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Johannes Mehserle received two years for the murder of Oscar Grant. He will be released this Sunday, June 12!
RALLY ON THIS SUNDAY JUNE 12th!!!
Mehserle the murderer will be released from jail on Sunday, June 12th. We will meet at the Fruitvale BART station at 3 PM, rally and then march to 14th & Broadway for arrival at approximately 5 PM.
SPREAD THE WORD!!!!!! COME OUT AND HAVE YOUR VOICE HEARD! STAND UP FOR THE PEOPLE AND SAY NO TO KILLER COPS!!!!!!
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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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Next UNAC general meeting is Sunday, June 12, 2:00 PM at Redstone Bldg., 16th Street and Capp. (Capp Street is one block or so below Mission Street.) Third Floor Conference Room, San Francisco. MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!
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Defend Carlos Montes! Drop the Charges Now!
RESIST GOVERNMENT ATTACKS AGAINST ACTIVISTS
National Call-In Day to Eric Holder,
U.S. Attorney General
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Demand: Drop the Charges,
FBI Hands Off Carlos Montes
Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
call the A.G. directly at 202-514-2001
(or try at 202-353-1555)
BAY AREA SOLIDARITY RALLY: Stop FBI Attacks on Political Activists
Thursday June 16, 4-6pm
OAKLAND FEDERAL BUILDING
1301 Clay Street, Oakland
Downtown Oakland near 12th Street BART
On May 17, 2011 at 5:00 AM the SWAT Team of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and members of the FBI raided the home of Carlos Montes, a long time Chicano activist and active member of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. Carlos has his first court date scheduled for June 16 in Los Angeles.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Arab Resource and Organizing Center, 415.861.7444 or info@araborganizing.org
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Save the Date!
NATIONAL LABOR-COMMUNITY CONFERENCE TO DEFEAT THE CORPORATE AGENDA AND FIGHT FOR A WORKING PEOPLE'S AGENDA
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio
June 24-26, 2011
Working people across the country -- from Wisconsin and Ohio to New York, Oregon, and California -- are facing unprecedented attacks by corporations and the rich with the help of the federal, state and local politicians that they fund.
The corporate agenda is clear: It is to bust unions and cut workers' pay and benefits -- both in the private and public sectors. It is to erode and privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It is to dismantle the public sector and social services by denying funds for job creation, education, health care, environmental protection, and rebuilding the infrastructure. It is to ensure that taxes on the wealthy are constantly lowered while the bite on workers and the poor is constantly increased. It is to perpetuate U.S. wars and occupations whenever it serves the interests of the multinationals. It is to divide the working class by race, gender, national origin, religion, and sexual orientation. It is also to limit and restrict constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. The list goes on.
In state capitals, communities and workplaces across the country, workers are fighting back. But if we're going to be successful in pushing back the attacks on collective bargaining, stopping the budget cuts and concessions, creating jobs, and defending social services and education, we need to build unity within our movement, including forging stronger ties with labor's allies: communities of color, students and youth, single-payer advocates, environmentalists, antiwar activists, immigrant rights supporters, and other progressive forces.
Relying on politicians to defend us -- the so-called "friends of labor" -- has proven to be disastrous. During the past three decades, working people have suffered a dramatic decline in their standard of living while the rich have amassed an unprecedented amount of wealth at the top, regardless of which of the major parties was running the government. We have had every combination imaginable: Republicans occupying the White House with a majority in Congress, Democrats occupying the White House with a majority in Congress, or some kind of "divided government." But in each case the result for working people has been the same: conditions got worse for workers while the corporations prospered even more. Why should we continue this vicious cycle?
The working class has the power to put an end to this situation. And as the debate over the debt and the deficit intensifies, the need has never been greater for an organized campaign to demand "No Cuts, No Concessions!" whether in regard to social programs or workers' wages and benefits. We say place the burden for solving the financial crises squarely where it belongs: on the rich. They caused the crisis, let them pay for it!
The Emergency Labor Network (ELN) was initiated earlier this year at a historic meeting of 100 union leaders and activists from around the country. Join us June 24-26, 2011 at Kent State University in Ohio for a national labor-community conference to spur the campaign to build a more militant fight-back movement and to launch a national campaign for an alternative agenda for working people. Together we can move forward on both fronts.
This conference is open to all who agree with its purpose, as explained in this Call. To register for the conference, please go to our website at www.laborfightback.org. If you prefer to register offline, write emergencylabor@aol.com or call 216-736-4715 for a registration form.
For more information, e-mail emergencylabor@aol.com or call 216-736-4715.
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Cultures of Resistance
Thursday June 30 -- 7pm, Berkeley City College, 2050 Center Street, 1/2 block from downtown Berkeley
The Middle East Children's Alliance & the Arab Film Festival present the Berkeley premiere of bay area filmmaker & activist Iara Lee's new feature film Cultures of Resistance.
The film won Best Documentary at the Tiburon International Film Festival and is showing around the globe, from Portugal to China to Ethiopia. Journeying through five continents, it captures creative change-makers using art and activism to turn our upside-down world right-side-up, for peace with justice. Their personal stories and strategies, told in many tongues, broaden our understanding of the geopolitical fault-lines behind modern day conflicts -- inspiring audiences to further engagement and action. Filmmaker Iara Lee will introduce the film and answer questions afterwards.
Tickets $10 general, $8 students. Benefit for clean water for children in Gaza. No one turned away for lack of funds. Wheelchair accessible.
For info: 510-548-0542, www.mecaforpeace.org, events@mecaforpeace.org
Cosponsored by: Global Studies Department/Berkeley City College and more!
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Cuba Caravan Send Off Party!!
-come help send the Cuba Caravan to Cuba
Saturday, July 9, 2011
4pm- snacks and music
5pm- program
6pm- Tamale dinner and more music
Eastside Arts Alliance,C
2277 International, Oakland ( AC #1 or 1R )
Donation requested to help support the Caravan (no one turned away)
Video- "People to People" about the Caravan
Speakers- Including Graduate from the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, Cuba
Come learn about the Caravan and help send it to Cuba.
For More Info: baypeace@baypeace.org 510-863-1737
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Physicians for a National Health Program California is having our 2nd annual California Single-Payer Health Care Summer Conference at USC's Tutor Campus Center Ballroom on Saturday, July 16th, 2011 from 9am - 5pm.
Summer Conference 2011 is designed to teach attendees about just, guaranteed, comprehensive health care for ALL who live in California. We are gearing this conference toward professionals working in health, policy, advocacy, education, and organizing arenas.
This year's conference will feature Dr. Carmen Rita Nevarez, Immediate Past President, American Public Health Association as our keynote speaker, plus three Leadership Institutes that will help you develop your skills to build the movement through public speaking, coalition building or grassroots advocacy.
Ticket prices are on a sliding scale, and people who are "new to the movement" receive a discount.
For more information and to register, go to healthisahumanright.eventbrite.com. Please also download our flyer here. Please help us spread the word!
If your organization would like to sponsor this event, you can download our sponsorship form here.
Hope you can join us this summer in Los Angeles. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks,
Molly Tavella, MPH
Shearer Student Fellow
Physicians for a National Health Program California
2344 6th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 665-8523 office
(408) 892-1255 mobile
(510) 665-6027 fax
molly@pnhpcalifornia.org
www.cahpsa.org
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Protest, March & Die-In on 10th Anniversary of Afghanistan War
Friday, Oct. 7, 2011, 4:30-6:30pm
New Federal Building, 7th & Mission Sts, SF
End All the Wars & Occupations-Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Haiti . . .
Money for Jobs, Healthcare & Schools-Not for the Pentagon
Friday, October 7, 2011 will be the exact 10th anniversary of the U.S./NATO war on the people of Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of Afghani people have been killed, wounded and displaced, and thousands of U.S. and NATO forces killed and wounded. The war costs more than $126 billion per year at a time when social programs are being slashed.
The true and brutal character of the U.S. strategy to "win hearts and minds" of the Afghani population was described by a Marine officer, quoted in a recent ANSWER Coalition statement:
"You can't just convince them [Afghani people] through projects and goodwill," another Marine officer said. "You have to show up at their door with two companies of Marines and start killing people. That's how you start convincing them." (To read the entire ANSWER statement, click here)
Mark your calendar now and help organize for the October 7 march and die-in in downtown San Francisco. There are several things you can do:
1. Reply to this email to endorse the protest and die-in.
2. Spread the word and help organize in your community, union, workplace and campus.
3. Make a donation to help with organizing expenses.
Only the people can stop the war!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2969 Mission St.
415-821-6545
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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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'Fukushima media cover-up - PR success, public health disaster'
June 11, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_rAX9TzY2A&feature=player_embedded
Residents of the Fukushima district, and those who lived near-by have not only faced radiation exposure but also social exclusion... That's according to Dr. Robert Jacobs, Professor of nuclear history, at the Hiroshima Peace Institute.
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QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from Taggart Siegel, director of THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN. Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this engaging and ultimately uplifting film weaves an unusual and dramatic story of the heartfelt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers from around the world including Michael Pollan, Gunther Hauk and Vandana Shiva. Together they reveal both the problems and the solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature.
Official Film Website: http://www.queenofthesun.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekoeQodrVoM
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Cops arrest journalists in Wisconsin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=568lF6C--og&feature=player_embedded
Uploaded by RTAmerica on Jun 8, 2011
Wisconsin police are filmed arresting members of the press that were covering a demonstration at the state's Capitol Building this week. A cuffed reporter is dragged to the ground as an irate cop goes after another journalist.
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Autopsy Released in Police Shooting of Man Holding Nozzle
Douglas Zerby was shot 12 times, in the chest, arms and lower legs.
Watch Mary Beth McDade's report
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-long-beach-belmont-shore-shooting,0,2471345.story
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I Wanna Be A Pirate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppynM1lcst8
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Detained for photography in Baltimore Parts 1 and 2:
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iMr76atjUA
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JOFwbiI8fQ
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Arrested for Filming Police in MD?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ew29IFVHw&NR=1
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Woman 'detained' for filming police search launches high court challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2MtGCp5scM&NR=1
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Adam Kokesh body slammed, choked, police brutality at Jefferson Memorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jUU3yCy3uI&feature=player_embedded#at=575
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Kim Ives & Dan Coughlin on WikiLeaks Cables that Reveal "Secret History" of U.S. Bullying in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL0Dk21dC-M
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Operation Empire State Rebellion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJvBlQcaaaU&feature=player_embedded#at=10
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20 Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know
Click an image to learn more about a fact!
http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php
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Just Released! ANONYMOUS declares war on the system! JOIN THE RESISTANCE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET4Ki5Tr_CQ&feature=player_embedded
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Andy Griffith Vs the Patriot Act
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZF_oZEvybw
[You gotta watch this...bw]
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THE AUDACITY OF HOPE
ustogaza1's Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/ustogaza1
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Licensed to Kill Video
http://nirs.org/multimedia/video/l2k.htm
Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS
http://fairewinds.com/updates
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) held a special ACRS meeting Thursday May 26, 2011 on the current status of Fukushima. Arnie Gundersen was invited to speak for 5 minutes concerning the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident as it pertains to the 23 Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors (BWR's) in the US and containment integrity. Mr. Gundersen was the first engineer to brief the NRC on the implication of Main Steam Isolation Valve (MSIV) Leakage in 1974, and he has been studying containment integrity since 1972. The NRC has constantly maintained in all of its calculations and reviews that there is zero probability of a containment leaking. For more than six years, in testimony and in correspondence with the NRC, Mr. Gundersen has disputed the NRC's stand that containment systems simply do not and cannot leak. The events at Fukushima have proven that Gundersen was correct. The explosions at Fukushima show that Mark 1 containments will lose their integrity and release huge amounts of radiation, as Mr. Gundersen has been telling the NRC for many years.
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Guy on wheelchair taken down by officers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdkJxw1mPoM
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The Last Mountain': Appalachia vs. Big Coal
Janet Donovan
http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/60-60/6063-qthe-last-mountainq
Actor Woody Harrelson was a surprise guest at D.C. premiere of "The Last Mountain" at E Street Cinema, also attended by Sens. Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Boxer, Director Bill Haney, and Bobby Kennedy Jr. who speaks out on West Virginia's struggle.
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RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0&feature=player_embedded
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Paradise Gray Speaks At Jordan Miles Emergency Rally 05/06/2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJOLz1EYDYE&feature=player_embedded
Police Reassigned While CAPA Student's Beatdown Investigated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK-6IsP3dUg&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Pittsburgh Student Claims Police Brutality; Shows Hospital Photos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_j_AVsTXZc&feature=relmfu
Justice For Jordan Miles
By jasiri x
http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/
Monday, May 9, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Even though Pittsburgh Police beat Jordan Miles until he looked like this: (Photo at website)
And even though Jordan Miles, an honor student who plays the viola, broke no laws and committed no crimes, the Federal Government decided not to prosecute the 3 undercover Pittsburgh Police officers who savagely beat him.
To add insult to injury, Pittsburgh's Mayor and Police Chief immediately reinstated the 3 officers without so much as a apology. An outraged Pittsburgh community called for an emergency protest to pressure the local District Attorney to prosecute these officers to the fullest extent of the law.
Below is my good friend, and fellow One Hood founding member Paradise Gray (also a founding member of the Blackwatch Movement and the legendary rap group X-Clan) passionately demanding Justice for Jordan Miles and speaking on the futility of a war of terror overseas while black men are terrorized in their own neighborhoods.
For more information on how you can help get Justice For Jordan Miles go to http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/
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Tier Systems Cripple Middle Class Dreams for Young Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pQW6TW8m4&feature=youtu.be
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Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing, Discusses Global Radiation Exposures and Consequences with Gundersen
Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing and nuclear engineer, Arnie Gundersen, discuss the consequences of the Fukushima radioactive fallout on Japan, the USA, and the world. What are the long-term health effects? What should the government(s) do to protect citizens?
http://vimeo.com/22706805
Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing, Discusses Global Radiation Exposures and Consequences with Gundersen from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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New Video - Lupe Fiasco ft. Skylar Grey - 'Words I Never Said'
Thu, Apr 28 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22l1sf5JZD0
Lupe Fiasco addresses some heavy issues in the latest video for his new single, 'Words I Never Said,' featuring Skylar Grey. In the 5 minute and 45 second dose of reality, Lupe tackles issues such as the war on terrorism, devastation, conspiracy theories, 9/11 and genocide. From the opening lyrics of "I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullsh*t", Lupe doesn't hold back as he voices his socio-political concerns.
"If you turn on TV all you see's a bunch of what the f-ks'
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say s-t
That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either
I'm a part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful."
Skylar Grey (who also lends her vocals to Dirty money's 'Coming Home' and Eminem's 'I Need A Doctor') does an excellent job of complementing the Alex Da Kid produced track.
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BREAKING ALERT: Mass Arrests, Tear Gas, Sound Weapons used Against WIU Students
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKv-5t0t4E
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Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM&feature=player_embedded
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BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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W.E. A.L.L. B.E.: Miss. Medical Examiner Dr. Adel Shaker On Frederick Carter Hanging (4/19/2011)
http://blip.tv/file/5057532
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Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
http://youtu.be/eTvUs4rY4to
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Cuba: The Accidental Eden
http://video.pbs.org/video/1598230084/
[This is a stunningly beautiful portrait of the Cuban natural environment as it is today. However, several times throughout, the narrator tends to imply that if it werent for the U.S. embargo against Cuba, Cuba's natural environment would be destroyed by the influx of tourism, ergo, the embargo is saving nature. But the Cuban scientists and naturalists tell a slightly different story. But I don't want to spoil the delightfully surprising ending. It's a beautiful film of a beautiful country full of beautiful, articulate and well-educated people....bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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VIDEO: SWAT Team Evicts Grandmother
Take Back the Land- Rochester Eviction Defense March 28, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2axN1zsZno&feature=player_embedded
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B. D. S. [Boycott, Divest, Sanction against Israel]
(Jackson 5) Chicago Flashmob
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4tXe2HKqqs&feature=player_embedded
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Afghans for Peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ror0qPcasM&NR=1
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The Kill Team
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
Rolling Stone
March 27, 3011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
Afghans respond to "Kill Team"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3guxWIorhdA
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END THE U.S./UN/NATO KILL TEAM NOW!
WARNING: THESE ARE HORRIFIC, DISGUSTING, VIOLENT CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE U.S. MILITARY MAKING THE UPCOMING APRIL 10 [APRIL 9 IN NEW YORK] MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS A FIRST PRIORITY FOR WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE U.S. WE DEMAND OUT NOW! END THE WARS AGAINST WORKING PEOPLE HERE AND EVERYWHERE! BRING ALL THE TROOPS, UN/NATO/US/ and CONTRACTORS HOME NOW!
The Kill Team Photos More war crime images the Pentagon doesn't want you to see
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/the-kill-team-photos-20110327
'Death Zone' How U.S. soldiers turned a night-time airstrike into a chilling 'music video'
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/death-zone-20110327
'Motorcycle Kill' Footage of an Army patrol gunning down two men in Afghanistan
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/motorcyle-kill-20110327
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LOWKEY - TERRORIST? (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBnvajSfWU
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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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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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Domestic Espionage Alert - Houston PD to use surveillance drone in America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpstrc15Ogg
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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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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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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
Hello friends
This is to inform you that we have launched our new WitnessGaza.com website, and we invite you to BE A WITNESS: access it, contribute to it, and join us as we work to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza.
Last year, millions accessed WG.com to get up-to-the-minute information, news and videos.
Freedom Flotilla 2 will sail the end of June, and we need your support.
Please send this to your lists. If possible, please post our logo and link on your website.
We hope that you will find this all of help -- and we look forward to your ideas and participation.
All the very best,
in Peace,
Witness Gaza Team
David Rubinson
http://witnessgaza.com/
Twitter: @witnessgaza
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/WitnessGazacom/149995568385688
Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freegaza/
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/gazafriends
This is what the new WitnessGaza does:
1- WG aggregates everything published on the websites of the individual national Flotilla Initiatives, and makes it all accessible in one place, instantly and automatically. Plus, there is a NEWS section, where this information is expanded, and many other sources of news and information can be instantly accessed as well.
2- WG enables everyone everywhere, to Be a Witness - and post videos, text, breaking news, photos, or any similar content--
Anyone with internet access -- anywhere -- can post videos or photographs or content.
We will also run live streaming video of events that are happening locally, or on the ground anywhere.
Our goal is to have the whole world watch and know and then --- act.
3- WG posts links to one or two big news headlines.
4- WG enables all of this to be instantly distributed and shared via social networking sites- Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube.
5- WG publishes all the newest Twitter postings and connects instantly to Twitter for re-Tweets, or comments.
Please -- try to include our links and logos on ALL your postings, emails, letters, releases. Anything you put out.
Please include:
http://witnessgaza.com/
Twitter: @witnessgaza
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/WitnessGazacom/149995568385688
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/gazafriends
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Stop Coal Companies From Erasing Labor Union History
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-coal-companies-from-erasing-labor-union-history
In just a few hours, this petition has gained more than 17,000 signatures.
Here's some text from the petition page:
OVERVIEW
The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest armed conflict on American soil since the Civil War and the largest labor confrontation ever. It erupted when more than 10,000 West Virginia coal miners confronted an industry-backed army for a week in 1921. The miners were fighting to gain collective bargaining rights, to escape the domination of coal operators, and for the basic right to live and work in decent, safe conditions.
The history of Blair Mountain is that of all Americans.
The coal miners who worked and struggled during the West Virginia Mine Wars formed a rock-hard union solidarity that diffused to the rest of the nation through the Appalachian outmigration that has occurred from the 1930s until today. They went to steel foundries in Pittsburgh, the car factories in Detroit, and the mills in Ohio. They carried with them the memory and heritage of the labor struggles in central Appalachia, and they were a major force in building the labor unions that in themselves helped build the prosperous middle class of the 20th century.
Blair Mountain stands at the heart of American prosperity, and the coal miners who fought and died there did so for the basic freedom of living and working in decent, safe conditions.
But most people have never heard of Blair Mountain. That's because West Virginia has, for years, resisted preserving or commemorating the site. Nowadays, major coal companies Arch Coal and Massey Energy (the one responsible for the deadly explosion last April) own a lot of the land and hold permits to blast away the landscape for the most devastating of all coal mining practices: Mountaintop removal mining. They literally want to erase history here.
This can be stopped. If only the National Register of Historic Places would list the site, then its preservation would be required. Except that federal official ultimately turned down a listing this year -- amid objections of 57 "landowners" filed by the state. According to activists, however, this list is flawed and some of these people are even dead. And, already, Friends of Blair Mountain has documented the disturbance of five locations on the 1,700 acre site.
Tell Interior Department officials and the state of West Virginia to save the site of the Battle of Blair Mountain without delay. It's time to stop the destruction of West Virginia and preserve this one small example of rebellion from the grip of Big Coal.
P.S. From June 4th-11th, supporters will unite for a weeklong solidarity march on Blair Mountain.The March on Blair Mountain is a peaceful, unifying rally involving environmental justice organizations, workers, scholars, artists, and other citizens and groups. The march commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain. It will start in Charleston, West Virginia and end 50 miles later with a rally at Blair Mountain. Please consider attending if you can!
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best wishes,
richard myers
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One year after Bradley's detainment, we need your support more than ever.
Dear Friends,
One year ago, on May 26, 2010, the U.S. government quietly arrested a humble young American intelligence analyst in Iraq and imprisoned him in a military camp in Kuwait. Over the coming weeks, the facts of the arrest and charges against this shy soldier would come to light. And across the world, people like you and I would step forward to help defend him.
Bradley Manning, now 23 years old, has never been to court but has already served a year in prison- including 10 months in conditions of confinement that were clear violation of the international conventions against torture. Bradley has been informally charged with releasing to the world documents that have revealed corruption by world leaders, widespread civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces, the true face of Guantanamo, an unvarnished view of the U.S.'s imperialistic foreign negotiations, and the murder of two employees of Reuters News Agency by American soldiers. These documents released by WikiLeaks have spurred democratic revolutions across the Arab world and have changed the face of journalism forever.
For his act of courage, Bradley Manning now faces life in prison-or even death.
But you can help save him-and we've already seen our collective power. Working together with concerned citizens around the world, the Bradley Manning Support Network has helped raise worldwide awareness about Manning's torturous confinement conditions. Through the collective actions of well over a half million people and scores of organizations, we successfully pressured the U.S. government to end the tortuous conditions of pre-trial confinement that Bradley was subjected to at the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. Today, Bradley is being treated humanely at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. T hanks to your support, Bradley is given leeway to interact with other pre-trial prisoners, read books, write letters, and even has a window in his cell.
Of course we didn't mount this campaign to just improve Bradley's conditions in jail. Our goal is to ensure that he can receive a fair and open trial. Our goal is to win Bradley's freedom so that he can be reunited with his family and fulfill his dream of going to college. Today, to commemorate Bradley's one year anniversary in prison, will you join me in making a donation to help support Bradley's defense?
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
We'll be facing incredible challenges in the coming months, and your tax-deductible donation today will help pay for Bradley's civilian legal counsel and the growing international grassroots campaign on his behalf. The U.S. government has already spent a year building its case against Bradley, and is now calling its witnesses to Virginia to testify before a grand jury.
What happens to Bradley may ripple through history - he is already considered by many to be the single most important person of his generation. Please show your commitment to Bradley and your support for whistle-blowers and the truth by making a donation today.
With your help, I hope we will come to remember May 26th as a day to commemorate all those who risk their lives and freedom to promote informed democracy - and as the birth of a movement that successfully defended one courageous whistle-blower against the full fury of the U.S. government.
Donate now: bradleymanning.org/donate
In solidarity,
Jeff Paterson and Loraine Reitman,
On behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee
www.bradleymanning.org
P.S. After you have donated, please help us by forwarding this email to your closest friends. Ask them to stand with you to support Bradley Manning, and the rights of all whistleblowers.
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
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Drop the Charges Against Carlos Montes, Stop the FBI Attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movement, and Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!Call Off the Expanding Grand Jury Witchhunt and FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!
Cancel the Subpoenas! Cancel the Grand Juries!
Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Chicano, Immigrant Rights, Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists!
Tell US Attorney Fitzgerald, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, DOJ Inspector General Fine, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders, U.N. Secy Gen Ban, and members of the media to STOP THE FBI CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHICANO, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, ANTI-WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS NOW!
Initiated by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression stopfbi.net stopfbi@gmail.com
http://iacenter.org/stopfbi/
Petition Text:
To: U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder,
cc: Vice President Biden, DOJ Inspector General Fine, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders, the Congressional Black Caucus, U.N. Secy Gen Ban, and members of the media
** Drop All Charges against Carlos Montes, and immediately return all of his property!
** Stop the attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movements!
** Call Off the Chicago Grand Jury and Stop the Expanding Witchhunt against Anti-war and International Solidarity Activists!
** Hands Off Palestine Solidarity Activists!
** Throw Out the reactiviated subpoenas against Tracy Molm, Ann Pham and Sarah Martin in Minneapolis, and ALL of the 14 subpoenas from the September 24 FBI raids of homes of anti-war and international solidarity activists.
**Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, etc.
**End the grand jury proceedings against anti-war activists.
I am writing to oppose the continuation and expansion of the FBI campaign of harassment of immigrant rights, anti-war and Palestine and other International Solidarity Activists, including the raid on the home of Carlos Montes and his arrest and the confiscation of his property, the 9 added subpoenas in the Chicago area, and reactivation of 3 of the original 14 subpoenas from the September 24 FBI raids of anti-war and international solidarity activists' homes.
These activists are guilty of no crime but opposition to U.S. foreign policy. On Friday, September 24, 2010 the FBI raided seven houses and an office in Chicago and Minneapolis. The FBI served subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to 13 activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. The FBI also attempted to intimidate activists in California, Wisconsin and North Carolina. This is not the action of a lone prosecutor. The raids were coordinated nationally, spanned several cities, and many other activists have been visited and personally threatened by the FBI.
The FBI confiscated computers, email and mailing lists, cell phones , cameras, videos, books, and passports. This is a dangerous attack on the constitutional rights of free speech of every social justice, antiwar and human rights activist and organization in the U.S. today. The right to speak, meet and write opinions is guaranteed under the constitution.
This suppression of civil rights is aimed at those who dedicate their time and energy to supporting the struggles of the Palestinian and Colombian peoples against U.S. funded occupation and war. Grand Jury subpoenas investigating material support of terrorism are being used to silence highly respected and well known human rights activists. This is a dangerous national effort to shut down growing opposition to U.S. wars. It cannot be allowed.
The FBI and the Grand Jury are threatening courageous individuals who have written and spoken publicly to broaden understanding of social justice issues of war and occupation. The activists are involved with many groups, including: the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. These activists came together with many others to organize the 2008 anti-war marches on the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
The FBI and the U.S. government must end this campaign of intimidation against anti-war and international solidarity activists. I am outraged at this disrespect of democratic rights. I ask that you intervene immediately to:
**Stop the Grand Jury Witchhunt!
**Stop the expanded repression against anti-war and international solidarity activists.
**Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, etc.
**End the grand jury proceedings against anti-war activists.
Sincerely,
(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter in the form above)
You can also call the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 or write an email to: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov demanding an end to the FBI raids, return of all confiscated materials and an end to the Grand Jury witchhunt. Fitzgerald is in charge of the Northern District of Illinois and responsible for the FBI raids and Grand Jury investigation.
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But...
The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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U.S. Attorney Escalates Attacks on Civil Liberties of Anti-War,
Palestinian Human Rights Activists
Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald first thing Monday morning! (contact info at bottom of this email)
On Friday, May 6, the U.S. government froze the bank accounts of Hatem Abudayyeh and his wife, Naima. This unwarranted attack on a leading member of the Palestinian community in Chicago is the latest escalation of the repression of anti-war and Palestinian community organizers by the FBI, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Hatem Abudayyeh is one of 23 activists from Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Chicago, and his home was raided by the FBI in September of last year. Neither Hatem Abudayyeh nor Naima Abudayyeh have been charged with any crime.
One of the bank accounts frozen was exclusively in Naima Abudayyeh's name. Leaders of the national Committee to Stop FBI Repression, as well as Chicago's Coalition to Protect People's Rights are appalled at the government's attempt to restrict the family's access to its finances, especially so soon before Mothers' Day. Not only does the government's action seriously disrupt the lives of the Abudayyehs and their five-year-old daughter, but it represents an attack on Chicago's Arab community and activist community and the fundamental rights of Americans to freedom of speech.
The persecution of the Abudayyeh family is another example of the criminalization of Palestinians, their supporters, and their movement for justice and liberation. There has been widespread criticism of the FBI and local law enforcement for their racial profiling and scapegoating of Arab and Muslim Americans. These repressive tactics include infiltration of community centers and mosques, entrapment of young men, and the prominent case of 11 students from the University of California campuses at Irvine and Riverside who have been subpoenaed to a grand jury and persecuted for disrupting a speech by Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the US. The government's attempt to conflate the anti-war and human rights movements with terrorism is a cynical attempt to capitalize on the current political climate in order to silence Palestinians and other people of conscience who exercise their First Amendment rights in a manner which does not conform to the administration's foreign policy agenda in the Middle East.
The issuance of subpoenas against the 23 activists has been met with widespread opposition and criticism across the country. Six members of the U.S. Congress, including five in the past month, have sent letters to either Holder or President Obama, expressing grave concern for the violations of the civil liberties and rights of the 23 activists whose freedom is on the line. Three additional U.S. representatives have also promised letters, as thousands of constituents and other people of conscience across the U.S. have demanded an end to this assault on legitimate political activism and dissent. Over 60 Minnesota state legislators also issued a resolution condemning the subpoenas.
The Midwest activists have been expecting indictments for some time. The freezing of the Abudayyeh family's bank accounts suggests that the danger of indictments is imminent.
Take action:
Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300.
Then dial 0 (zero) for the operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
Demand Fitzgerald
-- Unfreeze the bank accounts of the Abudayyeh family and
-- Stop repression against Palestinian, anti-war and international solidarity activists.
In solidarity,
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression and
The Coalition to Protect People's Rights
For more info go to StopFBI.net
follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
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Abolish the Death Penalty Blog
http://www.ncadp.org/blog.cfm?postID=165
Abolish the Death Penalty is a blog dedicated to...well, you know. The purpose of Abolish is to tell the personal stories of crime victims and their loved ones, people on death row and their loved ones and those activists who are working toward abolition. You may, from time to time, see news articles or press releases here, but that is not the primary mission of Abolish the Death Penalty. Our mission is to put a human face on the debate over capital punishment.
You can also follow death penalty news by reading our News page and by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
1 Million Tweets for Troy! April 12, 2011
Take Action! Tweet for Troy!
The state of Georgia is seeking to change the drugs they use to carry out executions so they can resume scheduling execution dates, including that of Troy Davis, a man with a strong claim of innocence. Doubts in the case persist, including the fact that no physical evidence links him to the murder, most of the witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony and newer testimony implicates a different person (including an eyewitness account).
The Davis case has already generated hundreds of thousands of emails, calls, and letters in support of clemency, including from leaders such as the Pope, Jimmy Carter and former FBI chief Bill Sessions. We need to continue to amass petitions in support of clemency, demonstrating the widespread concern about this case and what it represents.
Please help us send a message to Georgia officials that they can do the right thing - they can intervene as the final failsafe by commuting Davis' sentence. Please help us generate 1 million tweets for Troy Davis!
Share this tweet alert with your friends and family that care about justice and life as soon as you can.
More information about the case is available at www.justicefortroy.org
Here are some sample tweets:
When in doubt, don't execute!! Sign the petition for #TroyDavis! www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
Too much doubt! Stop the execution! #TroyDavis needs us! www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
No room for doubt! Stop the execution of #TroyDavis . Retweet, sign petition www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
Case not "ironclad", yet Georgiacould execute #TroyDavis ! Not on our watch! Petition: www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
No murder weapon. No physical evidence. Stop the execution! #TroyDavis petition: www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
7 out of 9 eyewitnesses recanted. No physical evidence. Stop the execution of Troy Davis www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition #TroyDavis
Thanks!
Exonerated Death Row Survivors Urge Georgia to:
Stop the Execution of Troy Davis
Chairman James E. Donald
Georgia State Board of Pardons & Paroles
2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE
Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower
Atlanta, GA 30334
May 1, 2011
Dear Chairperson Donald and Members of the Board:
We, the undersigned, are alive today because some individual or small group of individuals decided that our insistent and persistent proclamations of innocence warranted one more look before we were sent to our death by execution. We are among the 138 individuals who have been legally exonerated and released from death rows in the United States since 1973. We are alive because a few thoughtful persons-attorneys, journalists, judges, jurists, etc.-had lingering doubts about our cases that caused them to say "stop" at a critical moment and halt the march to the execution chamber. When our innocence was ultimately revealed, when our lives were saved, and when our freedom was won, we thanked God and those individuals of conscience who took actions that allowed the truth to eventually come to light.
We are America's exonerated death row survivors. We are living proof that a system operated by human beings is capable of making an irreversible mistake. And while we have had our wrongful convictions overturned and have been freed from death row, we know that we are extremely fortunate to have been able to establish our innocence. We also know that many innocent people who have been executed or who face execution have not been so fortunate. Not all those with innocence claims have had access to the kinds of physical evidence, like DNA, that our courts accept as most reliable. However, we strongly believe that the examples of our cases are reason enough for those with power over life and death to choose life. We also believe that those in authority have a unique moral consideration when encountering individuals with cases where doubt still lingers about innocence or guilt.
One such case is the case of Troy Anthony Davis, whose 1991 conviction for killing Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail rested almost solely on witness testimony. We know that today, 20 years later, witness evidence is considered much less reliable than it was then. This has meant that, even though most of the witnesses who testified against him have now recanted, Troy Davis has been unable to convince the courts to overturn his conviction, or even his death sentence.
Troy Davis has been able to raise serious doubts about his guilt, however. Several witnesses testified at the evidentiary hearing last summer that they had been coerced by police into making false statements against Troy Davis. This courtroom testimony reinforced previous statements in sworn affidavits. Also at this hearing, one witness testified for the first time that he saw an alternative suspect, and not Troy Davis, commit the crime. We don't know if Troy Davis is in fact innocent, but, as people who were wrongfully sentenced to death (and in some cases scheduled for execution), we believe it is vitally important that no execution go forward when there are doubts about guilt. It is absolutely essential to ensuring that the innocent are not executed.
When you issued a temporary stay for Troy Davis in 2007, you stated that the Board "will not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused." This standard is a welcome development, and we urge you to apply it again now. Doubts persist in the case of Troy Davis, and commuting his sentence will reassure the people of Georgia that you will never permit an innocent person to be put to death in their name.
Freddie Lee Pitts, an exonerated death row survivor who faced execution by the state of Florida for a crime he didn't commit, once said, "You can release an innocent man from prison, but you can't release him from the grave."
Thank you for considering our request.
Respectfully,
Kirk Bloodsworth, Exonerated and freed from death row Maryland; Clarence Brandley, Exonerated and freed from death row in Texas; Dan Bright, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Albert Burrell, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Perry Cobb, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Gary Drinkard, Exonerated and freed from death row in Alabama; Nathson Fields, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Gary Gauger, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Michael Graham, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Shujaa Graham, Exonerated and freed from death row in California; Paul House, Exonerated and freed from death row in Tennessee; Derrick Jamison, Exonerated and freed from death row in Ohio; Dale Johnston, Exonerated and freed from death row in Ohio; Ron Keine, Exonerated and freed from death row in New Mexico; Ron Kitchen, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; Ray Krone, Exonerated and freed from death row in Arizona; Herman Lindsey, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Juan Melendez, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Randal Padgett, Exonerated and freed from death row in Alabama; Freddie Lee Pitts, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Randy Steidl, Exonerated and freed from death row in Illinois; John Thompson, Exonerated and freed from death row in Louisiana; Delbert Tibbs, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; David Keaton, Exonerated and freed from death row in Florida; Greg Wilhoit, Exonerated and freed from death row in Oklahoma; Harold Wilson, Exonerated and freed from death row in Pennsylvania.
-Witness to Innocence, May 11, 2011
http://www.witnesstoinnocence.com/view_news.php?Exonerated-Death-Row-Survivors-Urge-George-to-Stop-the-Execution-of-Troy-Davis-181
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING! HANDS OFF JULIAN ASSANGE!
In a recent New York Daily News Poll the question was asked:
Should Army pfc Bradley Manning face charges for allegedly stealing classified documents and providing them for WikiLeaks?
New York Daily News Poll Results:
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%
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/03/05/2011-03-05_wikileaks_private_loses_his_underwear.html?r=news
Sign the Petition:
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
Stand with Bradley!
A 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst, Pfc. Manning faces decades in prison for allegedly leaking a video of a US helicopter attack that killed at least eleven Iraqi civilians to the website Wikileaks. Among the dead were two working Reuters reporters. Two children were also severely wounded in the attack.
In addition to this "Collateral Murder" video, Pfc. Manning is suspected of leaking the "Afghan War Diaries" - tens of thousands of battlefield reports that explicitly describe civilian deaths and cover-ups, corrupt officials, collusion with warlords, and a failing US/NATO war effort.
"We only know these crimes took place because insiders blew the whistle at great personal risk ... Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal," noted Barack Obama while on the campaign trail in 2008. While the President was referring to the Bush Administration's use of phone companies to illegally spy on Americans, Pfc. Manning's alleged actions are just as noteworthy. If the military charges against him are accurate, they show that he had a reasonable belief that war crimes were being covered up, and that he took action based on a crisis of conscience.
After nearly a decade of war and occupation waged in our name, it is odd that it apparently fell on a young Army private to provide critical answers to the questions, "What have we purchased with well over a trillion tax dollars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan?" However, history is replete with unlikely heroes.
If Bradley Manning is indeed the source of these materials, the nation owes him our gratitude. We ask Secretary of the Army, the Honorable John M. McHugh, and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General George W. Casey, Jr., to release Pfc. Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him.
http://standwithbrad.org/
Bulletin from the cause: Bradley Manning Support Network
Go to Cause
Posted By: Tom Baxter
To: Members in Bradley Manning Support Network
A Good Address for Bradley!!!
We have a good address for Bradley,
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=207100509321891
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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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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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DEFEND LYNNE STEWART!
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
Visiting Lynne:
Visiting is very liberal but first she has to get people on her visiting list; wait til she 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.
Commissary Money:
Commissary Money is always welcome It is how Lynne pay for the phone and for email. Also 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 !)
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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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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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
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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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) Berkeley [New Jersey] Township Council: Close Oyster Creek pronto
agency pans resolution
Asbury Park Press
Jun. 9, 2011
Written by Bob Vosseller | Staff Writer
http://beta.app.com/article/20110610/NJNEWS/306100043/1401/NEWS05/Federal-agency-pans-resolution
2) A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown
Is the Dramatic Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout?
By JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD
and JOSEPH MANGANO
Counterpunch, Weekend Edition
June 10 - 12, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/sherman06102011.html
3) Protests Challenge Japan's Use of Nuclear Power
"'I'm here for my children," said Aki Ishii, who had her 3-year-old daughter in tow. "We just want our old life back, where the water is safe and the air is clean." Her daughter wore a sign that said "Please let me play outside again.' Hiromasa Fujimoto, a rice and vegetable farmer, said it was his first protest, too. 'I want to tell people that I'm just so worried about the soil, about the water,' he said. 'I now farm with a Geiger counter in one hand, my tools in the other.''It's insane,' he added."
By HIROKO TABUCHI
June 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/asia/12japan.html?hp
4) Japan: Plant Owner Reprimanded
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/world/asia/11briefs-Japan.html?ref=world
5) 131 on the AFL-CIO Payroll Earn
$100,000 or More, Plus Benefits
By Harry Kelber
LaborTalk for June 10, 2011
http://www.laboreducator.org/lt110610.htm
6) Did you know this about Libya?
Posted by K4Kashmir on April 5, 2011 in World | 0 Comment
http://k4kashmir.com/?p=2916
7) VIDEO: "Hot Particles" - or "Fuel Fleas" - from Crippled Fukushima Nuclear Plant Stoke New Cancer Fears in United States'
By Stuart Smith
June 10, 2011
http://www.stuarthsmith.com/video-hot-particles-%E2%80%93-or-fuel-fleas-%E2%80%93-from-crippled-fukushima-nuclear-plant-stoke-new-cancer-fears-in-united-states
8) DHS partners with Jewish organizations
By Jordy Yager - 06/10/11 04:32 PM ET
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/165867-homeland-security-partners-with-jewish-organizations
9) The March on Blair Mountain: A Protest to Protect Our Jobs and Our Mountains
by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
June 10, 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/10-0
10) U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors
By JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF
June 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html?hp
11) Too Big to Fail, or Too Trifling for Oversight?
By ERIC DASH and JULIE CRESWELL
June 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/business/economy/12big.html?hp
12) Deadly Bus Crashes Shine a Light on Drivers Struggling With Fatigue
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
"It is not uncommon for companies to juggle schedules up until the last minute, calling drivers into work with as little as an hour's notice. Even if a driver feels short on sleep, there is strong incentive to make the trip - drivers who do not take a assignments go to the bottom of the call list, Mr. Hanley said, and most drivers are paid only for trips they make. It is also common for drivers to work second and third jobs because the pay is so low, Mr. Hanley said."
June 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/us/12bus.html?ref=us
13) Apple Store Employee Seeks to Plant Union Seed
"Union members as a percentage of U.S. wage and salary workers declined from 20.1 percent in 1983 to 11.9 percent last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."
By REUTERS
June 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/06/12/technology/tech-us-apple.html?src=busln
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1) Berkeley [New Jersey] Township Council: Close Oyster Creek pronto
agency pans resolution
Asbury Park Press
Jun. 9, 2011
Written by Bob Vosseller | Staff Writer
http://beta.app.com/article/20110610/NJNEWS/306100043/1401/NEWS05/Federal-agency-pans-resolution
LACEY - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission took exception to a resolution passed in April by the Berkeley Township Council which called for the immediate closure of the Oyster Creek Generating Station in Lacey.
Joseph G. Giitter, who serves as director of the agency's Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, stated in a June 8 letter to Berkeley Township Clerk Beverly M. Carle that his agency requires Exelon Nuclear, the owner of the facility, "to comply with all the conditions set forth in plant's operating license."
The NRC issued a license renewal for the plant to operate for another 20 years on April 8, 2009.
Exelon President Chris Crane said on Dec. 9, 2010, that the "plant faces a unique set of economic conditions and changing environmental regulations that make ending operations the best option for the company, employees and shareholders."
The decision was made as part of an agreement between the state Department of Environmental Protection and Exelon.
The agreement prevented Exelon from having to upgrade its reactor cooling system by installing cooling towers to the facility as the DEP was planning to require.
"The NRC monitors licensee's performance through our Reactor Oversight Process (ROP), and documents our findings in inspection reports and other assessment documents," Giitter added in the letter.
end
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RESOLUTION OF THE TOWNSHIP COUNCIL OF THE TOWNSHIP OF BERKELEY CALLING FOR THE CLOSURE OF THE OYSTER CREEK NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.
WHEREAS, recent inspections and testing have determined that the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant is deficient in certain safety features; and
WHEREAS, the safety features include radiation monitors which are non-functional and an alarm siren back-up system which is also non-functional in the event of a blackout; and
WHEREAS, the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant is presently over 40 years old; and
WHEREAS, the Plant has been determined to be the source of radioactive tritium into the groundwater; and
WHEREAS, the Plant continues to expose the public to daily air emissions of radioactive isotopes; and-
WHEREAS, the Township Council of the Township of Berkeley strongly feels that Exelon Corporation has failed to adequately address important safety features at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant which could have a significant impact on the local population,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE TOWNSHIP COUNCIL OF THE TOWNSHIP OF BERKELEY, IN THE COUNTY OF OCEAN, STATE OF NEW JERSEY, to urge the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to immediately close and decommission the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant; and be it further
RESOLVED that a certified copy of the within Resolution be forwarded by the Township Clerk to the following:
1. Mayor and Council Members
2. Business Administrator
3. Township Attorney
4. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
5. Township Engineer
6. Ocean County Board of Freeholders
7. 9th & 10th District Legislators
8.Goernor Chris Christie
9. Exelon Corporation
10. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
KAREN DAVIS, Council President
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2) A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown
Is the Dramatic Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout?
By JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD
and JOSEPH MANGANO
Counterpunch, Weekend Edition
June 10 - 12, 2011
http://www.counterpunch.org/sherman06102011.html
U.S. babies are dying at an increased rate. While the United States spends billions on medical care, as of 2006, the US ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality, more than twice that of the lowest ranked countries. (DHHS, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics. Health United States 2010, Table 20, p. 131, February 2011.)
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)
This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.
Spewing from the Fukushima reactor are radioactive isotopes including those of iodine (I-131), strontium (Sr-90) and cesium (Cs-134 and Cs-137) all of which are taken up in food and water. Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, Sr-90 in bones and teeth and Cs-134 and Cs-137 in soft tissues, including the heart. The unborn and babies are more vulnerable because the cells are rapidly dividing and the delivered dose is proportionally larger than that delivered to an adult.
Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.
(Chernobyl - Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexeiy V. Yablokov, Vasily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko. Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. New York Academy of Sciences, 2009.)
Levels of radioisotopes were measured in children who had died in the Minsk area that had received Chernobyl fallout. The cardiac findings were the same as those seen in test animals that had been administered Cs-137. Bandashevsky, Y. I, Pathology of Incorporated Ionizing Radiation, Belarus Technical University, Minsk. 136 pp., 1999. For his pioneering work, Prof. Bandashevsky was arrested in 2001 and imprisoned for five years of an eight year sentence.
The national low-weight (under 2500 grams, or 5.5 lbs) rate has risen 23% from 1984 to 2006. Nearly 400,000 infants are born under 2500g each year in the U.S. Most of the increase in infant mortality is due specifically to infants born weighing less than 750 grams (I lb 10 1/2 oz). Multiple births commonly result in underweight babies, but most of the increase in births at less than 750 grams occurred among singletons and among mothers 20-34 years of age. (CDC, National Vital Statistics Report, 52 (12): 1-24, 2005.)
From an obstetrical point of view, women in the age bracket 20 to 34 are those most physically able to deliver a healthy child. So what has gone wrong? Clues to causation are often revealed when there is a change in incidence, a suspicious geographical distribution, and/or an increase in hazards known to adversely affect health and development.
The risk of having a baby with birth defects is estimated at three to four of every 100 babies born. As of 2005, the Institute of medicine estimated the cost of pre-term births in the US at more than $2.6 billion, or $51,600 for each infant.
Low birth weight babies, born too soon and too small, face a lifetime of health problems, including cerebral palsy, and behavioral and learning problems placing an enormous physical, emotional and economic burdens on society as a whole and on those caring for them. Death of a young child is devastating to a family.
As of June 5, 2011, The Japan Times reported that radiation in the No. 1 plant was measured at 4,000 milliseverts per hour. To put that in perspective, a worker would receive a maximal "permissible" dose in 4 minutes. In addition there are over 40,000 tons of radioactive water under that reactor with more radioactivity escaping into the air and sea. Fuel rods are believed to have melted and sunk to the bottom of reactors 1, 2, and 3.
Tepco, the corporate owner took more than two months to confirm the meltdowns and admitted lying about the levels of destruction and subsequent contamination, resulting in "Public Distrust." Over 100,000 tons of radioactive waste are on the site.
Why should we care if there may be is a link between Fukushima and the death of children? Because we need to measure the actual levels of isotopes in the environment and in the bodies of people exposed to determine if the fallout is killing our most vulnerable. The research is not technically difficult - the political and economic barriers may be greater. Bandshevsky and others did it and confirmed the connection. The information is available in the Chernobyl book. (Previously cited.)
The biological findings of Chernobyl cannot be ignored: isotope incorporation will determine the future of all life on earth - animal, fish, bird, plant and human. It is crucial to know this information if we are to avoid further catastrophic damage.
Janette D. Sherman, M. D. is the author of Life's Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and Chemical Exposure and Disease, and is a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She edited the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B., Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education. She can be reached at: toxdoc.js@verizon.net and www.janettesherman.com
Joseph Mangano is an epidemiologist, and Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project research group.
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3) Protests Challenge Japan's Use of Nuclear Power
"'I'm here for my children," said Aki Ishii, who had her 3-year-old daughter in tow. "We just want our old life back, where the water is safe and the air is clean." Her daughter wore a sign that said "Please let me play outside again.' Hiromasa Fujimoto, a rice and vegetable farmer, said it was his first protest, too. 'I want to tell people that I'm just so worried about the soil, about the water,' he said. 'I now farm with a Geiger counter in one hand, my tools in the other.''It's insane,' he added."
By HIROKO TABUCHI
June 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/asia/12japan.html?hp
TOKYO - Beating drums and waving flowers, protesters in Tokyo and other major cities rallied against the use of nuclear power on Saturday, three months after a devastating tsunami set off a nuclear crisis.
Anger over the government's handling of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant has erupted in recent weeks after revelations that the damage at the plant, and the release of radioactive material, was far worse than previously thought. Mothers worried for their children's health, as well as farmers and fishermen angry about their damaged livelihoods, have been especially critical of the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
The disaster has also prompted a national debate about Japan's heavy reliance on nuclear power despite the country's history of devastating earthquakes and a deep public distrust of the nuclear industry. In perhaps his sole move that has won popular support, Mr. Kan ordered the shutdown of a separate nuclear power plant in central Japan until it can bolster its tsunami defenses. But recent politicking in a gridlocked Parliament has added to the public's disenchantment.
"We now know the dangers of relying on nuclear power, and it's time to make a change," Hajime Matsumoto, one of the rally's organizers, told a crowd in a central Tokyo square that eventually grew to about 20,000 people, according to organizers' estimates.
"And, yes, I believe Japan can change," he shouted, as the crowd roared back and people pumped their fists in the air.
Supporters of the rally here in Tokyo, and in coordinated events in many other cities in Japan, say the demonstration was remarkable not because of its size, but because it happened at all in a country that so values conformity and order.
"The Japanese haven't been big protesters, at least recently," said Junichi Sato, program director of the environmental group Greenpeace Japan, who said he had organized enough poorly attended rallies to know. "They're taking the first steps toward making themselves heard."
Many in the crowd said they were protesting for the first time.
"I'm here for my children," said Aki Ishii, who had her 3-year-old daughter in tow. "We just want our old life back, where the water is safe and the air is clean." Her daughter wore a sign that said "Please let me play outside again."
Hiromasa Fujimoto, a rice and vegetable farmer, said it was his first protest, too. "I want to tell people that I'm just so worried about the soil, about the water," he said. "I now farm with a Geiger counter in one hand, my tools in the other."
"It's insane," he added.
And while the rally started in a typically orderly way - "Let's all remember good manners!" organizers said at the start, as protesters lined up in neat rows - the crowd eventually took a more rowdy turn.
As protesters congregated in a Tokyo square after several marches through the city, there were some confrontations with the police. A police officer who refused to give his name explained breathlessly that protesters had not been given permission to congregate in the square.
"Disperse immediately!" police officers shouted through megaphones.
"Shut up and go away!" a young man screamed back.
About 9 p.m., however, police officers forcibly moved in to break up the crowd. There was some pushing and shoving, but no serious skirmishes.
Still, Mr. Matsumoto, the organizer, looked elated. "Who would have thought so many people would turn up?" he said. "I think that Japan is on the cusp of something new."
But some passers-by were less enthusiastic.
"What can they really do?" said Airi Ishii, 21, a shopper who had stopped to watch the rally with her boyfriend. "It looks fun, but if you think anything will change, it's naïve."
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4) Japan: Plant Owner Reprimanded
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/world/asia/11briefs-Japan.html?ref=world
Japan's nuclear safety officials reprimanded the operator of the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant on Friday and demanded an investigation into how two workers were exposed to more than twice the government limit of radiation. The operator, Tepco, was ordered to submit a report within a week giving the cause and prevention measures. The two men, one in his 30s and the other in his 40s, were confirmed last week as having exceeded the limit and were removed from working at the plant. A third man, a senior control room operator in his 50s, is being tested further after early findings showed high radiation exposure.
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5) 131 on the AFL-CIO Payroll Earn
$100,000 or More, Plus Benefits
By Harry Kelber
LaborTalk for June 10, 2011
http://www.laboreducator.org/lt110610.htm
On the premise that AFL-CIO dues-payers have a right to know, we are publishing the salaries of officers and staff on the labor federation payroll, based on figures from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Those figures reveal that 131 AFL-CIO officials and staff were paid $100,000 or more, not counting the generous benefits each received. In fact, 17 of these had a total compensation package of more than $150,000 per year.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has a salary of $264,827, plus $18,513 in additional compensation, for a total of $283,340.
Trumka attracted criticism when it was disclosed that, as AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, his annual salary was increased by $74,000 from $165,000, amounting to a 44 percent wage boost, plus a 60 percent pension when he retires.
Arlene Holt-Baker, the AFL-CIO's Executive Vice President, has a 30-year record as a grass-roots organizer for AFSCME in Los Angeles and as a political activist. She was selected for the job by key members of the Executive Council, who made sure that there were no candidates to challenge her in an open election.
According to the AFL-CIO Constitution, Arlene Holt's principal job as executive vice president is to "act on behalf of the President, when requested to do so." She receives $238,975 in salary and $15,163 in extra compensation.
The third top AFL-CIO officer, Liz Shuler, also did not have to face a competitive election as Secretary-Treasurer, because she was sponsored by her mentor, Edwin Hill, IBEW President. Although the AFL- CIO Constitution names her as the chief financial officer, she has refused to provide any information about the Federation's finances. She has an annual salary of $185,665 and an extra $5,940 in compensation.
Need Oversight of AFL-CIO Finances
Under the title, "Benefits and Other Compensation," senior staff people, who earn six-figure salaries, also get hefty expense income. Here are three egregious examples:
A Senior Organizer gets $56,189 on top of his $106,396 salary. Special Assistant to the President gets extra compensation of $43,684, and Senior Field Representative adds $52,803 to his annual salary.
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Surely, we have a right to know who hands out these lavish salaries and perks. How were they determined? How do AFL-CIO officials justify such high pay standards for themselves and their staffs? And what have these people accomplished for the outsized salaries we are paying them?
We, the members, are their employers. We shouldn't allow them to play fast and loose with our dues money.
Isn't it time we had an Oversight Committee that would review the hiring and wage policies of the AFL-CIO and shed some light on how the Federation's finances are handled?
LaborTalk will be posted here on June 14, 2011 and on our two web sites www.laboreducator.org and on www.laborsvoiceforchange.org.
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6) Did you know this about Libya?
Posted by K4Kashmir on April 5, 2011 in World | 0 Comment
http://k4kashmir.com/?p=2916
Did you know this about Libya?
Interesting indeed but could this be true? How come then the easterners (those from Benghazi and other towns) are damn anti Gaddafi?
Some other facts (that mainstream media will never tell you) about this "terrible dictator and blood sucking monster" Gaddafi who "terrorizes" his own people and Libya:
1. Credits to Libyan citizens were given with NO interest.
2. Students would get paid the average salary for the profession they are studying for.
3. If you'd be unable to get the employment the state would pay the full salary as if you were employed.
4. When you got married the couple got an apartment or house for free.
5. You could go to college anywhere in the world. The state paid 2,500 euros plus for accommodation and a car.
6. The cars were sold at factory cost.
7. Libya does not owe money, (not a cent) to anyone. No credits.
8. Free education and health care.
9. 25% of population with a university degree.
10. No beggers on the streets and no homeless (until this bombing).
11. Bread costs $0.15.
No wonder the US and other capitalist countries do not like Libya. Gaddafi would not consent to taking the IMF or World Bank credits at high interest rates. In other words Libya was INDEPENDENT! That is the real reason for war in Libya! He may be a dictator, but that is not the US problem.
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7) VIDEO: "Hot Particles" - or "Fuel Fleas" - from Crippled Fukushima Nuclear Plant Stoke New Cancer Fears in United States'
By Stuart Smith
June 10, 2011
http://www.stuarthsmith.com/video-hot-particles-%E2%80%93-or-fuel-fleas-%E2%80%93-from-crippled-fukushima-nuclear-plant-stoke-new-cancer-fears-in-united-states
CNN's John King interviews Arnie Gundersen about the Hot Particles discovered in Japan and the US. from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
The situation on the ground at Japan's reeling Fukushima nuclear plant is much worse than previously reported. Radiation levels are twice as high as initially thought, and three reactors at the power plant have undergone full meltdowns. In fact, the nuclear fuel in each of the three damaged reactors most likely melted through the inner containment vessels, not just the core.
Those and other alarming disclosures have triggered new cancer fears across Asia, parts of Europe and the western United States - particularly when it comes to the detection of highly radioactive "hot particles" that can lodge in lung tissue and latch onto bones.
The dire situation at the 40-year-old Fukushima plant is outlined in a startling 750-page report released this week by Japan's nuclear emergency task force. My colleagues and I have been warning for months (here on this blog and elsewhere) that damage to the reactors and the resulting radiation releases were being downplayed and "miscalculated," perhaps intentionally, by the Japanese government (see links to my previous posts below). To a large degree, our words of caution fell on deaf ears. Many said our claims and release estimates were overblown, so this report offers some level of vindication - and offers hope that government officials now will take protective measures proportionate to the "adjusted" risk level.
Arnie Gundersen, a former (or "recovering") nuclear power industry executive, is one of the experts who has been saying from Day One that the nuclear crisis in Japan was much worse than they were telling us. In the spirit of full disclosure, Mr. Gundersen is both a colleague and a friend. I've retained him as an expert witness in past cases, and over the years, I've found him to be one of the brightest, best-informed minds out there regarding radiation-exposure risks.
In a must-see interview, Gundersen spoke to CNN's John King this week about one of the biggest dangers coming out of Fukushima that could impact Americans on the West Coast.
King: "We've talked about some radiation - relatively low amounts, very low amounts - making its way across the Pacific. You've seen evidence of what you call 'hot particles' showing up on the U.S. West Coast, in Seattle for example. What are we talking about, and how worried should people be?"
Gundersen: "Well, the radiation initially comes out as a big cloud of gases, and that's what you can measure with a Geiger counter. But now what we're finding are these things called 'hot particles,' and in the industry we call them 'fuel fleas,' because they're incredibly small, smaller than the thickness of your hair. In Tokyo in April, measurements indicate that there's about 10 hot particles per day in what a normal person would breathe. And it's interesting because in Seattle it didn't go down much. It was about five particles a day, because most of the time, as we talked about in April, the wind was blowing toward the West Coast. That's why we were warning to wash your lettuce and things like that. Now what that means is that these hot particles can lodge in your lung or in your digestive tract or in your bone and over time, cause a cancer. But they're way too small to be picked up on a large radiation detector."
So should people on the West Coast be worried?
Gundersen: "Well, the average person breathes in about 10 cubic meters a day, and the filters out there for April show that they were breathing in, per day, about five particles. Now these are charged, which is why we call them 'fuel fleas,' too, and they latch onto lung tissue. I'm still advising my friends to wash all of your vegetables to make sure you can get it off. But short of that, we're at a point now where you just can't run from the particles that are still in the air."
That's Mr. Gundersen's way of saying, yes, there are definite risks tied to these "hot particles," and people should take precautions, like washing their vegetables thoroughly - but at this point, there's no use in panicking and trying to run and hide.
Here's a summary of the "Report of Japanese Government to the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety - The Accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations": http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110609002555.htm
Read my previous post on the coverup at Fukushima: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/coverup-at-the-crippled-fukushima-plant-the-situation-is-out-of-control-says-nuclear-expert
Read my previous post on the dangerous decision by the Japanese government to raise legal limits of radiation exposure: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/how-much-is-too-much-japanese-government-takes-grave-risks-with-radiation-exposure
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8) DHS partners with Jewish organizations
By Jordy Yager - 06/10/11 04:32 PM ET
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/165867-homeland-security-partners-with-jewish-organizations
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its first faith-based security partnership on Friday, as it joined ranks with two major Jewish organizations.
The move is part of the agency's "If You See Something, Say Something" awareness campaign and will work with the Jewish Federations of North America and the Secure Community Network to promote and distribute media materials in Jewish centers, organizations and communities throughout the country.
"Homeland security begins with hometown security, and our nation's faith-based organizations play a critical role in keeping our communities safe," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in a statement.
"Expanding the 'If You See Something, Say Something' campaign to national Jewish groups, the first faith-based partnership for the campaign, is an important step in the Department's ongoing effort to engage the American public in our nation's security efforts."
The board of The Jewish Federations of North America pointed to recent attempted attacks on Jewish targets, such as the two men who were accused of allegedly plotting to attack a Manhattan synagogue last month as they allegedly tried to purchase a grenade and handguns.
"The American Jewish community and the places we gather are, unfortunately, often targets for terrorists," said Michael Gelman, the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of the Jewish Federations of North America.
"This new partnership with the Department of Homeland Security will empower us to counter this threat as we become more actively involved in our own protection," he said.
Last July, DHS launched its nationwide public awareness campaign after local law enforcement officials successfully ran a similar program's in New York City. The DHS program has partnered with major sporting associations including the NBA, NFL, and NCAA, in an attempt to use employee and the public reports as a way to spot suspicious activity and thwart possible terrorist attacks.
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9) The March on Blair Mountain: A Protest to Protect Our Jobs and Our Mountains
by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
June 10, 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/10-0
This week an important protest is taking place in the coalfields of West Virginia. The March on Blair Mountain began on Monday as several hundred people embarked on a five-day journey retracing the steps of over 10,000 miners who 90 years ago staged the largest armed insurrection after the American Civil War. Today's march is a protest against both the attack of the union movement in America and the demolition of the Appalachian mountains.
For over 50 years, American unions have served to counterbalance the ascendancy of unsheathed corporate power that threatens now to overwhelm American Democracy. In the past year, the union movement's final redoubt -- the public service unions -- have been vilified and emasculated in traditional union states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.
Now one of the biggest union busters in American history, Massey Energy, is launching a final assault on the icon of America's union movement, Blair Mountain.
Blair Mountain's storied history dates back to West Virginia in the 1920s, when the entire state was a company town. Big Coal dominated every aspect of economic life. The industry owned the shops, the homes, of course the mines -- and made sure there was virtually no other source of employment in the state. Working conditions were horrendous: men and their sons worked 12 to 16 grueling hours in dark, dangerous mines dying from a notorious plague of subsurface explosions, cave-ins and black lung.
The companies used local sheriffs to enforce their system of feudal serfdom. When a miner was injured and his family needed to be evicted from their home, the sheriff did the dirty deed. When union organizers appeared, the sheriff arrested, jailed, and routinely beat them, before escorting them to the county line. One sheriff refused to tow the company line: Sid Hatfield, of Hatfield and McCoy lore.
Not only did Hatfield refuse to do the industry's bidding, but he jailed mine operators for mistreating their workers. In the infamous Matewan gun battle, Hatfield helped kill seven mine company private investigators who had evicted union families from their homes.
Hatfield was never convicted for the Matewan shootings, but the mine operators took their revenge and on August 1, 1921 when industry thugs executed Hatfield in broad daylight on the McDowell county court-house steps.
Hatfield's assassination triggered one of the biggest labor demonstrations in American history. Ten thousand miners from the coalfields of Kentucky and West Virginia marched for six days, converging on Blair Mountain to confront their industry bosses. They were met by King Coal's powerful army of thugs and mowed down by Gatling guns.
President Warren Harding, a so-called "friend of coal," like most of the leading politicians of the Gilded Age, authorized the U.S. army to drop bombs and poison gas on the marching miners -- the only time in American History when our military deliberately bombed U.S. citizens. These military measures broke the demonstration but outraged the public, and gave vital traction to the United Mine Workers and the American labor movement.
Over the next 60 years unions became the critical counterweight to corporate power and the principal platform for the growth of the American middle class, which gave our Democracy its wealth, prosperity, and sense of justice as a core value.
Now, as the union movement finds itself battered, beleaguered, and under assault by a legion of corporate toadies in state governor's office from every director to chamber of commerce. Tea Party, talk radio, Fox News and the tsunami of corporate money released by the Citizens United case, Massey Energy has recently announced that it intends to blow up Blair Mountain, the Gettysburg of America's union-based Democracy, to mine it for coal.
For the first time in decades, environmentalists including the NRDC, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance and local groups have declared common cause with unions in staging a six-day march to retrace the steps of the 1921 Blair Mountain miners. The march convenes Saturday morning June 11 with a final climb up Blair Mountain. Marchers hope to save this historic mountain from Massey by securing its status as a historic landmark.
West Virginia is today's epicenter of one of America's greatest civil disobedience movements. More than 200 people have been arrested protesting mountaintop removal coal mining in the past 18 months. The protesters include college students and local West Virginia marines, former miners, housewives, and an 82-year-old grandmother who was arrested in her wheelchair. They are all calling for an end to mountaintop removal, the extreme form of coal mining that has flattened 500 mountains in Appalachia, illegally buried 2,000 miles of streams, destroyed one million acres of forest, and devastated numerous communities, lives, and towns in the region.
Union busting corporations have commoditized not just the workforce, but the historic landscapes of West Virginia, using great machines and dynamite to eliminate mining jobs. While production has more than doubled in 10 years, industry employment is one-tenth of it what was when my father warned me about strip mining as a 14-year-old boy.
It is time for Americans to march in the footsteps of our union ancestors of 90 years ago to protect our jobs, and save our national patriarchy, the purple mountains majesty, the individual rights and community based values that make our country of the envy of free people.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is the author of Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy.
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10) U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors
By JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF
June 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html?hp
The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy "shadow" Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.
The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype "Internet in a suitcase."
Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.
The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.
Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.
The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.
In one of the most ambitious efforts, United States officials say, the State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban's ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will.
The effort has picked up momentum since the government of President Hosni Mubarak shut down the Egyptian Internet in the last days of his rule. In recent days, the Syrian government also temporarily disabled much of that country's Internet, which had helped protesters mobilize.
The Obama administration's initiative is in one sense a new front in a longstanding diplomatic push to defend free speech and nurture democracy. For decades, the United States has sent radio broadcasts into autocratic countries through Voice of America and other means. More recently, Washington has supported the development of software that preserves the anonymity of users in places like China, and training for citizens who want to pass information along the government-owned Internet without getting caught.
But the latest initiative depends on creating entirely separate pathways for communication. It has brought together an improbable alliance of diplomats and military engineers, young programmers and dissidents from at least a dozen countries, many of whom variously describe the new approach as more audacious and clever and, yes, cooler.
Sometimes the State Department is simply taking advantage of enterprising dissidents who have found ways to get around government censorship. American diplomats are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones in the hills near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, according to interviews and the diplomatic cables.
The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose department is spearheading the American effort. "We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations," Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a query on the topic. "There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports," she said. "So we're focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world."
Developers caution that independent networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border. But others believe that the risks are outweighed by the potential impact. "We're going to build a separate infrastructure where the technology is nearly impossible to shut down, to control, to surveil," said Sascha Meinrath, who is leading the "Internet in a suitcase" project as director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group.
"The implication is that this disempowers central authorities from infringing on people's fundamental human right to communicate," Mr. Meinrath added.
The Invisible Web
In an anonymous office building on L Street in Washington, four unlikely State Department contractors sat around a table. Josh King, sporting multiple ear piercings and a studded leather wristband, taught himself programming while working as a barista. Thomas Gideon was an accomplished hacker. Dan Meredith, a bicycle polo enthusiast, helped companies protect their digital secrets.
Then there was Mr. Meinrath, wearing a tie as the dean of the group at age 37. He has a master's degree in psychology and helped set up wireless networks in underserved communities in Detroit and Philadelphia.
The group's suitcase project will rely on a version of "mesh network" technology, which can transform devices like cellphones or personal computers to create an invisible wireless web without a centralized hub. In other words, a voice, picture or e-mail message could hop directly between the modified wireless devices - each one acting as a mini cell "tower" and phone - and bypass the official network.
Mr. Meinrath said that the suitcase would include small wireless antennas, which could increase the area of coverage; a laptop to administer the system; thumb drives and CDs to spread the software to more devices and encrypt the communications; and other components like Ethernet cables.
The project will also rely on the innovations of independent Internet and telecommunications developers.
"The cool thing in this political context is that you cannot easily control it," said Aaron Kaplan, an Austrian cybersecurity expert whose work will be used in the suitcase project. Mr. Kaplan has set up a functioning mesh network in Vienna and says related systems have operated in Venezuela, Indonesia and elsewhere.
Mr. Meinrath said his team was focused on fitting the system into the bland-looking suitcase and making it simple to implement - by, say, using "pictograms" in the how-to manual.
In addition to the Obama administration's initiatives, there are almost a dozen independent ventures that also aim to make it possible for unskilled users to employ existing devices like laptops or smartphones to build a wireless network. One mesh network was created around Jalalabad, Afghanistan, as early as five years ago, using technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Creating simple lines of communication outside official ones is crucial, said Collin Anderson, a 26-year-old liberation-technology researcher from North Dakota who specializes in Iran, where the government all but shut down the Internet during protests in 2009. The slowdown made most "circumvention" technologies - the software legerdemain that helps dissidents sneak data along the state-controlled networks - nearly useless, he said.
"No matter how much circumvention the protesters use, if the government slows the network down to a crawl, you can't upload YouTube videos or Facebook postings," Mr. Anderson said. "They need alternative ways of sharing information or alternative ways of getting it out of the country."
That need is so urgent, citizens are finding their own ways to set up rudimentary networks. Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian expatriate and technology developer who co-founded a popular Persian-language Web site, estimates that nearly half the people who visit the site from inside Iran share files using Bluetooth - which is best known in the West for running wireless headsets and the like. In more closed societies, however, Bluetooth is used to discreetly beam information - a video, an electronic business card - directly from one cellphone to another.
Mr. Yahyanejad said he and his research colleagues were also slated to receive State Department financing for a project that would modify Bluetooth so that a file containing, say, a video of a protester being beaten, could automatically jump from phone to phone within a "trusted network" of citizens. The system would be more limited than the suitcase but would only require the software modification on ordinary phones.
By the end of 2011, the State Department will have spent some $70 million on circumvention efforts and related technologies, according to department figures.
Mrs. Clinton has made Internet freedom into a signature cause. But the State Department has carefully framed its support as promoting free speech and human rights for their own sake, not as a policy aimed at destabilizing autocratic governments.
That distinction is difficult to maintain, said Clay Shirky, an assistant professor at New York University who studies the Internet and social media. "You can't say, 'All we want is for people to speak their minds, not bring down autocratic regimes' - they're the same thing," Mr. Shirky said.
He added that the United States could expose itself to charges of hypocrisy if the State Department maintained its support, tacit or otherwise, for autocratic governments running countries like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain while deploying technology that was likely to undermine them.
Shadow Cellphone System
In February 2009, Richard C. Holbrooke and Lt. Gen. John R. Allen were taking a helicopter tour over southern Afghanistan and getting a panoramic view of the cellphone towers dotting the remote countryside, according to two officials on the flight. By then, millions of Afghans were using cellphones, compared with a few thousand after the 2001 invasion. Towers built by private companies had sprung up across the country. The United States had promoted the network as a way to cultivate good will and encourage local businesses in a country that in other ways looked as if it had not changed much in centuries.
There was just one problem, General Allen told Mr. Holbrooke, who only weeks before had been appointed special envoy to the region. With a combination of threats to phone company officials and attacks on the towers, the Taliban was able to shut down the main network in the countryside virtually at will. Local residents report that the networks are often out from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m., presumably to enable the Taliban to carry out operations without being reported to security forces.
The Pentagon and State Department were soon collaborating on the project to build a "shadow" cellphone system in a country where repressive forces exert control over the official network.
Details of the network, which the military named the Palisades project, are scarce, but current and former military and civilian officials said it relied in part on cell towers placed on protected American bases. A large tower on the Kandahar air base serves as a base station or data collection point for the network, officials said.
A senior United States official said the towers were close to being up and running in the south and described the effort as a kind of 911 system that would be available to anyone with a cellphone.
By shutting down cellphone service, the Taliban had found a potent strategic tool in its asymmetric battle with American and Afghan security forces.
The United States is widely understood to use cellphone networks in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries for intelligence gathering. And the ability to silence the network was also a powerful reminder to the local populace that the Taliban retained control over some of the most vital organs of the nation.
When asked about the system, Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, would only confirm the existence of a project to create what he called an "expeditionary cellular communication service" in Afghanistan. He said the project was being carried out in collaboration with the Afghan government in order to "restore 24/7 cellular access."
"As of yet the program is not fully operational, so it would be premature to go into details," Colonel Dorrian said.
Colonel Dorrian declined to release cost figures. Estimates by United States military and civilian officials ranged widely, from $50 million to $250 million. A senior official said that Afghan officials, who anticipate taking over American bases when troops pull out, have insisted on an elaborate system. "The Afghans wanted the Cadillac plan, which is pretty expensive," the official said.
Broad Subversive Effort
In May 2009, a North Korean defector named Kim met with officials at the American Consulate in Shenyang, a Chinese city about 120 miles from North Korea, according to a diplomatic cable. Officials wanted to know how Mr. Kim, who was active in smuggling others out of the country, communicated across the border. "Kim would not go into much detail," the cable says, but did mention the burying of Chinese cellphones "on hillsides for people to dig up at night." Mr. Kim said Dandong, China, and the surrounding Jilin Province "were natural gathering points for cross-border cellphone communication and for meeting sources." The cellphones are able to pick up signals from towers in China, said Libby Liu, head of Radio Free Asia, the United States-financed broadcaster, who confirmed their existence and said her organization uses the calls to collect information for broadcasts as well.
The effort, in what is perhaps the world's most closed nation, suggests just how many independent actors are involved in the subversive efforts. From the activist geeks on L Street in Washington to the military engineers in Afghanistan, the global appeal of the technology hints at the craving for open communication.
In a chat with a Times reporter via Facebook, Malik Ibrahim Sahad, the son of Libyan dissidents who largely grew up in suburban Virginia, said he was tapping into the Internet using a commercial satellite connection in Benghazi. "Internet is in dire need here. The people are cut off in that respect," wrote Mr. Sahad, who had never been to Libya before the uprising and is now working in support of rebel authorities. Even so, he said, "I don't think this revolution could have taken place without the existence of the World Wide Web."
Reporting was contributed by Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Andrew W. Lehren from New York, and Alissa J. Rubin and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul, Afghanistan.
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11) Too Big to Fail, or Too Trifling for Oversight?
By ERIC DASH and JULIE CRESWELL
June 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/business/economy/12big.html?hp
It is not very often that business people head to Washington to explain how unimportant they are.
But over the last several months, executives from more than two dozen financial companies and their trade groups have paraded into the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other government agencies to try to persuade top regulators that they are not large or risky enough to threaten the financial system if they should ever collapse.
Big insurers like the Mass Mutual Financial Group and Zurich Financial Services; hedge funds like Citadel and Paulson & Company; and mutual-fund companies like BlackRock, Fidelity Investments and Pacific Investment Management Company have all been making the rounds, according to documents filed by the regulatory agencies.
What they are all hoping to avoid is being designated "systemically important" by a council of financial regulators. That would require them to face stricter federal oversight and keep more cash on hand, which they fear would erode profits.
Jeffrey A. Goldstein, the Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, finds the arguments so familiar that he has opened some meetings by asking the firms if they would like to designate themselves as systemically important. "I can't recall a firm that came in and said yes," he said.
Hedge fund managers, for example, normally pride themselves on being Masters of the Universe. But armed with PowerPoint presentations and financial studies, representatives from some of Wall Street's most powerful funds, including D.E. Shaw and Company, Elliott Management and Caxton Associates, met with Federal Reserve staff members earlier this year to make one point: We're too small to matter.
The hedge funds insisted their activities would not threaten the financial system because they control $1.7 trillion in assets, a drop in the bucket next to the $21.4 trillion overseen by the global mutual fund industry, according to documents they filed with regulators that cited figures from 2010.
Two insurance giants took even stronger steps. They unloaded savings banks they owned as a preemptive strike against tougher federal supervision.
Regulators involved in the determination process say they are skeptical. "It is as if they are the Sisters of the Charity," said one government official who has participated in meetings with financial companies. "They present themselves as if they don't do anything complicated. They are playing a very interesting strategy game that nobody believes."
It's no secret that big banks with more than $50 billion in assets - Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, among others - are automatically part of the club. But a wide variety of financial companies that are not banks are trying to avoid membership - or at least reduce their burdens. Besides the big insurers, hedge funds and mutual fund companies, major commercial lenders like General Electric have revved up their lobbying efforts.
There have also been a few surprises, like Boeing, I.B.M. and Caterpillar, which operate large finance businesses for their customers. Student lenders like Sallie Mae, auto finance companies like Ford Motor Credit and even quasi-government enterprises like the Federal Home Loan Banks have raised concerns about the designation process.
Deciding which firms should be deemed "systemically important" is at the heart of a package of new financial rules that aim to prevent a repeat of the recent financial crisis. But the lack of specific criteria from regulators so far has created uncertainty about who will get tagged.
More clarity may come later this summer when regulators are expected to put out a more detailed proposal. Criteria like size, how connected the firms are to each other, and overall risk levels will be more carefully defined.
Then, after regulators analyze the data, the designated companies will be notified and given a chance to argue why they do not pose a major financial threat. This means final determinations will not be made until the middle of 2012, at the earliest. That, of course, is just fine with many of the companies involved.
Insurers are feeling the most heat right now. In meetings, they go to great lengths to distance themselves from the speculative activities of the American International Group, whose losses from insuring troubled mortgages were so huge that it needed to be rescued by the government in the fall of 2008.
Instead, the insurers insist they are already well supervised by state authorities, and express concern about being shoehorned into a regulatory regime that they claim is designed mainly for banks. Some have hired consulting firms to buttress their arguments with 100-plus page reports featuring their own (favorable) criteria for determining what poses a serious financial threat.
"We don't want to be lumped into the same box with banks," said Robert Gordon of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.
A few big insurers have sheared off businesses that would land them under the Federal Reserve's thumb.
In May, the Hartford Financial Services Group sold off a thrift it bought in 2009 to secure billions of dollars of bailout funds designated for banks. In February, the Allstate Corporation sold a similar bank that had made it eligible for aid, though it decided not to accept the cash.
Now, both Hartford and Allstate are arguing that they should not be deemed systemically important - a claim raising eyebrows in financial policymaking circles.
"You would want to be particularly attentive to firms that got themselves into trouble during the crisis, needed government assistance, and now that they are subject to real supervision at the federal level, are hoping to escape additional regulation," said Michael S. Barr, who recently stepped down as the assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions to return to the University of Michigan law school.
A Hartford Financial spokesman, David Snowden, said the sale was part of a broader strategy of "focusing our resources on our core business and insurance operations." Allstate, in a statement, said its decision was partly due to concerns that the new financial legislation would impose rules that the company "did not consider beneficial given the limited role of the Allstate Bank in our overall strategic plans."
Other financial giants have made their own arguments to regulators. In their comment letters, big asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity claim that since they manage money on behalf of individual investors, the firms pose little risk to the system. General Electric, a huge lender to businesses and consumers, told Treasury officials that it should not be put in the same category as Goldman Sachs since it does not engage in risky derivatives trading or make other speculative bets with its own money, according to a person close to the discussions.
Meanwhile, several large financial companies are finding sympathetic ears in Washington. Barney Frank, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee and one of the chief architects of the new rules, said he did not believe life insurers and mutual-fund companies were risky enough to require heightened supervision.
"If you look at it, they weren't the causes of the problems," said Mr. Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat whose political region is home to many mutual fund and insurance companies.
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12) Deadly Bus Crashes Shine a Light on Drivers Struggling With Fatigue
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
"It is not uncommon for companies to juggle schedules up until the last minute, calling drivers into work with as little as an hour's notice. Even if a driver feels short on sleep, there is strong incentive to make the trip - drivers who do not take a assignments go to the bottom of the call list, Mr. Hanley said, and most drivers are paid only for trips they make. It is also common for drivers to work second and third jobs because the pay is so low, Mr. Hanley said."
June 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/us/12bus.html?ref=us
BOWLING GREEN, Va. (AP) - Energy drinks, coffee and even talking on his cellphone were not enough to keep awake the driver of a bus that crashed last month on Interstate 95, killing four people.
About an hour before dawn, the driver, Kin Yiu Cheung, was nearly seven hours into his shift when he dozed off as his bus, carrying 59 passengers, barreled north through Virginia, according to court documents.
The bus veered off the highway. When Mr. Cheung tried to swerve back onto the road, the bus hit an embankment and overturned, the authorities say. In addition to the four passengers killed, dozens more were injured.
Lawyers for Mr. Cheung, who is being held without bail, have called the wreck a "tragic accident."
Prosecutors have charged Mr. Cheung, 37, of New York City, with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. But sleep scientists, safety advocates and labor leaders say the roots of the accident lie with an industry whose economic model often results in drivers on the road with too little rest and at hours when their bodies naturally crave sleep.
"The consequence is an entire industry populated by people not getting enough sleep," said Larry Hanley, the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents drivers at Greyhound and other companies.
Studies show that 13 percent to 31 percent of commercial vehicle crashes are due to driver fatigue, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Recent deadly crashes involving large buses that travel between cities have heightened concern about driver fatigue. In March, a bus returning passengers to Chinatown in New York after a night of gambling ran off an elevated highway and hit a utility pole, shearing off its roof. Fifteen passengers were killed and many more were injured. The driver has said he was awake and alert, but passengers told the police the bus was swerving. A lawsuit filed by one passenger claims the driver was asleep.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which oversees the nation's estimated 4,000 passenger bus companies, had flagged the bus company in the New York crash, World Wide Travel, for possible extra scrutiny because of violations involving driver fatigue.
Sky Express Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., which employed Mr. Cheung to drive from North Carolina to New York, had been cited for 46 violations involving driver fatigue rules over two years, ranking it in the bottom 14 percent of carriers. Passengers on the bus that crashed overheard Mr. Cheung complaining in a cellphone call that he was tired and did not have much time between trips, according to a court affidavit.
Federal officials were in the process of shutting down the company at the time of the crash. A timeline released by the Department of Transportation showed that Sky Express would have stopped operations the weekend before the May 31 crash if regulators had not extended their review an extra 10 days.
Industry officials say buses have a good safety record. Their popularity has soared over the last decade, partly because they are relatively inexpensive. The industry transports an estimated 750 million passengers annually in the United States, roughly equivalent to the domestic airline industry.
Peter J. Pantuso, the president of the American Bus Association, said fatalities are primarily the fault of a handful of small operators who ignore safety regulations to cut costs. When the government orders them to shut down, they reopen under new names or in new locations. The problem is so common that they are known in the industry as reincarnated or chameleon carriers.
That is what federal officials say Sky Express did after the crash. Regulators ordered the company to shut down hours after the accident. But Sky Express continued to operate using two other names, 108 Tours and 108 Bus, officials said, and the department issued a cease-and-desist order.
Last Thursday, federal inspectors shut down a company in East Point, Ga., that was operating its three buses under two different names from the same location. The company, JCT Motor Coach, also known as JT's Travel & Charter, made no effort to comply with regulations limiting drivers' hours and had accumulated a raft of other safety violations, according to the order shutting the carrier. The company did not even have a system for recording drivers' hours, the order said.
James Turner, the company's manager, did not return a message left Friday.
Mr. Hanley, with the drivers' union, blamed the problem on the deregulation of the bus industry in the early 1980s. The result, he said, has been a phenomenal growth in cut-rate bus companies, driving down ticket prices. As a result, bus companies have slashed driver pay and benefits to stay competitive.
It is not uncommon for companies to juggle schedules up until the last minute, calling drivers into work with as little as an hour's notice. Even if a driver feels short on sleep, there is strong incentive to make the trip - drivers who do not take a assignments go to the bottom of the call list, Mr. Hanley said, and most drivers are paid only for trips they make. It is also common for drivers to work second and third jobs because the pay is so low, Mr. Hanley said.
Even bus companies that want to abide by rules on rest breaks and driving hours may find it hard to ensure that their drivers are taking advantage of their time off to sleep.
"There's a lot of pressure for them to keep to their schedules, and sometimes those schedules are hard to meet," said Henry Jasny, general counsel for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a safety and consumer group supported by the insurance industry.
Fatigue can be a problem for any driver on the road overnight, especially between the hours of 4 a.m. and 6 a.m., when the human body's circadian rhythms are telling the brain to sleep, sleep experts say.
Mr. Cheung's driving log said he finished a shift at 5:45 a.m. on May 30, awoke at 6 p.m. and started his next shift at 10 p.m., the police said. The bus left Greensboro, N.C., at 10:30 p.m. and made several stops before crashing around 5 a.m. the next day.
"No matter how much sleep you have had, no matter how young you are, that time of day is extremely dangerous to drive a motor vehicle," said Darrel Drobnich, an expert on driver fatigue and a transportation and public safety consultant.
One of the National Transportation Saftey Board's top safety recommendations has been to equip bus and trucks with devices that keep track of how many hours drivers are on the road. The recorders, which would replace paper driving logs, are a way to enforce limits on work hours. A proposed Transportation Department rule would require companies to equip vehicles with the recorders, but the rule is not final.
More frequent rest stops so drivers can grab short naps might help, Dr. Belenky said, but that would also lengthen bus trips and possibly cost companies customers.
Putting a second driver on the bus to share the driving may also help if bus companies do not balk at the cost. But there is no guarantee a second driver would be able to stay awake, either.
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13) Apple Store Employee Seeks to Plant Union Seed
"Union members as a percentage of U.S. wage and salary workers declined from 20.1 percent in 1983 to 11.9 percent last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."
By REUTERS
June 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/06/12/technology/tech-us-apple.html?src=busln
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An Apple Inc store employee has started a union in a rare move at a company known for its near-fanatical following and cutting-edge mystique.
Cory Moll, a part-time employee at an Apple store in San Francisco, is working to form a union to fight for better wages and benefits and to address what he says are unfair practices in the company's glass-and-steel retail showrooms.
"The core issues definitely involve compensation, pay, benefits," Moll said, adding that he decided to go public with the union to encourage other employees to come forward.
While unions are strong in industries like trucking and autos, they are largely unheard of in Silicon Valley companies, which pride themselves on being quick-footed and having the flexibility to hire and fire.
Moll's budding campaign is also unusual given Apple's reputation for fierce employee loyalty.
Apple has more than 30,000 retail employees in its 325 stores around the world.
Moll, who has been working at Apple for four years, said he makes $14 an hour at the San Francisco Apple store. The minimum wage for 2011 in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the United States, is $9.92 an hour.
The 30-year-old employee primarily communicates with other Apple store employees through Twitter, Facebook and the "Apple Retail Workers Union" website, which he created in May, without disclosing his name.
Moll has received little public support from employees so far, though he said he has emails expressing support.
An Apple representative confirmed Moll is an employee, but declined to comment on the union effort.
"It's kind of a feeling of David versus Goliath," Moll said of trying to start a union movement in a $320 billion company run by its iconic co-founder, Steve Jobs.
The would-be Apple union's website is sparse, but states: "At Apple, our most important resource, our soul, is our people. Our Time Has Come."
Union members as a percentage of U.S. wage and salary workers declined from 20.1 percent in 1983 to 11.9 percent last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Moll said the movement is only in its infancy.
"There's definitely no call to action yet," he said. "Right now what I hope to gain is to get people to start talking about it and get comfortable with it."
(Reporting by Poornima Gupta and Alexei Oreskovic, editing by Matthew Lewis and Marguerita Choy)
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