http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O_Ao9w1u7c&feature=player_embedded
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
We are the 99 percent!
There has been a call from Occupy the Hood:
Occupy The Hood Calls On Young People of African Descent to Uplift the Community" On Saturday, November 19, 2011, people of African descent are being encouraged to join the Occupy Wall Street Movement in their cities and in their communities."
By Phillip Jackson
http://thyblackman.com/2011/11/01/occupy-the-hood-calls-young-people-uplift-the-community/
There is an ongoing Occupy movement in San Francisco and Oakland
• Solidarity with the world-wide Occupy movement!
• End police attacks on our communities!
• Defend Oakland schools and libraries!
• Against an economic system built on imperialism, inequality and corporate power that perpetuates all forms of oppression and the destruction of the environment!
There is a 24/hr presence/protest at:
Oakland at Oscar Grant (Frank Ogawa) Plaza
San Francisco at the Federal Reserve, 101 Market St., S.F. and the OccupySF encampment is at Justin Herman Plaza
This is only the beginning!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Roger Waters - Occupy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xtaZI7grys&feature=player_embedded
Roger Waters - The Tide Is Turning (Re: Occupy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqtNvgzWsis&feature=player_embedded
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Veteran's Day Benefit show for Courage to Resist!
8pm, Friday, November 11th at The Marsh-Berkeley
The Little Guy Takes on the Pentagon
in Howard Petrick's "Rambo: The Missing Years"
Limited advance tickets only $25 available at:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/?wid=47377
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
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 Allston Way in Berkeley.
The story begins as Petrick 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.
A twenty-year-old anti-war activist in 1966 when he was drafted into the Army, Pvt. Petrick was a model soldier except when the subject of Vietnam came up. At that point, he missed no opportunity to make his opinions known to his fellow GIs and anyone else who would listen. His activities helped ignite an antiwar movement in the barracks and led to a confrontation with the brass. Calls from the Pentagon! Threats of treason! By the time it was all over, Petrick, who never backed down, had become something of a celebrity. He even had a song written about him and was the subject of an article in the New York Times. From the ass-scratching first cook to the frustrated Military Intelligence officer, Petrick brings over twenty characters to life in this autobiographical solo piece.
"If Westmoreland can give a political partisan speech to the Press Club in New York City supporting the war, then I should be able to speak in uniform opposing the war." - Howard Petrick quoted in the Texas Observer in 1967.
It's a comedy that keeps hope alive. Here are more kudos for the show:
"Petrick made headlines as a GI for his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, and he's turned his experiences into a deftly crafted solo show." - Georgia Straight (Vancouver)
His "aw shucks" attitude had me right there with him every step of the way, rooting for my new hero. Please don't miss this true tale. - Jenny Revue (Winnipeg)
"His ear for dialogue...is superb." - Georgia Straight (Vancouver)
"It's an engaging tale, often funny...Petrick's writing is strong...valuable as a piece of history in a time when for much of the population, Vietnam is just a vague, long-ago event." - Fresno Bee
"This is an important piece of history - from the common man's point of view." - Victoria Fringe
"A must see!" - The Plank (Vancouver)
Howard Petrick has studied solo performance with David Ford, Ann Randolph, James Donlon, Mark Kenward and Leonard Pitt. He has performed at FronteraFest, The Marsh, Words First, City Solo, San Francisco Theater Festival, Solo Sundays, Tell it on Tuesday, the Fresno Rogue Festival and Fringe Festivals in Boulder, Chicago, Winnipeg, Victoria and Vancouver. For more information, visit www.howardpetrick.com
Limited advance tickets available at:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/?wid=47377
Courage to Resist
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
*---------*
Other showings:
Howard Petrick's "Rambo" - anti-VietNam activist tells his story-Marsh Berkeleyu-Oct 20-Dec 10
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Sat. Nov. 12, 3pm
Occupy SF Answers the Call:
Defend the Revolution - Solidarity with Egypt
Gather at Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero BART
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Call for a Strike and Day of Action on November 15
By Lauren Kelley, AlterNet
Posted on November 10, 2011, Printed on November 10, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/728865/occupy_updates%3A_extreme_police_violence_in_berkeley%2C_with_calls_for_a_strike%3B_harvard_protesters_shut_out_of_harvard_yard
Occupy Cal 11/9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buovLQ9qyWQ&feature=player_embedded&oref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FbuovLQ9qyWQ&has_verified=1
A few Occupy stories for today:
The big news is the violent police clash that took place yesterday at Occupy Berkeley. In the below video, you can clearly see police officers in riot gear (Salon\'s Justin Elliot identifies them as UC Berkeley police) hitting the protesters with batons and bean bag guns. The violence started after Berkeley students tried to set up tents on the school\'s campus following a 3,000-person rally at the school. Police tore down the tents and arrested seven occupiers during the clash.
In response, the occupiers have agreed to call for a strike and day of action on November 15. Via the action's Facebook event page:
After a mass rally and march of over 3,000 people, and repeated police assaults on the encampment, the Occupy Cal general assembly decided -- with over 500 votes, 95% of the assembly -- to organize and call for a strike and day of action on Tuesday, November 15 in all sectors of higher education. We will strike in opposition to the cuts to public education, university privatization, and the indebting of our generation.
We also call for simultaneous solidarity actions in workplaces and k-12 schools. We will organize through daily, 5pm strike planning meetings at our encampments, followed by general assemblies.
--Across the country, students from another university -- Harvard -- faced a show-down with security over access to Harvard Yard. After a 350-person protest against the university\'s complicity with growing income inequality, university police and security guards effectively shut down Harvard Yard. The Crimson reports:
Around 7 p.m., protesters were met with increased security that would prevent Boston residents who were not Harvard affiliates from entering the Yard.
“I think it’s absurd. Do we really need eight guards per gate?” said Nicandro G. L. Iannacci ’13, who has participated in other Occupy events. “The idea that the only people allowed here to have this conversation are members of the Harvard community, specifically, is wrong. Why not welcome more people in?”
In response to the limited access to the Yard, demonstrators relocated to the Harvard Law School campus. As they marched past freshman dorms, they chanted, “Out of your rooms and into the Yard,” rallying the students in the dorms to join.
After a general assembly, protesters left the Law School campus and tried to re-enter the Yard to set up a tent city, but Securitas guards prevented demonstrators from entering by locking the gates.
In a tense exchange, students tried to push their way into the Yard—some holding up their Harvard IDs—while guards pushed back to prevent protesters from breaking through the gates.
--In New York, Mayor Bloomberg is being wishy-washy about where he stands on OWS. In the past he's talked about evicting protesters, but on Morning Joe yesterday his stance was essentially "ehhh?" His quote, via Runnin' Scared:
It's a whole bunch of people that are just disinf-disaffected. They don't know what's wrong. They say, "we don't know what we want but we want it now," which I think is as good a way of saying it as anything. That it's not their job to solve the problems, it's the job of the government and the press and those of us that have some insight on how policies affect people.
It's hardly an endorsement, and you can bet he still dislikes the protesters being in Zuccotti Park. But he's trying to put on a semi-happy face for the national press now, which may be kind of telling.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
HANDS OFF COPWATCHERS
We have the right to observe and record police!!
Show your love and support for Fly Benzo at his upcoming hearing:
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 9:00 a.m.
Department 22
850 Bryant, San Francisco hall of (in)justice
Check out Fly's video "War On Terror": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1H8Q2DENr0
It's Really Real TV: FLY Benzo - "War On Terror" // #BlackPOWER #DropTheCHARGES
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Occupy Education -- Nov. 16, 2011 -- The 99% Say No Fee Hikes, No Cuts, No Privatization!
Meet at 7 am at UCSF Mission Bay Campus,
1555 6th Street, San Francisco
-- Occupy San Francisco
(adopted at the Oct. 19 General Assembly)
Call by Occupy San Francisco
We the 99% commit ourselves to mobilize against the privatization of public education being forced upon California and the country. The 1% -- the bankers, the UC Regents, the CSU Trustees, and the corporate politicians -- are pushing through vicious fee hikes, layoffs, and budget cuts under the pretext of the financial crisis that they created and profited off of.
They say cuts are inevitable because there are no funds -- but we know that if we really taxed the corporations, ended the wars, or took back the bailout funds, there would be no budget shortfall. They say we have to accept-- but we know that if we take mass collective action, we can defeat these attacks.
On November 16th, the UC Regents will be discussing and possibly voting on a proposal to raise fees up to 81% over the next 4 years -- raising tuition to over $22,000. This is a brutal attack against the 99% of California, particularly for communities of color and working families, and on all sectors of public education, from pre-K-12 to higher education.
We call on all the 99%, on all the Occupy general assemblies and camps throughout Northern California, on all student, labor, and community organizations, to come together in a massive display of non-violent civil disobedience to prevent the UC Regents meeting from taking place, to send the strongest message that we will not accept any fee hikes, cuts, or concessions in any level of public education.
We can win this struggle. Join us!
For more info, contact:
occupyeducation@gmail.com
www.occupyed.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
CALL FOR AN EMERGENCY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Against the wars of occupation; Against the interference in the internal affairs of countries; In defense of the integrity and sovereignty of nations
Algiers, Algeria -- December 3-5, 2011
Ever since the invasion of Afghanistan by NATO troops in 2001, under the pretext of the "War on Terror," and of Iraq in 2003, in the name of a so-called "struggle for democracy," imperialist governments, under the leadership of the U.S. government, have implemented a strategy based on international wars of occupation and plunder. This strategy has also included widespread interference in the internal affairs of nations, the astronomic growth of war budgets, the assault on democratic rights, and the massive cuts in social spending -- particularly in Europe and the United States.
Today, the governments of the imperialist powers -- specifically the U.S., French, British and Italian governments -- have opened a new front in the war; this time in the Maghreb region of Northern Africa. (*)
A new step has been taken with the further implementation of the U.S. government's Greater Middle East Plan, which was first announced by George W. Bush in 2003 at the time of the launching of the war of occupation and looting of Iraq. It's a plan that aims to dismantle nations along ethnic, religious and communitarian lines -- from Pakistan to Mauritania.
At the very moment when the Tunisian and Egyptian workers and peoples are struggling to exercise their full sovereignty by means of democracy, Libya is descending into chaos after a foreign military intervention under the aegis of NATO -- an intervention that threatens its territorial integrity.
By this means, all the countries of the Maghreb region are now facing threats to their integrity. But this is not all: The implications for the SAHEL countries (parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Eritrea) and, more generally, for sub-Saharan Africa are incalculable. This is because the conflict has gone way beyond the Libyan borders in terms of the movement of weapons -- including heavy weapons massively distributed among Libyan civilians and armed terrorist groups who have openly displayed them in the aftermath of the foreign military intervention.
This is not to mention the devastating effects on the economies of these countries, especially when combined with the massive return of hundreds of thousands of migrants who had been working in Libya, as well as more than one million Libyan refugees, mostly in Tunisia.
In reality, through the foreign military intervention in Libya, the U.S., French, British and Italian imperialists seek to terrorize all the peoples of the region and the world.
No political party genuinely committed to the sovereignty of nations and to democracy can condone, under whatever pretext whatsoever, the imperialist war of occupation and plunder in Libya. No labor organization faithful to the traditions of the international labor movement can condone such a war. That is why we the undersigned reject another war on our African continent -- a continent that is already bloodied and torn apart by so-called ethnic conflicts, which are really nothing but the result of foreign plunder of the continent's natural resources, the repayment of foreign debt, and the various manipulations that result therewith.
We reject any foreign military presence in any form whatsoever in our region of the Maghreb, elsewhere across Northern Africa, and, more generally, on our continent of Africa.
We reject any and all attacks upon sovereign nations.
We reject the foreign looting of the riches and resources of the peoples of the Maghreb and of Africa as a whole. Taking control over these resources -- including through the installation of foreign military bases, starting with AFRICOM (United States Africa Command) -- is the real objective of the war of occupation in Libya, under the auspices of NATO. This is what's really at stake.
We denounce the imperialist designs of the governments that are racing to grab the reconstruction deals for the infrastructure of Libya, destroyed by NATO air strikes - another stake of the war.
We deny the imperialist governments, NATO and the mongers of war and chaos the right to decide the fate of the peoples of the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa and all peoples of the world.
We affirm that because there can be no popular sovereignty without national sovereignty, from the standpoint of democracy it is up to sovereign peoples -- and up to them alone -- to define their present and their future without external interference and foreign military intervention.
We call upon organizations and parties around the world and in our own country that oppose the imperialist wars to join us in supporting and participating in an Emergency International Conference in Algiers on December 3-5, 2011, against the wars of occupation, against the interference in the internal affairs of countries, and in defense of the integrity and sovereignty of nations. (**)
signed/
A. Sidi Said
General Secretary
General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA)
Louisa Hanoune
General Secretary
Workers Party of Algeria (PT)
* * * * *
(*) The five countries that make up the Maghreb region are Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania.
(**) For more information about the conference or how you can get involved, please contact the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples in Paris at
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Occupy The Hood Calls On Young People of African Descent to Uplift the Community \" On Saturday, November 19, 2011, people of African descent are being encouraged to join the Occupy Wall Street Movement in their cities and in their communities."
By Phillip Jackson
http://thyblackman.com/2011/11/01/occupy-the-hood-calls-young-people-uplift-the-community/
(Liberia, West Africa) The Occupy Wall Street Movement has captured the imagination of the world. We now have Occupy Tokyo, Occupy Berlin, Occupy Mexico, Occupy Australia, Occupy Brazil, Occupy Denmark, Occupy Asia and even Occupy Antarctica. But where are the voices of young people of African descent and why are their voices silent?
On Saturday, November 19, 2011, people of African descent are being encouraged to join the Occupy Wall Street Movement in their cities and in their communities. But before occupying Wall Street or any street, we need to properly and successfully occupy the minds and spirits of people of African descent with thoughts of improvement, achievement, excellence, progress and cooperative labor. We must do this every day until we have created a new world in which people of African descent will thrive!
To look at the evening news on the occupations, it would seem as though young White men and women suffer most from the problems of our societies and the world in which we live. That is absolutely not true! In fact, the suffering from social and economic ills of people of African descent around the world is hugely disproportionate. So why has the "Occupy Movement" not inspired more young Black people across the globe to demand change and improvement in their world?
Some say Black people have too many "real" problems to be concerned about the volatility of the stock markets or whether Fortune 500 companies will each capture another billion dollars. Some say that Black Americans have forgotten the lessons learned from the civil rights movement. And others say that young Africans and young Black Americans today have been reprogrammed with technological toys, various forms of entertainment and other relatively mindless distractions. Regardless, young Black people around the world do not understand that decisions that govern the quality of their lives are being made without their input.
But a glimmer of hope has come to us in the form of a spinoff from Occupy Wall Street. It is called Occupy The Hood. While Occupy Wall Street addresses the viciousness of capitalism, uneven distribution and control of world resources, corrupt and ineffective governments, lack of human well-being across the world, climate change and the environment, wars and global violence and other dire issues, Occupy The Hood is being led by young people of African descent and addresses issues that cause people of African descent to suffer. And while we must absolutely stand in solidarity with our White, Asian, Arab and Hispanic brothers and sisters working to change the world, we must also organize to directly improve the conditions in our "hood."
To look at the evening news on the occupations, it would seem as though young White men and women suffer most from the problems of our societies and the world in which we live. That is absolutely not true! In fact, the suffering from social and economic ills of people of African descent around the world is hugely disproportionate. So why has the "Occupy Movement" not inspired more young Black people across the globe to demand change and improvement in their world?
Some say Black people have too many "real" problems to be concerned about the volatility of the stock markets or whether Fortune 500 companies will each capture another billion dollars. Some say that Black Americans have forgotten the lessons learned from the civil rights movement. And others say that young Africans and young Black Americans today have been reprogrammed with technological toys, various forms of entertainment and other relatively mindless distractions. Regardless, young Black people around the world do not understand that decisions that govern the quality of their lives are being made without their input.
But a glimmer of hope has come to us in the form of a spin-off from Occupy Wall Street. It is called Occupy The Hood. While Occupy Wall Street addresses the viciousness of capitalism, uneven distribution and control of world resources, corrupt and ineffective governments, lack of human well-being across the world, climate change and the environment, wars and global violence and other dire issues, Occupy The Hood is being led by young people of African descent and addresses issues that cause people of African descent to suffer. And while we must absolutely stand in solidarity with our White, Asian, Arab and Hispanic brothers and sisters working to change the world, we must also organize to directly improve the conditions in our "hood."
- November 1, 2011
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
UNAC Conference: March 23-25, 2012
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
*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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]
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Fukushima Mama by Radio Free Earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BibPBEK2CAk
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland
antiprocon 62 videos Subscribe Alert iconSubscribed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0
*---------*
Handful of Violent Rioters Don't Represent "Occupy" Protests
November 4, 2011 in Direct Action, Oakland, OccupyTogether, Saboteurs & Provocateurs, Video
By Washington's Blog
http://owsnews.org/handful-of-violent-rioters-dont-represent-occupy-protests/
While there was senseless destruction of property in Oakland, NBC Bay Area notes that people of Occupy Oakland say that "anarchists" not associated with the group are responsible for last night's violence.
The New York Times reports:
A belligerent fringe group that seemed intent on clashing with law enforcement and destroying property.
[They were] part of an Occupy Oakland subgroup that the city's interim police chief, Howard A. Jordan, described as "generally anarchists and provocateurs."
Some members of the group that had closed the port reprimanded those who smashed windows, threw rocks, ignited a 15-foot-high bonfire of garbage and covered downtown storefronts with graffiti.
When a man wearing a bandana broke a window with an empty beer bottle, another protester yelled, "Who are you? That isn't what this is about!"
Indeed, as the following two videos show, the overwhelming majority of protesters were peaceful and tried to stop the provocateurs:
Black Bloc Provocateurs Vandalize Property During Occupy Oakland's General Strike (11-02-2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWHjPdAS1oU&feature=player_embedded
*----*
Occupy Oakland 11-2 Strike: Police Tear Gas, Black Bloc, War in the Streets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tu_D8SFYck&feature=player_embedded
*----*
Provocateurs Used By Governments All Over the World to Discredit Peaceful protests
Wikipedia notes:
An agent provocateur may be a police officer or a secret agent of police who encourages suspects to carry out a crime ....
A political organization or government may use agents provocateurs against political opponents. The provocateurs try to incite the opponent to do counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain-or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent (see Red-baiting).
Historically, labor spies, hired to infiltrate, monitor, disrupt, or subvert union activities, have used agent provocateur tactics.
There are numerous, documented cases from around the world of government provocateurs acting violently at peaceful protests in order to discredit the peaceful movements.
For example - during the Egyptian "Arab Spring" protests - Mubarak's security force thugs dressed as protesters and committed violence ... in order to discredit the protests.
An Indonesian fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998, and determined that "elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked".
In Burma:
"They've ordered some soldiers in the military to shave their heads, so that they could pose as monks, and then those fake monks would attack soldiers to incite a military crackdown. The regime has done this before in Burma, and we believe they would do so again."
Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers:
POLICE STATE Criminal Cops EXPOSED As Agent Provocateurs @ SPP Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoiisMMCFT0&feature=player_embedded
*----*
quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded
At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence. (And here is a video possibly showing a provocateur being let through the police line.)
In 2003, FAIR reported:
According to reports from the BBC and the German wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (1/7/03, 1/8/03), a senior Genoa police officer, Pietro Troiani, has admitted that police planted two Molotov cocktails in a school that was serving as a dormitory for activists from the Genoa Social Forum. The bombs were apparently planted in order to justify the police force's brutal July 22 raid on the school. According to the BBC, the bombs had in fact been found elsewhere in the city, and Troijani now says planting them at the school was a "silly" thing to do.
The BBC and DPA also report that another senior officer has admitted to faking the stabbing of a police officer in order to frame protesters. These revelations have emerged over the course of a parliamentary inquiry into police conduct that was initiated by the Italian government under pressure from "domestic and international outrage over the blood-soaked G8 summit in Genoa" (London Guardian, 7/31/01). Three police chiefs have been transferred and at least 77 officers have been investigated on brutality charges.
The U.S. is not exempt from such shenanigans.
Denver police officers were found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention (this ultimately resulted in the use of pepper spray against their own infiltrating agents).
The New York Times pointed out in 2005:
At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, "I am a shameless agitator." She also carried a camera and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.
Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.
Activists ....say that police officers masquerading as protesters and bicycle riders distort their messages and provoke trouble.
At one point, the [apparent officer] seemed to try to rile bystanders.
Indeed, obvious provocateurs were filmed at the G20 in Pittsburgh:
G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded
*----*
As I noted in 2008:
When agents provocateur commit violence or destroy property at peaceful protests, they are carrying out false flag terrorism.
Wikipedia defines false flag terror as follows:
False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy's strategy of tension.
If intelligence agencies or federal, state or local police themselves commit acts of violence against people or property, and then blame it on peaceful protesters, that is - by definition - false flag terror.
Indeed, governments from around the world admit that they carry out false flag terror to discredit their enemies.
Oakland Rioters: Provocateurs?
While we are not yet sure whether the tiny group Oakland group of rioters (among tens of thousands of peaceful protesters) are police provocateurs, it is clear that they don't represent the Occupy protests in any way, shape or form.
The direct democracy practiced by the protesters is nothing at all like the violent rioting by the thugs.
Anyone who focuses on the handful of provocateurs - as opposed to the hundreds of millions of peaceful protesters and their supporters - is uninformed or dishonest.
For more on this issue, read: CopWatch Exposes Police Infiltrators at #OccupyOakland
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
WHAT HAPPENED IN OAKLAND TUESDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 25:
Occupy Oakland Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPs-REyl-0&feature=player_embedded
Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27kD2_7PwU&feature=player_embedded
Raw Video: Protesters Clash With Oakland Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO-lJr2BQY&feature=player_embedded
Occupy Oakland - Flashbangs USED on protesters OPD LIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqNOPZLw03Q&feature=player_embedded
KTVU TV Video of Police violence
http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html
Marine Vet wounded, tear gas & flash-bang grenades thrown in downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUgPTCgwcQ&feature=player_embedded
Tear Gas billowing through 14th & Broadway in Downtown Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Y0pwJtWE&feature=player_embedded
Arrests at Occupy Atlanta -- This is what a police state looks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YStWz6jbeZA&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to "F**k Off"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aaTGsGdp4c&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Labor Beat: Chicago - War Protest March to Obama's 2012 HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTkOincM93s
*---------*
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
*---------*
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
*---------*
Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman) - This Land Is Your Land @OccupyLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ImQ7Ylvdo&feature=player_embedded#!
*---------*
#Occupy St. Louis: Bank of America refuses to let customers close accounts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KtI85Zc6Oik
*---------*
ALL COLORS (Occupy LA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Zh6hDQC8I
*---------*
600+ Protesters March on Bank of America - #Occupy Austin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1JOJ3joOA&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Scenes From #Occupy Las Vegas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=olatH3pSvlk
*---------*
#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]
*---------*
#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.
*---------*
#Occupy Wall Street Protesters Marching
[Thousands of NYU Students march to OWS...bw]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJpzx9IqU4
*---------*
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Supporting Occupy Wall Street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soV79czwzoo&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
PEACEFUL FEMALE PROTESTERS PENNED IN THE STREET AND MACED!- #OccupyWallStreet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moD2JnGTToA
*---------*
Police Raid on Occpy Boston 10 11 11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5G9agQjM60&noredirect=1
*---------*
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)
*---------*
Video of Boston PD attacking veterans at OWS protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s3zFca5znU&feature=relmfu
*---------*
Occupy Frankfurt Germany
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxQP2eMdMU&feature=player_embedded
*---------*
Occupy Rome - La manifestazione di Roma October 15th OccupyTogether
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25CWyNnJVOI&feature=player_embedded
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
Free Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Licensed to Kill Video
http://nirs.org/multimedia/video/l2k.htm
Gundersen Gives Testimony to NRC ACRS from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
http://youtu.be/eTvUs4rY4to
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
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!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
D. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) D.E.A. Squads Extend Reach of Drug War
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
November 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/world/americas/united-states-drug-enforcement-agency-squads-extend-reach-of-drug-war.html?hp
2) Normal Life on Pause, and a Sense of Simmering Rage
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
November 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/world/europe/in-greece-economic-crisis-brings-rage-and-paralysis.html?ref=world
3) Among Minorities, a New Wave of 'Disconnected Youth'
By LAUREN WEBER
NOVEMBER 7, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203733504577022111289164768.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
4) Occupy Atlanta Moves to Snellville Area, Press Conference Set for 3 p.m.
Organizers will hold a press conference today at the home of a family who is facing eviction and foreclosure. The home, which has a Snellville address, is in unincorporated Gwinnett.
November 7, 2011
http://snellville.patch.com/articles/occupy-atlanta-moves-to-snellville-press-conference-set
5) New Census data raise number of poor to 49 million
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 7, 2011 3:27pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/07/us-usa-poverty-idUSTRE7A634M20111107
6) Dallas Calls for General Strike: Nov. 30th
Posted 23 hours ago on Nov. 7, 2011, 2:07 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
http://occupywallst.org/article/dallas-calls-general-strike-nov-30th/
7) Cuba Takes Lead Role in Haiti's Cholera Fight
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
November 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/world/americas/in-haitis-cholera-fight-cuba-takes-lead-role.html?ref=world
8) Air Force Officials Disciplined Over Handling of Human Remains
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JAMES DAO
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/senior-air-force-officials-disciplined-over-handling-of-human-remains.html?ref=us
9) Justices Will Hear 2 Cases of Life Sentences for Youths
By ADAM LIPTAK
November 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/us/supreme-court-will-hear-cases-of-life-sentences-for-youths.html?ref=us
10) Ohio Turns Back a Law Limiting Unions' Rights
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/politics/ohio-turns-back-a-law-limiting-unions-rights.html?ref=us
11) Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/business/occupy-movement-inspires-unions-to-embrace-bold-tactics.html?ref=us
12) Ohio: Scientists Sound Alarm on Nuclear Plant
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/ohio-scientists-sound-alarm-on-nuclear-plant.html?ref=us
13) Why Is the Oakland Police Department Hiding the Truth About Its Violent Crackdown on the Occupy Protests?
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
[see videos in Section B, above...bw]
Posted on November 9, 2011, Printed on November 10, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153030/why_is_the_oakland_police_department_hiding_the_truth_about_its_violent_crackdown_on_the_occupy_protests
14) Murder as Instrument of Foreign Policy
By Liaquat Ali Khan
"Information Clearing House"
November 03, 2011
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29605.htm
15) Seventeen workers exposed to radiation at Idaho lab
By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho | Tue Nov 8, 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/08/us-nuclear-lab-idaho-idUSTRE7A77QW20111108
16) Thank Obama for the Occupy Wall Street Movement
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
-Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/thank-obama-occupy-wall-street-movement
17) Rigged Games: Obama's Fake 'Jobs Bill' is Election-Year Theater
By Bruce A. Dixon
Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/rigged-games-obamas-fake-%E2%80%9Cjobs-bill%E2%80%9D-election-year-theater
18) Freedom Rider: Obama Perfects Right Wing Policy
By BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-obama-perfects-right-wing-policy
19) Air Force Mortuary Sent Troop Remains to Landfill
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
November 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/us/dover-mortuary-burned-and-dumped-troop-remains-in-landfill.html?ref=us
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) D.E.A. Squads Extend Reach of Drug War
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
November 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/world/americas/united-states-drug-enforcement-agency-squads-extend-reach-of-drug-war.html?hp
WASHINGTON - Late on a moonless night last March, a plane smuggling nearly half a ton of cocaine touched down at a remote airstrip in Honduras. A heavily armed ground crew was waiting for it - as were Honduran security forces. After a 20-minute firefight, a Honduran officer was wounded and two drug traffickers lay dead.
Several news outlets briefly reported the episode, mentioning that a Honduran official said the United States Drug Enforcement Administration had provided support. But none of the reports included a striking detail: that support consisted of an elite detachment of military-trained D.E.A. special agents who joined in the shootout, according to a person familiar with the episode.
The D.E.A. now has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to Western Hemisphere nations - including Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize - that are battling drug cartels, according to documents and interviews with law enforcement officials.
The program - called FAST, for Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team - was created during the George W. Bush administration to investigate Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. Beginning in 2008 and continuing under President Obama, it has expanded far beyond the war zone.
"You have got to have special skills and equipment to be able to operate effectively and safely in environments like this," said Michael A. Braun, a former head of operations for the drug agency who helped design the program. "The D.E.A. is working shoulder-to-shoulder in harm's way with host-nation counterparts."
The evolution of the program into a global enforcement arm reflects the United States' growing reach in combating drug cartels and how policy makers increasingly are blurring the line between law enforcement and military activities, fusing elements of the "war on drugs" with the "war on terrorism."
Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami professor who specializes in Latin America and counternarcotics, said the commando program carries potential benefits: the American teams could help arrest kingpins, seize stockpiles, disrupt smuggling routes and professionalize security forces in small countries through which traffickers pass drugs headed to the United States.
But there are also potential dangers.
"It could lead to a nationalist backlash in the countries involved," he said. "If an American is killed, the administration and the D.E.A. could get mired in Congressional oversight hearings. Taking out kingpins could fragment the organization and lead to more violence. And it won't permanently stop trafficking unless a country also has capable institutions, which often don't exist in Central America."
Because the presence of armed Americans on their soil raises sensitivities about sovereignty, some countries that have sought the assistance of the United States will not acknowledge it, and the D.E.A. is reluctant to disclose the details of the commando teams' deployments. Others - like Mexico, which has accepted American help, including surveillance drones - have not wanted the commando squads.
Federal law prohibits the drug agency from directly carrying out arrests overseas, but agents are permitted to accompany their foreign counterparts on operations. The Americans work with specially vetted units of local security forces that they train and mentor. In "exigent circumstances," they may open fire to protect themselves or partners.
The firefight in Honduras last March, described by officials of both countries, illustrates the flexibility of such rules. The Honduran minister of public security at the time, Oscar Álvarez, said that under the agreement with the D.E.A., the Americans normally did not go on missions.
But in that case, he said, a training exercise went live: an American squad was working with a Honduran police unit in La Mosquitia rainforest when they received word that a suspicious plane from Venezuela was being tracked to a clandestine landing strip nearby.
After the plane landed, the Honduran police identified themselves and the traffickers opened fire, officials of both countries said. After a 20-minute gunfight, the Hondurans and Americans seized the cocaine and withdrew to evacuate the wounded officer.
"I don't want to say it was Vietnam-style, but it was typical of war action," said Mr. Álvarez; he declined to say whether the Americans took part in the shooting, but another person familiar with the episode said they did.
The FAST program is similar to a D.E.A. operation in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which drug enforcement agents received military training and entered into partnerships with local forces in places like Peru and Bolivia, targeting smuggling airstrips and jungle labs.
The Reagan-era initiative, though, drew criticism from agency supervisors who disliked the disruption of supplying agents for temporary rotations, and questioned whether its benefits outweighed the risks and cost. The Clinton administration was moving to shut down the operation when five agents died in a plane crash in Peru in 1994, sealing its fate.
In 2000, when the United States expanded assistance to Colombia in its battle against the narcotics-financed insurgent group called FARC, the trainers were military, not D.E.A. But after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Bush administration assigned Mr. Braun, a veteran of the earlier effort, to design a new program.
Begun in 2005, the program has five squads, each with 10 agents. Many are military veterans, and the section is overseen by a former member of the Navy Seals, Richard Dobrich. The Pentagon has provided most of their training and equipment, and they routinely fly on military aircraft.
The deployments to Afghanistan have resulted in large seizures of drugs, and some tragedy: two of the three D.E.A. agents who died in a helicopter crash in October 2009 were with FAST. Last week, an agent was shot in the head when his squad came under fire while leaving a bazaar where they had just seized 3,000 kilograms, about 6,600 pounds, of poppy seeds and 50 kilograms, about 110 pounds, of opium. Airlifted to Germany in critical condition, he is expected to survive, an official said.
The commandos have also been deployed at least 15 times to Latin America. The D.E.A. said some of those missions involved only training, but officials declined to provide details. Still, glimpses of the program emerged in interviews with current and former American and foreign officials, briefing files, budget documents and several State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.
For example, an American team assisted Guatemalan forces in the March 2011 arrest of Juan Alberto Ortiz-López, whom the D.E.A. considered a top cocaine smuggler for the Sinaloa cartel, an official said. Videos of the raid show masked men in black tactical garb; it is unclear if any are Americans.
A diplomatic cable describes another mission in Guatemala. On July 21, 2009, seven American military helicopters carrying D.E.A. and Guatemalan security forces flew to the compound of a wealthy family, the Lorenzanas - four of whom were wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
After a "small firefight" in which a bullet grazed a Lorenzana family member, agents found "large numbers of weapons and amounts of cash" but not the targets, who may have been tipped off, according to the cable. The Guatemalan news media documented the failure, portraying the joint operation as a "D.E.A. raid."
A former head of Guatemala's national security council, Francisco Jiménez, said in an interview that American participation in such operations was an "open secret" but rarely acknowledged.
In October 2009, another official said, the agency deployed a squad aboard a Navy amphibious assault ship, the Wasp, off the coast of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where it focused on planes used for smuggling.
Cables also show the agency has twice come close to deploying one of its units to the Darién region of Panama, where FARC incursions have established cocaine smuggling routes. But both missions were aborted, for fears that it was too unsafe for the Americans or that their involvement could escalate the conflict.
FAST has repeatedly deployed squads to Haiti, helping to arrest three fugitives this year and train 100 Haitian counternarcotics officers this fall. Mario Andresol, the Haitian police chief, says he needs such help. "We know the smuggling routes," he said, "but the problem is we don't have enough people to go after them."
Randal C. Archibold contributed reporting from Honduras and Haiti, and Ginger Thompson from Washington.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Normal Life on Pause, and a Sense of Simmering Rage
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
November 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/world/europe/in-greece-economic-crisis-brings-rage-and-paralysis.html?ref=world
ATHENS - The tiny jewelry shop in the working-class Athens neighborhood was open for business - barely.
The shop's proprietor, Tasos, who preferred not to disclose his last name, said he had not had a sale in more than three months. Because he cannot afford to pay his electricity bills, there was no light to illuminate his storefront display of jewels.
Like most Greeks here, he has, over the past few months, spent more time watching television than conducting commerce, as Greek politicians veered from one political crisis to another. His imagination has been battered with all possibilities of a disaster, not least the prospect that Greece might leave the euro.
The effect on his small business - which he says may have to close - has been devastating. His regular customers, most of whom he rarely sees these days, owe him 14,000 euros, about $19,300. Those that he does see are looking to pawn their family heirlooms to get by.
"The politicians are playing games with the people," he said, his eyes red with exhaustion and stress. "This city is boiling. I am not a protester, but soon the top on the kettle will pop."
That the Greek economy is in a downward spiral from a relentless program of austerity is well known. In October, Greek manufacturing had one of its sharpest declines ever, and this year overall production is expected to contract by more than 6 percent. What has not yet shown up in the official figures, though, is the extent to which the crisis atmosphere has brought the economy to a virtual standstill.
Auto sales have essentially stopped and are at their lowest level since 1993. People who do have cars have trouble with the expenses of operating them. In the last three months, the number of uninsured drivers increased by 500,000, bringing the total to 1.5 million.
Small shops, in many ways the lifeblood of the Greek economy, which relies on domestic demand, are closing by the day. And the heightened speculation that Greece might have to return to the drachma has sped up the flood of money leaving Greek banks: money to be deposited abroad, stashed at home or in one's car, and most certainly not spent.
Since January 2010, Greek banks have lost $63.5 billion in deposits - or about 20 percent of annual economic output. But bankers here say that in September and October the numbers rose substantially, with estimates ranging from $13.8 billion to $20.7 billion for just these two months.
Dimitris, a retired truck driver who also did not want to have his full name revealed, recently sent his life savings, about $69,000, to Sweden because, as he put it, "Greece is going bankrupt."
He has no doubt where the blame lies. "I am impressed that the people have not yet stormed into Parliament and burned the politicians alive - like a souvlaki," he said.
The vitriol toward politicians is in many ways more intense than the outrage expressed toward the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Politicians here rarely venture out in public, and when they do, even the most obscure member of Parliament is accompanied by at least one bodyguard.
All of it is giving rise to talk that, instead of putting forward another coalition of failed parties and leaders, new people with new ideas outside the political establishment should be brought in.
Among the people mentioned are Lucas D. Papademos, a former vice president of the European Central Bank, and Stefanos Manos, a former economy minister for the New Democracy Party who has long argued that any chance of true reform is hopeless until Greece lays off a large chunk of its inefficient public work force.
Mr. Manos's latest program is even more controversial. He proposes that as much as $415 billion worth of Greek assets be put into a vast "goody bag," including plots of land, sites of historical significance and even prized islands, as collateral to secure an immediate loan of about $105 billion from Europe that would be used to buy discounted Greek bonds and pay off debtors. In return, Greece would agree to sell most of the assets in the goody bag within the next 10 years or so and pay back the loan - with a bit left over, he hopes.
"Call me a taboo killer if you will," he said. "Fire Greek workers, sell Greek islands - politicians here have to overcome their taboos." And, he added, they have little time to do so. "Everything has stopped here," he continued. "People are taking their money out of the country. The bomb is ticking."
For many in Athens, it has already gone off. In the upscale neighborhood of Kolonaki, where much of the Athenian elite live and shop, stores selling luxury goods are shutting down left and right, the result of a Greek consumer strike that includes not just the lower and middle tiers of the economy but its highest as well.
In part, this has been driven by the intense pressure the government has been under to meet targets to secure its next round of loans. With tax collection still a challenge, Greece has imposed heavy value-added taxes on consumers and, most controversially, a special real estate tax has been attached to Greeks' electricity bills.
But making matters worse, shop owners say, has been the political uncertainty and the constant strikes and riots that can shut down their stores for days at a time.
"Our business is in a free fall - down 70 percent since the crisis," said Giovanni Urciuolo, the owner of Maurizio's, a high-end women's clothing boutique. At the end of the day on a Friday, while the street outside bustles with activity, his store was empty of customers - as it has mostly been during the past two months.
He is closing his flagship Kolonaki store in January and he, too, knows who is to blame. "We hate all politicians," he said. "We think they are responsible for all this."
Eleni Varvitsioti contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 7, 2011
An earlier version of this article incorrectly named the owner of Maurizio's, a high-end women's clothing boutique. His name is Giovanni Urciulo, not Maurizio Urcivolo.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Among Minorities, a New Wave of 'Disconnected Youth'
By LAUREN WEBER
NOVEMBER 7, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203733504577022111289164768.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Men and women in their late teens and early 20s are struggling, but some are especially hard hit.
According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, the unemployment rate last year among high-school dropouts between ages 16 and 24 was 29%-up from 17.7% in 2000 and seven points higher than that of their peers who finished high school but didn't go on to college.
The problem is particularly acute among Hispanics and African-Americans. Several studies have found that only about 50% of black and Hispanic students graduate from high school, compared with 75% of white students.
Up to 40% of the young people in these communities qualify as "disconnected youth," the term for young adults who are neither in school nor working, says David Dodson, president of MDC Inc., a research organization in Durham, N.C.
"They've given up hope," says Phillip Jackson, executive director of Chicago's Black Star Project, which helps African-American youth stay in school. He estimates that 75% to 80% of the young black men in Chicago are jobless.
"It leads to violence, broken families and hyperincarceration," for economic crimes that range from selling bootleg CDs to drug trafficking, he says.
The depressed job market means that competition for low-skill positions is fierce, as young dropouts compete with older and better-educated workers who are being pushed down the jobs ladder.
"It was hard enough for people without a high-school diploma before the downturn. Those folks are at the back of the line now," says Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future in New York City.
Summer Forbes, 19 years old, dropped out of her Hartford, Conn., high school at 17. It "wasn't for me," she says. She spends her days hanging out with friends, completing the requirements for her diploma through an online program and checking Craigslist for job ads.
Two years ago, she managed to find a temporary job she liked at a day-care center. But when it ended in the summer of 2009, she found that she couldn't get back into the field without her certification for early-childhood education.
Since then, she has cycled through low-wage, often seasonal positions at retail stores, fast-food outlets and social-service organizations.
"I'm tired of waking up and worrying, worrying, worrying about where my next job is going to be," she says.
Andrew Sum, an economist at Northeastern University who studies disconnected youth, says dropouts will suffer a lifetime earnings loss of around $400,000 compared with high-school graduates.
There are costs to society as well. A 2004 study for the New Mexico Business Roundtable for Educational Excellence found that 10 years worth of male dropouts would pay $944 billion less in taxes over the course of their lifetimes than their high-school-graduate counterparts.
"This is the only group with no net contribution to the fiscal well-being of state and national government," says Mr. Sum.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Occupy Atlanta Moves to Snellville Area, Press Conference Set for 3 p.m.
Organizers will hold a press conference today at the home of a family who is facing eviction and foreclosure. The home, which has a Snellville address, is in unincorporated Gwinnett.
November 7, 2011
http://snellville.patch.com/articles/occupy-atlanta-moves-to-snellville-press-conference-set
From Occupy Atlanta press statement:
"Occupy Atlanta has been tracking several foreclosure proceedings across the city. We have decided to intervene on the eviction of a hard working family that we believe has been wrongly foreclosed upon.
"Occupy Atlanta will be, with the family's blessing, Occupying a home in Snellville, Georgia in an effort to stop the sheriff from evicting the family.
"Georgia has the 4th highest foreclosure rate in the country, this does not sit well with Occupy Atlanta. We view the high foreclosure rate as one of the major symptoms of economic disparity.
"We also hope to use this opportunity to build the Occupation in Snellville.
"We will have a press conference at the house, 4197 Shoreside Circle Snellville, GA at 3 p.m. The family's lawyer will be present.
"Occupy Atlanta is a social movement of protest standing in support of the 99% of Americans that is under the overwhelming political and economic influence of the wealthiest 1% of the population. Occupy Atlanta vows to tolerate no longer the greed and corruption of the 1%.
"The movement comprises people of many, socioeconomic strata, ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions unified in their determination to invigorate participatory democracy and give voice and political power to the majority of the people."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) New Census data raise number of poor to 49 million
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 7, 2011 3:27pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/07/us-usa-poverty-idUSTRE7A634M20111107
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of poor Americans hit a record 49 million in 2010, or 16 percent, according to new data released on Monday that showed poverty rates for the elderly, Asians and Hispanics higher than previously known.
The figures were calculated by the Census Bureau under a broad new measure intended to supplement the official standard with a fuller picture of poverty in the United States. Results contrast with official poverty data, released in September, that put the number of poor Americans at 46.2 million.
The biggest rise occurred among people aged 65 and older who are being driven into poverty by out-of-pocket medical expenses, including premiums and co-pays from the federal government's Medicare program for the elderly.
The poverty rate for the elderly jumped to 15.9 percent, or a roughly 1 in 6 senior citizens, versus 9 percent under the official count.
The findings highlight the challenges facing Republicans and Democrats on a special congressional "super committee" charged with cutting at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years.
Both sides have proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, which threatens to explode the U.S. debt burden, despite intensive lobbying against reductions by groups that represents beneficiaries and healthcare providers.
"People will say this shows how crucial it is not to cut a penny out of Medicare spending. And that's unfortunate, because it's an argument against solving the deficit," said Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution.
Like the government's Social Security pension system for the elderly, Medicare is also expected to be a hot-button issue in 2012 election politics for both parties as they vie for control of the White House and Congress.
INADEQUATE SAFETY NET
Unlike the Census Bureau's official poverty measure, which focuses on the food budgets and cash wages of the poor, the new calculation includes government benefits such as food stamps as well as household expenses like taxes, medical costs, housing and regional differences in the cost of living, the Census Bureau said in a report.
It will now supplement official poverty estimates, which have been used to determine eligibility for programs that help the poor since the mid-1960s.
The broader formula generates an overall U.S. poverty rate of 16 percent, versus an official 15.1 percent, with an annual poverty income threshold of $24,343 for a family of four, compared with $22,113 under the official measure.
"This shows that the social safety net is helping but not doing as much as we'd like to see," said Dave Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute. "The programs we have right now are, if anything, inadequate."
The new formula also showed poverty rates increasing for whites, Asians and working-age adults but falling for blacks and children.
For the first time, the poverty rate for Hispanics eclipsed the rate among blacks, by 28.2 percent to 25.4 percent, partly as a result of less participation in social programs, like housing subsidies, among immigrant groups.
As an indication of the benefits of government assistance, Census officials said the poverty rate would have risen to 18 percent if not for earned income tax credit for people with low to moderate incomes.
The broader measure was developed in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Academy of Sciences, Census officials said.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Dallas Calls for General Strike: Nov. 30th
Posted 23 hours ago on Nov. 7, 2011, 2:07 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
http://occupywallst.org/article/dallas-calls-general-strike-nov-30th/
Before the General Assembly of Occupy Dallas,
Whereas the General Assembly of Occupy Dallas stands in support of Occupy Wall Street which started September 17, 2011 at Liberty Square in Manhattan's Financial District. The movement has now spread across the country and is influencing the world. Occupy Dallas is a horizontally organized resistance movement to counteract the unprecedented consolidation of wealth and power in the world today. The Occupy movement does not have a hierarchy or a formalized structure. The Occupy movement represents those that feel disenfranchised from the current socioeconomic system because of policy passed by our political institutions and the actions of those in control of the unprecedented consolidation of wealth;
Whereas by consensus we view that for the first time in American history, current generations will not be as prosperous as preceding generations. This denial of the American Dream is at the heart of Occupy Movement.
Whereas by consensus we view that the social system has become tilted against us by:
1.Unfair treatment and discrimination against individuals based on Gender, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Race, National Origin, Physical Ability or any other factor that minimizes any person's individual worth
2.The commoditization of individual privacy
3. Profit driven news sources with individual agendas
4. Narrow definitions of what constitutes a family;
Whereas by consensus we view that the Political system has become tilted against us by:
1.Widespread deregulation that has eliminated common sense regulations that have insured long term prosperity and protection from predatory business practices
2.A Tax code that is cumbersome and rife with loopholes and language that favors an economic minority at the expense of the majority of wage earners
3. A Supreme Court decision that has put into place the unprecedented concept of extending first amendment protections to political donations
4. Jeopardizing the future of social security through investiture and privatization schemes
5.By reducing funding to our education system our future generations are provided a lesser education that previous generations received because of increased class size and reduced resources
6.Because of decreasing funding individuals are saddled with higher student loan debt
7.A political system where even the most perfunctory tasks of government are partisan battles;
Whereas by consensus we view that the Economic system has become tilted against us by:
1. A general degradation of the employer and employee relationship namely
a. the practice referred to as "dead peasants" insurance policies where by companies profit from the death of individuals.
b. the elimination of traditional pension and retirement arrangements in favor of 401 (k) investment vehicles.
c. outsourcing of jobs
d. failing or eliminating paid sick leave
e. failing or eliminating paid maternity leave
f. relying on part-time workers rather than investing in full time employees
g. scheduling work hours to insure that employees cannot obtain offered benefits
h. failing to provide a livable wage
i. reducing and eliminating employer based health care coverage
1. Incredible income disparity between management and employees.
2.Active discouragement and intimidation of unionization of the workforce
3.Instituting illogical accounting practices
4.Engaging in unethical business practices that jeopardize the long term financial stability of the country
5.Viewing financial profit as more important than the individual worth of a people.
Then let it them be resolved by the General Assembly of Occupy Dallas through consensus on Date (___) that we call upon all people to engage in a General Strike on November 30th, 2011. We implore all people to:
1.Refrain from Buying or Selling any goods or services including but not limited to, any petroleum products, consumer goods or bank transactions; starting at 12:01 am to 11:59pm on November 30th, 2011.
2.Refrain from working for a wage starting at 12:01 am to 11:59pm on November 30th, 2011 excluding those individuals that provide emergency and necessary functions including but not limited to Police, Fire and Medical personnel.
3.Join or form local groups to peacefully protest against the above stated elements.
Please join us in solidarity to make known our grievances and demand substantive change to insure our future.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Cuba Takes Lead Role in Haiti's Cholera Fight
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
November 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/world/americas/in-haitis-cholera-fight-cuba-takes-lead-role.html?ref=world
MIREBALAIS, Haiti - The family from a nearby village arrived at the small hospital here vomiting and with uncontrollable diarrhea, at first glance maybe a typical case of consuming bad food or water.
But the fluid loss was tremendous and unstoppable; two of the three brothers were already near death, and within hours the entire family would be dead. Meanwhile, a nightmarish stream of patients filled the small reception room, as doctors and nurses scrambled to rehydrate them.
It was the evening of Oct. 15, 2010. Cholera, the doctors with the Cuban medical mission that treat most of the patients here would soon confirm, had arrived in Haiti.
"We went back to our books to see if this really could be cholera and then reported it right away," said Dr. Jorge Luis Quiñones, a member of the Cuban medical mission here at the center of the outbreak.
More than a year later, cholera has killed 6,600 people and sickened more than 476,000 - nearly 5 percent of the nation's 10 million people - in what United Nations officials call the world's highest rate of cholera. Last month, Partners in Health, a nongovernmental organization, announced it would begin testing a vaccine in January, in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and a Haitian health organization.
As the epidemic continues, the Cuban medical mission that played an important role in detecting it presses on in Haiti, winning accolades from donors and diplomats for staying on the front lines and undertaking a broader effort to remake this country's shattered health care system.
Paul Farmer, the United Nations deputy special envoy to Haiti and a founder of Partners in Health, which has worked extensively on health care in Haiti, said the Cubans sounded an important early alarm about the outbreak, helping to mobilize health officials and lessen the death toll.
Even more, while the death rate peaked last December and the world's attention has largely moved on, "Half of the NGOs are already gone, and the Cubans are still there," he said, using the abbreviation for nongovernment organizations.
Cuban doctors have worked in Haiti since 1998, when 100 arrived after a hurricane as part of Cuba's five-decade program of establishing international medical missions. Since then, Cuba has worked with Haiti and Venezuela and lately Brazil, Norway and other countries to build and provide staff and equipment for several dozen small community hospitals, clinics and other treatment centers.
The Cubans have sent doctors abroad since the 1960s as a form of "medical diplomacy" that brings badly needed doctors to remote areas of poor countries, mainly in Africa, as well as to allied countries like Venezuela, while sowing international solidarity, said Katrin Hansing, a Baruch College professor who is writing a book on Cuban overseas aid.
"It gives them a lot of political capital in the developing world, to keep up that heroic image of Cuba against the United States, that despite the embargo they still champion help to less-developed countries," she said.
It has also been an important source of foreign currency for Cuba, with earnings from the export of medical services, including 37,000 health workers overseas, estimated at more than $2 billion. Ms. Hansing said that these days the Cubans typically ask host countries to pay a sliding scale that averages $2,500 per doctor, per month. But Haiti, she said, is one of a few countries that are not charged.
There is no doubt that the Cuban mission has been vital here. It was among the largest international aid contingents to respond after the January 2010 earthquake that tumbled Haiti into crisis. And since the cholera outbreak, the mission has treated more than 76,000 cases of the disease, with just 272 fatalities - a much lower ratio, at 0.36 percent, than the average across Haiti as a whole, in which 1.4 percent of cases ended in death, according to the Health Ministry.
"We work a lot on the education of the population," said Dr. Lorenzo Somarriba, the chief of the Cuban medical mission. "We send people to the homes of the victims and educate them on the disease and provide them with tabs to clean the water. This is absolutely vital." Such purification tablets have been critical in a country where treated water is rare.
Indeed, here in Mirebalais the team has not seen a fatal cholera case since December, he said.
It is a success the Cubans eagerly promote, with Fidel Castro issuing several "reflections," personal commentaries that appear in state-run media and Web sites, chronicling the group's endeavors and achievements.
For the doctors at the heart of it, the salaries are meager by American standards, roughly $500 per month, Ms. Hansing said. But they do not pay room and board abroad, and they get to travel the world - a perk few Cubans are allowed - and usually get to import goods from the countries they visit tax-free.
They are not allowed to bring their families with them, but the other incentives make it "a pretty good deal," she said, that has helped keep down defections. Still, a program the United States has run since 2006 that is tailored to attract Cuban medical professionals abroad has enticed several hundred to defect.
Several of the doctors, many of them recent medical school graduates, said they simply relished the chance to practice what they had only heard about from textbooks and take on big responsibilities they would have to wait years for at home.
"We knew cholera from school, but it was hard to believe and see it here because Haiti didn't have it before," said Dr. Robert Pardo Guibert, 29, who directs a clinic in nearby Hinche. "But it is amazing because we treat everything here, every day there are different kinds of cases."
Dr. Quiñones has traveled to Venezuela and Pakistan and, though he misses his family - he is not due to return to Cuba until May - the recognition from the Haitians helps sustain him emotionally. "The simple cases are the most gratifying," he said.
The Haitians under treatment here, just grateful to have doctors, do not seem to care what nationality the physicians are.
"They provide good service," said Mercidieu Desire, 33, who was being treated for diarrhea that doctors concluded was not cholera. "I came in, they treated me and I feel better."
Still, the geopolitical theme of David vs. Goliath that permeates almost everything involving Cuban foreign affairs is present in this effort, as well.
After Hurricane Katrina, the Cubans offered to send 1,500 doctors to the United States. When there was no reply, Mr. Castro publicly lamented being spurned and created the Henry Reeve medical brigade, named after an American doctor who fought for Cuba's independence, that would assist in natural disasters around the world.
In Haiti, the Cubans have asked the United States to help finance a $30 million major hospital for specialists that would be staffed in part by Cuban doctors as part of the broader effort that Cuba and other nations have undertaken to remake the health system here. But after intense rounds of talks - with both sides claiming last-minute changes to the arrangement - no deal has emerged.
"Recovery in Haiti is a broad international effort, and we have been in touch with many other governments, including Cuba, to advance health sector support to Haiti, but we have not entered into any agreements with the Cubans," Jon E. Piechowski, a spokesman for the American Embassy, said in a statement.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) Air Force Officials Disciplined Over Handling of Human Remains
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JAMES DAO
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/senior-air-force-officials-disciplined-over-handling-of-human-remains.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The United States Air Force has disciplined three senior officials at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, military sacred ground as the main entry point for the nation's war dead, for "gross mismanagement" in the handling of human remains, including the loss of body parts of service members killed in Afghanistan.
The results of an 18-month Air Force investigation to be released Tuesday found that although the officials knew about two lost body parts they did nothing to change procedures at the base mortuary, the largest in the nation and an increasingly hectic place as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sent the remains of thousands of American men and women to Dover.
The Office of Special Counsel, the agency that handles whistle-blower complaints within the federal government, sent its own report to the White House and the House and Senate armed services committees on Tuesday that included scathing language criticizing the Air Force's handling of the affair and raised questions about the thoroughness of its investigation. Both investigations were the result of complaints from three civilian employees of the Dover Port mortuary, either embalmers or technicians, who were disturbed by procedures at the mortuary and took their concerns to the special counsel's office, the Pentagon and the Delaware Congressional delegation, among others.
The chief of staff of the Air Force, Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, called the lapses "systemic issues" at the mortuary. He said they had since been corrected, although he could not say for certain that the two lost body parts, along with other questioned practices at the mortuary, were the only mistakes made. He acknowledged one notable statement in the Air Force investigation from an unnamed mortuary employee - that the mortuary lost body parts "every two years" - and said the Air Force had named a panel to further review procedures at Dover.
"We and every employee of the Dover Port Mortuary understand the obligations of this work, the sanctity of this work, the necessity, the need for reverence, the need for dignity and respect for our fallen, just as if these were our sons and our daughters," General Schwartz told a small group of reporters at the Pentagon on Monday, a day ahead of the release of the investigation.
The three officials are Col. Robert H. Edmondson, the former commander of the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center; Trevor Dean, Colonel Edmondson's former deputy; and Quinton R. Keel, the former mortuary director. Colonel Edmondson, who left the mortuary as part of a regular rotation shortly after the investigation began in the spring of 2010, has since received a letter of reprimand from the Air Force, which effectively ends any further promotions. Mr. Dean and Mr. Keel were demoted within the last two months and moved to different jobs. All three declined to comment.
In a cover letter accompanying the Special Counsel's report, Carolyn N. Lerner, the head of the office, said that "several of the Air Force's findings are not supported by the evidence presented and thus do not appear reasonable."
"In these instances the report demonstrates a pattern of the Air Force's failure to acknowledge culpability for wrongdoing relating to the treatment of remains of service members and their dependents," Ms. Lerner wrote. She also noted that the Air Force report "reflects a willingness to find paperwork violations and errors" but stops short of "accepting accountability."
The Office of Special Counsel acknowledged that the Air Force had taken many important steps to correct the problems found as a result of the investigation. But the special counsel also concluded that the Air Force should have fired Mr. Keel and Mr. Dean.
"I am concerned that the retention of these individuals sends an inappropriate message to the work force," Ms. Lerner wrote.
In particular, the special counsel report asserts that Mr. Keel repeatedly tried to cover up mistakes in the handling of remains and misrepresented his role in several important decisions, particularly involving the removal of a Marine's arm. He also tried to fire two of the whistle-blowers after becoming aware of the investigation, but was overruled by superiors, according to officials in the Office of Special Counsel.
As evidence of how sensitive the issue could prove, the Air Force has established a special hot line to take calls from concerned families, officials at the Office of Special Counsel said.
The Office of Special Counsel report, which was based on the Air Force Inspector General's report as well as interviews with the three whistle-blowers, also took sharp issue with the Air Force on Mr. Keel's handling of the remains of a Marine who was killed by a roadside bomb.
The family of the Marine had requested that they see their son one last time in uniform, but the heat from a bomb attack in Afghanistan had apparently fused a portion of his arm bone. The bare bone was sticking out, unmovable, at a 90 degree angle from his body.
Mortuary employees, who received the remains in January, 2010, could not fit the Marine in either his uniform or his casket and Mr. Keen ordered them to saw off the bone, and they put it in the uniform's pants, without telling the family. Although the investigation said that mortuary officials should have told senior Air Force leadership what had happened, it did not say the officials did the wrong thing.
On Monday, General Schwartz said he thought the mortuary workers had handled the episode as best they could under the circumstances, although he said there would be clear differences of opinion, particularly in civilian mortuaries. He also said that new guidelines at Dover now require that the military liaison to a family be informed of such practices, but that it will up to the military liaison to tell the family what occurred.
According to the Special Counsel report, an embalmer in the Port Mortuary felt that the Marine's body was too badly damaged to be deemed "viewable" for the family. The determination is advisory only, intended to give families a sense of damage to a body; but families can choose to view the body if they want.
Making a body "nonviewable" would have meant putting it in a special wrap, with the Marine's uniform placed over the body. But according to the investigation, Mr. Keel overruled the embalmer and insisted that the Marine be placed in uniform, considered the preferred option where possible.
The disposition of war dead is a deeply emotional issue for the American military, which has sought in recent years to handle the remains of those killed on the battlefield with painstaking care. Dover in particular has projected an image of a sacred place as presidents, hundreds of government officials and many thousands of grieving families have met the flag-covered cases of loved ones that come out of the bellies of transport planes for solemn ceremonies on the tarmac. Since 2009 the Pentagon has allowed those ceremonies to be photographed for the nation to see.
But the Air Force investigation offers a graphic and disturbing account of what can occur when the cases move out of public view to the mortuary, at least in the instances of the two lost body parts - a fragmented ankle from a soldier killed in a homemade bomb explosion in Afghanistan in April 2009 and a 1- 1/2-by-3 1/2-inch piece of flesh from an airman who died in a fighter jet crash in Afghanistan in July 2009.
The families of the service members were notified by the Air Force this past weekend about the investigation.
Although the investigation said that the two lost body parts "equates to an aggregate success rate slightly greater than 99.9 percent" when based on the thousands of remains and body parts received at the mortuary, "the success rate for families of the deceased in the two individual cases is zero percent." The investigation termed the lost body parts "mission failure" and said that "it is reasonable to conclude that the average person accepts that the remains and portions of a loved one will be properly cared for and not misplaced, improperly disposed of, inadvertently mixed with remains of another person, unknowingly included in a group burial, or not returned to the family."
The investigation did not uncover what happened to the body parts, but held out the possibility that they fell out of plastic Ziploc bags while stored in a large refrigerator in the mortuary and ended up in tubs with the remains of another service member or perhaps cremated. A number of mortuary employees were quoted in the investigation as saying that medical examiners frequently sliced into the bags to conduct DNA analysis on the body parts and that it was possible that there had been holes in the bags. However, three medical examiners interviewed in the investigation said they did not slice into the bags.
Whatever occurred, the investigation describes a mortuary that had to manage the devastating effects of homemade bomb attacks, the No. 1 cause of military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as frequent calls to handle mass casualties. One unnamed mortuary employee told investigators about a particularly busy day in July 2009 when the remains of two airmen killed in a fighter jet crash in Afghanistan arrived.
The employee described the medical examiners as taking body parts out of the Ziploc bags for DNA analysis and "that it was kind of hard to keep track of everything." The employee said the medical examiners "were kind of messing with the bags a lot, and then they would walk to the back, and then they'd come back and - it was - it was a really hectic day."
General Schwartz said that the Air Force had since instituted clearer guidelines for the way medical examiners and mortuary employees work together at Dover, although he did not specify.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Justices Will Hear 2 Cases of Life Sentences for Youths
By ADAM LIPTAK
November 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/us/supreme-court-will-hear-cases-of-life-sentences-for-youths.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a pair of cases on whether sentencing young teenagers involved in killings to die in prison violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Last year, in Graham v. Florida, the court ruled that sentencing juvenile offenders to life without the possibility of parole was unconstitutional - but only for crimes that did not involve killings. The decision affected about 130 prisoners convicted of committing crimes like rape, armed robbery and kidnapping before they turned 18.
Human rights groups say there are more than 2,000 juvenile offenders serving sentences of life without parole. Writing for the majority in Graham, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that only the United States and perhaps Israel imposed the punishment even for homicides committed by juveniles.
The follow-up cases the court agreed to hear on Monday concern a subcategory of the remaining group, those who were 14 or younger when they were involved in murders. There are about 70 such prisoners, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law firm in Alabama that represents the two inmates in the new cases.
Focusing on very young offenders may be good strategy for opponents of harsh punishment, and it has worked before. The Supreme Court eliminated the juvenile death penalty in stages, first ruling it unconstitutional as applied to offenders younger than 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma in 1988 and then those younger than 18 in Roper v. Simmons in 2005.
The two cases the court agreed to hear Monday might also allow the court to draw a further distinction - between offenders who participated in crimes that led to killings and those who actually committed the killings.
One of the cases, Jackson v. Hobbs, No. 10-9647, concerns Kuntrell Jackson, an Arkansas man who was 14 when he and two older youths tried to rob a video store in 1999. One of the other youths shot and killed a store clerk. The second case, Miller v. Alabama, No. 10-9646, involves Evan Miller, an Alabama prisoner who was 14 in 2003 when he and an older youth beat a 52-year-old neighbor and set fire to his home after the three had spent the evening smoking marijuana and playing drinking games. The neighbor died of smoke inhalation.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Ohio Turns Back a Law Limiting Unions' Rights
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/politics/ohio-turns-back-a-law-limiting-unions-rights.html?ref=us
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A year after Republicans swept legislatures across the country, voters in Ohio delivered their verdict Tuesday on a centerpiece of the conservative legislative agenda, striking down a law that restricted public workers' rights to bargain collectively.
The landslide vote to repeal the bill - 62 percent to 38 percent, according to preliminary results from Ohio's secretary of state - was a slap to Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican who had championed the law as a tool for cities to cut costs. The bill passed in March on a wave of enthusiasm among Republicans fresh from victories. A similar bill also passed in Wisconsin.
Across the country, several other Republican-backed measures were also dealt setbacks, including a crackdown on voting rights in Maine.
In Mississippi, voters rejected an amendment to the State Constitution that would have banned virtually all abortions and some forms of birth control by declaring a fertilized human egg to be a legal person.
The Ohio vote gave a new lease on life to public sector labor unions in Ohio, which had been under tremendous pressure to get the bill repealed. Failure would have brought not only the loss of most of their bargaining rights, including the right to strike, but would also have called into question what had long been their central strength - their ability to organize and deliver votes.
Labor leaders said their victory contained an important message for Republicans.
"Attacking education and other public employees is not at all what the public wants to see," said Karen M. White, political director of the National Education Association, the nation's largest public sector union. "It should resonate with politicians that they've gone too far."
At a news conference Tuesday night, Mr. Kasich congratulated the winners and said he would assess the situation before proposing any new legislation. "It's time to pause," he said. "The people have spoken clearly."
When asked about the people's message, Mr. Kasich said, "They might have said it was too much too soon."
Labor's victory in this important swing state comes a year before the presidential election, and policy makers and political strategists will be studying ballot initiatives for clues to voter sentiment in 2012.
The election in Ohio provided an opportunity for the president's network of supporters, Obama for America, to test its organizational ability and revive its enthusiasm after a bleak year for Democratic activists. Volunteers for the president's re-election campaign fanned out across the state for weeks, urging voters to stand against the new law limiting collective bargaining.
The issue did not break entirely along party lines. The supporters of the law did not receive as much outside help, with the Republican presidential primary campaign in full swing.
Even when Mitt Romney, a leading candidate, visited Ohio recently, he said he was not sure where he stood on the issue. A day later, he said he stood against the labor unions.
Some analysts cautioned against reading too much into the result as a predictor for 2012. The law has been highly controversial in Ohio, even among groups like firefighters and police officers that traditionally vote Republican, and a vote cast against the law does not translate directly to a vote for President Obama.
"This is not a purely partisan issue," said Gene Beaupre, a political science professor at Xavier University. "It has merits on its substance."
The real question, he said, will be how independents voted. In a warning to Democrats, a largely symbolic measure against Mr. Obama's health care law was among the ballot initiatives that passed.
Republicans who watched the campaign on the union measure said it was doomed from the start. The law was a frontal assault on one of the most sacred principles for Democrats: the right of organized labor to collectively bargain. Defeating the repeal campaign would have required near-universal Republican support, which was not there because some registered Republicans opposed the law.
"This really is a core value, and the bill was out of step with that value," said one Republican strategist, who asked to remain anonymous because he did not want to be seen as criticizing his party's position.
Labor fought harder, observers said, because its stakes were higher. We Are Ohio, the main group that opposed the law, poured about $30 million into the campaign, said Melissa Fazekas, the group's spokeswoman, and had about 17,000 volunteers out over the weekend knocking on doors to persuade residents to go out and vote. The main group supporting the bill, Building a Better Ohio, said it spent just under $8 million.
"What we were actually fighting for was our livelihood," said Monty Blanton, a retired state employee and union worker who said he spent 14 hours a day knocking on doors in southeast Ohio in the last month. "We've been to places you had to get to with a four-wheel drive."
Labor organizers also had the advantage of appealing to a current of national disgust.
"Who are you going to trust, the politician who is more worried about whether his hair is parted correctly, or the firefighter and policeman in your neighborhood?" said Jim Gilbert, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Columbus.
It is unclear whether the episode will cause Republicans to suffer at the ballot box next year. Bill Capretta, a registered Republican and a retired police officer in Columbus, said that while he did not think he would vote for Mr. Obama, whose health care law he opposes, he was frustrated with Republicans for blocking the president's efforts.
"When you just say 'No, no, no' because you want this guy to be a one-term president, I have a problem with that," he said.
Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting from Washington, and Steven Greenhouse from New York.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/business/occupy-movement-inspires-unions-to-embrace-bold-tactics.html?ref=us
Organized labor's early flirtation with Occupy Wall Street is starting to get serious.
Union leaders, who were initially cautious in embracing the Occupy movement, have in recent weeks showered the protesters with help - tents, air mattresses, propane heaters and tons of food. The protesters, for their part, have joined in union marches and picket lines across the nation. About 100 protesters from Occupy Wall Street are expected to join a Teamsters picket line at the Sotheby's auction house in Manhattan on Wednesday night to back the union in a bitter contract fight.
Labor unions, marveling at how the protesters have fired up the public on traditional labor issues like income inequality, are also starting to embrace some of the bold tactics and social media skills of the Occupy movement.
Last Wednesday, a union transit worker and a retired Teamster were arrested for civil disobedience inside Sotheby's after sneaking through the entrance to harangue those attending an auction - echoing the lunchtime ruckus that Occupy Wall Street protesters caused weeks earlier at two well-known Manhattan restaurants owned by Danny Meyer, a Sotheby's board member.
Organized labor's public relations staff is also using Twitter, Tumblr and other social media much more aggressively after seeing how the Occupy protesters have used those services to mobilize support by immediately transmitting photos and videos of marches, tear-gassing and arrests. The Teamsters, for example, have beefed up their daily blog and posted many more photos of their battles with BMW, US Foods and Sotheby's on Facebook and Twitter.
"The Occupy movement has changed unions," said Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. "You're seeing a lot more unions wanting to be aggressive in their messaging and their activity. You'll see more unions on the street, wanting to tap into the energy of Occupy Wall Street."
Unions have long stuck to traditional tactics like picketing. But inspired by the Occupy protests, labor leaders are talking increasingly of mobilizing the rank and file and trying to flex their muscles through large, boisterous marches, including nationwide marches planned for Nov. 17.
Organized labor is also seizing on the simplicity of the Occupy movement's message, which criticizes the great wealth of the top 1 percent of Americans compared with the economic struggles of much of the bottom 99 percent.
A memo that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. sent out last week recommended that unions use the Occupy message about inequality and the 99 percent far more in their communications with members, employers and voters.
Indeed, as part of its contract battle with Verizon, the communications workers' union has began asserting in its picket signs that Verizon and its highly paid chief executive are part of the 1 percent, while the Verizon workers who face demands for concessions are part of the 99 percent. A dozen Verizon workers plan to begin walking from Albany to Manhattan on Thursday in a "March for the 99 percent."
"We think the Occupy movement has given voice to something very basic about what's going on in our country right now," said Damon Silvers, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s policy director. "The fact that they've figured out certain concepts and language for doing that, we think is really important and positive."
Over the last month, unions have provided extensive support to Occupy protesters around the country, from rain ponchos to cash donations. National Nurses United is providing staff members for first-aid tables at many encampments, while the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s headquarters two blocks from the White House is providing shower facilities for the protesters occupying McPherson Square, 300 yards to the east.
Unions have also intervened with politicians on behalf of the protesters. In Los Angeles, labor leaders have repeatedly lobbied Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa not to evict the protesters. When New York City officials were threatening to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park, hundreds of union members showed up before daybreak to discourage any eviction, and the city backed down.
Like any relationship, however, the one between the Occupy movement and labor is complicated.
Dozens of Occupy protesters have joined union members to picket the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles and Verizon offices in Washington, Buffalo and Boston. (A Verizon spokesman said the Occupy protesters "do not have the benefit of any information about the Verizon issues except what they've been told by the union, which is obviously one-sided and most likely inaccurate.")
In New York, the Occupy protesters have joined the Teamsters in their attacks on Sotheby's. The art auction house locked out 43 Teamster art handlers on July 29, after the union balked at its demands for sizable concessions.
In addition to the lunchtime protest at the Danny Meyer restaurants, Occupy protesters also joined recent picketing against Sotheby's outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Diana Phillips, a Sotheby's spokeswoman, said the company had offered a fair contract and "is unwilling to accept demands that virtually double the cost of their contract."
Arthur Brown, a mental health worker who is one of the founders of Occupy Buffalo, where 50 people camp out each night, said the Occupy movement badly needed labor's backing if it is to change the nation's policies and politics.
"Young people started this movement, but they can't finish it," Mr. Brown said. "They don't have the capacity or the experience to finish it. We really need the working class and union folks, the older folks, the activists from the '60s. '70s and '80s, to help make this a full-fledged movement that will change the political landscape of America."
But some Occupy protesters worry that organized labor might seek to co-opt them.
Jake Lowry, a 21-year-old college student and an Occupy participant, said: "We're glad to have unions endorse us, but we can't formally endorse them. We're an autonomous group and it's important to keep our autonomy."
George Gresham, president of 1199 S.E.I.U., a union that represents more than 300,000 health care workers in the Northeast, said his union wanted to help the Occupy movement amplify its voice.
"This is a dream come true for us to have these young people speaking out about what's been happening to working people," Mr. Gresham said. His union has offered to provide 500 flu shots and a week's worth of meals for the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
María Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said it remained to be seen whether the unions and the protesters could, by working together, achieve concrete change.
"Workers are with the Occupy movement on the broader issues; they're with them on the issue of inequality," she said. "The question is, can the labor movement or the Occupy movement move that message down to the workplace, where workers confront low wages, low benefits and little power? Can we use it to organize workers where it really matters, in the workplace, to help their everyday life?"
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Ohio: Scientists Sound Alarm on Nuclear Plant
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/us/ohio-scientists-sound-alarm-on-nuclear-plant.html?ref=us
A watchdog group is questioning the soundness of a nuclear plant where a 30-foot hairline crack was recently discovered. The crack was found in the thick concrete on the outside of the reactor containment building at the Davis-Besse plant outside Toledo. Further inspections found numerous, tiny cracks on the building's facade. The Union of Concerned Scientists has written the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking whether the concrete walls were built to adequate engineering specifications. The plant's owner, the FirstEnergy Corporation, says that the walls were designed properly and that the building has been inspected thoroughly. The plant has been shut down for installation of a new 82-ton reactor head, replacing one that cracked.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Why Is the Oakland Police Department Hiding the Truth About Its Violent Crackdown on the Occupy Protests?
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
[see videos in Section B, above...bw]
Posted on November 9, 2011, Printed on November 10, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153030/why_is_the_oakland_police_department_hiding_the_truth_about_its_violent_crackdown_on_the_occupy_protests
After three notably violent crackdowns on protesters in as many weeks, Oakland Police Department officials have refused a request by the ACLU of Northern California to release police reports documenting their use of force as required by law.
"We saw events that we found extremely troubling, and which violated provisions of Oakland's own crowd control policy," Linda Lye, a staff attorney with ACLU of Northern California told AlterNet.
After recent police actions in Oakland gained national attention, "there was a lot of lip service paid to transparency and accountability and the public's interest in monitoring the situation," she said. "But then OPD proceeded to say that it was invoking one of the statutory exceptions to the Public Records Act for the vast majority of our requests."
The exception officials cited exempted documents prepared pursuant to a criminal investigation, but, says Lye, "these records weren't notes of a detective working on a murder case. These were very different records -- they're reports documenting the use of force during a massive police enforcement action, and many are required pursuant to routine reporting procedures under Oakland's own policies." She added, "Not only does the law require that they release the records, but the overall situation demands that they do so."
A legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild told AlterNet that they had received "numerous reports of excessive force" after riot police evicted the encampment in front of City Hall during the early morning hours of October 25. According to Lye, one of the difficulties sorting out exactly what happened stems from the fact that, according to reports, as many as 17 police agencies were involved in the raid, which, according to the National Lawyers Guild observer, resulted in a head injury requiring hospitalization and three broken hands.
The following evening, as protesters regrouped, police dispersed crowds with round after round of teargas, flash-bang grenades and "less lethal" projectiles. Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen suffered a traumatic head injury when he was struck by some sort of projectile - reportedly a teargas canister - in the melee. As a group of people rushed to drag the unconscious Olsen to safety, police threw a flash-bang grenade into their midst (video of the incident is below).
The following week, after a rousing, peaceful day of demonstrations culminated in the Port of Oakland being "occupied," things once again became violent on the streets of Oakland. During that action, Kayvan Sabehgi, also a veteran of the Iraq war, ended up in intensive care with a ruptured spleen. Sabehgi told the Guardian that he was walking alone, away from the action when he ran into trouble.
"There was a group of police in front of me," he told the Guardian from his hospital bed. "They told me to move, but I was like: 'Move to where?' There was nowhere to move.
"Then they lined up in front of me. I was talking to one of them, saying 'Why are you doing this?' when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me."
Sabehgi says he lay on the floor of a jail cell writhing in pain for hours until finally receiving medical attention the following evening.
That night, another protester videotaped what appears to be a flagrant and unnecessary use of force against him (view the video below). Scott Campbell, 30, a resident of Oakland, was also standing away from the bulk of the action, taping a line of riot police on the north end of Frank Ogawa Plaza. An officer asked him to move back and he complied. On the tape, he can be heard asking police repeatedly, "Is this OK?" He gets no answer, and then suddenly an officer raises a weapon and shoots him with a "less lethal" projectile of some kind. The tape ends with him crying out in pain.
Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminal justice professor who's an expert in police procedures and the use of force, told the Oakland Tribune that the video left him "astonished, amazed and embarrassed."
"Unless there's something we don't know, that's one of the most outrageous uses of a firearm that I've ever seen," he said. "That just looks like absolute punishment, which is the worst type of excessive force."
All of these acts, on their face, violate OPD's own manual for proper crowd control (PDF). The strict guidelines resulted from a 2003 civil suit against OPD for using wooden bullets and teargas to disperse a nonviolent crowd of citizens protesting the Iraq war. Jim Chanin, the civil rights attorney who won the suit, told CBS news that they restrict the use of chemical weapons until "all other means have failed." "From what I could see [in videos of the incidents on March 25], they hadn't even tried marching forward," he said.
California's Crowd Management and Civil Disobedience guidelines (PDF) state, "Only that force which is objectively reasonable may be used to arrest violators and restore order."
Officials Aren't Giving Honest Accounts of Events
These actions are justified by officials with inaccurate claims of what happened out on the streets those nights.
The first pre-dawn raid was necessary, according to the mayor's office, due to health and safety violations, and a report that protesters had blocked emergency personnel from entering the camp after a fight broke out.
Those are legitimate concerns, but we know that suppressing dissent is a goal unto itself because on October 25, police also raided, and made arrests at Snow Park, a small satellite occupation some distance from City Hall. Snow Park was a small cluster of tents on a hill overlooking Lake Merritt. It had no kitchen, no sanitation issues - it had been established more recently than the main encampment - and while there is a small minority within Occupy Oakland that wants to mix it up with the police, everyone at Snow Park was committed to a non-confrontational stance. If the eviction of the camp in front of City Hall was executed only because of the reasons stated by the mayor's office and police officials, Snow Park would have been left unmolested.
In a press conference following the first raid, Acting Police Chief Howard Jordan claimed that teargas and other weapons were used on protesters only "in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks." I was not at the very front, but I saw nothing thrown at officers before the first round of gas was deployed. Other accounts appear to confirm that, but in any event they were not, as the chief claimed, being "pelted" with multiple projectiles. (I did witness a few plastic water bottles and perhaps a rock thrown before subsequent uses of force by police.)
During a city council meeting on November 3, Jordan said that during the evening of the 25th, the protesters had been given free rein to demonstrate throughout the city with a few exceptions, one of which was that they couldn't attempt to enter the police building located on 6th Street and Broadway. "But," he said, "they did try to enter the building." This is false -- I can't be sure if police set up their lines on 7th or 8th Street, but in any event, at no time did protesters get anywhere near the police building.
The protesters had been peaceful throughout the afternoon, and if OPD had let them demonstrate outside the police building where over 100 of their fellow activists were being detained - allowing some tension to be diffused - they likely would have remained so. Instead, lines of riot police repeatedly blocked and boxed in protesters in a seemingly random fashion, and it was only when the crowd's frustration had mounted that some protesters surrounded a small number of police, which led to a violent response.
If All You Have Is a Hammer, All the World Looks Like a Nail
During that same city council meeting, addressing the violence on the night of November 2, both interim Chief Jordan and Mayor Jean Quan said that police "had to" use significant force against protesters who had "occupied" an abandoned building that once served as a shelter for the Traveler's Aid Society. The officials said that protesters had erected a barricade on 16th Street, which they set ablaze, and only then did OPD deploy multiple rounds of teargas and open fire with "less lethal" rounds.
That analysis is marred by a common problem: examining events in the moments before violence breaks out while ignoring the fact that command decisions taken beforehand had an enormous influence on the nature of the protests.
It's true that when police arrived, they found a chaotic and provocative crowd. When I arrived at the scene a half-hour before police, it was already clear that things would not end peacefully that night. And, sure enough, injuries and over 100 arrests followed (including that of AlterNet contributor Susie Cagle, whose account can be read here).
But the sequence of events leading up to that point is crucially important. The "occupiers" plan, at first, was to "reclaim" the building and use it as a refuge for protesters to get indoors, have access to electricity, etc. At first, about 50 people did just that.
A decision was made by officials to send a large contingent of riot police to evict those 50 original occupiers in the middle of the night on a non-residential street. It was only when word spread through the camp that hundreds of police were staging for a raid did another 150 or so protesters join them, including a number who were not dedicated to the nonviolent nature of the Occupy Movement. And that was when the barricade was erected and things started getting rowdy.
A question nobody asked at the press conference that followed or at the city council meeting is whether it was necessary to send a large force of riot police to evict those 50 original occupiers, or if a less aggressive solution could have been worked out in the light of the following day. Again, this is an unexamined question, and it represents a major problem in Oakland: during my time at these protests, I have seen only two modes of enforcement: either police maintain a "minimal presence" - without an officer in sight - or there is a massive, heavily armed and aggressive display of force. There appears to be no middle ground, and judging by officials' statements, such a middle ground never occurred to them.
Those who have developed an image of police actions from New York should understand that riot police in Oakland - and those from the neighboring agencies that joined these actions - are highly militarized, clad in full, black body armor and bristling with automatic weapons, tear gas launchers, flash-bang grenades and tasers. When they move in, it's reminiscent of a battlefield, with a series of jarring explosions and extensive gunfire. Those aggressive tactics create a dangerous cycle, allowing the minority of protesters who do seek confrontation with law enforcement to justify their provocations as acts of "self-defense."
Legacy of Distrust
In Oakland, tensions between law enforcement and the community predate the Occupy Movement by generations, and it's proving to be a real obstacle for addressing the legitimate concerns that many Oaklanders have about the camp. Both occupiers and the mayor's office have repeatedly called for "dialogue," but the sense that the citizens of Oakland are under siege - felt especially by people of color - makes cooperation between the city and protesters extremely difficult. There is a serious deficit of trust.
That should come as little surprise. The OPD has been involved in a number of controversial shootings. The department has been under a federal consent decree since 2003, stemming from a 2003 case in which a band of "rogue" OPD officers were fired for beating and robbing suspects in West Oakland and then planting evidence on them. (Criminal charges against three of the officers ended in mistrials, but the city paid out $10 million to the plaintiffs and entered into the federal decree as a result of the civil suit.)
Just weeks before the recent clashes with Occupy Oakland protesters, Robert Warshaw, the federal monitor assigned to oversee the department, issued a report that found that in 28 percent of the instances in which OPD officers pointed their guns at someone, there was no indication that the officer or anyone else "faced imminent threat of harm." Warshaw called the instances "inappropriate" and "unnecesary." Civil rights attorney Jim Chanin told the San Jose Mercury News, "if you are doing nothing and you have a gun pointed at you by a police officer, it leaves an indelible impression and can alienate someone from the police forever, particularly if they're a minority."
Another Crackdown Imminent?
There are signs that city officials are preparing to evict the Occupy Oakland encampment once again. On November 9, four members of the City Council joined the Oakland Chamber of Commerce for a press conference decrying the Occupation's purported impact on the local community and insisting that the protesters be removed as soon as it is practically feasable. The San Francisco Chronicle reported,
"Oakland police have canceled all training exercises for next week, which is a 'pretty good indication' that the cops are making plans once again to clear out the Occupy camp outside City Hall," according to a police source.
The next step -- if there is one -- would be to cancel police leaves and put out the call for mutual aid from surrounding law enforcement agencies.
According to the source, police brass issued the no-training order just about the time Mayor Jean Quan handed out a warning Tuesday to the Occupy camp that "we cannot ignore violence, property destruction and health and safety issues in Frank Ogawa Plaza."
The occupiers, meanwhile, appear intent on remaining in the plaza. So it appears that the already tense situation is likely to end up in another night of violence on the streets of Oakland.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) Murder as Instrument of Foreign Policy
By Liaquat Ali Khan
"Information Clearing House"
November 03, 2011
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29605.htm
President Obama has openly deployed murder as an instrument of foreign policy. Soon after assuming office, Obama authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to plan and execute the murder of terrorists and other enemies, regardless of whether they are U.S. citizens. Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Muammar Gaddafi are the prominent murder victims while numerous others in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, and Pakistan have been purposely targeted and killed.
The legitimization of extra-judicial killing is a disturbing development in international law as other nations are certain to follow suit. In pursuit of pre-meditated murders, the collateral damage (the killing of the obviously innocent) has been extensive. The claim that such murders can be executed with electronic precision, though false, serves as an incentive for other nations to develop drones to perpetrate their own surgical assassinations. For now, however, the CIA enjoys the monopoly over drone kills.
Covert Murders
The 1947 National Security Act created the CIA for the purpose of gathering and evaluating information necessary to protect the nation from foreign threats. Right from the beginning, however, the CIA assumed a proactive role in promoting U.S. economic and military interests. In 1948, the CIA was transformed into a paramilitary organization, empowered under law to engage in "propaganda, economic warfare, sabotage, subversion against hostile states through assistance to underground resistance movements and guerillas." Ever since, the CIA has engineered world events for U.S. hegemony.
The murder policy under the CIA aegis is by no means an Obama invention. Over the decades, the CIA has spearheaded what Vice President Dick Cheney once described as the "dark side" of the United States. Previously, however, the murders were covert, not to be openly admitted. In the 1960s, the CIA planned the murders of "communists who threatened the free world," including those of Patrice Lumumba of Congo and Fidel Castro of Cuba. Researchers dispute over whether the CIA participated in Che Guevara's murder. The evidence is mounting, however, that the CIA head in Bolivia had a "prior agreement or understanding with the Bolivians that Che would be killed if captured." (See Ratner & Smith, Who Killed Che?: How the CIA Got Away with Murder).
Covert murders were planned to shield the President from the attendant foreign policy fallout and the moral discomfort emanating from cold-blooded strategies. Notably, the President chairs the National Security Council (NSC), the supreme body that empowers the CIA to conduct covert operations. In the early decades, intelligence experts instituted the doctrine of plausible deniability under which the facts of a covert operation were reported to the President in a way that he could deny the knowledge of a murder. The words "killing" or "murder" or "assassination" were rarely used in oral and written memos to the President. For example, Che's murder was reported to President Johnson as a "stupid murder." Such wink, wink linguistic deceptions allow the President to occupy the high moral ground and deny that the U.S. "murders" foreign enemies or "tortures" detainees. The President's veil of deniability was considered necessary to safeguard America's image as "the city on the hill," "the beacon of liberty," "the greatest nation in the world," etc.
Audacity of Murder
Since the 9/11 attacks, the policy logistics of murder have been dramatically transformed. The doctrine of plausible deniability has been discarded. Moral constraints on killing enemies, including heads of states and governments, have been cast away. The notion of the U.S. as a "moral nation" is now viewed as an impediment in the conduct of international relations. The "dark side" freely informs the foreign policy. The audacity of murder has gained depth and momentum. The President does not think twice about the moral implications of boasting a drone kill.
In a major policy shift, the murder has been institutionalized. Now, the NSC may itself approve a pending murder. Remember the President and statutory members of the NSC (including Secretaries of State and Defense and the CIA Director) watching bin Laden's murder as it was happening. The NSC released the picture for public consumption, implying that watching the murder of a noted enemy is morally acceptable. Imagine barbarism if this practice is writ large in the world. No one would be surprised if the NSC itself has authorized the murder of Anwar Awlaki, a U.S. citizen or if the NSC itself has authorized the drone attack on the Gaddafi motorcade to flush him out for murder in public view.
These and similar international murders are no longer the CIA secrets that the Senate needs to investigate as it did in the 1970s. This time, the fascination with murder has metastasized. It is bipartisan. Except Ron Paul, Republican Presidential candidates endorse the murder of "terrorists" who threaten "our way of life." (Juxtapose the historical massacres of Indian "savages" who too threatened "our way of life."). Upon the execution of a successful murder, President Obama walks to the podium to express joy in a causal tone of voice. Many politicians join the happy hours. Congratulations are exchanged. The corporate media invites the public to celebrate the great news. This is the most vivid moral collapse of a nation that brazenly talks about human rights and universal values. The American people cannot choose to be silent. They must restore the nation's moral dignity.
Ali Khan is professor of law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas and the author of A Theory of International Terrorism (2006).
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) Seventeen workers exposed to radiation at Idaho lab
By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho | Tue Nov 8, 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/08/us-nuclear-lab-idaho-idUSTRE7A77QW20111108
(Reuters) - Seventeen workers were exposed to low-level radiation from plutonium on Tuesday at a U.S. Energy Department nuclear research lab in Idaho, but there was no risk to the public, the government said.
The accident at the Idaho National Laboratory occurred inside a facility used for remotely handling, processing and examining spent nuclear fuel, radioactive waste and other irradiated materials, the lab said in a series of statements.
The so-called Materials and Fuels Complex is located near the edge of the sprawling 890-square-mile laboratory site in the high desert in eastern Idaho about 38 miles from the city of Idaho Falls.
But the lab's latest bulletin on the mishap said there was no evidence of a release of radiation outside the facility, and "there is no risk to the public or environment."
At least 17 employees were working inside a decommissioned research reactor when "a container was opened for normal, scheduled work, resulting in low-level worker exposure to plutonium," the statement said.
There were no immediate details from the lab on the precise cause or nature of the radiation release, such as whether it resulted from an equipment malfunction or human error.
Lab spokesman Earl Johnson told Reuters the exposed workers were engaged in an activity and in an area that required no special protective shielding.
"We certainly didn't expect this to happen," he said, adding that radiation-control technicians monitoring the area detected the low-level release.
Johnson said the "zero-power physics reactor" where the accident occurred was decommissioned in 1992 and had been used to study and test technology for space and commercial nuclear reactors.
The exposed workers underwent initial decontamination procedures at the complex before they were taken to a medical facility elsewhere on the lab grounds for "further evaluation," the lab said. Details of their condition were not immediately provided.
Some 6,000 employees and contractors work at the Idaho National Laboratory, the Energy Department's leading facility for nuclear reactor technology.
According to lab records, Tuesday's incident appeared to be the most serious accident at the lab since June 2007, when a worker was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation from a small laboratory fire, though no radiation release was reported in connection with that mishap.
It was too early to say how serious Tuesday's accident was compared to previous mishaps "since we don't yet know what the consequences of the accident will be," said Liz Woodruff, head of a private, nonprofit nuclear watchdog group in Idaho called the Snake River Alliance.
But, she said, "These are a lot of workers."
(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
16) Thank Obama for the Occupy Wall Street Movement
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
-Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/thank-obama-occupy-wall-street-movement
"Opposition to the rule of finance capital - to Wall Street - is opposition to capitalism as it actually exists in the here and now."
There is no particular political genius to the Occupy Wall Street movement, no soaring, searing vision that sets the world afire in some new and different way. When it comes to political analysis, much of what emanates from the swirl of activity is no more than soggy old left-liberal reformism that only feels more dynamic when wrapped in a youthful, "movement" package. And yet it is the most promising mass U.S. phenomenon in more than forty years. Why, and why now?
The power of the movement derives from the inexorable logic of its animating slogans. It is, at root, opposed to the rule of finance capital - although even the word "capital" is repugnant to some participants who believe themselves to be engaged in a spiritual quest far beyond the parameters of political economy. Nevertheless it is a fact that opposition to the rule of finance capital - to Wall Street - is opposition to capitalism as it actually exists in the here and now. Judging by the ballooning of the movement and the demeanor of its troops, opposition to capitalism as it actually exists turns out to be an exquisitely exhilarating and fulfilling activity, whether those so engaged consider themselves socialists or not.
The anti-Wall Street slogans and rhetoric have their own logic and dynamic that should - in struggle and over time - push aside left-liberal pabulum and weak reformist nostrums that cannot possibly even begin to contain, much less defeat, the hegemonic power of massed capital.
"Opposition to capitalism as it actually exists turns out to be an exquisitely exhilarating and fulfilling activity, whether those so engaged consider themselves socialists or not."
It did not take genius to identify the rule of finance capital as the common enemy of humankind. Millions, if not billions, have already come to that conclusion, and the inevitable trajectory of capital was predicted and plotted long ago. But the United States, a nation conceived as a white man's empire and singularly dedicated to the project of business, confronts the 21st century as a political-cultural desert, a place where May Day is largely unknown, supplanted by a Labor Day four months removed on the calendar and eons away in class content. The centrality of racial oppression has so distorted relationships of class that the very language is impoverished and popular political discussion, infantilized.
Thus, we in the U.S. are relegated to working our way through the logic of slogans that are broadly informed by a reality that is everywhere manifest, but only stiltedly articulated. But that's the political culture we've got, and the OWS slogans do point, inexorably, to confrontation with The Hegemon: the Lords of Capital, their servants and institutions.
The brilliance - if not genius - of the movement, is in the evocation of "occupation" when coupled with the address of the enemy, Wall Street. To many of the participants, "Occupy Wall Street" signifies the elevation of human needs and values over Wall Street profits - a laudable, though amorphous, goal. But to "occupy" the enemy's camp is to grapple with him for physical and/or political space. Inevitably, that means a struggle whose outcome can only be measured in terms of power. In this arena, left-liberal nostrums of tinkering and accommodation with fundamental evils must fail - and will be seen as inadequate to the struggle, early on.
"The centrality of racial oppression has so distorted relationships of class that the very language is impoverished and popular political discussion, infantilized."
The imperative to "occupy" space means the movement is constantly challenged to find new arenas to manifest itself, whether or not the original occupation sites are lost. It is a promise to the people that the movement intends to be permanent, a commitment to provide a focus for expanding spaces of struggle. That is the new and dynamic element that has intruded upon the national psyche, and has so energized and inspired previously existing Left political forces. It is the promise - the possibility - of a popular, activist movement that is, for practical purposes, as permanent as the presence of the enemy: Wall Street.
The cumbersome horizontal mechanisms of the Occupy movement are, in practice, a prophylactic against co-optation by the Democratic Party - a greater danger than the police. To put it bluntly, OWS practice makes it difficult for the movement to make a "deal" with Wall Street's minions in the Democratic Party and like-minded circles, even if the weaker reformers in the ranks wanted to - which many do, judging by some of the proposals swirling around the milieu.
The movement's machinery has also stifled radicals in some locations, but it does not prevent them from functioning outside of and in close collaboration with OWS elements. That's because there is no OWS "franchise" that must be bought into; if there were, then OWS would become its own opposite - a limiting structure in a movement whose central purpose is to constantly expand against the hegemonic power of massed capital.
"It is a promise to the people that the movement intends to be permanent, a commitment to provide a focus for expanding spaces of struggle."
The movement has had dramatic effect in Black America. By virtue of its whiteness, the OWS has been allowed to exercise citizenship rights that have been effectively denied to African Americans in their militarized communities. A Black-occupied Zuccotti Park, or Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, or any of the other occupation sites, is unthinkable under the New Jim Crow. It would invite massacre, as virtually every African American knows. White privilege - in this case, the privilege not to be summarily shot or beaten to a pulp en masse when confronting authority - has been on televised display for the past six weeks. Black perceptions of the spectacle were mixed. There was, of course, deep resentment of the ease with which young white kids from "wherever" could flaunt petty public assembly laws and, for the most part, get away with it, while Black youth are routinely accosted, humiliated and falsely imprisoned by police while simply walking or standing in their own neighborhoods. Black activists who have labored for decades in the urban trenches recoiled at the media exposure garnered by even relatively small groups of white OWSers at their downtown encampments.
But, there is another side of the racist coin. The mostly white OWS movement had, in a sense, legitimized civil disobedience and confrontation with the cops in the current era - an opening that could be exploited. And, if the cameras followed the white people like drones on the kill, then Black outfits should take advantage of the new publicity. After all, African American audiences get most of their information from the same corporate media as whites. If white people could take over a city site and proclaim themselves the Occupation, why not "occupy" Black neighborhoods? In a matter of weeks, Occupy the Hoods proliferated, quite often generating more neighborhood organizing activity than had previously existed, and this time with the cameras rolling.
"The OWS has been allowed to exercise citizenship rights that have been effectively denied to African Americans in their militarized communities."
To the extent that it collaborates with people of color within and outside the OWS, the mostly white movement gains legitimacy among those with the greatest (objective) stake in toppling Wall Street. Without such legitimacy, it is doomed, and no amount of white privilege will save it.
It is doubtful that there would have been an Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, as we have experienced it, if President Obama had not lost his last stitch of emperors clothes this past spring and summer. His abject subservience to the "market's" (Wall Street's) demands that the budget deficit take priority over human needs - a logic that would necessitate the gutting of virtually every social program of the New Deal and the Great Society, including Social Security - broke the heart of every left-liberal Obamite, and every Black person that was not still drunk on ObamaL'aid. His 2008 activist base watched as Obama pleaded with Republicans to accept his $4 trillion budget cut "Grand Bargain" that would roll back a lifetime of social safety nets. The "progressive's" champion became the star in their nightmare. This is what their votes had bought them: a total disaster.
And then the OWS folks gave them a movement.
In that sense, we should thank Obama for shattering the illusion that a Black corporate Democrat with better snake oil-selling skills than Bill Clinton can be anything but a more efficient facilitator of Wall Street's all-consuming, world-killing agenda. However, this unintended favor is nothing compared to the catastrophic harm Obama's ascent has wreaked on Black politics. The advent of the First Black President has politically neutralized Black America, the most progressive constituency in the nation - despite the fact that Obama opposes every element of the historical Black political consensus on peace and social justice. The opening that OWS has created for movement politics comes not a moment too soon for African Americans, the group most in need of a movement, and with the deepest historical experience in movement-building.
Glen Ford is Black Agenda Report executive ecitor and can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
-Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/thank-obama-occupy-wall-street-movement
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
17) Rigged Games: Obama's Fake 'Jobs Bill' is Election-Year Theater
By Bruce A. Dixon
Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/rigged-games-obamas-fake-%E2%80%9Cjobs-bill%E2%80%9D-election-year-theater
"'Pass this jobs bill,' is one of the president's recurring lines in this year's episode "
The calendar still says 2011, but with the election a mere 51 weeks distant, it's election year already. The actors, the special effects and the props are being lined up as we speak. Every move candidates make from here on out is carefully choreographed election year theater.
In keeping with Michael Hudson's observation that a corporate politician's job is to deliver his voters to the interests of his campaign contributors, Barack Obama is campaigning to bring the Democratic party's base voters, blacks, Latinos, the poor and whatever "independent" whites he can wrangle, to his sponsors, Wall Street, the telecoms, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Real Estate, Big Oil, Clean Coal, Safe Nukes, and the Pentagon. Republicans have substantially the same set of contributors, but those donors are giving Barack Obama's party alone more than all the Republican candidates put together, and have the presidential campaign, an entirely separate affair, backed to the tune of a billion dollars this cycle. So with different voting constituencies, Republicans and Democrats will campaign differently. But when governing, they remain on the same team.
"Pass this jobs bill," is one of the president's recurring lines in this year's episode ---- as though Barack Obama actually had a bill that might create jobs for the record number of jobless, and as if he even imagined he could or ought to do such a thing. On the real, he hasn't and he doesn't. Politicians come closest to saying what they really think right after elections, not before them.
"...in keeping with Obama's philosophy, his so-called "jobs bill" proposes nothing of the kind. "
Shortly after the 2008 election, Barack shared with the nation a few of his thoughts on job creation, economics and history. He said it was the private sector's job, not the government's role to create jobs and wealth, so no massive WPA-style jobs proposal would be forthcoming. Not soon. Not ever. Not from his administration, at least.
Like today, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, private industry was intent on driving wages further down, and quite happy with massive unemployment and poverty. Popular pressure forced the Roosevelt administration to make the federal government the employer of last resort, and hundreds of thousands of jobless were hired to build parks and roads and bridges and dams and schools across the country. Those WPA workers even dug the subways under downtown Chicago's State Street, which are still creating wealth and jobs 75 years later.
But in keeping with Obama's philosophy, his so-called "jobs bill" proposes nothing of the kind. More than half its original $447 billion price tag is made up of tax cuts, many billions of it to the same industries that are laying people off.
At the same time, the Obama White House has advanced NAFTA-like free trade bills for Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, a kind of legislation that is a proven job-killer. Though the package of free-trade bills does contain a stipulation that additional billions be spent on retraining, this isn't part of the bill the White House is pushing, and is extremely unlikely to pass in any case.
Even individual pieces of the president's "jobs bill" are unlikely to pass. The president knows it, and so does every member of Congress. Harry Reid only put it up for a Senate vote so he'd have Republicans on record as voting against something called a "jobs bill," whether it was or not. The latest chunk of it got 51 votes out of 100 in the US Senate and still failed, due to the 60 vote rule, which is only applied when Democrats need an excuse for not passing nominally progressive legislation that their financiers would rather see fail. Remember Obama's health insurance company bailout bill? That didn't need 60 votes, because health insurance companies loved it.
"When it comes to the interest of Wall Street and the one percent, Obama is effective. He gets it done where Republicans cannot."
Republicans are playing their usual "bad cop" role in the production, opposing the fake "jobs bill," in an effort to make Barack Obama look like the good guy by comparison. They'll vote it down. They'll call it a "jobs killer" and accuse the president, a far more effective capitalist tool at this point than they are, of being a socialist. The Republican role in this drama is to oppose Obama's fake jobs bill as though it were real, to distract attention away from his real record, to make Obama look good, and to retain credibility in front of their own frequently racist constituencies, so that they too can be delivered to donors each and every election cycle.
It's a game, played out on our TVs and blogs and newspapers daily and nightly, a fake world pulled over our eyes to distract us from the real game the players are playing.
On the real, Barack Obama's job creation policies, like his foreign policies, like his environmental policies, like his stands on Clean Coal and Safe Nuclear Power, like where he is on network neutrality, genetically modified crops, and a hundred other issues, are pretty much the same as that of his Republican opponents. Obama is firing and terrorizing government whisteblowers and kidnapping foreign civilians for secret imprisonment and torture, just as Bush did, while launching more drones and commando raids into Africa than Bush ever could have. Obama built the border fence Bush wanted to and could not, passed the bank bailout Bush tried to and failed, and has deported more Latinos in three years than Bush did in eight.
That's why Republicans put on their crazy candidate hats. It's the best, the one, the proven way to distract attention from Obama's actual record, to make the president look good enough to be re-elected in spite of that record. When it comes to the interest of Wall Street and the one percent, Obama is effective, more effective than his Republican colleagues. He gets it done where Republicans cannot. And when it comes to the interests of the rest of us, Barack Obama is not the lesser evil, not even close. He IS THE evil. The more effective evil. That's the truth, the core. The rest is theater.
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report.
-Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/rigged-games-obamas-fake-%E2%80%9Cjobs-bill%E2%80%9D-election-year-theater
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
18) Freedom Rider: Obama Perfects Right Wing Policy
By BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-obama-perfects-right-wing-policy
"Nothing sticks to him, no matter how awful his actions."
Conservative pundit William Kristol had this to say about Barack Obama, a man he lauded as a "born again neo-con." "What's the joke - they told me if I voted for McCain, we'd be going to war in a third Muslim country? I voted for McCain and we're doing it."
It was said that Ronald Reagan had teflon, that is to say, nothing stuck to him. If Reagan had teflon, then Barack Obama has patented a brand new, space aged non-stick material, because nothing sticks to him, no matter how awful his actions. Thanks to his success in marketing himself as an agent of change, and the complete capitulation of black voters and other progressives, Obama is free to do as he pleases in America and around the world.
He is showing his true self, and the portrait is an ugly one. Obama has been able to follow his predecessor George W. Bush in spreading evil intent and action around the world.
It was clear to anyone who was paying close attention that Barack Obama is a lover of conservative policy. His demonization of the 60s and its supposed excesses, his paeans of praise to Ronald Reagan, and his love of a so-called consensus with Republicans were proof that the idol of progressives didn't have a progressive bone in his body.
Being a smart man with conservative leanings, Obama had only to ponder how he would get away with the worst right wing behavior and still get Democratic love. In foreign policy it is very simple. Make a case for saving people and don't get any Americans killed.
"Obama, the idol of progressives, didn't have a progressive bone in his body."
If Obama, makes the case for war and terror even after having consulted with Bill Kristol and his ilk, most progressives will go along with whatever he says without question, complaint, or protest. If as in the case of Libya, the dirty deed is done without a loss of American lives, as the president bragged after Gaddafi was killed by a raging mob, then so much the better. "Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives, and our NATO mission will soon come to an end."
Americans love wars if they are short and sweet, don't result in coffins covered by Old Glory, and are waged for what they consider to be noble motives. Obama got the evil tyrant routing down perfectly, and helped people who think of themselves as do gooders to justify their support for the horror inflicted upon Libya.
In domestic policy, Obama continues on this path of making what used to be unacceptable suddenly palatable. The budget deal, rightly called "a Satan Sandwich" has resulted in Democrats outdoing Republicans in their pledges to cut the budget. Social Security is no longer the third rail of politics because Obama put it on the table along with earmarks and every other government expenditure. Republicans can breath a sigh of relief as even the lowest hanging fruit stays on the tree.
Obama policy making is worse than Bill Clinton's cynical triangulating. Obama's plans for grand designs are meant to change politics forever by making the most fundamental principals of the Democratic party irrelevant. The president is happiest when John Boehner and the Republicans come to the negotiating table but that is when the rest of us are most at risk.
"Social Security is no longer the third rail of politics because Obama put it on the table."
Naïve Democrats may excoriate him for caving to the Republicans or for not having a backbone but their observations are wildly off the mark. Obama has plenty of backbone. This very perceptive man sought out the job that requires him to do the bidding of corporate interests and the dictates required of an empire. He is certainly not naïve, he is very ambitious and a true believer in the right of the state and corporations to exert their influence over the rest of humanity.
The result is that Republicans are winning whether they are in power or not. If Obama succeeds in being re-elected in 2012 he will probably be followed by a Republican in 2016. Having discredited nearly everything that Democrats claim to want, right wing ideology will have emerged triumphant, perhaps permanently.
It seems that every Democratic president pushes American politics further to the right. Triangulation is followed by a budget super committee and Republican wars are followed by Democratic interventions. Clinton may have said that the era of big government is over, but Obama agreed to across the board budget cuts and refuses to protect entitlements.
Perhaps it isn't surprising that the man who is president at this momentous point in history would be a person who changes politics in such a negative way. The influence of money, the death of black politics, and the end of the financial system as we know it combine to insure that the person who emerges at the top of the political heap will be an unmitigated disaster. The question is, will we rise to the occasion and call him what he is.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgandaReport.com.
-Black Agenda Report, November 9, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-obama-perfects-right-wing-policy
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
19) Air Force Mortuary Sent Troop Remains to Landfill
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
November 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/us/dover-mortuary-burned-and-dumped-troop-remains-in-landfill.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware disposed of some body parts of the nation's war dead from 2003 to 2008 by burning them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, an Air Force official said on Wednesday. The practice has since been stopped and the ashes are now put in urns and buried at sea.
The practice, which was limited to body parts that families of the war dead did not want to receive, was first reported by The Washington Post. The Air Force official said that body parts sometimes would come into the mortuary after families had already buried the remains of their loved ones and had instructed the military to dispose of the additional parts. But the families were not informed of the way the military was disposing of them.
The Air Force official said that the body parts were first cremated and then given to a private contractor, who incinerated them before putting them in the landfill. The Air Force official said he did not know why it was necessary to first cremate the parts and then incinerate them.
The disclosure follows an Air Force announcement on Tuesday that three top officials at the Dover Port Mortuary, the largest in the nation and the main entry point for the nation's war dead, knew about lost body parts at the mortuary but did nothing to fix a sloppy system. The three officials were responsible for "gross mismanagement" at the facility, the Air Force said, and were disciplined but not fired.
Also Wednesday, a Pentagon official said that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta was holding out the possibility of further action against the officials if an outside review found more problems at the mortuary, which has been a hectic place as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sent the bodies of thousands of American men and women to Dover.
"The door is open, depending on what's found," a Defense official said.
Col. Robert H. Edmondson, the former commander of the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center, who left his position as part of a regular rotation last year, received a letter of reprimand, effectively ending any further promotions. Trevor Dean, Colonel Edmondson's former deputy, and Quinton R. Keel, the former mortuary director, both civilians, were demoted within the last two months and moved to lesser jobs at Dover, although not in the mortuary.
A separate investigation by the Office of Special Counsel, an agency that handles whistle-blower complaints within the government, said that Mr. Dean and Mr. Keel should have been fired.
However, the Air Force official said on Wednesday that Mr. Dean was one of those responsible for changing the mortuary's practice of dumping the ashes of body parts in the landfill and instead moved to have them buried in urns at sea.
The Air Force said that Colonel Edmondson, Mr. Dean and Mr. Keel were unavailable for comment.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6 comments:
UrnGut [url=http://www.bootsmany.com/]ムートンブーツugg[/url] BweSox http://www.bootsmany.com/ SenKxl [url=http://www.bootsnewjp.com/]アグ ムートンブーツ[/url] BdxMrc http://www.bootsnewjp.com/ WpmEmf [url=http://www.bootsbestjp.com/]アグ[/url] UqvQvd http://www.bootsbestjp.com/ BoiBcz[url=http://www.yasuibu-tsu.com/]アグ ブーツ[/url] KzqVzs http://www.yasuibu-tsu.com/ ZjeWti [url=http://www.yoibu-tsu.com/]ugg アウトレット[/url] XulUuj http://www.yoibu-tsu.com/ WejFod [url=http://www.bootsjpsales.com/]ムートンブーツugg[/url] YhkAue http://www.bootsjpsales.com/ VlpWij
mulberry would it be the circumstance
mulberry bags For Ms. Botkier, a work purse has to be generous enough to move items between the home and office without becoming unwieldy. There is a fine line, she says, between spacious and burdensome. Sign up for scrapbook lessons or perhaps tavern. All natural reveratrol consists of various required protein amounts natural ingredients or even Mulberry Satchel Bags a extention involving RNA. They provide many kinds of leather for example TOGO, Veau Graine Lisse, chevre, ostrich skin and crocodile skin etc.
The high light coming from all secondary school a long time may be the promenade nights. It does not take nighttime you happen to be anxious. It is normally held in a education gymnasium, sociable hall or even a high-class hotel room. I know the sense i always should pleased after we acquire Mulberry Bag having such a comprise, in this way so that obvious, the baggage are being used and second-handed. Your fitters totes, as well as charms, ease wristwatches, specs, were being tilis draw it attitudinal as well as a insurance policy on the preference. It appears to be just one this approach make it possible for will you have Visit the site got all required pace, but it obviously makes the quality fat while formal end mulberry outlet user items like Videos, garments and is effective..
Equip your kid with a stylish, yet functional, moncler kids jackets. When style is important, your child will want to wear these kid's Moncler jackets. There are available in various styles and colors. La célèbre marque de doudoune n'a moncler jackets uk pas fait dans la demi-mesure pour la présentation de sa collection automne-hiver 2012/2013. A la clé : des jeux de lumières colorées à la légendaire patinoire Wollman Rink en guise de podium, un spectacle de danse de patinage artistique synchronisé imaginé par Luam, chorégraphe de Beyoncé, Rihanna ou encore Britney Spears. Les mannequins, des athlètes de la glisse, ont ainsi présenté leurs tenues avec légèreté et élégance sur un fond musical joué par un orchestre de musicien new-yorkais..
moncler burberryshirt and ground
It really is simple to discover the style which will suit you, the color and also the material that you simply want. You need not be concerned no matter moncler sale if the good quality could Click here be second-rate as you're not purchasing the jacket without having seeing it. Earlier winter put on was oversized and hindered motion.
I all the time emailed this website post page to all my friends, since if like to read it afterward my contacts will too.
Feel free to surf to my web blog orquesta atraccion
Pretty section of content. I just stumbled upon your weblog
and in accession capital to assert that I get
in fact enjoyed account your blog posts. Any way I'll be subscribing to your augment and even I achievement you access consistently quickly.
Visit my blog: tao of badass
Thanks a lot for sharing this with all of us you actually realize what you are
speaking approximately! Bookmarked. Please additionally discuss with my web site
=). We will have a hyperlink change arrangement between us
Check out my blog post - learn to attract women
Post a Comment