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We Are the 99 Percent
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?
OccupyWallSt.org
Occupytogether.org
wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
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"If corporations are people, why can't we put them in jail?"
Drop All Charges on the 'Occupy Wall Street' Arrestees!
Stop Police Attacks & Arrests! Support 'Occupy Wall Street'!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://bailoutpeople.org/dropchargesonoccupywallstarrestees.shtml to send email messages to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC City Council, NYPD, the NY Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the NY Legislature, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, members of the media YOU WANT ALL CHARGES DROPPED ON THE 'OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTEES!
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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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*Fightback Tour!*
*No to FBI Repression,Islamophobia and War! Civil Liberties for All!*
[Part of the Oct. 15-22, 2011 antiwar week of solidarity and in defense of civil liberties; marking the 10th year of the U.S. war against the people of Afghanistan]
*Bring the Troops, Mercenaries, War Contractors Home Now! Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya!*
*Please click for flyer & tour schedule:*
http://nepajac.org/unactour.pdf
*$10 sliding scale. No one turned away.*
October 15-22 Initial Tour Schedule
Sun., October 16, Oakland Reception/lunch/meeting at the home of Jeff Mackler... with KPFA friends, 1-4 PM, $20/no one turned away. RSVP: 510-268-9429
Monday, October 17, 7-9 PM, The Redwoods Auditorium, 40 Camino Alto, Mill Valley, CA, Sponsor, Mill Valley Seniors for Peace; Marin Peace and Justice Coalition warrenut@aol.com 415-389-9040 Free
Tuesday, Oct 18, 7pm, 909 12th St, Sacramento. Free/donation requested. Sponsors: Sacramento Valley Chapter, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, 916-369-5510 & Sacramento Area Peace Action,
Wednesday, October 19, Campus meeting to be announced.
Thursday, October 20, 7:30 PM Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar Street at Bonita, Berkeley, Free/donation requested.
Friday, October 21, 7:00 PM, Sonoma State University, Warren Auditorium (Tentative location) in Ives Hall (Directions to Warren Auditorium: At the Main Entrance to the University, turn left off of E. Cotati Avenue onto Sequoia Drive. Take the first right at the Information Booth onto Redwood Drive. Turn left into parking lot E. Ives Hall is the building on the North side of the parking lot.. Parking free after 5:00 pm), 707-874-2695 Sponsor: Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action and Santa Rosa Peace and Justice Center
Saturday, October 22, 2- 4 PM, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, 48 S. Seventh Street (between San Fernando and Santa Clara Streets), San Jose, Sponsors: San Jose Peace and Justice Center and San Jose Committee to Stop FBI Repression. Donations accepted. 408-373-0817
Tour co-sponsors: United National Antiwar Coalition • National Lawyers Guild SF Bay Area Chapter Committee to Stop FBI Repression • Project Salam • San Jose Peace and Justice Center • Mill Valley Seniors for Peace • Marin Peace and Justice Center • South Bay Committee to Stop Political Repression • Green Party of Alameda County • Oakland Education Association Peace and Justice Caucus • Peninsula Peace and Justice Center • Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists • International Action Center • International Socialist Organization • BAYAN/USA • Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal • Lynne Stewart Defense Committee • Code Pink San Francisco • Socialist Viewpoint • Solidarity • Sacramento Area Peace Action • Socialist Action • Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action • Santa Rosa Peace and Justice Center • Sacramento Valley Chapter Women's International League for Peace and Freedom • Veterans for Peace Chapter 162 East Bay • Afghans for Peace • California Peace and Freedom Party • Michel Shehadeh, Case of the Los Angeles 8 • Cindy Sheehan, Peace activist • Courage to Resist • Muslim Peace Coalition/USA • Samina Sundas, Founding Executive, American Muslim Voice • Bay Area Committee To Stop Political Repression
All meetings wheelchair accessible. All meetings co-sponsored by United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC), 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net
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NATO/G8 protests in Chicago.
United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNAC, along with other organizations and activists, has formed a coalition to help organize protests in Chicago during the week of May 15 - 22 while NATO and G8 are holding their summit meetings. The new coalition was formed at a meeting of 163 people representing 73 different organization in Chicago on August 28 and is called Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANGATE). For a report on the Chicago meeting, click here: http://nepajac.org/chicagoreport.htm
To add your email to the new CANGATE listserve, send an email to: cangate-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
To have your organization endorse the NATO/G8 protest, please click here:
https://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html
Click here to hear audio of the August 28 meeting:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/54145
Click here for the talk by Marilyn Levin, UNAC co-coordinator at the August 28 meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tHQ7ilDJ8&NR=1
Click here for Pat Hunts welcome to the meeting and Joe Iosbaker's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNGcnBGGfI
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UNAC Conference.
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) conference originally scheduled for November, 11-13, 2011, has been rescheduled for March 23-25, 2012, in order to tie in to organizing efforts for building massive protests at the NATO/G-8 Summits in Chicago, May 15-22, and to have sufficient time to generate an action program for the next stage of building a mass movement for social change.
Organizations are invited to endorse this conference by clicking here:
http://www.jotform.com/form/12685942513
Donations are needed for bringing international speakers and to subsidize attendance of students and low income participants. Contributions will be accepted at www.UNACpeace.org.
For the initial conference flyer, click here:
http://nepajac.org/conferenceflyer.pdf
Click here to donate to UNAC:
https://nationalpeaceconference.org/Donate.html
Click here for the Facebook UNAC group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_157059221012587&ap=1
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The Call for the 16th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation
Saturday, October 22,2011
12:00 NOON
3rd Street and Palou
San Francisco
(Endorse this call, forward to others. Return endorsements to oct22bayarea@gmail.com or call 510 206-0742)
Across the U.S., Black, Latino, and poor neighborhoods are treated like occupied territory by increasingly militarized armies of law enforcement. People are criminalized and brutalized for their perceived status - socioeconomic, immigration, mental health, and/or racial, gender, or sexual identity. People living in our communities, especially youth, are routinely stopped, harassed, beaten, and even killed.
--In Chicago, the home of the first Black president, police have shot 44 people so far this year, mostly youth of color, including 13-year-old Jimmell Cannon, who was shot eight times.
--NYPD continues to stop hundreds of thousands of youth of color every year for the most minimal suspicion, fewer than 10 percent of which result in arrest, and far fewer in charges or conviction.
--Police nationwide continue to kill with very little consequence. Twelve Miami cops shot at 22-year-old Raymond Herisse 100 times, then threatened those who recorded the incident, destroying their cellphones. A Tucson SWAT team shot at 26-year-old Iraq War veteran Jose Guerena over 70 times, claiming that he fired at them and then leaving him to bleed to death in his home. Both their allegations of gunfire and drug-dealing were later revealed to be false. In New York and New Jersey, at least 27 people have been killed by police since October 22 of last year, while at least 35 people have been killed by law enforcement in Washington State in the last 12 months. The killing of 22-year old Oscar Grant in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009 resulted in a rare conviction for the officer who shot him; however, he was freed after mere months in prison, while people protesting the outrageous verdict were met with police violence and mass arrests. In the weeks following that cop's release, SF cops killed Charles Hill, a 45-year-old homeless man, on a subway platform and 19-year old Kenneth Harding after he supposedly failed to pay a $2 train fare, then left him dying on the pavement in front of dozens of outraged witnesses.
--Police routinely abuse the mentally ill and disabled. Fullerton, CA cops beat to death homeless and mentally ill 27-year-old Kelly Thomas, described by many in the community as "a gentle, childlike soul." In Fresno, CA, 28-year-old Raul Rosas, Jr. died after being tasered by police. His girlfriend said "I didn't call the Fresno County Sheriff to kill him. I called because he needed help with his mental illness." Raul went into cardiac arrest and was denied access to three medical ambulances that showed up to assist.
--Recently enacted anti-immigrant laws have given police in the states of Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama sweeping powers to stop people "suspected" of being undocumented on no other basis than appearance. The hostility and racism stoked by these policies have already culminated in violence, as seen in the killing of 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereka by a border patrol agent and the beating death of 42-year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas at the hands of La Migra. More than one million have been deported under the Obama administration.
--Racially targeted mass incarceration exacerbates the criminalization and marginalization of Black people, playing the same role as the Jim Crow laws that sprang from the Virginia slave codes of 1705. In 1954, 90,000 Black people were incarcerated. Now, over 900,000 Black people are imprisoned, a tenfold increase, while the total U.S. Black population has merely doubled in the same period. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate worldwide, with 2.4 million people in prison.
--Law enforcement continues to harass and sexually assault people, most especially women and the transgendered. According to the website InjusticeEverywhere.com, sexual misconduct was the second most common complaint (following excessive force) against police in 2010, involving 618 cops.
--Young schoolchildren are increasingly labeled and treated as criminals by school security and local police. Eight-year-old Aidan Elliot was peppersprayed and handcuffed by Colorado police, and ten-year-old Sofia Bautista was removed from her elementary school, then taken to a NYPD precinct, handcuffed, and interrogated for hours, while police nationwide continue to use tasers on students as young as six.
Meanwhile, repression against those who take action against injustices continues to escalate. Over a dozen activists with Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for feeding the homeless in public parks. The killings of Oscar Grant, Kenneth Harding, Kelly Thomas, Raymond Herisse, and John T. Williams in Seattle were all caught on video. Now, as if in retaliation against the subsequent public outrage, police in cities and towns nationwide have attacked and arrested people merely for recording their activity, while in Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts, video-recording the police is now explicitly illegal. Cops haven't stopped killing and brutalizing people--they're just making it a crime to record them while they do. Repression against progressive and antiwar activism has intensified: simultaneous FBI raids on activists from numerous antiwar and international solidarity organizations in three U.S. cities took place on September 24, 2010. Twenty-three activists now face serious jail time for refusing to participate in the ensuing grand jury witch hunts that clearly intend to discourage and intimidate would-be dissenters.
These vicious attacks are not going down without opposition. Whether standing up to police violence when it happens, as we saw in the video of Kenneth Harding's shooting, or organizing inspiring prison strikes in Georgia and California, people are uniting to fight back. Determined outcry from people nationwide against the shooting of unarmed men crossing the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has finally brought convictions of the guilty cops and exposed the sort of extensive cover-ups that are routine with police shootings. More and more crimes against the people are being revealed, as we have seen with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' Operation Fast and Furious, which intentionally provided weapons to Mexican drug cartels, and the overturning of over 4,000 convictions of youth in Pennsylvania after it was found that juvenile judge Mark Ciavarella received kickbacks from private for-profit detention centers.
Once we have seen the man behind the curtain, how can we pretend he is not there? One thing we know from years of experience is that when this system has to answer to organized people, it can't easily get away with all the things it's used to doing. Resistance matters.
THE VIOLENCE OF THE COPS, THE COURTS, THE FBI, LA MIGRA, AND HOMELAND SECURITY IS INTENSIFYING. OUR RESISTANCE MUST INTENSIFY AS WELL! Every year, thousands of people nationwide express their outrage, creativity, and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. People speak out and perform, they march in the streets, and more. The October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation embraces and encourages any and all such expressions of people's righteous outrage.
As said by the mother of Gil Barber, gunned down by a deputy in High Point, NC in 2001, "October 22nd is our day." ORGANIZE against these injustices! BREAK DOWN the barriers between communities that these crimes seek to strengthen! MOBILIZE people of all communities in the most visible way...and on October 22, 2011, WEAR BLACK! FIGHT BACK!
JOIN US if there is already an October 22nd event in your area. CREATE one if you are in an area where there is currently no group organizing. For listings of activities in your area, check the websitewww.october22.org.
To start building for an event in your area, email info@october22.org
TO ENDORSE THIS CALL, SIGN BELOW AND MAIL TO: October 22, P.O. Box 2627, New York, NY 10009, along with your tax-deductible donation to the national organizing effort. Suggested donation $15.00 (paid to "IFCO/October 22")
Name: ___________________________________________
Email: ____________________________________________
Organization: __________________________________________________________* (note if for identification purposes only)
Signature: __________________________________________________________
You may also make this endorsement directly on the website www.october22.org
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MEDICARE IN THE CROSS-HAIRS
SOCIAL SECURITY NEXT?
SAN FRANCISCO LABOR COUNCIL TEACH-IN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011, 7:30-9PM
Plumbers Union Hall, 1621 Market St., S.F.
(5 blocks from Civic Center BART station)
For more information call Carl, San Francisco Labor Council Education Project
415-829-3816
CUTTING MEDICARE-MEDICAID IS THE POLITICIANS CONSENSUS #1 BUDGET TARGET
• President Obama has just proposed a $248 billion cut in Medicare as a starter & another $72 billion in Medicaid cuts.
• Obama indicated September 19 he will support cutting more than $320 Billion if Republicans agree with him on taxes.
• Vice-President Joe Biden last June offered Republicans to cut $400-$500 billion in Medicare-Medicaid
• Republicans last April proposed to raise out-of-pocket costs for Medicare for seniors by $7,000 per year
• The 'Supercommittee' of 12 in Congress said last week they want to cut even more than Obama has proposed. They will report 'how much' more on November 19.
• Congress will vote on how much more in Medicare-Medicaid cuts before December 23.
How Much Will Your Medicare Be Cut?
How Much More Will You Have to Pay?
Come Hear the Facts
Open Discussion to Follow
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For Immediate Release
Howard Petrick's "Rambo" - anti-VietNam activist tells his story-Marsh Berkeleyu-Oct 20-Dec 10
The Little Guy Takes on the Pentagon in Howard Petrick's "Rambo: The Missing Years" at The Marsh-Berkeley, Oct 20-Dec 10
The Hilarious and True Story of the Private Who Protested the Viet Nam War - While Still in the Army!
"Howard's show is proof you can fight bureaucracy and win. How he does so is told with aplomb and a certain sense of mischievousness." - Vancouver Fringe
"The potency of the show...springs from Petrick's first-hand account of his anti-Vietnam activism from within the army...this comes with an intriguing authenticity."- Winnipeg Free Press
"Petrick delivers...For 60 minutes he has you laughing through the fear." - Winnipeg Uptown
San Francisco. September 26, 2011. The Vancouver Sun calls San Francisco's Howard Petrick, "a guy who really knows how to get up the nose of the war machine." Petrick's Rambo: The Missing Years is an hilarious - and true - account of the misadventures of a Vietnam-era draftee who frustrates the military brass by asserting his right to organize his fellow GIs against the war. Petrick's Rambo - not to be confused in the least with the Sylvester Stallone action figure - plays at The Marsh-Berkeley, 2120 Alston Way in Berkeley, October 20 through December 10.
The story begins as Petrick (aka 'Hanoi Howie") reports for the draft and refuses to fill out the forms, befuddling the military bureaucracy for the first of many times to come. Yet, during his time of service he maintains an unblemished military record, breaks no rules, and continues to carry out his military duties.
Directed by Mark Kenward and developed with David Ford, the show plays on Thursday and Friday at 7:00 pm and Saturday at 8:30 pm from October 20 to December 10, 2011 (press opening November 4, no performance on Thanksgiving Day) at The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, near Shattuck. The public may visit www.themarsh.org or call 415-282-3055.
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
La Colmenita, the National Children's Theater of Cuba, US tour 2011
Whether you are 7 or 70, Abracadabra will move you...Come and enjoy!
ABRACADABRA is not a play. It is an act of Justice and Life, written mainly by children who share the dream of freedom. A teacher invites her students to walk the road to the essences, through five very true stories of heroism and virtue.
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Wednesday October 26, 7pm
East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
339 11th Street, Richmond, CA 94801-3105
Suggested donation at the door $10, Children Free
http://eastbaycenter.org/Events/EventsbyDate/tabid/261/Default.aspx
Thursday October 27, 1pm
Esperanza Elementary School, Oakland
Private Presentation
Friday October 28, 7:30pm & Saturday October 29, 2pm
Fort Mason Center, Cowell Theater
Entrance at intersection of Marina Blvd. and Buchanan St., San Francisco, CA 94123
Tickets $20, Students & Seniors $15, Children Free
www.fortmason.org/events/events-details?id=2026
Tickets on line: http://lacolmenita.eventbrite.com
For more information about performances in your area, please visit:
www.lacolmenitacuba.com
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Here is the official statement from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression on the 1-year anniversary of the raids.
Build the Movement Against Political Repression
One year since the September 24 FBI Raids and Grand Jury Subpoenas
Statement of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, 9-22-2011
Please come to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression one-day Conference in Chicago on November 5, 2011.
http://www.stopfbi.net/national-conference-2011
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) is asking you to build the movement against political repression on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 24, 2010 FBI raids on anti-war and international solidarity activists. We need your continued solidarity as we build movements for peace, justice and equality.
The storm of political repression continues to expand and threaten. It is likely to intensify and churn into a destructive force with indictments, trials, and attempts to imprison anti-war activists. The last we knew, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was preparing multiple indictments as he and Attorney General Eric Holder attempt to criminalize the targeted activists and the movements to which we dedicate our lives.
It is one year since the FBI raided two homes in Chicago and five homes plus the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, eventually handing out 23 subpoenas. The anti-war activists' homes were turned upside down and notebooks, cell phones, artwork, computers, passports and personal belongings were all carted off by the FBI. Anyone who has ever been robbed knows the feelings - shock and anger.
The man responsible for this assault on activists and their families, on free speech and the right to organize, is U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago. Fitzgerald has an ugly record of getting powerful Republicans like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove off the hook, while mercilessly pursuing an agenda to scare America into silence and submission with the phony 'war on terror.' Fitzgerald is attempting to criminalize anti-war activists with accusations of 'material support for terrorism,' involving groups in Palestine and Colombia.
First the U.S. government targeted Arabs and Muslims, violating their civil rights and liberties and spying on them. Then they came for the anti-war and international solidarity activists. We refuse to be criminalized. We continue to speak out and organize. We say, "Opposing U.S. war and occupation is not a crime!" We are currently building a united front with groups and movements to defeat Fitzgerald's reactionary, fear mongering assault on anti-war activism and to restore civil liberties taken away by the undemocratic USA PATRIOT Act.
Many people know the developments in the case, but for those who do not, we invite you to read a timeline at stopfbi.net. We think the repression centers on this: During the lead up to the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, a federal law enforcement officer, using the phony name of "Karen Sullivan" got involved and joined the Anti-War Committee and Freedom Road Socialist Organization in Minneapolis. She lied to everyone she met and helped the FBI to disrupt many activities in the anti-war, international solidarity and labor movements in Minnesota - and also other states and even over in Palestine. It is outrageous.
In fact, many of those being investigated travelled to Colombia or Palestine to learn firsthand about U.S. government funding for war and oppression. There was no money given to any groups that the U.S. government lists as terrorist organizations. However, we met people who are a lot like most Americans - students, community organizers, religious leaders, trade unionists, women's group leaders and activists much like ourselves. Many of the U.S. activists wrote about their trips, did educational events, or helped organized protests against U.S. militarism and war. In a increasingly repressive period, this is enough to make one a suspect in Fitzgerald's office.
This struggle is far from one-sided however. The response to the FBI raids and the pushback from the movement is tremendous. Minneapolis and Chicago immediately organized a number of press conferences and rallies with hundreds of people. Over the first two weeks after the raids, 60 cities protested outside FBI offices, from New York to Kalamazoo, from traveled to the Bay Area. The National Lawyers Guild convention was in New Orleans the day of the FBI raids and they immediately issued a solidarity statement and got to work on the case. Solidarity poured in from anti-war, civil rights, religious and faith groups, students and unions. Groups and committees began working to obtain letters of support from members of Congress. The solidarity was overwhelming. It was great!
It is possible that U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald thought he was picking on an isolated group of activists. Instead, those raided proved to have many friends and allies from decades of work for social justice and peace. Over the months, all the targeted activists refused to appear at the grand jury dates set by U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office. In November 2010, a large crew of us travelled to New York City to found the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, after the United National Antiwar Committee meeting.
In December 2010, U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's office called in three of the Minnesota women and threatened them. We prepared a campaign in case they were jailed for refusing to speak. The FBI also delivered subpoenas to nine more Arab-American and Palestine solidarity activists in December. Their grand jury date was on Jan. 25, 2011, and we organized protests in over 70 American cities, plus a few overseas. The movement was building and expanding, so we organized conferences with over 800 participants in the Midwest, the South, and on the East and West Coasts. While we were organizing a pushback, the FBI was making new plans.
On May 17, 2011, at 5:00 a.m., the Los Angeles, California Sheriff, under the direction of the FBI, busted down the front door of Chicano leader Carlos Montes, storming in with automatic weapons drawn and shouting. The early morning raid was supposedly about weapons and permits, but they seized decades of notes and writings about the Chicano, immigrant rights, education rights and anti-war movements. The FBI attempted to question Carlos Montes while he was handcuffed and in the back of a L.A. sheriff squad car. Montes is going to another preliminary court date on Sept. 29, prepared to face six felony charges, carrying up to three years in prison for each, knowing he is extraordinarily targeted by the FBI. We will walk every step of the way with Carlos Montes, and more. Montes was with us at the Republican National Convention protests; his name was included on the search warrant for the Anti-War Committee office in Minneapolis, and the FBI attempted to question him about this case. We ask you to support Carlos Montes and to organize speaking events with him and local protests on his important court dates, Sept. 29 being the next one.
The same week the FBI raided Carlos Montes in May 2011, the CSFR came back with a big revelation - we released a set of documents, the FBI game plan, which the FBI mistakenly left behind in a file drawer at one of the homes. The FBI documents are on the CSFR website and are fascinating to read. Fitzgerald and company developed 102 questions that come right from a McCarthy witch-hunt trial of the 1950s. It is like turning back the clock five decades.
The whole intention of the raids is clear: They want to paint activists as 'terrorists' and shut down the organizing. They came at a time when the rich and powerful are frightened of not just the masses of people overseas, but of the people in their own country. With a failing U.S. war in Afghanistan, a U.S. occupation of Iraq predicted to last decades, a new war for oil and domination in Libya, a failing immigration policy that breaks up families and produces super-profits for big business, and now a long and deep economic crisis that is pushing large segments of working people into poverty, the highest levels of the U.S. government are turning to political repression.
The only hope for the future is in building stronger, consistent and determined movements. In a principled act of solidarity, the 23 subpoenaed activists refuse to testify before the grand jury. This sets an example for others.
In addition, the outpouring of support and mobilization into the streets from the anti-war, international solidarity, civil rights, labor and immigrant rights movements means that not one of the 24 has spent a single day in jail. That is a victory.
We ask you to stand with us, to stay vigilant and to hold steady as we proceed to organize against wars abroad and injustice at home and as we defend Carlos Montes from the FBI charade in Los Angeles.
Committee to Stop FBI Repression - www.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 55414
Add us to your address book
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White House Petition for Leonard Peltier - October 22 deadline
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
A petition in favor of granting clemency to Leonard Peltier is now on the We the People portion of the White House Web site. We have 30 days (until October 22) to get 5,000 signatures in order for our petition to be reviewed by the White House. This petition may only allow US signatories.
Sign the petition here:
http://tinyurl.com/3qq4muc
Due to heavy site traffic, you may have trouble accessing the petition. Keep trying until you succeed. Try during off-peak hours.
Email our petition to your friends, family and others who care about this issue.
Facebook: Post our petition to your Facebook wall to let folks know about it. Here's a sample message you can cut and paste into your Facebook status: Petition for Leonard Peltier on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Twitter: Tweet about your petition. Here's a sample tweet you can use: Leonard Peltier petition on the White House site, We the People. Will you sign it?
Let's do it!
Launched into cyberspace by the
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
The Petition:
we petition the obama administration to:
grant clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier without delay.
10th Circuit Court of Appeals: "...Much of the government's behavior... and its prosecution of Leonard Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."
While others were acquitted on grounds of self defense, Peltier was convicted in connection with the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents. Evidence shows that prosecutors knowingly presented false statements to a Canadian court to extradite Peltier and manufactured the murder weapon (the gun and shell casings entered into evidence didn't match; this fact was hidden from the jury). The number of constitutional violations in this case is simply staggering.
It's time to right this wrong. Mr. President, you can and must free Leonard Peltier.
Created: Sep 22, 2011
Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Human Rights
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/grant-clemency-native-american-activist-leonard-peltier-without-delay/LLWBZq1S
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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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Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to "F**k Off"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aaTGsGdp4c&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: Chicago - War Protest March to Obama's 2012 HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTkOincM93s
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
On Oct. 10, 2011, a combination of five feeder marches gathered in Chicago's Loop to protest the Futures & Options and American Mortgage Bankers Association expos. The feeders represented constituencies for jobs, housing, and public schools. They generated a combined march of 7,000, and finally ended up at the Art Institute where the banksters were having a reception dinner. Here are selected scenes and comments from a big spectrum of interests affected by the dictatorship of capital being forced upon the workers of Chicago. Includes the march for homes/housing starting from the Hyatt, the Occupy Chicago location where the teachers union gathered, and the final convergence at the Art Institute. Street interviews. Also, interview/speech by Karen Lewis, President of Chicago Teachers Union. Produced by Labor Beat. Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer Labor Beat. For info: mail@laborbeat.org, www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. For other Labor Beat videos, visit Google Video, YouTube, or blip.tv and search "Labor Beat". Labor Beat has regular cable slots in Chicago, Evanston, Rockford, Urbana, IL; St. Louis, MO; Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; and Rochester, NY. For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org
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'Occupy Wall Street' NYPD runs over a protester with motorcycle 14/10/2011
http://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DVrzQedHM6SY%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded
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OWS_PoliceScooter
by The Local East Village
http://vimeo.com/30550909
OWS_PoliceScooter from The Local East Village on Vimeo.
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Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related
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Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman) - This Land Is Your Land @OccupyLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ImQ7Ylvdo&feature=player_embedded#!
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#Occupy St. Louis: Bank of America refuses to let customers close accounts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KtI85Zc6Oik
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ALL COLORS (Occupy LA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Zh6hDQC8I
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600+ Protesters March on Bank of America - #Occupy Austin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1JOJ3joOA&feature=player_embedded
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Scenes From #Occupy Las Vegas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=olatH3pSvlk
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Could Occupy Wall Street be infiltrated by political groups?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D983q4xOnZg
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Make Revolution, Not Reform: A Warning to the 'Occupy' Movement
andrewgavinmarshall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oneVFYeMHjU#!
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#Occupy Wall Street In Washington Square: Mohammed Ezzeldin, former occupier of Egypt's Tahrir Square Speaks at Washington Square!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziodsFWEb5Y&feature=player_embedded
[This truly is an amazing thing to see -- no microphones allowed by NYPD yet the crowd is completely engaged with the speakers. The speeches have to be short because the words are repeated and passed along to those furthest away since they can't hear them. Mohammed's speech is great and there's no doubt that the crowd thinks so, too...Bonnie Weinstein]
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#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.
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#Occupy Wall Street Protesters Marching
[Thousands of NYU Students march to OWS...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJpzx9IqU4
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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Supporting Occupy Wall Street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soV79czwzoo&feature=player_embedded
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Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
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#Occupy Wall Street Begins To Go National!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDnFbIwZUWQ
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OCCUPY-WALL-STREET-PROTESTERS-ARRESTS( Sept 20, 2011) Spread This Video Please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyvbI6Eq-qA
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PEACEFUL FEMALE PROTESTORS PENNED IN THE STREET AND MACED!- #OccupyWallStreet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moD2JnGTToA
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UNEDITED - COP KNEE ON THROAT 9/24/2011 #OCCUPYWALLSTREET
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbXfelyIoM&NR=1
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9/24/2011 COPS KETTLING AT UNION SQUARE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaQvh80L-g&NR=1
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Empire State Rebellion: An Idea Whose Time Has Come - OpESR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIlfV1pCZY&feature=player_embedded
Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to Digg Post to StumbleUpon
The video below is dedicated to all the people currently Occupying Wall Street.
See you there again on September 24th at noon, and the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that...
Video Transcript:
Mainstream media in the United States is the most efficient
weapon of mass oppression.
The propaganda system is so extensive.
People are very confused.
They don't really grasp what is happening.
On a very basic and profound level
they understand that global banks have robbed the country.
They get that, but there is so much divide and conquer rhetoric -
it goes from the mainstream media
and it filters all the way down
into independent media.
So it's a matter of finding that place
where you can overcome the divide and conquer propaganda.
And where we can find that place
is on Wall Street and breaking up the banks.
How would a million people clogging lower Manhattan's financial district
play out in the global media?
If we came down there and said:
"We're not leaving until we have commitments
to break up the banks
and end the campaign finance racket."
Let's just go over some statistics here:
· 59 Million people without health care
· 52 Million in poverty
· 44 Million on food stamps
· 30 Million in need of work
· 7 Million foreclosed on
· 5 Million homes over 60 days late on mortgage payments
· $1 Trillion in student debt
We have the highest, most severe inequality of wealth we have ever had,
unlimited campaign spending,
budget cuts for the poor,
tax breaks for the rich -
this is the ultimate recipe for revolution.
America has 239 million people living paycheck to paycheck right now.
Food prices are going up, oil is going up, everything is going up -
these people aren't going to be able to make ends meet.
It's the same everywhere, it's global policies,
whether its Ireland, United States, Egypt, Greece.
People are going to fight back because
the economic central planners have become so arrogant.
Economic central planners, who control the global economy
through the IMF, World Bank and Federal Reserve,
are committed to sentencing tens of millions of people
to a slow death through economic policy.
Obviously, those people, as time goes by,
they are going to fight back,
because they are fighting to survive.
This is a global rebellion.
People don't seem to get the fact that we live in a global economy
and there is a Neo-Liberal centrally planned aristocracy
which runs the global economy,
and we are in the midst of a
worldwide economic war right now.
It is a straight up economic war
with genocidal economic policies,
which of course are going to lead to mass rebellion.
Decentralized global rebellion.
Decentralized resistance.
Decentralized revolutionaries.
We had you on the show a few months ago,
and you called for a revolution.
The revolution is happening right now.
Tells us about A99 Operation Empire State Rebellion.
The revolution is happening right now.
#OccupyWallStreet
Editor's Note: This music video was created on March 16th by Anon and posted to our social network. It was also posted on Max Keiser's website. It features clips from a Max Keiser interview with David DeGraw.
DO SOMETHING: @OccupyWallStNYC | #OccupyWallStreet | #OpESR
Have Fun and Get Something Done on Wall Steet This Weekend (MAP)
YOUR STREET: @OccupyChicago | @OccupyCleveland | @OccupyDallas
@OccupyFDSF | @OccupySTL | @OccupyHouston | VIDEO: Livestream
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Protesters pepper sprayed at the National Air & Space Museum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc9OSFLnyUI&feature=youtu.be
*---------*
Police Raid on Occpy Boston 10 11 11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5G9agQjM60&noredirect=1
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Occupy Boston protesters arrested
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/occupy-boston-protesters-arrested/2011/10/11/gIQAsCzWdL_video.html
Boston police have arrested 129 people during Tuesday's Occupy Boston demonstrations. The early morning arrests were mostly for trespassing. (Oct. 11) (/The Associated Press)
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Video of Boston PD attacking veterans at OWS protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s3zFca5znU&feature=relmfu
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Occupy Frankfurt Germany
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxQP2eMdMU&feature=player_embedded
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Occupy Rome - La manifestazione di Roma October 15th OccupyTogether
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25CWyNnJVOI&feature=player_embedded
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A Familiar Figure Begs on the Street, but Not for Himself
97-year-old "Professor Irwin Corey" collects money for medical aid for children in Cuba.
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/10/11/nyregion/100000001099057/hes-97-and-famous-spare-some-change.html
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AlphaDog Proto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbZrQp-HOk&feature=player_embedded
The AlphaDog Proto is a lab prototype for the Legged Squad Support System, a robot being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA and the US Marine Corps. When fully developed the system will carry 400 lbs of payload on 20-mile missions in rough terrain. The first version of the complete robot will be completed in 2012. This video shows early results from the control development process. In this video the robot is powered remotely. AlphaDog is designed to be over 10x quieter than BigDog. For more information visit us at www.BostonDynamics.com.
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Children's Art from Palestine--Censored!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8mHw2-aZQ&feature=youtu.be
You can see the whole exhibit in a new space located just around the corner from MOCHA (Museum of Children's Art) at 917 Washington Street. For more information please call Middle East Children's Alliance at (510) 548-0542 or email at meca@mecaforpeace.org.
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Judge Mathis Weighs in on the execution of Troy Davis
[And he does a great job and he has a huge audience. ...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogBdP6INHlE
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Bill Maher, Michael Moore Defend Tony Bennett for Saying That U.S. Foreign Policy Helped Cause 9/11
By Lauren Kelley | Sourced from AlterNet
Posted at September 24, 2011, 7:44 am
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/670832/bill_maher%2C_michael_moore_defend_tony_bennett_for_saying_that_u.s._foreign_policy_helped_cause_9_11/#paragraph2
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
Free Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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Troy Davis, Racism, The Death Penalty & Labor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEues_-KoZU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war?
Narrated by Tony Benn. Music by Brian Eno
Mass Demonstration October 8, Noon, Trafalgar Square, London
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Bkg8zgoYQ&feature=youtu.be
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LOWKEY OBAMA NATION (BANIDO DA TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFywomdJTM&feature=related
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Labor Beat: THE PEOPLE'S PUTT PUTT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FkYBneJpds
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The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
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Visualizing a Trillion: Just How Big That Number Is?
"1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years."
Digital Inspiration
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
How Much Is $1 Trillion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfY0q-rEdY&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy the credit crisis and big bailout packages, the figure "trillion" has suddenly become part of our everyday conversations. One trillion dollars, or 1 followed by 12 zeros, is lots of money but have you ever tried visualizing how big that number actually is?
For people who can visualize one million dollars, the comparison made on CNN should give you an idea about a trillion - "if you start spending a million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spend a trillion dollars".
Another mathematician puts it like this: "1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years".
Now if the above comparisons weren't really helpful, check another illustration that compares the built of an average human being against a stack of $100 currency notes bundles.
A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house.
With this background in mind, 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 1000 times bigger than 1 billion and would therefore take up an entire football field - the man is still standing in the bottom-left corner. (See visuals -- including a video -- at website:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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Very reminiscent of Obama...bw
Pat Paulsen 1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oiQhhdz8ys
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Japan: angry Fukushima citizens confront government (video)
Posted by Xeni Jardin on Monday, Jul 25th at 11:36am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVuGwc9dlhQ&feature=player_embedded
The video above documents what I am told is a meeting between Fukushima residents and government officials from Tokyo, said to have taken place on 19 July 2011. The citizens are demanding their government evacuate people from a broader area around the Fukushima nuclear plant, because of ever-increasing fears about the still-spreading radiation. They are demanding that their government provide financial and logistical support to get out. In the video above, you can see that some participants actually brought samples of their children's urine to the meeting, and they demanded that the government test it for radioactivity.
When asked by one person at the meeting about citizens' right to live a healthy and radioactive-free life, Local Nuclear Emergency Response Team Director Akira Satoh replies "I don't know if they have that right."
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Let's torture the truth out of suicide bombers says new CIA chief Petraeus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sm02UbKNCKQ
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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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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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Tier Systems Cripple Middle Class Dreams for Young Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pQW6TW8m4&feature=youtu.be
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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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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. ...bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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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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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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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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It's time to tell the White House that "We the People" support PFC Bradley Manning's freedom and the UN's investigation into alleged torture in Quantico, VA
On September 22nd, the White House launched a new petition website called "We the People." According to the White House blog, if a petition reaches 5,000 signatures in 30 days, "it will be reviewed by policy experts and you'll receive an official response."
Act now! Sign our petition to the White House: LINK
This is our chance to make sure the people in power know that the public still care about the fate of PFC Bradley Manning, and that we won't let this issue go away until PFC Manning is recognized as the whistleblower he is. It is also an opportunity for us to educate fellow Americans who may not have heard of PFC Manning yet, by boosting our petition to the top of the WhiteHouse.gov site.
The same day the White House launched the petition website, it also unveiled an Open Government Action Plan calling to "Strengthen and Expand Whistleblower Protection for Government Personnel." We consider this ironic given the fact that in April of 2011 the UN Chief Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, was forced to issue a rare reprimand to the U.S. for repeatedly denying his request to meet with alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Manning in an official, unmonitored visit to investigation allegations of his torture in the military brig of Quantico, VA.
We submitted the petition to the "We the People" website earlier this week, and we have already gathered over 1,000 signatures. We are relying on your help so that we can reach the 5,000 mark, and then some.
Signing the petition requires a quick and simple registration process. (Should you encounter technical trouble, please check out the link at the bottom of this e-mail.)
Click here to sign the petition now!
Already signed the petition? You can promote it to your friends on facebook and twitter! Copy and paste the following text: Tell the Obama Administration to let UN investigate torture of alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning! http://wh.gov/40y
We petition the obama administration to:
Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/free-pfc-bradley-manning-accused-wikileaks-whistleblower/kX1GJKsD?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Using the information PFC Bradley Manning allegedly revealed, media outlets have published thousands of stories, detailing countless attempts by governments around the world -- including our own -- to illegally conceal evidence of human rights abuses.
According to the President, "employees with the courage to report wrongdoing are a government's best defense against waste, fraud and abuse."
It appears that PFC Manning acted on his conscience, at great personal risk, to answer the President's call.
However, he has been subjected to extreme confinement conditions that US legal scholars have said may amount to torture.
Therefore, we also ask the Obama administration to stop blocking the UN's chief torture investigator, Juan Mendez, from conducting an official visit with PFC Manning.
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Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Resumes
By Erin Sherbert
September 26 2011
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/pelican_bay_hunger_strike_resumes.php
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Cristian Fernandez is only 12 years old. And if Florida prosecutor Angela Corey has her way, he'll never leave jail again.
Cristian hasn't had an easy life. He's the same age now as his mother was when he was born. He's a survivor of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. In 2010, Cristian watched his stepfather commit suicide to avoid being charged with abusing Cristian.
Last January, Cristian was wrestling with his 2-year-old brother, David, and accidentally broke David's leg. Despite this, their mother left Cristian with his brother again in March. While the two boys were alone, Cristian allegedly pushed his brother against a bookcase, and David sustained a head injury. After their mother returned home, she waited six hours before taking David to the hospital. David eventually died.
Now Cristian is being charged with first degree murder -- as an adult. He's the youngest person in the history of his Florida county to receive this charge, and his next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.
Melissa Higgins works with kids who get caught up in the criminal justice system in her home state of New Hampshire. When she read about Cristian's case, she was appalled -- so she started a petition on Change.org asking Florida State's Attorney Angela Corey to try Cristian as a child. Please sign Melissa's petition immediately before Cristian's hearing tomorrow.
As part of his prosecution, Cristian has been examined by two different forensic psychiatrists -- each of whom concluded that he was "emotionally underdeveloped but essentially reformable despite a tough life."
Cristian has already been through more than most of us can imagine -- and now the rest of his life is in the hands of a Florida prosecutor who wants to make sure Cristian never leaves jail.
The purpose of the juvenile justice system is to reform kids who haven't gotten a fair shake. If Cristian is sent to adult prison, it will be more than a tragedy for him -- it will also be a signal to other prosecutors that kids' lives are acceptable collateral in the quest to be seen as "tough on crime."
Cristian's next hearing is in just 24 hours. State's Attorney Angela Corey needs to know that her actions are being watched -- please sign the petition asking her not to try Cristian as an adult:
http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult
Thanks for being a change-maker,
- Michael and the Change.org team
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Your help is needed to defend free speech rights
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
We are writing to urge you to send an email letter today that can make a big difference in the outcome of a free speech fight that is vital to all grassroots movements that support social justice and peace.
It will just take a moment of your time but it will make a big difference.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=326
All across the country people and organizations engaged in producing and disseminating leaflets and posters - the classic method of grassroots outreach used by those without institutional power and corporate money - are being faced with bankrupting fines.
This has been happening with ferocity in the nation's capital ever since the ANSWER Coalition was fined over $50,000 in the span of a few weeks for posters advertising the Sept. 15, 2007, protest against the Iraq war.
Attorneys for the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a major lawsuit in August 2007 against the unconstitutional postering regulations in Washington, D.C.
"The District has employed an illegal system that creates a hierarchy of speech, favoring the speech of politicians and punishing grassroots outreach," Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the PCJF, stated in explaining a basic tenet of the lawsuit. "It's time for that system to end, and it will."
The hard-fought four-year-long lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund against Washington, D.C.'s unconstitutional postering regulations has succeeded in achieving a number of important victories, including the issuance of new regulations after the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia warned just last month of an impending declaration of unconstitutionality against the District.
In July 2011 the federal District Court issued a preliminary opinion regarding one aspect of our lawsuit and suggested that the D.C. government "revise the regulations to include a single, across-the-board durational restriction that applies equally to all viewpoints and subject matters."
But this battle is not finished. The new regulations still contain dissent-crushing "strict liability" provisions (explained below) and remain unconstitutionally vague and ambiguous. Plus the District has never withdrawn the tens of thousands of dollars of fines against ANSWER.
The District of Columbia is required by law to open the new rules to public comment, which it has done with an extremely short comment period that is now open. We need people to send a comment today to the government of Washington, D.C. It just takes a minute using our online Submit a Comment tool, which will send your comment by email.
Send a letter today in support of the right to produce and disseminate leaflets and posters in Washington, D.C. We have included a sample comment but we encourage people to use or add your own language.
An Opportunity for You to Make a Difference
In response to our lawsuit, the District of Columbia has now issued "Emergency Regulations" replacing the current system which the city now admits are a "threat to the public welfare," after the court issued a preliminary opinion that agreed with a basic argument of the lawsuit.
This is an important moment and we need you and others who believe in Free Speech to weigh in during the short 15-day public comment period in response to the proposed Emergency Regulations for postering. Submit an online Comment now that makes one or more of three vital points:
Drop the $70,000 fines that have been applied to the ANSWER Coalition for anti-war posters during the past four years.
End "Strict Liability" fines and penalities. Strict Liability constitutes something of a death penalty for Free Speech activities such as producing leaflets and posters. It means that an organization referenced on posted signs can be held "strictly liable" for any materials alleged to be improperly posted, even if the group never even posted a single sign or poster. The D.C. government is even going further than that - it just levied fines against a disabled Vietnam veteran who didn't put up a single poster but was fined $450 because three posted signs were seen referencing a Veterans for Peace demonstration last December, and the District's enforcement agents researched that his name was on the permit application for the peace demonstration at the White House. Any group or person that leaves literature at a bookstore, or distributes literature, or posts .pdf fliers on the Internet, can be fined tens of thousands of dollars simply for having done nothing more than making political literature available.
Insist that any new regulations be clear, unambiguous and fair. The District's new "Emergency" Regulations are still inadequate because they are vague and ambiguous. Vaguely worded regulations in the hands of vindictive authority can and will be used to punish, penalize and fine grassroots organizations that seek to redress grievances while allowing the powerful and moneyed interests to do as they please. The District's postering regulations must be clear and unambiguous if they are to be fair, uniform and constitutional.
Take two minutes right now, click through to our online comment submission tool.
Thank you for your continued support. After you send your comment today to the District of Columbia please send this email to your friends and encourage them to take action as well. Click here to send your comment to the District.
Sincerely,
ANSWER Coalition
www.AnswerCoalition.org
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
TAKE ACTION: New Punishment Against Rene Gonzalez
On Oct 7, René González, one of the Cuban 5 Patriots will be released from the US prison in Marianna Florida after serving out his 15 year sentence. Rene's crime was defending the security of the Cuban people against terrorist attacks.
The US government is now trying to stop his immediate return to his homeland, and his family, after he serves out the last day of this unjust sentence. And now, in the most cynical and mean spirited fashion, the US court that sentenced him in 2001 is extending his punishment by making him remain in the United States.
Because Rene was born in the US he will now have to spend an additional 3 years of probation here. Seven months ago his lawyer presented a motion asking the court to modify the conditions of his probation so that after he finished his sentence he be allowed to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family for humanitarian reasons.
On March 25, the prosecutor Caroline Heck Miller asked the judge to deny the motion. On September 16 Judge Joan Lenard rejected the defense motion, alleging among other reasons, that the Court needs time to evaluate the behavior of the condemned person after he is freed to verify that he is not a danger to the United States.
We have to remember that this is the same prosecutor that rejected an attempt to try Posada Carriles as a criminal, and this is the same judge that included in the conditions of his release a special point that while Rene is under supervised release that," the accused is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists are known to be or frequent"
By writing this Judge Lenard made the shameful recognition that terrorists groups do exist and enjoy impunity in Miami. Furthermore she is offering them protection from Rene from bothering or denouncing them upon his release.
It was not enough for the US government to make Rene fulfill the complete sentence to the last day; It was not enough to try and blackmail his family by telling them he would not go to trial if he collaborated against his 4 brothers; it was not enough to pressure Rene with what could happen to his family if he did not cooperate with the government, including the detention and deportation of his wife Olga Salanueva; and it was not enough to deny Olga visas to visit her husband repeatedly all these years.
Why does the US government want to continue punishing René and his family?
The prejudice of the Miami community against the Five was denounced by three judges of the Eleventh Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals on August 27, 2005, where it was recognized who the terrorists were, what organizations they belonged to and where they reside. To mandate that Rene Gonzalez stay another 3 years of supervised "freedom" in Florida, where a nest of international terrorists reside and who publicly make their hatred of Cuba and the Cuban 5 known, is to put the life of Rene in serious risk.
Today we are making a call to friends from all over the world to denounce this new punishment and to demand the US government allow René Gonzalez to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family as soon as he get out of prison.
Contact now President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the immediate return of René Gonzalez to his homeland and his family
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE WHITE HOUSE
Write a letter to President Obama
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
EE.UU.
Make a phone call and leave a message for President Barack Obama: 202-456-1111
Send an e-mail message to President Barack Obama
HTTP://WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Write a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder
US Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Make a phone call and leave a message for US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2000
Or call the public commentary line: 202-353-1555
Send an e-mail message to US Attorney General Eric Holder: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
To learn more about the Cuban 5 visit:
www.thecuban5.org
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO/G8 Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
The CSFR Signs Letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The CSFR is working with the United National Antiwar Committee and many other anti-war groups to organize mass rallies and protests on May 15 and May 19, 2012. We will protest the powerful and wealthy war-makers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Group of 8. Mobilize your groups, unions, and houses of worship. Bring your children, friends, and community. Demand jobs, healthcare, housing and education, not war!
Office of the Mayor
City of Chicago
To: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
We, the undersigned, demand that your administration grant us permits for protests on May 15 and 19, 2012, including appropriate rally gathering locations and march routes to the venue for the NATO/G8 summit taking place that week. We come to you because your administration has already spoken to us through Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has threatened mass arrests and violence against protestors.
[Read the full text of the letter here: http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression/full-text]
For the 10s of thousands of people from Chicago, around the country and across the world who will gather here to protest against NATO and the G8, we demand that the City of Chicago:
1. Grant us permits to rally and march to the NATO/G8 summit
2. Guarantee our civil liberties
3. Guarantee us there will be no spying, infiltration of organizations or other attacks by the FBI or partner law enforcement agencies.
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Supporter of Leak Suspect Is Called Before Grand Jury
By SCOTT SHANE
June 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16brfs-Washington.html?ref=world
A supporter of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, was called before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday, but he said he declined to answer any questions. The supporter, David M. House, a freelance computer scientist, said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because he believes the Justice Department is "creating a climate of fear around WikiLeaks and the Bradley Manning support network." The grand jury inquiry is separate from the military prosecution of Private Manning and is believed to be exploring whether the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, or others in the group violated the law by acquiring and publishing military and State Department documents.
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herman-wallace
For nearly four decades, 64-year-old Albert Woodfox and 69-year-old Herman Wallace have been held in solitary confinement, mostly in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison). Throughout their prolonged incarceration in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR) Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have endured very restrictive conditions including 23 hour cellular confinement. They have limited access to books, newspapers and TV and throughout the years of imprisonment they have been deprived of opportunities for mental stimulation and access to work and education. Social interaction has been restricted to occasional visits from friends and family and limited telephone calls.
Louisiana prison authorities have over the course of 39 years failed to provide a meaningful review of the men's continued isolation as they continue to rubberstamp the original decision to confine the men in CCR. Decades of solitary confinement have had a clear psychological effect on the men. Lawyers report that they are both suffering from serious health problems caused or exacerbated by their years of close confinement.
After being held together in the same prison for nearly 40 years, the men are now held in seperate institutions where they continue to be subjected to conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
Take action now to demand that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be immediately removed from solitary confinement
Sign our petition which will be sent to the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, calling on him to:
* take immediate steps to remove Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace from close confinement
* ensure that their treatment complies with the USA's obligations under international standards and the US Constitution.
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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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
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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
"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
Courage to Resist needs your support
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
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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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!
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/
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
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
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
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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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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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!
http://lynnestewart.org/
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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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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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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D. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) A Familiar Figure Begs on the Street, but Not for Himself
By COREY KILGANNON
October 11, 2011, 7:00 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/a-familiar-figure-begs-on-the-street-but-not-for-himself/?ref=nyregion
2) In Seeking Rate Increases in New York, Health Insurers Fight to Keep Secrets
By NINA BERNSTEIN
October 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/nyregion/health-insurers-ask-to-keep-rate-increase-data-secret.html?ref=nyregion
3) Single Occupy Wall Street protester takes on 161st St. to rally against failing welfare system
BY Daniel Beekman
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Wednesday, October 12th 2011, 4:00 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/occupy_wall_street/2011/10/12/2011-10-12_occupy_161st_st_protesters_outreach_at_welfare_line.html
4) Police Attack Occupy Boston, Arresting 141 Peaceful Protesters
What Happened to Me in the Police Raid and Arrest 141 of Peaceful Protestors
From: Brian K
To: Occupy Boston!
Sent: Wed, Oct 12, 2011 6:37 am
5) A News Story Is Growing With 'Occupy' Protests
By BRIAN STELTER
October 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/occupy-wall-street-protests-a-growing-news-story.html?hp
6) Dear Occupy Wall Street: Read Jeffrey Sachs!
By John Horgan
October 11, 2011
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/10/11/dear-occupy-wall-street-read-jeffrey-sachs/?WT_mc_id=SA_WR_20111013
7) Bradley Manning Support Network in solidarity with Occupy Movement
Bradley Manning Supporters Among Those Arrested at Boston Occupation
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/releases/bradley-manning-support-network-in-solidarity-with-occupy-movement
8) Park Cleanup Is Canceled, and Showdown Averted
By COLIN MOYNIHAN, CARA BUCKLEY and KATE TAYLOR
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-protesters-remain-in-zuccotti-park-as-cleanup-is-canceled.html?_r=1&hp
9) Denver Police Dismantle Protest Site
By DAN FROSCH
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/denver-protest-site-dismantled.html?ref=us
10) Man's Leg Pinned Under Police Motorcycle at Protest
By AL BAKER
October 14, 2011, 2:24 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/mans-leg-pinned-under-police-motorcycle-at-protest/?ref=nyregion
'Occupy Wall Street' NYPD runs over a protester with motorcycle 14/10/2011 [MIRROR]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrzQedHM6SY&feature=player_embedded&skipcontrinter=1
OWS_PoliceScooter
[This video shows cops then beating and arresting the man after the cop ran over him with his motorcycle...bw]
by The Local East Village
http://vimeo.com/30550909
11) These Occupy Wall Street Protesters Have a Message
"Katy Ryan, 35, of Jersey City, N.J., made a good living for years as a makeup artist, but since the downturn has struggled to make ends meet. She's getting fewer clients and having to cut her rates. These days she even has to take some work as a bartender so she and her 8-year-old daughter can get by. 'I didn't have to do that for years.' Her main concern is that the widening gulf between the rich and poor, and the notion that a better life is slipping out of reach for those who aren't wealthy. She noted that her mother was a long time member of the United Auto Workers, and that she saw her benefits and wages chiseled away over the years."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/14/business/AP-US-Wall-Street-Protest-Profiles.html?src=busln
12) Teen Killed When Overcome by Fumes at Calif. Plant
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/14/business/AP-US-Recycling-Death.html?src=busln
13) Resistance From Union in Ford Vote
By BILL VLASIC and NICK BUNKLEY
October 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/business/autoworkers-early-vote-on-ford-contract-is-negative.html?scp=1&sq=Resistance%20From%20Union%20In%20Ford%20Vote&st=cse
14) Rallies Across the Globe Protest Economic Policies
"Despite the difference in language, landscape and scale, the protests were united in frustration with the widening gap between the rich and the poor."
By RACHEL DONADIO and ELIZABETH A. HARRIS
October 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/occupy-wall-street-protests-worldwide.html?hp
15) Britain's Self-Inflicted Misery
[They try to blame this on the Republicans and their "austerity" program. But that's not the only thing that's driving the OWS movement. What's driving it is not only a program of austerity administered by the top Democrat, Obomber-Obanker-Obama himself; but also his multi-trillion dollar handoff to the wealthy-the biggest transfer of wealth to the wealthy ever! That's what the 99 percent is pissed off about! ...bw]
New York Times Editorial
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/britains-self-inflicted-misery.html?h
16) America's 'Primal Scream'
"According to the C.I.A.'s own ranking of countries by income inequality, the United States is more unequal a society than either Tunisia or Egypt. ...Of the 100 highest-paid chief executives in the United States in 2010, 25 took home more pay than their company paid in federal corporate income taxes, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. ...The banks have gotten away with privatizing profits and socializing risks, and that's just another form of bank robbery."
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
October 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-americas-primal-scream.html?hp
17) Ohio Wages Fierce Fight on Collective Bargaining
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
October 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/us/in-ohio-a-battle-over-public-employees-bargaining-rights.html?ref=us
18) Tackling Infant Mortality Rates Among Blacks
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/efforts-to-combat-high-infant-mortality-rate-among-blacks.html?ref=us
19) Half of Votes Counted, Ford Labor Contract Leans Into 'Yes' Territory
By NICK BUNKLEY
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/business/half-of-votes-counted-ford-labor-contract-leans-into-yes-territory.html?ref=business
20) Social Media Gives Wall Street Protests a Global Reach
By JENNIFER PRESTON
October 15, 2011, 3:10 pm
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/social-media-gives-wall-street-protests-a-global-reach/?src=busln
21) OWS Organizers Blast MoveOn
By Washington's Blog
15 October 11
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/7898-focus-ows-organizers-blast-moveon
22) Dems backing Occupy Wall St. are funded by Wall St.
Prominent Democrats applaud Occupy Wall Street while taking huge donations from the finance industry
By Justin Elliott
Monday, Oct 10, 2011 10:35 AM PST
http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/10/dems_backing_occupy_wall_st_are_funded_by_wall_st/
23) Welcome to the #OWS 99% Movement "We Will NOT Be Co-Opted"
Posted on October 8, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/welcome-to-the-ows-99-movement-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-not-be-co-opted%E2%80%9D.html
24) Citizens' Testing Finds 20 Hot Spots Around Tokyo
"The government's failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan's leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens' groups that conduct testing on their own. 'Radioactive substances are entering people's bodies from the air, from the food. It's everywhere,' said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University's faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. 'But the government doesn't even try to inform the public how much radiation they're exposed to.' ...Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan's legally permissible level for compost."
By HIROKO TABUCHI
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?scp=1&sq=Radioactive%20Hot%20Spots%20in%20Tokyo%20Raise%20Fears%20of%20Wider%20Contamination&st=cse
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1) A Familiar Figure Begs on the Street, but Not for Himself
By COREY KILGANNON
October 11, 2011, 7:00 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/a-familiar-figure-begs-on-the-street-but-not-for-himself/?ref=nyregion
He is a familiar sight, the old man who solicits change from drivers stopped at a red light on East 35th Street in Midtown Manhattan every day near Third Avenue.
After all, he has been at it for 17 years now, seven days a week. With the help of a walker, he hobbles between lanes of traffic, approaching drivers, proffering newspapers - often a free paper collected from boxes on the sidewalk nearby - and asking for change.
"Help a guy out?" he repeated on a recent Wednesday afternoon to drivers who would often hand over a dollar or some change and then zoom off.
Most drivers simply regard him as another homeless down and outer, but every so often one might squint at the jolly man's scruffy beard, scarecrow hair and zany smile and realize that - holy cow! - it's the legendary comedian Professor Irwin Corey.
Mr. Corey is now 97.
Over his eight-decade career, he has been a staple on television and in comedy clubs, nightclubs and concert halls worldwide. His film career includes working with Jackie Gleason and Woody Allen. He appeared regularly on talk shows and sitcoms and was a skilled actor who began his stage career on Broadway in 1943.
Indeed, he still performs fairly regularly - a week ago he flew to Chicago to play two nights at a local club. Street panhandling is something of a side gig for Mr. Corey, who sets upon the cars emerging from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
And disregard that homeless appearance. Mr. Corey lives around the corner in a cozy 1840 carriage house on East 36th Street that he estimates he could sell for $3.5 million. He returns there each afternoon and empties half a dozen pockets bulging with small change and dollar bills. On a recent day, he spread the money on his dining room table and counted it slowly: $106.19. He wrote down the amount on a carefully kept list of his daily takes and then added the money to desk drawers loaded with hundreds of rolls of coins and long rows of bundled dollar bills.
Mr. Corey said he gathers his daily take - usually about $100, though there have been $250 days - every few months and donates the money to a charity that buys medical supplies for children in Cuba.
As for the drivers he solicits, Mr. Corey said, "I don't tell them where the money's going, and I'm sure they don't care."
Mr. Corey has traveled to Cuba to donate personally, he said, pointing to the photographs on his wall of him with Fidel Castro. One is autographed by Castro, with the words "with admiration, gratitude and affection."
There are also photographs of him on the David Letterman show, and with the likes of the comedian Dick Gregory and the actor Ossie Davis.
Mr. Corey has long billed himself as "The World's Foremost Authority," a reference to his trademark style of doubletalk and long, nonsensical observations that typically start with "However ..."
He has cultivated his "Professor'' charade since the 1940s, with his trademark black tails, a string tie, high-top sneakers and scarecrow hairdo.
His home is in the exclusive enclave known as Sniffen Court, where the likes of Lenny Kravitz and Claudia Schiffer have lived. Mr. Corey said he bought the home for $175,000 in 1974. The house next door recently sold for $5 million, he said.
While on stage Mr. Corey is known for his quick wit and exchanges with hecklers, he is mild mannered in the street, usually bidding drivers farewell with a "See you later, Alligator."
Every morning, around 11, he shuffles slowly the two blocks to his spot.
Mr. Corey says he carries out this daily routine "because I want to help people." He also said that living through the Great Depression left him with a hardened work ethic.
He was born in 1914 in Brooklyn and was placed by his struggling parents in the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum. He began doing comedy to cheer the other children. In his early teens, he rode in boxcars to Los Angeles and enrolled in the prestigious Belmont High School.
Mr. Corey is vague on his financial situation, but his agent of more than 50 years, Irvin Arthur, 85, said he had plenty of money without having to scrounge change in the street.
"This is not about money," Mr. Arthur said. "For Irwin, this is an extension of his performing."
Mr. Corey became known for his left-wing advocacy and an outspokenness that he says hobbled his career as an entertainer, getting him blacklisted from television networks.
While selling papers, Mr. Corey wears a white baseball hat on which he has written various slogans, including "Uncle Sam Is a Big Bully" and "Bribery Rules Washington" and "Let's Replace Our Corrupt Government."
Mr. Corey's wife of 70 years, Fran, died in May at age 95, and Mr. Corey says that selling newspapers helped him take his mind off the loneliness.
Many of the old timers in the neighborhood know exactly who he is. At one point on Wednesday, a local resident named Roxie Cherishian, 81, walked over to say hello to Mr. Corey.
"Look at him - he's still performing out there," she said, as Mr. Corey charmed a driver. "When drivers wave him off, I want to tell them, 'Do you have any idea what a legend this man is?' "
David Woolley, 85, a retired sales executive, spends afternoons at a nearby bar and watches Mr. Corey through the windows.
"It may seem crazy to us," he said, "but if it makes him happy, let him do it."
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2) In Seeking Rate Increases in New York, Health Insurers Fight to Keep Secrets
By NINA BERNSTEIN
October 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/nyregion/health-insurers-ask-to-keep-rate-increase-data-secret.html?ref=nyregion
Major health insurance companies seeking steep premium increases in New York have submitted memos to state officials to justify the higher rates. Now they are fighting to keep the memos from the public, saying they include trade secrets that competitors could use against them.
"How these companies are setting these rates is vital for the public to know, and should not be treated like a state secret," Benjamin M. Lawsky, the state superintendent of financial services, said on Tuesday. "Transparency will promote healthy competition and enable the public to rigorously comment on proposed rates, two goals that all of us should favor."
Mr. Lawsky, whose new agency oversees the state insurance division, has ordered that the memos be made public. His decision, which will go into effect by the end of November unless the companies obtain a court injunction, ends a longstanding policy that exempted the insurance companies from public access under a "trade secret" exception.
The decision followed a battle by a consumer advocacy coalition, Health Care for All New York, which had first sought information for a policyholder in Queens who faced a 76 percent increase in his family's Emblem Health premium. (The fee was later raised by 270 percent.)
Last year, the then-State Insurance Department gained new power to reject rate increases proposed for about three million residents covered by individual and small-group policies. It has since been flooded with consumer protests over proposed premium increases, many of them double-digit percentages. The department does not control rates for customers in large-group plans.
In a typical message, an unemployed 61-year-old, informed that Aetna wanted to raise her $1,932 monthly premium as much as 19.7 percent, wrote: "I worry every day how I will keep a roof over my head in the future. My teeth are all broken and I cannot afford to get them fixed because all my $$ is going to Aetna. So actually you could say that I am neglecting my health in order to be able to pay for my insurance."
Aetna, like other carriers, has said premium increases are driven by the actual cost of health care. But consumer advocates dispute such assertions, while complaining that it is hard to challenge the increases without access to the company filings.
Mr. Lawsky's decision would add New York to a list of at least 12 states that make insurance company filings public. It fits with an Obama administration effort, part of the federal health care reform, to curb health care costs through more oversight and transparency when insurance rates are set.
The companies, notified of Mr. Lawsky's decision in late September, had 10 days to file objections. Two companies, Atlantis Health Plan and Humana, have not done so. But 10 others contended in letters last week that disclosure would provide competitors with an unfair advantage, possibly reducing competition and raising prices even higher.
"This matter is of critical importance to us," United Health/Oxford wrote Oct. 7, calling the information "proprietary." Aetna wrote that "public disclosure in this format will provide ready and easy access to comprehensive pricing, product and marketing strategies," and warned of "substantial and irreparable injury to Aetna." Another company, Independent Health, said it had spent "well over $700,000 developing the trade secret documents" and estimated that the value of keeping them confidential was much higher.
Moreover, other companies argued, the filings are too technical to be understood by consumers.
"Several of the exhibits to the rate application as well as the actuarial memorandum contain not only trade secrets as noted above, but esoteric actuarial pricing precepts best understood by fellow actuaries and health plan competitors," Sean M. Doolan, a lawyer representing Excellus, Empire, Connecticut General, and Capital District Physicians' Health Plan wrote to state officials. "These documents, often speaking of concepts such as morbidity and anti-selection, could cause not only confusion, but also unnecessary alarm to the layman policyholder."
Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president for health initiatives at the Community Service Society of New York and a founder of Health Care for All New York, a coalition of 100 groups working for more affordable medical care, called such concerns "patronizing" and noted that her coalition had hired its own actuaries.
"The only way the public will find out whether these outlandish price hikes are justified is if we can see the underpinnings," she said. "They would like to have us ignorant. What they are saying to us, by opposing the disclosure of why they think their rate increases are justified, is that they want to keep us uninformed consumers."
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 11, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated the date of Mr. Lawsky's decision to order the release of the insurance companies' data.
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3) Single Occupy Wall Street protester takes on 161st St. to rally against failing welfare system
BY Daniel Beekman
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Wednesday, October 12th 2011, 4:00 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/occupy_wall_street/2011/10/12/2011-10-12_occupy_161st_st_protesters_outreach_at_welfare_line.html
Occupy Wall Street became Occupy 161st St. Tuesday, with a lone protester from the downtown movement canvassing a welfare line in the South Bronx.
Abraham Weiss, a 26-year-old social worker, said he came from Zuccotti Park to the Melrose Job Center to protest New York's byzantine welfare system and rally support for the cause.
Every weekday morning, hundreds of single mothers and out-of-work fathers queue up outside the Melrose welfare center, forming a despondent line that stretches three full blocks, from Morris Ave. to the Grand Concourse.
Few of the activists sleeping at Zuccotti Park are food stamp recipients from the South Bronx, Weiss admits. Many poor people are too busy to protest.
But most of the men and women waiting outside the welfare center yesterday gave the Wall Street rabble-rousers two thumbs up.
"They're down there fighting for our rights," said Maria Del Valle, 51. "We wake up early and struggle just to get paid less."
"The government gave all the money to the corporations, and the corporations kept it," fumed Jasmine Fields, 31. "Now the corporations don't want to pay taxes and the middle class is getting smaller and smaller."
Weiss said he joined the Occupy Wall Street movement two weeks ago, motivated by his experience as a social worker in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the country.
Not only do the top 1% of income earners control about 40% of the country's wealth, New York's welfare system is failing the poor, he says.
The process is demeaning rather than empowering, Weiss said.
"People are waiting two hours to get into the building, and then eight hours inside," he said. "Everybody recognizes there's a problem. The system isn't helping people. It's wasting their time."
People applying for housing, job programs and food stamps are frequently trapped by endless red tape, Weiss said.
On a recent morning, Deandra Barksdale said she waited three hours outside the busy Melrose center with two crying babies and her handicapped son.
"It's humiliating to stand out here like a bunch of dogs in the sun," said Barksdale, 42. "People shouldn't be treated like this, but they think it's all right because we're not rich folks."
Weiss said he handed out about 150 flyers to fellow protesters at Zuccotti Park last weekend, but none showed up to help canvass the South Bronx yesterday, so he stumped alone.
He called the effort a success, however, with some new recruits vowing to kick off Occupy The Bronx. "The way things are now, it makes me disgusted," said Keyaunee Manuel, 34. "If we can stand outside and wait, we can stand outside and protest."
With Kevin Deutsch
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4) Police Attack Occupy Boston, Arresting 141 Peaceful Protesters
What Happened to Me in the Police Raid and Arrest 141 of Peaceful Protestors
From: Brian K
To: Occupy Boston!
Sent: Wed, Oct 12, 2011 6:37 am
Police Attack Occupy Boston, Arresting 141 Peaceful Protesters
Brothers and sisters,
I want to tell to you what happened to me on Monday night into early Tuesday morning and explain what it means for the movement.
Monday afternoon, the mass march of thousands of students and workers joined by MassUniting and the Right to the City Alliance culminated in a demonstration at the park square just north of Dewey Square, across the street.
We decided in a General Assembly style mass meeting to occupy and hold this second park square, which was merely the logical and geographical dimension of the expansion of our peaceful protest movement. The director of the Rose Kennedy Greenway(RKG) told the Assembly that they respected freedom of speech, and that the North Square had recently undergone renovation of the grass and gardens that she wanted preserved. She implied that if we would respect the greens, and work to restore them later if necessary, then there wouldn't be a problem.
But the Mayor had a problem: he doesn't want our movement to grow and expand in any way shape or form. His office reportedly said that if we didn't leave by midnight, then he would arrest everyone in the square. This was apparently to happen regardless of whether we had permission from the RKG and regardless of our right to freedom of assembly and our peaceful nature.
Waiting till cover of darkness and minimum public scrutiny, the police began their attack at around 1:45am. I watched as they marched into the front line of our peaceful perimeter, which was composed of mostly-elderly war veterans from Veterans for Peace, who were all wielding white flags with a dove and olive branch on them. Some were tackled to the ground, others choke-slammed before being hog-tied with plastic and thrown in the wagon. See with your own eyes in the videos below.
I was arrested shortly thereafter (around 2am), luckily not roughed up, or thrown on the ground, or scratched in the face in the way that many others I saw were. They put me in a wagon and took eight of us to a holding station in West Roxbury. After about 6 hours, I did get half a cup of water and one phone call but they took my shoes before I re-entered the cell after booking. Then I was confined to a cold cell with no food and, now, no shoes for another 7 hours. Though it doesn't compare to conditions in Guantanamo Bay, being confined in a cold cell with no food for 13 hours seems to me to be rather cruel and inhumane treatment for peaceful protestors.
Around 3pm (I think) they took us to a the courthouse in Government Center, and offered us a plea deal to move from criminal charges of "unlawful assembly" and "trespassing" to a civil "parking-ticket-type" fine of $50. Some took the deal, others pleaded not guilty and will go to trial in a few weeks.
I got out of jail around 5pm, after a 15 hour ordeal, only to find out that Menino had ordered the square not only to be cleared of people, but cleared of all our property and possessions. Personally, I lost my tent, two sleeping bags, a large comforter and pillow, and a box of DVDs that were given to me for the purpose of creating an educational film series for Occupy Boston. They took ALL the tents and belongings, destroyed them and put them in a trash truck and hauled them away.
What does this mean?
First of all, SHAME ON THE BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT for their cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Second of all, SHAME ON MAYOR MENINO for his violent attack on the peaceful protest and his destructive clearing of ALL of our personal property from the Northern Square.
Let us be CLEAR: the top 1% and those with all the money and power, are represented by the Mayor's office, and it is THEIR interests who the police are here to 'protect and serve'. Not ours. They want to scare us into submission, and prevent the expansion of this movement.
So our response to these attacks on freedom of speech, assembly, and political dissent should be clear and simple:
We need to DOUBLE and RE-DOUBLE our efforts to DEEPEN and BROADEN this movement.
Every campus, every community organization, every labor union, and every neighborhood needs to know what why we're here (to protest and organize alternatives to corporate domination of our lives) and how they can PARTICIPATE in changing society with us (join a committee, spread the word, donate supplies!).
Thanks for your support, as evidenced by the MASS turnout at last night's General Assembly. KEEP IT COMING.
We hope to see you in the Square!
Solidarity forever,
Brian
Videos of the police attack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5G9agQjM60
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/occupy-boston-protesters-arrested/2011/10/11/gIQAsCzWdL_video.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s3zFca5znU&feature=relmfu
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5) A News Story Is Growing With 'Occupy' Protests
By BRIAN STELTER
October 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/occupy-wall-street-protests-a-growing-news-story.html?hp
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Splashed across the front page of the local newspaper here on Tuesday was the story of a 24-year-old Occupy protester named Keith Cuesta. He was not in New York, where some have been living in a park near Wall Street for nearly four weeks, but about 1,000 miles away in Tampa, where a small group of self-described "99 percenters" have decided to camp out in solidarity.
Mr. Cuesta told the newspaper, The St. Petersburg Times, that he had never participated in a protest before. The reporter, John Barry, said he was drawn to Mr. Cuesta because the young man had "finally found something he cared enough about to sleep on a sidewalk."
As the Occupy Wall Street message of representing 99 percent of Americans has spread across the country, news media coverage of the Occupy movement has spread, too, to the front pages of newspapers and the tops of television newscasts. Coverage of the movement last week was, for the first time, quantitatively equivalent to early coverage of the Tea Party movement in early 2009, according to data released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.
The data confirms an anecdotal sense that the movement, which slowly gained speed last month, entered the nation's collective consciousness for the first time last week, when President Obama was asked about it at a news conference and when national television news programs were first anchored from the Wall Street protest site.
In the first full week of October, according to Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism, the protests occupied 7 percent of the nation's collective news coverage, up from 2 percent in the last week of September. Before then, the coverage was so modest as to be undetectable by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which surveys 52 news outlets each week to produce a weekly study of news coverage.
The study released Wednesday showed that cable news and radio, which had initially ignored the protests almost entirely, started to give the protests significant coverage last week, often with a heavy dose of positive or negative opinion attached.
Some protesters have assailed news media outlets for scoffing at their leaderless nature and lack of agreed-upon goals, but some have also carefully courted attention from those outlets.
"They insist on their story being told, even as they're arguing about just what the story should be," the media critic James Rainey wrote in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times. Mr. Rainey suggested that reporters resist the urge to make instant judgments about what the protests represent: "Sometimes the most courageous story is the one that says: I haven't seen this before. I'm not sure what it means. I don't have a clue where it is going."
The protests are beginning to show up in polling data. In a Pew poll conducted from Oct. 6 to 9, 17 percent of respondents said they followed news coverage of the protests very closely last week; an additional 25 percent said they followed the coverage fairly closely. The state of the United States economy remained a much more closely followed story, as it has been for years. The poll had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Michael Dimock, an associate director of the Pew Research Center, said the polling found a generational gap in attention toward the protests. When those polled were asked which story they followed the most closely last week, 11 percent of those ages 18 to 29 cited the protests, while 3 percent of those ages 65 and older did the same.
"Even so, it's not a top story among young people," Mr. Dimock noted. The death of Steve Jobs last week was a top story.
It was the mass arrests of protesters in New York that initially led to much of the protest coverage last month. But now the grievances and experiences of protesters are getting plentiful coverage. "Protesters Fan Out" read a headline in the newspaper Florida Today on Wednesday. "Wall Street Protesters Target Fancy N.Y. Homes" read another in The Palm Beach Post.
The spike in news media coverage is significant because, among other reasons, it may lend legitimacy to the movement and spur more people to seek out protest information on Facebook and other Web sites.
On those sites, organizers are sharing information about a swarm of protests that will take place on Saturday in cities across the country. In central Florida, for instance, hundreds of people have electronically signed up on Facebook for weekend events in St. Petersburg, Tampa, Sarasota, Orlando, and other locales.
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6) Dear Occupy Wall Street: Read Jeffrey Sachs!
By John Horgan
October 11, 2011
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2011/10/11/dear-occupy-wall-street-read-jeffrey-sachs/?WT_mc_id=SA_WR_20111013
"Eat the rich, feed the hungry." "Occupy Wall Street, Not Afghanistan." "The Left Never Left." "Take the Bull by the Horns." "The Beginning Is Near." "The Empire Has No Clothes." "Frack Me, Frack You." "I am a revolting citizen." "Jesus was a Marxist." "Auto-plants fill the Earth with Machines Designed for Death." "I love this goddamn country, and we're gonna take it back." "We are the 99%."
These were some of the signs I saw on Saturday when I visited New York City's Zuccotti Park, the base camp of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which boasts a kitchen, clothing dispensary, health clinic, media center and lots of cool music. For weeks Occupiers have fanned out through New York City protesting-well, they are protesting many things, as the diversity of signs makes clear. But here is how a flier handed to me by a young woman at an "Information" table described the movement:
"Occupy Wall Street is an otherwise unaffiliated group of concerned citizens who have come together with the general purpose of holding Wall Street (as the drivers of an increasingly undemocratic power structure) accountable for their fiscal recklessness and criminal perversion of the democratic process. We are a bunch of people like you and me who came together and said 'enough'! We will not remain passive as formerly democratic institutions become the means of enforcing the will of only 1-2% of the population who control the magnitude of American wealth."
The Occupiers emphasize that they have nothing in common with the Tea Party, which as they rightly note identifies with an era "before the end of slavery, before the workers' rights movement, before the women's movement, before the civil rights era, and before the environmental movement." The Occupiers are resolutely nonviolent (the same cannot be said of New York police, who have pepper-sprayed some Occupiers), and they have been inspired by the recent democratic uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab nations.
The crowd, which included people of all colors, ages and sartorial styles, gave off a strong 60s vibe-and as a peacenik who marched against the Vietnam War_, I mean that as a compliment. I also sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street complaints, which have inspired similar protests elsewhere across the country and even overseas. The power of money is subverting democracy, allowing an elite few to enrich themselves while many struggle to get by with low-paying jobs or no jobs.
I have a humble suggestion for the Occupiers. They should consider reading The Price of Civilization (Random House), the latest book by Jeffrey Sachs_, an economist at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, long-time consultant to the United Nations and former columnist for Scientific American. Sachs was once an unabashed believer in the benefits of capitalism. In fact, early in his career he was faulted for advocating that Poland, Bolivia and other struggling nations rapidly adopt free-market principles, an approach that critics dubbed "shock therapy."
Over the years, Sachs has become increasingly concerned with those left behind by modern capitalism. His first two books-The End of Poverty (Penguin, 2005) and Common Wealth (Penguin, 2008)-focused on the plight of the world's poorest people, especially the billion or so defined as "extremely poor," living on less than two dollars a day. Sachs spelled out ways in which we can eliminate extreme poverty while also preserving the environment. In The Price of Civilization, Sachs turns his sights on his own country, the U.S., which he believes is in peril.
"The American economy," he writes, "increasingly serves only a narrow part of the society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem-solving. Too many of America's elites-among the superrich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia-have abandoned a commitment to social responsibility. They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned."
Sachs, like many of us, feels let down by Barack Obama_. "The President," he says, "has continued down the well-trodden path of open-ended war in Afghanistan, massive military budgets, kowtowing to lobbyists, stingy foreign aid, unaffordable tax cuts, unprecedented budget deficits, and a disquieting unwillingness to address the deeper causes of America's problems."
Sachs fleshes out our plight with data. Compensation for CEOs, which in 1970 was 40 times the average pay of workers, was 1,000 times greater by 2000. The gap between rich and poor is greater than at any time since the late 1920s, just before the Depression. Meanwhile, the IRS allows powerful corporations to "hide their profits in offshore tax havens." Even Google, which is supposedly so hip and progressive, engages in a "tax dodge." According to Sachs, Google funnels billions in profits into off-shore subsidiaries, which pay lower tax rates than the U.S. corporation does. Sachs points out that Sergey Brin_'s "ingenious work in creating Google's search engine" was supported by the National Science Foundation, which means that our tax dollars helped Brin get his start.
Sachs's book is loaded with information and anecdotes like these, as well as with proposals that would make it harder for the powerful to rig the system for their benefit. If you want to change the system-and you should, whether or not you share my admiration for the Occupy Wall Street movement-read this book by someone who knows how the system works. Or rather, doesn't work.
Photograph of protester at the Occupy Wall Street base camp in New York City taken by Valerie Cates.
About the Author: Every week, John Horgan takes a puckish, provocative look at breaking science. A former staff writer at Scientific American, he is the author of four books, including The End of Science (Addison Wesley, 1996) and The End of War (McSweeney's Books, 2011).
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7) Bradley Manning Support Network in solidarity with Occupy Movement
Bradley Manning Supporters Among Those Arrested at Boston Occupation
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/releases/bradley-manning-support-network-in-solidarity-with-occupy-movement
The Bradley Manning Support Network issued the following statement of solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement today:
"The Bradley Manning Support Network stands in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread to hundreds of cities and town squares across America. We share a common commitment to exposing the corruption of corporate power upon our democratic system.
Over the last few weeks, organizers with the Bradley Manning Support Network have been on the ground at occupations in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere, along with countless other supporters for the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower.
Earlier this week, a veteran wearing a "Free Bradley Manning" shirt was among the first to be arrested in a police raid of the Occupy Boston encampment.
We condemn this crackdown on our fellow citizens and veterans in Boston and elsewhere around the country. There is no excuse to silence those who speak freely, assemble peacefully, and seek to petition their government.
We also stand for the right of the press to operate free from government harassment. For over 16 months, the Obama administration has withheld the freedom of PFC Bradley Manning in retaliation for allegedly exposing evidence of abuse via WikiLeaks and other media outlets. The administration's unprecedented pursuit of whistle-blowers like Manning has created a severe chilling effect on those who seek to expose and correct wrongdoing.
The sustained campaign of civil liberties violations that began under the Bush administration continues to play a major role in undermining the public's trust in our government. The Occupy movement presents a powerful way for citizens to reclaim control of our government by engaging nonviolently in direct democracy.
Many Occupy participants have drawn inspiration from the Arab Spring. The ongoing democratic uprisings across the Arab world have been fueled in part by access to previously-withheld evidence of abuse that has been released via WikiLeaks and other publishers supporting whistle-blowers. Countless anonymous activists have used their technical skills to relay this critical information to areas where governments have sought to cut off avenues of communication.
Now in the United States, we rely on each other to preserve our freedom to communicate in the face of authoritarian crackdowns on our rights.
Similarly to the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement can draw from information revealed by WikiLeaks that exposes corporate manipulation of our foreign policy. An October 2009 diplomatic cable shows how U.S. diplomatic officials shared sensitive intelligence with Shell to give the oil corporation unfair economic leverage in Nigeria. Shell executives privately boasted to U.S. diplomats that its agents had managed to infiltrate all of the major Nigerian government ministries. Another series of cables illustrate how diplomatic officials successfully squashed a proposed increase in the Haitian minimum wage. Pressure from U.S. diplomats on Haitian officials enabled major American clothing companies like Levi's and Hanes to continue exploiting sweatshop labor in Haiti. Other cables show that Chevron executives worked in tandem with U.S. officials to avoid paying $18.2 billion in court-ordered damages after the energy giant acquired Texaco, which had dumped billions of gallons of waste in indigenous areas.
Taken as a whole, the material allegedly revealed by PFC Manning shows that an unjust accumulation of informational power runs parallel to widespread economic and political inequalities. In both the United States and abroad, 99% of the people are kept in the dark, while corporate elites use restricted information to manipulate government policies for their personal profit.
Our struggle for Bradley Manning's freedom is a struggle for everyone's freedom. The Occupy movement's fight for true democracy is everyone's fight. That is why we're standing in solidarity, in person, as we Occupy everywhere."
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8) Park Cleanup Is Canceled, and Showdown Averted
By COLIN MOYNIHAN, CARA BUCKLEY and KATE TAYLOR
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-protesters-remain-in-zuccotti-park-as-cleanup-is-canceled.html?_r=1&hp
New York officials on Friday morning abruptly pulled back from a confrontation with Occupy Wall Street protesters, opting to cancel a planned cleaning of the park where they have been camping and raising the prospect of their prolonged presence in Lower Manhattan.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's office announced the decision around 6:20 a.m., about 40 minutes before workers were scheduled to enter Zuccotti Park, which for nearly a month has been the home base for demonstrators angered by what they describe as an unfair and corrupt financial system. The protesters, who had used social media to call for support, had been joined overnight by hundreds of union members and other sympathizers, some of whom said they were prepared to face arrest rather than allow the police to clear the park for cleaning.
The protesters, who said they were worried that the planned cleaning was a pretext for ejecting them from their encampment, viewed the city's decision as a victory for their cause. As news that the cleanup had been called off rippled through Zuccotti Park, cheers erupted among demonstrators who had been preparing for a possible confrontation.
"I did not come here to look for a fight," said Steve Sachs of Hightstown, N.J. "I've never been in a fight in my life. I've never been arrested. But I was ready to be arrested over this."
Sporadic clashes between protesters and the police erupted as demonstrators started marching through the winding streets of the financial district after learning that the cleanup had been called off. At least 14 were arrested, the police said. And a volunteer legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild was injured by a police motorcycle; a video of the incident shows an officer leaving his motorcycle parked on the man's leg as the man screams.
Mr. Bloomberg, speaking later in the morning on his weekly radio program on WOR-AM (710), attributed the decision to postpone the cleaning to the company that owns the park, Brookfield Properties, which he said had been pressured to back off by elected officials. Mr. Bloomberg indicated that he had some misgivings about the decision, and was not sure what would happen next.
"Yesterday, as of 8 o'clock at night, they were going ahead to do it, but as of midnight they called and said they wanted to postpone the cleaning operations to see if they could work out an agreement with the protesters," Mr. Bloomberg said. "My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying if you don't stop this we'll make your life more difficult."
State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, a Brooklyn Democrat whose district includes Lower Manhattan, said he was among the elected officials who called Brookfield.
"Late into the night, I had a number of conversations with Brookfield Properties C.E.O. Richard Clark and other stakeholders, urging Brookfield to delay the cleanup," Mr. Squadron said in a statement Friday morning. "Late last night, Brookfield Properties made the right decision in postponing its scheduled cleanup of Zuccotti Park. They deserve real credit."
The decision to call off the cleaning was announced by Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway.
"Our position has been consistent throughout: the city's role is to protect public health and safety, to enforce the law, and guarantee the rights of all New Yorkers," Mr. Holloway said in a statement. "Brookfield believes they can work out an arrangement with the protesters that will ensure the park remains clean, safe, available for public use, and that the situation is respectful of residents and businesses downtown, and we will continue to monitor the situation."
Some evidence of concessions from the protesters had come late Thursday as local elected officials attempted to broker a compromise to address the grievances of residents, who have complained about noise, unsanitary conditions and occasional criminality associated with the demonstration. Occupy Wall Street issued what it called a "good neighbor policy" Thursday asserting "zero tolerance" for drugs, alcohol, violence or verbal abuse, and agreeing to limit drumming to two hours a day and "to respectfully utilize appropriate off-site sanitary facilities."
The decision to call off the cleanup seemed to frustrate Mr. Bloomberg. He said that if Brookfield later decided that it did still want to clean the park, that would place the city in a more difficult situation.
"From our point of view," Mr. Bloomberg said on the radio, "it will be a little harder, I think, at that point in time to provide police protection, but we have the greatest Police Department in the world and we will do what is necessary."
Throughout the morning, clashes between the police and protesters flared on various streets in the financial district.
About 7:40 a.m., a man was seen being led away in handcuffs on Broadway. Shortly afterward, at Maiden and Water Streets, police officers were seen taking four people into custody, placing them into a police wagon. One of those men appeared have a gash on his forehead and blood running down his face.
At one point, it appeared that as officers were trying to keep the crowd on the sidewalk, a bag of garbage was hurled from the crowd, hitting one officer. That prompted that officer and another to wade into the crowd and apprehend a man.
The crowds marched in roadways, accompanied or pursued by officers on foot or riding scooters.
Near the corner of Beaver and Broad Streets, officers wearing helmets leaped from scooters, tackled a man to the ground and placed him in handcuffs. At the intersection of William and Wall Streets, officers stood behind metal barricades as protesters filled the street in front of them. Some protesters waved mops and brooms that had been used earlier to clean Zuccotti Park. Near Broadway and Exchange Place, officers drove scooters into a crowd of marchers.
Those arrested included protesters who knocked over a police scooter, overturned trash cans, hurled bottles and sat in the street blocking traffic, said Paul J. Browne, the head police spokesman.
The demonstrators had attempted to clean the park in response to complaints of filth. In a letter to the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, dated Tuesday, Mr. Clark, Brookfield's chief executive, wrote that conditions in the park had reached "unsafe" levels, that complaints were mounting from people who live and work nearby, and that the encampment violated the law.
"In light of this and the ongoing trespassing of the protesters," Mr. Clark wrote, "we are again requesting the assistance of the New York City Police Department to help clear the park."
On Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg announced that the park would be cleaned; he said the protesters would be allowed to return, but many did not trust his promise, particularly when the police said they would restrict the possessions, and behavior, of the protesters once they returned.
The protesters sent appeals on Facebook and other sites calling for brooms, mops and various cleaning supplies as well as volunteers "to defend the occupation from eviction."
The protesters, vowing not to leave, had planned to form a human chain around the park to try to keep police officers from entering. By 5 a.m. Friday, a collection of mops and brooms stood in a plastic bin on Liberty Street. Nearby were 27 buckets of soapy water. A woman handed out white rubber gloves to more than a dozen people. They walked to the west end of the park, at Trinity Place, and announced that they were going to begin a sweep, picking up and discarding objects that did not belong to anyone.
"This place is extremely important," said Kyle Christopher, 27, a photographer from Buffalo who had been part of the protests since their first week.
By 6 a.m., the crowd had swelled to more than a thousand.
Andy Friedman, 38, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, said he had come to the park in response to the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s call for solidarity.
"For the past 30 years, banks in this country have been making out like bandits," said Mr. Friedman, who works for S.E.I.U., the service employees' union. "And the rest of us are going backwards."
Clashes between the police and protesters have occurred several times since protesters started camping in the park on Sept. 17. Scores of protesters were arrested during a march to Union Square on Sept. 24, and several women were pepper-sprayed by a high-ranking police officer, in an episode that is being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney's office.
On Oct. 1, about 700 protesters were arrested while trying to march across the Brooklyn Bridge. And 28 people were arrested after an Oct. 6 march in Lower Manhattan, which attracted thousands and drew the backing of large labor unions.
The Occupy Wall Street protest, whose participants object to income inequality and corporate greed but have not outlined a policy agenda, was initially triggered by a call to action from Adbusters, a Canadian magazine. Participants have declared themselves part of the "99 percent" to highlight their claim that that 1 percent of Americans control much of the country's wealth.
Al Baker and Rob Harris contributed reporting.
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9) Denver Police Dismantle Protest Site
By DAN FROSCH
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/denver-protest-site-dismantled.html?ref=us
DENVER - The police in Denver early on Friday morning began dismantling a makeshift encampment of protesters who have been gathering in a park across from the State Capitol here for weeks, as part of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement.
Officers in riot gear met little resistance from the protesters, according to local news reports, though two dozen arrests had been made by midmorning, a police spokesman said.
Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat who has been under increasing pressure to take action against the ramshackle encampment, met with protesters on Thursday before announcing that they would have to leave the park by 11 p.m.
At a news conference on Thursday, flanked by Mayor Michael Hancock of Denver and the Colorado attorney general, John W. Suthers, Mr. Hickenlooper explained why the protesters would be removed.
"We have state laws and city laws that have to be obeyed by everyone," Mr. Hickenlooper said. "They can't continue to stay there overnight. However fully we support the right of free speech, we don't see that as a cue for any group to camp out in any park."
The Denver Post reported that the police ordered those on the site to disperse at 3 a.m., but did not move into the area until 6 a.m. At that point, the paper said, the police moved in unison through the area, clearing it out.
A core group of protesters who refused to leave the site congregated at a central structure at the encampment that was known to the protesters as "thunderdome." The police physically removed the protesters from the site and then allowed them to disperse, the paper said. Those who refused to disperse were placed under arrest. "I don't know why I'm being detained," Patricia Hughes, a nurse, told The Post, while being dragged away from the park.
By 8 a.m., much of the encampment was dismantled, and only a small cluster of protesters remained. It was unclear whether the group would try to reassemble at that site or move elsewhere.
The police in other cities where protests have spread have not yet sought to dismantle them - though in some cities, like Boston, the police have moved to stop the protest from expanding to additional locations. Mr. Hickenlooper appears to be the first state leader to take such an aggressive stance.
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10) Man's Leg Pinned Under Police Motorcycle at Protest
By AL BAKER
October 14, 2011, 2:24 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/mans-leg-pinned-under-police-motorcycle-at-protest/?ref=nyregion
'Occupy Wall Street' NYPD runs over a protester with motorcycle 14/10/2011 [MIRROR]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrzQedHM6SY&feature=player_embedded&skipcontrinter=1
OWS_PoliceScooter
[This video shows cops then beating and arresting the man after the cop ran over him with his motorcycle...bw]
by The Local East Village
http://vimeo.com/30550909
Updated, 2:39 p.m. | Amid the chaos in Lower Manhattan on Friday morning after the cleanup of Zuccotti Park was postponed and the Occupy Wall Street protesters marched through the streets, a man identified as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild was apparently injured by a police motorcycle.
A video posted to YouTube appears to show an officer on a motorcycle, after running over the man's leg, leaving his motorcycle parked on the man's leg to go off to pursue protesters while the man writhes in pain.
Another video, on the Local East Village, appears to show the man being dragged away from the motorcycle by the police and arrested moments later.
The man, Ari Douglas, is a volunteer legal observer for the guild, which has been providing legal aid to the protesters.
Susan Howard, the coordinator for the guild in New York City, said she believed that Mr. Douglas was being treated at Bellevue Hospital Center.
Paul J. Browne, the police department's chief spokesman, said the police were still reviewing the situation. He warned against drawing overarching conclusions from short snippets of videotape.
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11) These Occupy Wall Street Protesters Have a Message
"Katy Ryan, 35, of Jersey City, N.J., made a good living for years as a makeup artist, but since the downturn has struggled to make ends meet. She's getting fewer clients and having to cut her rates. These days she even has to take some work as a bartender so she and her 8-year-old daughter can get by. 'I didn't have to do that for years.' Her main concern is that the widening gulf between the rich and poor, and the notion that a better life is slipping out of reach for those who aren't wealthy. She noted that her mother was a long time member of the United Auto Workers, and that she saw her benefits and wages chiseled away over the years."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/14/business/AP-US-Wall-Street-Protest-Profiles.html?src=busln
NEW YORK (AP) - The Occupy Wall Street protests are hitting a nerve.
A dearth of jobs, overwhelming student loans and soaring health-care costs are just three major issues protesters have targeted. And regardless of politics, economic data suggests they're not alone in their frustrations.
It may be why the protests have spread to other cities - including Boston, Cincinnati, Seattle and Washington, D.C. - after taking root in downtown New York nearly a month ago.
Take for example the unemployment rate, which has been stuck near 9 percent since the recession officially ended more than two years ago. When counting those who settle for part-time work or have quit looking, that rate rises to about 16.5 percent.
A crippled labor market also shifts bargaining power to employers, giving workers less leverage to seek raises. That could help explain why pay was nearly 2 percent less in August than it was a year earlier when adjusted for inflation.
Student loans are another common rallying point for protesters - as expressed in one sign that read "Want demands? How about student loan bailouts?"
The struggle to keep up with payments is clear; about 320,000 borrowers who entered repayment in 2009 defaulted on their student loans by the end of 2010, according to the Institute for College Access & Success. That's up about 33 percent from the previous year.
Meanwhile, the cost of annual health insurance premiums for family coverage rose 9 percent this year and surpassed $15,000 for the first time, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. Some don't have to worry about the uptick; an estimated 16 percent of the population does not have health insurance.
It's that economic backdrop that has driven a diversity of protesters to the streets
While a few hundred have been camping out in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, many more join in for a few hours or a day to add their voices. Here's a look at some of the protesters who ventured by in the past week, and the financial issues they're dealing with:
____
John Smith, 31, of Brooklyn, N.Y., works part time at Trader Joe's because he hasn't been able to find work in his field for over a year, despite having a master's degree. He has about $45,000 in student loan debt. His girlfriend, Meropi Peponides, 27, a graduate student at Columbia University, will have about $50,000 by the time she graduates.
"I don't know in the end what exactly this will achieve, if anything. But if it makes people wake up just a little bit, it's worth it," Peponides said. "The potential is huge. That's why I'm here. I felt the potential somehow."
Smith said he has sent out about 200 resumes in his search. He's looking mainly for work with non-profit organizations. "The jobs that I've been applying for are all entry level jobs in my career field. I don't think I'm shooting for the stars trying to get those jobs." Smith said, noting that five years ago, before grad school, he was able to get work at that level.
He was carrying a sign that said, "I am the 99 percent," a slogan that resonated with him. "It's true. I am one of the many people that are having a lot of trouble finding ways to make it through things right now."
___
Tracy Blevins, 41-year-old Manhattan resident, has a doctorate in biomedical science but lost her job as an adjunct professor at Touro College this spring. She's since been getting by on odd jobs; most recently, she acted as a cross-country driver for $2,000.
"I'm earning money off a license I got when I was 16, and still paying off the loans I had to take out to get my degree," she said.
Even after nine years of paying down her loans, Blevins said she owes $10,000. She's current on payments now, but said the loans have crippled her credit score and even prevented her from getting work in the past.
"I have paid and paid and paid and I still owe $10,000. It's the interest that keeps me in debt," she said.
____
Steve and Barbara Diamond traveled nearly 100 miles to take part in the protest. They were motivated mainly by what they see as a disappearance of the middle class; and a connection between the economic problems of recent years and the amount of influence money has on politics. He held a sign criticizing the 2010 Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United, which overturned a previous ban on corporate spending in federal elections.
"Our government is being bought by wealthy people and corporations," said Steve Diamond, a physician. "Unless you get the money out of the elections, you'll end up with an oligarchy in this country."
"My father used to say when he came to here from Europe that this was the 'Golden Land,'" he said. But he's not telling that to his own children: "This is what's happened inside two generations."
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Joe Foley, a 48-year-old freelance cinematographer living in Manhattan, finished paying off his $45,000 in student loans just five years ago. His girlfriend has $120,000 in student loans.
Foley said work has been fairly steady in recent years, but he worries that he doesn't have any retirement savings or health insurance. He rents an inexpensive apartment and doesn't carry a big credit card balance, but realizes he's one broken leg away from being in serious debt.
"I was really hoping there was going to be a public option," he said of the federal health care reforms. "It was pretty disappointing that it didn't happen."
For now, he considers himself lucky that he's never had any health issues. His approach has been to "drink lots of water and miso soup and do yoga."
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Ben Bear, 56, a San Francisco resident visiting his daughter in New York, works at a food bank and feels his job is secure.
"Unfortunately I'm doing well because I'm in a growth industry," Bear said. "The demand for food keeps going up. Everyone's got this image of who accesses a food bank as a homeless person. But it's families and the working poor."
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Susan Knauss, 55, from upstate Livingston, N.Y., worked in the telecommunications industry for the past 25 years. But she was laid off a few weeks ago from the New York State Department of Transportation. She plans to get by on unemployment checks for the time being.
"But in two weeks, I won't have health insurance," she said.
She's also worried about her retirement savings. Even after making maximum contributions for most of her career, she worries that she hasn't saved enough and that the volatile market could eat away at the value of her 401(k).
"Where can you put your money where it doesn't go away?"
____
Maureen McMahon, 62, of Manhattan, a former school teacher, works part time by choice at a museum. She pointed to problems like the high number of uninsured as among the concerns that brought her out to protest; noting that the disparity in health care reflects that the economic system doesn't treat everyone equally.
"I'm an investor, I have stock," she said with some irony, as she held a sign that said "Tax Wall Street."
"I believe that corporations can be very useful and very compassionate," she said, adding that unfortunately, that kind of corporate responsibility seems to have diminished lately.
____
Katy Ryan, 35, of Jersey City, N.J., made a good living for years as a makeup artist, but since the downturn has struggled to make ends meet. She's getting fewer clients and having to cut her rates. These days she even has to take some work as a bartender so she and her 8-year-old daughter can get by. "I didn't have to do that for years."
Her main concern is that the widening gulf between the rich and poor, and the notion that a better life is slipping out of reach for those who aren't wealthy. She noted that her mother was a long time member of the United Auto Workers, and that she saw her benefits and wages chiseled away over the years.
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12) Teen Killed When Overcome by Fumes at Calif. Plant
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/14/business/AP-US-Recycling-Death.html?src=busln
LAMONT, Calif. (AP) - A teenager was killed and his brother was critically injured when they were overcome by fumes in a tunnel at the recycling plant where they worked, Kern County officials said Friday.
Armando Ramirez, 16, died and his brother, Eladio Ramirez, 22, was severely injured in the accident Wednesday, said Sean Collins, spokesman for the Kern County Fire Department. Eladio Ramirez was hospitalized at Kern Medical Center in critical condition, Collins said.
A third man, who tried to help the brothers, was treated and released, Collins said. That man never entered the tunnel.
Firefighters said they found the brothers unconscious about 7 feet down a shaft in the cement drainage tunnel at the plant in Lamont, just southeast of Bakersfield. A rescuer using breathing equipment put them in harnesses so they could be brought to the surface.
Tests showed high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide in the tunnel. The gas, released during composting, can damage the brain and central nervous system.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health launched an investigation. The U.S. Department of Labor also was investigating because of the age of the victim.
A spokesman for the plant's operator, Community Recycling and Resource Co., based in Sun Valley, did not return a telephone message Friday.
The brothers, who lived in Arvin, were given only painters' masks and rubber boots to protect themselves from the fumes, relatives told The Bakersfield Californian (http://bit.ly/nrvXK9).
"Why don't they take precautions if they know it's dangerous?" asked Fidencio Corminales, a relative. "They don't give them the right equipment. It upsets me."
The brothers came to the United States from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca about two years ago, relatives said. They initially went to Salinas, where their mother works harvesting produce, they said. Eladio got a job in the fields but Armando did not because he was too young, the Californian said.
Then they moved to Arvin to live with other relatives, said Veronica Garcia, an aunt. Armando got a job with the recycling company first, then Eladio joined him.
"They were good people," Garcia said.
Neither brother talked about danger on the job, but they did speak of a strong odor, Garcia said.
Cal-OSHA spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said the company had no record of workplace violations. There had been a few land use rule violations in the past, the Californian reported, citing a county official.
Kern County Environmental Health spokesman Brian Pitts told KBAK-TV that the plant takes green waste and food waste from around the state and turns it into compost that is sold for things like residential and commercial landscaping.
It's not clear how hydrogen sulfide got into the shaft and drain, Pitts said, but it is highly toxic.
"At certain concentrations, you get a whiff of it, and you can't smell anymore," he said. That is serious, he said, because it's not being detected but it's still doing damage.
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Information from: The Bakersfield Californian, http://www.bakersfield.com
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13) Resistance From Union in Ford Vote
By BILL VLASIC and NICK BUNKLEY
October 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/business/autoworkers-early-vote-on-ford-contract-is-negative.html?scp=1&sq=Resistance%20From%20Union%20In%20Ford%20Vote&st=cse
DETROIT - Voting by Ford's unionized workers on a new contract has been unexpectedly negative, signaling a rejection of its hold-the-line pay provisions and raising at least the possibility that Detroit's fragile labor peace could be disrupted by a strike.
With voting completed Thursday at plants that account for roughly 20 percent of Ford's 41,000 members of the United Automobile Workers union, the four-year tentative contract had been rejected by about 55 percent, the union said on a Facebook page dedicated to its negotiations with the company.
In the last couple of days, 63 percent of workers at two big assembly plants in Michigan and Illinois voted against the deal even though it promised larger bonuses and more new jobs than contracts negotiated with General Motors and Chrysler.
Workers have indicated that they are most upset that the contract keeps wages frozen for those on the traditional pay scale, particularly in light of bonuses given to top Ford executives as the company, the country's second-largest automaker, has rebounded from the recession. Many are also upset that people hired in the last few years will continue to be paid much lower wages, though the second-tier pay scale was increased by several dollars an hour in the new contract.
"I'm fairly confident that Ford can afford to pay us more," said Gary Walkowicz, an opponent of the deal who works at a Ford plant near the company's headquarters in Dearborn, Mich. "We'll be talking about more than 10 years without a raise by the end of this contract."
The surprising early showing against the contract prompted the U.A.W. to alert union locals to begin preparations for a strike as soon as next week if the tentative agreement failed to pass. Voting will continue through Tuesday.
"This will be our next course of action if the tentative national agreement is rejected," Keith W. Brown, president of U.A.W. Local 245 in Dearborn wrote in a blog posted Thursday.
Mr. Brown, who represents workers in Ford's research and engineering departments, added that he was "still hopeful that we will not need to strike."
Some workers opposing the deal say union leaders are merely raising the possibility of a strike to scare more of its members into ratifying the deal.
And some labor experts said the big payouts to Ford's senior management - its executive chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., and chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, each received $26 million in compensation last year - might be stirring up a protest vote at the first plants to cast ballots. Postings on the union's Facebook pages have criticized the paychecks of "greedy" executives and empathized with the protests on Wall Street about compensation in the financial services industry.
"There's no question the executive salaries played into this," said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "It sets the wrong tone and invites comparison to the issues on Wall Street."
The U.A.W.'s president, Bob King, and his aides were pushing hard for workers in other large plants to support the contract and counteract the negative vote received thus far.
In previous contracts, union members have occasionally rejected agreements early in the process, only to have the last voting factories support the deal overwhelmingly. A big swing factor could be the voting that concludes this weekend at Local 600 in Michigan, which represents about 6,000 workers at Ford's Rouge assembly complex.
"The early votes tend to reflect anger over what's not in the contract," said Mr. Shaiken. "The later votes tend to reflect a more realistic view that this is the agreement they are going to get."
Ford is the only American auto company that the U.A.W. can strike during this round of contract talks, but both the company and the union have indicated little interest in a showdown. Beyond a strike, if the ratification should fall short, the two sides could hold further talks, or Ford could impose a lockout on the union workers.
A Facebook post by the union warned that the company could hire nonunion replacements, but a subsequent post backed away from that claim. If Ford workers reject the deal, the union is prepared to give the company a three-day notice of its intention to strike, according to a post attributed to Jimmy Settles, the U.A.W.'s chief negotiator with Ford.
"The company is not obligated to continue bargaining," the post said. "Their position is that they negotiated in good faith and presented an agreement which is more than competitive."
The union agreed to "no strike" concessions at G.M. and Chrysler as part of the Obama administration's financial bailout of the two companies in 2009.
G.M. workers have already ratified their new contract, and voting at Chrysler, which reached a tentative deal Wednesday, will occur within the next two weeks.
Ford has offered $6,000 bonuses to its workers to sign the contract, compared with $5,000 at G.M. and $3,500 at Chrysler. In addition, Ford agreed to give workers a portion of their 2011 profit-sharing checks - about $3,750 - in November rather than making them wait until next year.
The plants in Wayne, Mich., and Chicago that rejected the deal are in line to get third shifts, adding hundreds of jobs. However, some of the workers at those plants expressed concern in Internet postings that the added jobs would reduce their overtime and that workers with higher seniority would transfer in from other plants, making their job less secure in the event of a future downturn.
Ford earned $6.6 billion in 2010 and $4.9 billion in the first half of this year. But all three Detroit carmakers have said they need to hold the line on labor costs during the negotiations to protect their still-tenuous recoveries. Analysts say Ford's deal provides considerable savings to compensate for the bonuses and other costlier provisions; the credit ratings firms Standard & Poor's and Moody's are each reviewing Ford for possible upgrades if the contract is approved.
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14) Rallies Across the Globe Protest Economic Policies
"Despite the difference in language, landscape and scale, the protests were united in frustration with the widening gap between the rich and the poor."
By RACHEL DONADIO and ELIZABETH A. HARRIS
October 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/occupy-wall-street-protests-worldwide.html?hp
ROME - In dozens of cities around the world on Saturday, people took to the streets, clutching placards and chanting slogans as part of a planned day of protests against the financial system.
In Rome, a rally thick with tension spread over several miles. Small groups of violent young people turned a largely peaceful protest into a riot, setting fire to at least one building and a police van and clashing with police officers, who responded with water cannons and tear gas.
Local news media reported that dozens of protesters had been injured. Law enforcement officials would not confirm those figures, but said 20 police officers had been hurt.
In other European cities, including Berlin and London, the demonstrations were largely peaceful, with thousands of people marching past ancient monuments and gathering in front of capitalist symbols like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Elsewhere, the turnout was more modest, but rallies of a few hundred people were held in cities including Sydney, Australia, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Protests also continued in New York and were held in several other cities in the United States and Canada.
But just as the rallies in New York have represented a variety of messages - signs have been held in opposition to President Obama yards away from signs in support of him- so Saturday's protests contained a grab bag of messages, opposing nuclear power, political corruption and the privatization of water.
Despite the difference in language, landscape and scale, the protests were united in frustration with the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
"I have no problem with capitalism. I have no problem with a market economy. But I find the way the financial system is functioning deeply unethical," Herbert Haberl, 51, said in Berlin. "We shouldn't bail out the banks. We should bail out the people."
In New York, where the occupation of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan was moving into its second month, a large crowd marched north early Saturday afternoon to Washington Square Park, where they were joined by several hundred college students who spoke, among other things, about student debt and unemployment. Another march, to Times Square, was planned for later.
Earlier, about a dozen protesters entered a Chase branch in Lower Manhattan and withdrew their money from the bank while 300 other people circled the block, some shouting chants and beating on drums. The former Chase customers, who declined to reveal how much they had in their accounts - though a few acknowledged it was not much - said they planned to put their money into smaller banks or credit unions.
About 20 people were arrested while demonstrating at a Citibank branch in Greenwich Village.
In Washington, several hundred people marched through downtown, beginning in the early morning, passing by several banks. Escorted by the police, the marchers also demonstrated in front of the White House and the Treasury Department before moving on to a rally on the National Mall, where they were joined by representatives of unions and other supporters.
Kelly Mears, 24, a former software engineer, said he was despondent about the direction of the country and was inspired to join the protest after following the one in New York on Twitter and other social media. Mr. Mears and dozens of other protesters have been camped out in McPherson Square, a park not far from the White House, for the past two weeks.
"You see how people are beholden to corporate interest no matter how hard you might have worked to get them elected," Mr. Mears said. "There is a disconnect."
Saturday's protests sprang not only from Occupy Wall Street movement that began last month in New York, but also from demonstrations in Spain in May. This weekend, the global protest effort came as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations meet in Paris to discuss economic issues, including ways to tackle Europe's sovereign debt crisis
In London, where crowds assembled in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, the ubiquitous emblems of the movement were in evidence. "Bankers Are the Real Looters" and "We Are the 99 Percent," read several placards and flags. One demonstrator, dressed as Jesus Christ, held a sign that said "I Threw the Money Lenders Out for a Reason."
Brief clashes were reported in London, where the police were out in force with dozens of riot vans, canine units and hundreds of officers. But the gathering, attended by people of all ages, was largely peaceful, with a picnic atmosphere and people streaming in and out of a nearby Starbucks.
The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, made an appearance at the cathedral, where he was met by hundreds of cheering fans. He called the protest movement "the culmination of a dream."
In Rome, Saturday's protests were as much about the growing dissatisfaction with the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - who narrowly survived a vote of confidence on Friday - as they were about global financial inequities. Tens of thousands of people turned out for what started as peaceful protests and devolved into ugly violence. The windows of shops and bank windows were smashed, a police van was destroyed and some Defense Ministry offices were set alight.
"We're upset because we don't have prospects for the future," Alessia Tridici, 18, said in Rome. "We'll never see a pension. We'll have to work until we die."
In contrast, protests in Berlin remained peaceful and upbeat, with music and even a little dancing on a warm, sunny day.
"I like the carnival atmosphere," said Juhani Seppovaara, 64, a photographer and writer originally from Finland now living in Berlin. "But for me there's a little too much populism, very complicated matters reduced to one or two sentences."
About 350 miles away in Frankfurt, thousands gathered under a giant blue euro sign at the European Central Bank, in an orderly and well-organized demonstration complete with public toilets.
Thomas Lindner, 45, said the New York protests had inspired him to join the demonstration.
"The banks get rescued right away, but the poor people don't get any support," Mr. Lindner said.
Nearby, a man who said he went by only one name, Fränky, passed out fake 10-euro notes as part of a campaign to abolish money.
In Sydney, several hundred protesters carried signs with slogans including "We Are the 99%" and "Capitalism Is Killing Our Economy." The atmosphere was lively, with a brass band providing music in thoroughfares outside the headquarters of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the city's financial district.
In central Tokyo, where periodic rallies against nuclear power have been held since the March accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, about 300 protesters marched with signs through busy streets and heavy traffic, chanting "We're with Occupy Wall Street!" "Down with the rich!" and "No more nukes!"
Two young men held a banner that expressed an apologetic solidarity: "Radioactivity Has No Borders. To the World From Japan: Sorry!"
Another held a sign that read simply, "Let's Complain More."
"Even timid Japanese are finally starting to push for change," said Miku Ohkura, 24, a college student in Tokyo, who said she had already been to about a half-dozen protests for various causes in the last few months. She said that apart from being opposed to nuclear power, younger people were angry at being made to bear the brunt of Japan's economic woes. "We all have different messages, but we're all alike in that we want society to become more equal," she said.
Throughout the day, that sentiment was echoed around streets and squares all over the world.
"We've had decades of increasing inequality, culminating in the financial crisis," said Jack Copley, 20, a student at the University of Birmingham who was protesting in London. "The best we can hope for," he said, gesturing to the gathered crowd, "is that we can change the political climate to make it harder for politicians to rule in the interests of the few."
Rachel Donadio reported from Rome, and Elizabeth A. Harris from New York. Reporting was contributed by Kevin Drew from Hong Kong, Jack Ewing from Frankfurt, Nicholas Kulish from Berlin, Colin Moynihan and Christopher Maag from New York, Ron Nixon from Washington, Matt Siegel from Sydney, Australia, Ravi Somaiya from London and Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo.
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15) Britain's Self-Inflicted Misery
[They try to blame this on the Republicans and their "austerity" program. But that's not the only thing that's driving the OWS movement. What's driving it is not only a program of austerity administered by the top Democrat, Obomber-Obanker-Obama himself; but also his multi-trillion dollar handoff to the wealthy-the biggest transfer of wealth to the wealthy ever! That's what the 99 percent is pissed off about! ...bw]
New York Times Editorial
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/britains-self-inflicted-misery.html?hp
For a year now, Britain's economy has been stuck in a vicious cycle of low growth, high unemployment and fiscal austerity. But unlike Greece, which has been forced into induced recession by misguided European Union creditors, Britain has inflicted this harmful quack cure on itself.
Austerity was a deliberate ideological choice by Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, elected 17 months ago. It has failed and can be expected to keep failing. But neither party is yet prepared to acknowledge that reality and change course.
Britain's economy has barely grown since the budget cuts began taking effect late last year. The most recent quarterly figures showed the economy flat-lining, with growth at 0.1 percent.
New figures released this week reported Britain's highest jobless numbers in more than 15 years. Independent analysts expect unemployment - now 8.1 percent - to keep rising in the months ahead. The government has kept its promise to slash public-sector jobs - more than 100,000 have been lost in recent months. But its deficit-reduction policies have failed to revive the business confidence that was supposed to spur private-sector hiring.
Drastic public spending cuts were the wrong deficit-reduction strategy for the weakened British economy a year ago. And they are the wrong strategy for the faltering American economy today. Britain's unhappy experience is further evidence that radical reductions in federal spending will do little but stifle economic recovery.
A few years of robust growth would go far toward making swollen federal deficits more manageable. But slashing government spending in an already stalled economy weakens anemic demand, leading to lost output and lost tax revenues. As revenues fall, deficit reduction requires longer, deeper spending cuts. Cut too far, too fast, and the result is not a balanced budget but a lost decade of no growth. That could now happen in Britain. And if the Republicans have their way, it could also happen here.
Austerity is a political ideology masquerading as an economic policy. It rests on a myth, impervious to facts, that portrays all government spending as wasteful and harmful, and unnecessary to the recovery. The real world is a lot more complicated. America has no need to repeat Mr. Cameron's failed experiment.
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16) America's 'Primal Scream'
"According to the C.I.A.'s own ranking of countries by income inequality, the United States is more unequal a society than either Tunisia or Egypt. ...Of the 100 highest-paid chief executives in the United States in 2010, 25 took home more pay than their company paid in federal corporate income taxes, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. ...The banks have gotten away with privatizing profits and socializing risks, and that's just another form of bank robbery."
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
October 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-americas-primal-scream.html?hp
IT'S fascinating that many Americans intuitively understood the outrage and frustration that drove Egyptians to protest at Tahrir Square, but don't comprehend similar resentments that drive disgruntled fellow citizens to "occupy Wall Street."
There are differences, of course: the New York Police Department isn't dispatching camels to run down protesters. Americans may feel disenfranchised, but we do live in a democracy, a flawed democracy - which is the best hope for Egypt's evolution in the coming years.
Yet my interviews with protesters in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park seemed to rhyme with my interviews in Tahrir earlier this year. There's a parallel sense that the political/economic system is tilted against the 99 percent. Al Gore, who supports the Wall Street protests, described them perfectly as a "primal scream of democracy."
The frustration in America isn't so much with inequality in the political and legal worlds, as it was in Arab countries, although those are concerns too. Here the critical issue is economic inequity. According to the C.I.A.'s own ranking of countries by income inequality, the United States is more unequal a society than either Tunisia or Egypt.
Three factoids underscore that inequality:
¶The 400 wealthiest Americans have a greater combined net worth than the bottom 150 million Americans.
¶The top 1 percent of Americans possess more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent.
¶In the Bush expansion from 2002 to 2007, 65 percent of economic gains went to the richest 1 percent.
As my Times colleague Catherine Rampell noted a few days ago, in 1981, the average salary in the securities industry in New York City was twice the average in other private sector jobs. At last count, in 2010, it was 5.5 times as much. (In case you want to gnash your teeth, the average is now $361,330.)
More broadly, there's a growing sense that lopsided outcomes are a result of tycoons' manipulating the system, lobbying for loopholes and getting away with murder. Of the 100 highest-paid chief executives in the United States in 2010, 25 took home more pay than their company paid in federal corporate income taxes, according to the Institute for Policy Studies.
Living under Communism in China made me a fervent enthusiast of capitalism. I believe that over the last couple of centuries banks have enormously raised living standards in the West by allocating capital to more efficient uses. But anyone who believes in markets should be outraged that banks rig the system so that they enjoy profits in good years and bailouts in bad years.
The banks have gotten away with privatizing profits and socializing risks, and that's just another form of bank robbery.
"We have a catastrophically bad misregulation of the financial system," said Amar Bhidé, a finance expert at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "Its consequences led to a taint of the entire system of modern enterprise."
Economists used to believe that we had to hold our noses and put up with high inequality as the price of robust growth. But more recent research suggests the opposite: inequality not only stinks, but also damages economies.
In his important new book, "The Darwin Economy," Robert H. Frank of Cornell University cites a study showing that among 65 industrial nations, the more unequal ones experience slower growth on average. Likewise, individual countries grow more rapidly in periods when incomes are more equal, and slow down when incomes are skewed.
That's certainly true of the United States. We enjoyed considerable equality from the 1940s through the 1970s, and growth was strong. Since then inequality has surged, and growth has slowed.
One reason may be that inequality is linked to financial distress and financial crises. There is mounting evidence that inequality leads to bankruptcies and to financial panics.
"The recent global economic crisis, with its roots in U.S. financial markets, may have resulted, in part at least, from the increase in inequality," Andrew G. Berg and Jonathan D. Ostry of the International Monetary Fund wrote last month. They argued that "equality appears to be an important ingredient in promoting and sustaining growth."
Inequality also leads to early deaths and more divorces - a reminder that we're talking not about data sets here, but about human beings.
Some critics think that Occupy Wall Street is simply tapping into the public's resentment and covetousness, nurturing class warfare. Sure, there's a dollop of envy. But inequality is also a cancer on our national well-being.
I don't know whether the Occupy Wall Street movement will survive once Zuccotti Park fills with snow and the novelty wears off. But I do hope that the protesters have lofted the issue of inequality onto our national agenda to stay - and to grapple with in the 2012 election year.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook and Google+, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
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17) Ohio Wages Fierce Fight on Collective Bargaining
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
October 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/us/in-ohio-a-battle-over-public-employees-bargaining-rights.html?ref=us
COLUMBUS, Ohio - "Hi, Teresa," said Phil Hayes, a high school social studies teacher. "I'm voting no on Senate Bill 5 because it can make my class size larger and can make it harder for me to be a teacher."
That was how Mr. Hayes plunged into yet another call as he and a dozen other union members at a labor phone bank made hundreds of calls to urge Ohioans to repeal one of Gov. John R. Kasich's signal achievements: the enactment of Senate Bill 5, a law that weakens public employees' bargaining rights.
The push to repeal the law, enacted by the Republican-led legislature in March, will be one of the biggest battles in the country this Election Day, with the law's supporters and opponents expected to spend in total more than $20 million in the fight.
Supporters say the law is vital to curb labor's power and to hold down state and local compensation costs during an era of increasing budget deficits. But opponents - who collected 1.3 million signatures to place the repeal vote on the Nov. 8 ballot - say the law unfairly scapegoats public employees, and weakens unions, a powerful ally of the Democrats.
"As someone who set out to serve his students, I don't work on Wall Street; I serve Main Street," Mr. Hayes said. "I didn't cause the economic and financial problems caused by Wall Street, but now public employees like me have to suffer the consequences. We don't sell collateral debt obligations, but we do sell cookies to help keep our schools going."
In dozens of towns across Ohio, rival sides have set up phone banks and door-knocking efforts. Unions and their allies have created We Are Ohio, a group that is leading the repeal effort, which has 10,000 volunteers and hopes a victory will discourage Republicans in other states from adopting anti-union legislation. Mr. Kasich's allies have created Building a Better Ohio, financed by business and conservative donors, to block repeal.
In many ways Senate Bill 5 goes further than the antibargaining law that Wisconsin's Republican-led Legislature enacted in March over the protests of tens of thousands of union supporters. Ohio's law allows only limited bargaining: If management and union do not reach a settlement, then city councils and school boards can impose their side's final contract offer unilaterally. The Ohio law bans binding arbitration and bargaining on health coverage, pensions or staffing levels. It also requires government workers to pay at least 15 percent of their health insurance costs and pay 10 percent of their salaries toward their pensions.
The Ohio Senate president, Thomas E. Niehaus, who is campaigning against repeal, said, "These are reasonable reforms asking our public sector employees to do what private sector employees have been doing for decades: paying more for their health care and their pension benefits." He denied that the bill eviscerated collective bargaining. "We are reforming collective bargaining," he said.
But one prominent Republican opponent of Senate Bill 5, State Senator Bill Seitz, said the bill all but erased collective bargaining by letting management decide which side's final offer would prevail. He said it was like "going to divorce court and finding out your wife's father is the judge."
A Quinnipiac poll in late September found that Ohioans favor repeal by a 13 percentage point margin, 51 percent to 38 percent, down from a 24 percentage point margin in July. Opponents of repeal say they have significantly narrowed the gap since they began broadcasting advertisements after Labor Day.
As one of their most powerful arguments, opponents of Senate Bill 5 say the law will jeopardize public safety by no longer letting firefighters and police bargain over staffing levels.
A union-backed television commercial shows 3-year-old Zoey Quinn slumped on a Cincinnati firefighter's arm as he rescued her from her family's burning house. The advertisement warns that firefighters might not be able to save Zoey next time, because the law bars bargaining over minimum staffing levels.
Zoey's great-grandmother, Marlene Quinn, says in the advertisement, "I don't want the politicians in Columbus making decisions for the firefighters, police, teachers, nurses or any organization that's helping people. Fewer firefighters can mean the difference between life or death."
Ms. Quinn is now at the center of a controversy because the side fighting the repeal has run a broadcast advertisement using her words, without her permission, and then goes on to say that without Senate Bill 5 there will be more layoffs of firemen. Repeal supporters say that is twisting her sentiments.
Jeff Berding, a former member of the Cincinnati City Council and one of the most outspoken Democratic supporters of Senate Bill 5, said the union-backed ads were misleading, arguing that government officials would never ignore safety concerns. "You're not going to have elected officials do things that are terribly unfair to firefighters and police and jeopardizing public safety," he said. "Officials want the firefighters and police endorsing them in the next election."
He said he backed Senate Bill 5 because "I want some options besides raising taxes and laying off police and firefighters." He said government officials often had little recourse but to increase taxes or dismiss public employees, thereby cutting public services, because unions, usually dominated by more senior workers, often refuse to make concessions. Union leaders recognize that concessions would hurt the more senior workers, while in a financial shortfall resulting from unions' not granting concessions, those laid off would be the more junior workers. Senate Bill 5 allows government to lay off workers outside of seniority.
Tim Burga, the president of the Ohio State A.F.L.-C.I.O., said Senate Bill 5 was an assault on the state's 360,000 public employees and was based on numerous misunderstandings. He said that many government employees already contributed heavily toward their health and pension costs, and that many had accepted wage freezes to help cut budget deficits.
"This shows that collective bargaining works," Mr. Burga said. "I've never seen an issue catch fire like this. You look at the 1.3 million signatures we collected and the outpouring of opposition because this was such a blatant politically motivated attack. The energy is there on our side."
Mack D. Mariani, a professor of political science at Xavier University in Cincinnati, said an unrelated issue on the Ohio ballot would hurt the repeal effort. The Tea Party is backing a proposed state constitutional amendment that would let Ohioans opt out of the mandatory requirements of the health law that Congressional Democrats enacted last year. That should lead to higher-than-normal conservative turnout, undercutting labor's repeal effort.
"Right now, the unions are definitely winning the ground game in terms of getting people on the streets, knocking on doors," Mr. Mariani said. "If the unions win, it will certainly be seen as a big blow for Kasich."
Many union leaders and Democrats say that if they win the repeal vote, that should give President Obama momentum in Ohio in the 2012 elections, a pivotal swing state. But if Mr. Kasich's allies prevail, then Ohio Republicans will have a lot to crow about going into 2012.
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18) Tackling Infant Mortality Rates Among Blacks
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/efforts-to-combat-high-infant-mortality-rate-among-blacks.html?ref=us
PITTSBURGH - Amanda Ralph is the kind of woman whose babies are prone to die. She is young and poor and dropped out of school after the ninth grade.
But there is also an undeniable link between Ms. Ralph's race - she is black - and whether her baby will survive: nationally, black babies are more than twice as likely as white babies to die before the age of 1. Here in Pittsburgh, the rate is five times.
So, seven months into her first pregnancy, Ms. Ralph, 20, is lying on a couch at home as a nurse from a federally financed program listens to the heartbeat of her fetus.
The unusual attention Ms. Ralph is receiving is one of myriad efforts being made nationwide to reduce the tens of thousands of deaths each year of infants before age 1. But health officials say it is frequently disheartening work, as a combination of apathy and cuts to federal and state programs aimed at reducing infant deaths have hampered progress, with dozens of big cities and rural areas reporting rising rates.
The private nature of infant mortality has made it a quiet crisis, lacking the public discussion or high-profile campaigns that accompany cancer, autism or postpartum depression.
The infant mortality rate in the United States has long been near the bottom of the world's industrialized countries. The nation's current mark - 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births - places it 46th in the world, according to a ranking by the Central Intelligence Agency.
African-Americans fare far worse: Their rate of 13.3 deaths per 1,000 is almost double the national average and higher than Sri Lanka's.
Precisely why the black infant mortality rate is so high is a mystery that has eluded researchers even as the racial disparity continues to grow in cities like Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Boston.
In Pittsburgh, where the unemployment rate is well below the national average, the infant mortality rate for black residents of Allegheny County was 20.7 in 2009, a slight decrease from 21 in 2000 but still worse than the rates in China or Mexico. In the same period the rate among whites in the county decreased to 4 from 5.6 - well below the national average, according to state statistics. Figures for the past two years, which are not yet available, have most likely increased the gap significantly, county health officials said.
While Pittsburgh's struggles are illustrative of problems in other cities, it also faces its own particular issues, including the county's privatization of many of its health care services over the years.
With the county taking a reduced role, Healthy Start, a federally financed national nonprofit group, is now responsible for Pittsburgh's most vulnerable pregnant women. None of its $2.35 million budget, much of which is used for 6,000 annual home visits, comes from the county. The group's budget has not increased since 1997.
Even with its high-risk clients, Healthy Start has had success: in 2007 there were no child deaths among its participants countywide. The numbers though, have begun to creep up, and in 2010 the mortality rate among participants was 13.9.
"As a city you want to be known for your football and baseball teams, but you don't want to be known as a place where babies die," said Cheryl Squire Flint, who leads the group's Pittsburgh branch.
That, however, is precisely what is happening.
"We have one of the top schools of public health and one of the top schools of medicine, yet the problem is hidden," said Angela F. Ford, executive director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Minority Health, which works to address health disparities.
Recent studies have shown that poverty, education, access to prenatal care, smoking and even low birth weight do not alone explain the racial gap in infant mortality, and that even black women with graduate degrees are more likely to lose a child in its first year than are white women who did not finish high school. Research is now focusing on stress as a factor and whether black women have shorter birth canals.
"It is truly one of the most challenging issues, because it is multifactorial," said Dr. Garth Graham, a deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Minority Health at the Department of Health and Human Services. "And nationally, the disparity has remained despite our best efforts."
Dr. Bruce W. Dixon, Allegheny County's health commissioner for the last 19 years, said the primary cause for the growing disparity is an inequity in health care access.
"It's not medical care, it's social issues," he said.
Dr. Dixon, who is white, has supported shifting much of the county's previous health care burden to private providers like Healthy Start because he believes they are able to deliver medical services more effectively and at lower cost. He said his department's mainly white, middle-age bureaucrats had failed to adequately reduce mortality rates, which he blamed on their inability to communicate effectively. Black residents, however, say the disparity is not perceived as a problem because it is limited to a marginalized group.
"It wasn't affecting whites, so no one really cared because they didn't know about it," said Wilford Payne, who operates 11 community health centers in Pittsburgh.
Some here say black women are reluctant to seek prenatal care because they fear they will be mistreated.
"People who need the services are the ones least likely to get them," said Dannai Harriel, 34, who was a Healthy Start client when she became pregnant at 17, and later worked for the organization.
Ms. Ralph, who expects to deliver a healthy baby girl around Christmas, said when she first found out she was pregnant she hid her face under a blanket and lay motionless on her living room floor.
But after meeting with Healthy Start nurses and outreach workers, who provide as much psychological support as health care, Ms. Ralph said, she became excited about having a child.
Her living room floor is now full of little pink boxes and brightly colored bags filled with lotions and candles - party favors she bought for guests to her forthcoming baby shower. Among the guests will be her obstetrician. While Ms. Ralph is doing well, Healthy Start workers still have concerns. Because she drinks too much soda and does not appear to be eating nutritious foods, Ms. Ralph has gained 50 pounds during her pregnancy and now weighs 181. She has been told that overweight women have a higher risk of complications during pregnancy.
But Ms. Ralph has few healthy food options. The nearest grocery store is a 15-minute walk from the home she shares with her mother. Local shops sell little more than soda, chips and candy. Ms. Ralph, who said she was eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, acknowledges a taste for tacos and comfort foods.
"I can't help it," she said. "I love my mama's cooking."
At the end of a 45-minute visit with Dradia Toblin, her caseworker, and Clara Brown, a registered nurse, she was told that her baby - whom she has decided to name Kaylah - is now able to open her eyes and practice her breathing.
"You are doing a good job," Ms. Brown tells her. "You are growing a good baby."
Others, however, may not be so fortunate, and without focused attention, infant deaths in the county - now more than 100 each year - may continue to rise, advocates say.
"We're not looking and thinking long-term," said Carmen Anderson, who previously led Healthy Start and is now a senior officer with the Heinz Endowments of Pittsburgh. "We are in day-to-day crisis mode. Sometimes those who scream the loudest get the attention. And there's no screaming."
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19) Half of Votes Counted, Ford Labor Contract Leans Into 'Yes' Territory
By NICK BUNKLEY
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/business/half-of-votes-counted-ford-labor-contract-leans-into-yes-territory.html?ref=business
DETROIT - The ratification outlook for a proposed four-year labor agreement between the Ford Motor Company and the United Automobile Workers union improved on Friday, but opposition at several large plants that have yet to finish voting could still be enough to sink the deal.
As of late Friday morning, the contract was supported by 50.8 percent of voters so far, the union said on a Facebook page dedicated to its negotiations with Ford. It said 6,271 "yes" votes had been counted, compared with 6,085 "no" votes. And as of Saturday morning, support had grown to 56 percent, with 8,577 "yes" votes compared with 6,710 "no" votes.
Until then, the "no" votes had been leading after workers at three large plants - one in Wayne, Mich., and two in Chicago - rejected the deal, largely over complaints that most workers would not receive wage increases. The swing into positive territory happened when 79 percent of workers at a plant in Flat Rock, Mich., voted in favor of the contract, according to the Web site of Local 3000 there; that is the largest margin of approval reported publicly so far.
The Flat Rock plant, which makes the Ford Mustang and a Mazda sedan as part of a joint venture, is in line to begin building the Ford Fusion midsize sedan if the contract passes, saving it from layoffs or possible closing after Mazda ends production there next year.
Voting is scheduled to finish Tuesday. The outcome largely hinges on how many of the more than 10,000 workers at U.A.W. locals in Dearborn, Mich., and Louisville, Ky., support the contract in the coming days.
If the deal fails, negotiators could return to the bargaining table under an indefinite extension of the old contract, the union could call a strike, or Ford could lock out the workers.
Union leaders across the country have begun assembling strike committees and distributing information about strike pay and procedures. At the same time, many have stepped up efforts to win support for the deal, warning workers that rejecting the agreement could result in a worse outcome.
"With the way the economy is and the way labor's been under attack, I think to vote it down expecting to get more - I don't think that's realistic," said Keith Brown, the president of Local 245 in Dearborn, Mich.
In 2009, Ford workers turned down concessions that the company sought to the four-year contract it signed in 2007. Mr. Brown said he hoped that workers would realize that turning down an entirely new contract could have more negative consequences than voting against modifications to an existing contract.
Ford is the only American auto company that the U.A.W. can strike against during this round of contract talks, but both the company and the union have said they wanted to maintain a civil relationship.
If the Ford contract passes, workers would get bonuses of $6,000, or $5,000 if they were hired less than a year ago. They also would receive a $3,752 advance on next year's profit-sharing checks in November and $1,500 annually from 2012 through 2015.
The total of the bonuses is at least 50 percent more than G.M. and Chrysler agreed to pay their workers. G.M. workers have already ratified their new contract, and voting at Chrysler, which reached a tentative deal Wednesday, is to begin soon.
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20) Social Media Gives Wall Street Protests a Global Reach
By JENNIFER PRESTON
October 15, 2011, 3:10 pm
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/social-media-gives-wall-street-protests-a-global-reach/?src=busln
With cell phones and social media tools, protesters provided live updates, photos and videos from the dozens of demonstrations held around the world on Saturday as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
From capturing Julian Assange's remarks to protesters in London, to the violence that broke out during a large rally in Rome, people participating in the demonstrations shared in real time what was happening in their cities for all the world to see.
Posting links on Twitter and Facebook, they uploaded photos and videos to YouTube and image sharing sites like Bambuser and yFrog, where these photos of the demonstration in Madrid were posted by Ricardo Cana and linked to his Twitter account, @rcana..
In Spain, they also uploaded live video from Madrid on Ustream, a video sharing site.
Organizers in New York City also used their Global Revolution channel on Livestream to deliver live video feeds of the protests in New York. A stream of comments about the global protests from users around the world could be found on this channel, along with links to videos and livestreams of protests.
The online conversation about the Occupied Wall Street movement has been steadily growing on social media platforms in recent weeks and increased among global users in the last week as the planned day for demonstrations around the world approached on Saturday.
According to Trendrr, a social media analytics firm, the number of posts about Occupy Wall Street on Twitter outside the United States grew to more than 25 percent on Friday, up from 15 percent during the same time period a week before.
Throughout the day on Saturday, overall volume on Twitter doubled and the number of posts on Twitter from outside the United States increased to 47 percent from 25 percent, an updated analysis from Trendrr showed. Of those tweets from outside the U.S., 7 percent were from the United Kingdom, 7 percent from Canada, 6 percent from Spain, 2 percent from Germany and with the remaining posts coming from all over the world.
On Facebook, the overall audience has grown to more than 1.2 million in the last two weeks as hundreds of Facebook pages have been created around the country and now around the world. There are dozens of global Facebook pages now, including Occupy Brazil, Occupy Berlin, Occupy Sidney and Occupy Tokyo.
Users also turned to Meetup.com and FourSquare, a geolocation service, to help find each other and organize protests.
The Occupy the London Stock Exchange Facebook page has more than 16,000 likes and became a platform on Saturday for people attending the demonstration in London to share real-time updates, photos and videos from the march.
One person complained about the delayed police response during the riots in the United Kingdom last August but pointed out that police were equipped with riot gear at the protest on Saturday.
On the Facebook page, Occupy Together, which now has more than 117,000 people who belong to it, an update about the global planned demonstrations, prompted almost 500 people to share it and more than 200 people to comment from around the world.
"South Africa stands in Unity with all the people on this planet who have said: "Enough is Enough," wrote Lendyll Naicker, who lives in Cape Town "We have woken up in our masses and realized that we are being controlled by corruption and greed, and that something is wrong with this picture. The 1% of people who own and control everything and who are trying to keep the masses enslaved and asleep will now know that we see through their game. The Global Revolution begins NOW!"
On Twitter, the protesters used hashtags, like #OccupyLondon, #OccupyTokyo, #OccupySidney, to help organize the overwhelming stream of posts on Twitter coming from around the world. Links to photos and cell phone videos flowed into the night, but some users found themselves with one of the problems that technology has not yet solved: the dying battery.
"Dusk over London now. Crowds still outside St Pauls, but getting chilly. They're wrapped up warm though. #occupylsx #OccupyLondon, " Prad Patel posted on Twitter, from London.
Then a few postings later, he wrote this:
@praddles
Prad Patel Phone battery is about to run out. Hope you found my tweets useful today #occupylsx#OccupyLondon Photos will be uploaded later tonight!
Oct 15 via twicca Favorite Retweet Reply
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21) OWS Organizers Blast MoveOn
By Washington's Blog
15 October 11
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/7898-focus-ows-organizers-blast-moveon
Occupy Wall Street: Take the Bull by the Horns RSN Special Coverage: Occupy D.C. RSN Special Coverage: Occupy America
David DeGraw - one of the primary Wall Street protest organizers - just sent me the following email:
Top MoveOn leaders / executives are all over national television speaking for the movement. fully appreciate the help and support of MoveOn, but the MSM is clearly using them as the spokespeople for OWS. This is an blatant attempt to fracture the 99% into a Democratic Party organization. The leadership of MoveON are Democratic Party operatives. they are divide and conquer pawns. For years they ignored Wall Street protests to keep complete focus on the Republicans, in favor of Goldman's Obama and Wall Street's Democratic leadership.
If anyone at Move On or Daily Kos would like to have a public debate about these comments, we invite it.
Please help us stop this divide and conquer attempt.
DeGraw - who is wholly non-partisan [like the writers at Washington's Blog] - tells me that about half of the protesters are liberals, but the other half are libertarians (and see this. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/welcome-to-the-ows-99-movement-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-not-be-co-opted%E2%80%9D.html)
This mirrors what one of the original organizers of the "Occupy Trenton" protest told me: MoveOn attempted to set the agenda and pretend it was their event.
As I noted last week:
Everyone's trying to cash in on the courage and conviction of the Wall Street protesters.
People are trying to associate Occupy Wall Street with their pet projects, in the same way that advertisers try to associate the goodwill of the Super Bowl, NBA playoffs, World Series or Olympics with their product.
But I hear from OWS organizers that the protesters come from totally diverse political affiliations. Many protesters support Ron Paul, many like Obama, others are for other parties or candidates or don't vote at all.
The protesters themselves are having none of it, tweeting today:
We don't want to be the democratic tea party or liberal tea party. We want to be our own movement separate of any political affiliation.
Update: Another tweet from the protesters:
We don't represent liberal interests nor are we the liberal tea party. We represent the interest of the 99%
And as I pointed out Tuesday:
The two main challenges [facing the protesters are]: (1) An attempt by both the Democratic and Republican parties to co-opt it (see this, this and this); and (2) agents provocateur (see this, this and this) [and here].
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22) Dems backing Occupy Wall St. are funded by Wall St.
Prominent Democrats applaud Occupy Wall Street while taking huge donations from the finance industry
By Justin Elliott
Monday, Oct 10, 2011 10:35 AM PST
http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/10/dems_backing_occupy_wall_st_are_funded_by_wall_st/
A lot has been made in the last few days of increasing Democratic Party support for Occupy Wall Street. Some within the movement have expressed fears of co-optation. Some on the right have argued that the Dems are blundering by throwing in their lot with a group of putative radicals. And so on.
The irony is that the same elected Democrats singing the praises of Occupy Wall Street are themselves major recipients of money from ... Wall Street!
Does this mean that the Democratic embrace should be rejected? Not necessarily. Occupy Wall Street could, of course, open up political space for Democrats to address unemployment, income inequality, criminality by banks, the overwhelming influence of corporate money in politics and so on. But it's worth keeping in mind that most if not all of these politicians have been cozy with Wall Street for years; so there are grounds for suspicion.
Take the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the party organization that collects money for House races around the country. It is now soliciting signatures (along with email addresses for its database) for a petition in support of Occupy Wall Street.
"Protestors are assembling in New York and around the country to let billionaires, big oil and big bankers know that we're not going to let the richest 1% force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial programs on Main Street Americans," the DCCC pitch reads.
It asks people to sign a letter telling Republicans, "I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests because it's time to take the country back for the middle class."
But the DCCC has sucked up cash from Wall Street as much as any entity in politics. The DCCC received $4.6 million from the securities and investment industry in the 2010 cycle. In the 2008 cycle, the DCCC took in $6.4 million from the securities industry. The only group that gave more was lawyers and law firms. Current DCCC chair Steve Israel, a Dem from Long Island, has been hailed for his skill in wooing the financial industry. Politico reported last month that part of the reason the DCCC is outpacing its Republican counterpart in fundraising is Israel's "easy access to Wall Street."
Then there's House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "God bless them for their spontaneity," she said of the protesters a few days ago. "It's young, it's spontaneous, it's focused and it's going to be effective." She continued: "The message of the American people is that no longer ... will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street."
In the current election cycle, Pelosi has raised more money - $105,000 - from the securities and investment crowd than from any other industry. In the 2010 cycle, Pelosi and her political action committee took in another $180,000 from the industry. In 2008 it was $243,000, a total that included donations from lobbyists representing Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
President Obama, for his part, has not expressed support for Occupy Wall Street, but said at a news conference last week he understands what's going on.
"I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel, that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country ... and yet you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place," he said.
In June, Obama traveled to New York for a $35,800-per-plate dinner with the Wall Street bankers who are the target of the occupiers' anger.
Bloomberg reported on the guest list:
Among those who were to dine with Obama at Daniel were Robert Wolf, chairman of UBS Americas; Blair W. Effron, partner and co-founder of Centerview Partners LLP; Marc Lasry, managing partner and founder of Avenue Capital Group; Mark Gallogly, a managing principal of Centerbridge Partners; James Rubin, managing director of BC Partners; and Frank Brosens of Taconic Capital Advisors LP, according to a party official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the list hadn't been made public.
Meanwhile, the Bloomberg report added, Obama campaign chief Jim Messina has been aggressively wooing Wall Street executives.
None of this means that some of these Wall Street donors aren't genuine progressives. Nor does it mean that certain policies advocated by at least some Democrats - the expiration of Bush tax cuts for the rich, say - would not be marginally worse for Wall Street than Republican policies. But let's not lose sight of the fact, highlighted by many of the occupiers I've interviewed, that the tentacles of Wall Street reach deep into both major parties, and that has a profound effect on public policy in this country.
Close
Justin Elliott
Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott
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23) Welcome to the #OWS 99% Movement "We Will NOT Be Co-Opted"
Posted on October 8, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/welcome-to-the-ows-99-movement-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-not-be-co-opted%E2%80%9D.html
Preface from Washington's Blog: Both mainstream Democratic and Republican parties are working furiously behind the scenes to co-opt the Wall Street protests. But as the Associated Press notes, the protesters are fed up with both mainstream parties, as are most of the American people.
A P.R. professional says that the mainstream media's ridicule of the protests for failing to have a specific list of demands is a dishonest tactic.
And Yves Smith notes that the movement is effective even without demands:
I've noticed both here and on some news stories I heard in passing on MSNBC on Friday that the OccupyWallStreet movement has already succeeded in expanding the space of what is now being discussed as remedies.
By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus.com [See this for DeGraw's role in organizing the Wall Street protests.]
This is not an official statement from the #OWS 99% Movement. As a decentralized leaderless movement, in our opinion, there is no one group, organization, website or individual who can speak for the movement as a whole.
We, a working group of people currently occupying Liberty Park and many other locations throughout the US, are growing increasingly concerned about divide and conquer attempts being made to co-opt the movement. In the following message, we are issuing our first proposed statement. If you agree with the statement, please post it to your website and/or spread it throughout your social networks, both online and offline at occupations throughout the country. If you would like to read this statement at your local GA meetings and vote or edit it, feel free. If you disagree with the statement, please air your disagreements - this is what democracy looks like.
We appreciate, respect and encourage endorsements from individuals and organizations. We invite them. However, just because an individual or organization endorses our movement, does not mean that they in any way have a leadership role in deciding the future direction of this movement. We will not be co-opted by hierarchical organizations. No matter how wonderful their cause may be.
There are many people, organizations and media outlets within both the Democratic and Republican parties who are trying to label us as the Democrat's version of the Tea Party. In this working groups opinion, not only is this incorrect, but in labeling us this way, you are, whether you realize it or not, undermining the very essence of this movement with your obsolete divide and conquer groupthink propaganda. Just as the mainstream media and both political parties aided and abetted the co-option of the Tea Party by the Republican Party, there is an attempt being made to do the same to us within the Democratic Party.
We the People, We the 99%, are not the pawns of either wing of the two-party oligarchy.
We emphatically reject the attempted leadership of any political party, organization or individual. If there are elected officials or organizations who endorse our movement, we welcome them.
However, they must do so knowing this: Your voice will be just as loud as any other voice. We are led by no one. You cannot co-opt We The People.
Respect Us.
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24) Citizens' Testing Finds 20 Hot Spots Around Tokyo
"The government's failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan's leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens' groups that conduct testing on their own. 'Radioactive substances are entering people's bodies from the air, from the food. It's everywhere,' said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University's faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. 'But the government doesn't even try to inform the public how much radiation they're exposed to.' ...Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan's legally permissible level for compost."
By HIROKO TABUCHI
October 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?scp=1&sq=Radioactive%20Hot%20Spots%20in%20Tokyo%20Raise%20Fears%20of%20Wider%20Contamination&st=cse
TOKYO - Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens' group to test for radiation near his son's baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Like Japan's central government, local officials said there was nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone.
Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl.
The patch of ground was one of more than 20 spots in and around the nation's capital that the citizens' group, and the respected nuclear research center they worked with, found were contaminated with potentially harmful levels of radioactive cesium.
It has been clear since the early days of the nuclear accident, the world's second worst after Chernobyl, that that the vagaries of wind and rain had scattered worrisome amounts of radioactive materials in unexpected patterns far outside the evacuation zone 12 miles around the stricken plant. But reports that substantial amounts of cesium had accumulated as far away as Tokyo have raised new concerns about how far the contamination had spread, possibly settling in areas where the government has not even considered looking.
The government's failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan's leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens' groups that conduct testing on their own.
"Radioactive substances are entering people's bodies from the air, from the food. It's everywhere," said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University's faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. "But the government doesn't even try to inform the public how much radiation they're exposed to."
The reports of hot spots do not indicate how widespread contamination is in the capital; more sampling would be needed to determine that. But they raise the prospect that people living near concentrated amounts of cesium are being exposed to levels of radiation above accepted international standards meant to protect people from cancer and other illnesses.
Japanese nuclear experts and activists have begun agitating for more comprehensive testing in Tokyo and elsewhere, and a cleanup if necessary. Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert and a former special assistant to the United States secretary of energy, echoed those calls, saying the citizens' groups' measurements "raise major and unprecedented concerns about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster."
The government has not ignored citizens' pleas entirely; it recently completed aerial testing in eastern Japan, including Tokyo. But several experts and activists say the tests are unlikely to be sensitive enough to be useful in finding micro hot spots such as those found by the citizens' group.
Kaoru Noguchi, head of Tokyo's health and safety section, however, argues that the testing already done is sufficient. Because Tokyo is so developed, she says, radioactive material was much more likely to have fallen on concrete, then washed away. She also said exposure was likely to be limited.
"Nobody stands in one spot all day," she said. "And nobody eats dirt."
Tokyo residents knew soon after the March 11 accident, when a tsunami knocked out the crucial cooling systems at the Fukushima plant, that they were being exposed to radioactive materials. Researchers detected a spike in radiation levels on March 15. Then as rain drizzled down on the evening of March 21, radioactive material again fell on the city.
In the following week, however, radioactivity in the air and water dropped rapidly. Most in the city put aside their jitters, some openly scornful of those - mostly foreigners - who had fled Tokyo in the early days of the disaster.
But not everyone was convinced. Some Tokyo residents bought dosimeters. The Tokyo citizens' group, the Radiation Defense Project, which grew out of a Facebook discussion page, decided to be more proactive. In consultation with the Yokohama-based Isotope Research Institute, members collected soil samples from near their own homes and submitted them for testing.
Some of the results were shocking: the sample that Mr. Hayashida collected under shrubs near his neighborhood baseball field in the Edogawa ward measured nearly 138,000 becquerels per square meter of radioactive cesium 137, which can damage cells and lead to an increased risk of cancer.
Of the 132 areas tested, 22 were above 37,000 becquerels per square meter, the level at which zones were considered contaminated at Chernobyl.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, said most residents near Chernobyl were undoubtedly much worse off, surrounded by widespread contamination rather than isolated hot spots. But he said the 37,000 figure remained a good reference point for mandatory cleanup because regular exposure to such contamination could result in a dosage of more than one millisievert per year, the maximum recommended for the public by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
The most contaminated spot in the Radiation Defense survey, near a church, was well above the level of the 1.5 million becquerels per square meter that required mandatory resettlement at Chernobyl. The level is so much higher than other results in the study that it raises the possibility of testing error, but micro hot spots are not unheard of after nuclear disasters.
Japan's relatively tame mainstream media, which is more likely to report on government pronouncements than grass-roots movements, mainly ignored the citizens' group's findings.
"Everybody just wants to believe that this is Fukushima's problem," said Kota Kinoshita, one of the group's leaders and a former television journalist. "But if the government is not serious about finding out, how can we trust them?"
Hideo Yamazaki, an expert in environmental analysis at Kinki University in western Japan, did his own survey of the city and said he, too, discovered high levels in the area where the baseball field is located.
"These results are highly localized, so there is no cause for panic," he said. "Still, there are steps the government could be taking, like decontaminating the highest spots."
Since then, there have been other suggestions that hot spots were more widespread than originally imagined.
Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan's legally permissible level for compost.
And on Wednesday, civilians who tested the roof of an apartment building in the nearby city of Yokohama - farther from Fukushima than Tokyo - found high quantities of radioactive strontium. (There was also one false alarm this week when sky-high readings were reported in the Setagaya ward in Tokyo; the government later said they were probably caused by bottles of radium, once widely used to make paint.)
The government's own aerial testing showed that although almost all of Tokyo had relatively little contamination, two areas showed elevated readings. One was in a mountainous area at the western edge of the Tokyo metropolitan region, and the other was over three wards of the city - including the one where the baseball field is situated.
The metropolitan government said it had started preparations to begin monitoring food products from the nearby mountains, but acknowledged that food had been shipped from that area for months.
Mr. Hayashida, who discovered the high level at the baseball field, said that he was not waiting any longer for government assurances. He moved his family to Okayama, about 370 miles to the southwest.
"Perhaps we could have stayed in Tokyo with no problems," he said. "But I choose a future with no radiation fears."
Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington, and Kantaro Suzuki from Tokyo.
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