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FREE BRADLEY MANNING! HANDS OFF JULIAN ASSANGE!
Soldier in Leaks Case Will Be Made to Sleep Naked Nightly
[Bradley is being stripped of his clothing every night and forced to wait at attention, naked, every morning before getting his clothing back...this is torture to try to get him to implicate Jullian Assange so the U.S. can do the same to him. ...bw]
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
March 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/world/05manning.html?ref=world
Should Army pfc Bradley Manning face charges for allegedly stealing classified documents and providing them for WikiLeaks?
New York Daily News Poll Results
Thank you for voting.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/03/05/2011-03-05_wikileaks_private_loses_his_underwear.html?r=news
Yes, he's a traitor for selling out his country! ...... 28%
No, he's a hero for standing up for what's right! ..... 62%
We need to see more evidence before passing judgment.. 10%
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Saturday, March 19, 2011: Resist the War Machine!
8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq
In San Francisco, people will gather at 12 noon for a rally at UN Plaza (7th & Market Sts.) followed by a march to Lo. 2 boycotted hotels. The theme of the March 19 march and rally will be "No to War & Colonial Occupation - Fund Jobs, Healthcare & Education - Solidarity with SF Hotel Workers!" 12,000 SF hotel workers, members of UNITE-HERE Local 2, have been fighting for a new contract that protects their healthcare, wages and working conditions.
http://www.answercoalition.org/sf/index.html
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U.S./NATO HANDS OFF MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA! END ALL AID TO ISRAEL! STOP FUNDING DICTATORS ACROSS THE GLOBE! MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT FOR WAR AND OCCUPATION! LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE HERE AND EVERYWHERE!
TAX THE RICH! LEAVE WORKERS AND THEIR UNIONS ALONE! DON'T AGONIZE, ORGANIZE!...BW
RALLY AGAINST THE WARS AGAINST WORKING PEOPLE AT HOME AND ABROAD! BACK TO THE STREETS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 2011
ASSEMBLE AT DOLORES PARK AT 11:00 A.M.
NOON RALLY
MARCH AT 1:30 P.M.
THEY are the government, corporate, and financial powers that wage war, ravage the environment and the economy and trample on our democratic rights and liberties.
WE are the vast majority of humanity who want peace, a healty planet and a society that prioritizes human needs, democracy and civil liberties for all.
WE DEMAND Bring U.S. Troops, Mercenaries and War Contractors Home Now: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan! End the sanctions and stop the threats of war against the people of Iran, North Korea and Yemen. No to war and plunder of the people of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa! End U.S. Aid to Israel! End U.S. Support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the Siege of Gaza! End support of dictators in North Africa!
WE DEMAND an end to FBI raids on antiwar, social justice, and international solidarity activists, an end to the racist persecution and prosecutions that ravage Muslim communities, an end to police terror in Black and Latino communities, full rights and legality for immigrants and an end to all efforts to repress and punish Wikileaks and its contributors and founders.
WE DEMAND the immediate end to torture, rendition, secret trials, drone bombings and death squads.
WE DEMAND trillions for jobs, education, social services, an end to all foreclosures, quality single-payer healthcare for ail, a massive conversion to sustainable and planet-saving energy systems and public transportation and reparations to the victims of U.S. terror at home and abroad.
Sponsored by the United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC)
www.unacpeace.org
unacnortherncalifornia@gmail.com
415-49-NO-WAR
Facebook.com/EndTheWars
Twitter.com/UNACPeace
TRADUCCION:
Marcha en contra de las guerras: en casa y en el exterior
Ellos son el gobierno y las corporaciones que financian las guerras, destruyen el medio ambiente, la economía y pisotean nuestras libertades y derechos democráticos.
Nosotros, somos la gran mayoría de la humanidad y queremos paz. Un planeta saludable y una sociedad que priorice en las necesidades humanas, la democracia y las libertades civiles para todos.
Nosotros, demandamos que las tropas militares, los mercenarios y los contratistas de guerra que enviaron a Irak, Afganistán, y Paquistán sean traídas de regreso a los Estados Unidos ¡Ahora! Que paren con las sanciones y las amenazas de guerra en contra de los pueblos de Irán, Corea del Norte y Yemen; y que los Estados Unidos deje de colaborar con Israel en la invasión y acoso a Palestina y Gaza. No al saqueo de los pueblos de América Latina, el Caribe y África; que paren la persecución racista que amenaza las comunidades musulmanas y que paren el terror policiaco en contra de las comunidades negras y latinas; derechos totales y legalización para los emigrantes.
Nosotros, demandamos que el FBI pare de inmediato la persecución a los luchadores por la justicia social y la solidaridad internacional; como también pongan un alto a todos los esfuerzos que reprimen y castigan a los contribuidores y fundadores de Wikileaks.
Nosotros, demandamos trillones de dólares para trabajos, educación y servicios sociales; que cesen todos los embargos de viviendas y desalojos; un programa de salud gratuito y de calidad para todos; un programa energético de conversión masiva que salve al planeta y buen el sistema de transporte público. Y reparaciones para las víctimas del terror de estados unidos aquí en casa y en el exterior.
VICTORY IN EGYPT!
U.S. Hands off the Ongoing Egyptian Revolution!
End US Military Aid to Egypt and Israel!
A Statement by the United National Antiwar Committee
On Friday, February 11th, the heroic Egyptian people won a historic victory with the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. Now they are proceeding to secure this victory by moving on to eliminate the rest of this hated regime, and to win the freedom, jobs, equality and dignity which has motivated their revolution from the start.
The announcement of Mubarak's resignation was coupled with news that the officers of the Armed Forces are now running the country. This comes as more and more rank and file soldiers and lower-level officers were joining the protests, and as others stood by as protesters blockaded the state TV, parliament and other government facilities.
We can be sure that the military hierarchy in alliance with what's left of the old regime will do everything in their power to stop the blossoming revolution in its tracks, to tell the protesters they must go home now and wait for gifts from on high.
AND THE DANGER IS REAL THAT WHEN THE MASSES SAY NO THAT THE MILITARY WILL DO WHAT IT DOES BEST.
We can be equally sure that Washington will give its full blessing and backing to these efforts of the remnants of the old regime and the military. Obama has made clear that he is solidly committed to the new face of the Egyptian regime, Omar Suleiman, who has proven over the years that he will collaborate with Washington in its torture and rendition policies. Meanwhile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quoted in the New York Times saying that Washington would help organize political parties for future elections in Egypt - a typical maneuver used to subvert revolutions.
The United National Antiwar Committee has repeatedly urged supporters to mobilize for demonstrations called by Egyptian organizations in the US in solidarity with the revolution in Egypt and against US military and diplomatic intervention. UNAC hails the call for today's march in Washington, DC by Egyptian groups, and takes this opportunity to point out the special obligations of antiwar activists in the US given Washington's multifaceted efforts to obstruct the wishes of the majority of the Egyptian people.
The $1.3 billion a year in military aid which the US gives to Egypt must be cut off immediately. All US soldiers serving in Egypt, such as those in the Multinational Force in the Sinai, must be immediately withdrawn. And the US warships headed for Egypt must be immediately turned around.
UNAC has from its founding opposed all US aid to Israel. That position takes on particular importance given the real danger that as the Egyptian revolution advances, Israel will intervene to derail it - or launch new attacks against Lebanon, Gaza, or elsewhere, as a diversionary tactic.
Amidst the euphoria in Cairo, Al Jazeera interviewed a young woman in the crowd, who said:
"Its not just about Mubarak stepping down. It is about the process of bringing the people to power... The issue of women, the issue of Palestine, now everything seems possible."
WE MUST ENSURE THOSE POSSIBILITIES STAY ALIVE! UNAC ENCOURAGES ALL ANTIWAR ACTIVISTS AND ORGANIZATIONS TO STEP UP SUPPORT FOR RALLIES PLANNED BY THE EGYPTIAN COMMUNITY, AND TO INITIATE THEM WHERE NONE ARE PLANNED.
Finally, we urge all supporters of the Egyptian people to redouble efforts to build the national antiwar marches called by UNAC for April 9th in New York and April 10th in San Francisco. These marches, called to demand an end to US wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, an end to support for Israeli occupation, and in favor of social justice and jobs, take on ever more importance with the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere throughout the Arab world and Washington's attempts to crush or derail them.
SUPPORT THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY AND AGAINST EXPLOITATION AND OPPRESSION THROUGHOUT THE ARAB WORLD!
BUILD THE NATIONAL ANTIWAR MARCHES ON APRIL 9TH AND 10TH!
For more information: In SF: UNACNorthernCalifornia@gmail.com; (415) 49 NO War; www.unacpeace.org, unacpeace@gmail.com. For NYC information: unac-nyc@juno.com
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VERY IMPORTANT ANTIWAR MEETING SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 1 P.M.: Next UNAC Organizing Meeting to build April 10 March and Rally Against the War: Sunday March 13, at 1 PM, Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street, (between 15th and 16th Streets second floor in the rear) SF
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SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, APRIL 10, Mass antiwar/social justice march and rally, Assemble: 11 AM Dolores Park, 19th and Dolores; Rally Noon; March at 1:30 pm.
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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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BUILD APRIL 10 MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS
SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 12:00 NOON
474 VALENCIA STREET (AT THE CHILDCARE CENTER)
(PLEASE BRING TAPE, PUSHPINS AND STAPLES IF YOU CAN. THANKS )
BEGINNING SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 19, 26 AND SATURDAY APRIL 6, AND 9
AT 12 O'CLOCK NOON WE WILL MEET IN FRONT OF 474 VALENCIA AT THE CHILD CARE OFFICES AND GO ON DISTRIBUTION TEAMS FROM 12:30 TO 2:00 P.M.
These bloody wars not only costs the invaluable lives of those who are the targets of U.S. guns, bombs and torture and those who were coerced by economic necessity to become the cannon fodder for these wars--but they are costing trillions of dollars--dollars direct from the pockets of working people who are also paying trillions for corporate bailouts and bonuses!
Enough is enough! Help build a real, independent, democratic movement to fight these wars on working people everywhere!
HELP BUILD APRIL 10 MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD!
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Please forward widely
Dear UNAC Friends and Antiwar Activists,
Don't miss this Sunday's UNAC general meeting. Bring your friends! Everyone welcome!
Sunday, March 13 at 1:00 PM, Centro del Pueblo 474 Valencia Street (between 15th and 16th Streets), San Francisco (upstairs in the rear of the bldg.)
[Special note: Save the dates: Everyone is needed for our first general mobilization on Saturday, March 12 at 12 NOON. We meet at Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street. Bring tape and staplers. We will be postering in teams all over the city and elsewhere. We have set the following four Saturdays at the same time for general April 10 mobilizations. These will include street soap boxing, door to door neighborhood visits and more. Join us!]
Proposed agenda:
1) Political discussion/Libya, where yet another U.S. war/intervention is contemplated! National UNAC has called for "day after" mobilizations against any U.S. war/intervention/"no fly" zones etc. U.S. Hands off Libya!
2) Proposed Outreach Days/Mobilizations: Next five Saturdays beginning March 12
3) Logistics: review of route, and logistical needs
Brief break for committee meetings
4) Finances/fundraising
5) Media outreach
6) Leafleting centers
7) Rally program
8) Regional outreach
9) Next meeting
10) Other
Special note: Everyone is needed for our first general mobilization on Saturday, March 12 at 12 NOON. We meet at Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street. Bring tape and staplers. We will be postering all over the city.
In solidarity,
Jeff
510-268-9429
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Saturday, March 19, 2011: Resist the War Machine!
8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq
In San Francisco, people will gather at 12 noon for a rally at UN Plaza (7th & Market Sts.) followed by a march to Lo. 2 boycotted hotels. The theme of the March 19 march and rally will be "No to War & Colonial Occupation - Fund Jobs, Healthcare & Education - Solidarity with SF Hotel Workers!" 12,000 SF hotel workers, members of UNITE-HERE Local 2, have been fighting for a new contract that protects their healthcare, wages and working conditions.
Come to Washington, D.C., on March 19 for veterans-led civil resistance at the White House
March 19 is the 8th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Iraq today remains occupied by nearly 50,000 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries.
Saturday, March 19, 2011, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, will be an international day of action against the war machine.
The war in Afghanistan is raging. The U.S. is invading and bombing Pakistan. The U.S. is financing endless atrocities against the people of Palestine, relentlessly threatening Iran and bringing Korea to the brink of a new war.
While the United States will spend $1 trillion for war, occupation and weapons in 2011, 30 million people in the United States remain unemployed or severely underemployed, and cuts in education, housing and healthcare are imposing a huge toll on the people.
Actions of civil resistance are spreading.
Last Dec. 16, a veterans-led civil resistance at the White House played an important role in bringing the anti-war movement from protest to resistance. Enduring hours of heavy snow, 131 veterans and other anti-war activists lined the White House fence and were arrested.
In Washington, D.C., on March 19 there will be an even larger veterans-led civil resistance at the White House initiated by Veterans for Peace. People from all over the country are joining together for a Noon Rally at Lafayette Park, followed by a march on the White House where the veterans-led civil resistance will take place.
Many people coming to Washington, D.C., will be also participating in the Sunday, March 20 demonstration at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia to support PFC Bradley Manning. Quantico is one hour from D.C. Manning is suspected of leaking Iraq and Afghan war logs to Wikileaks. For the last eight months, he has been held in solitary confinement, pre-trial punishment, rather than pre-trial detention.
The ANSWER Coalition is fully mobilizing its east coast and near mid-west chapters and activist networks to be at the White House.
In Los Angeles, the March 19 rally and march will gather at 12 noon at Hollywood and Vine.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
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CWA ANNOUNCES NATIONWIDE DAY OF ACTION APRIL 4
http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/cohen_announces_nationwide_day_of_action_april_4
'We Have the Opportunity to Plan and Build Something Enormous'
The voice of the labor movement and its allies will roar louder than ever on April 4, the anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when "it will not be business as usual at workplaces and communities across this nation," CWA President Larry Cohen said Wednesday.
Speaking to 10,000 CWA members on a nationwide phone call, Cohen said the AFL-CIO Executive Board had adopted his proposal for "movement-wide dramatic action" to honor King and the workers fighting for their rights today.
King was shot to death while he was in Memphis to support 1,300 striking city sanitation workers. "Their fight was about recognition, respect and dignity," Cohen said. "Dr. King called it a moral struggle for an economic outcome, much like the fights in the states and at the bargaining table and in every one of our organizing drives."
Cohen urged CWA locals and members to begin brainstorming ideas and making plans for April 4, challenging them and all Americans to "create events at every workplace in America."
It could be as simple as everyone wearing red that day, having workers meet outside and march into work together or standing up at noon and shouting, "Workers rights are human rights!" Cohen said.
Other ideas include candlelight vigils in parks, meetings of church congregations, rallies at statehouses and protests in front of corporate offices. Cohen said CWA locals and activists will receive an e-mail shortly asking them to submit their ideas and plans, and another town hall-style phone call will be held in advance of the events.
King's murder while fighting for city workers spurred public organizing drives across the United States. Cohen said there is no better way to honor that and King than by doing what he would do, "create a new movement for economic justice."
"We need to combine offense and defense," Cohen said. "We need to take it to every workplace, union and non union, private and public sector. We have an opportunity to plan and build something enormous."
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Are you joining us on April 8 at the Pentagon in a climate chaos protest codenamed "Operation Disarmageddon?" It has been decided that affinity groups will engage in nonviolent autonomous actions. Do you have an affinity group? Do you have an idea for an action?
So far these are some of the suggested actions:
Send a letter to Sec. of War Robert Gates demanding a meeting to disclose the Pentagon's role in destroying the planet. He will ignore the letter, so a delegation would then go to the Metro Entrance to demand a meeting.
Use crime tape around some area of the Pentagon. The idea of crime/danger taping off the building could be done just outside the main Pentagon reservation entrance (intersection of Army/Navy) making the Alexandria PD the arresting authority (if needed) and where there is no ban on photography. Hazmat suits, a 'converted' truck (or other vehicle) could be part of the street theater. The area where I am thinking is also almost directly below I-95 and there is a bridge over the intersection - making a banner drop possible. Perhaps with the hazmat/street closure at ground level with a banner from above. If possible a coordinated action could be done at other Pentagon entrances and / or other war making institutions.
A procession onto the Pentagon reservation, without reservations, and set up a camp on one of the lawns surrounding The Pentagon. This contingent would reclaim the space in the name of peace and Mother Earth. This contingent would plan to stay there until The Pentagon is turned into a 100% green building using sustainable energy employing people who work for peace and the abolishment of war and life-affirming endeavors.
Bring a potted tree to be placed on the Pentagon's property to symbolize the need to radically reduce its environmental destructiveness.
Since the Pentagon is failing to return to the taxpayers the money it has misappropriated, "Foreclose on the Pentagon."
Banner hanging from a bridge.
Hand out copies of David Swanson's book WAR IS A LIE. Try to deliver a copy to Secretary of War Robert Gates.
Have short speeches in park between Pentagon and river; nice photo with Pentagon in background.
Die-in and chalk or paint outlines of victim's bodies everywhere that remain after the arrest to point to where real crimes are really being committed.
Establish command center, Peacecom? Paxcom? Put several people in white shirts and ties plus a few generals directing their armies for "Operation Disarmageddon."
Make the linkage between the tax dollars going to the Pentagon and war tax resistance. Use the WRL pie chart and carry banners "foreclose on war" and "money for green jobs not war jobs."
Hold a rally with representative speakers before going to the Pentagon Reservation. This would be an opportunity to speak out against warmongering and the Pentagon's role in destroying the environment.
As part of "Operation Disarmageddon," we will take a tree and plant it on the reservation. Our sign reads, "Plant trees not landmines."
Use crime tape on Army/Navy Drive to declare the Pentagon a crime scene. Do street theater there as well. Other affinity groups could go to selected entrances.
Establish a Peace Command Center at the Pentagon. Hold solidarity actions at federal buildings and corporate offices.
What groups have you contacted to suggest joining us at the Pentagon? See below for those who plan to be at the Pentagon on April 8 and for what groups have been contacted.
Kagiso,
Max
April 8, 2011 participants
Beth Adams
Ellen Barfield
Tim Chadwick
Joy First
Jeffrey Halperin
Malachy Kilbride
Max Obuszewski
David Swanson
April 8 Outreach
Beth Adams -- Earth First, Puppet Underground, Emma's Revolution, Joe Gerson-AFSC Cambridge, Code Pink(national via Lisa Savage in Maine), Vets for Peace, FOR, UCC Justice & Witness Ministries, Traprock, Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order, (National-INt'l) Vets for Peace and WILPF, Pace e Bene, Christian Peace Witness & UCC Justice & Witness (Cleveland).
Tim Chadwick -- Brandywine, Lepoco, Witness against Torture, Vets for Peace (Thomas Paine Chapter Lehigh Valley PA), and Witness for Peace DC.
Jeffrey Halperin -- peace groups in Saratoga Spring, NY
Jack Lombardo - UNAC will add April 8 2011 to the Future Actions page on our blog, and make note in upcoming E-bulletins, but would appreciate a bit of descriptive text from the organizers and contact point to include when we do - so please advise ASAP! Also, we'll want to have such an announcement for our next print newsletter, which will be coming out in mid-December.
Max Obuszewski - Jonah House & Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore
Bonnie Urfer notified 351 individuals and groups on the Nukewatch list
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RALLY AGAINST THE WARS AGAINST WORKING PEOPLE AT HOME AND ABROAD! BACK TO THE STREETS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 2011
ASSEMBLE AT DOLORES PARK AT 11:00 A.M.
NOON RALLY
MARCH AT 1:30 P.M.
THEY are the government, corporate, and financial powers that wage war, ravage the environment and the economy and trample on our democratic rights and liberties.
WE are the vast majority of humanity who want peace, a healty planet and a society that prioritizes human needs, democracy and civil liberties for all.
WE DEMAND Bring U.S. Troops, Mercenaries and War Contractors Home Now: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan! End the sanctions and stop the threats of war against the people of Iran, North Korea and Yemen. No to war and plunder of the people of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa! End U.S. Aid to Israel! End U.S. Support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the Siege of Gaza! End support of dictators in North Africa!
WE DEMAND an end to FBI raids on antiwar, social justice, and international solidarity activists, an end to the racist persecution and prosecutions that ravage Muslim communities, an end to police terror in Black and Latino communities, full rights and legality for immigrants and an end to all efforts to repress and punish Wikileaks and its contributors and founders.
WE DEMAND the immediate end to torture, rendition, secret trials, drone bombings and death squads.
WE DEMAND trillions for jobs, education, social services, an end to all foreclosures, quality single-payer healthcare for ail, a massive conversion to sustainable and planet-saving energy systems and public transportation and reparations to the victims of U.S. terror at home and abroad.
Next organizing meeting Sunday, February 20, 1:00 P.M., Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street (between 15th and 16th Streets, San Francisco)
Sponsored by the United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC)
www.unacpeace.org
unacnortherncalifornia@gmail.com
415-49-NO-WAR
Facebook.com/EndTheWars
Twitter.com/UNACPeace
TRADUCCION:
Marcha en contra de las guerras: en casa y en el exterior
Ellos son el gobierno y las corporaciones que financian las guerras, destruyen el medio ambiente, la economía y pisotean nuestras libertades y derechos democráticos.
Nosotros, somos la gran mayoría de la humanidad y queremos paz. Un planeta saludable y una sociedad que priorice en las necesidades humanas, la democracia y las libertades civiles para todos.
Nosotros, demandamos que las tropas militares, los mercenarios y los contratistas de guerra que enviaron a Irak, Afganistán, y Paquistán sean traídas de regreso a los Estados Unidos ¡Ahora! Que paren con las sanciones y las amenazas de guerra en contra de los pueblos de Irán, Corea del Norte y Yemen; y que los Estados Unidos deje de colaborar con Israel en la invasión y acoso a Palestina y Gaza. No al saqueo de los pueblos de América Latina, el Caribe y África; que paren la persecución racista que amenaza las comunidades musulmanas y que paren el terror policiaco en contra de las comunidades negras y latinas; derechos totales y legalización para los emigrantes.
Nosotros, demandamos que el FBI pare de inmediato la persecución a los luchadores por la justicia social y la solidaridad internacional; como también pongan un alto a todos los esfuerzos que reprimen y castigan a los contribuidores y fundadores de Wikileaks.
Nosotros, demandamos trillones de dólares para trabajos, educación y servicios sociales; que cesen todos los embargos de viviendas y desalojos; un programa de salud gratuito y de calidad para todos; un programa energético de conversión masiva que salve al planeta y buen el sistema de transporte público. Y reparaciones para las víctimas del terror de estados unidos aquí en casa y en el exterior.
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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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Dropkick Murphys - Worker's Song (with lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTafZRecy2k&feature=email&tracker=False
Worker's Song Lyrics
Artist(Band):Dropkick Murphys
Yeh, this one's for the workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead
In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We've often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed
[Chorus:]
We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And we're always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about
And when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
Though we've never owned one lousy handful of earth?
[Chorus x3]
All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can
Which Side Are You On - Dropkick Murphys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKWfnO7fhQM&feature=email&tracker=False
Lyrics :
Our father was a union man
some day i'll be one too.
The bosses fired daddy
what's our family gonna do?
Come all you good workers,
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how the good old union
Has come in here to dwell.
CHORUS:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on? (x2)
My dady was a miner,
And I'm a miner's son,
And I'll stick with the union
'Til every battle's won.
They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there.
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J. H. Blair.
Oh workers can you stand it?
Oh tell me how you can?
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?
Don't scab for the bosses,
Don't listen to their lies.
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize !
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Stephen King at Awake the State Rally in Sarasota 3.8.11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpn305Y7ToA&feature=player_embedded
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Lifting the Veil
http://metanoia-films.org/compilations.php
"Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet. See this film!"
Larry Pinkney
Editorial Board Member & Columnist
The Black Commentator
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'America Is NOT Broke': Michael Moore Speaks in Madison, WI -- March 5, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw&feature=player_embedded
Answer to Michael Moore: We ain't Gonna Play the Game No More!
By Bonnie Weinstein
info@socialistviewpoint.org
socialistviewpoint.org
The problem with Michael Moore's speech in Wisconsin March 5, 2011 is that the 14 Democratic emigres have already given away the economic security of the workers--their pay; their benefits; their vacations; their sick-days; their overtime. They have even convinced organized labor to accept the pay cuts, shorter hours--anything but unemployment, starvation and homelessness!
What noble choices the good Democrats have given to the masses of struggling working people in Wisconsin and everywhere!
In the prelude to his speech, Moore lauds those "heroic 14 Democratic" émigrés that have already given away the workers hard-won benefits and conditions for holding firm and staying away--"not one has come back!" he cheers.
Where are the rest of the Democratic politicians around the country? Where's Obama when masses of workers are being sold down the river? What about all the Democratic governors and mayors who are doing the same thing in their respective states and cities across the country. There isn't one state or city that's lavishing more on social services; on schools; on community medical centers; on healthcare--everyone everywhere EXCEPT THE TOP ONE PERCENT is being asked to give back and give up and surrender to the new middle ages--with the Democrats pretending and promising to steal a little less from workers than the Republicans! Workers can't depend upon any party that claims to represent both workers and the bosses. The jig is up!
Working people need to make democratic decisions based upon our own needs and wants and what is good for us and our families; like whether to spend trillions of OUR dollars on wars based upon lies; or on massive bailouts to corporations who have stolen and hoarded the wealth for themselves; or whether to use the fruits of our labor to pay for healthcare; schools; housing; all the things people need to live healthy, free and happy lives.
Working people produce the wealth; working people should have democratic control over that wealth and the means of production they operate to produce it.
The game of voting for one capitalist liar over another is over. It's like plea-bargaining when you are innocent. It's a lose/lose situation and certainly, the workers of the world are losing the game!
No, America is not broke. But telling workers to depend upon the capitalist electoral process, which only allows workers to vote for one capitalist representative over another, is preposterous and makes workers broke!
We workers must take that wealth that we, and we alone create, into our own hands. We can. We are the majority. And it's the only hope for creating a happy and healthy future for all of us, our children and the world. As Rosa Luxemburg said, the only choice for workers is Socialism; or else, we will continue the plunge into Barbarism!
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Michael Moore: People Still Have the Power
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/63-63/5157-michael-moore-people-still-have-the-power
More GRITtv
"This is a movement that is not going to stop," says filmmaker Michael Moore of the uprising in Madison, Wisconsin (and across the country--all 50 states held solidarity rallies this weekend). "I knew sooner or later people would say they've had enough."
Michael joins Laura in studio for part one of a two-part conversation about the war on working people in America. He notes that it started in 1981 with Reagan's attack on the air traffic controllers, and it's mostly targeted the poor, as with Clinton's welfare reform. But the attacks on middle class families have finally reached a point where people aren't going to take it anymore.
Watch out for part two tomorrow!
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BP Oil Spill Scientist Bob Naman: Seafood Still Not Safe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3VdxvMnDls
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Exclusive: Flow Rate Scientist : How Much Oil Is Really Out There?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsHl3kn63ZA&NR=1
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Labor Beat: No Concessions Emergency Meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaFrWNi2gM0
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Iraq Veterans Against the War in Occupied Capitol, Madison, WI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7K0wn73uJU
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A joke:
A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are
sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a
dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies,
looks at the tea partier and says,"watch out for that union guy, he
wants a piece of your cookie."
Marc Luzietti
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Charlie Sheen on 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PviXgj-yS5Y
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18th dead baby dolphin washes ashore in Northern Gulf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybFeuSNszSg&feature=player_embedded
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[This is a great video. Kipp Dawson, the school teacher in the video, is an old friend...bw]
Middle Class Revolution
Hundreds packed USW headquarters Feb. 24. 2011, to rally for the middle class and stand up against attacks on workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere. Check out highlights here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_UmZYlSyC5U
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Wisconsin "Budget Repair Bill" Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TmSNPpzkWc
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solidarity
'We Stand With You as You Stood With Us': Statement to Workers of Wisconsin by Kamal Abbas of Egypt's Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services
February 20th, 2011 3:45 PM
About Kamal Abbas and the Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services:
Kamal Abbas is General Coordinator of the CTUWS, an umbrella advocacy organization for independent unions in Egypt. The CTUWS, which was awarded the 1999 French Republic's Human Rights Prize, suffered repeated harassment and attack by the Mubarak regime, and played a leading role in its overthrow. Abbas, who witnessed friends killed by the regime during the 1989 Helwan steel strike and was himself arrested and threatened numerous times, has received extensive international recognition for his union and civil society leadership.
KAMAL ABBAS: I am speaking to you from a place very close to Tahrir Square in Cairo, "Liberation Square", which was the heart of the Revolution in Egypt. This is the place were many of our youth paid with their lives and blood in the struggle for our just rights.
From this place, I want you to know that we stand with you as you stood with us.
I want you to know that no power can challenge the will of the people when they believe in their rights. When they raise their voices loud and clear and struggle against exploitation.
No one believed that our revolution could succeed against the strongest dictatorship in the region. But in 18 days the revolution achieved the victory of the people. When the working class of Egypt joined the revolution on 9 and 10 February, the dictatorship was doomed and the victory of the people became inevitable.
We want you to know that we stand on your side. Stand firm and don't waiver. Don't give up on your rights. Victory always belongs to the people who stand firm and demand their just rights.
We and all the people of the world stand on your side and give you our full support.
As our just struggle for freedom, democracy and justice succeeded, your struggle will succeed. Victory belongs to you when you stand firm and remain steadfast in demanding your just rights.
We support you. we support the struggle of the peoples of Libya, Bahrain and Algeria, who are fighting for their just rights and falling martyrs in the face of the autocratic regimes. The peoples are determined to succeed no matter the sacrifices and they will be victorious.
Today is the day of the American workers. We salute you American workers! You will be victorious. Victory belongs to all the people of the world, who are fighting against exploitation, and for their just rights.
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Stop LAPD Stealing of Immigrant's Cars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0lf4kENkxo
On Februrary 19, 2011 Members of the Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC) organized and engaged in direct action to defend the people of Los Angeles, CA from the racist LAPD "Sobriety" Checkpoints that are a poorly disguised trap to legally steal the cars from working class people in general and undocumented people in particular. Please disseminate this link widely.
Venceremos,
SCIC
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Protesters weather major snowstorm in Wausau, Wisconsin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7enVDAr1IY&feature=player_embedded
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[For subtitles, press the little red cc at the bottom, right of the screen.]
Sout Al Horeya Amir Eid - Hany Adel - Hawary On Guitar & Sherif On Keyboards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8
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Hymn of Egyptian revolution on Youtube with EN subtitels "Saut al Hurria" (Voice of the revolution)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ5CqhL5X4o
First Responders
Wednesday, February 16th, in the State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin, well over ten thousand citizens representing many others (teachers and students, nurses, custodial workers, firefighters, parents, families, community members and staunch union supporters) gathered to say NO! to Governor Scott Walker's so-called "Repair Bill"
The message was unequivocal and clear: no rolling back workers collective bargaining rights and to NEGOTIATE not LEGISLATE our way toward a better future.
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WikiLeaks Mirrors
Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.
In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, you will find below a list of mirrors of Wikileaks website and CableGate pages.
Go to
http://wikileaks.ch/Mirrors.html
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Oil Spill Commission Final Report: Catfish Responds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ZRdsccMsM
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The Most Heroic Word in All Languages is Revolution
By Eugene Debs
Eugene Debs, that greatest son of the Middle American west, wrote this in 1907 in celebration of that year's May Day events. It retains all of its vibrancy and vitality as events breathe new life into the global struggle for emancipation. "Revolution" remains the most heroic word in every language. -The Rustbelt Radical
Today the slaves of all the world are taking a fresh breath in the long and weary march; pausing a moment to clear their lungs and shout for joy; celebrating in festal fellowship their coming Freedom.
All hail the Labor Day of May!
The day of the proletarian protest;
The day of stern resolve;
The day of noble aspiration.
Raise high this day the blood-red Standard of the Revolution!
The banner of the Workingman;
The flag, the only flag, of Freedom.
Slavery, even the most abject-dumb and despairing as it may seem-has yet its inspiration. Crushed it may be, but extinguished never. Chain the slave as you will, O Masters, brutalize him as you may, yet in his soul, though dead, he yearns for freedom still.
The great discovery the modern slaves have made is that they themselves must achieve. This is the secret of their solidarity; the heart of their hope; the inspiration that nerves them all with sinews of steel.
They are still in bondage, but no longer cower;
No longer grovel in the dust,
But stand erect like men.
Conscious of their growing power the future holds up to them her outstretched hands.
As the slavery of the working class is international, so the movement for its emancipation.
The salutation of slave to slave this day is repeated in every human tongue as it goes ringing round the world.
The many millions are at last awakening. For countless ages they have suffered; drained to the dregs the bitter cup of misery and woe.
At last, at last the historic limitation has been reached, and soon a new sun will light the world.
Red is the life-tide of our common humanity and red our symbol of universal kinship.
Tyrants deny it; fear it; tremble with rage and terror when they behold it.
We reaffirm it and on this day pledge anew our fidelity-come life or death-to the blood-red Banner of the Revolution.
Socialist greetings this day to all our fellow-workers! To the god-like souls in Russia marching grimly, sublimely into the jaws of hell with the Song of the Revolution in their death-rattle; to the Orient, the Occident and all the Isles of the Sea!
VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
The most heroic word in all languages is REVOLUTION.
It thrills and vibrates; cheers and inspires. Tyrants and time-servers fear it, but the oppressed hail it with joy.
The throne trembles when this throbbing word is lisped, but to the hovel it is food for the famishing and hope for the victims of despair.
Let us glorify today the revolutions of the past and hail the Greater Revolution yet to come before Emancipation shall make all the days of the year May Days of peace and plenty for the sons and daughters of toil.
It was with Revolution as his theme that Mark Twain's soul drank deep from the fount of inspiration. His immortality will rest at last upon this royal tribute to the French Revolution:
"The ever memorable and blessed revolution, which swept a thousand years of villainy away in one swift tidal wave of blood-one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two Reigns of Terror, if we would but remember it and consider it: the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death on ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the horrors of the minor Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror, which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over, but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."
-The Rustbelt Radical, February 25, 2011
http://rustbeltradical.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/the-most-heroic-word-in-all-languages-is-revolution/
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New music video by tommi avicolli mecca of the song "stick and stones," which is about bullying in high school, is finished and up on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of_twpu3-Nw
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New antiwar song that's bound to be a classic:
box
http://www.youtube.com/user/avimecca
by tommi avicolli mecca
(c) 2009
Credits are:
Tommi Avicolli Mecca, guitar/vocals
John Radogno, lead guitar
Diana Hartman, vocals, kazoo
Chris Weir, upright bass
Produced and recorded by Khalil Sullivan
I'm the recruiter and if truth be told/ I can lure the young and old
what I do you won't see/ til your kid's in JROTC
CHO ooh, put them in a box drape it with a flag and send them off to mom and dad
send them with a card from good ol' uncle sam, gee it's really just so sad
I'm the general and what I do/ is to teach them to be true
to god and country flag and oil/ by shedding their blood on foreign soil
CHO
I'm the corporate boss and well I know/ war is lots of dough dough dough
you won't find me over there/ they just ship the money right back here
CHO
last of all it's me the holy priest/ my part is not the least
I assure them it's god's will/ to go on out and kill kill kill
CHO
it's really just so sad
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Free Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eNzokgRIw&feature=player_embedded
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Supermax Prison Cell Extraction - Maine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jUfK5i_lQs&feature=player_embedded
Warning, this is an extremely brutal video. What do you think? Is this torture?
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Did You Know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
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These videos refer to what happened at the G-20 Summit in Toronto June 26-27 of this year. The importance of this is that police were caught on tape and later confirmed that they sent police into the demonstration dressed as "rioting" protesters. One cop was caught with a large rock in his hand. Clearly, this is proof of police acting as agent provocatours. And we should expect this to continue and escalate. That's why everyone should be aware of these facts...bw
police accused of attempting to incite violence at G20 summ
Protestors at Montebello are accusing police of trying to incite violence. Video on YouTube shows union officials confronting three men that were police officers dressing up as demonstrators. The union is demanding to know if the Prime Minister's Office was involved in trying to discredit the demonstrators.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWbgnyUCC7M
quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=related
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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#
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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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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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"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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The Arab Revolutions:
Guiding Principles for Peace and Justice Organizations in the US
Please email endorsement to ekishawi@yahoo.com
We, the undersigned, support the guiding principles and demands listed in this statement. We call on groups who want to express solidarity with the Arab revolutions to join our growing movement by signing this statement or keeping with the demands put forward herewith.
Background
The long-awaited Arab revolution has come. Like a geologic event with the reverberations of an earthquake, the timing and circumstances were unpredictable. In one Arab country after another, people are taking to the street demanding the fall of monarchies established during European colonial times. They are also calling to bring down dictatorships supported and manifested by neo-colonial policies. Although some of these autocratic regimes rose to power with popular support, the subsequent division and subjugation of the Arab World led to a uniform repressive political order across the region. The Arab masses in different Arab countries are therefore raising a uniform demand: "The People Want to Topple the Regimes!"
For the past two decades, the Arab people witnessed the invasion and occupation of Iraq with millions killed under blockade and occupation, Palestinians massacred with the aim to crush the anti-Zionist resistance, and Lebanon repeatedly invaded with the purposeful targeting of civilians. These actions all served to crush resistance movements longing for freedom, development, and self-determination. Meanwhile, despotic dictatorships, some going back 50 years, entrenched themselves by building police states, or fighting wars on behalf of imperialist interests.
Most Arab regimes systematically destroyed the social fabric of civil society, stifled social development, repressed all forms of political dissent and democratic expression, mortgaged their countries' wealth to foreign interests and enriched themselves and their cronies at the expense of impoverishing their populations. After pushing the Arab people to the brink, populations erupted.
The spark began in Tunisia where a police officer slapped and spat on Mohammad Bou Azizi, flipping over his produce cart for not delivering a bribe on time. . Unable to have his complaint heard, he self-immolated in protest, igniting the conscience of the Tunisian people and that of 300 million Arabs. In less than a month, the dictator, Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, was forced into exile by a Tunisian revolution. On its way out, the regime sealed its legacy by shooting at unarmed protestors and burning detention centers filled with political prisoners. Ben Ali was supported by the US and Europe in the fight against Islamic forces and organized labor.
Hosni Mubarak's brutal dictatorship fell less than a month after Tunisia's. The revolution erupted at a time when one half of the Egyptian population was living on less than $2/day while Mubarak's family amassed billions of dollars. The largest population recorded in Egyptian history was living in graveyards and raising their children among the dead while transportation and residential infrastructure was crumbling. Natural gas was supplied to Israel at 15% of the market price while the Rafah border was closed with an underground steel wall to complete the suffocation of the Palestinians in Gaza. Those who were deemed a threat swiftly met the fate of Khalid Said. 350 martyrs fell and 2,000 people were injured.
After Egypt and Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan exploded in protest. Some governments quickly reshuffled faces and ranks without any tangible change. Some, like Bahrain and Yemen, sent out their security forces to massacre civilians. Oman and Yemen represent strategic assets for the US as they are situated on the straits of Hormuz and Aden, respectively. Bahrain is an oil country that hosts a US military base, situated in the Persian Gulf. A new round of US funded blood-letting of Arab civilians has begun!
Libyan dictator Qaddafi did not prove to be an exception. He historically took anti-imperialist positions for a united Arab World and worked for an African Union. He later transformed his regime to a subservient state and opened Libya to British Petroleum and Italian interests, working diligently on privatization and political repression. He amassed more wealth than that of Mubarak. In the face of the Libyan revolution, Qaddafi exceeded the brutality of Ben Ali and Mubarak blind-folding and executing opponents, surrounding cities with tanks, and bombing his own country. Death toll is expected to be in the thousands.
Qaddafi's history makes Libya an easy target for imperialist interests. The Obama administration followed the Iraq cookbook by freezing Libyan assets amounting to 30% of the annual GDP. The White House, with the help of European governments, rapidly implemented sanctions and called for no-fly zones. These positions were precipitated shortly after the US vetoed a resolution condemning the illegal Israeli colonization of the West Bank. Special operations personnel from the UK were captured by the revolutionary commanders in Ben Ghazi and sent back. The Libyan revolutionary leadership, the National Council clearly stated: "We are completely against foreign intervention. The rest of Libya will be liberated by the people ... and Gaddafi's security forces will be eliminated by the people of Libya."
Demands of the Solidarity Movement with Arab Revolutions
1. We demand a stop to US support, financing and trade with Arab dictatorships. We oppose US policy that has favored Israeli expansionism, war, US oil interest and strategic shipping routes at the expense of Arab people's freedom and dignified living.
2. We support the people of Tunisia and Egypt as well as soon-to-be liberated nations to rid themselves of lingering remnants of the deposed dictatorships.
3. We support the Arab people's right to sovereignty and self-determination. We demand that the US government stop its interference in the internal affairs of all Arab countries and end subsidies to wars and occupation.
4. We support the Arab people's demands for political, civil and economic rights. The Arab people's movement is calling for:
a. Deposing the unelected regimes and all of its institutional remnants
b. Constitutional reform guaranteeing freedom of organizing, speech and press
c. Free and fair elections
d. Independent judiciary
e. National self-determination.
5. We oppose all forms of US and European military intervention with or without the legitimacy of the UN. Standing in solidarity with the revolution against Qaddafi, or any other dictator, does not equate to supporting direct or indirect colonization of an Arab country, its oil or its people. We therefore call for:
a. Absolute rejection of military blockades, no-fly zones and interventions.
b. Lifting all economic sanctions placed against Libya and allowing for the formation of an independent judiciary to prosecute Qaddafi and deposed dictators for their crimes.
c. Immediately withdrawing the US and NATO troops from the Arab region.
6. We support Iraq's right to sovereignty and self determination and call on the US to immediately withdraw all occupation personnel from Iraq.
7. We recognize that the borders separating Arab nations were imposed on the Arab people by the colonial agreements of Sykes-Picot and the Berlin Conference on Africa. As such, we support the anti-Zionist nature of this revolution in its call for:
a. Ending the siege and starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza
b. Supporting the right of the Palestinian people to choose their own representation, independent of Israeli and US dictates
c. Supporting the right of the Lebanese people to defend their country from Israeli violations and their call to end vestiges of the colonial constitution constructed on the basis of sectarian representation
d. Supporting the right of the Jordanian people to rid themselves of their repressive monarchy
e. Ending all US aid to Israel.
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY -- ANY DAY
to Fitzgerald, Holder and Obama
The Grand Jury is still on its witch hunt and the FBI is still
harassing activists. This must stop.
Please make these calls:
1. Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 . Then dial 0
(zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
2. Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
3. Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
Suggested text: "My name is __________, I am from _______(city), in
______(state). I am calling _____ to demand he call off the Grand Jury
and stop FBI repression against the anti-war and Palestine solidarity
movements. I oppose U.S. government political repression and support
the right to free speech and the right to assembly of the 23 activists
subpoenaed. We will not be criminalized. Tell him to stop this
McCarthy-type witch hunt against international solidarity activists!"
If your call doesn't go through, try again later.
Update: 800 anti-war and international solidarity activists
participated in four regional conferences, in Chicago, IL; Oakland,
CA; Chapel Hill, NC and New York City to stop U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald's Grand Jury repression.
Still, in the last few weeks, the FBI has continued to call and harass
anti-war organizers, repressing free speech and the right to organize.
However, all of their intimidation tactics are bringing a movement
closer together to stop war and demand peace.
We demand:
-- Call Off the Grand Jury Witch-hunt Against International Solidarity
Activists!
-- Support Free Speech!
-- Support the Right to Organize!
-- Stop FBI Repression!
-- International Solidarity Is Not a Crime!
-- Stop the Criminalization of Arab and Muslim Communities!
Background: Fitzgerald ordered FBI raids on anti-war and solidarity
activists' homes and subpoenaed fourteen activists in Chicago,
Minneapolis, and Michigan on September 24, 2010. All 14 refused to
speak before the Grand Jury in October. Then, 9 more Palestine
solidarity activists, most Arab-Americans, were subpoenaed to appear
at the Grand Jury on January 25, 2011, launching renewed protests.
There are now 23 who assert their right to not participate in
Fitzgerald's witch-hunt.
The Grand Jury is a secret and closed inquisition, with no judge, and
no press. The U.S. Attorney controls the entire proceedings and hand
picks the jurors, and the solidarity activists are not allowed a
lawyer. Even the date when the Grand Jury ends is a secret.
So please make these calls to those in charge of the repression aimed
against anti-war leaders and the growing Palestine solidarity
movement.
Email us to let us know your results. Send to info@StopFBI.net
**Please sign and circulate our 2011 petition at http://www.stopfbi.net/petition
In Struggle,
Tom Burke,
for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
FFI: Visit www.StopFBI.net or email info@StopFBI.net or call
612-379-3585 .
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights
reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
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MECA Middle East Children's Alliance
Howard & Roslyn Zinn Presente! Honor Their Legacy By Providing Clean Water for Children in Gaza
http://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=13
Howard Zinn supported the work of the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) from the beginning. Over the years, he lent his name and his time countless times to support our work. Howard and Roz were both personal friends of mine and Howard helped MECA raise funds for our projects for children in Palestine by coming to the Bay Area and doing events for us.
On the first anniversary of Howard's passing, I hope you will join MECA in celebrating these two extraordinary individuals.
- Barbara Lubin, Executive Director
YES! I want to help MECA build a water purification and desalination unit at the Khan Younis Co-ed Elementary School for 1,400 students in Gaza in honor of Howard & Roslyn Zinn.
http://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=13
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Call for EMERGENCY RESPONSE Action if Assange Indicted,
Dear Friends:
We write in haste, trying to reach as many of you as possible although the holiday break has begun.......This plan for an urgent "The Day After" demonstration is one we hope you and many, many more organizations will take up as your own, and mobilize for. World Can't Wait asks you to do all you can to spread it through list serves, Facebook, twitter, holiday gatherings.
Our proposal is very very simple, and you can use the following announcement to mobilize - or write your own....
ANY DAY NOW . . . IN THE EVENT THAT THE U.S. INDICTS JULIAN ASSANGE
An emergency public demonstration THE DAY AFTER any U.S. criminal indictment is announced against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Spread the word and call people to come out, across the whole range of movements and groups: anti-war, human rights, freedom of information/freedom of the press, peace, anti-torture, environmental, students and youth, radicals and revolutionaries, religious, civil liberties, teachers and educators, journalists, anti-imperialists, anti-censorship, anti-police state......
At the Federal Building in San Francisco, we'll form ourselves into a human chain "surrounding" the government that meets the Wikileaked truth with repression and wants to imprison and silence leakers, whistleblowers and truthtellers - when, in fact, these people are heroes. We'll say:
HANDS OFF WIKILEAKS! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Join the HUMAN CHAIN AROUND THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
New Federal Building, 7th and Mission, San Francisco (nearest BART: Civic Center)
4:00-6:00 PM on The Day FOLLOWING U.S. indictment of Assange
Bring all your friends - signs and banners - bullhorns.
Those who dare at great risk to themselves to put the truth in the hands of the people - and others who might at this moment be thinking about doing more of this themselves -- need to see how much they are supported, and that despite harsh repression from the government and total spin by the mainstream media, the people do want the truth told.
Brad Manning's Christmas Eve statement was just released by his lawyer: "Pvt. Bradley Manning, the lone soldier who stands accused of stealing millions of pages secret US government documents and handing them over to secrets outlet WikiLeaks, wants his supporters to know that they've meant a lot to him. 'I greatly appreciate everyone's support and well wishes during this time,' he said in a Christmas Eve statement released by his lawyer...." Read more here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mannings-message-christmas-eve-i-gr/
Demonstrations defending Wikileaks and Assange, and Brad Manning, have already been flowering around the world. Make it happen here too.
Especially here . . .
To join into this action plan, or with questions, contact World Can't Wait or whichever organization or listserve you received this message from.
World Can't Wait, SF Bay
415-864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
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Email received from Lynne Stewart:
12/19/10; 12:03pm
Dear Folks:
Some nuts and bolts and trivia,
1. New Address
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
2. Visiting is very liberal but first I have to get people on my visiting list Wait til I or the lawyers let you know. The visits are FRI, SAT, SUN AND MON for 4 hours and on weekends 8 to 3. Bring clear plastic change purse with lots of change to buy from the machines. Brief Kiss upon arrival and departure, no touching or holding during visit (!!) On visiting forms it may be required that you knew me before I came to prison. Not a problem for most of you.
3. One hour time difference
4. Commissary Money is always welcome It is how I pay for the phone and for email. Also need it for a lot that prison doesn't supply in terms of food and "sundries" (pens!) A very big list that includes Raisins, Salad Dressing , ankle sox, mozzarella (definitely not from Antonys--more like a white cheddar, Sanitas Corn Chips but no Salsa etc. To add money, you do this by using Western Union and a credit card by phone or you can send a USPO money order or Business or Govt Check. The negotiable instruments (PAPER!) need to be sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons , 53504-054, Lynne Stewart, PO Box 474701, Des Moines Iowa 50947-001 (Payable to Lynne Stewart, 53504-054) They hold the mo or checks for 15 days. Western Union costs $10 but is within 2 hours. If you mail, your return address must be on the envelope. Unnecessarily complicated ? Of course, it's the BOP !)
5. Food is vastly improved. Just had Sunday Brunch real scrambled eggs, PORK sausage, Baked or home fried potatoes, Butter(sweet whipped M'God !!) Grapefruit juice Toast , orange. I will probably regain the weight I lost at MCC! Weighing against that is the fact that to eat we need to walk to another building (about at far as from my house to the F Train) Also included is 3 flights of stairs up and down. May try to get an elevator pass and try NOT to use it.
6. In a room with 4 bunks(small) about two tiers of rooms with same with "atrium" in middle with tv sets and tables and chairs. Estimate about 500 on Unit 2N and there are 4 units. Population Black, Mexicano and other spanish speaking (all of whom iron their underwear, Marta), White, Native Americans (few), no orientals or foreign speaking caucasians--lots are doing long bits, victims of drugs (meth etc) and boyfriends. We wear army style (khaki) pants with pockets tee shirts and dress shirts long sleeved and short sleeved. When one of the women heard that I hadn't ironed in 40 years, they offered to do the shirts for me. (This is typical of the help I get--escorted to meals and every other protection, explanations, supplies, etc. Mostly from white women.) One drawback is not having a bathroom in the room---have to go about 75 yards at all hours of the day and night --clean though.
7. Final Note--the sunsets and sunrises are gorgeous, the place is very open and outdoors there are pecan trees and birds galore (I need books for trees and birds (west) The full moon last night gladdened my heart as I realized it was shining on all of you I hold dear.
Love Struggle
Lynne
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please make a generous contribution to her defense.
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Help end the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning!
Bradley Manning Support Network. December 22, 2010
The Marine Brig at Quantico, Virginia is using "injury prevention" as a vehicle to inflict extreme pre-trial punishment on accused Wikileaks whistleblower Army PFC Bradley Manning (photo right). These "maximum conditions" are not unheard-of during an inmate's first week at a military confinement facility, but when applied continuously for months and with no end in sight they amount to a form of torture. Bradley, who just turned 23-years-old last week, has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest in late May. We're now turning to Bradley's supporters worldwide to directly protest, and help bring a halt to, the extremely punitive conditions of Bradley's pre-trial detention.
We need your help in pressing the following demands:
End the inhumane, degrading conditions of pre-trial confinement and respect Bradley's human rights. Specifically, lift the "Prevention of Injury (POI) watch order". This would allow Bradley meaningful physical exercise, uninterrupted sleep during the night, and a release from isolation. We are not asking for "special treatment". In fact, we are demanding an immediate end to the special treatment.
Quantico Base Commander
Colonel Daniel Choike
3250 Catlin Ave, Quantico VA 22134
+1-703-784-2707 (phone)
Quantico Brig Commanding Officer
CWO4 James Averhart
3247 Elrod Ave, Quantico VA 22134
+1-703-784-4242 (fax)
Background
In the wake of an investigative report last week by Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com giving evidence that Bradley Manning was subject to "detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries", Bradley's attorney, David Coombs, published an article at his website on Saturday entitled "A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning". Mr. Coombs details the maximum custody conditions that Bradley is subject to at the Quantico Confinement Facility and highlights an additional set of restrictions imposed upon him under a Prevention of Injury (POI) watch order.
Usually enforced only through a detainee's first week at a confinement facility, or in cases of violent and/or suicidal inmates, the standing POI order has severely limited Manning's access to exercise, daylight and human contact for the past five months. The military's own psychologists assigned to Quantico have recommended that the POI order and the extra restrictions imposed on Bradley be lifted.
Despite not having been convicted of any crime or even yet formally indicted, the confinement regime Bradley lives under includes pronounced social isolation and a complete lack of opportunities for meaningful exercise. Additionally, Bradley's sleep is regularly interrupted. Coombs writes: "The guards are required to check on Manning every five minutes [...] At night, if the guards cannot see PFC Manning clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him in order to ensure he is okay."
Denver Nicks writes in The Daily Beast that "[Bradley Manning's] attorney [...] says the extended isolation - now more than seven months of solitary confinement - is weighing on his client's psyche. [...] Both Coombs and Manning's psychologist, Coombs says, are sure Manning is mentally healthy, that there is no evidence he's a threat to himself, and shouldn't be held in such severe conditions under the artifice of his own protection."
In an article to be published at Firedoglake.com later today, David House, a friend of Bradley's who visits him regularly at Quantico, says that Bradley "has not been outside or into the brig yard for either recreation or exercise in four full weeks. He related that visits to the outdoors have been infrequent and sporadic for the past several months."
In an average military court martial situation, a defense attorney would be able to bring these issues of pre-trial punishment to the military judge assigned to the case (known as an Article 13 hearing). However, the military is unlikely to assign a judge to Bradley's case until the pre-trial Article 32 hearing is held (similar to an arraignment in civilian court), and that is not expected until February, March, or later-followed by the actual court martial trial months after that. In short, you are Bradley's best and most immediate hope.
What can you do?
Contact the Marine Corps officers above and respectfully, but firmly, ask that they lift the extreme pre-trial confinement conditions against Army PFC Bradley Manning.
Forward this urgent appeal for action widely.
Sign the "Stand with Brad" public petition and letter campaign at www.standwithbrad.org - Sign online, and we'll mail out two letters on your behalf to Army officials.
Donate to Bradley's defense fund at www.couragetoresist.org/bradley
References:
"The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention", by Glenn Greenwald for Salon.com, 15 December 2010
"A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning", by attorney David E. Coombs, 18 December 2010
"Bradley Manning's Life Behind Bars", by Denver Nicks for the Daily Beast, 17 December 2010
Bradley Manning Support Network
Courage To Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
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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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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.
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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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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
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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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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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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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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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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 (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
One: HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST - NO MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA - TROOPS OUT
OF AFGHANISTAN
Two: JOIN THE WELFARE NOT WARFARE BLOC ON MARCH 26TH
http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2241/242/
2) Explosion Rocks Japan Nuclear Plant After Quake
By MICHAEL WINES AND MATTHEW L. WALD
March 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/world/asia/13nuclear.html?hp
3) The Limits of Safeguards and Human Foresight
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/weekinreview/13limits.html?hp
4) Fighting Escalates in Yemeni Capital
By LAURA KASINOF
March 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/world/middleeast/13YEMEN.html?ref=world
5) Gates Visits Bahrain Amid Huge Protests
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and NEIL MacFARQUHAR
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/middleeast/12unrest.html?ref=world
6) Obama Defends Detention Conditions for Soldier Accused in WikiLeaks Case
By SCOTT SHANE
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/us/12manning.html?ref=us
7) Virginia: Manslaughter VerdictsIn Death of Afghan Civilian
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/us/12brfs-MANSLAUGHTER_BRF.html?ref=us
8) America should not prosecute Julian Assange
By Joseph Nye
Published: March 8 2011 22:06 | Last updated: March 8 2011 22:06
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/595fd0c4-49bd-11e0-acf0-00144feab49a.html#axzz1GP9Yq0Vd
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1) IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
One: HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST - NO MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA - TROOPS OUT
OF AFGHANISTAN
Two: JOIN THE WELFARE NOT WARFARE BLOC ON MARCH 26TH
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One: HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST - NO MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA - TROOPS OUT
OF AFGHANISTAN
Join the day of action this Saturday March 12th - Downing Street 2pm in
London
Check website for out of London details
http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2241/242/
This Saturday Stop the War activists around the country will be out campaigning
against western military intervention - against the occupation of Afghanistan
and against possible intervention in Libya.
Soaring civilian casualties in Afghanistan are causing growing anger there. On
Sunday hundreds of people chanting against NATO protested in Kabul against a
spate of civilian casualties caused by international forces. Recent UN figures
show that civilian deaths were up 20% in 2010. Violence is due to increase
again as the spring fighting season starts.
Meanwhile the British government is pushing for military intervention in Libya.
As even some Pentagon chiefs are saying, setting up a no fly zone would
effectively involve a Western attack on Libya, almost certainly strengthening
Gadaffi's hand.
Any such operation would be driven by the same cynical self interest that has
led the West to back dictators - including Gadaffi - across the region for
generations.
Gadaffi's attempt to repress the uprising is sickening, but the best way to
support the democracy movement is to demand that Western governments recognise
the Interim National Council, stop paying Gadaffi for oil and drop any plans
for intervention.
See Stop the War's statement on Libya
http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2241/242/
The letter in today's Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/10/libya-no-fly-zone
And John Rees's interview on BBC 24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W50HsJbCp-8&feature=player_embedded
Stalls, petitioning sessions and protests are taking place in many towns and
cities this weekend, check the website for details.
In London Stop the War, CND and the British Muslim Initiative have called a
protest outside Downing Street at 2pm. Make sure you are there.
http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2241/242/
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Two: JOIN THE WELFARE NOT WARFARE BLOC ON MARCH 26TH
Stop the War, CND and the British Muslim Initiative are organising an antiwar
contingent on the TUC anti-cuts March in a fortnight's time. The march
promises to be huge. The government continues to pretend there is no
alternative to its austerity plan, so it's vital we get across our demands
for a different set of priorities. If we brought the troops home from
Afghanistan and cut Trident we would have enough to spend on education, health
and housing.
Stop the War has produced special postcards publicising the demonstration and
outlining the difference cutting war and Trident could make. You can order them
from the office - 0207 801 2768, office@stopwar.org.uk
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2) Explosion Rocks Japan Nuclear Plant After Quake
By MICHAEL WINES AND MATTHEW L. WALD
March 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/world/asia/13nuclear.html?hp
TOKYO - An explosion at a nuclear power plant in northern Japan on Saturday blew the roof off one building and destroyed the exterior walls of a crippled reactor, but officials said radiation leaks from the plant were receding and that a major meltdown was not imminent.
Japanese television showed a cloud of white-gray smoke from the explosion billowing up from a stricken reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Saturday afternoon, and officials said the threat of ongoing radiation leaks prompted them to expand the evacuation area around the facility to a 12-mile radius.
Although safety officials described the release of radioactive materials as small, they also told the International Atomic Energy Agency that they were making preparations to distribute iodine, which is used to help protect from radiation exposure, to people living near two nuclear plants that suffered damage in the quake. Japanese news media said three workers at the Daiichi plant had suffered radiation exposure.
Government officials and executives of Tokyo Electric Power, which runs the plant, gave confusing accounts of the causes of the explosion and the damage it caused. Late Saturday night, officials said that the explosion occurred in a structure housing turbines near the No. 1 reactor at the plant rather than inside the reactor itself.
The blast, apparently caused by a sharp build-up of pressure after the reactor's cooling system failed, destroyed the concrete structure surrounding the reactor but did not collapse the critical steel container inside, they said. They said that raised the chances they could prevent the release of large amounts of radioactive material and could avoid a core meltdown at the plant.
"We've confirmed that the reactor container was not damaged. The explosion didn't occur inside the reactor container. As such there was no large amount of radiation leakage outside," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in a news conference Saturday evening. "At this point, there has been no major change to the level of radiation leakage outside, so we'd like everyone to respond calmly."
Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the plant, which is located 160 miles north of Tokyo, now plans to fill the reactor with sea water to cool it down and reduce pressure. The process would take five to 10 hours, Mr. Edano said, expressing confidence that the operation could "prevent criticality."
The company also said its workers also added boric acid to the containment vessel Saturday night to slow down the nuclear reaction.
Mr. Edano said radioactive materials had leaked outside the plant before the explosion, but that the explosion did not worsen the leak and that, in fact, measured levels of radioactive emission had been decreasing. He did not specify the levels of radiation involved.
Officials said even before the explosion that they had detected cesium, an indication that some of the nuclear fuel in the reactor was already damaged. That suggests that the plant experienced a partial meltdown. But officials insisted the fuel damage was contained and that the prospect of more radioactive leaks had receded.
Naoto Sekimura, a professor at Tokyo University, told NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, that "only a small portion of the fuel has been melted. But the plant is shut down already, and being cooled down. Most of the fuel is contained in the plant case, so I would like to ask people to be calm."
The crisis at the aging plant confronted Japan with its worst nuclear accident - and one of the biggest malfunctions at a nuclear plant since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
Japanese nuclear safety officials and international experts said that because of crucial design differences the release of radiation at the Fukushima plant would likely be much smaller than at Chernobyl even if the Fukushima plant had suffered a complete core meltdown, which they said it had not. But the problems at the plant are likely to increase concerns about the safety record and reliability of Japan's extensive nuclear power facilities, which have been criticized for major safety violations in the past.
The vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes was also underscored by ongoing problems at the cooling system of reactors at a second nearby plant, known as Daini, which prompted a smaller evacuation from surrounding communities.
Tokyo Electric Power said the explosion happened "near" the No. 1 reactor at Daiichi at around 3:40 p.m. Japan time on Saturday. It said four of its workers were injured in the blast.
Both the Daiichi and Daini plants were shut down during Friday's earthquake. But the loss of power in the area and damage to the plant's generators from the subsequent tsunami crippled the cooling systems, which need to function after a shut down to cool down nuclear fuel rods.
Malfunctioning cooling systems allowed pressure to build up beyond the design capacity of the reactors. Early Saturday officials had said that small amounts of radioactive vapor were expected to be released into the atmosphere to prevent damage to the containment systems and that they were evacuating tens of thousands of people living around the plants as a precaution.
Those releases apparently did not prevent the buildup of hydrogen inside the plant, which ignited and exploded Saturday afternoon, government officials said. They said the explosion itself did not increase the amount of radioactive material being released into the atmosphere, but they expanded the evacuation area around the Daiichi plant from a six-mile radius to a 12-mile radius.
Safety officials continued to insist that the levels of radiation were not large enough to threaten the health of people outside the plants, but they also told people living in the vicinity to cover their mouths and stay indoors.
David Lochbaum, who worked at three reactors in the United States similar to the Fukushima design, and who was later hired by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to teach its personnel about that technology, said that from pictures he had seen of the stricken plant, the explosion appeared to have occurred in the turbine hall, which is usually a large, rectangular building adjacent to a smaller, taller reactor building.
The technology used at Fukushima is called a boiling water reactor, in which the reactor, inside a containment, sends its steam out of containment to a turbine. The turbine converts the steam's energy into rotary motion, which turns a generator and makes electricity.
But as the water goes through the reactor, some water molecules break up into hydrogen and oxygen. A system in the turbine hall usually scrubs out those gases. Hydrogen is also used in the turbine hall to cool the electric generator. Hydrogen from both sources has sometimes escaped and exploded, he said, but in this case, there is an additional source of hydrogen: interaction of steam with the metal of the fuel rods.
Earlier Saturday, before the explosion, a Japanese nuclear safety panel said the radiation levels were 1,000 times above normal in a reactor control room at the Daiichi plant. Some radioactive material had also seeped outside, with radiation levels near the main gate measured at eight times normal, NHK quoted nuclear safety officials as saying.
The emergency at the Daiichi plant began shortly after the earthquake struck on Friday afternoon. Emergency diesel generators, which had kicked in to run the reactor's cooling system after the electrical power grid failed, shut down about an hour after the earthquake. There was speculation that the tsunami had flooded the generators and knocked them out of service.
For some time after the quake, the plant was operating in a battery-controlled cooling mode. Tokyo Electric said that by Saturday morning it had also installed a mobile generator at Daiichi to ensure that the cooling system would continue operating even after reserve battery power was depleted. Even so, the company said it needed to conduct "controlled containment venting" in order to avoid an "uncontrolled rupture and damage" to the containment unit.
Why the controlled release of pressure on Saturday did not succeed in addressing the problem at the reactor was not immediately explained. Tokyo Electric and government nuclear safety officials also did not explain the precise sequence of failures at the plant.
Daiichi and other nuclear facilities are designed with extensive backup systems that are supposed to function in emergencies to ensure the plants can be shut down safely.
At Daiichi, a pump run by steam, designed to function in the absence of electricity, was adding water to the reactor vessel, and as that water boiled off, it was being released. Such water is usually only slightly radioactive, according to nuclear experts. As long as the fuel stays covered by water, it will remain intact, and the bulk of the radioactive material will stay inside. But if fresh water cannot be pumped into the containment vessel and the cooling water evaporates, the nuclear fuel is exposed, which can result in a meltdown.
Japan relies heavily on nuclear power, which generates just over one-third of the country's electricity. Its plants are designed to withstand earthquakes, which are common, but experts have long expressed concerns about safety standards, particularly if major quake hit close to a reactor.
Yasuko Kamiizumi contributed reporting from Tokyo, Alan Cowell from Paris and Ken Belson from New York.
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3) The Limits of Safeguards and Human Foresight
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/weekinreview/13limits.html?hp
Here's the truly scary thing about the 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Honshu Island and its resulting tsunami: Japan is a country that is lauded for doing preparedness right.
Japan is a rich, high-tech nation with much rough experience of seismic rumblings: those factors have led it to plan, and plan well, for disaster, with billions spent over the years on developing and deploying technologies to limit the damage from temblors and tsunamis.
Those steps almost certainly kept the death count lower than it might otherwise be - especially in comparison with the multitudes lost in recent earthquakes in China and Haiti. Last Friday, however, showed the limits of what even the best preparation can do.
"I'm still in shock," said Ivan G. Wong, the principal seismologist of URS Corporation in Oakland, Calif., contemplating Japan's efforts to resist earthquake damage and its parallels to building standards in this country.
"This is really the best analogue we have for the United States," he said, and "I'm just flabbergasted by the amount of damage we're seeing."
Mr. Wong noted that the Pacific Northwest is at considerable risk of a strong earthquake from the Cascadia fault, which lies off the coast under the seabed. And while the coastal zone of the Northwest does not have as much residential and business development as that slammed by the Japanese tsunami, the earthquake risks farther inland along the Pacific Northwest could well end up sustaining severe damage, he said. Nearly a thousand Oregon schools built in the last century have poor earthquake resilience, and many vulnerable dams protect urban areas in the region. Oregon is moving to shore up its schools, but the program is not slated for completion until 2032. The federal government is working to address dam issues, but the pace is deliberate, he said.
"Steps are being taken, but there's a lot of dams, there's a lot of fixing that needs to be done," Mr. Wong said. "We're decades away from being able to fix all our dams."
The sobering fact is that megadisasters like the Japanese earthquake can overcome the best efforts of our species to protect against them. No matter how high the levee or how flexible the foundation, disaster experts say, nature bats last. Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, warned that an earthquake in the United States along the New Madrid fault, which caused strong earthquakes early in the 19th century, could kill tens, or even hundreds of thousands of people in the more densely populated cities surrounding the Mississippi River.
All technology can do in the face of such force is to minimize damage to communities and infrastructure, he said, and "on both of those fronts, we're never going to be perfect."
Given the limits of steel and concrete to resist the forces of nature, much depends on people's own preparedness to face up to disaster - but that mental infrastructure is in even poorer shape than the nation's roads and bridges. People in the Midwest might have storm cellars to shield them from tornadoes, and those in coastal cities like New Orleans might keep a hatchet in the attic in case they have to chop their way onto their roof after a hurricane. But in most of the country, simple plans that include having a quick-grab case of supplies, medications and important family papers, as well as a plan for reuniting family members who have been separated in a disaster, are distressingly rare, Dr. Redlener said.
Dr. Redlener, the author of "Americans at Risk," about why the United States is not prepared for megadisasters and what we be done about it, said the biggest problem is a failure to go so far as even Japan has to protect its citizens from natural disasters.
"We seem to not have the ability or the willingness to do that right now," he said. "At a time when states are facing $175 billion in deficits and the federal government is trying to deal with very compelling issues of long-term debt and deficits, the likelihood of our being able to mobilize the resources to significantly improve disaster readiness is limited."
And yet there are few issues as important. In a telephone press conference on Friday, W. Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Service, said, "The lesson that you learn from this is that earthquakes don't come with a warning. And that's why being prepared is so critical."
Even preventable disasters, however, get short shrift because of our aversion to long-term planning and commitment, said Russell Schweickart, the former Apollo astronaut. Mr. Schweickart has spent years trying to get citizens of earth to focus the risks that many people might think of as pretty far out: asteroid impact.
Mr. Schweickart and others, however, estimate that asteroid impacts like the one that flattened 800 square miles of forest in the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908 happen every few hundred years, and should be taken seriously. Mr. Schweickart is chairman of the B612 Foundation, which advocates monitoring near-earth asteroids to find the ones that might someday strike this planet. With proper research and financing, he noted, it should be possible to divert a space rock and avoid disaster.
"The good news is, you can prevent it - not just get ready for it!" he said in an interview. "The bad news is, it's hard to get anybody to pay attention to it when there are potholes in the road."
Moments like the Japanese quake, Dr. Redlener said, are often referred to as "wake-up calls" that could lead to change. But after so many examples and teachable moments that lead to so little change, he argued, "it's more like a snooze alarm" that jolts us for a moment; in no time at all, he said, we "drift back into a level of complacency."
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4) Fighting Escalates in Yemeni Capital
By LAURA KASINOF
March 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/world/middleeast/13YEMEN.html?ref=world
SANA, Yemen - Fighting between anti-government protesters and security forces built to new levels here on Saturday, and two people were reported killed, even as President Ali Abdullah Saleh promised the White House that violence would not be used against demonstrators.
The confrontation in the capital also left 13 people with gunshot wounds, according to medical staff at the scene. Random shooting was reported in other areas of the city.
"We finished our morning prayers and then they rushed at us with a water cannon and then live bullets and tear gas," said Sadeq Al Haijazy, an unemployed protester, his head bandaged after he was hit by a flying rock. "But we are staying here until we die."
The fighting dragged on for hours as water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas and what witnesses said was live ammunition were used against protesters, and snipers fired from nearby roof-tops. Hundreds of men rushed towards the front line separating protesters and security forces, their eyes red from tear gas, covering their faces with their turbans. A man announced through a bull-horn: "Youth, God is great. We should not retreat."
Many people lay injured in a mosque as volunteer medical staff rigged intravenous drips and bandaged wounds. One doctor, Faisal Al Hija, a surgeon who tried to help the wounded there, said he had been turned back by soldiers who said entry was forbidden.
Some protesters retaliated by throwing rocks towards security forces, which included around 200 soldiers and plain-clothes officials, breaking pieces of the stone from a barrier that soldiers had previously used to halt the anti-government crowds.
"They wanted to push us back off this street," said Abdel Kader Al Mamari, an engineer standing in a puddle left over from a water cannon. "They don't understand that what we want is to change the regime."
On Friday afternoon, demonstrators forced the police to give ground peacefully and set up tents at major intersections in the city. A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters about the subject, said residents had been complaining to authorities about the expansion of the protesters' sit-in.
According to a statement from the White House, John O. Brennan, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, telephoned Mr. Saleh on Friday, urging that "representatives of all sectors of the Yemeni opposition should respond constructively to President Saleh's call to engage in a serious dialogue to end the current impasse."
Mr. Saleh "reiterated his hope that the opposition will engage immediately in a dialogue with the government as well as his public assurance not to use violence against peaceful demonstrators."
During the clashes on Saturday, some protesters voiced anger at the suggestion that they should engage in dialogue with the authorities. Because Mr. Saleh's sons and relatives control the armed forces, protesters view the attacks as directly coming from Mr. Saleh himself.
"The White House tells us to have dialogue, what is the use.? It's been 33 years" said Riyadh Al Selwy, a student holding an onion to his nose to ease the sting of tear gas, referring to Mr. Saleh's decades in power. "We want democracy like you," he told an American reporter.
A sit-in in front of Sana University has been continuing for about three weeks. Originally student-led, demonstrators now seem to include all segments of Yemeni society. The sit-in has been relatively peaceful, with random flares of violence.
However, according to one protester, Hamed Mofaraa, a tribesman from nearby Kowkaban, after the force used against protesters on Saturday , fighting could escalate - an ominous prospect in a land where many people routinely carry weapons.
"This is going to make tribes from all over Yemen come, our brothers are going to come after this and our number will grow," said Mr. Mofaraa, sitting under a tent watching the wounded being carried away from the battle's frontline. "Maybe they'll bring their weapons, maybe not. We don't know. But maybe they'll bring their weapons."
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5) Gates Visits Bahrain Amid Huge Protests
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and NEIL MacFARQUHAR
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/middleeast/12unrest.html?ref=world
MANAMA, Bahrain - As security forces and pro-government vigilantes beat back protesters here, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived Friday on an unannounced visit to offer American support to the royal family and prod the king and the crown prince toward talks with protesters demanding more democracy.
His visit took place against a backdrop of large and continuing protests across numerous Arab capitals on Friday, with neither repression nor government concessions stemming the tide of anger and demands for change.
The region's protests were for the most part peaceful, although there were scattered reports of injuries.
Here in this tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, security forces firing what protesters said were rubber bullets and pro-government Sunni vigilantes wielding sticks and swords beat back a rump group of several hundred protesters who were among the tens of thousands of Shiite demonstrators who were planning to march toward a particularly sensitive area: the Royal Court in Riffa, the preferred residential neighborhood for the ruling family and the Sunni Muslim elite. Its manicured lawns and wide streets contrast sharply with the narrow alleyways and raw cinder-block houses where many of the majority Shiite Muslims live.
The Interior Ministry issued a statement before the march warning that security forces would deploy in force to prevent it, given the "level of sectarian tension that threatens Bahrain's social fabric." Afterward, it issued another statement saying it had fired just eight tear gas canisters to repulse a rump force of marchers.
The protesters told a different story, saying they had been met with stones and clouds of tear gas. The Ministry of Health issued a statement saying 32 people were treated for injuries, mostly bruises or tear gas inhalation, at the Salmaniya Medical Complex, with an unspecified number treated elsewhere.
In his Friday sermon, Sheik Isa Qassim, the most senior Shiite cleric, said the king was falsely depicting the demand for basic rights as a rift between sects.
"Our demands are political ones, and have nothing to do with demands for a sect or segment of society," he said at Friday Prayer, according to an English translation distributed afterward. "We are demanding democracy."
In Saudi Arabia, the monarchy deployed a huge police presence to stop any protests from coalescing outside mosques, the sites of the weekly collective prayers that have helped fuel major protests throughout the region since the Arab uprising began in December. The Libyan government used the same tactic in Tripoli.
The region's biggest mass of demonstrators turned out in Sana, the capital of Yemen, with about 100,000 participating in a sit-in to demand that President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.
Two were killed in Tunisia and more than 20 were wounded in protests in a Tunisian mining town, but the issues seemed to be economic, not political.
Antigovernment rallies of varying sizes occurred in Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait.
Mr. Gates is to meet in Bahrain on Saturday with the king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and the crown prince, Sheik Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa. After weeks of prodemocracy protests - at times more than 100,000 people have massed in the streets - the royal family has pledged to enter a dialogue with the demonstrators after an initial crackdown killed seven people.
So far the dialogue has not happened. But in contrast to the uprisings in Egypt and Libya, Washington has continued to back the government of the Sunni royal family, to the growing consternation of the largely Shiite protesters.
On Friday a senior American military official said the administration remained optimistic and patient. "We're still a little bit in the talks-before-the-talks period, but we're hoping the dialogue will start soon," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules imposed by the Pentagon. "I don't think anybody expects you're going to have democracy overnight."
Obama administration officials say King Hamad listened to the president when he urged the king to pull back his security forces from the protesters and so has earned the right to try to manage reform on his own. Human rights activists remain skeptical about the prospects.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Bahrain two weeks ago, but Mr. Gates is the first cabinet secretary to visit since the protests began. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that Mr. Gates would be playing "more of a diplomatic role" on the trip compared with his usual talks here focused on national security and defense. Bahrain is the home of the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet.
In Cairo, Tahrir Square had the smallest turnout in weeks. Protest organizers had initially declared this Friday a day off as a way of thanking the governing military council for replacing the prime minister with a new one more to their liking. But they reconsidered, given their sense of urgency over a March 19 vote on proposed constitutional amendments as well as Muslim-Christian clashes this week that left 13 people dead.
"We always talk about Muslims and Christians being one hand, but that's not true," said a man named Akram, who was nervous to be criticizing the military and so did not give his last name. "Why doesn't the military do more for us? People always say the army is supposed to be so good, but that is garbage."
Many Egyptians of all stripes are convinced that people they call counterrevolutionaries opposed to changing the government system are provoking the sectarian violence to deflect attention from criticism of proposed constitutional amendments that would allow for quick parliamentary and presidential elections.
Also Friday, the public prosecutor ordered the detentions of the four former senior Interior Ministry officials on charges of ordering the violence that left several hundred protesters dead in the days before President Hosni Mubarak's fall, the official Middle East News Agency reported.
In Yemen, President Saleh had tried to head off the protest by making his biggest concession yet a day earlier. He said the country would be turned into a parliamentary system by the end of 2011, with power evolving away from the presidency.
Protesters said the only step they would accept was for Mr. Saleh to step down. At least 10 protesters were wounded in Aden by security forces, and three others in Sana were hurt by government supporters pelting them with stones and bottles, according to local reports.
In Saudi Arabia, several hundred took to the streets in Riyadh and in a couple of towns in its eastern province, where both the kingdom's Shiite minority and its oil reserves are concentrated.
Security forces flooded major cities and particularly squares where protesters had planned to gather, quickly dispersing the crowds, and at least 20 people were arrested, according to human rights advocates and residents.
Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Manama, and Neil MacFarquhar from Cairo. Laura Kasinof contributed reporting from Sana, Yemen, Liam Stack from Cairo, and Scott Sayare from Tunis.
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6) Obama Defends Detention Conditions for Soldier Accused in WikiLeaks Case
By SCOTT SHANE
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/us/12manning.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - President Obama has defended conditions in a Marine Corps jail for Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The president said Friday that he had been assured that such measures as forcing Private Manning to sleep without clothing were justified and for his own safety.
"With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards," Mr. Obama said at a news conference. "They assure me that they are."
"I can't go into details about some of their concerns," he added, "but some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety as well." He appeared to be referring to fears that Private Manning might harm himself, though the private, his friends and his lawyer have all denied that he is suicidal.
The question to Mr. Obama was prompted by critical comments from Philip J. Crowley, the top State Department spokesman, about Private Manning's treatment. In a talk at M.I.T., Mr. Crowley called the treatment "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid," and he said he did not understand Defense Department officials' reasons for imposing it, according to people present. Mr. Crowley later said he was expressing his personal views.
Starting on March 2, Private Manning was forced by guards at the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Va., to sleep without clothing at night, though he has a blanket and in recent days has been given a "tear-proof smock" to wear at night, according to a Defense Department spokesman, Col. David Lapan.
"Pfc. Manning is being treated fairly, with dignity and respect," Colonel Lapan said. "All measures in place are to ensure his safety and security."
A document made public on Thursday by Private Manning's lawyer, David E. Coombs, said the nighttime stripping began as a result of a sarcastic quip from the imprisoned soldier about concerns that he might kill himself.
On March 2, a brig officer had told him his treatment would not change because "the brig simply considered me a risk of self-harm," Private Manning wrote in the document, which was filed as part of a formal complaint to military officials. "Out of frustration, I responded that the POI restrictions were absurd and sarcastically told him if I really wanted to harm myself, I could conceivably do so with the elastic waistband of my underwear or with my flip-flops." The initials refer to "prevention of injury," a status that restricts items in Private Manning's cell and requires guards to check him constantly.
Private Manning's lawyer and supporters have complained for months about his conditions, which they describe as effectively solitary confinement, since he is kept in his cell 23 hours a day and has almost no contact with other detainees.
Brig officials have said he is not in solitary confinement but is being treated as required for prisoners classified as "maximum custody" and placed on prevention-of-injury watch. Private Manning's lawyer has challenged both designations as unjustified.
According to Private Manning's written account, a brig psychiatrist recommended continuing the prevention-of-injury status for Private Manning in December, but in January decided it should be ended, a recommendation ignored by brig commanders. After the March 2 incident, the psychiatrist assessed Private Manning as "low risk," the document says.
Private Manning was arrested last May and accused of downloading several hundred thousand diplomatic cables and classified reports on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and providing them to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group. If he is convicted of the charges at a court-martial, he could face life in prison.
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7) Virginia: Manslaughter VerdictsIn Death of Afghan Civilian
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/us/12brfs-MANSLAUGHTER_BRF.html?ref=us
Two former Blackwater contractors were found guilty on Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 shooting death of an unarmed Afghan civilian in Kabul. A federal jury found the contractors, Justin H. Cannon of Texas and Christopher Drotleff of Virginia, not guilty of murder and weapons charges that could have resulted in life sentences. They were also acquitted in the death of a second unarmed civilian. The men face a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. The trial focused on whether they had feared for their lives the night of the shooting; the vehicle in front of them, which was escorting their translators, got into a bad accident on a dark street. Defense lawyers said the contractors fired on a car when it approached them at a high speed. Prosecutors said the car had approached to help the accident victims. They also contended that the contractors acted out of anger on a day that their boss had been fired and that they had been drinking.
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8) America should not prosecute Julian Assange
By Joseph Nye
Published: March 8 2011 22:06 | Last updated: March 8 2011 22:06
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/595fd0c4-49bd-11e0-acf0-00144feab49a.html#axzz1GP9Yq0Vd
One-third of the world's population is now online. As we are seeing in the Middle East, this fact is changing global politics. An information revolution is shifting power away from states. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has called for "a serious conversation about the principles that will guide us" in such a world. She says she backs the "freedom to connect" for people everywhere, and calls on others in the Middle East and Asia to follow. But if she believes this, why is the US trying to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange?
In February, a court in London ruled that Mr Assange should be extradited to Sweden, although he quickly lodged an appeal. But the US justice department is considering a prosecution for espionage, and has subpoenaed Mr Assange's Twitter account. The rationale, from Mrs Clinton, is that the WikiLeaks cables incident "began with an act of theft". But that is grounds for prosecuting the soldier who allegedly stole the information, not Mr Assange - unless he can be proved to be part of a conspiracy, rather than a conduit of information.
One might also prosecute him for possession of stolen property, but then one must also prosecute The New York Times and other newspapers, with implications for press freedom. A third reason could be deterrence: perhaps the damage done by such disclosures is so great that an example must be set. Did the WikiLeaks disclosures do such harm? Clearly they caused some - as when an otherwise pro-US politician in Singapore publicly cautioned his officials against speaking too freely to Americans. However, as defence secretary Robert Gates has pointed out, foreign governments still have to work with the US. WikiLeaks may drive information out of diplomatic hands and into intelligence or other channels, but the job of governments working together will go on.
Therefore by trying to prosecute Mr Assange we only do damage to ourselves, both in terms of our own constitutional precedents, but also to the principle of openness on the internet that America must try to establish. The move is a blunder because it glorifies Mr Assange, and also because it confuses a cause with a symptom. If we are to understand power in an internet age, we must realise that if Mr Assange had never been born, something like this would have happened anyway.
In some ways the WikiLeaks disclosures actually did less damage than might have been assumed, because they did not include information from restricted state department channels. Nor was sensitive intelligence distributed on SIPRNet, the compromised network to which, according to press accounts, nearly 500,000 people had access. This tells us that we must focus on how the state manages its networks: porous, inadequately monitored information systems are the real culprit, not Mr Assange.
Those government employees who violate the oath that they make not to disclose classified information can already be prosecuted. Some might claim exemption for acts of conscience, if they are willing to defend their actions in public. But while the WikiLeaks videos of soldiers shooting journalists from a helicopter in Iraq might qualify, the broadside disclosure of 250,000 cables from around the world would not.
Instead, we should learn from more advanced approaches, in banks and other companies, to develop systems that classify less and protect data better. Better procedures should also be developed for dealing with things that are likely to be leaked, and how in turn this relates to our laws and to principles we are trying to establish for the internet.
Of course, this will not solve all problems. Disloyal employees and foreign spies have always been able to access some sensitive information. What is new is that now individuals can steal vast amounts and display it easily and widely online. However, that is the age we live in. At such a time, the less attention that is paid to Mr Assange, the better.
The writer is the author of 'The Future of Power', and was an assistant secretary of defence under US president Bill Clinton
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