as whistleblowers, Miller and Stewart have both been accused of being "troublemakers" and "liars" by persons in the Mississippi government and some of their local media, in spite of the fact that they are doing so from deep concern for their fellow fisherman and the environment.
Meanwhile, both men told Truthout they live with chronic headaches and other symptoms they've been experiencing since they were exposed to toxic dispersants while in the VOO program. Recent trips to investigate their waters for oil and dispersant have worsened their symptoms.
"Why would we lie about oil and dispersant in our waters, when our livelihoods depend on our being able to fish here?" Miller asked. "I want this to be cleaned up so we can get back to how we used to live, but it doesn't make sense for us or anyone else to fish if our waters are toxified. I don't know why people are angry at us for speaking the truth. We're not the ones who put the oil in the water."
Miller is bleak about his assessment of the situation. He pointed out toward the coast and said, "Everything is dead out there. The plankton is dead. We pulled up loads of dead plankton on our trip on Wednesday. There are very few birds. We saw only a few when there are usually thousands. We only saw two porpoises when there are usually countless. We saw nothing but death."
Coast Guard Complicity
"Lockheed Martin aircraft, including C-130s and P-3s, have been deployed to the Gulf region by the Air Force, Coast Guard and other government customers to perform a variety of tasks, such as monitoring, mapping and dispersant spraying," states a newsletter published in July by Lockheed Martin.
An article by the 910th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Office, based in Youngstown, Ohio, states that C-130H Hercules aircraft started aerial spray operations Saturday, May 1, under the direction of the president of the United States and secretary of defense. "The objective of the aerial spray operation is to neutralize the oil spill with oil dispersing agents," it says.
Joseph Yerkes, along with other Florida commercial fishermen and Florida residents, have seen C-130s spraying dispersants on oil floating off the coast of Florida numerous times.
But the Coast Guard denies it.
At a VOO meeting in Destin on August 3, Lt. Cmdr. Dale Vogelsang, a liaison officer with the United States Coast Guard said, "I can state, there is no dispersant being used in Florida waters."
The room, filled mostly with commercial fishermen, who were current or former members in BP's VOO program, erupted in protest and disbelief. When Vogelsang was immediately challenged on his statement, he replied, "I'll investigate the C-130s."
Two BP representatives, along with Vogelsang, found themselves confronted by a large group of angry fishermen for over an hour. At times, the meeting resembled a riot more than the question-and-answer session it was intended to be.
Yerkes, who lives on Okaloosa Island, has been a commercial fisherman and boat captain most of his life. For the last 12 years, he has owned and operated a commercial live bait business.
Employed by BP as a VOO operator for more than two months, Yerkes, along with many other local commercial fishermen in the VOO program in his area were laid off on July 20 because BP and the Coast Guard believed there was no more "recoverable oil" in their area of Florida. Yet residents, fishermen, swimmers, divers and surfers in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana have been reporting oil floating atop water, sitting on the bottom and floating in the water column, in oftentimes great amounts, for the last two weeks. There have been many reports of various kinds of aircraft, including C-130s, dispensing dispersants over oil.
Yerkes provided Truthout with a letter he wrote to document his witnessing a C-130 spraying what he believes to be dispersant.
"I witnessed [from my home] a C130 military plane flying and obviously spraying" over the Gulf of Mexico on July 30, "flying from the north to the south, dropping to low levels of elevation then obviously spraying or releasing an unknown substance from the rear of the plane. This substance started leaving the plane when it was about 1/2 to 1 mile offshore, with a continuous stream following out of the plane until it was out of sight flying to the south."
The substance, Yerkes wrote, "was not smoke, for the residue fell to the water, where smoke would have lingered." He added, "this plane was very low near the water and the flight was very similar to viewings I made over the past few weeks when dispersants were sprayed over the Gulf near our area."
A member of the VOO program provided relevant information of a "strange incident" on condition of anonymity. He was observing wildlife offshore the same day Yerkes witnessed the C-130 when he received a call from his supervisor. He told his supervisor he and his crewmember were not feeling well, so he was instructed to return in order "to get checked out because a plane had been reported in our area spraying a substance on the water about 10-20 minutes before." The employee complained of having a terrible headache and nasal congestion while his crewmember said he had a metallic taste in his mouth.
After filling out an incident report, both men were directed to go to the hospital. The following day the two men were "asked to go to the hospital for blood tests."
One week after the aforementioned meeting, The Destin Log quoted Vogelsang as saying he had contacted Unified Command who "confirmed" that dispersants were not being used in Florida waters. Vogelsang added, "Dispersants are only being used over the wellhead in Louisiana," a statement that Truthout has heard refuted by dozens of commercial fishermen from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Yerkes told Truthout that he, too, was aware of the Carolina Skiffs coming in from out of state to dispense dispersants over the oil. In the recent VOO meeting in Destin, Vogelsang was asked about the out-of-state contractors being brought in to work in Florida waters. He replied, "The only vessels we are using in the program are local, vetted vessels."
His response caused an uproar of protest from the crowd, with various fishermen and VOO workers yelling that Carolina Skiffs were being brought in from out of state. To this, Vogelsang responded, "Vessels that are from out of the area are contractors with special skills."
Vogelsang went on to claim that the amount of "product" [oil] being found in Florida is decreasing daily. This, too, caused an uproar from the room full of fishermen.
"I can take anybody in here out and show them oil, every single day," David White, a local fishing charter captain responded. "I was in the VOO program, driving around calling in oil, telling them where it is and nobody ever came. I never saw any skimmers there and I'm talking about some serious oil. I can show you tar balls going across the bottom like tumbleweeds."
Yerkes provided Truthout with a written statement from Lawrence Byrd, a local boat captain who was a task force leader in the VOO program from June 4 to July 21. On July 27 and 28, Byrd took BP officials, Coast Guard officials and an EPA official on a fact finding mission in search of oil.
"The Coast Guard told us if we could show them the oil, they'd put us back to work," Yerkes told Truthout, "So Byrd took him, and other officials out on his boat and showed them the oil."
Byrd's statement contains many instances of the group encountering oil on the trips:
"Within 30 minutes in the Rocky Bayou and Boggy Bayou we found 4 different football field sized areas of oily sheen on the water ... We moved east from there in search of weathered oil, just past Mid Bay bridge we found a 2 acre oil slick with a water bottle full of crude oil. At this time the Coast Guard Lt. had seen enough to warrant a 2nd trip with BP officials and EPA."
The next day, July 28, Byrd wrote:
"On board were BP officials, a Parson official, 2 Coast Guard Lts and EPA. First stop Crab Island Destin where we found tar balls, dead fish and plenty of dead sargasm grass. All officials seemed very concerned about all of our findings."
The report goes on to list further oil findings and added, "In the eyes of BP officials, Coast Guard Lts. and EPA, this was more than enough oil product to warrant the need for more VOO boats to serve as a first line of defense against this toxic pollution. To this day Destin VOO is still operating with 1/2 task force in the bay and 1/2 task force in Gulf with Walton County being completely unprotected! I feel all parties have good intentions but nothing is being done!"
"Somebody is stopping that process," Yerkes told Truthout. "[Retired Coast Guard Adm.] Thad Allen stood up at Tyndall Air Force Base the same night that they sprayed dispersant on the oil in front of Destin and he said we are going to use local fishermen in each local area to do the jobs, even beyond the cleaning of the oil. The day after he said that at Tyndall ... every one of the Carolina skiffs is loaded to the hilt with boom. Nobody else got reactivated."
Yerkes expressed his frustration further. "They are lying about this whole thing and it's got me in an uproar," he said. "I'm by myself. I'm the only one willing to stand up. I have a lot of friends who want to stand up and speak out. They know the Coast Guard and BP are lying, but they won't talk because they are getting paychecks and don't want to jeopardize that. They are saying they are finding new oil all the time, but the Coast Guard claims they are testing it and saying it's safe. I know for a fact they are not testing it and we watched and heard C130s fly every night in July."
There is a clear pattern that VOO workers in all four states are consistently reporting:
* VOO workers identify the oil.
* They are then sent elsewhere by someone higher up the chain of command.
* Dispersants are later applied by out-of-state contractors in Carolina Skiffs (usually at night), or aircraft are used, in order to sink the oil.
* The oil "appears" gone and, therefore, no additional action is taken.
"There are surfers coming in with oil on them," Yerkes continued, "There are divers telling us it's on the bottom. We have VOO workers coming in after finding oil three inches thick atop the water as of last week and they go back out there and it's gone."
"There are stories of people getting notes on their cars, verbal and phone threats. I don't want to become one of those people. I'm trying to heighten my profile so they don't want to mess with me," Yerkes added. "I want the truth to come out so the public knows. I'm trying to make BP and the government come out and tell the facts instead of lying to the public about what is going on. I want to know how much dispersants they are using, where all the oil is and the effects these are having on all of us. Somebody is lying and we want the truth."
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6) Obama's Gulf Swim Was Fake
By Stephen Lendman
Monday, August 16, 2010
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/obamas-gulf-swim-was-fake.html
On August 15, AP reported that Obama gave his "personal assurances of (the) Gulf's safety," saying:
"Beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean, they are safe, and they are open for business."
He lied.
The same day, Britain's government owned BBC reported:
"Barack Obama has taken a swim in the Gulf of Mexico (to) reassure Americans that the waters are safe despite the recent oil spill."
US corporate media reporters repeated the message, CNN's senior White House correspondent Ed Henry among them, saying "Obama takes (the) plunge, swims in the Gulf (to show it's safe and) open for business."
In fact, area businesses continue to be severely impacted, and the entire region is dangerously unsafe.
As for Obama's swim, on August 16, the London Independent reported that Obama and his daughter, Sasha, swam in a private Panama City Beach, FL beach off Alligator Point in St. Andrew Bay, not part of the Gulf.
Reporters were banned, no TV video permitted. "So....only the White House photographer was allowed to capture proceedings. The official picture was intended to provide evidence that the region's beaches are back to normal."
False. A dangerously toxic oil/dispersant brew contaminates much, perhaps the entire Gulf. It's poisoned and potentially lethal for decades, maybe generations. Nothing in it should be ingested. Millions in the region are at risk. No one should swim in coastal waters or eat any Gulf seafood. Responsible officials should ban it. Instead the all-clear's been given.
Obama, his officials, and BP executives are criminally liable. So are state governors, coastal mayors, and regional health authorities.
Area residents with children should leave. Tourists should avoid the region. A growing catastrophe will continue for decades, including a silent epidemic of cancers and other diseases, as well as lives and livelihoods lost.
That's the major media's unreported reality, worsening, not improving daily.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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7) U.S. Said to Plan Easing Rules for Travel to Cuba
By GINGER THOMPSON
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/world/americas/17cuba.html
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is planning to expand opportunities for Americans to travel to Cuba, the latest step aimed at encouraging more contact between people in both countries, while leaving intact the decades-old embargo against the island's Communist government, according to Congressional and administration officials.
The officials, who asked not to be identified because they had not been authorized to discuss the policy before it was announced, said it was meant to loosen restrictions on academic, religious and cultural groups that were adopted under President George W. Bush, and return to the "people to people" policies followed under President Bill Clinton.
Those policies, officials said, fostered robust exchanges between the United States and Cuba, allowing groups - including universities, sports teams, museums and chambers of commerce - to share expertise as well as life experiences.
Policy analysts said the intended changes would mark a significant shift in Cuba policy. In early 2009, President Obama lifted restrictions on travel and remittances only for Americans with relatives on the island.
Congressional aides cautioned that some administration officials still saw the proposals as too politically volatile to announce until after the coming midterm elections, and they said revisions could still be made.
But others said the policy, which does not need legislative approval, would be announced before Congress returned from its break in mid-September, partly to avoid a political backlash from outspoken groups within the Cuban American lobby - backed by Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey - that oppose any softening in Washington's position toward Havana.
Those favoring the change said that with a growing number of polls showing that Cuban-Americans' attitudes toward Cuba had softened as well, the administration did not expect much of a backlash.
"They have made the calculation that if you put a smarter Cuba policy on the table, it will not harm us in the election cycle," said one Democratic Congressional aide who has been working with the administration on the policy. "That, I think, is what animates this."
Mr. Menendez, in a statement, objected to the anticipated changes. "This is not the time to ease pressure on the Castro regime," he said, referring to President Raúl Castro of Cuba, who took office in 2006 after his brother, Fidel, fell ill. Mr. Menendez added that promoting travel would give Havana a "much needed infusion of dollars that will only allow the Castro brothers to extend their reign of oppression."
In effect, the new policy would expand current channels for travel to Cuba, rather than create new ones. Academic, religious and cultural groups are now allowed to travel under very tight rules. For example, students wanting to study in Cuba are required to stay at least 10 weeks. And only accredited universities can apply for academic visas.
Under the new policy, such restrictions would be eased, officials said. And academic institutions, including research and advocacy groups and museums, would be able to seek licenses for as long as two years.
In addition, the administration is also planning to allow flights to Cuba from more cities than the three - Miami, New York and Los Angeles - currently permitted. And there are proposals, the officials said, to allow all Americans to send remittances or charitable donations to churches, schools and human rights groups in Cuba.
Some analysts said the measures were partly a response to pressure from an unlikely alliance of liberal political groups and conservative business associations - led by Senator John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - who have been pushing Congress to lift all restrictions on travel to Cuba.
Others described it as a nod to President Castro's stunning decision last month to begin releasing dozens of political prisoners.
"It's a way of fostering greater opening and exchange without a bruising battle with a much-needed political ally in an election year," said Christopher Sabatini, senior policy director at the Council of the Americas. "But it can still be legitimately couched as a way of supporting democracy and human rights by allowing independent exchange and thought."
As with everything concerning Cuba, the new policy seems fraught with complications. President Obama, who came to office promising to open new channels of engagement with Cuba, has so far had limited those new openings to Cuban-Americans, partly because of political concerns, and also because his administration's attention had been focused on more pressing foreign policy matters, including two wars.
"I don't think the administration believes this will produce palpable change in the short term," said Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations. "But it's a way over the long term to allow Americans and Cubans to have contact, even as their governments continue to hash out a lot of seriously thorny issues."
High on the United States' list of issues is winning the release of an American contractor who was detained in Cuba nine months ago when the authorities said they caught him distributing satellite telephones to Jewish dissidents. The contractor, Alan P. Gross, had gone to Cuba without the proper visa as part of longstanding program by the organization Usaid, in which development workers conduct activities aimed at strengthening groups that oppose the Castro government.
"We're dealing with a relationship that's so contorted, it would take another 50 years of incremental steps to pull it apart and reassemble it in a constructive way," said Robert Pastor, a professor of international relations at American University. "Even then, we're having trouble taking baby steps, when what we need is a giant leap."
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8) Questions Linger as Shrimp Season Opens in Gulf
By SHAILA DEWAN
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/us/17gulf.html?hp
ABOARD THE KRISTY MISTY, in the Gulf of Mexico - Well before dawn on Monday, Nicky Alfonso set out down Bayou Terre aux Boeufs in his 38-foot shrimping boat, heading for open water.
It was the first day of the first white shrimp season in Louisiana since the BP oil spill, and normally there would have been enough boats to make for a crowded, competitive rodeo of a day.
But as the sky lightened over Breton Sound, there were more questions about the future of the once-mighty gulf seafood industry than there were boats bobbing on the water. The industry, which provides a way of life for hundreds of Cajun, Isleño, Creole and Vietnamese families, has been plagued by the questions: Would there be any shrimp? Would it be safe? Would anyone buy it? Would anyone eat it?
Mr. Alfonso, 45 and a shrimper since he graduated from high school, said there was one question more important than the rest. "The point is not to come out here and fill this boat full of shrimp," he said. "It's to know there's something out here that will multiply. It's our future."
For the moment, shrimp industry officials are more worried about the consumer confidence that underlies a whole network of fishermen, ice makers, processors and distributors. Shrimp alone in Louisiana is worth more than $100 million a year.
Ewell Smith, the executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, said that after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, Alaska seafood producers "spent $10 million a year for 10 years rebuilding their brand."
In a test run on Friday, shrimpers found no sign of oil on their nets or shrimp, Mr. Smith said, but shrimpers had trouble finding buyers.
Louisiana has asked BP for $450 million to pay for continued testing of seafood and a marketing campaign over two decades, and requested that the federal and local agencies that have been testing fish, shrimp, crabs and oysters report the results in one central location, Mr. Smith said.
"We need to bore the consumer with good news," he said. "This is probably the most tested food source there is in the U.S. and will be for quite some time."
The Food and Drug Administration said that all seafood samples had tested below the level of concern for health risks from petroleum compounds, and that it was developing a test for dispersants in food. Only 2 of 2,500 water samples have tested positive for dispersants, it said.
The state has asked BP to finance a program seafood officials are calling Back to the Dock, which would pay shrimpers a 30 percent premium for their product to rebuild the steady supply the industry needs.
Shrimp prices spiked after the oil spill began because customers were worried about running out, but they have been falling rapidly since mid-June, according to Urner Barry, a company that tracks market data. "The market is weak," said Paul B. Brown Jr., its president. "Nobody knows what the demand is going to be."
Keath Ladner, the owner of Gulf Shores Sea Products in Lakeshore, Miss., a distributor, said it would be "economically irresponsible" for the 70 boats he usually buys shrimp from to go out. His biggest customer, which buys two million pounds of shrimp a year, had canceled its entire order.
"The sentiment in the country is that the seafood in the gulf is tainted," Mr. Ladner said. "People are scared of it right now."
But on Monday morning the easygoing Mr. Alfonso, at least, was ready to shift into high gear. At 6 a.m., the official start time, he was suddenly everywhere in his plastic clogs, speed-walking from the trawl nets to the winches, kneeling on the fiberglass deck of the Kristy Misty, which he built and named after his daughters, and finally lowering the skimmer nets, one on each side of the boat, into the water.
He did not relax, but peered at them anxiously, watching for the spritz of a shrimp darting from the water. "I want to see them jump," he said. "Jump, jump, jump."
As he worked, Mr. Alfonso explained his view that the main factor affecting the shrimp's behavior this year was not the oil but the large amounts of fresh water that had been diverted from the Mississippi River to push oil away from the marshes. It had also pushed the shrimp away, disrupting the marshes' normal temperature and salinity. That made them harder to catch.
Instead of running together, he said, the shrimp were dispersed. "See how we ain't seeing no shrimp jump?" he asked. "That's not good."
He added, "There's too much stuff disturbed them. The shrimp out here don't know which way to run because of that fresh water."
The radio buzzed. "Lucky Dog?" a fellow shrimper inquired, using one of Mr. Alfonso's nicknames.
He answered using the slang term for shrimp, "I'm looking for some bugs, but I ain't seen too many yet. Whatever it is, it is. At least we're out here."
Mr. Alfonso would customarily spend $800 on ice and diesel, but he had spent only half that, because he was unsure what the return on his investment would be. He said that there was one dock buying shrimp in his hometown, Delacroix Island, and that it was selling to the one seafood processor still open.
When it was time to haul up the nets, they hung like two heavy, squirming pendulums, streaming with water. Mr. Alfonso released the ties, sending the pile skidding onto the deck, and began shoveling the sardines, crabs and other bycatch right off the edge into the water. The pale shrimp smelled briny and fresh. All told, he had about 80 pounds of shrimp from the first drag - not nearly the hundreds of pounds per drag that are customary on the first day of the season, but not the worst Mr. Alfonso had seen.
"This crop of shrimp here, in a month they should be laying eggs again in the inside waters. I doubt if they're going to do it," he said. Then he picked up a couple of baby shrimp and held them in his palm before tossing them back. "This," he said, "is what we need to see."
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9) Israeli Ex-Soldier Defends Her Facebook Snapshots
By ROBERT MACKEY
August 17, 2010, 11:47 am
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/israeli-ex-soldier-defends-her-facebook-snapshots/?hp
To See If I Am Smiling
http://www.linktv.org/programs/to-see-if-i-am-smiling
In an interview with Israeli Army radio on Tuesday, a former Israeli soldier said, "I still don't understand what's wrong" with photographs she posted on Facebook of herself posing next to blindfolded Palestinian detainees.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Eden Abergil, who posted the images in an album dedicated to her time in the military - called "The Army... the most beautiful time of my life :)" - said that the "pictures were taken in good will, there was no statement in them." She added that they were not intended to humiliate the prisoners but merely to document her "military experience," and that she had no idea they "would be problematic."
As The Lede explained on Monday, Ms. Abergil's photographs were quickly duplicated by Israeli bloggers she described as "leftists," and the images were shown and discussed on Israeli television after they came to light.
Although Ms. Abergil, whose compulsory military service reportedly ended last year, seems to have no regrets about her snapshots now, the Israeli blogger Dimi Reider suggested that she may feel differently in the years ahead.
On Tuesday, Mr. Reider pointed out that "To See If I'm Smiling," a harrowing documentary produced in 2007 by a former Israeli soldier, Tamar Yarom, illustrated how much memories of military service can shift with time.
The documentary, which can be viewed online, is based on the testimonies of six women who struggle to deal with memories of their service in the Israeli military. One of the women, Meytal Sandler, a former medic, described being haunted by an image she had posed for next to the body of a Palestinian man.
In the film, Ms. Sandler described the night the photograph was taken:
There's a shooting battle and again there's a dead body. And what is by now a normal procedure, we take the body put it near the latrines and wash it. Then, something very funny happens: he has an erection. A dead body with an erection. We laugh a little because it's embarrassing. And... it's open grounds, so anyone come and take a peek. Some female sergeants that I knew arrive from the operations room come in. One of them has a camera and without even thinking, I tell her, 'Come, take my picture.' And I sit down next to the dead body and... I have my picture taken.
As she described the memory, Ms. Sandler looked haunted and on the verge of tears. But the film includes video of her at a party marking the end of her military service - reading a letter from the other soldiers who tell her, "You know that we love you," showing off a gift, dancing to electronic music - to illustrate how differently she felt about her stint in the army at the time.
Later, she told the filmmaker:
I'm not sure when it was, but at some point, I became very ashamed of that picture. And... I didn't tell anyone about it, that it existed. I forgot about it a little. But I would like to see it. To see if I look different. I want to see if I'm smiling.
Near the end of the documentary, as she prepared to look again at the photograph, which had not been in her possession, Ms. Sandler said: "Who wants to deal with the evil within himself, the alienation? Who wants to deal with that? Dealing with these questions is painful."
In the same film another former soldier, an education officer named Dana Behar, also described snapshots being taken with the bodies of Palestinians, in Hebron:
I'm washing dishes in the kitchen, which is what I did most of the time, suddenly there's this commotion and I hear the guys coming in and I understand that they've returned with something - they're not empty-handed. I dry my soapy hands and go outside to see what's up. I see they're back with dead bodies of terrorists, on stretchers, that were covered.
They say, "Yep, we've got some terrorists' bodies here."
I'm like, "What? Cool... What?"
It really deterred me, this unexpected presence of death. Then they pulled out cameras and took pictures with the bodies. I thought: "It's wrong to take pictures with dead bodies." On the other hand it wasn't terrible enough to make me call a journalist and say: "Oh dear, they're taking pictures with dead bodies, we need to alert the world. ..."
I didn't think for a moment that taking pictures was normal. It's not normal. But the reality of the territories isn't normal either. Everything that happens there isn't normal but somehow... it works. A minus and a minus make a plus. Abnormal and abnormal work. It fits.
Although an Israeli military spokesman denounced Ms. Abergil's snapshots as "base and crude" on Monday, Israeli human rights groups agreed with her description of them as far from unusual. Ishai Menuchin, who leads Israel's Public Committee Against Torture told Haaretz:
These terrible photographs reflect a norm in the way Palestinians are viewed, as an object and not as humans. It is an attitude that ignores their feelings as humans and their individual rights.
On Tuesday, Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli veterans that collects testimony from soldiers who served in occupied Palestinian territories, added one of Ms. Abergil's images to a new Facebook album of similar photographs - some quite graphic - taken over the past decade.
As The Jerusalem Post reports, the group's collection of images bears a note referring to the Israel Defense Forces spokesman who suggested that Ms. Abergil's images are unusual:
Unsurprisingly, the I.D.F. spokesman released a 'shocked' statement saying that this is the "shameless and ugly behavior of one soldier." This picture is not the ugly behavior of one person, but a norm throughout the army... that is a result of military rule over a civilian population over a long time.
The group's statement continued:
We suggest to the I.D.F. spokesman not to insult the intelligence of the Israeli public, and to clarify that this is a widespread phenomenon, not an unusual incident by one soldier. We attach similar pictures taken in different times and areas over the past 10 years.
These pictures are only the first collection. Taking real responsibility is not blaming the lowest ranks, but honestly confronting with the deteriorated moral state of the senior commanders responsible.
Speaking to the military radio station on Tuesday, Ms. Abergil, whose compulsory service ended last year, refused to accept any responsibility for harming Israel's international reputation, saying:
We will always be attacked. Whatever we do, we will always be attacked.
Later, Ms. Abergil told Ynet News, an Israeli news site, that the military had informed her she would be dismissed from reserve service and stripped of her rank. Since "the army let me down," she said she does now have one regret: "I'm sorry that I served in such [an] army."
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10) Sweden: Wikileaks Founder to Write
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/world/europe/17briefs-Sweden.html?ref=world
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, says he will write bimonthly columns for a left-leaning Swedish newspaper. Mr. Assange says his columns in the tabloid Aftonbladet will give perspective on the work of WikiLeaks, which has angered the Pentagon by releasing thousands of classified Afghan war documents. The paper's chief editor, Jan Helin, said Monday that Aftonbladet would help WikiLeaks get a publishing certificate in Sweden. Mr. Assange has said WikiLeaks has servers in Sweden.
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11) Judge Orders Man Freed in a Three-Strikes Case
By REBECCA CATHCART
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/us/17strikes.html?ref=us
LOS ANGELES - A judge here ordered the release Monday of Gregory Taylor, who was serving a near life sentence under the state's three-strikes law for trying to break into a soup kitchen 13 years ago.
The case has been widely cited by those pushing to change the law, including civil rights activists and the Los Angeles district attorney, as an example of the kind of heavy-handed sentencing it can lead to.
Judge Peter Espinoza of Superior Court, who ordered the release, said convictions under the three-strikes law - which calls for heavy sentences for a third conviction - had often brought "disproportionate" sentences and "resulted in if not unintended, then at least unanticipated, consequences."
Several of Mr. Taylor's relatives attended his hearing Monday afternoon.
Mr. Taylor, 48, is one of 14 California inmates who have been resentenced since students working on the Three Strikes Project at the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School began reviewing cases in 2007, said Michael Romano, a law professor who helped found the clinic.
Gov. Pete Wilson signed the law in 1994. Twenty-four states have similar laws, according to the Sentencing Project, a national defense advocacy group.
In 1997, Mr. Taylor was homeless and sleeping at a church in downtown Los Angeles. One night, he tried to pry open the doors of the soup kitchen there because he was hungry, he told the police at the time. Judge James Dunn sentenced him to 25 years to life under the three-strikes law. In 1984 and 1985, Mr. Taylor had committed two robberies to support his crack cocaine and heroin addictions. He had no weapons during those robberies, and nobody was injured, according to case records.
Law students are reviewing about 20 more three-strikes cases, said Reiko Rogozen, a student who worked on the Taylor case. The cases are chosen based on letters from inmates, or are selected from a list presented by District Attorney Steve Cooley of Los Angeles as some of the harshest sentences under the law. Mr. Cooley often spoke of Mr. Taylor's case in his 2000 campaign for district attorney against Gil Garcetti, who supported the law.
"Some have come off that list because we know Cooley may be sympathetic to those," said Gabriel Martinez, who worked on Mr. Taylor's case. "We want to start influencing case law and hopefully the overall policy so it no longer gives life sentences for nonviolent offenses."
On Monday, Mr. Taylor's relatives erupted in applause after Judge Espinoza ordered that he be released for time served. Ms. Rogozen put a hand on Mr. Taylor's shoulder. He nodded and said quietly, "Thank you for giving me another chance."
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12) Economy Led to Cuts in Use of Health Care
By ROBERT PEAR
August 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/health/policy/17health.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The economic crisis in the United States has reduced the use of routine medical care, and the cutbacks here are much deeper than in countries with universal health care systems, researchers say in a new report.
The study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds that "Americans, who face higher out-of-pocket health care costs, have reduced their routine medical care" much more than people in Britain, Canada, France and Germany.
Individuals and families in all five countries lost income because of unemployment and lost wealth because of steep declines in stock prices.
"We find strong evidence that the economic crisis - manifested in job and wealth losses - has led to reductions in the use of routine medical care," the researchers said.
"Reductions in care were far greater in the United States than elsewhere," they said, in part because about 15 percent of Americans are uninsured, whereas the other countries have near-universal coverage.
The research was done by Annamaria Lusardi, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College; Daniel J. Schneider, a doctoral student in sociology at Princeton University; and Peter Tufano, a professor at Harvard Business School. They analyzed data from surveys designed with their help and conducted in all five countries by TNS, a global market research concern.
Among Americans responding to the survey, they said, 26.5 percent reported reducing their use of routine medical care since the start of the global economic crisis in 2007.
This proportion dwarfs the comparable numbers for other countries: 5.3 percent in Canada, 7.6 percent in Britain, 10.3 percent in Germany and 12 percent in France.
"Even in countries with universal coverage, individuals pay some medical care costs out of pocket," the researchers noted.
Cutbacks were generally correlated with the size of out-of-pocket costs, the researchers found. The proportion of people reporting reductions in routine care was smaller in Britain and Canada, where the co-payments are lower, than in France and Germany, where somewhat larger co-payments are required.
In general, the researchers said, reductions in the use of routine medical care were most likely to occur among young people, those with lower incomes and those who had lost large proportions of their wealth in the latest economic turmoil.
Several provisions of the new health care law, signed by President Obama in March, could counter the trend described in the report.
By 2019, the law is expected to provide coverage for more than 30 million people who are uninsured. The law would subsidize coverage for people with incomes up to four times the poverty level ($88,200 a year for a family of four), and insurers will generally be forbidden to charge deductibles or co-payments for recommended preventive services, like mammograms, colonoscopies and immunizations.
Ralph A. Catalano, a professor of public health at the University of California, Berkeley, said the findings of the new study were plausible.
"Discretionary health care, like other discretionary spending, is likely to go down in difficult economic times," Mr. Catalano said. "And you see a bigger effect where there are higher out-of-pocket costs. We do not know how much of the forgone health care will result in serious illness."
The new research is also consistent with findings of the American Hospital Association, which said its members were still seeing lingering effects of the recession.
"About 70 percent of hospitals report fewer patient visits and elective procedures as family budgets remain tight and patients continue to delay or forgo care," the association said in June.
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13) Where Geese Were Thinned, Their Population Thickens
By CATE DOTY
August 17, 2010, 12:51 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/index.html
Five weeks after wildlife authorities rounded up Prospect Park's geese and gassed them, provoking the ire of residents and wildlife advocates alike, legions of new, death-defying geese continue to move into the prime real estate that is Prospect Park Lake.
Anne-Katrin Titze and Ed Bahlman, Brooklyn residents who discovered the birds' disappearance last month, counted 107 geese on Prospect Park Lake on Sunday. "They are clearly replacing the ones that were killed," Ms. Titze said, although she lamented that some had already fallen prey to barbed lures and fishing line that were left in the lake.
The 107 geese have their flight feathers, Ms. Titze noted, and were slowly learning the ways of the park.
"They're landing in perfect surroundings," she said.
Last month, wildlife biologists and Agriculture Department officials rounded up the park's 400 resident geese and gassed them with lethal doses of carbon dioxide, saying the effort was necessary to keep them out of the flight paths of La Guardia and Kennedy Airports. The authorities had been quietly killing geese since a few flew into the engines of US Airways Flight 1549 in January 2009, forcing it to land in the Hudson River. But the mass kill in July infuriated Brooklyn residents and wildlife advocates, who were quick to point out that the geese that brought down the flight were migratory, not resident.
"These geese were chasing away the newcomers - they were like property owners," Mr. Bahlman said. By late July, 28 Canada geese were counted in the park. Now, their numbers are at 25 percent of the population before the mass kill.
Officials want to eliminate most of the geese that live within seven miles of the airports. The Agriculture Department has not yet completed a report on the exact number of geese killed this summer, a spokeswoman said.
Henry J. Stern, the former New York City parks commissioner, said he was troubled that residents were not notified of the killings, and that no process was followed.
"We don't want any geese to jeopardize human life - we don't value geese over people," Mr. Stern said. "But you would have some sort of explanation and some sort of certainty or knowledge that these geese are guilty."
He said residents were more distressed by the goose killings than the people in charge of caring for the parks were. "They would never initiate a goose kill," he said of parks managers. "But they're not sitting shiva."
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