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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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TWO PLAYS: Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho."
We are pleased to present both, Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho." The two plays are complementary. "The Fever" is a raw portrayal of a person who is coming to social consciousness. "Marx in Soho" humanizes the man whose ideas describe these fundamental realities of our societies' social structure.
Two benefit performances by veteran actor and sociologist, Jerry Levy. LevyArts' mission is to utilize theater and social theory to entertain, enlighten and stimulate a constructive and reflective dialogue about society.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 7:00 P.M. "THE FEVER," a one-man play by Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn's play, "The Fever" explores what a sensitive, well educated, arts loving and consumption-driven man or woman of any age discovers when his/her life-affirming existence is related to the often brutal suffering of others. In the bathroom of a hotel our "anti-hero" feverishly defends and relentlessly attacks his own way of life. Inner voices and imagined characters fuel his fever as he narrates and often attempts to enact his story.
Actor Jerry Levy rehearses "The Fever," a one-man play which was be presented Dec. 4 and 10-12 at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in Brattleboro. (Jon Potter/Reformer)
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_16720592
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1:30 P.M. "MARX IN SOHO," a one-man play by Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn's play, "Marx in Soho" portrays the return of Karl Marx. Embedded in some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix-up, he winds up in SOHO in New York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked about; Marx the man. The play offers an entertaining and thorough introduction to a person who knows little about Marx's life, while also offering valuable insight to students of his ideas.
Centro del Pueblo
474 Valencia Street
(Between 16th and 15th Streets, San Francisco. Wheelchair accessible.)
Reserved ticket discounts for each play: $10.00
Tickets at the door: $20.00
No one turned away for lack of funds.
To reserve your discount tickets, email:
giobon@comcast.net
(Your name will be placed on a the discount ticket list at the door.)
To benefit: Barrios Unidos and Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
"The Fever" presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Services Inc.
Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn (c) Howard Zinn Revocable Trust
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NEXT MEETING OF THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE (UNAC)
SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 1:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(BETWEEN 16TH AND 15TH STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO)
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A CALL TO ACTION! WHAT ABOUT US?
A tale of two demos – demonstrate in London OR Manchester, 29 January!
By Ed
December 20, 2010
http://anticuts.com/2010/12/20/a-two-of-two-demos-demonstrate-in-london-or-manchester-29-january/
There has been some confusion in the student movement recently about the date 29 January. NCAFC is backing and helping to organise two mass student demonstrations againt fees and cuts, one in London and one in Manchester. Here we explain why and advise activists on what to do on the day.
We are organising a demonstration in London for obvious reasons – because London is not only the biggest city and easily accessible, but the seat of political power. The Facebook event for this demo, which has already attracted 2,700 attendees and seen nearly 20,000 more invited so far, is here. This demo has also won support from many trade unionists including the leaders of Unite and the GMB (see here).
We are also mobilising students for Manchester, because that day the Young Members Network of the civil service union PCS, UCU and others are holding a young workers’ march to the TUC’s youth rally. (This is not an official Facebook group, but it’s the only we can find so far. We’ll update asap.)
More details of both, plus promotional materials, very soon.
Why it’s right to demonstrate in London as well as Manchester
We are mobilising students for Manchester to make it clear we don’t want to clash with the PCS Young Members march – indeed we want to protest alongside and in solidarity with it. However, we reject the idea, put forward for instance by the leadership of NUS (see Aaron Porter’s letter to student unions and motion for the January 10 NUS executive meeting below) that it is wrong to protest in London on 29 January.
The Manchester event was not widely known about in the student movement until now; and to be bluntly honest, it was never going to be the case that thousands of students from London and the South attended it. Nor was there any sign of NUS seriously trying to mobilise for Manchester! Meanwhile, the student struggle against fees and cuts goes on, and another mass demonstration in London is urgently needed. Aaron Porter and the leadership of NUS are using the Manchester march as an excuse, covering for the fact that they wanted 10 November to be the end of the campaign and wish students were not pushing for more action. We call on NUS to drop this ridiculous, opportunistic stance and officially support the London protest.
We want fraternal links between the two demonstrations, in London and Manchester; they should exchange speakers (we invite PCS Young Members to send a speaker to London) and, if possible, link up by video. Local student activist groups will have to decide which demo, Manchester or London, they want to take part in; we urge those nearer Manchester, to go to Manchester.
National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts
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Letter from Aaron Porter to student unions
Dear all,
Last week I promised to write to you before Christmas setting out my thoughts on our next steps in the Education Funding campaign after what has been the most high profile campaign run by NUS in many decades. The defeat on the fee cap last week was painful- but I am immensely proud of the fight we put up, the attention we drew to the issue, the way in which we mobilised record numbers of students, the extent to which we shaped the debate and the way in which it has affected the coalition. Right now we all need a short break to recuperate – but in January we’ll need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and get on with doing the very best we can for our members, as the campaign still goes on!
There is much to fight for in the new year. A white paper is being developed that will set out a new framework for regulation and accountability in Higher Education- and we must ensure that we are at the heart of that by winning new rights for students and their unions. The Government will set out the basis on which universities can charge over the basic £6k fee- and we’ll be pushing to test the Government’s assertion that charging over £6k will be “exceptional”. The new HE scholarship scheme is being developed, the EMA continues to be hotly debated, AimHigher needs saving, local authorities are about to slash young people’s travel subsidies and there are still huge cuts coming to provision in both FE and HE that need to be resisted. Many of these challenges involve decisions that will be made locally and I know you will expect maximum targeted support on a local scale as well as continued national action.
This is why in the motion to an NEC meeting I have called for January, I have set out clear and proactive steps for NUS to continue to seize the initiative in what is an ongoing campaign across HE and FE:
Joint action with Trade Unions and UCU on the 29th January, high level support for SUs in FE and HE facing local course cuts and closures, prioritisation of the campaign to save EMA and the AimHigher programme, a full inquiry into policing tactics on the recent student protests, full-scale mobilisation for the TUC National Demonstration on the 26th March and a long term strategy to reverse the damaging marketisation and reduction of public investment in our education system.
The TUC have asked NUS and UCU to support a mass protest and rally in Manchester (29th January) to highlight youth issues, including access to education, the scrapping of EMA and youth unemployment. Manchester of course has both the largest FE College and HE institution in the country and sits in a region with the highest rate of youth unemployment in the country. As a national organisation I believe it is the right decision for us to ensure that not all our activity is based in London, therefore a national action in a region with such high levels of youth unemployment, jointly alongside the TUC and UCU is another reason for us to support this tactic, at this time. The event has had the longstanding date of 29 January, and I have agreed to join Trade Union leaders to speak on behalf of NUS.
It is therefore unhelpful that the “National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts”, alongside the “Education Activists Network”, have suggested a further National Demonstration on January 29th in London, when an event with the TUC and UCU has been longstanding. As I make clear below, a mass demonstration on Fees, EMAs and Cuts on the 10th November in conjunction with UCU was the right tactic at the right time. A further national demonstration on Fees, EMAs and Cuts on the 29th January in London when the TUC have organised an event in Manchester on the same day, would be the wrong tactic at the wrong time – especially when we need maximum unity with the Trade Union Movement, and moves to divide the student movement when we need maximum unity is not a direction of travel I support.
More importantly, the student movement must not respond to the defeat on Fees by coming to the lazy conclusion that a series of hastily organised National Demos will secure wins for students. This kind of tactical obsession is the wrong response to the challenges we face. I believe that our mobilisation for a mass protest and rally in Manchester on the 29th January, and then mobilisation again for the TUC National Demonstration on the 26th March is the right tactic, alongside engaging with ongoing policy issues with regard to access, EMA, cuts and so much more as the debate continues on.
To ensure we respond to these challenges with speed, early in the new year I have called a meeting of our National Executive Council of NUS, which will rightly have the opportunity to debate the next steps for the campaign. I will be asking the NEC to support the motion below, which I believe sets out the right campaign tactics for the months ahead.
For maximum openness, I have published below the main motion that I will submit to the NEC. I believe it sets out a clear programme of action and activity for the new year which deploys the right tactics, at the right time, in partnership with UCU and the Trade Union Movement.
I will of course be in touch early in the new year with the results of that meeting.
I want to finish off by saying a heartfelt thank you for everything this year. Whilst the result of the vote was incredibly disappointing, we have still run the most high-profile NUS campaign in decades. There is still so much more to campaign for, and that’s what we need to focus on in 2011.
Wishing you a peaceful and happy Christmas, and a prosperous 2011,
Aaron
Main Motion to Emergency NEC
Monday 10th January 2011
NEC Believes
1. Both houses of parliament have now approved a £9,000 limit on Higher Education Undergraduate Tuition Fees.
2. This happened despite an unprecedented mass campaign from NUS that has united students, lecturers and the general public and the largest student demonstration in a generation.
3. The student movement should be proud that the NUS/UCU National Demonstration on 10 November sparked an unprecedented wave of student activism.
4. The policing of both the NUS/UCU Demonstration and subsequent demonstrations has been widely questioned.
5. It has been widely reported that some on those demonstrations were bent on violence.
6. The changes to fees levels have to be seen in the wider context of savage cuts to education and public services.
7. The TUC have asked NUS and UCU to help build for a wider Rally on youth opportunities in Manchester on the 29th January.
8. The NCAFC/EAN have suggested that NUS hold a National Demonstration in London on 29th January
9. Cuts programmes inside HEIs continue and will only get worse in the new year.
10. A significant number of new student activists have emerged out of the campaign.
11. The removal of the EMA will devastate retention and achievement in FE and destroy access to universities by the poorest.
12. Aim Higher has been mooted to close.
13. A white paper on fees is due out in the new year.
NEC Further Believes
1. Our principal duty is to work to secure our members’ interests.
2. Our struggle on cuts to education and public services must now be bound up firmly with the wider trade union and social movement.
3. The prospect of £9,000 fees heightens and makes more urgent the need to radically improve student rights on campus and the regulation of HEIs.
4. Students’ unions need real, substantial help now on understanding and fighting cuts in their institution.
5. A mass demonstration on Fees, EMAs and Cuts on the 10th November was the right tactic at the right time. A further national demonstration in London on Fees, EMAs and Cuts on the 29th January would be the wrong tactic at the wrong time.
6. The TUC protest and rally on 29th Jan will be held in Manchester- home to the largest FE College and HE institution in the country and sits in a region with the highest rate of youth unemployment in the country.
7. Some of the actions of some on demonstrations and in occupations have harmed, not progressed, our cause. Violent demonstrators have lost us considerable public support.
8. Some of the policing tactics in use at student demos in November and December exacerbated tension and violence and prevented peaceful students from demonstrating.
9. At a time when there is still so much to campaign for, there has never been a more important time for maximum unity, and not doing so is unhelpful and damaging to students.
10. Students in FE face a double whammy- 16-18 transport subsidies are to be cut in local authorities and learner support funds don’t support travel costs.
NEC Resolves
1. To support the TUC protest and rally for youth opportunities on January 29th in Manchester.
2. Continuing to work with UCU and other trade unions through the TUC is vital to ensure we are part of a wider campaign.
3. To reject calls from the NCAFC/EAN to hold a London based National Demo on January 29th.
4. To prioritise mobilisation amongst students for the 26th March TUC national demonstration in the first term.
5. To launch a local mobilisation and partnership strategy with trade unions and social groups aimed at developing activism over cuts in local constituencies.
6. To mandate the VP Higher Education to launch an anti cuts strategy with a detailed toolkit and advice available from NUS staff and officers.
7. To support the VP Furhter Education in continued prioritisation of the campaign to save EMA, cuts to FE and the fight for local travel subsidies for young people.
8. To call for a detailed enquiry must be held into Policing tactics used on demonstrations in November/December.
9. To continue to publically condemn inappropriate police tactics like kettling (containment) and horse charging.
10. To lobby for increased student rights and protections in the White Paper.
11. To push the Government to ensure that there is a more comprehensive system of student support, effective outreach given the new fee regime.
12. To continue to fight to save the EMA and to lobby to ensure that colleges are able to assist students with transport costs in the future.
13. To launch a major campaign aimed at protecting Aim Higher and ensuring that efforts to improve WP measure universities’ success at retention and acceptances rather than just applications.
14. To develop a detailed long term strategy aimed at reversing the damaging marketisation and loss of public funding about to be inflicted on HE.
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:
http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]
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Marx Reloaded Trailer - Coming 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybvsZ7YjBL0
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John Pilger: Global Support for WikiLeaks is "Rebellion" Against U.S. Militarism, Secrecy
December 15, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzaclKj2B8M
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An Irishman abroad tells it like it is !! :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koY6kXhQDQo&feature=player_embedded
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WikiLeaks founder concern for Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPrShC8qx4k&feature=player_embedded
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Newsnight: Bailed Julian Assange live interview (16Dec10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NouXB5JACCw&feature=player_embedded
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Julian Assange: 'ongoing attempts to extradite me'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C30UhZDOO9A&feature=player_embedded
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Published on Thursday, December 16, 2010 by Countdown With Keith Olbermann
Quantico, the New Gitmo
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/12/16-0
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GO TO: http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/12/12/day-3-of-historic-prison-strike-in-georgia-blacked-out-by-media-guards-committing-violence/
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Posted: December 12, 2010 by Davey D in 2010 Daily News, Political articles
On Thursday morning, December 9, 2010, thousands of Georgia prisoners refused to work, stopped all other activities and locked down in their cells in a peaceful protest for their human rights. The December 9 Strike became the biggest prisoner protest in the history of the United States. Thousands of men, from Augusta, Baldwin, Hancock, Hays, Macon, Smith and Telfair State Prisons, among others, initiated this strike to press the Georgia Department of Corrections ("DOC") to stop treating them like animals and slaves and institute programs that address their basic human rights. They set forth the following demands:
• · A LIVING WAGE FOR WORK
• · EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
• · DECENT HEALTH CARE
• · AN END TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS
• · DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS
• · NUTRITIONAL MEALS
• · VOCATIONAL AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
• · ACCESS TO FAMILIES
• · JUST PAROLE DECISIONS
Despite that the prisoners' protest remained non-violent, the DOC violently attempted to force the men back to work-claiming it was "lawful" to order prisoners to work without pay, in defiance of the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery. In Augusta State Prison, six or seven inmates were brutally ripped from their cells by CERT Team guards and beaten, resulting in broken ribs for several men, one man beaten beyond recognition. This brutality continues there. At Telfair, the Tactical Squad trashed all the property in inmate cells. At Macon State, the Tactical Squad has menaced the men for two days, removing some to the "hole," and the warden ordered the heat and hot water turned off. Still, today, men at Macon, Smith, Augusta, Hays and Telfair State Prisons say they are committed to continuing the strike. Inmate leaders, representing blacks, Hispanics, whites, Muslims, Rastafarians, Christians, have stated the men will stay down until their demands are addressed, one issuing this statement:
"...Brothers, we have accomplished a major step in our struggle...We must continue what we have started...The only way to achieve our goals is to continue with our peaceful sit-down...I ask each and every one of my Brothers in this struggle to continue the fight. ON MONDAY MORNING, WHEN THE DOORS OPEN, CLOSE THEM. DO NOT GO TO WORK. They cannot do anything to us that they haven't already done at one time or another. Brothers, DON'T GIVE UP NOW. Make them come to the table. Be strong. DO NOT MAKE MONEY FOR THE STATE THAT THEY IN TURN USE TO KEEP US AS SLAVES...."
When the strike began, prisoner leaders issued the following call: "No more slavery. Injustice in one place is injustice to all. Inform your family to support our cause. Lock down for liberty!"
Here's the link to our recent Hard Knock Radio interview w/ Elaine Brown on this historic strike
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/65925
READ Black Agenda Report Article at: http://www.BlackAgendaReport.com/?q=content/ga-prisoner-strike-continues-second-day-corporate-media-mostly-ignores-them-corrections-offi
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Domestic Espionage Alert - Houston PD to use surveillance drone in America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpstrc15Ogg
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15 year old Tells Establishment to Stick-it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U_gHUiL4P8&feature=player_embedded#
Andy Cousins
counterfire.org
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POLICE KETTLING (STUDENT DEMONSTRATION against the EDUCATION CUTS), LONDON, 30-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRV9h2dyBVU&NR=1
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Oscar Grant family not convinced of Johannes Mehserle's tears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anxXupa9_iw
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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LOWKEY - TERRORIST? (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBnvajSfWU
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You need to watch this video. It made us furious, and it made us cry.
It's a powerful reminder of the real faces behind unemployment statistics. It's about three minutes and it's worth every second so I hope you'll turn up your speakers and watch the whole thing.
The same senators who are fighting to charge $700 billion in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires to our national credit card say extending unemployment is "too expensive" and "must be paid for." Meanwhile, more than one person a second is losing his or her lifeline.
If this video doesn't fuel your outrage and give you a sense of the human cost of delay on emergency unemployment, nothing will.
Please watch and send a strong message to your members of Congress. Tell them to restore unemployment insurance benefits for jobless workers who are being cut off right now at the rate of more than one a second.
Then, share this video with your friends and ask them to take action, too.
Let's fix this outrage.
Sincerely,
Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO
P.S. The online day of solidarity with jobless workers is coming Tuesday. Get ready to change your Facebook status and photo and to Tweet the word out. Thanks.
http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1011
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A little holiday levity:
Check this out. It's for Willie Nelson (he's actually in it). It's a video from the Colbert Report and make sure to watch the very end:
http://rutube.ru/tracks/1248708.html
I have no money in my coffer,
No gold or silver do I bring,
Nor have I precious jewels to offer,
To celebrate the newborn king.
Yet do not spurn my gift completely,
O ye three wise men please demur,
Behold a plant that smokes more sweetly,
Than neither frankincense or myrrh.
And like a child born in this manger,
This herb is mild yet it is strong,
And it brings peace to friend and stranger,
Goodwill to men lies in this bong.
And now my wonder weed is flaring, - "Are you high?"
Lit like that special star above, - "Can it be?"
Pass it around in endless sharing, - "On christmas day"
And let not mankind bogart love. - "You'd smoke my tree!"
And the wise men started toking,
And yea, the bud was kind,
It was salvation they were smoking,
And his forgiveness blew their mind.
And still that wonder weed is flaring, - "Are you high?"
Lit like that special star above, - "You're so high!"
Pass it around in endless sharing, - "Dude, man, dude"
And let not mankind bogart love. - "You're really high, I'm gonna tell your savior"
And let not mankind bogart love.
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Don't Touch My Junk (the TSA Hustle) song + video by Michael Adams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhEMRSp7vaY&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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Video of massive French protest -- inspiring!
http://www.dailymotion.com/Talenceagauchevraiment
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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KOREA: Emergency Response Actions Needed
The United National Antiwar Committee urges the antiwar movement to begin to plan now for Emergency 5pm Day-of or Day-after demonstrations, should fighting break out on the Korean Peninsula or its surrounding waters.
As in past war crisis and U.S. attacks we propose:
NYC -- Times Square, Washington, D.C. -- the White House
In Many Cities - Federal Buildings
Many tens of thousands of U.S., Japanese and South Korean troops are mobilized on land and on hundreds of warships and aircraft carriers. The danger of a general war in Asia is acute.
China and Russia have made it clear that the scheduled military maneuvers and live-fire war "exercises" from an island right off the coast of north Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) by South Korea are very dangerous. The DPRK has made it clear that they consider these live-fire war exercises to be an act of war and they will again respond if they are again fired on.
The U.S. deployment of thousands of troops, ships, and aircraft in the area while South Korea is firing thousands of rounds of live ammunition and missiles is an enormously dangerous provocation, not only to the DPRK but to China. The Yellow Sea also borders China. The island and the waters where the war maneuvers are taking place are north of the Korean Demilitarized Zone and only eight miles from the coast of the DPRK.
On Sunday, December 19 in a day-long emergency session, the U.S. blocked in the UN Security Council any actions to resolve the crisis.
UNAC action program passed in Albany at the United National Antiwar Conference, July 2010 of over 800 antiwar, social justice and community organizations included the following Resolution on Korea:
15. In solidarity with the antiwar movements of Japan and Korea, each calling for U.S. Troops to Get Out Now, and given the great increase in U.S. military preparations against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, National Peace Conference participants will organize immediate protests following any attack by the U.S. on Korea. U.S. war preparations include stockpiling hundreds of bunker-busters and conducting major war games near the territorial waters of China and Korea. In keeping with our stand for the right of self-determination and our demand of Out Now, the National Peace Conference calls for Bringing All U.S. Troops Home Now!
UNAC urges the whole antiwar movement to begin to circulate messages alerts now in preparation. Together let's join together and demand: Bring all U.S. Troops Home Now! Stop the Wars and the Threats of War.
The United National Antiwar Committee, www.UNACpeace.org
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EMERGENCY ALERT UPDATE:
Greetings Family
It is official. Our worst nightmares have become a reality. Lynne is in one of the worst prisons in America, the place where they send our freedom fighters to die- Carlswell Prison, Texas.
It will require a form from Lynne, as soon as they allow it, to complete a request to visit her in Carlswell. In the meantime, please write, write , write.
Ralph Poynter,
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Lynne Stewart
#53504-054
FMC Carswell
Federal Medical Center
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please write to Lynne and make a generous contribution to her defense committee. She is now far away from home isolated from her family and friends. Indeed, cruel and unusual punishment for a 71-year-old woman and her family!
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In earnest support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:
http://readersupportednews.org/julian-assange-petition
rsn:Petition
We here undersigned express our support for the work and integrity of Julian Assange. We express concern that the charges against the WikiLeaks founder appear too convenient both in terms of timing and the novelty of their nature.
We call for this modern media innovator, and fighter for human rights extraordinaire, to be afforded the same rights to defend himself before Swedish justice that all others similarly charged might expect, and that his liberty not be compromised as a courtesy to those governments whose truths he has revealed have embarrassed.
GAP Inc: End Your Relationship with Supplier that Allows Workers to be Burned Alive
http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/workers_burned_alive_making_clothes_for_the_gap
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GEORGIA PRISON STRIKE PETITION:
http://ca.defendpubliceducation.org/?p=716
A handful of East Bay organizations have put together an open letter to the strikers. If your organization would like to become a signatory, you can email me to put you on it you and can do so here.
A Letter to the Prisoners on Strike in Georgia,
We, as members of activist and community organizations in the Bay Area of California, send our support for your strike against the terrible conditions you face in Georgia's prisons. We salute you for making history as your strike has become the largest prison strike in the history of this nation. As steadfast defenders of human and civil rights, we recognize the potential that your action has to improve the lives of millions subject to inhumane treatment in correctional facilities across this country.
Every single day, prisoners face the same deplorable and unnecessarily punitive conditions that you have courageously decided to stand up against. For too long, this nation has chosen silence in the face of the gross injustices that our brothers and sisters in prison are subjected to. Your fight against these injustices is a necessary and righteous struggle that must be carried out to victory.
We have heard about the brutal acts that Georgia Department of Corrections officers have been resorting to as a means of breaking your protest and we denounce them. In order to put a stop to the violence to which you have been subjected, we are in the process of contacting personnel at the different prison facilities and circulating petitions addressed to the governor and the Georgia DOC. We will continue to expose the DOC's shameless physical attacks on you and use our influence to call for an immediate end to the violence.
Here, in the Bay Area, we are all too familiar with the violence that this system is known to unleash upon our people. Recently, our community erupted in protest over the killing of an unarmed innocent black man named Oscar Grant by transit police in Oakland. We forced the authorities to arrest and convict the police officer responsible for Grant's murder by building up a mass movement. We intend to win justice with you and stop the violent repression of your peaceful protest in the same way-by appealing to the power and influence of the masses.
We fully support all of your demands. We strongly identify with your demand for expanded educational opportunities. In recent years, our state government has been initiating a series of massive cuts to our system of public education that continue to endanger our right to a quality, affordable education; in response, students all across our state have stood up and fought back just as you are doing now. In fact, students and workers across the globe have begun to organize and fight back against austerity measures and the corresponding violence of the state. Just in the past few weeks in Greece, Ireland, Spain, England, Italy, Haiti, Puerto Rico - tens and hundreds of thousands of students and workers have taken to the streets. We, as a movement, are gaining momentum and we do so even more as our struggles are unified and seen as interdependent. At times we are discouraged; it may seem insurmountable, but in the words of Malcolm X, "Power in defense of freedom is greater than power on behalf of tyranny and oppression."
You have inspired us. News of your strike, from day one, has served to inspire and invigorate hundreds of students and community organizers here in Berkeley and Oakland alone. We are especially inspired by your ability to organize across color lines and are interested in hearing an account from the inside of how this process developed and was accomplished. You have also encouraged us to take more direct actions toward radical prison reform in our own communities, namely Santa Rita County Jail and San Quentin Prison. We are now beginning the process of developing a similar set of demands regarding expediting processing (can take 20-30 hours to get a bed, they call it "bullpen therapy"), nutrition, visiting and phone calls, educational services, legal support, compensation for labor and humane treatment in general. We will also seek to unify the education and prison justice movements by collaborating with existing organizations that have been engaging in this work.
We echo your call: No more Slavery! Injustice to one is injustice to all!
In us, students, activists, the community members and people of the Bay Area, you have an ally. We will continue to spread the news about your cause all over the Bay Area and California, the country and world. We pledge to do everything in our power to make sure your demands are met.
In solidarity,
UC-Berkeley Student Worker Action Team (SWAT) _ Community Action Project (CAP) _ La Voz de los Trabajadores _ Laney College Student Unity & Power (SUP) _ Laney College Black Student Union (BSU)
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In Solidarity
By Kevin Cooper
On Thursday, December 9, 2010, the inmates in the state of Georgia sat down in unity and peace in order to stand up for their human rights.
African American, White, and Latino inmates put aside their differences, if they had any, and came together as a 'People' fighting for their humanity in a system that dehumanizes all of them.
For this they have my utmost respect and appreciation and support. I am in true solidarity with them all!
For further information about Kevin Cooper:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
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Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
Kevin Cooper, who has been on death row in California for 25 years, is asking the outgoing state governor to commute his death sentence before leaving office on 2 January 2011. Kevin Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence of the four murders for which he was sentenced to death. Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.
On the night of 4 June 1983, Douglas and Peggy Ryen were hacked and stabbed to death in their home in Chino Hills, California, along with their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old houseguest Christopher Hughes. The couple's eight-year-old son, Joshua Ryen, was seriously wounded, but survived. He told investigators that the attackers were three or four white men. In hospital, he saw a picture of Kevin Cooper on television and said that Cooper, who is black, was not the attacker. However, the boy's later testimony - that he only saw one attacker - was introduced at the 1985 trial. The case has many other troubling aspects which call into question the reliability of the state's case and its conduct in obtaining this conviction (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/013/2004/en).
Kevin Cooper was less than eight hours from execution in 2004 when the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted a stay and sent the case back to the District Court for testing on blood and hair evidence, including to establish if the police had planted evidence. The District Court ruled in 2005 that the testing had not proved Kevin Cooper's innocence - his lawyers (and five Ninth Circuit judges) maintain that it did not do the testing as ordered. Nevertheless, in 2007, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court's ruling. One of the judges described the result as "wholly discomforting" because of evidence tampering and destruction, but noted that she was constrained by US law, which places substantial obstacles in the way of successful appeals.
In 2009, the Ninth Circuit refused to have the whole court rehear the case. Eleven of its judges dissented. One of the dissenting opinions, running to more than 80 pages and signed by five judges, warned that "the State of California may be about to execute an innocent man". On the question of the evidence testing, they said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and...imposed unreasonable conditions on the testing" ordered by the Ninth Circuit. They pointed to a test result that, if valid, indicated that evidence had been planted, and they asserted that the district court had blocked further scrutiny of this issue.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had already denied clemency in 2004 when the Ninth Circuit issued its stay. At the time, he had said that the "courts have reviewed this case for more than eighteen years. Evidence establishing his guilt is overwhelming". Clearly, a notable number of federal judges disagree. The five judges in the Ninth Circuit's lengthy dissent in 2009 stated that the evidence of Kevin Cooper's guilt at his trial was "quite weak" and concluded that he "is probably innocent of the crimes for which the State of California is about to execute him".
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On 2 June 1983, two days before the Chino Hills murders, Kevin Cooper had escaped from a minimum security prison, where he was serving a four-year term for burglary, and had hidden in an empty house near the Ryen home for two nights. After his arrest, he became the focus of public hatred. Outside the venue of his preliminary hearing, for example, people hung an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the Nigger!!" At the time of the trial, jurors were confronted by graffiti declaring "Die Kevin Cooper" and "Kevin Cooper Must Be Hanged". Kevin Cooper pleaded not guilty - the jury deliberated for seven days before convicting him - and he has maintained his innocence since then. Since Governor Schwarzenegger denied clemency in 2004, more evidence supporting Kevin Cooper's claim of innocence has emerged, including for example, testimony from three witnesses who say they saw three white men near the crime scene on the night of the murders with blood on them.
In 2007, Judge Margaret McKeown was the member of the Ninth Circuit's three-judge panel who indicated that she was upholding the District Court's 2005 ruling despite her serious concerns. She wrote: "Significant evidence bearing on Cooper's guilt has been lost, destroyed or left unpursued, including, for example, blood-covered coveralls belonging to a potential suspect who was a convicted murderer, and a bloody t-shirt, discovered alongside the road near the crime scene. The managing criminologist in charge of the evidence used to establish Cooper's guilt at trial was, as it turns out, a heroin addict, and was fired for stealing drugs seized by the police. Countless other alleged problems with the handling and disclosure of evidence and the integrity of the forensic testing and investigation undermine confidence in the evidence". She continued that "despite the presence of serious questions as to the integrity of the investigation and evidence supporting the conviction, we are constrained by the requirements of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)". Judge McKeown wrote that "the habeas process does not account for lingering doubt or new evidence that cannot leap the clear and convincing hurdle of AEDPA. Instead, we are left with a situation in which confidence in the blood sample is murky at best, and lost, destroyed or tampered evidence cannot be factored into the final analysis of doubt. The result is wholly discomforting, but one that the law demands".
Even if it is correct that the AEDPA demands this result, the power of executive clemency is not so confined. Last September, for example, the governor of Ohio commuted Kevin Keith's death sentence because of doubts about his guilt even though his death sentence had been upheld on appeal (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/079/2010/en). Governor Ted Strickland said that despite circumstantial evidence linking the condemned man to the crime, "many legitimate questions have been raised regarding the evidence in support of the conviction and the investigation which led to it. In particular, Mr Keith's conviction relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important questions have been raised. I also find the absence of a full investigation of other credible suspects troubling." The same could be said in the case of Kevin Cooper, whose lawyer is asking Governor Schwarzenegger to commute the death sentence before he leaves office on 2 January 2011. While Kevin Cooper does not yet have an execution date, it is likely that one will be set, perhaps early in 2011.
More than 130 people have been released from death rows on grounds of innocence in the USA since 1976. At the original trial in each case, the defendant had been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is clear beyond any dispute that the USA's criminal justice system is capable of making mistakes. International safeguards require that the death penalty not be imposed if guilt is not "based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts". Amnesty International opposes all executions regardless of the seriousness of the crime or the guilt or innocence of the condemned.
California has the largest death row in the USA, with more than 700 prisoners under sentence of death out of a national total of some 3,200. California accounts for 13 of the 1,234 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977. There have been 46 executions in the USA this year. The last execution in California was in January 2006.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- Acknowledging the seriousness of the crime for which Kevin Cooper was sentenced to death;
- Urging Governor Schwarzenegger to take account of the continuing doubts about Kevin Cooper's guilt, including as expressed by more than 10 federal judges since 2004, when executive clemency was last requested;
- Urging the Governor to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814, USA
Fax: 1 916-558-3160
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov or via http://gov.ca.gov/interact#contact
Salutation : Dear Governor
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if sending appeals after 2 January 2011.
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Tip of the Month:
Write as soon as you can. Try to write as close as possible to the date a case is issued.
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Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights.
This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal.
Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl
Washington DC 20003
Email: uan@aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 202.509.8193
Fax: 202.675.8566
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Free the Children of Palestine!
Sign Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41467.html
Published by Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition on Dec 16, 2010
Category: Children's Rights
Region: GLOBAL
Target: President Obama
Web site: http://www.al-awda.org
Background (Preamble):
According to Israeli police, 1200 Palestinian children have been arrested, interrogated and imprisoned in the occupied city of Jerusalem alone this year. The youngest of these children was seven-years old.
Children and teen-agers were often dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night, taken in handcuffs for questioning, threatened, humiliated and many were subjected to physical violence while under arrest as part of an ongoing campaign against the children of Palestine. Since the year 2000, more than 8000 have been arrested by Israel, and reports of mistreatment are commonplace.
Further, based on sworn affidavits collected in 2009 from 100 of these children, lawyers working in the occupied West Bank with Defense Children International, a Geneva-based non governmental organization, found that 69% were beaten and kicked, 49% were threatened, 14% were held in solitary confinement, 12% were threatened with sexual assault, including rape, and 32% were forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not understand.
Minors were often asked to give names and incriminate friends and relatives as a condition of their release. Such institutionalized and systematic mistreatment of Palestinian children by the state of Israel is a violation international law and specifically contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Israel is supposedly a signatory.
Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41467.html
We, the undersigned call on US President Obama to direct Israel to
1. Stop all the night raids and arrests of Palestinian Children forthwith.
2. Immediately release all Palestinian children detained in its prisons and detention centers.
3. End all forms of systematic and institutionalized abuse against all Palestinian children.
4. Implement the full restoration of Palestinian children's rights in accordance with international law including, but not limited to, their right to return to their homes of origin, to education, to medical and psychological care, and to freedom of movement and expression.
The US government, which supports Israel to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars a year while most ordinary Americans are suffering in a very bad economy, is bound by its laws and international conventions to cut off all aid to Israel until it ends all of its violations of human rights and basic freedoms in a verifiable manner.
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"Secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a propertied minority, which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests."..."Publishing State Secrets" By Leon Trotsky
Documents on Soviet Policy, Trotsky, iii, 2 p. 64
November 22, 1917
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/foreign-relations/1917/November/22.htm
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING! STOP THE FBI RAIDS NOW!
MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
To understand how much a trillion dollars is, consider looking at it in terms of time:
A million seconds would be about eleven-and-one-half days; a billion seconds would be 31 years; and a trillion seconds would be 31,000 years!
From the novel "A Dark Tide," by Andrew Gross
Now think of it in terms of U.S. war dollars and bankster bailouts!
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MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE
Your Year-End Gift for the Children
Double your impact with this matching gift opportunity!
Dear Friend of the Children,
You may have recently received a letter from me via regular mail with a review of the important things you helped MECA accomplish for the children in 2010, along with a special Maia Project decal.
My letter to you also included an announcement of MECA's first ever matching gift offer. One of our most generous supporters will match all gifts received by December 31. 2010 to a total of $35,000.
So, whether you are a long time supporter, or giving for the first-time... Whether you can give $10 or $1,000... This is a unique opportunity to double the impact of your year-end gift!
Your contribution will be matched dollar for dollar, making it go twice as far so that MECA can:
* Install twenty more permanent drinking water units in Gaza schools though our Maia Project
* Continue our work with Playgrounds for Palestine to complete a community park in the besieged East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where violent Israeli settlers attack children and adults, Israeli police arrest the victims, and the city conducts "administrative demolitions" of Palestinian homes.
* Send a large medical aid shipment to Gaza.
* Renew support for "Let the Children Play and Heal," a program in Gaza to help children cope with trauma and grief through arts programs, referrals to therapists, educational materials for families and training for mothers.
Your support for the Middle East Children's Alliance's delivers real, often life-saving, help. And it does more than that. It sends a message of hope and solidarity to Palestine-showing the people that we are standing beside them as they struggle to bring about a better life for their children.
With warm regards,
Barbara Lubin
Founder and Director
P.S. Please give as much as you possible can, and please make your contribution now, so it will be doubled. Thank you so much.
P.S.S. If you didn't receive a MAIA Project decal in the mail or if you would like another one, please send an email message to meca@mecaforpeace.org with "MAIA Project decal" in the subject line when you make your contribution.
To make a gift by mail send to:
MECA, 1101 8th Street, Berkley, CA 94710
To make a gift by phone, please call MECA's off at: 510-548-0542
To "GO PAPERLESS" and receive all your MECA communications by email, send a message to meca@mecaforpeace.org with "Paperless" in the subject line.
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For Immediate Release
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
12/2/2010
For more information: Joe Lombardo, 518-281-1968,
UNACpeace@gmail.org, NationalPeaceConference.org
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
The United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC) calls for the release of Bradley Manning who is awaiting trial accused of leaking the material to Wikileaks that has been released over the past several months. We also call for an end to the harassment of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks and we call for an independent, international investigation of the illegal activity exposed through the material released by Wikileaks.
Before sending the material to Wikileaks, Bradley Manning tried to get his superiors in the military to do something about what he understood to be clear violations of international law. His superiors told him to keep quiet so Manning did the right thing; he exposed the illegal activity to the world.
The Afghan material leaked earlier shows military higher-ups telling soldiers to kill enemy combatants who were trying to surrender. The Iraq Wikileaks video from 2007 shows the US military killing civilians and news reporters from a helicopter while laughing about it. The widespread corruption among U.S. allies has been exposed by the most recent leaks of diplomatic cables. Yet, instead of calling for change in these policies, we hear only a call to suppress further leaks.
At the national antiwar conference held in Albany in July, 2010, at which UNAC was founded, we heard from Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers on the ground during the helicopter attack on the civilians in Iraq exposed by Wikileaks (see: http://www.mediasanctuary.org/movie/1810 ). He talked about removing wounded children from a civilian vehicle that the US military had shot up. It affected him so powerfully that he and another soldier who witnessed the massacre wrote a letter of apology to the families of the civilians who were killed.
We ask why this material was classified in the first place. There were no state secrets in the material, only evidence of illegal and immoral activity by the US military, the US government and its allies. To try to cover this up by classifying the material is a violation of our right to know the truth about these wars. In this respect, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange should be held up as heroes, not hounded for exposing the truth.
UNAC calls for an end to the illegal and immoral policies exposed by Wikileaks and an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an end to threats against Iran and North Korea.
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FREE THE SCOTT SISTERS
http://mije.org/node/1343
freethescottsisters.blogspot.com/
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Courage to Resist needs your support
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist.
It's been quite a ride the last four months since we took up the defense of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Since then, we helped form the Bradley Manning Support Network, established a defense fund, and have already paid over half of Bradley's total $100,000 in estimated legal expenses.
Now, I'm asking for your support of Courage to Resist so that we can continue to support not only Bradley, but the scores of other troops who are coming into conflict with military authorities due to reasons of conscience.
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Iraq War over? Afghanistan occupation winding down? Not from what we see. Please take a look at, "Soldier Jeff Hanks refuses deployment, seeks PTSD help" in our December newsletter. Jeff's situation is not isolated. Actually, his story is only unique in that he has chosen to share it with us in the hopes that it may result in some change. Jeff's case also illustrates the importance of Iraq Veterans Against the War's new "Operation Recovery" campaign which calls for an end to the deployment of traumatized troops.
Most of the folks who call us for help continue to be effected by Stoploss, a program that involuntarily extends enlistments (despite Army promises of its demise), or the Individual Ready Reserve which recalls thousands of former Soldiers and Marines quarterly from civilian life.
Another example of our efforts is Kyle Wesolowski. After returning from Iraq, Kyle submitted an application for a conscientious objector discharge based on his Buddhist faith. Kyle explains, "My experience of physical threats, religious persecution, and general abuse seems to speak of a system that appears to be broken.... It appears that I have no other recourse but to now refuse all duties that prepare myself for war or aid in any way shape or form to other soldiers in conditioning them to go to war." We believe he shouldn't have to walk this path alone.
Sincerely,
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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Add your name! We stand with Bradley Manning.
"We stand for truth, for government transparency, and for an end to our tax-dollars funding endless occupation abroad... We stand with accused whistle-blower US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning."
Dear All,
The Bradley Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist are launching a new campaign, and we wanted to give you a chance to be among the first to add your name to this international effort. If you sign the letter online, we'll print out and mail two letters to Army officials on your behalf. With your permission, we may also use your name on the online petition and in upcoming media ads.
Read the complete public letter and add your name at:
http://standwithbrad.org/
Courage to Resist (http://couragetoresist.org)
on behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network (http://bradleymanning.org)
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Dear Friend,
On Friday, September 24th, the FBI raided homes in Chicago and Minneapolis, and turned the Anti-War Committee office upside down. We were shocked. Our response was strong however and we jumped into action holding emergency protests. When the FBI seized activists' personal computers, cell phones, and papers claiming they were investigating "material support for terrorism", they had no idea there would be such an outpouring of support from the anti-war movement across this country! Over 61 cities protested, with crowds of 500 in Minneapolis and Chicago. Activists distributed 12,000 leaflets at the One Nation Rally in Washington D.C. Supporters made thousands of calls to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. Solidarity statements from community organizations, unions, and other groups come in every day. By organizing against the attacks, the movement grows stronger.
At the same time, trusted lawyers stepped up to form a legal team and mount a defense. All fourteen activists signed letters refusing to testify. So Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox withdrew the subpoenas, but this is far from over. In fact, the repression is just starting. The FBI continues to question activists at their homes and work places. The U.S. government is trying to put people in jail for anti-war and international solidarity activism and there is no indication they are backing off. The U.S. Attorney has many options and a lot of power-he may re-issue subpoenas, attempt to force people to testify under threat of imprisonment, or make arrests.
To be successful in pushing back this attack, we need your donation. We need you to make substantial contributions like $1000, $500, and $200. We understand many of you are like us, and can only afford $50, $20, or $10, but we ask you to dig deep. The legal bills can easily run into the hundreds of thousands. We are all united to defend a movement for peace and justice that seeks friendship with people in other countries. These fourteen anti-war activists have done nothing wrong, yet their freedom is at stake.
It is essential that we defend our sisters and brothers who are facing FBI repression and the Grand Jury process. With each of your contributions, the movement grows stronger.
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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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) Judge Orders Ex-Owners of Kosher Plant to Pay $2M
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 17, 2010
Filed at 12:30 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/17/business/AP-US-Kosher-Slaughterhouse-Loans.html?src=busln
2) Unemployment Rate Rises in 21 States, Falls in 15
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 17, 2010
Filed at 11:46 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/17/business/AP-US-State-Unemployment.html?src=busln
3) Tax Bill Won't Help Those Who Used Up Jobless Aid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/17/business/AP-US-Tax-Cuts-Unemployment-Benefits.html?src=busln
4) Dear Government of Sweden ...
"Last week Naomi Klein wrote: 'Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that 'women's freedom' was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!'"
By Michel Moore, Open Mike Blog
17 December 10
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/4299-dear-government-of-sweden-
5) Miss. hanging stirs calls for probe
by Takia White
Special to Tri-State Defender
December 17, 2010
http://tri-statedefenderonline.com/articlelive/articles/5550/1/br-Miss-hanging-stirs-calls-for-probe/Page1.html
6) ¡Viva WikiLeaks! SiCKO Was Not Banned in Cuba
by Michael Moore
CommonDreams.org
December 18, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/18
7) Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
8) Newly Built Ghost Towns Haunt Banks in Spain
By SUZANNE DALEY and RAPHAEL MINDER
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/world/europe/18spain.html?ref=world
9) Economic Boom in Washington Leaves Gaping Income Disparities
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ROBERT GEBELOFF
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/us/18census.html?ref=us
10) Judge Says Case Against Immigration Officials in New Haven Raids Can Proceed
By SAM DOLNICK
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/nyregion/18raids.html?ref=nyregion
11) Bank Of America Cuts Off WikiLeaks Payments
By REUTERS
December 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/12/18/business/business-us-wikileaks-usa-bank.html?src=busln
12) Why Shouldn't Freedom of the Press Apply to WikiLeaks?
You may not like Julian Assange, but the campaign to silence WikiLeaks should appall you
By Tim Dickinson
December 15, 2010 5:07 PM EDT
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/369-wikileaks/4310-why-shouldnt-freedom-of-the-press-apply-to-wikileaks
13) Officials: CIA gave waterboarders $5M legal shield
By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Adam Goldman And Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Fri Dec 17, 1:52 pm ET
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/122-122/4309-officials-cia-gave-waterboarders-5-million-legal-shield
14) Workers Burned Alive Making Clothes for the GAP
by Benjamin Joffe-Walt
December 17, 2010
http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/workers_burned_alive_making_clothes_for_the_gap
15) Bradley Manning's Health Deteriorating in Jail
The intelligence analyst suspected of leaking US diplomatic cables is being held in solitary confinement
By Heather Brooke
guardian.co.uk
December 16, 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/16/bradley-manning-health-deteriorating
16) Bloody Trophies
by Linh Dinh
December 18, 2010
CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/18-5
17) Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests
"The Roberts court, which has completed five terms, ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and 42 percent by all courts since 1953."
By ADAM LIPTAK
December 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/19roberts.html?hp
18) Swedish Police Report Details Case Against Assange
By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA
December 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.html?hp
19) WikiLeaks: Careful When Shooting the Messenger
By ERIC PFANNER
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/technology/20cache.html?src=busln
20) Heavy Security on Iran Streets After Subsidy Cuts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/19/business/AP-ML-Iran-Economy.html?src=busln
21) Journalists Are All Julian Assange
By Robert Parry
consortiumnews.com
December 16, 2010
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2010/121610.html
22) Why I Am Donating $50,000 to WikiLeaks
By Larry Flynt, Reader Supported News
19 December 10
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/4329-why-i-am-donating-50000-to-wikileaks
23) Weighing Costs, Companies Favor Temporary Help
"This year, companies have hired temporary workers in significant numbers. In November, they accounted for 80 percent of the 50,000 jobs added by private sector employers, according to the Labor Department. Since the beginning of the year, employers have added a net 307,000 temporary workers, more than a quarter of the 1.17 million private sector jobs added in total."
By MOTOKO RICH
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/business/economy/20temp.html?hp
24) Many Children Lack Doctors, Study Finds
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/us/20doctors.html?ref=us
25) This Bonus Season on Wall Street, Many See Zeros
[But don't shed those tears yet...bw] "At Goldman, for instance, the base salary for managing directors rose to $500,000 from $300,000, while at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse it jumped to $400,000 from $200,000...One executive, whose firm prohibited discussing the topic with the news media, said the bump in base salaries had confused people, even though their overall compensation was the same. 'People expect a big bonus,' this person said. 'It is as if they don't even see their base doubled last year.' ... This year, Wall Street's five biggest firms have put aside nearly $90 billion for bonuses."
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and SUSANNE CRAIG
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/business/20bonus.html?ref=us
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1) Judge Orders Ex-Owners of Kosher Plant to Pay $2M
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 17, 2010
Filed at 12:30 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/17/business/AP-US-Kosher-Slaughterhouse-Loans.html?src=busln
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - A judge has ordered members of the family that owned a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa to pay more than $2 million after defaulting on financial agreements with one of their former banks.
A federal judge ruled Thursday in favor of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Value Recovery Group and against brothers Sholom and Tzvi Rubashkin (tee-AHTS'-vee Roo-BASH'-kin) and their father, Aaron.
The family owned the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, which was sold after a 2008 raid in which 389 illegal immigrants were detained.
The $2 million covers a $300,000 loan the Rubashkins received from Omni National Bank, interest on that loan and equipment leases with the bank. Omni sued to collect the money before it collapsed last year. FDIC was appointed its receiver.
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2) Unemployment Rate Rises in 21 States, Falls in 15
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 17, 2010
Filed at 11:46 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/17/business/AP-US-State-Unemployment.html?src=busln
WASHINGTON (AP) - Unemployment rates rose in 21 states last month, the highest number to report an increase since August. The report is a reminder of the job market's struggle to rebound even as the economy is improving.
The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates fell in 15 states in November and remained the same in 14 states. That's the fewest to see a drop in unemployment since August.
Georgia and Idaho endured the largest increases in unemployment. Georgia's rate rose to 10.1 percent from 9.8 percent. Idaho's jumped to 9.4 percent from 9.1 percent.
Michigan and Pennsylvania saw the biggest declines in unemployment last month. Michigan's rate fell to 12.4 percent from 12.8 percent. Pennsylvania's declined to 8.6 percent from 8.8 percent.
Despite its decline, Michigan still has the nation's second-highest unemployment rate. Nevada has the highest rate at 14.3 percent.
North Dakota reported the lowest rate, at 3.8 percent, in November. South Dakota and Nebraska have the next-lowest unemployment rates, at 4.5 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively.
The nationwide unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent from 9.6 percent in November, the department said earlier this month. Employers added a net total of only 39,000 jobs.
But many economists expect hiring to pick up in the coming months. Retail sales rose in November for the fifth straight month, factories are busier and fewer people are applying for first-time unemployment benefits.
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3) Tax Bill Won't Help Those Who Used Up Jobless Aid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/17/business/AP-US-Tax-Cuts-Unemployment-Benefits.html?src=busln
Filed at 12:42 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The tax-cut bill President Barack Obama is expected to sign Friday renews benefits for millions of unemployed people. But it does nothing for hundreds of thousands who have been out of work so long they've used up all benefits available to them.
In the 25 states with unemployment of at least 8.5 percent, people can receive up to 99 weeks in aid. In other states, the unemployed get less than 99 weeks - in some cases just 60 weeks, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
The bill keeps 99 weeks as the maximum anyone can receive. It doesn't provide any more weeks of benefits to people who have reached the limit in their state. Those who have exhausted all benefits are sometimes known as "99ers," even though the duration of their benefits varies by state.
The legislation renews federal programs that extend benefits beyond the 26 weeks states always provide. Those federal programs expired Nov. 30.
The Labor Department says it doesn't know how many Americans have used up all their unemployment benefits. But the number reaches well into the hundreds of thousands.
In California, 5,000 unemployed people use up their extended benefits each week. And 274,185 Californians will have exhausted 99 weeks of benefits by year's end.
In Florida, 105,011 people have run out of benefits; in Nevada, 27,325. In New York, 125,284 out-of-work people have stopped receiving unemployment checks because they've exhausted their 99 weeks of aid.
New York's 99ers tend to be older than those still receiving unemployment: Thirty percent percent of the state's 99ers are 55 or older, compared with less than 22 percent of those still receiving benefits. And more than 48 percent of New York 99ers are women. That compares with 43 percent of those receiving unemployment aid.
Many more people could be joining the 99ers. Job losses peaked in January 2009. Those who lost jobs then, at the depths of the recession, will soon lose their benefits if they haven't found work or run out of aid already. The number of people who applied for benefits for the first time peaked at 651,000 in the week that ended March 28, 2009 - 94 weeks ago.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., in August introduced legislation that would help the 99ers by tacking on 20 more weeks of benefits in states with unemployment of 7.5 percent or more. But her bill has gone nowhere in a Congress that's been reluctant to spend more federal money to jolt the economy.
"They have to be taken care of," says a supporter, Rep. Sheila Lee Jackson, D-Texas. "They are next to be homeless. They are the people who have hit the wall through no fault of their own."
They're people like Sylvia Kittrell of Orlando, Fla., a former social worker who ran out of unemployment benefits over the summer. Without her $224 weekly unemployment check, Kittrell has been getting by on food stamps and occasional contributions from her 84-year-old mother and grown son.
She says her job search has been fruitless. Potential employers keep telling her she's overqualified. Her savings are long gone. She's about to be evicted from her apartment.
"It's the worst situation a human being can be in," says Kittrell, who turned 58 on Thursday. "What am I to do? Keep praying. I keep praying for a miracle."
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4) Dear Government of Sweden ...
"Last week Naomi Klein wrote: 'Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that 'women's freedom' was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!'"
By Michel Moore, Open Mike Blog
17 December 10
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/4299-dear-government-of-sweden-
Also See:
WikiLeaks' Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/wikileaks
WikiLeaks' Support Page: http://wikileaks.ch/support.html
Lieberman Attacks New York Times Over WikiLeaks Documents: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-joe-lieberman-new-york-times-investigated
ear Swedish Government:
Hi there - or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your country. Your Volvos, your meatballs, your hard-to-put-together furniture - we can't get enough!
There's just one thing that bothers me - why has Amnesty International, in a special report, declared that Sweden refuses to deal with the very real tragedy of rape? In fact, they say that all over Scandinavia, including in your country, rapists "enjoy impunity." And the United Nations, the EU and Swedish human rights groups have come to the same conclusion: Sweden just doesn't take sexual assault against women seriously. How else do you explain these statistics from Katrin Axelsson of Women Against Rape:
** Sweden has the HIGHEST per capita number of reported rapes in Europe.
** This number of rapes has quadrupled in the last 20 years.
** The conviction rates? They have steadily DECREASED.
Axelsson says: "On April 23rd of this year, Carina Hägg and Nalin Pekgul (respectively MP and chairwoman of Social Democratic Women in Sweden) wrote in the Göteborgs [newspaper] that 'up to 90% of all reported rapes [in Sweden] never get to court.'"
Let me say that again: nine out of ten times, when women report they have been raped, you never even bother to start legal proceedings. No wonder that, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, it is now statistically more likely that someone in Sweden will be sexually assaulted than that they will be robbed.
Message to rapists? Sweden loves you!
So imagine our surprise when all of a sudden you decided to go after one Julian Assange on sexual assault charges. Well, sort of: first you charged him. Then after investigating it, you dropped the most serious charges and rescinded the arrest warrant.
Then a conservative MP put pressure on you and, lo and behold, you did a 180 and reopened the Assange investigation. Except you still didn't charge him with anything. You just wanted him for "questioning." So you - you who have sat by and let thousands of Swedish women be raped while letting their rapists go scott-free - you decided it was now time to crack down on one man - the one man the American government wants arrested, jailed or (depending on which politician or pundit you listen to) executed. You just happened to go after him, on one possible "count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape (third degree)." And while thousands of Swedish rapists roam free, you instigated a huge international manhunt on Interpol for this Julian Assange!
What anti-rape crusaders you've become, Swedish government! Women in Sweden must suddenly feel safer?
Well, not really. Actually, many see right through you. They know what these "non-charge charges" are really about. And they know that you are cynically and disgustingly using the real and everyday threat that exists against women everywhere to help further the American government's interest in silencing the work of WikiLeaks.
I don't pretend to know what happened between Mr. Assange and the two women complainants (all I know is what I've heard in the media, so I'm as confused as the next person). And I'm sorry if I've jumped to any unnecessary or wrong-headed conclusions in my efforts to state a very core American value: All people are absolutely innocent until proven otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. I strongly believe every accusation of sexual assault must be investigated vigorously. There is nothing wrong with your police wanting to question Mr. Assange about these allegations, and while I understand why he seemed to go into hiding (people tend to do that when threatened with assassination), he nonetheless should answer the police's questions. He should also submit to the STD testing the alleged victims have requested. I believe Sweden and the UK have a treaty and a means for you to send your investigators to London so they can question Mr. Assange where he is under house arrest while out on bail.
But that really wouldn't be like you would it, to go all the way to another country to pursue a suspect for sexual assault when you can't even bring yourselves to make it down to the street to your own courthouse to go after the scores of reported rapists in your country. That you, Sweden, have chosen to rarely do that in the past, is why this whole thing stinks to the high heavens.
And let's not forget this one final point from Women Against Rape's Katrin Axelsson:
"There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety. In the south of the US, the lynching of black men was often justified on grounds that they had raped or even looked at a white woman. Women don't take kindly to our demand for safety being misused, while rape continues to be neglected at best or protected at worst."
This tactic of using a rape charge to go after minorities or troublemakers, guilty or innocent - while turning a blind eye to clear crimes of rape the rest of the time - is what I fear is happening here. I want to make sure that good people not remain silent and that you, Sweden, will not succeed if in fact you are in cahoots with corrupt governments such as ours.
Last week Naomi Klein wrote: "Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that 'women's freedom' was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!"
I agree.
Unless you have the evidence (and it seems if you did you would have issued an arrest warrant by now), drop the extradition attempt and get to work doing the job you've so far refused to do: Protecting the women of Sweden.
Yours,
Michael Moore
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5) Miss. hanging stirs calls for probe
by Takia White
Special to Tri-State Defender
December 17, 2010
http://tri-statedefenderonline.com/articlelive/articles/5550/1/br-Miss-hanging-stirs-calls-for-probe/Page1.html
Preparing to head into town for a holiday parade, a Mississippi state senator and Greenwood city councilman received a phone call that turned his festive mood somber.
It was Friday, Dec. 3, and the call David Jordan received came from a local police officer, who told him that a young black man, later identified as 26-year-old Frederick Jermaine Carter, was found hanging from a tree in North Greenwood.
Upon his arrival in town, Jordan, who was born and raised in Leflore County, gained more details regarding the situation and quickly contacted the office of Daniel McMullen, Special Agent in Charge of the Jackson Division. McMullen's staff informed him that agents had already been dispatched to the area and were working with the local sheriff's department.
After spending 45 minutes at the scene, Jordan, who spoke with the Tri-State Defender on Wednesday (Dec. 15), had questions:
"How did he (Carter) hang himself from a limb eight feet off the ground?"
He also wondered how Carter was able to cut the nylon chord used. Authorities found the rest of the chord in Carter's pocket.
"A lot of unanswered questions," said Jordan.
At the sheriff's department, Jordan met Carter's mother, who was there joined by a host of family members.
"I showed her the pictures and she said, 'My baby didn't do that' and started crying," said Jordan, recalling the conversation. "She said, 'He loved life too much.'"
According to reports, the Leflore County Coroner's Office performed a preliminary autopsy and declared Carter's death a suicide. Calls to the LeFlore County Sheriff's Department had not been returned by press time.
Carter's hanging death has garnered national attention, with those making inquiries including the NAACP, leaders from the Nation of Islam, the Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, and syndicated columnist Judge Greg Mathis.
"Most blacks don't believe he hanged himself," said Jordan. "There are some (people), of course, that say David Jordan is not a policeman (along with others) and they need to let the police do their job."
Jordan said no one is hindering authorities from doing their jobs.
"Too much has happened in this area over the years to just treat this (as) business as usual," said Jordan. "There's gotta be some answers and we have not gotten answers."
The "too much" Jordan refers to harkens back to1955 when the body of 14-year-old Emmett Till was found after he had been lynched and tossed into the Tallahatchie River. Greenwood is also the town in which Byron De La Beckwith, convicted murderer of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, was raised.
Funeral services for Carter will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 18 at Ark of the Covenant Church Moorhead, Miss.
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6) ¡Viva WikiLeaks! SiCKO Was Not Banned in Cuba
by Michael Moore
CommonDreams.org
December 18, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/18
Yesterday WikiLeaks did an amazing thing and released a classified State Department cable that dealt, in part, with me and my film, 'Sicko.'
It is a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the State spin their lies and try to recreate reality (I assume to placate their bosses and tell them what they want to hear).
The date is January 31, 2008. It is just days after 'Sicko' has been nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary. This must have sent someone reeling in Bush's State Department (his Treasury Department had already notified me they were investigating what laws I might have broken in taking three 9/11 first responders to Cuba to get them the health care they had been denied in the United States).
Former health insurance executive Wendell Potter recently revealed that the insurance industry -- which had decided to spend millions to go after me and, if necessary, "push Michael Moore off a cliff" -- had begun working with anti-Castro Cubans in Miami in order to have them speak out and smear my film.
So, on January 31, 2008, a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made up story and sent it back to his HQ in Washington. Here's what they came up with:
XXXXXXXXXXXX stated that Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore's documentary, "Sicko," as being subversive. Although the film's intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, he said the regime knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.
Sounds convincing, eh?! There's only one problem -- the entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008! The Cubans embraced the film so much so it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of Sicko were set up in towns all across the country.
But the secret cable said Cubans were banned from seeing my movie. Hmmm.
We also know from another secret U.S. document that "the disenchantment of the masses [in Cuba] has spread through all the provinces," and that "all of Oriente Province is seething with hate" for the Castro regime. There's a huge active underground rebellion, and "workers there readily give all the support they can," with everyone involved in "subtle sabotage" against the government. Morale is terrible throughout all the branches of the armed forces, and in the event of war the army "will not fight." Wow -- this cable is hot!
Of course, this secret U.S. cable is from March 31, 1961, three weeks before Cuba kicked our asses at the Bay of Pigs.
The U.S. government has been passing around these "secret" documents to itself for the past fifty years, explaining in painstaking detail how horrible things are in Cuba and how Cubans are quietly aching for us to come back and take over. I don't know why we write these cables, I guess it just makes us feel better about ourselves. (Anyone curious can find an entire museum of U.S. wish fulfillment cables on the website of the National Security Archive.)
So what do you do with about a false "secret" cable, especially one that involves you and your movie? Well, you wait for a responsible newspaper to investigate and shout what it discovers from the rooftops.
But yesterday WikiLeaks gave the 'Sicko' Cuba cable to the media -- and what did they do with it? They ran the it as if it were true! Here's the headline in the Guardian:
WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system
Authorities feared footage of gleaming hospital in Michael Moore's Oscar-nominated film would provoke a popular backlash
And not one scintilla of digging to see if Cuba had actually banned the movie! In fact, just the opposite. The right wing press started to have a field day reporting a lie (Andy Levy of Fox -- twice -- Reason Magazine and Hot Air, plus a slew of blogs). Sadly, even BoingBoing and my friends at the Nation wrote about it without skepticism. So here you have WikiLeaks, who have put themselves on the line to find and release these cables to the press -- and traditional journalists are once again just too lazy to lift a finger, point and click their mouse to log into Nexis or search via Google, and look to see if Cuba really did "ban the film." Had just ONE reporter done that, here's they would have found:
June 16, 2007 Saturday 1:41 AM GMT [that's 7 months before the false cable]
HEADLINE: Cuban health minister says Moore's 'Sicko' shows 'human values' of communist system
BYLINE: By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: HAVANA
Cuba's health minister Jose Ramon Balaguer said Friday that American filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary 'Sicko' highlights the human values of the island's communist-run government... "There can be no doubt this documentary by a personality like Mr. Michael Moore helps promote the profoundly human principles of Cuban society."
Or, how 'bout this little April 25, 2008 notice from CubaSi.Cu (translation by Google):
Sicko premiere in Cuba
25/04/2008
The documentary Sicko, the U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore, which deals about the deplorable state of American health care system will be released today at 5:50 pm, for the space Cubavision Roundtable and the Education Channel.
Then there's this from Juventudrebelde.cu (translation by Google). Or this Cuban editorial (translation by Google). There's even a long clip of the Cuba section of 'Sicko' on the homepage of Media Roundtable on the CubaSi.cu website!
OK, so we know the media is lazy and sucks most of the time. But the bigger issue here is how our government seemed to be colluding with the health insurance industry to destroy a film that might have a hand in bringing about what the Cubans already have in their poverty-ridden third world country: free, universal health care. And because they have it and we don't, Cuba has a better infant mortality rate than we do, their life expectancy is just 7 months shorter than ours, and, according to the WHO, they rank just two places behind the richest country on earth in terms of the quality of their health care.
That's the story, mainstream media and right-wing haters.
Now that you've been presented with the facts, what are you going to do about it? Are you gonna attack me for having my movie played on Cuban state television? Or are you gonna attack me for not having my movie played on Cuban state television?
You have to choose one, it can't be both.
And since the facts show that the movie played on state TV and in theaters, I think you're better off attacking me for having my films played in Cuba.
¡Viva WikiLeaks!
Michael Moore is an activist, author, and filmmaker. See more of his work at his website MichaelMoore.com
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7) Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
UA 259/10
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
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Kevin Cooper, who has been on death row in California for 25 years, is asking the outgoing state governor to commute his death sentence before leaving office on 2 January 2011. Kevin Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence of the four murders for which he was sentenced to death. Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.
On the night of 4 June 1983, Douglas and Peggy Ryen were hacked and stabbed to death in their home in Chino Hills, California, along with their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old houseguest Christopher Hughes. The couple's eight-year-old son, Joshua Ryen, was seriously wounded, but survived. He told investigators that the attackers were three or four white men. In hospital, he saw a picture of Kevin Cooper on television and said that Cooper, who is black, was not the attacker. However, the boy's later testimony - that he only saw one attacker - was introduced at the 1985 trial. The case has many other troubling aspects which call into question the reliability of the state's case and its conduct in obtaining this conviction (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/013/2004/en).
Kevin Cooper was less than eight hours from execution in 2004 when the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted a stay and sent the case back to the District Court for testing on blood and hair evidence, including to establish if the police had planted evidence. The District Court ruled in 2005 that the testing had not proved Kevin Cooper's innocence - his lawyers (and five Ninth Circuit judges) maintain that it did not do the testing as ordered. Nevertheless, in 2007, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court's ruling. One of the judges described the result as "wholly discomforting" because of evidence tampering and destruction, but noted that she was constrained by US law, which places substantial obstacles in the way of successful appeals.
In 2009, the Ninth Circuit refused to have the whole court rehear the case. Eleven of its judges dissented. One of the dissenting opinions, running to more than 80 pages and signed by five judges, warned that "the State of California may be about to execute an innocent man". On the question of the evidence testing, they said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and...imposed unreasonable conditions on the testing" ordered by the Ninth Circuit. They pointed to a test result that, if valid, indicated that evidence had been planted, and they asserted that the district court had blocked further scrutiny of this issue.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had already denied clemency in 2004 when the Ninth Circuit issued its stay. At the time, he had said that the "courts have reviewed this case for more than eighteen years. Evidence establishing his guilt is overwhelming". Clearly, a notable number of federal judges disagree. The five judges in the Ninth Circuit's lengthy dissent in 2009 stated that the evidence of Kevin Cooper's guilt at his trial was "quite weak" and concluded that he "is probably innocent of the crimes for which the State of California is about to execute him".
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On 2 June 1983, two days before the Chino Hills murders, Kevin Cooper had escaped from a minimum security prison, where he was serving a four-year term for burglary, and had hidden in an empty house near the Ryen home for two nights. After his arrest, he became the focus of public hatred. Outside the venue of his preliminary hearing, for example, people hung an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the Nigger!!" At the time of the trial, jurors were confronted by graffiti declaring "Die Kevin Cooper" and "Kevin Cooper Must Be Hanged". Kevin Cooper pleaded not guilty - the jury deliberated for seven days before convicting him - and he has maintained his innocence since then. Since Governor Schwarzenegger denied clemency in 2004, more evidence supporting Kevin Cooper's claim of innocence has emerged, including for example, testimony from three witnesses who say they saw three white men near the crime scene on the night of the murders with blood on them.
In 2007, Judge Margaret McKeown was the member of the Ninth Circuit's three-judge panel who indicated that she was upholding the District Court's 2005 ruling despite her serious concerns. She wrote: "Significant evidence bearing on Cooper's guilt has been lost, destroyed or left unpursued, including, for example, blood-covered coveralls belonging to a potential suspect who was a convicted murderer, and a bloody t-shirt, discovered alongside the road near the crime scene. The managing criminologist in charge of the evidence used to establish Cooper's guilt at trial was, as it turns out, a heroin addict, and was fired for stealing drugs seized by the police. Countless other alleged problems with the handling and disclosure of evidence and the integrity of the forensic testing and investigation undermine confidence in the evidence". She continued that "despite the presence of serious questions as to the integrity of the investigation and evidence supporting the conviction, we are constrained by the requirements of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)". Judge McKeown wrote that "the habeas process does not account for lingering doubt or new evidence that cannot leap the clear and convincing hurdle of AEDPA. Instead, we are left with a situation in which confidence in the blood sample is murky at best, and lost, destroyed or tampered evidence cannot be factored into the final analysis of doubt. The result is wholly discomforting, but one that the law demands".
Even if it is correct that the AEDPA demands this result, the power of executive clemency is not so confined. Last September, for example, the governor of Ohio commuted Kevin Keith's death sentence because of doubts about his guilt even though his death sentence had been upheld on appeal (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/079/2010/en). Governor Ted Strickland said that despite circumstantial evidence linking the condemned man to the crime, "many legitimate questions have been raised regarding the evidence in support of the conviction and the investigation which led to it. In particular, Mr Keith's conviction relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important questions have been raised. I also find the absence of a full investigation of other credible suspects troubling." The same could be said in the case of Kevin Cooper, whose lawyer is asking Governor Schwarzenegger to commute the death sentence before he leaves office on 2 January 2011. While Kevin Cooper does not yet have an execution date, it is likely that one will be set, perhaps early in 2011.
More than 130 people have been released from death rows on grounds of innocence in the USA since 1976. At the original trial in each case, the defendant had been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is clear beyond any dispute that the USA's criminal justice system is capable of making mistakes. International safeguards require that the death penalty not be imposed if guilt is not "based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts". Amnesty International opposes all executions regardless of the seriousness of the crime or the guilt or innocence of the condemned.
California has the largest death row in the USA, with more than 700 prisoners under sentence of death out of a national total of some 3,200. California accounts for 13 of the 1,234 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977. There have been 46 executions in the USA this year. The last execution in California was in January 2006.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- Acknowledging the seriousness of the crime for which Kevin Cooper was sentenced to death;
- Urging Governor Schwarzenegger to take account of the continuing doubts about Kevin Cooper's guilt, including as expressed by more than 10 federal judges since 2004, when executive clemency was last requested;
- Urging the Governor to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814, USA
Fax: 1 916-558-3160
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov or via http://gov.ca.gov/interact#contact
Salutation : Dear Governor
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if sending appeals after 2 January 2011.
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8) Newly Built Ghost Towns Haunt Banks in Spain
By SUZANNE DALEY and RAPHAEL MINDER
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/world/europe/18spain.html?ref=world
YEBES, Spain - It is a measure of Spain's giddy construction excesses that 250 row houses carpet a hill near this tiny rural village about an hour by car outside of Madrid.
Most of these units have never sold, and though they were finished just three years ago, they are already falling into disrepair, the concrete chipping off the sides of the buildings. Vandals have stolen piping, radiators, doors - anything they could get their hands on.
Those few families who live here keep dogs to ward off strangers.
Yebes is hardly unique. The wreckage of Spain's once booming construction industry is everywhere. And much of it sits as bad debt on the books of Spain's banks, which once liberally offered financing to developers and homeowners alike.
Just how big a loss the banks are facing is unknown, at least publicly, and that has investors worried - the cost of financing Spain's debt rose 18 percent in the last month alone. But the potential costs of failure go far beyond that. Spain's economy, the fifth largest in Europe, is much bigger than Ireland's or Greece's, and a bailout of its banks could be far more costly, an event that could push the government into default and end up dooming the euro itself.
The Bank of Spain says the banks have about $240 billion in "problematic exposure" out of $580 billion invested in real estate and construction, a situation, they say, the banks are capable of handling.
But not everyone believes that. Unlike American banks, Spanish banks have done little to open their books. Along with other banks in the euro zone, they underwent a stress test last July, and all but five of Spain's smaller savings banks passed.
The trouble is that some Irish banks that also got a clean bill of health in that round of tests subsequently collapsed, raising a threat to the country's solvency that has still not been quieted - on Friday, Moody's slashed Ireland's credit rating to near-junk status and warned of further downgrades - despite a bailout. Those failures undermined the credibility of the whole stress-test exercise and forced regulators to announce recently that the results of further tests would be published early next year.
The Bank of Spain is moving to lift confidence in its banks by forcing them next year to disclose more details about their holdings and to start acknowledging troubled assets faster. But just how much are those assets worth?
Rafael Valderrabano, who founded the Básico real estate company 18 months ago to help banks sell property they are repossessing from developers, says the country is full of situations like Yebes. Right now, he says, he is trying to sell units in 40 apartment blocks near Cuenca, an area southeast of Madrid that is sparsely populated.
"Who went to develop in this place?" Mr. Valderrabano asked. "Who did this? Worse, who financed this?"
A better known real estate debacle is a sprawling development in Seseña, south of Madrid, one of Spain's "ghost towns." It sits in a desert surrounded by empty lots. Twelve whole blocks of brick apartment buildings, about 2,000 apartments, are empty; the rest, only partly occupied. Most of the ground floor commercial space is bricked up.
The boom and bust of Spain's property sector is astonishing. Over a decade, land prices rose about 500 percent and developers built hundreds of thousands of units - about 800,000 in 2007 alone. Developments sprang up on the outskirts of cities ready to welcome many of the four million immigrants who had settled in Spain, many employed in construction.
At the same time, coastal villages were transformed into major residential areas for vacationing Spaniards and retired, sun-seeking northern Europeans. At its peak, the construction sector accounted for 12 percent of Spain's gross domestic product, double the level in Britain or France.
But almost overnight, the market disappeared. Many immigrants went home. The national unemployment rate shot up to 20 percent. And the northern Europeans stopped buying, too. But government officials now say the worst is over, with housing prices down a modest 12.8 percent from the peak, according to the Bank of Spain.
"Most of the adjustment in housing prices has already taken place," José Manuel Campa, Spain's deputy finance minister, said recently, though he allowed that there was a lack of good information on real estate sales.
Still, skeptics abound. One is Jesús Encinar, the founder of Spain's most popular property Web site, Idealista.com. He says that the Spanish authorities are striving to engineer a soft landing of the housing market that would give more time to offload surplus housing at reasonable prices.
But he believes prices still have a long way to fall, by 30 or 40 percent, maybe more. "Some people who said there was no housing bubble are now saying we are at the bottom," Mr. Encinar said. "But I say we have several years to go."
He is not alone in scoffing at some of Spain's numbers. In a report last April, the French bank Société Générale dismissed many of the assertions made by Spain's banks, pointing out that Spain had one of the fastest rates of expansion in construction, had the largest number of mortgages per capita and was the most overbuilt among its peers. Yet prices had fallen the least. "We find it impossible to reconcile the banks' claims of asset quality stability and the macro facts," the report said.
There is also little agreement even on the number of housing units for sale. José Manuel Galindo, president of Madrid's association of real estate developers, noted that one of Spain's leading property appraisers, Tinsa, recently estimated that there were 10,000 unsold housing units around Spain's capital city. Government figures, however, put the figure as high as 50,000 units, he said.
"What is amazing to me is that nobody is investing in doing a very thorough and reliable study of what is the exact supply and demand," Mr. Galindo said.
There is, however, broad agreement that many of Spain's empty units are in areas where there is little demand for them, particularly along the southern coastal areas where hills have disappeared under vast housing developments. Practically overnight, Spain's banks have been forced to begin managing vast real estate portfolios, a role most were ill equipped to take on.
"They do not know how to take care of this housing stock or how to rehab properties," said Raúl García García, from Tinsa.
While some banks have set up networks to sell property, many others are floundering, having trouble just keeping track of the keys. "They take the old guys who are sitting around and say: 'Hey, you are in charge of real estate now,' " Mr. Encinar of Idealista.com said. "Some are not even answering the phone."
Experts say that whatever is on the market now is only a piece of what is in the pipeline from distressed homeowners and developers. Mr. Encinar says the banks are holding back on putting property on sale, afraid to bring prices crashing down.
Fernando Acuña, co-founder of Pisosembargados.com, a Web site that sells housing on behalf of the banks, said as many as 100,000 repossessed units were now for sale in Spain, a number that "could double or triple."
Still, eager to begin getting some of the property off their balance sheets, some banks have been offering deep discounts and special mortgage rates.
Experts say the banks are being slightly more choosy these days about who lend to. But the new loans - almost all of which are at variable rates - could create a second wave of defaults down the road when interest rates rise. Next year may produce a new round of defaults from developers as well. In the early days of the crisis, many banks renegotiated their loans. But experts say many of those deals will expire next year, and without any significant change in the economy, most developers will be no better off.
The tension between banks and developers, once happy accomplices in a booming business, is palpable. Mr. Galindo says that the banks are not lending to developers who have half-built projects and that they are favoring customers who want to buy bank-owned property when giving out mortgages.
The biggest challenge for the banks is that they are likely to end up owners of vast amounts of undeveloped land. José Luis Suárez, an expert on real estate at the IESE business school, said 65 percent of bank lending to developers is tied up in land, enough to build 758,000 more housing units. "That gives you an idea of how long it could take for the market to digest all this," he said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 18, 2010
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated Spain's economic ranking within Europe.
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9) Economic Boom in Washington Leaves Gaping Income Disparities
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ROBERT GEBELOFF
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/us/18census.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - As incomes fell across America over the past decade, new census data show that one place registered a remarkable rise: the nation's capital.
Washington, long a symbol of the country's urban ills, is now among the national leaders in income growth. It ranks first among states with gains in median household income and third among the country's 100 biggest cities, surpassed only by Atlanta, and Arlington, Va., an affluent enclave.
There are more people in the city with graduate degrees than with just a high school diploma, and its share of graduate degree holders increased faster than in any other major city. The number of households earning more than $100,000 grew four times faster than overall population in the same period.
Though the federal government has always been a stable source of jobs here, the data show that the private sector - including consultancies, contractors and lobbying and legal firms - created most of the new jobs. Workers who identified themselves as managers and professionals jumped by nearly a third over the decade.
The economic boom did not lift everybody. About a third of the census tracts, areas of between 3,000 and 5,000 residents, registered income declines during the decade, including many that were already poor to begin with.
Unemployment for residents with only a high school diploma more than doubled over the decade to 19 percent in 2009, the highest in 30 years, according to the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, an economic research group.
The decade also brought black employment to a grim low: By 2009, only 49 percent of black adults in the city were employed, down from 56 percent in 2000, according to the institute. That was down from 62 percent in 1988. The figure includes the elderly, so full employment would be around 80 percent.
"It's the classic story of a rising tide that is not lifting all boats," said Ed Lazere, policy director at the institute. "There are a lot of residents not able to connect with the city's economic engine. And the city's becoming more expensive around them."
The changes have aggravated the widespread disparities in a city that is both the American seat of power and home to some of its poorest neighborhoods. Among the nation's 100 most populous cities, Washington ranked seventh in income inequality in 2009, according to the Census Bureau.
The influx of affluent new residents has resulted in a sweeping pattern of gentrification of poor neighborhoods by a well-educated, mostly white class that fled cities en masse decades ago.
Over all, the city's white population is up by a quarter, while its black population declined by 7 percent. It was second only to Atlanta in terms of increase in the share of its white population over the last decade.
Similar transformations are happening in other major cities, but few with the pace of the capital's. One area in the city with a sharp influx of whites was around U and 14th Streets, a stretch of blocks that are important for African-American heritage. Duke Ellington's childhood home was nearby, as was the first luxury hotel for African-Americans.
In one tract in the area, the white population jumped by 1,500, while the black population stayed the same, according to census estimates. The bureau also estimated the tract's median household income rose nearly 80 percent, with the number of households earning at least $100,000 jumping from 250 to more than 900. Another tract a few blocks south and east had the city's largest gain of whites - 794. It lost 350 blacks in the same period.
The decade brought change. First a Whole Foods moved in on P and 14th Streets. Then Starbucks. Today wine bars and fancy restaurants pulse with people, and glittering home furnishings stores replaced scruffy second-hand stores on 14th Street. Whole Foods now looks out onto a running-clothes shop, a designer eyeglasses store called Blink, and a gelateria.
"This used to be all black here," said Tom Fouche, 47, who lives at the Central Union Mission, a well-known homeless shelter on 14th Street. "Now I call it upper Georgetown," he said, referring to an affluent, largely white neighborhood to the west. "It's more preppy with more stuff to do."
U Street's urban feel is its principal draw for many young people who have moved to Washington. John Grainger, a scientist from Britain, chose to live in the U Street neighborhood, instead of near his work at the National Institute for Health in Bethesda, Md., because, at 29, he wanted to experience the city.
"It's great," said Mr. Grainger, holding a container with his dinner at the Whole Foods salad bar. "It's easier to socialize, and there's lots to do."
But the development has come at a cost. Prices around the city are rising, making life for Mr. Fouche, who used to work finishing floors, more complicated.
"I'm broke," he said. "Prices are so high. I have to eat."
Mr. Fouche applied for many jobs recently, at Target, Safeway, Giant and Home Depot, but none of them called back. A cleaning company told him he was hired, but the contract was canceled a few days later.
His frustrations point to another effect of gentrification. With highly educated people flooding into the city - the rise in the number of graduate degree holders outstripped the rate for new high school graduates by a factor of 10 in the decade - less educated people are being displaced even from unskilled jobs, in a phenomenon Mr. Lazere calls the gentrification of the labor market.
Michael Beirne, 23, who graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a music and math major, now works scooping gelato in the shop across from Whole Foods. A job in music, he said, would require practicing 10 hours a day, and a job in math would require a doctorate.
"I was lucky to find this," he said, standing in the shop on a frigid Thursday.
But the city is still a draw. Dukes Wooters, 28, moved to Washington from New York after losing his job at an insurance company that was associated with Lehman Brothers. He worked for a while as an intern for a congressman, but pays the bills with a job at a sportswear store. His dream, he said, is politics. And he is not leaving anytime soon.
"I don't want to move," he said. "I've lived in a lot of cities in the Northeast. But this is the first city where I could see myself staying."
Sabrina Tavernise reported from Washington, and Robert Gebeloff from New York.
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10) Judge Says Case Against Immigration Officials in New Haven Raids Can Proceed
By SAM DOLNICK
December 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/18/nyregion/18raids.html?ref=nyregion
A federal judge ruled late Thursday that the former chief of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and other senior officials could be held liable in a lawsuit claiming that federal officers violated the constitutional rights of illegal immigrants arrested in predawn raids three years ago in New Haven.
A trial and a final ruling are still months away, but Judge Stefan R. Underhill of the United States District Court in Bridgeport ruled that the civil rights lawsuit could move forward, handing a significant victory to advocates of immigrant rights in a case that could have national implications.
The arrests drew wide attention, in part because New Haven officials had been adopting policies to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows. The raids began on June 6, 2007, two days after the city's Board of Aldermen approved a plan to offer identification cards to all city residents, including an estimated 15,000 illegal immigrants.
Judge Underhill ruled that the lawyers representing 11 of the arrested immigrants had presented enough evidence that senior federal officials created an environment "under which constitutional violations occurred." He also ruled that the roughly two dozen arresting officers could be held as liable as well.
The government and individual defendants, including Julie L. Myers, the former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sought to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that senior officials were too far removed from the raids to be held responsible and that immigration agents could not be sued.
Judge Underhill disagreed with most of their arguments and allowed the core elements of the case to proceed.
In the New Haven raids, part of a national crackdown called "Operation Return to Sender," federal immigration officers split into four teams and arrested 32 immigrants in their homes. The immigrants, most of whom were Mexican, were sent to jails in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.
The arrests shocked many in New Haven, including Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who had supported efforts to issue city identification cards to immigrants, said he believed the raids were retaliation. The lawsuit claims they were meant to punish the city.
Federal officials have denied that. In his ruling, Judge Underhill mentioned the accusations about the timing of the raids but did not say whether he thought they had merit.
More than two dozen lawsuits have arisen from the New Haven raids, but the civil rights case, filed by the Workers and Immigrants Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School, has the highest profile - largely because of its strategy of holding senior officials responsible.
"The government has argued that ICE is immune from suits like this," said Muneer Ahmad, the supervising lawyer on the case, about the immigration agency. "This is the beginning of a process of accountability to bring ICE as a law enforcement agency within the fold of every other federal agency."
A spokesman for the immigration agency declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit.
Federal officials have argued that the raids were a legitimate part of a national effort to clear a backlog of "fugitive aliens," immigrants with an outstanding deportation order. The officials have maintained that they had consent to enter the homes of immigrants they suspected were undocumented - the clinic's lawyers dispute that - and that the operations had been conducted properly.
The lawsuit contends that the federal agents arrested people without inquiring into their immigration status, informing them of their rights or explaining why they were being seized. Of the 32 immigrants arrested, five had deportation orders, and only one or two had criminal records.
The advocacy clinic and lawyers from Cleary Gottlieb, the pro bono co-counsel, aim to hold the arresting officers responsible, as well as Ms. Myers and John Torres, another senior immigration official, among others. Ms. Myers left the agency in 2008; she and the Department of Justice lawyers representing her declined to comment. Mr. Torres did not respond to e-mails or phone messages.
The lawyers contend that Mr. Torres shifted the agency's focus from arresting fugitives to people who were not criminals and posed no danger to the public. They also contend that he had created a quota system that called for Fugitive Operations Teams to make 1,000 arrests a year, half of which could be bystanders encountered during investigations. Ms. Myers had approved the quotas.
The clinic's lawyers say the quota system encouraged officers to violate the rights of illegal immigrants. Judge Underhill wrote that the lawyers had provided enough evidence for holding the officials liable "because their actions imposing intense pressure to make arrests, allowing bystander arrests, and providing inadequate training created a policy under which violations occurred."
Judge Underhill ruled that there was not enough evidence to include at least three defendants mentioned in the lawsuit. He dismissed claims that the immigrants were forced to sign documents that they did not fully understand and were denied access to legal counsel.
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11) Bank Of America Cuts Off WikiLeaks Payments
By REUTERS
December 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/12/18/business/business-us-wikileaks-usa-bank.html?src=busln
Filed at 11:50 a.m. ET
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp said on Saturday it will not process payments intended for WikiLeaks, which has angered U.S. authorities with the mass release of U.S. diplomatic cables.
The largest U.S. bank by assets joins a growing group of financial services companies, including MasterCard, PayPal and Visa Europe, that are restricting payments to the global organization which has said its next large document release will be bank information.
"This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments," the bank said in a statement obtained by Reuters.
WikiLeaks has said it will release documents early next year that will point to "unethical practices" at a major U.S. bank, widely thought to be Bank of America.
Several companies have ended services to WikiLeaks after the website teamed up with major newspapers to publish thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that have caused tension between Washington and some of its allies.
WikiLeaks later issued a message on Twitter urging its supporters to leave the bank.
"We ask that all people who love freedom close out their accounts at Bank of America," it said on the social networking medium.
"Does your business do business with Bank of America? Our advice is to place your funds somewhere safer," WikiLeaks said in a subsequent tweet.
In a backlash against organizations that have cut off WikiLeaks, cyber activists have been targeting companies seen as foes of the website.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was released on bail this week from a jail in Britain, where he is fighting extradition to Sweden over alleged sexual offenses.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, said on Friday that he was the target of an aggressive U.S. investigation and feared extradition to the United States was "increasingly likely."
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said his government is considering using the U.S. Espionage Act, under which it is illegal to obtain national defense information for the purpose of harming the United States, as well as other laws to prosecute the release of sensitive government information by WikiLeaks.
(Additional reporting by Sandra Maler in Washington; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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12) Why Shouldn't Freedom of the Press Apply to WikiLeaks?
You may not like Julian Assange, but the campaign to silence WikiLeaks should appall you
By Tim Dickinson
December 15, 2010 5:07 PM EDT
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/369-wikileaks/4310-why-shouldnt-freedom-of-the-press-apply-to-wikileaks
Here's a thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the quarter of a million secret government cables from the State Department had been leaked, not to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, but to Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times.
First, let's state the obvious: The Times would never have returned the confidential files to the Obama administration. Most likely, the newspaper would have attempted to engage with State to try to scrub life- and source- threatening details from the cables - as Assange and his lawyers did.
And if the administration had refused to participate in that effort -- as it did with WikiLeaks? The Times would have done what any serious news organization has the imperative to do: It would have published, at a pacing of its own choosing, any cable it deemed to be in the public interest. In this digital age, it's likely the Times would have even created a massive searchable database of the cables.
The optics of the information dump would likely have been very different -- overlaid with the Times' newspaper-of-record gravitas. But the effect would have been identical: Information that the U.S. government finds embarrassing, damning, and even damaging would have seen the light of day.
Now let's extend the thought experiment:
How would you react if top American conservatives were today baying for Bill Keller's blood? If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had called on Keller to be prosecuted as a "high-tech terrorist"? If Sarah Palin were demanding that Keller be hunted down like a member of Al Qaeda? If Newt Gingrich were calling for the Times editor to be assassinated as an "enemy combatant."
What if Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, had successfully pressured the Times' web hosting company to boot the newspaper off its servers? What if Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal suddenly stopped processing subscriptions for the paper?
Imagine that students at Columbia University's graduate school of international affairs had been warned not to Tweet about the New York Times if they had any hopes of ever working at the State Department.
Imagine U.S. soldiers abroad being told that they'd be breaking the law if they read even other news outlets' coverage of the Times' exclusives.
Imagine that the Library of Congress had simply blocked all access to the New York Times site.
You can't imagine this actually happening to the New York Times. Yet this has been has been exactly the federal and corporate response to Assange and WikiLeaks.
The behavior is outrageous on its face and totalitarian in its impulse. Indeed, we should all be alarmed at the Orwellian coloring of the Obama administration's official response to the publishing of the cables:
"President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal."
Secrecy is openness. What the fuck?!
Listen: You don't have to approve of Assange or his political views; you can even believe he's a sex criminal. It doesn't matter. What's at stake here isn't the right of one flouncy Australian expat to embarrass a superpower. It's freedom of the press. And it's a dark day for journalists everywhere when the imperatives of government secrecy begin to triumph over our First Amendment.
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13) Officials: CIA gave waterboarders $5M legal shield
By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Adam Goldman And Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Fri Dec 17, 1:52 pm ET
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/122-122/4309-officials-cia-gave-waterboarders-5-million-legal-shield
WASHINGTON - When the CIA decided to waterboard suspected terror detainees in overseas prisons, the agency turned to a pair of contractors. The men designed the CIA's interrogation program and also personally took part in the waterboarding sessions.
But to do the job, the CIA had to promise to cover at least $5 million in legal fees for them in case there was trouble down the road, former U.S. officials said.
Turns out the contractors needed that secret agreement as taxpayers pay to defend the men in a federal investigation over an interrogation tactic the United States now says is torture. The deal is even more generous than the protections the agency typically provides its own officers, giving the two men access to more money to finance their defenses.
It has long been known that psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen created the CIA's interrogation program. But former U.S. intelligence officials said Mitchell and Jessen also repeatedly subjected terror suspects inside CIA-run secret prisons to waterboarding, a simulated drowning tactic.
The revelation of the contractors' involvement is the first known confirmation of any individuals who conducted waterboarding at the so-called black sites, underscoring just how much the agency relied on outside help in its most sensitive interrogations.
Normally, CIA officers buy insurance to cover possible legal bills. It costs about $300 a year for $1 million in coverage. Today, the CIA pays the premiums for most officers, but at the height of the war on terrorism, officers had to pay half.
The Mitchell and Jessen arrangement, known as an "indemnity promise," was structured differently. Unlike CIA officers, whose identities are classified, Mitchell and Jessen were public citizens who received some of the earliest scrutiny by reporters and lawmakers. The two wanted more protection.
The agency agreed to pay the legal bills for the psychologists' firm, Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, directly from CIA accounts, according to several interviews with the former officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The company has been embroiled in at least two high-profile Justice Department investigations, tapping the CIA to pay its legal bills. Neither Jamie Gorelick, who originally represented the company, nor Henry Schuelke, the current lawyer, returned messages seeking comment. Mitchell and Jessen also didn't return calls for comment.
The CIA would not comment on any indemnity agreement.
"It's been nearly eight years since waterboarding - an interrogation method used on three detainees - was last used as part of a terrorist detention program that no longer exists," CIA spokesman George Little said.
After the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mitchell and Jessen sold the government on an interrogation program for high-value al-Qaida members. The two psychologists had spent years training military officials to resist interrogations and, in doing so, had subjected U.S. troops to techniques such as forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation and waterboarding.
But those interrogations had always been training sessions at the military's school known as SERE - Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. They had never conducted any actual interrogations.
That changed in 2002 with the capture of suspected al-Qaida facilitator Abu Zubaydah. The agency believed tougher-than-usual tactics were necessary to squeeze information from him, so Mitchell and Jessen flew to a secret CIA prison in Thailand to oversee Zubaydah's interrogation.
The pair waterboarded Zubaydah 83 times, according to previously released records and former intelligence officials. Mitchell and Jessen did the bulk of the work, claiming they were the only ones who knew how to apply the techniques properly, the former officials said.
The waterboarding technique involved "binding the detainee to a bench with his feet elevated above his head," formerly top-secret documents explain. "The detainee's head is immobilized and an interrogator places a cloth over the detainee's mouth and nose while pouring water onto the cloth in a controlled manner."
The documents add that "airflow is restricted for 20 to 40 seconds and the technique produces the sensation of drowning and suffocation." The session was not supposed to last more than 20 minutes.
The psychologists also waterboarded USS Cole bombing plotter Abd al-Nashiri twice in Thailand, according to former intelligence officials.
The role of Mitchell and Jessen in the interrogation of confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a bit murkier.
At least one other interrogator was involved in those sessions, with the company providing support, a former official said. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in Poland in 2003, according to documents and former intelligence officials.
The CIA inspector general concluded in a top secret report in 2004 that the waterboarding technique used by the CIA deviated from the rules outlined by the Justice Department and the common practice at SERE school. CIA interrogations involved far more water poured constantly over the prisoner, investigators said.
"One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the agency's use of the technique differed from that used in SERE training and explained that the agency's technique is different because it is 'for real' and is more poignant and convincing," the inspector general's report said.
It was not clear whether Mitchell or Jessen made that remark.
Justice Department prosecutor John Durham is investigating whether any CIA officers or contractors, including Mitchell and Jessen, should face criminal charges.
In at least two instances, Mitchell and Jessen pushed back. During Zubaydah's interrogation, the psychologists argued he had endured enough waterboarding, believing they had reached the point of "diminishing returns." But CIA superiors told them to press forward, two former officials said.
In another case, Mitchell and Jessen successfully argued against waterboarding admitted terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh in Poland, the official said.
On top of the waterboarding case, Mitchell and Jessen also needed lawyers to help navigate the Justice Department's investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos.
Mitchell and Jessen were recorded interrogating Zubaydah and al-Nashiri and were eager to see those tapes destroyed, fearing their release would jeopardize their safety, former officials and others close to the matter said.
They often contacted senior CIA officials, urging them to destroy the tapes and asking what was taking so long, said a person familiar with the Durham investigation who insisted on anonymity because the case's details remain sensitive. Finally the CIA's top clandestine officer, Jose Rodriguez, made the decision to destroy the tapes in November 2005.
Durham investigated whether that was a crime. He subpoenaed Mitchell, Jessen & Associates last year, looking for calendars, e-mails and phone records showing contact between the contractors and Rodriguez or his chief of staff, according to a federal subpoena. They were ordered to appear before a grand jury in northern Virginia in August 2009.
Last month, Durham closed the investigation into the destruction of the tapes without filing charges.
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14) Workers Burned Alive Making Clothes for the GAP
by Benjamin Joffe-Walt
December 17, 2010
http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/workers_burned_alive_making_clothes_for_the_gap
They work in almost slave-like conditions making luxury clothes for Americans. They are generally young, poor and female. Two days ago, more than two dozen of them were burned alive when an easily preventable fire broke out in the unsafe, multi-story sweatshop they were working in.
Who did these Bangladeshi workers die for? Surely a shady company making clothes for the Bangladeshi poor?
Nope. These laborers make clothes for GAP Inc., the largest US clothing manufacturer. Worse, this incident is not the first of it's kind, and is the second time this year that more than 20 workers at a clothing factory in Bangladesh were burned to death.
The tragedy began when a fire broke out on the ninth and 10th floors of a multi-story clothing factory in the Ashulia industrial park just north the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka on Tuesday. Eyewitnesses told labor rights activists that two of the six exits were locked. 28 workers were killed: most burned to death, some trampled to death, some killed by suffocation and others jumped from the flames to their death. Several dozen more suffered severe burns.
The factory is owned by the Hameem group, the fifth largest clothing manufacturer in Bangladesh, and employs some 10,000 people making pants. It produces clothes for a number of US and European clothing retailers, chief among them GAP Inc, which owns the brands GAP, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. It is believed that the factory was also producing Wrangler jeans. The Hameem group sells to H&M, Walmart, JC Penney, Kohl's, Sears, Target, Next and many more brands.
Fires are common in clothing factories, which often have large, highly-flammable piles of clothes. Exits are also often locked by factory owners to prevent workers from taking breaks.
Tuesday's fire is the latest in a series of deadly incidents in clothing factories in Bangladesh, which has been bringing in more US and European business as the cost of labor in China rises. It also came just days after deadly protests over clothing manufacturers' failure to implement a government-mandated 80 percent increase in the minimum wage to 3,000 taka a month (about $42). That's right folks, the workers who were burned alive were likely being paid some $24 a month, less than $1 a day.
A major embarrassment to both the company and government, the families of those killed on Tuesday will be paid 100,000 taka (about $1,400) by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. The company, Hameem Group, pledged to double that amount.
But that's not enough for labor rights organizations, who have rightly argued that the incident underscores a pattern of multinational clothing retailers ignoring the need for better health and safety regulations at their Asian factories, while refusing to allow the workers in those factories to organize should fair work conditions not be provided.
Tuesday's tragedy is particularly bitter as labor rights activists have long called on US brands to pressure their Asian manufacturers to improve safety conditions at multi-story factories. Indeed this past April groups like the Maquila Solidarity Network and the Clean Cloths Campaign specifically called on major clothing brands to thoroughly review safety standards in multi-story factories.
"Labor rights organizations have pleaded for years with US and European clothing brands to take aggressive steps to address the grossly substandard fire and building safety practices of their business partners in Bangladesh," said Scott Nova of the Worker Rights Consortium in a statement. "The brands have failed to act and, once again, we see the gruesome consequences of this inaction."
GAP Inc. said it was "terribly saddened" by Tuesday's incident and would work with other brands supplied by the factory to "understand what occurred." The company's statement explicitly avoided any insinuation of responsibility.
The company claims it makes "both announced and unannounced visits on a regular basis to assess factory performance against the standards outlined in our Code of Vendor Conduct."
That Code of Vendor Conduct, for those of you who don't have the time to read it, clearly requires Gap suppliers to comply with fire safety, risk protection and structural safety regulations. It specifically states that there must be "sufficient, clearly marked exits allowing for the orderly evacuation of workers in case of fire." It calls for fire alarms, extinguishers, evacuation drills, the works.
But what does GAP Inc do when they find a supplier to be violating their Code of Vendor Conduct?
"We'll continue working with a factory as long as we believe it's committed to making improvements," the company says. "If a factory has very serious or repeated violations of our code and lacks the intent or ability to resolve them, we'll terminate the relationship."
Time to call on Gap to live up to their word.
How many times in one year do workers have to die before GAP Inc determines that the Hameem group "lacks the intent or ability" to make improvements?
This is an American company accountable to American consumers. It's time to show the GAP that US consumers will demand a serious, severe response to incidents like this.
Please join the petition below, and call on GAP to immediately terminate its relationship with the Hameem group.
GAP Inc: End Your Relationship with Supplier that Allows Workers to be Burned Alive
http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/workers_burned_alive_making_clothes_for_the_gap
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15) Bradley Manning's Health Deteriorating in Jail
The intelligence analyst suspected of leaking US diplomatic cables is being held in solitary confinement
By Heather Brooke
guardian.co.uk
December 16, 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/16/bradley-manning-health-deteriorating
As Julian Assange emerged from his nine-day imprisonment, there were renewed concerns about the physical and psychological health of Bradley Manning, the former US intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the diplomatic cables at the centre of the storm.
Manning, who was arrested seven months ago, is being held at a military base in Virginia and faces a court martial and up to 52 years in prison for his alleged role in copying the cables.
His friends and supporters also claim they have been the target of extra-judicial harassment, intimidation and outright bribery by US government agents.
According to David House, a computer researcher from Boston who visits Manning twice a month, he is starting to deteriorate. "Over the last few weeks I have noticed a steady decline in his mental and physical wellbeing," he said. "His prolonged confinement in a solitary holding cell is unquestionably taking its toll on his intellect; his inability to exercise due to [prison] regulations has affected his physical appearance in a manner that suggests physical weakness."
Manning, House added, was no longer the characteristically brilliant man he had been, despite efforts to keep him intellectually engaged. He also disputed the authorities' claims that Manning was being kept in solitary for his own good.
"I initially believed that his time in solitary confinement was a decision made in the interests of his safety," he said. "As time passed and his suicide watch was lifted, to no effect, it became clear that his time in solitary - and his lack of a pillow, sheets, the freedom to exercise, or the ability to view televised current events - were enacted as a means of punishment rather than a means of safety."
House said many people were reluctant to talk about Manning's condition because of government harassment, including surveillance, warrantless computer seizures, and even bribes. "This has had such an intimidating effect that many are afraid to speak out on his behalf," House said.
Some friends report being followed extensively. Another computer expert said the army offered him cash to - in his words - "infiltrate" the WikiLeaks website. He said: "I turned them down. I don't want anything to do with this cloak and dagger stuff."
When the Washington Post tried to investigate the claim, an army criminal investigation division spokesman refused to comment. "We've got an ongoing investigation," he said. "We don't discuss our techniques and tactics."
On 3 November, House, 23, said he found customs agents waiting for him when he and his girlfriend returned to the US after a short holiday in Mexico. His bags were searched and two men identifying themselves as Homeland Security officials said they were being detained for questioning and would miss their connecting flight. The men seized all his electronic items and he was told to hand over all passwords and encryption keys - which he refused. The items have yet to be returned, said House. He added: "If Manning is convicted, it will be because his individual dedication to human ethics far surpasses that of the US government."
House, who met Manning through friends but came to know him only after his detention, said he was committed to his cause. "Like many computer scientists, I identify with the open government issues at the core of this case."
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16) Bloody Trophies
by Linh Dinh
December 18, 2010
CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/18-5
We have an unprecedented capacity to absorb scandals. Wikileaks or no, Americans wake up each day to a new set of outrages, yet nothing changes. With hundreds of channel at our fingertip and a billion songs sloshing in our skulls, no crime against country, man or earth can linger long enough in any brain cell to matter. All synapses are currently busy with bullshit, yet again, thank you.
There have always been enough incriminating evidences to fill several Pentagons and CIA headquarters. It takes no dick or hacker to know that the U.S. government is duplicitous and sadistic. It lies and kills compulsively. Though hardly alone, America's unique in her reach and influence. As an empire, our sick tendencies become everybody else's problems. Without our "leadership," would Poles and Ukrainians kill and be killed in Iraq? Would Germans patrol Afghanistan? Would Georgia pick a fight with Russia, only to have its ass kicked? We don't just commit evils, we train many others to do it. We graduated thousands of torturers from The School of the Americas. After some bad press, it was niftily re-christened as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. (Similarly, Blackwater is now Xe.) Our tactics haven't changed, and waterboarding, openly admitted to by our cynically sinister capos, is the very least of it. No criminal confesses to everything. "Ah, I only do some shoplifting on the side, Your Honor. No beating or rape or nothing."
Our elected leaders, our bald, shiny faces to the rest of the world, are shameless hypocrites. During the Georgia-Russia conflict, George Bush was indignant that Russia had "invaded a sovereign neighboring state," while John McCain declared, "In the 21st century nations don't invade other nations."
Was March 20th, 2003 in the 21st century? I'm not talking about March Madness, of course, but the start of our invasion of Iraq. Sated with college hoops, Americans could switch channel for some cool, live snuff action. Soon after, George W. Bush announced at the Boeing F-18 Production Facility in St. Louis, "Two weeks ago, the Iraqi regime operated a gulag for dissidents, and incredibly enough, a prison for young children. Now the gates to that prison have been thrown wide open, and we are putting the dictators, political prisons, and torture chambers out of business." (Applause.) A mere year later, the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, revealing America to be in charge of Saddam's torture chambers.
Not so incredibly, we also imprisoned children in Abu Ghraib. Its commander, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, spoke of visiting the youngest inmates, including a boy who "looked like he was 8-years-old." Maybe this kid was just undersized from all those years of economic sanctions? Maybe he was actually 11 or 12? By 2008, the Pentagon would admit to jailing 600 Iraqi juveniles. From a supposedly feel-good story in Stars and Stripes: "The U.S. military in Iraq is holding some 600 juvenile detainees-ranging in age from 11 to 17-and is building educational programs to address their special needs."
In any case, no evidence could be more damning than what happened at Abu Ghraib, yet there were no consequences, really. We went on with our occupation, which has continued to this day, and only one officer was ever court-martialed. The conviction of Lieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan was even overturned, resulting in merely an "administrative reprimand" on his record. Torture, American style, is an administrative procedure.
The photos themselves often show our troops casually moving about in the background. It was business as usual to punch, slap and kick prisoners; to jump on their naked feet; to videotape and photograph naked male and female prisoners; to forcibly arrange prisoners in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; to force prisoners to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time; to force naked male prisoners to wear women's underwear; to force groups of male prisoners to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped; to arrange naked male prisoners in a pile and then jumping on them; to position a naked prisoner on a box, with a sandbag on his head, and attach wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture.
On and on the various means for inflicting pain and humiliation on helpless human beings. Oh, the casual or gleeful sadism, often sexual, of our conquering heroes! These all-American men and women will go home, marry, raise children and become realtors, policemen, accountants and teachers. We freak out when a sexual predator moves into the neighborhood, but how many honorably discharged and decorated torturers and mass murderers are chummying up among us?
"Dad, what did you do in the Iraq?"
"Oh, nothing much, I broke chemical lights and poured the phosphoric liquid on prisoners; beat prisoners with a broom handle and a chair; threatened male prisoners with rape; sodomized a prisoner with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick. Now, what would you like for Christmas, Son?"
General Antonio M. Taguba's list of Abu Ghraib abuses, summarized above, was leaked to the press by an unknown source. Though not a whistleblower per se, Taguba did not flinch from accusing his own comrades, and he didn't scapegoat but pointed his finger at the very top. In 2008, Taguba wrote: "After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
For showing courage and integrity, Taguba was forced into retirement, but Bradley Manning, a mere private, is already paying a much heavier price for exposing yet more crimes by the U.S. Army. Kept in solitary confinement for seven months now, Manning faces up to 52 years in prison, with many, including Congressman Mike Rogers, calling for his execution.
Manning's physical and psychological conditions are deteriorating rapidly. He turned 23 just yesterday. Friends who have visited Manning in prison are being intimidated by our government from speaking out, according to the Guardian. People are being stalked, computers seized without warrants. A staple of Fascism, extra-judicial harassment should never be tolerated in any genuinely free society.
So after decades of appalling disclosures by human rights organizations, the media and even the government itself, nothing has changed. We have enough evidence to convict just about everybody and everything inside that Beltway, save a potted plant or two, perhaps, so what's missing is not more information, but an ability to deduce and to synthesize, that is, to think, and, even more importantly, some semblance of moral clarity.
The same scene that outrages one person will titillate another. To a Nazi, photos of Dachau and Bruchenwald are a turn on. Atrocity and torture images also confirm the status quo, since they illustrate most vividly who has the power, who can do what to whom, who can be stripped naked, bloodied and blown to bits.
Susan Sontag rightly compared the Abu Ghraib images to trophies. Proud of our bloody trophies, and not just photos but ears, fingers and whatnot, many Americans still subscribe to our full spectrum domination, ass-kicking aspirations, so protests or no, Wikileaks or no, the American Empire will not be shamed or persuaded into changing its ways. It will not reform itself. Cornered, it's likely to become even more vicious. Evil will bare its fangs most nakedly.
Obey orders and torture and the worst that can happen to you is an administrative reprimand, whatever that means, but if you follow your conscience, be prepared to be locked up, tortured or even killed. It's already in the book.
Linh Dinh born in Vietnam in 1963, came to the US in 1975. He is the author of two books of stories and five of poems, with a novel, Love Like Hate, scheduled for September. He's tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, State of the Union.
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17) Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests
"The Roberts court, which has completed five terms, ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and 42 percent by all courts since 1953."
By ADAM LIPTAK
December 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/19roberts.html?hp
WASHINGTON - Almost 40 years ago, a Virginia lawyer named Lewis F. Powell Jr. warned that the nation's free enterprise system was under attack. He urged the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to assemble "a highly competent staff of lawyers" and retain outside counsel "of national standing and reputation" to appear before the Supreme Court and advance the interests of American business.
"Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court," he wrote, "the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change."
Mr. Powell, who joined the Supreme Court a year later in 1972 and died in 1998, got his wish - and never more so than with the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
The chamber now files briefs in most major business cases. The side it supported in the last term won 13 of 16 cases. Six of those were decided with a majority vote of five justices, and five of those decisions favored the chamber's side. One of them was Citizens United, in which the chamber successfully urged the court to guarantee what it called "free corporate speech" by lifting restrictions on campaign spending.
The chamber's success rate is but one indication of the Roberts court's leanings on business issues. A new study, prepared for The New York Times by scholars at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, analyzed some 1,450 decisions since 1953. It showed that the percentage of business cases on the Supreme Court docket has grown in the Roberts years, as has the percentage of cases won by business interests.
The Roberts court, which has completed five terms, ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and 42 percent by all courts since 1953.
Those differences are statistically significant, the study found. It was prepared by Lee Epstein, a political scientist at Northwestern's law school; William M. Landes, an economist at the University of Chicago; and Judge Richard A. Posner, who serves on the federal appeals court in Chicago and teaches law at the University of Chicago.
The Roberts court's engagement with business issues has risen along with the emergence of a breed of lawyers specializing in Supreme Court advocacy, many of them veterans of the United States solicitor general's office, which represents the federal government in the court.
These specialists have been extraordinarily successful, both in persuading the court to hear business cases and to rule in favor of their clients. The Supreme Court's business docket has stayed active in the current term, which began in October. In a single week this month, the court heard arguments in a case brought by the chamber challenging an Arizona law that imposes penalties on companies that hire illegal workers, and it agreed to hear two cases that could reshape class-action and environmental law.
The chamber had urged the court to hear both cases. It said one of them, an enormous sex-discrimination class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart, posed "grave risks for American business." It said the other, a suit by eight states against power companies over carbon dioxide emissions, "has potentially disastrous implications for the U.S. business community."
The court's docket is studded with other important business cases as well, including ones concerning consumer class-action suits and claims of employment discrimination and securities fraud. The chamber has filed supporting briefs in all of them. In AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, for instance, the chamber urged the court to allow companies to use standard-form contracts that in essence forbid consumers who sign them from pursuing class-action suits. In Thompson v. North American Stainless, the chamber asked the court to forbid some employment discrimination claims, saying that "it costs, on average, over $120,000 just to defend a wrongful-discharge claim."
Next month, the court will hear arguments in 11 cases. The chamber says it will file briefs in seven of them.
The Chamber's Success
The Chamber of Commerce spent tens of millions of dollars in the recent midterm elections, mostly to help Republican candidates. It says that it has 300,000 members, businesses and organizations "of every size, sector and region," and that its spending furthered the interests of some three million businesses, most of them small ones.
But the chamber's mission is by no means limited to the elected branches of government. "A central function of the chamber," it told the Supreme Court in a recent brief, "is to represent the interests of its members in important matters before the courts."
The vehicle for that is the litigation unit that was envisioned by Mr. Powell, the National Chamber Litigation Center, which says it is "the voice of business in the courts on issues of national concern to the business community."
Its board includes executives from some of the nation's biggest companies, including Ford, Verizon, Lockheed Martin, Viacom and GlaxoSmithKline.
On the center's 30th anniversary in 2007, Carter G. Phillips, who often represents the chamber and has argued more Supreme Court cases than any active lawyer in private practice, reflected on its influence. "I know from personal experience that the chamber's support carries significant weight with the justices," he wrote. "Except for the solicitor general representing the United States, no single entity has more influence on what cases the Supreme Court decides and how it decides them than the National Chamber Litigation Center."
A study prepared by the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal group, examined the center's success rate in the Supreme Court. It found that the positions supported by the chamber prevailed 68 percent of the time in the Roberts court, compared with 56 percent in the last 11 years of the Rehnquist court, a period without changes in the court's membership. Robin S. Conrad, executive vice president of the chamber's litigation unit, said the center's analysis was flattering but superficial, and she questioned its comparisons.
The chamber does not participate in all business cases, she said. The mix of cases before the court has changed over time. And the chamber has become more active. But Ms. Conrad acknowledged her group's exceptional track record. "Why have we been successful?" she asked. "I'd like to think it's because of the quality of the arguments and the briefs we present to the court."
"The court is looking for reliable voices to confirm its decisions, and I'd like to think it's looking to the chamber because it tells a straight story, and we try not to be shrill or ideological," Ms. Conrad said. "The chamber has earned a reputation for being a credible voice of business."
Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, drew a different conclusion, saying the numbers proved that the Roberts court increasingly sided with corporate interests. He also said the study documented "a sharp ideological divide that did not exist before 2005." In the last 11 terms of the Rehnquist court, the five more conservative justices voted for the chamber's position 61 percent of the time, while the four more liberal justices voted for it 48 percent of the time.
In the first five terms of the Roberts court, the corresponding bloc of five more conservative justices voted for the chamber's position 74 percent of the time, and the four more liberal justices 43 percent of the time.
But counting votes is not the same thing as assessing results, Ms. Conrad said. "Our research has shown that the vast majority of business decisions are decided by a lopsided majority of 7 to 2 or more," she said.
Over the Roberts court's first five terms, Ms. Conrad said, only 10 percent of the business docket was decided by the classic 5-to-4 split, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's four more conservative members in the majority.
The idea that the Supreme Court reflexively rules for the chamber and other business interests is too simplistic, many legal scholars and practitioners say. If the court favors business, they say, it is as part of a broader orientation toward free markets and a wariness of many kinds of lawsuits.
"The Roberts court appears to be a mainstream, traditional, modern Republican, conservative court," said Bradley W. Joondeph, a law professor at Santa Clara University and a former law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "Part of its constellation of commitments is against the regulation of business and, in particular, the regulation of business through litigation."
A prominent Supreme Court advocate who often represents businesses, Maureen E. Mahoney, chose her words carefully when asked at a chamber news briefing in September whether the Roberts court was especially receptive to the kinds of arguments pressed by corporations.
"The best court for getting a fair hearing on those issues," she said, "is the Supreme Court."
Government Experience
An additional explanation for the recent successes of business interests in the Supreme Court may lie in the rise of specialized practice groups at major law firms led by veterans of the solicitor general's office.
Turning service as United States solicitor general into a career at a commercial firm is a relatively new phenomenon, according to a recent article by Matthew L. Sundquist in The Charleston Law Review.
From 1952 to 1981, he wrote, former solicitors general usually became judges, joined law schools or worked as public servants. In the next 15 years, they split their time between academic and legal work, often consulting with law firms with specialized Supreme Court practices.
Starting in 1996, every former solicitor general, with one exception, has gone on to supervise a Supreme Court practice at a major law firm, earning as much as $5 million a year. The exception is Justice Elena Kagan, who joined the court in August.
These specialists make their livings representing business interests, and they have used the skills they honed in government service to achieve notable successes in the Supreme Court. They had a particularly good run, for instance, in environmental cases in the term that ended in 2009.
"For the first time, a series of industry clients last term turned repeatedly to the expert Supreme Court bar for assistance in a host of cases arising under federal pollution control laws," Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Georgetown, wrote in The Yale Law Journal Online last February. "The result was palpable and formed the basis of the best term that industry has ever enjoyed before the court in environmental cases."
Among these lawyers were some of the most prominent members of the specialized Supreme Court bar. Though the odds of obtaining Supreme Court review are about one in 100, these lawyers persuaded the court to hear four cases that "would not have seemed to have a remote chance of review," Professor Lazarus wrote. They won every time.
In one of the cases, Theodore B. Olson, who had served as solicitor general in the administration of President George W. Bush, persuaded the court not only to hear the case but also to rule for his client, making it easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake.
In another big environmental case, Miguel A. Estrada, also a veteran of the solicitor general's office, persuaded the Supreme Court not to hear a case, though the lower courts were split on the question it presented and the federal government had implored the justices to resolve it.
Mr. Estrada's client, McWane Inc., a pipe manufacturer in Alabama, had been convicted of discharging untreated industrial pollutants into a creek. An appeals court threw out the conviction and a $5 million fine, saying the creek was not covered by the Clean Water Act. Mr. Estrada's skill in persuading the court to let that decision stand was the term's coup de grâce, Professor Lazarus wrote.
But a broader look at the Roberts court's environmental cases by Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, found no pro-business trend. "The Roberts court's environmental decisions issued to date suggest neither a disposition toward business nor a hostility toward environmental regulation," Professor Adler wrote in his article, published last year in The Santa Clara Law Review. "The 'pro-business' position has prevailed in some cases, and lost in others. If the relative magnitude of the cases is taken into account, it is even more difficult to argue that the Roberts court has been 'pro-business' in this area."
There has been less dispute about the victories business groups have recently enjoyed in other areas of the law.
David L. Franklin, a law professor at DePaul University, wrote in another article in The Santa Clara Law Review last year that the chamber had been quite successful in the Roberts court in four of what he considered five main categories of cases - punitive damages, arbitration of consumer and other disputes, the standards for early dismissal of lawsuits, and federal pre-emption of state laws governing injury and other suits. The "conspicuous exception," he said, was employment discrimination.
The numbers support Professor Franklin's conclusions, but they are small and not statistically significant.
Even in employment discrimination cases, however, the available numbers are subject to two interpretations. True, the Roberts court's 16 decisions have been evenly divided, according to an analysis by Professor Epstein at Northwestern. But the Rehnquist court ruled in favor of people claiming discrimination more often - 64 percent of the time.
All of this is to say that determining whether the Supreme Court is "pro-business" or "anti-business" can be difficult. There will always be exceptions.
"The story of a conservative, activist, pro-corporatist Roberts court may sound compelling at first blush, particularly with its repetition and regrettable distortion of the cases involved, but it is just a story - and a fictional one at that," Robert Alt, a lawyer with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, testified at Justice Kagan's confirmation hearings last summer.
He listed several major cases in which the Roberts court had ruled against business interests, including a drug maker and a tobacco company. He also noted that some of the court's more important pro-business cases, including ones casting doubt on the conviction of an Enron executive and cutting the punitive damages in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, were written by liberal justices.
It is clear, though, that the Supreme Court these days is increasingly focused on business issues. "The fraction of business cases on the docket has grown from 21 percent in the last five years of the Rehnquist court to 27 percent during the Roberts years," Professor Epstein said. "This isn't a small jump."
Ms. Conrad, of the chamber, said part of her group's role was to keep its agenda before a court that is deciding about half as many cases as it did in the 1980s.
One way to do that, she said, is by filing briefs urging the court to hear particular cases, an effort that is ordinarily a 1-in-100 long shot. But the chamber has succeeded about 30 percent of the time in persuading the Roberts court to take its cases, Ms. Conrad said.
"There has been a return on investment, not to sound too crass," she said.
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18) Swedish Police Report Details Case Against Assange
By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA
December 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.html?hp
LONDON - Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who was released from a British jail late last week, is facing a new challenge: the leak of a 68-page confidential Swedish police report that sheds new light on the allegations of sexual misconduct that led to Mr. Assange's legal troubles.
The Swedish report traces events over a four-day period in August when Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, had what he has described as consensual sexual relationships with two Swedish women. Their accounts, which form the basis of an extradition case against Mr. Assange, state that their encounters with him began consensually, but became nonconsensual when he persisted in having unprotected sex with them in defiance of their insistence that he use a condom.
The case has prompted widespread controversy, with supporters of Mr. Assange alleging that he is the victim, and the women are complicit, in an American-inspired vendetta seeking to punish WikiLeaks for posting hundreds of thousands of secret American documents on the Internet.
The conspiracy, supporters of Mr. Assange have said, hinges on what they have described as an improbable coincidence: that he is facing potential criminal charges in a sex case just as he is challenging the United States government. These critics have also pointed to possible political manipulation of the Swedish prosecutor's office, which had dropped the most serious allegations against Mr. Assange, but later revived them, listing the allegations that prosecutors wished to question him on as "rape, sexual molestation and forceful coercion."
But the details in the police report and dozens of interviews in recent months with people in Sweden linked to the case suggest that the Swedish case could be less flawed than Mr. Assange's supporters have claimed. As for the prosecutors' actions, interviews with legal experts suggest that it would not be abnormal for such a high-level case to move up the hierarchy of prosecutors, with disagreements over how to apply Sweden's finely calibrated laws on sexual misconduct.
Still, the police report also provides support for a claim made by Mr. Assange's supporters that the women involved seemed willing to continue their friendships with Mr. Assange after what they described as sexual misbehavior. The women did not decide to go to the police, the report shows, until they discovered by talking to each other that they had both been sexually involved with him and, by their accounts, had similar experiences.
The British newspaper The Guardian broke the news of the report on Saturday, and quoted extensively from what it said was an unredacted copy. The New York Times later obtained a redacted form of the report in Swedish from another source. The report is a preliminary summary of the evidence taken by investigators in August after their initial interviews with the two women and with Mr. Assange, who left Sweden for Britain in early October but subsequently refused to return to Sweden for further questioning.
Mr. Assange has told friends in Britain that he concluded that the Swedish case was being driven by a desire to punish him for WikiLeaks' disclosures, and to fatally weaken the organization.
The Swedish document traces the accounts given by the two women of their intimate encounters with Mr. Assange. As previously reported, both women say that Mr. Assange first agreed to use a condom and then refused, in the first instance by continuing with sex after the condom broke, and in the second by having sex without using a condom with a woman who was asleep.
Mr. Assange himself has declined to publicly address the women's accounts directly, both before his Dec. 7 arrest on the Swedish extradition warrant and since he was released from a 10-day period in a London jail on Thursday after posting $310,000 bail. But he has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, and has long insisted that he is the victim of a political conspiracy. On Friday, he told the BBC that the case presented in the London courts was "a smear attempt," and that the impending publication of the Swedish police report amounted to "another smear attempt."
Mr. Assange told the BBC that he did not know "precisely who is behind" the "conspiracy" against him, although his supporters have flooded the Internet with charges that the C.I.A. is working to discredit him. But he added, "It's the case of any organization that's exposing major powers, and has major opposition, that they will be attacked."
And in his police interview, he said the women's accounts included "incredible lies."
The two women have been referred to in the British courts only as Ms. A and Ms. W. Ms. A, according to the police report and to Swedish friends, is a left-wing activist in her early 30s who was Mr. Assange's point of contact when he flew to Stockholm from London on Aug. 11 to give a speech at a gathering hosted by the Swedish Association of Christian Social Democrats on Aug. 14. Her friends say her political leanings suggest she would not want to harm WikiLeaks, which is dedicated to revealing states' secrets.
Ms. W, who has worked part-time in a Stockholm museum, has told friends that she is a strong supporter of WikiLeaks, a description supported by the lawyer who was represented the two women in Swedish courts.
Ms. A told the police that arrangements had been made for Mr. Assange to begin his visit to Sweden by staying at her Stockholm apartment for a few days while she was out of town. But the report said she returned Aug. 13, sooner than expected and, over dinner with Mr. Assange, agreed to allow him to stay in the apartment.
The details of their sexual encounter that night were redacted from the copy of the police report obtained by The Times. But The Guardian reported Saturday that Ms. A told the police that Mr. Assange had stroked her leg, then pulled off her clothes and snapped her necklace. The report quotes her as saying that she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again."
According to The Guardian, Ms. A told the police that Mr. Assange pinned her arms and legs to stop her from reaching for a condom. Eventually one was used - but, she told her police interviewer, he appeared to have "done something" with it, resulting in its tearing.
Ms. W, 25, lives in the town of Enkoping, about 30 miles north of Stockholm. A few weeks before Mr. Assange arrived in Sweden, she saw him on television, according to the police interview in The Times's version of the police report, and found him "interesting, brave and worthy of admiration." When she discovered that he would be speaking in Stockholm, she contacted Ms. A to volunteer her help.
Her offer was not taken up, but she decided to attend the lecture anyway, where she met Ms. A in person. After the speech, she told the police, she sat next to Mr. Assange at a group dinner. He flirtatiously fed her bread and cheese, she said, and put his arm around her.
The group dispersed after dinner, leaving Mr. Assange and Ms. W alone, the police report said. They decided to go to a movie, where, the report said, the couple began caressing, then moved to a back row, where they continued. Two days later, Ms. W and Mr. Assange met again and walked around the city's old town together, according to the police report. It said they decided to go by train to Enkoping after Mr. Assange balked at staying in a Stockholm hotel. Ms. W then bought his rail ticket, for about $16, after Mr. Assange told her that he did not have any money, and that he feared he could be traced if he used a credit card.
The unredacted police report obtained by The Guardian says that after arriving at her apartment the two had sex using a condom. In the report, she described waking up to find him having sex with her again, without a condom. Later that morning, Ms. W told the police, Mr. Assange "ordered her to get some water and orange juice for him." She said "she didn't like being ordered around in her own home but got it anyway."
The assertion that Mr. Assange initiated sex without a condom while Ms. W was asleep led the prosecutors to list rape among the allegations they wanted to explore with Mr. Assange, according to testimony in a London court. Swedish legal experts have said that the section of the Swedish penal code involved in the allegation refers to the third and least serious of three categories of rape, known as "less severe," commonly invoked when men in relationships use threats or mild degrees of force to have sex with partners against their will. The maximum penalty for the offense is four years.
From Enkoping, Mr. Assange returned to Ms. A's apartment, despite what she describes as a deteriorating relationship in the light of their previous sexual encounter. Then, the following day, according to the statements the prosecution has made in the British courts, Mr. Assange tried to initiate sex by rubbing himself against her. The Guardian suggests that he was naked from the waist down. This, lawyers for the Swedish government have said in court, is the grounds for one of the allegations of "sexual molestation."
Later the same week, according to the police report, Ms. W got in touch with Ms. A to try to seek out Mr. Assange, after he had failed to keep a promise she said he had made to call her. In the conversation, the report said, the two women discovered that both had had sex with Mr. Assange without a condom. A friend of Ms. A's said in an interview this summer that the two women then decided to insist that Mr. Assange have a test for sexually transmitted diseases.
At around this time, Ms. A asked Mr. Assange to leave her apartment, according to a friend. The police report says he did so on Aug. 20. On that day, when he had not taken the test, the two women went to Stockholm's Klara police station, where, according to the police report, they "wanted to get some advice" and were "unsure of how they should proceed." By that time, acquaintances of the two women have said in interviews that both women had already confided similar details of their experiences with Mr. Assange to friends.
After the two women were interviewed at the police station, prosecutors issued an arrest warrant within hours. Mr. Assange said at the time he did not know who his accusers were. "Their identities have been made anonymous so even I have no idea who they are," he said to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
The police report quotes lengthy passages from Mr. Assange's interview with investigators, which occurred when he voluntarily submitted to questioning in Stockholm, before the prosecutors' office allowed him to return to Britain. Throughout the interview, he insisted that he had committed no offenses in his sexual encounters with the two women, while declining in many instances to respond to detailed police questioning about sexual details. Speaking of his relationship with Ms. A, the report quoted him as saying that "I had no reason to suspect that I would be accused of something like this." He added that the complaints made against him included "a number of false statements" and "a bunch of incredible lies."
Mr. Assange's suspicions of political interference in the case were confirmed, he has said in recent days, by the decision of the Swedish prosecutors to drop the initial arrest warrant, and to downgrade the investigation to one of "molestation," a minor offense. Those decisions were reversed in late August when the chief state prosecutor, Marianne Ny, overruling a subordinate prosecutor in Stockholm, Eva Finne, restored the original allegations, saying that rape was the appropriate charge for the evidence on file with the prosecutors.
Legal experts in Sweden have said that the decision was not unusual given the success that the women's movement in Sweden has had over the last 30 years in recasting Sweden's criminal laws on sexual issues, making them extremely protective of women's rights.
But Mark Stephens, Mr. Assange's lead lawyer in London, has repeatedly said, without providing details, that "a senior political figure" worked to have the case reopened.
The reference appears to have been to Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer for the two Swedish women, who is Sweden's former equal opportunities ombudsman, and the spokesman on gender equality issues for the Social Democratic Party, the main opposition group in the Swedish Parliament. In an interview in Stockholm, Mr. Borgstrom, 66, said it was common under Sweden's rape laws for men who force sex on women without a condom to face prosecution. "It's a violation of sexual integrity, and it can be seen as rape," he said.
By presenting the case as a vendetta, he said, Mr. Assange and his legal team were misrepresenting a justice system that required approval from Sweden's highest appeals court before the extradition warrant was approved. "Those who say that the judges in our court of appeal were influenced by pressure from the United States don't know what they're talking about," he said. "It's absurd."
He added that by presenting the allegations against him as part of a political conspiracy, Mr. Assange had made "victims" of the two women, who now faced vilification on the Internet and regular death threats.
"There are three persons who know for a fact that this has nothing to do with WikiLeaks, the C.I.A. or the Obama administration, and they are Julian Assange and my two clients," Mr. Borgstrom said.
Christina Anderson contributed reporting from Stockholm.
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19) WikiLeaks: Careful When Shooting the Messenger
By ERIC PFANNER
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/technology/20cache.html?src=busln
PARIS - In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph set off a political storm in Britain when it detailed widespread expense-account abuse by members of Parliament. Among the claims: £1,645, or $2,547, for a floating duck house in one lawmaker's garden.
The reports were based on a leak, in the form of a stolen computer disk that The Telegraph obtained from a disgruntled public-sector employee, reportedly in exchange for a fee.
At first, the British political establishment was nearly unanimous in its condemnation of the newspaper. There was talk of prosecuting The Telegraph, and government lawyers boned up on the Official Secrets Act.
Eventually common sense prevailed and the government backed off, realizing that legal action would have made a bad situation worse. Given that the information had already escaped, shooting the messenger would have been pointless. And the damage to Britain's image as an advocate of transparency and fair play would have been enormous.
The expenses scandal is worth considering as the U.S. government weighs its response to an even bigger leak of secret information obtained with the aid of digital technology - the publishing of thousands of American diplomatic cables by the Web site WikiLeaks. According to reports in The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, its global edition, which have published articles based on the cables, the Justice Department is examining charges against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
There are, of course, some differences between the expenses scandal and what WikiLeaks calls "Cablegate." The cables are arguably more sensitive than the information on The Telegraph's disk - in some cases, publication threatens lives, according to the U.S. government. Yet the expense reports provided more immediately compelling evidence of scandal; the WikiLeaks files contain a lot more "cable" than "gate."
On the other hand, the alleged payment by The Telegraph adds a commercial factor to the newspaper's motivation for publishing; WikiLeaks, meanwhile, says it acts purely in the interest of promoting transparency.
Still, there is one important parallel: A U.S. prosecution of Mr. Assange would carry significant downside risks for the United States. The issues at stake were described neatly in a recent policy paper by Google, about government efforts to disrupt the free flow of information on the Internet.
The paper does not mention WikiLeaks; it was widely seen as a broadside against China's policy of filtering the Internet, after Google's run-ins with the censors in Beijing. But it contained a useful summary of the different kinds of censorship practiced around the world, including this tactic: "Encouragement of self-censorship through means including surveillance and monitoring, threats of legal action and informal methods of intimidation."
That sounds a lot like what is going on in the United States right now with regard to WikiLeaks. It is not necessary for America to erect a Chinese-style "Great Firewall" to filter out government criticism; if Mr. Assange were prosecuted, would-be whistleblowers and news tipsters would have to think twice before taking action.
That would be bad news for American journalism, and it might be even worse for U.S. technology giants, whose global dominance is underpinned by a sense that American values align with the spirit of openness and free expression that has generally prevailed on the Internet. Technological superiority is not the only reason why Google, and not Baidu of China, is the world's pre-eminent search engine.
Google argues in the paper that censorship should be viewed as a barrier to trade, given the increasing importance of the Internet in moving goods and ideas around the world.
In the WikiLeaks saga, other commentators have elevated the stakes further, describing the cable dump, the bellicose official response and the juvenile efforts by hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks as the opening salvoes of a long-awaited cyberwar.
Does it really make sense for Washington to escalate? This is one war in which most of the collateral damage would be American.
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20) Heavy Security on Iran Streets After Subsidy Cuts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/19/business/AP-ML-Iran-Economy.html?src=busln
Filed at 11:48 a.m. EST
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran deployed squads of riot police around the major intersections of the capital Sunday, bracing for any kind of violent backlash in the tightly controlled Islamic Republic on the day deep cuts in food and energy subsidies went into effect.
Angry taxi drivers complained as the price of fuel rose four times overnight in one of the world's leading oil producers.
"I don't know what to do," said one frustrated cab driver, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution by authorities. "I am not allowed to increase price of my service while I am paying five times more than yesterday."
A truck driver said he paid ten times more on Sunday for natural gas to fuel his vehicle.
"If I raise my prices, people will not be able to afford it. Or they may report me," said Mansour Abbasi, 43.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Saturday night that the subsidy cuts, long expected, would go into effect at midnight. Though Iran has tremendous oil wealth, its economy appears to be straining under the weight of four rounds of U.N. sanctions over its disputed nuclear program.
Tehran says it is paying some $100 billion in subsidies annually, although experts believe the amount is far lower, closer to $30 billion. Iran had planned to slash subsidies before the latest round of sanctions took effect - Ahmadinejad and his allies have long insisted the country's oil-based economy could no longer afford the largesse.
Economists say the unpopular plan to slash subsidies could stoke inflation already estimated to be more than 20 percent.
Before the subsidy cuts, Iran had some of the cheapest gasoline in the world.
Under the new rationing system, each personal car receives 60 liters (16 gallons) of subsidized fuel a month costing 40 cents a liter ($1.50 a gallon) - up from the just 10 cents a liter. Further purchases of gas would run 70 cents a liter ($2.69 a gallon), up from just 40 cents.
One lawmaker said he had expected the extent of price rises overnight to happen gradually over five years.
"I am surprised. We do not know what happened," the lawmaker told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. "The price of fuel was supposed to reach about international prices within the next five years and not this year."
Witnesses reported a heavy police presence around the capital Tehran, though there were no reports of violence so far. Calm was also reported in other major such as Tabriz, Kermanshah, Bandr Abbas , Kerman and Ahvaz. One resident of Ahvaz said some taxi fares doubled.
In 2007, angry protesters set dozens of gas stations on fire after the government imposed a new system of gasoline rationing to cut down on access to the country's heavily subsidized fuel.
Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a Tehran University professor of politics, said it was too soon to gauge the public reaction to the cuts, and popular unrest could still erupt.
"We have to wait and see how inflation will affect their lives," he told AP.
After the president announced the cuts late Saturday night, long lines of cars formed at gas stations in Tehran as Iranians rushed to fill their tanks at subsidized prices before the new ones took effect at midnight. By Sunday, the lines were gone.
Economic analyst Saeed Laylaz said the cuts were in theory a positive move since they would reduce energy consumption, which is currently costing the country a quarter of its Gross National Product.
"However it is being implemented in an incomplete fashion because it's not accompanied by a greater liberalization of the economy," he said, adding that the cuts would probably not have much positive effect.
Ahmadinejad also said his government was paying $4 billion in bread subsidies, which will also gradually be phased out.
The government says it will return part of the money obtained from increased prices to the people through cash payments. It has already paid into accounts of some 20 million families as compensation ahead of the cuts.
Every family member will now receive $80 for to help them over the next two months.
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21) Journalists Are All Julian Assange
By Robert Parry
consortiumnews.com
December 16, 2010
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2010/121610.html
Whatever the unusual aspects of the case, the Obama administration's reported plan to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for conspiring with Army Pvt. Bradley Manning to obtain U.S. secrets strikes at the heart of investigative journalism on national security scandals.
That's because the process for reporters obtaining classified information about crimes of state most often involves a journalist persuading some government official to break the law either by turning over classified documents or at least by talking about the secret information. There is almost always some level of "conspiracy" between reporter and source.
Contrary to what some outsiders might believe, it's actually quite uncommon for sensitive material to simply arrive "over the transom" unsolicited. Indeed, during three decades of reporting on these kinds of stories, I can only recall a few secret documents arriving that way to me.
In most cases, I played some role - either large or small - in locating the classified information or convincing some government official to divulge some secrets. More often than not, I was the instigator of these "conspiracies."
My "co-conspirators" typically were well-meaning government officials who were aware of some wrongdoing committed under the cloak of national security, but they were never eager to put their careers at risk by talking about these offenses. I usually had to persuade them, whether by appealing to their consciences or by constructing some reasonable justification for them to help.
Other times, I was sneaky in liberating some newsworthy classified information from government control. Indeed, in 1995, Consortiumnews.com was started as a way to publish secret and top-secret information that I had discovered in the files of a closed congressional inquiry during the chaotic period between the Republicans winning the 1994 elections and their actual takeover of Congress in early 1995.
In December 1994, I asked for and was granted access to supposedly unclassified records left behind by a task force that had looked into allegations that Ronald Reagan's campaign had sabotaged President Jimmy Carter's hostage negotiations with Iran in 1980.
To my surprise, I discovered that the investigators, apparently in their haste to wrap up their work, had failed to purge the files of all classified material. So, while my "minder" wasn't paying attention to me, I ran some of the classified material through a copier and left with it in a folder. I later wrote articles about these documents and posted some on the Internet.
Such behavior - whether cajoling a nervous government official to expose a secret or exploiting some unauthorized access to classified material - is part of what an investigative journalist does in covering national security abuses. The traditional rule of thumb has been that it's the government's job to hide the secrets and a reporter's job to uncover them.
In the aftermath of significant leaks, the government often tries to convince news executives to spike or water down the stories "for the good of the country." But it is the news organization's ultimate decision whether to comply or to publish.
Historically, most of these leaks have caused the government some short-term embarrassment (although usually accompanied by exaggerated howls of protests). In the long run, however, the public has been served by knowing about some government abuse. Reforms often follow as they did during the Iran-Contra scandal that I was involved in exposing in the 1980s.
A Nixon Precedent
Yet, in the WikiLeaks case - instead of simply complaining and moving on - the Obama administration appears to be heading in a direction not seen since the Nixon administration sought to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971.
In doing so, the Obama administration, which came to power vowing a new era of openness, is contemplating a novel strategy for criminalizing traditional journalistic practices, while trying to assure major U.S. news outlets that they won't be swept up in the Assange-Manning dragnet.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors were reviewing the possibility of indicting Assange on conspiracy charges for allegedly encouraging or assisting Manning in extracting "classified military and State Department files from a government computer system."
The Times article by Charlie Savage notes that if prosecutors determine that Assange provided some help in the process, "they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.
"Among materials prosecutors are studying is an online chat log in which Private Manning is said to claim that he had been directly communicating with Mr. Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service as the soldier was downloading government files. Private Manning is also said to have claimed that Mr. Assange gave him access to a dedicated server for uploading some of them to WikiLeaks.
"Adrian Lamo, an ex-hacker in whom Private Manning confided and who eventually turned him in, said Private Manning detailed those interactions in instant-message conversations with him. He said the special server's purpose was to allow Private Manning's submissions to 'be bumped to the top of the queue for review.' By Mr. Lamo's account, Private Manning bragged about this 'as evidence of his status as the high-profile source for WikiLeaks.'"
Though some elements of this suspected Assange-Manning collaboration may be technically unique because of the Internet's role - and that may be a relief to more traditional news organizations like the Times which has published some of the WikiLeaks documents - the underlying reality is that what WikiLeaks has done is essentially "the same wine" of investigative journalism in "a new bottle" of the Internet.
By shunning WikiLeaks as some deviant journalistic hybrid, mainstream U.S. news outlets may breathe easier now but may find themselves caught up in a new legal precedent that could be applied to them later.
As for the Obama administration, its sudden aggressiveness in divining new "crimes" in the publication of truthful information is especially stunning when contrasted with its "see no evil" approach toward openly acknowledged crimes committed by President George W. Bush and his subordinates, including major offenses such as torture, kidnapping and aggressive war.
Holder's Move
The possibility of an indictment of Assange no longer seems to me like rampant paranoia. Initially, I didn't believe that the Obama administration was serious in stretching the law to find ways to prosecute Assange and to shut down WikiLeaks.
But then there was the pressure on WikiLeaks' vendors such as Amazon.com and PayPal along with threats from prominent U.S. political figures, spouting rhetoric about Assange as a "terrorist" comparable to Osama bin Laden and a worthy target of assassination.
Normally, when people engage in such talk of violence, they are the ones who attract the attention of police and prosecutors. In this case, however, the Obama administration appears to be bowing to those who talk loosely about murdering a truth-teller.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that he has taken "significant" steps in the investigation, a possible reference to what an Assange lawyer said he had learned from Swedish authorities about a secret grand jury meeting in Northern Virginia.
The Times reported, "Justice Department officials have declined to discuss any grand jury activity. But in interviews, people familiar with the case said the department appeared to be attracted to the possibility of prosecuting Mr. Assange as a co-conspirator to the leaking because it is under intense pressure to make an example of him as a deterrent to further mass leaking of electronic documents over the Internet.
"By bringing a case against Mr. Assange as a conspirator to Private Manning's leak, the government would not have to confront awkward questions about why it is not also prosecuting traditional news organizations or investigative journalists who also disclose information the government says should be kept secret - including The New York Times, which also published some documents originally obtained by WikiLeaks."
In other words, the Obama administration appears to be singling out Assange as an outlier in the journalistic community who is already regarded as something of a pariah. In that way, mainstream media personalities can be invited to join in his persecution without thinking that they might be next.
Though American journalists may understandably want to find some protective cover by pretending that Julian Assange is not like us, the reality is - whether we like it or not - we are all Julian Assange.
[For more on these topics, see Parry's three-book set (Lost History,Secrecy & Privilege, and Neck Deep), now available for the discount price of only $29. For details, click here.]
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there.
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22) Why I Am Donating $50,000 to WikiLeaks
By Larry Flynt, Reader Supported News
19 December 10
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/4329-why-i-am-donating-50000-to-wikileaks
Let's get something straight: Julian Assange is a journalist. You can argue that he is not practicing journalism the way you think it should be practiced - releasing classified U.S. State Department documents - but he's a journalist nonetheless. And for many of us he's a hero.
I'm sick and tired of the politicians and political pundits treating this man as if he were a criminal. If WikiLeaks had existed in 2003 when George W. Bush was ginning up the war in Iraq, America might not be in the horrendous situation it is today, with our troops fighting in three countries (counting Pakistan) and the consequent cost in blood and dollars.
Here's what I know about censorship: The free flow of information is ultimately less harmful than the impeded flow of information. A democracy cannot exist without total access to the facts.
What's wrong is that a concerned outsider - an Australian publisher, not our own vaunted mainstream press - exposed the secret documents. For that, Assange has been hit with dubious criminal charges because his condom failed during a sexual encounter. Give me a break.
Julian Assange should not face a prison sentence. We should have a ticker-tape parade for this brave man.
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23) Weighing Costs, Companies Favor Temporary Help
"This year, companies have hired temporary workers in significant numbers. In November, they accounted for 80 percent of the 50,000 jobs added by private sector employers, according to the Labor Department. Since the beginning of the year, employers have added a net 307,000 temporary workers, more than a quarter of the 1.17 million private sector jobs added in total."
By MOTOKO RICH
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/business/economy/20temp.html?hp
Temporary workers are starting to look, well, not so temporary.
Despite a surge this year in short-term hiring, many American businesses are still skittish about making those jobs permanent, raising concerns among workers and some labor experts that temporary employees will become a larger, more entrenched part of the work force.
This is bad news for the nation's workers, who are already facing one of the bleakest labor markets in recent history. Temporary employees generally receive fewer benefits or none at all, and have virtually no job security. It is harder for them to save. And it is much more difficult for them to develop a career arc while hopping from boss to boss.
"We're in a period where uncertainty seems to be going on forever," said David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "So this period of temporary employment seems to be going on forever."
This year, companies have hired temporary workers in significant numbers. In November, they accounted for 80 percent of the 50,000 jobs added by private sector employers, according to the Labor Department. Since the beginning of the year, employers have added a net 307,000 temporary workers, more than a quarter of the 1.17 million private sector jobs added in total.
One worker who has been forced to accept temporary jobs is Jeffrey Rodeo, 43, who was laid off 14 months ago from his job as an accounting manager at a produce company in Sacramento. He has applied for nearly 700 full-time positions since then, but has yet to receive an offer. Meanwhile, to stay afloat and keep his skills fresh, he has worked on short-term stints at four different employers.
Mr. Rodeo figures his peripatetic work life will last at least another year. "Companies are being more careful," he said. "It just may take longer to secure a permanent position."
To the more than 15 million people who are still out of work, those with temporary jobs are lucky. With concerns mounting that the long-term unemployed are becoming increasingly unemployable, those in temporary jobs are at least maintaining ties to the working world.
The competition for them can often be as fierce as for permanent openings, and there are still far too few of them to go around. Indeed, the relative strength in temporary hiring has done little to dent the stubbornly high unemployment rate, which rose to 9.8 percent in November.
"With business confidence, particularly in the small business sector, extremely low," said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at the High Frequency Economics research firm, "it's not surprising that permanent hiring is lagging behind."
The landscape two or three years from now might look quite different, of course. Many economists and executives at temporary agencies say there are signs that more robust permanent hiring is coming in the new year. Business confidence is up, and temporary agencies report that the percentage of interim workers who have been offered full-time jobs is also up from last year.
Nevertheless, there are signs that this time around, the economy could be moving toward a higher reliance on temporary workers over the long term.
This year, 26.2 percent of all jobs added by private sector employers were temporary positions. In the comparable period after the recession of the early 1990s, only 10.9 percent of the private sector jobs added were temporary, and after the downturn earlier this decade, just 7.1 percent were temporary.
Temporary employees still make up a small fraction of total employees, but that segment has been rising steeply over the past year. "It hints at a structural change," said Allen L. Sinai, chief global economist at the consulting firm Decision Economics. Temp workers "are becoming an ever more important part of what is going on," he said.
Several factors could be contributing to the trend. Many businesses now tend to organize around short- to medium-term projects that can be doled out to temporary or contract workers.
Donald Lane, chief executive of Makino, a manufacturer of machine tools near Cincinnati, said his company would increasingly outsource projects to contract firms that pull together temporary teams. When installing a large machine, for example, Mr. Lane said the company could appoint one full-time supervisor to oversee a number of less skilled short-term workers.
Mr. Lane said he hoped to raise Makino's share of temporary employees from 10 to 15 percent now to about 25 percent in the future.
Flexibility is another factor. Corporate executives, stung by the depth of the recent downturn, are looking to make it easier to hire and fire workers. And with the cost of health and retirement benefits running high, many companies are looking to reduce that burden. In some cases, companies wrongly classify regular employees as temporary or contract workers in order to save on benefit costs and taxes.
Certainly, Americans who have never held anything but a full-time job have sought out temporary posts because they were the only jobs available. And even before the recession, workers were learning that lifelong employment was disappearing along with phone booths and Filofax organizers.
But people still tend to prefer jobs with some sense of permanence, and with full health benefits and some form of retirement contribution.
According to a survey by Staffing Industry Analysts, a Mountain View, Calif., research firm, 68 percent of all temporary workers are seeking permanent employment.
But the whole notion of what constitutes a permanent job may simply be changing. Workers "need to expect that their lives and jobs will change much more often than they have in the past," said Jonas Prising, president of the Americas at Manpower.
Some people have discovered they prefer the freelance life. Antonia Musto lost her job as a staff accountant for a newspaper in Wilkes Barre, Pa., more than two years ago. She signed on with oDesk, a company that matches contract workers with employers online.
She has since worked for several different businesses and even turned down a full-time offer last November. "I just think I've gotten very accustomed to working very fast and working with many different people," Ms. Musto, 38, said. She said she had fully replaced the income she was making at the newspaper and buys private health insurance.
Of course, businesses that can now hire talented workers for temporary jobs may find that when demand picks up, they will need to offer full-time positions with perks and benefits. But it could take a long time to reach that point.
That indefinite stretch worries workers who fear that future employers will look askance at a résumé filled with short-term engagements. Others worry that they will lose valuable years of saving for the future.
Mr. Rodeo, the Sacramento accounting manager, said he made anywhere from 10 to 50 percent less while working in temporary jobs than he did at the produce company. He has also been without health insurance all year. None of the interim employers or temporary agencies have contributed to a 401(k) plan, nor has he been able to save much on his own.
"That's the scariest part," said Mr. Rodeo.
He is confident he will eventually land a permanent post, but until then, he knows he is losing ground in planning for retirement. "Of course, for my generation, you can't plan on Social Security," he said. "Most likely, I will have to work longer."
Others are starting to face the prospect that they could move among temporary assignments for the rest of their careers.
Jose Marin, 50, known as J. D., lost his technology job in Miami in February and moved to North Carolina to live with his sister. After months of looking for a permanent job, he signed on with Modis, a unit of Adecco, and in August began a temporary assignment for a financial services company in Cary, a town west of Raleigh.
While grateful for the job, he longs for a permanent position. "I'm still old-fashioned and I still want to work for a company where I make a difference and I'm going to be there to retire," said Mr. Marin. "I know that's wishful thinking."
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24) Many Children Lack Doctors, Study Finds
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/us/20doctors.html?ref=us
CHICAGO (AP) - Though there are enough children's doctors in the United States, they work in the wrong places, a new study has found.
Some wealthy areas are oversaturated with pediatricians and family doctors, while other parts of the nation have few or none.
Nearly 1 million children live in areas with no local doctor. By relocating doctors, the study suggests, nearly every child could have one nearby.
The study's lead author, Dr. Scott Shipman of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, said the focus should be more on evening out the distribution of doctors than on increasing the supply.
Medical schools are graduating more students, Dr. Shipman said, but the result will most likely be more doctors in places where there is already an oversupply.
"I worry that it could get worse," he said.
The growth in the number of pediatricians and family physicians has outpaced the growth in the child population in the United States, Dr. Shipman and his colleagues found. Yet the study's analysis shows that nearly all 50 states have an extremely uneven distribution of primary care doctors for children.
Mississippi had the highest proportion of children, 42 percent, in low-supply regions, which are defined as areas with more than 3,000 children per doctor. Next were Arkansas, Oklahoma, Maine and Idaho.
Areas with an abundance of children's doctors were Washington, D.C., and Delaware, both of which had no children living in low-supply regions. Maryland, Washington State and Wisconsin also had very few children in low-supply areas.
Federal financing has been expanded in recent years for the National Health Service Corps, which offers loan forgiveness for doctors and other health practitioners who work in underserved areas. That may help, Dr. Shipman said.
The study appears Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
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25) This Bonus Season on Wall Street, Many See Zeros
[But don't shed those tears yet...bw] "At Goldman, for instance, the base salary for managing directors rose to $500,000 from $300,000, while at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse it jumped to $400,000 from $200,000...One executive, whose firm prohibited discussing the topic with the news media, said the bump in base salaries had confused people, even though their overall compensation was the same. 'People expect a big bonus,' this person said. 'It is as if they don't even see their base doubled last year.' ... This year, Wall Street's five biggest firms have put aside nearly $90 billion for bonuses."
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and SUSANNE CRAIG
December 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/business/20bonus.html?ref=us
Bonus season is fast approaching on Wall Street, but this year the talk does not center just on multimillion-dollar paydays. It's about a new club that no one wants to join: the Zeros.
Drawn from a broad swath of back-office employees and middle-level traders, bankers and brokers, the Zeros, as they have come to be called, are facing a once-unthinkable prospect: an annual bonus of ... nothing.
"It's going to a cause a lot of panic on Wall Street," said Richard Stein of Global Sage, an executive search firm. "Everybody is talking about it, but they're actually concerned about it becoming public. I would not want to be head of compensation at a Wall Street firm right now."
In some ways, a zero bonus should not come as a surprise to many bankers. As a result of the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and banks like Citigroup raised base pay substantially in 2009 and 2010. They were seeking to placate regulators who had argued that bonuses based on performance encouraged excessive risk.
At Goldman, for instance, the base salary for managing directors rose to $500,000 from $300,000, while at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse it jumped to $400,000 from $200,000.
Even though employees will receive roughly the same amount of money, the psychological blow of not getting a bonus is substantial, especially in a Wall Street culture that has long equated success and prestige with bonus size. So there are sure to be plenty of long faces on employees across the financial sector who have come to expect a bonus on top of their base pay. Wall Streeters typically find out what their bonuses will be in January, with the payout coming in February.
One executive, whose firm prohibited discussing the topic with the news media, said the bump in base salaries had confused people, even though their overall compensation was the same. "People expect a big bonus," this person said. "It is as if they don't even see their base doubled last year."
Dealing with the Zeros can be complicated. "It's a real headache," said another senior banker, who asked not to be identified because the topic is so volatile at his company. There has been so much grousing that in some cases, he said, "we'll throw $20,000 or $25,000 at each of the Zeros so they're not discouraged."
"No matter what we pay people, it is never enough and they always find something to complain about," this banker said.
While Zeros are turning up in the ranks of back-office employees and midtier bankers and traders who typically earn $250,000 to $500,000, their bosses way up the compensation ladder are still expected to notch handsome paydays in the millions.
In terms of overall profit, Wall Street is on track for one of its best years ever, although it will trail 2009, which was pumped up by federal bailout money and the rebound from the financial crisis.
In the first three quarters of the year, Wall Street earned $21.4 billion, putting it on track to easily outpace 2006, when the economy was booming, and well ahead of the New York City government's initial estimate of $20.6 billion for profit in all of 2010.
This year, Wall Street's five biggest firms have put aside nearly $90 billion for bonuses.
But bankers and compensation experts say that bonus payouts will vary widely this year, much more than in the past when a rising tide lifted all boats. And just as junior and senior bankers face varying fates, so some departments are expected to fare better than others.
At JPMorgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, for example, the leveraged finance group could receive a 10 to 20 percent bump from last year, because of record issuance of junk bonds. Equity traders, on the other hand, are looking at a 10 to 20 percent drop because stock trading tailed off during the second half of the year.
At Morgan Stanley, equity trading was stronger, but bond traders are most likely looking at smaller pay packages.
To be sure, the best performers on the most profitable desks will still receive substantial bonuses. At Bank of America, top directors might earn a $1 million bonus while top vice presidents could net $600,000, according to one banker there.
What's more, echoing trends in the broader economy, Wall Street chief executives are almost certain to escape the fate of the Zeros, with bonuses climbing into the stratosphere as the shock of the financial crisis fades and pay for the top tier climbs back toward historical averages.
Morgan Stanley is perhaps feeling the most pressure. In 2009, it paid out a record 62 percent of its net revenue in compensation and benefits; its chief executive, James P. Gorman, vowed to bring that down to bolster profits. But early this year, the firm's board decided to start hiring in an effort to rebuild businesses in the wake of the financial crisis.
Now, having added 2,000 people in 2010 yet lacking any growth in revenue, the firm has little choice but to scale back on bonuses. Compensation will be lowered across the board, but there will still be plenty of Zeros, said one person familiar with Morgan Stanley's compensation process.
Recently, Mr. Gorman has been telling employees that the selective, short-term pain on compensation will give the firm credibility with shareholders and help Morgan Stanley over the long haul, calling 2010 "the year of differentiation," several employees said.
Even if overall salaries for Wall Streeters remain generous, the new zero-bonus culture is likely to change spending habits, said Robert J. Gordon, a professor of economics at Northwestern. Bonuses are spent differently than more predictable income, he said, citing "impulsive purchases, like jewelry from Tiffany's for a girlfriend."
Zero bonuses are likely to have a bigger impact on New York's economy, which has grown dependent on the largess of Wall Street firms. Whether it's for jewelry, high-end clothing or apartments, bonus spending has long fed a postholiday boom in January and February, especially in Manhattan and expensive suburbs like Greenwich.
"I suspect there will be some pain in the short-term," said Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, an independent research group in Manhattan.
"We've all heard the stories of someone showing up in Greenwich to buy a $10 million house and paying cash on the spot," he added. "But in the long term, this is probably healthier for Wall Street and the regional economy. Wall Street shouldn't be a casino."
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